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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rhoda Fleming, Complete, by George Meredith
+
+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: Rhoda Fleming, Complete
+
+Author: George Meredith
+
+Release Date: October 13, 2006 [EBook #4426]
+Last Updated: February 26, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RHODA FLEMING, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+Produced by Pat Castevans and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+RHODA FLEMING, complete
+
+By George Meredith
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  BOOK 1.
+  I.        THE KENTISH FAMILY
+  II.       QUEEN ANNE'S FARM
+  III.      SUGGESTS THE MIGHT OF THE MONEY DEMON
+  IV.       THE TEXT FROM SCRIPTURE
+  V.        THE SISTERS MEET
+  VI.       EDWARD AND ALGERNON
+  VII.      GREAT NEWS FROM DAHLIA
+  VIII.     INTRODUCES MRS. LOVELL
+  IX.       ROBERT INTERVENES
+  X.        DAHLIA IS NOT VISIBLE
+  XI.       AN INDICATIVE DUET IN A MINOR KEY
+
+  BOOK 2.
+  XII.      AT THE THEATRE.
+  XIII.     THE FARMER SPEAKS
+  XIV.      BETWEEN RHODA AND ROBERT
+  XI.       A VISIT TO WREXBY HALL
+  XII.      AT FAIRLY PARK
+  XVII.     A YEOMAN OF THE OLD BREED
+  XVIII.    AN ASSEMBLY AT THE PILOT INN
+  XIX.      ROBERT SMITTEN LOW
+  XX.       MRS. LOVELL SHOWS A TAME BRUTE
+
+  BOOK 3.
+  XXI.      GIVES A GLIMPSE OF WHAT POOR VILLANIES THE STORY CONTAINS
+  XXII.     EDWARD TAKES HIS COURSE
+  XXIII.    MAJOR PERCY WARING
+  XXIV.     WARBEACH VILLAGE CHURCH
+  XXV.      OF THE FEARFUL TEMPTATION WHICH CAME UPON ANTHONY HACKBUT, AND
+            OF HIS MEETING WITH DAHLIA
+  XXVI.     IN THE PARK
+  XXVII.    CONTAINS A STUDY OF A FOOL IN TROUBLE
+  XXVIII.   EDWARD'S LETTER
+  XXIX.     FURTHERMORE OF THE FOOL
+
+  BOOK 4.
+  XXX.      THE EXPIATION
+  XXXI.     THE MELTING OF THE THOUSAND
+  XXXII.    LA QUESTION D'ARGENT
+  XXXIII.   EDWARD'S RETURN
+  XXXIV.    FATHER AND SON
+  XXXV.     THE NIGHT BEFORE
+  XXXVI.    EDWARD MEETS HIS MATCH
+  XXXVII.   EDWARD TRIES HIS ELOQUENCE
+  XXXVIII.  TOO LATE
+
+  BOOK 5.
+  XXXIX.    DAHLIA GOES HOME
+  XL.       A FREAK OF THE MONEY-DEMON, THAT MAY HAVE BEEN ANTICIPATED
+  XLI.      DAHLIA'S FRENZY
+  XLII.     ANTHONY IN A COLLAPSE
+  XLIII.    RHODA PLEDGES HER HAND
+  XLIV.     THE ENEMY APPEARS
+  XLV.      THE FARMER IS AWAKENED
+  XLVI.     WHEN THE NIGHT IS DARKEST
+  XLVII.    DAWN IS NEAR
+  XLVIII.   CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Remains of our good yeomanry blood will be found in Kent, developing
+stiff, solid, unobtrusive men, and very personable women. The
+distinction survives there between Kentish women and women of Kent, as
+a true South-eastern dame will let you know, if it is her fortune to
+belong to that favoured portion of the county where the great battle
+was fought, in which the gentler sex performed manful work, but on what
+luckless heads we hear not; and when garrulous tradition is discreet,
+the severe historic Muse declines to hazard a guess. Saxon, one would
+presume, since it is thought something to have broken them.
+
+My plain story is of two Kentish damsels, and runs from a home of
+flowers into regions where flowers are few and sickly, on to where the
+flowers which breathe sweet breath have been proved in mortal fire.
+
+Mrs. Fleming, of Queen Anne's Farm, was the wife of a yeoman-farmer of
+the county. Both were of sound Kentish extraction, albeit varieties of
+the breed. The farm had its name from a tradition, common to many other
+farmhouses within a circuit of the metropolis, that the ante-Hanoverian
+lady had used the place in her day as a nursery-hospital for the royal
+little ones. It was a square three-storied building of red brick, much
+beaten and stained by the weather, with an ivied side, up which the
+ivy grew stoutly, topping the roof in triumphant lumps. The house could
+hardly be termed picturesque. Its aspect had struck many eyes as being
+very much that of a red-coat sentinel grenadier, battered with service,
+and standing firmly enough, though not at ease. Surrounding it was a
+high wall, built partly of flint and partly of brick, and ringed all
+over with grey lichen and brown spots of bearded moss, that bore
+witness to the touch of many winds and rains. Tufts of pale grass,
+and gilliflowers, and travelling stone-crop, hung from the wall, and
+driblets of ivy ran broadening to the outer ground. The royal Arms were
+said to have surmounted the great iron gateway; but they had vanished,
+either with the family, or at the indications of an approaching rust.
+Rust defiled its bars; but, when you looked through them, the splendour
+of an unrivalled garden gave vivid signs of youth, and of the taste of
+an orderly, laborious, and cunning hand.
+
+The garden was under Mrs. Fleming's charge. The joy of her love for it
+was written on its lustrous beds, as poets write. She had the poetic
+passion for flowers. Perhaps her taste may now seem questionable. She
+cherished the old-fashioned delight in tulips; the house was reached on
+a gravel-path between rows of tulips, rich with one natural blush, or
+freaked by art. She liked a bulk of colour; and when the dahlia dawned
+upon our gardens, she gave her heart to dahlias. By good desert, the
+fervent woman gained a prize at a flower-show for one of her dahlias,
+and `Dahlia' was the name uttered at the christening of her eldest
+daughter, at which all Wrexby parish laughed as long as the joke could
+last. There was laughter also when Mrs. Fleming's second daughter
+received the name of 'Rhoda;' but it did not endure for so long a space,
+as it was known that she had taken more to the solitary and reflective
+reading of her Bible, and to thoughts upon flowers eternal. Country
+people are not inclined to tolerate the display of a passion for
+anything. They find it as intrusive and exasperating as is, in the
+midst of larger congregations, what we call genius. For some years, Mrs.
+Fleming's proceedings were simply a theme for gossips, and her vanity
+was openly pardoned, until that delusively prosperous appearance
+which her labour lent to the house, was worn through by the enforced
+confession of there being poverty in the household. The ragged elbow was
+then projected in the face of Wrexby in a manner to preclude it from a
+sober appreciation of the fairness of the face.
+
+Critically, moreover, her admission of great poppy-heads into her garden
+was objected to. She would squander her care on poppies, and she had
+been heard to say that, while she lived, her children should be fully
+fed. The encouragement of flaunting weeds in a decent garden was
+indicative of a moral twist that the expressed resolution to supply
+her table with plentiful nourishment, no matter whence it came, or how
+provided, sufficiently confirmed. The reason with which she was stated
+to have fortified her stern resolve was of the irritating order, right
+in the abstract, and utterly unprincipled in the application. She said,
+`Good bread, and good beef, and enough of both, make good blood; and
+my children shall be stout.' This is such a thing as maybe announced
+by foreign princesses and rulers over serfs; but English Wrexby,
+in cogitative mood, demanded an equivalent for its beef and divers
+economies consumed by the hungry children of the authoritative woman.
+Practically it was obedient, for it had got the habit of supplying her.
+Though payment was long in arrear, the arrears were not treated as lost
+ones by Mrs. Fleming, who, without knowing it, possessed one main
+secret for mastering the custodians of credit. She had a considerate
+remembrance and regard for the most distant of her debts, so that she
+seemed to be only always a little late, and exceptionally wrongheaded
+in theory. Wrexby, therefore, acquiesced in helping to build up her
+children to stoutness, and but for the blindness of all people, save
+artists, poets, novelists, to the grandeur of their own creations, the
+inhabitants of this Kentish village might have had an enjoyable pride
+in the beauty and robust grace of the young girls,--fair-haired,
+black-haired girls, a kindred contrast, like fire and smoke, to look
+upon. In stature, in bearing, and in expression, they were, if I may
+adopt the eloquent modern manner of eulogy, strikingly above their
+class. They carried erect shoulders, like creatures not ashamed of
+showing a merely animal pride, which is never quite apart from the pride
+of developed beauty. They were as upright as Oriental girls, whose heads
+are nobly poised from carrying the pitcher to the well. Dark Rhoda might
+have passed for Rachel, and Dahlia called her Rachel. They tossed one
+another their mutual compliments, drawn from the chief book of their
+reading. Queen of Sheba was Dahlia's title. No master of callisthenics
+could have set them up better than their mother's receipt for making
+good blood, combined with a certain harmony of their systems, had done;
+nor could a schoolmistress have taught them correcter speaking. The
+characteristic of girls having a disposition to rise, is to be cravingly
+mimetic; and they remembered, and crooned over, till by degrees they
+adopted the phrases and manner of speech of highly grammatical
+people, such as the rector and his lady, and of people in story-books,
+especially of the courtly French fairy-books, wherein the princes talk
+in periods as sweetly rounded as are their silken calves; nothing less
+than angelically, so as to be a model to ordinary men.
+
+The idea of love upon the lips of ordinary men, provoked Dahlia's irony;
+and the youths of Wrexby and Fenhurst had no chance against her secret
+Prince Florizels. Them she endowed with no pastoral qualities; on the
+contrary, she conceived that such pure young gentlemen were only to
+be seen, and perhaps met, in the great and mystic City of London.
+Naturally, the girls dreamed of London. To educate themselves, they
+copied out whole pages of a book called the `Field of Mars,' which was
+next to the family Bible in size among the volumes of the farmer's small
+library. The deeds of the heroes of this book, and the talk of the fairy
+princes, were assimilated in their minds; and as they looked around them
+upon millers', farmers', maltsters', and tradesmen's sons, the thought
+of what manner of youth would propose to marry them became a precocious
+tribulation. Rhoda, at the age of fifteen, was distracted by it, owing
+to her sister's habit of masking her own dismal internal forebodings
+on the subject, under the guise of a settled anxiety concerning her sad
+chance.
+
+In dress, the wife of the rector of Wrexby was their model. There came
+once to Squire Blancove's unoccupied pew a dazzling vision of a fair
+lady. They heard that she was a cousin of his third wife, and a widow,
+Mrs. Lovell by name. They looked at her all through the service, and
+the lady certainly looked at them in return; nor could they, with any
+distinctness, imagine why, but the look dwelt long in their hearts, and
+often afterward, when Dahlia, upon taking her seat in church, shut
+her eyes, according to custom, she strove to conjure up the image of
+herself, as she had appeared to the beautiful woman in the dress of
+grey-shot silk, with violet mantle and green bonnet, rose-trimmed; and
+the picture she conceived was the one she knew herself by, for many
+ensuing years.
+
+Mrs. Fleming fought her battle with a heart worthy of her countrywomen,
+and with as much success as the burden of a despondent husband would
+allow to her. William John Fleming was simply a poor farmer, for whom
+the wheels of the world went too fast:--a big man, appearing to be
+difficult to kill, though deeply smitten. His cheeks bloomed in spite
+of lines and stains, and his large, quietly dilated, brown ox-eyes, that
+never gave out a meaning, seldom showed as if they had taken one from
+what they saw. Until his wife was lost to him, he believed that he had a
+mighty grievance against her; but as he was not wordy, and was by nature
+kind, it was her comfort to die and not to know it. This grievance was
+rooted in the idea that she was ruinously extravagant. The sight of the
+plentiful table was sore to him; the hungry mouths, though he grudged
+to his offspring nothing that he could pay for, were an afflicting
+prospect. “Plump 'em up, and make 'em dainty,” he advanced in
+contravention of his wife's talk of bread and beef.
+
+But he did not complain. If it came to an argument, the farmer sidled
+into a secure corner of prophecy, and bade his wife to see what would
+come of having dainty children. He could not deny that bread and beef
+made blood, and were cheaper than the port-wine which doctors were
+in the habit of ordering for this and that delicate person in
+the neighbourhood; so he was compelled to have recourse to secret
+discontent. The attention, the time, and the trifles of money shed upon
+the flower garden, were hardships easier to bear. He liked flowers,
+and he liked to hear the praise of his wife's horticultural skill. The
+garden was a distinguishing thing to the farm, and when on a Sunday he
+walked home from church among full June roses, he felt the odour of them
+to be so like his imagined sensations of prosperity, that the deception
+was worth its cost. Yet the garden in its bloom revived a cruel blow.
+His wife had once wounded his vanity. The massed vanity of a silent man,
+when it does take a wound, desires a giant's vengeance; but as one can
+scarcely seek to enjoy that monstrous gratification when one's wife is
+the offender, the farmer escaped from his dilemma by going apart into a
+turnip-field, and swearing, with his fist outstretched, never to forget
+it. His wife had asked him, seeing that the garden flourished and the
+farm decayed, to yield the labour of the farm to the garden; in fact, to
+turn nurseryman under his wife's direction. The woman could not see
+that her garden drained the farm already, distracted the farm, and most
+evidently impoverished him. She could not understand, that in permitting
+her, while he sweated fruitlessly, to give herself up to the occupation
+of a lady, he had followed the promptings of his native kindness, and
+certainly not of his native wisdom. That she should deem herself `best
+man' of the two, and suggest his stamping his name to such an opinion
+before the world, was an outrage.
+
+Mrs. Fleming was failing in health. On that plea, with the solemnity
+suited to the autumn of her allotted days, she persuaded her husband to
+advertise for an assistant, who would pay a small sum of money to learn
+sound farming, and hear arguments in favour of the Corn Laws. To please
+her, he threw seven shillings away upon an advertisement, and laughed
+when the advertisement was answered, remarking that he doubted much
+whether good would come of dealings with strangers. A young man, calling
+himself Robert Armstrong, underwent a presentation to the family. He
+paid the stipulated sum, and was soon enrolled as one of them. He was of
+a guardsman's height and a cricketer's suppleness, a drinker of water,
+and apparently the victim of a dislike of his species; for he spoke of
+the great night-lighted city with a horror that did not seem to be an
+estimable point in him, as judged by a pair of damsels for whom the
+mysterious metropolis flew with fiery fringes through dark space, in
+their dreams.
+
+In other respects, the stranger was well thought of, as being handsome
+and sedate. He talked fondly of one friend that he had, an officer in
+the army, which was considered pardonably vain. He did not reach to the
+ideal of his sex which had been formed by the sisters; but Mrs. Fleming,
+trusting to her divination of his sex's character, whispered a mother's
+word about him to her husband a little while before her death.
+
+It was her prayer to heaven that she might save a doctor's bill. She
+died, without lingering illness, in her own beloved month of June; the
+roses of her tending at the open window, and a soft breath floating up
+to her from the garden. On the foregoing May-day, she had sat on the
+green that fronted the iron gateway, when Dahlia and Rhoda dressed the
+children of the village in garlands, and crowned the fairest little one
+queen of May: a sight that revived in Mrs. Fleming's recollection the
+time of her own eldest and fairest taking homage, shy in her white smock
+and light thick curls. The gathering was large, and the day was of
+the old nature of May, before tyrannous Eastwinds had captured it and
+spoiled its consecration. The mill-stream of the neighbouring mill ran
+blue among the broad green pastures; the air smelt of cream-bowls
+and wheaten loaves; the firs on the beacon-ridge, far southward, over
+Fenhurst and Helm villages, were transported nearer to see the show,
+and stood like friends anxious to renew acquaintance. Dahlia and Rhoda
+taught the children to perceive how they resembled bent old beggar-men.
+The two stone-pines in the miller's grounds were likened by them to Adam
+and Eve turning away from the blaze of Paradise; and the saying of
+one receptive child, that they had nothing but hair on, made the
+illustration undying both to Dahlia and Rhoda.
+
+The magic of the weather brought numerous butterflies afield, and one
+fiddler, to whose tuning the little women danced; others closer upon
+womanhood would have danced likewise, if the sisters had taken partners;
+but Dahlia was restrained by the sudden consciousness that she was under
+the immediate observation of two manifestly London gentlemen, and she
+declined to be led forth by Robert Armstrong. The intruders were youths
+of good countenance, known to be the son and the nephew of Squire
+Blancove of Wrexby Hall. They remained for some time watching the scene,
+and destroyed Dahlia's single-mindedness. Like many days of gaiety, the
+Gods consenting, this one had its human shadow. There appeared on
+the borders of the festivity a young woman, the daughter of a Wrexby
+cottager, who had left her home and but lately returned to it, with a
+spotted name. No one addressed her, and she stood humbly apart. Dahlia,
+seeing that every one moved away from her, whispering with satisfied
+noddings, wished to draw her in among the groups. She mentioned the name
+of Mary Burt to her father, supposing that so kind a man would not fail
+to sanction her going up to the neglected young woman. To her surprise,
+her father became violently enraged, and uttered a stern prohibition,
+speaking a word that stained her cheeks. Rhoda was by her side, and she
+wilfully, without asking leave, went straight over to Mary, and stood
+with her under the shadow of the Adam and Eve, until the farmer sent a
+messenger to say that he was about to enter the house. Her punishment
+for the act of sinfulness was a week of severe silence; and the farmer
+would have kept her to it longer, but for her mother's ominously growing
+weakness. The sisters were strangely overclouded by this incident. They
+could not fathom the meaning of their father's unkindness, coarseness,
+and indignation. Why, and why? they asked one another, blankly. The
+Scriptures were harsh in one part, but was the teaching to continue so
+after the Atonement? By degrees they came to reflect, and not in a mild
+spirit, that the kindest of men can be cruel, and will forget their
+Christianity toward offending and repentant women.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Mrs. Fleming had a brother in London, who had run away from his Kentish
+home when a small boy, and found refuge at a Bank. The position of
+Anthony Hackbut in that celebrated establishment, and the degree of
+influence exercised by him there, were things unknown; but he had stuck
+to the Bank for a great number of years, and he had once confessed to
+his sister that he was not a beggar. Upon these joint facts the farmer
+speculated, deducing from them that a man in a London Bank, holding
+money of his own, must have learnt the ways of turning it over--farming
+golden ground, as it were; consequently, that amount must now have
+increased to a very considerable sum. You ask, What amount? But one who
+sits brooding upon a pair of facts for years, with the imperturbable
+gravity of creation upon chaos, will be as successful in evoking the
+concrete from the abstract. The farmer saw round figures among
+the possessions of the family, and he assisted mentally in this
+money-turning of Anthony's, counted his gains for him, disposed his
+risks, and eyed the pile of visionary gold with an interest so
+remote, that he was almost correct in calling it disinterested. The
+brothers-in-law had a mutual plea of expense that kept them separate.
+When Anthony refused, on petition, to advance one hundred pounds to the
+farmer, there was ill blood to divide them. Queen Anne's Farm missed the
+flourishing point by one hundred pounds exactly. With that addition to
+its exchequer, it would have made head against its old enemy, Taxation,
+and started rejuvenescent. But the Radicals were in power to legislate
+and crush agriculture, and “I've got a miser for my brother-in-law,”
+ said the farmer. Alas! the hundred pounds to back him, he could have
+sowed what he pleased, and when it pleased him, partially defying the
+capricious clouds and their treasures, and playing tunefully upon his
+land, his own land. Instead of which, and while too keenly aware that
+the one hundred would have made excesses in any direction tributary to
+his pocket, the poor man groaned at continuous falls of moisture, and
+when rain was prayed for in church, he had to be down on his knees,
+praying heartily with the rest of the congregation. It was done, and
+bitter reproaches were cast upon Anthony for the enforced necessity to
+do it.
+
+On the occasion of his sister's death, Anthony informed his bereaved
+brother-in-law that he could not come down to follow the hearse as a
+mourner. “My place is one of great trust;” he said, “and I cannot be
+spared.” He offered, however, voluntarily to pay half the expenses of
+the funeral, stating the limit of the cost. It is unfair to sound any
+man's springs of action critically while he is being tried by a sorrow;
+and the farmer's angry rejection of Anthony's offer of aid must pass. He
+remarked in his letter of reply, that his wife's funeral should cost no
+less than he chose to expend on it. He breathed indignant fumes against
+“interferences.” He desired Anthony to know that he also was “not a
+beggar,” and that he would not be treated as one. The letter showed a
+solid yeoman's fist. Farmer Fleming told his chums, and the shopkeeper
+of Wrexby, with whom he came into converse, that he would honour his
+dead wife up to his last penny. Some month or so afterward it was
+generally conjectured that he had kept his word.
+
+Anthony's rejoinder was characterized by a marked humility. He expressed
+contrition for the farmer's misunderstanding of his motives. His
+fathomless conscience had plainly been reached. He wrote again, without
+waiting for an answer, speaking of the Funds indeed, but only to
+pronounce them worldly things, and hoping that they all might meet in
+heaven, where brotherly love, as well as money, was ready made, and
+not always in the next street. A hint occurred that it would be a
+gratification to him to be invited down, whether he could come or no;
+for holidays were expensive, and journeys by rail had to be thought over
+before they were undertaken; and when you are away from your post, you
+never knew who maybe supplanting you. He did not promise that he could
+come, but frankly stated his susceptibility to the friendliness of an
+invitation. The feeling indulged by Farmer Fleming in refusing to
+notice Anthony's advance toward a reconciliation, was, on the whole,
+not creditable to him. Spite is more often fattened than propitiated by
+penitence. He may have thought besides (policy not being always a vacant
+space in revengeful acts) that Anthony was capable of something stronger
+and warmer, now that his humanity had been aroused. The speculation is
+commonly perilous; but Farmer Fleming had the desperation of a man who
+has run slightly into debt, and has heard the first din of dunning,
+which to the unaccustomed imagination is fearful as bankruptcy (shorn
+of the horror of the word). And, moreover, it was so wonderful to find
+Anthony displaying humanity at all, that anything might be expected of
+him. “Let's see what he will do,” thought the farmer in an interval
+of his wrath; and the wrath is very new which has none of these cool
+intervals. The passions, do but watch them, are all more or less
+intermittent.
+
+As it chanced, he acted sagaciously, for Anthony at last wrote to say
+that his home in London was cheerless, and that he intended to move
+into fresh and airier lodgings, where the presence of a discreet young
+housekeeper, who might wish to see London, and make acquaintance with
+the world, would be agreeable to him. His project was that one of his
+nieces should fill this office, and he requested his brother-in-law to
+reflect on it, and to think of him as of a friend of the family, now
+and in the time to come. Anthony spoke of the seductions of London quite
+unctuously. Who could imagine this to be the letter of an old
+crabbed miser? “Tell her,” he said, “there's fruit at stalls at
+every street-corner all the year through--oysters and whelks, if she
+likes--winkles, lots of pictures in shops--a sight of muslin and silks,
+and rides on omnibuses--bands of all sorts, and now and then we can take
+a walk to see the military on horseback, if she's for soldiers.”
+ Indeed, he joked quite comically in speaking of the famous
+horse-guards--warriors who sit on their horses to be looked at, and do
+not mind it, because they are trained so thoroughly. “Horse-guards blue,
+and horse-guards red,” he wrote--“the blue only want boiling.” There is
+reason to suppose that his disrespectful joke was not original in him,
+but it displayed his character in a fresh light. Of course, if either
+of the girls was to go, Dahlia was the person. The farmer commenced
+his usual process of sitting upon the idea. That it would be policy
+to attach one of the family to this chirping old miser, he thought
+incontestable. On the other hand, he had a dread of London, and Dahlia
+was surpassingly fair. He put the case to Robert, in remembrance of what
+his wife had spoken, hoping that Robert would amorously stop his painful
+efforts to think fast enough for the occasion. Robert, however, had
+nothing to say, and seemed willing to let Dahlia depart. The only
+opponents to the plan were Mrs. Sumfit, a kindly, humble relative of the
+farmer's, widowed out of Sussex, very loving and fat; the cook to the
+household, whose waist was dimly indicated by her apron-string; and, to
+aid her outcries, the silently-protesting Master Gammon, an old man with
+the cast of eye of an antediluvian lizard, the slowest old man of his
+time--a sort of foreman of the farm before Robert had come to take
+matters in hand, and thrust both him and his master into the background.
+Master Gammon remarked emphatically, once and for all, that “he never
+had much opinion of London.” As he had never visited London, his opinion
+was considered the less weighty, but, as he advanced no further speech,
+the sins and backslidings of the metropolis were strongly brought to
+mind by his condemnatory utterance. Policy and Dahlia's entreaties at
+last prevailed with the farmer, and so the fair girl went up to the
+great city.
+
+After months of a division that was like the division of her living
+veins, and when the comfort of letters was getting cold, Rhoda, having
+previously pledged herself to secresy, though she could not guess why
+it was commanded, received a miniature portrait of Dahlia, so beautiful
+that her envy of London for holding her sister away from her, melted
+in gratitude. She had permission to keep the portrait a week; it was
+impossible to forbear from showing it to Mrs. Sumfit, who peeped in awe,
+and that emotion subsiding, shed tears abundantly. Why it was to be kept
+secret, they failed to inquire; the mystery was possibly not without
+its delights to them. Tears were shed again when the portrait had to
+be packed up and despatched. Rhoda lived on abashed by the adorable new
+refinement of Dahlia's features, and her heart yearned to her uncle for
+so caring to decorate the lovely face.
+
+One day Rhoda was at her bed-room window, on the point of descending to
+encounter the daily dumpling, which was the principal and the unvarying
+item of the midday meal of the house, when she beheld a stranger trying
+to turn the handle of the iron gate. Her heart thumped. She divined
+correctly that it was her uncle. Dahlia had now been absent for very
+many months, and Rhoda's growing fretfulness sprang the conviction in
+her mind that something closer than letters must soon be coming. She
+ran downstairs, and along the gravel-path. He was a little man,
+square-built, and looking as if he had worn to toughness; with an
+evident Sunday suit on: black, and black gloves, though the day was only
+antecedent to Sunday.
+
+“Let me help you, sir,” she said, and her hands came in contact with
+his, and were squeezed.
+
+“How is my sister?” She had no longer any fear in asking.
+
+“Now, you let me through, first,” he replied, imitating an arbitrary
+juvenile. “You're as tight locked in as if you was in dread of all
+the thieves of London. You ain't afraid o' me, miss? I'm not the party
+generally outside of a fortification; I ain't, I can assure you. I'm a
+defence party, and a reg'lar lion when I've got the law backing me.”
+
+He spoke in a queer, wheezy voice, like a cracked flute, combined with
+the effect of an ill-resined fiddle-bow.
+
+“You are in the garden of Queen Anne's Farm,” said Rhoda.
+
+“And you're my pretty little niece, are you? 'the darkie lass,' as your
+father says. 'Little,' says I; why, you needn't be ashamed to stand
+beside a grenadier. Trust the country for growing fine gals.”
+
+“You are my uncle, then?” said Rhoda. “Tell me how my sister is. Is she
+well? Is she quite happy?”
+
+“Dahly?” returned old Anthony, slowly.
+
+“Yes, yes; my sister!” Rhoda looked at him with distressful eagerness.
+
+“Now, don't you be uneasy about your sister Dahly.” Old Anthony, as he
+spoke, fixed his small brown eyes on the girl, and seemed immediately to
+have departed far away in speculation. A question recalled him.
+
+“Is her health good?”
+
+“Ay; stomach's good, head's good, lungs, brain, what not, all good.
+She's a bit giddy, that's all.”
+
+“In her head?”
+
+“Ay; and on her pins. Never you mind. You look a steady one, my dear. I
+shall take to you, I think.”
+
+“But my sister--” Rhoda was saying, when the farmer came out, and sent a
+greeting from the threshold,--
+
+“Brother Tony!”
+
+“Here he is, brother William John.”
+
+“Surely, and so he is, at last.” The farmer walked up to him with his
+hand out.
+
+“And it ain't too late, I hope. Eh?”
+
+“It's never too late--to mend,” said the farmer.
+
+“Eh? not my manners, eh?” Anthony struggled to keep up the ball; and in
+this way they got over the confusion of the meeting after many years and
+some differences.
+
+“Made acquaintance with Rhoda, I see,” said the farmer, as they turned
+to go in.
+
+“The 'darkie lass' you write of. She's like a coal nigh a candle. She
+looks, as you'd say, 't' other side of her sister.' Yes, we've had a
+talk.”
+
+“Just in time for dinner, brother Tony. We ain't got much to offer, but
+what there is, is at your service. Step aside with me.”
+
+The farmer got Anthony out of hearing a moment, questioned, and was
+answered: after which he looked less anxious, but a trifle perplexed,
+and nodded his head as Anthony occasionally lifted his, to enforce
+certain points in some halting explanation. You would have said that a
+debtor was humbly putting his case in his creditor's ear, and could only
+now and then summon courage to meet the censorious eyes. They went in to
+Mrs. Sumfit's shout that the dumplings were out of the pot: old Anthony
+bowed upon the announcement of his name, and all took seats. But it was
+not the same sort of dinner-hour as that which the inhabitants of the
+house were accustomed to; there was conversation.
+
+The farmer asked Anthony by what conveyance he had come. Anthony shyly,
+but not without evident self-approbation, related how, having come
+by the train, he got into conversation with the driver of a fly at a
+station, who advised him of a cart that would be passing near Wrexby.
+For threepennyworth of beer, he had got a friendly introduction to the
+carman, who took him within two miles of the farm for one shilling, a
+distance of fifteen miles. That was pretty good!
+
+“Home pork, brother Tony,” said the farmer, approvingly.
+
+“And home-made bread, too, brother William John,” said Anthony, becoming
+brisk.
+
+“Ay, and the beer, such as it is.” The farmer drank and sighed.
+
+Anthony tried the beer, remarking, “That's good beer; it don't cost
+much.”
+
+“It ain't adulterated. By what I read of your London beer, this stuff's
+not so bad, if you bear in mind it's pure. Pure's my motto. 'Pure,
+though poor!'”
+
+“Up there, you pay for rank poison,” said Anthony. “So, what do I do? I
+drink water and thank 'em, that's wise.”
+
+“Saves stomach and purse.” The farmer put a little stress on 'purse.'
+
+“Yes, I calculate I save threepence a day in beer alone,” said Anthony.
+
+“Three times seven's twenty-one, ain't it?”
+
+Mr. Fleming said this, and let out his elbow in a small perplexity, as
+Anthony took him up: “And fifty-two times twenty-one?”
+
+“Well, that's, that's--how much is that, Mas' Gammon?” the farmer asked
+in a bellow.
+
+Master Gammon was laboriously and steadily engaged in tightening himself
+with dumpling. He relaxed his exertions sufficiently to take this new
+burden on his brain, and immediately cast it off.
+
+“Ah never thinks when I feeds--Ah was al'ays a bad hand at 'counts.
+Gi'es it up.”
+
+“Why, you're like a horse that never was rode! Try again, old man,” said
+the farmer.
+
+“If I drags a cart,” Master Gammon replied, “that ain't no reason why I
+should leap a gate.”
+
+The farmer felt that he was worsted as regarded the illustration, and
+with a bit of the boy's fear of the pedagogue, he fought Anthony off by
+still pressing the arithmetical problem upon Master Gammon; until the
+old man, goaded to exasperation, rolled out thunderingly,--
+
+“If I works fer ye, that ain't no reason why I should think fer ye,”
+ which caused him to be left in peace.
+
+“Eh, Robert?” the farmer transferred the question; “Come! what is it?”
+
+Robert begged a minute's delay, while Anthony watched him with hawk
+eyes.
+
+“I tell you what it is--it's pounds,” said Robert.
+
+This tickled Anthony, who let him escape, crying: “Capital! Pounds it
+is in your pocket, sir, and you hit that neatly, I will say. Let it be
+five. You out with your five at interest, compound interest; soon comes
+another five; treat it the same: in ten years--eh? and then you get into
+figures; you swim in figures!”
+
+“I should think you did!” said the farmer, winking slyly.
+
+Anthony caught the smile, hesitated and looked shrewd, and then covered
+his confusion by holding his plate to Mrs. Sumfit for a help. The
+manifest evasion and mute declaration that dumpling said “mum” on that
+head, gave the farmer a quiet glow.
+
+“When you are ready to tell me all about my darlin', sir,” Mrs. Sumfit
+suggested, coaxingly.
+
+“After dinner, mother--after dinner,” said the farmer.
+
+“And we're waitin', are we, till them dumplings is finished?” she
+exclaimed, piteously, with a glance at Master Gammon's plate.
+
+“After dinner we'll have a talk, mother.”
+
+Mrs. Sumfit feared from this delay that there was queer news to be told
+of Dahlia's temper; but she longed for the narrative no whit the less,
+and again cast a sad eye on the leisurely proceedings of Master Gammon.
+The veteran was still calmly tightening. His fork was on end, with a
+vast mouthful impaled on the prongs. Master Gammon, a thoughtful eater,
+was always last at the meal, and a latent, deep-lying irritation at
+Mrs. Sumfit for her fidgetiness, day after day, toward the finish of the
+dish, added a relish to his engulfing of the monstrous morsel. He looked
+at her steadily, like an ox of the fields, and consumed it, and then
+holding his plate out, in a remorseless way, said, “You make 'em so
+good, marm.”
+
+Mrs. Sumfit, fretted as she was, was not impervious to the sound sense
+of the remark, as well as to the compliment.
+
+“I don't want to hurry you, Mas' Gammon,” she said; “Lord knows, I like
+to see you and everybody eat his full and be thankful; but, all about my
+Dahly waitin',--I feel pricked wi' a pin all over, I do; and there's my
+blessed in London,” she answered, “and we knowin' nothin' of her, and
+one close by to tell me! I never did feel what slow things dumplin's
+was, afore now!”
+
+The kettle simmered gently on the hob. Every other knife and fork was
+silent; so was every tongue. Master Gammon ate and the kettle hummed.
+Twice Mrs. Sumfit sounded a despairing, “Oh, deary me!” but it
+was useless. No human power had ever yet driven Master Gammon to a
+demonstration of haste or to any acceleration of the pace he had chosen
+for himself. At last, she was not to be restrained from crying out,
+almost tearfully,--
+
+“When do you think you'll have done, Mas' Gammon?”
+
+Thus pointedly addressed, Master Gammon laid down his knife and fork. He
+half raised his ponderous, curtaining eyelids, and replied,--
+
+“When I feels my buttons, marm.”
+
+After which he deliberately fell to work again.
+
+Mrs. Sumfit dropped back in her chair as from a blow.
+
+But even dumplings, though they resist so doggedly for a space, do
+ultimately submit to the majestic march of Time, and move. Master Gammon
+cleared his plate. There stood in the dish still half a dumpling. The
+farmer and Rhoda, deeming that there had been a show of inhospitality,
+pressed him to make away with this forlorn remainder.
+
+The vindictive old man, who was as tight as dumpling and buttons could
+make him, refused it in a drooping tone, and went forth, looking at
+none. Mrs. Sumfit turned to all parties, and begged them to say what
+more, to please Master Gammon, she could have done? When Anthony was
+ready to speak of her Dahlia, she obtruded this question in utter
+dolefulness. Robert was kindly asked by the farmer to take a pipe among
+them. Rhoda put a chair for him, but he thanked them both, and said he
+could not neglect some work to be done in the fields. She thought that
+he feared pain from hearing Dahlia's name, and followed him with her
+eyes commiseratingly.
+
+“Does that young fellow attend to business?” said Anthony.
+
+The farmer praised Robert as a rare hand, but one affected with bees in
+his nightcap,--who had ideas of his own about farming, and was obstinate
+with them; “pays you due respect, but's got a notion as how his way
+of thinking's better 'n his seniors. It's the style now with all young
+folks. Makes a butt of old Mas' Gammon; laughs at the old man. It ain't
+respectful t' age, I say. Gammon don't understand nothing about new
+feeds for sheep, and dam nonsense about growing such things as melons,
+fiddle-faddle, for 'em. Robert's a beginner. What he knows, I taught
+the young fellow. Then, my question is, where's his ideas come from, if
+they're contrary to mine? If they're contrary to mine, they're contrary
+to my teaching. Well, then, what are they worth? He can't see that. He's
+a good one at work--I'll say so much for him.”
+
+Old Anthony gave Rhoda a pat on the shoulder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+“Pipes in the middle of the day's regular revelry,” ejaculated Anthony,
+whose way of holding the curved pipe-stem displayed a mind bent on
+reckless enjoyment, and said as much as a label issuing from his
+mouth, like a figure in a comic woodcut of the old style:--“that's,” he
+pursued, “that's if you haven't got to look up at the clock every two
+minutes, as if the devil was after you. But, sitting here, you know, the
+afternoon's a long evening; nobody's your master. You can on wi' your
+slippers, up wi' your legs, talk, or go for'ard, counting, twicing, and
+three-timesing; by George! I should take to drinking beer if I had my
+afternoons to myself in the city, just for the sake of sitting and doing
+sums in a tap-room; if it's a big tap-room, with pew sort o' places, and
+dark red curtains, a fire, and a smell of sawdust; ale, and tobacco, and
+a boy going by outside whistling a tune of the day. Somebody comes in.
+'Ah, there's an idle old chap,' he says to himself, (meaning me), and
+where, I should like to ask him, 'd his head be if he sat there dividing
+two hundred and fifty thousand by forty-five and a half!”
+
+The farmer nodded encouragingly. He thought it not improbable that
+a short operation with these numbers would give the sum in Anthony's
+possession, the exact calculation of his secret hoard, and he set to
+work to stamp them on his brain, which rendered him absent in manner,
+while Mrs. Sumfit mixed liquor with hot water, and pushed at his
+knee, doubling in her enduring lips, and lengthening her eyes to aim a
+side-glance of reprehension at Anthony's wandering loquacity.
+
+Rhoda could bear it no more.
+
+“Now let me hear of my sister, uncle,” she said.
+
+“I'll tell you what,” Anthony responded, “she hasn't got such a pretty
+sort of a sweet blackbirdy voice as you've got.”
+
+The girl blushed scarlet.
+
+“Oh, she can mount them colours, too,” said Anthony.
+
+His way of speaking of Dahlia indicated that he and she had enough of
+one another; but of the peculiar object of his extraordinary visit not
+even the farmer had received a hint. Mrs. Sumfit ventured to think aloud
+that his grog was not stiff enough, but he took a gulp under her eyes,
+and smacked his lips after it in a most convincing manner.
+
+“Ah! that stuff wouldn't do for me in London, half-holiday or no
+half-holiday,” said Anthony.
+
+“Why not?” the farmer asked.
+
+“I should be speculating--deep--couldn't hold myself in: Mexicans,
+Peroovians, Venzeshoolians, Spaniards, at 'em I should go. I see
+bonds in all sorts of colours, Spaniards in black and white,
+Peruvians--orange, Mexicans--red as the British army. Well, it's just my
+whim. If I like red, I go at red. I ain't a bit of reason. What's more,
+I never speculate.”
+
+“Why, that's safest, brother Tony,” said the farmer.
+
+“And safe's my game--always was, always will be! Do you think”--Anthony
+sucked his grog to the sugar-dregs, till the spoon settled on his
+nose--“do you think I should hold the position I do hold, be trusted as
+I am trusted? Ah! you don't know much about that. Should I have money
+placed in my hands, do you think--and it's thousands at a time,
+gold, and notes, and cheques--if I was a risky chap? I'm known to be
+thoroughly respectable. Five and forty years I've been in Boyne's Bank,
+and thank ye, ma'am, grog don't do no harm down here. And I will take
+another glass. 'When the heart of a man!'--but I'm no singer.”
+
+Mrs. Sumfit simpered, “Hem; it's the heart of a woman, too: and she have
+one, and it's dying to hear of her darlin' blessed in town, and of who
+cuts her hair, and where she gets her gownds, and whose pills--”
+
+The farmer interrupted her irritably.
+
+“Divide a couple o' hundred thousand and more by forty-five and a half,”
+ he said. “Do wait, mother; all in good time. Forty-five and a-half,
+brother Tony; that was your sum--ah!--you mentioned it some time
+back--half of what? Is that half a fraction, as they call it? I haven't
+forgot fractions, and logareems, and practice, and so on to algebrae,
+where it always seems to me to blow hard, for, whizz goes my head in a
+jiffy, as soon as I've mounted the ladder to look into that country.
+How 'bout that forty-five and a half, brother Tony, if you don't mind
+condescending to explain?”
+
+“Forty-five and a half?” muttered Anthony, mystified.
+
+“Oh, never mind, you know, if you don't like to say, brother Tony.” The
+farmer touched him up with his pipe-stem.
+
+“Five and a half,” Anthony speculated. “That's a fraction you got hold
+of, brother William John,--I remember the parson calling out those names
+at your wedding: 'I, William John, take thee, Susan;' yes, that's a
+fraction, but what's the good of it?”
+
+“What I mean is, it ain't forty-five and half of forty-five. Half of
+one, eh? That's identical with a fraction. One--a stroke--and two under
+it.”
+
+“You've got it correct,” Anthony assented.
+
+“How many thousand divide it by?”
+
+“Divide what by, brother William John? I'm beat.”
+
+“Ah! out comes the keys: lockup everything; it's time!” the farmer
+laughed, rather proud of his brother-in-law's perfect wakefulness after
+two stiff tumblers. He saw that Anthony was determined with all due
+friendly feeling to let no one know the sum in his possession.
+
+“If it's four o'clock, it is time to lock up,” said Anthony, “and bang
+to go the doors, and there's the money for thieves to dream of--they
+can't get a-nigh it, let them dream as they like. What's the hour,
+ma'am?”
+
+“Not three, it ain't,” returned Mrs. Sumfit; “and do be good creatures,
+and begin about my Dahly, and where she got that Bumptious gownd, and
+the bonnet with blue flowers lyin' by on the table: now, do!”
+
+Rhoda coughed.
+
+“And she wears lavender gloves like a lady,” Mrs. Sumfit was continuing.
+
+Rhoda stamped on her foot.
+
+“Oh! cruel!” the comfortable old woman snapped in pain, as she applied
+her hand to the inconsolable fat foot, and nursed it. “What's roused ye,
+you tiger girl? I shan't be able to get about, I shan't, and then who's
+to cook for ye all? For you're as ignorant as a raw kitchen wench, and
+knows nothing.”
+
+“Come, Dody, you're careless,” the farmer spoke chidingly through Mrs.
+Sumfit's lamentations.
+
+“She stops uncle Anthony when he's just ready, father,” said Rhoda.
+
+“Do you want to know?” Anthony set his small eyes on her: “do you want
+to know, my dear?” He paused, fingering his glass, and went on: “I,
+Susan, take thee, William John, and you've come of it. Says I to myself,
+when I hung sheepish by your mother and by your father, my dear, says
+I to myself, I ain't a marrying man: and if these two, says I, if any
+progeny comes to 'em--to bless them, some people'd say, but I know what
+life is, and what young ones are--if--where was I? Liquor makes you
+talk, brother William John, but where's your ideas? Gone, like hard
+cash! What I meant was, I felt I might some day come for'ard and help
+the issue of your wife's weddin', and wasn't such a shady object among
+you, after all. My pipe's out.”
+
+Rhoda stood up, and filled the pipe, and lit it in silence. She divined
+that the old man must be allowed to run on in his own way, and for a
+long time he rambled, gave a picture of the wedding, and of a robbery of
+Boyne's Bank: the firm of Boyne, Burt, Hamble, and Company. At last, he
+touched on Dahlia.
+
+“What she wants, I can't make out,” he said; “and what that good lady
+there, or somebody, made mention of--how she manages to dress as she
+do! I can understand a little goin' a great way, if you're clever in
+any way; but I'm at my tea”--Anthony laid his hand out as to exhibit a
+picture. “I ain't a complaining man, and be young, if you can, I say,
+and walk about and look at shops; but, I'm at my tea: I come home rather
+tired there's the tea-things, sure enough, and tea's made, and, maybe,
+there's a shrimp or two; she attends to your creature comforts. When
+everything's locked up and tight and right, I'm gay, and ask for a bit
+of society: well, I'm at my tea: I hear her foot thumping up and down
+her bed-room overhead: I know the meaning of that: I'd rather hear
+nothing: down she runs: I'm at my tea, and in she bursts.”--Here
+followed a dramatic account of Dahlia's manner of provocation, which was
+closed by the extinction of his pipe.
+
+The farmer, while his mind still hung about thousands of pounds and
+a certain incomprehensible division of them to produce a distinct
+intelligible total, and set before him the sum of Anthony's riches,
+could see that his elder daughter was behaving flightily and neglecting
+the true interests of the family, and he was chagrined. But Anthony,
+before he entered the house, had assured him that Dahlia was well, and
+that nothing was wrong with her. So he looked at Mrs. Sumfit, who
+now took upon herself to plead for Dahlia: a young thing, and such a
+handsome creature! and we were all young some time or other; and would
+heaven have mercy on us, if we were hard upon the young, do you think?
+The motto of a truly religious man said, try 'em again. And, maybe,
+people had been a little hard upon Dahlia, and the girl was apt to
+take offence. In conclusion, she appealed to Rhoda to speak up for her
+sister. Rhoda sat in quiet reserve.
+
+She was sure her sister must be justified in all she did but the picture
+of the old man coming from his work every night to take his tea quite
+alone made her sad. She found herself unable to speak, and as she did
+not, Mrs. Sumfit had an acute twinge from her recently trodden foot,
+and called her some bitter names; which was not an unusual case, for
+the kind old woman could be querulous, and belonged to the list of those
+whose hearts are as scales, so that they love not one person devotedly
+without a corresponding spirit of opposition to another. Rhoda merely
+smiled.
+
+By-and-by, the women left the two men alone.
+
+Anthony turned and struck the farmer's knee.
+
+“You've got a jewel in that gal, brother William John.”
+
+“Eh! she's a good enough lass. Not much of a manager, brother Tony. Too
+much of a thinker, I reckon. She's got a temper of her own too. I'm a
+bit hurt, brother Tony, about that other girl. She must leave London, if
+she don't alter. It's flightiness; that's all. You mustn't think ill of
+poor Dahly. She was always the pretty one, and when they know it, they
+act up to it: she was her mother's favourite.”
+
+“Ah! poor Susan! an upright woman before the Lord.”
+
+“She was,” said the farmer, bowing his head.
+
+“And a good wife,” Anthony interjected.
+
+“None better--never a better; and I wish she was living to look after
+her girls.”
+
+“I came through the churchyard, hard by,” said Anthony; “and I read that
+writing on her tombstone. It went like a choke in my throat. The first
+person I saw next was her child, this young gal you call Rhoda; and,
+thinks I to myself, you might ask me, I'd do anything for ye--that I
+could, of course.”
+
+The farmer's eye had lit up, but became overshadowed by the
+characteristic reservation.
+
+“Nobody'd ask you to do more than you could,” he remarked, rather
+coldly.
+
+“It'll never be much,” sighed Anthony.
+
+“Well, the world's nothing, if you come to look at it close,” the farmer
+adopted a similar tone.
+
+“What's money!” said Anthony.
+
+The farmer immediately resumed his this-worldliness:
+
+“Well, it's fine to go about asking us poor devils to answer ye that,”
+ he said, and chuckled, conceiving that he had nailed Anthony down to a
+partial confession of his ownership of some worldly goods.
+
+“What do you call having money?” observed the latter, clearly in the
+trap. “Fifty thousand?”
+
+“Whew!” went the farmer, as at a big draught of powerful stuff.
+
+“Ten thousand?”
+
+Mr. Fleming took this second gulp almost contemptuously, but still
+kindly.
+
+“Come,” quoth Anthony, “ten thousand's not so mean, you know. You're a
+gentleman on ten thousand. So, on five. I'll tell ye, many a gentleman'd
+be glad to own it. Lor' bless you! But, you know nothing of the world,
+brother William John. Some of 'em haven't one--ain't so rich as you!”
+
+“Or you, brother Tony?” The farmer made a grasp at his will-o'-the-wisp.
+
+“Oh! me!” Anthony sniggered. “I'm a scraper of odds and ends. I pick up
+things in the gutter. Mind you, those Jews ain't such fools, though
+a curse is on 'em, to wander forth. They know the meaning of the
+multiplication table. They can turn fractions into whole numbers. No;
+I'm not to be compared to gentlemen. My property's my respectability. I
+said that at the beginning, and I say it now. But, I'll tell you what,
+brother William John, it's an emotion when you've got bags of thousands
+of pounds in your arms.”
+
+Ordinarily, the farmer was a sensible man, as straight on the level of
+dull intelligence as other men; but so credulous was he in regard to the
+riches possessed by his wife's brother, that a very little tempted
+him to childish exaggeration of the probable amount. Now that Anthony
+himself furnished the incitement, he was quite lifted from the earth.
+He had, besides, taken more of the strong mixture than he was ever
+accustomed to take in the middle of the day; and as it seemed to him
+that Anthony was really about to be seduced into a particular statement
+of the extent of the property which formed his respectability (as
+Anthony had chosen to put it), he got up a little game in his head
+by guessing how much the amount might positively be, so that he could
+subsequently compare his shrewd reckoning with the avowed fact. He tamed
+his wild ideas as much as possible; thought over what his wife used to
+say of Anthony's saving ways from boyhood, thought of the dark hints of
+the Funds, of many bold strokes for money made by sagacious persons; of
+Anthony's close style of living, and of the lives of celebrated misers;
+this done, he resolved to make a sure guess, and therefore aimed below
+the mark.
+
+Money, when the imagination deals with it thus, has no substantial
+relation to mortal affairs. It is a tricksy thing, distending and
+contracting as it dances in the mind, like sunlight on the ceiling cast
+from a morning tea-cup, if a forced simile will aid the conception. The
+farmer struck on thirty thousand and some odd hundred pounds--outlying
+debts, or so, excluded--as what Anthony's will, in all likelihood, would
+be sworn under: say, thirty thousand, or, safer, say, twenty thousand.
+Bequeathed--how? To him and to his children. But to the children in
+reversion after his decease? Or how? In any case, they might make
+capital marriages; and the farm estate should go to whichever of the two
+young husbands he liked the best. Farmer Fleming asked not for any life
+of ease and splendour, though thirty thousand pounds was a fortune; or
+even twenty thousand. Noblemen have stooped to marry heiresses owning
+no more than that! The idea of their having done so actually shot
+across him, and his heart sent up a warm spring of tenderness toward the
+patient, good, grubbing old fellow, sitting beside him, who had lived
+and died to enrich and elevate the family. At the same time, he could
+not refrain from thinking that Anthony, broad-shouldered as he was,
+though bent, sound on his legs, and well-coloured for a Londoner,
+would be accepted by any Life Insurance office, at a moderate rate,
+considering his age. The farmer thought of his own health, and it was
+with a pang that he fancied himself being probed by the civil-speaking
+Life Insurance doctor (a gentleman who seems to issue upon us applicants
+from out the muffled folding doors of Hades; taps us on the chest, once,
+twice, and forthwith writes down our fateful dates). Probably, Anthony
+would not have to pay a higher rate of interest than he.
+
+“Are you insured, brother Tony?” the question escaped him.
+
+“No, I ain't, brother William John;” Anthony went on nodding like an
+automaton set in motion. “There's two sides to that. I'm a long-lived
+man. Long-lived men don't insure; that is, unless they're fools. That's
+how the Offices thrive.”
+
+“Case of accident?” the farmer suggested.
+
+“Oh! nothing happens to me,” replied Anthony.
+
+The farmer jumped on his legs, and yawned.
+
+“Shall we take a turn in the garden, brother Tony?”
+
+“With all my heart, brother William John.”
+
+The farmer had conscience to be ashamed of the fit of irritable vexation
+which had seized on him; and it was not till Anthony being asked the
+date of his birth, had declared himself twelve years his senior, that
+the farmer felt his speculations to be justified. Anthony was nearly
+a generation ahead. They walked about, and were seen from the windows
+touching one another on the shoulder in a brotherly way. When they came
+back to the women, and tea, the farmer's mind was cooler, and all his
+reckonings had gone to mist. He was dejected over his tea.
+
+“What is the matter, father?” said Rhoda.
+
+“I'll tell you, my dear,” Anthony replied for him. “He's envying me some
+one I want to ask me that question when I'm at my tea in London.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Mr. Fleming kept his forehead from his daughter's good-night kiss
+until the room was cleared, after supper, and then embracing her very
+heartily, he informed her that her uncle had offered to pay her expenses
+on a visit to London, by which he contrived to hint that a golden path
+had opened to his girl, and at the same time entreated her to think
+nothing of it; to dismiss all expectations and dreams of impossible sums
+from her mind, and simply to endeavour to please her uncle, who had a
+right to his own, and a right to do what he liked with his own, though
+it were forty, fifty times as much as he possessed--and what that might
+amount to no one knew. In fact, as is the way with many experienced
+persons, in his attempt to give advice to another, he was very
+impressive in lecturing himself, and warned that other not to succumb
+to a temptation principally by indicating the natural basis of the
+allurement. Happily for young and for old, the intense insight of the
+young has much to distract or soften it. Rhoda thanked her father, and
+chose to think that she had listened to good and wise things.
+
+“Your sister,” he said--“but we won't speak of her. If I could part with
+you, my lass, I'd rather she was the one to come back.”
+
+“Dahlia would be killed by our quiet life now,” said Rhoda.
+
+“Ay,” the farmer mused. “If she'd got to pay six men every Saturday
+night, she wouldn't complain o' the quiet. But, there--you neither of
+you ever took to farming or to housekeeping; but any gentleman might be
+proud to have one of you for a wife. I said so when you was girls. And
+if, you've been dull, my dear, what's the good o' society? Tea-cakes
+mayn't seem to cost money, nor a glass o' grog to neighbours; but once
+open the door to that sort o' thing and your reckoning goes. And what I
+said to your poor mother's true. I said: Our girls, they're mayhap not
+equals of the Hollands, the Nashaws, the Perrets, and the others about
+here--no; they're not equals, because the others are not equals o' them,
+maybe.”
+
+The yeoman's pride struggled out in this obscure way to vindicate his
+unneighbourliness and the seclusion of his daughters from the society
+of girls of their age and condition; nor was it hard for Rhoda to assure
+him, as she earnestly did, that he had acted rightly.
+
+Rhoda, assisted by Mrs. Sumfit, was late in the night looking up what
+poor decorations she possessed wherewith to enter London, and be worthy
+of her sister's embrace, so that she might not shock the lady Dahlia had
+become.
+
+“Depend you on it, my dear,” said Mrs. Sumfit, “my Dahly's grown above
+him. That's nettles to your uncle, my dear. He can't abide it. Don't
+you see he can't? Some men's like that. Others 'd see you dressed like a
+princess, and not be satisfied. They vary so, the teasin' creatures! But
+one and all, whether they likes it or not, owns a woman's the better for
+bein' dressed in the fashion. What do grieve me to my insidest heart, it
+is your bonnet. What a bonnet that was lying beside her dear round arm
+in the po'trait, and her finger up making a dimple in her cheek, as
+if she was thinking of us in a sorrowful way. That's the arts o' being
+lady-like--look sad-like. How could we get a bonnet for you?”
+
+“My own must do,” said Rhoda.
+
+“Yes, and you to look like lady and servant-gal a-goin' out for an
+airin'; and she to feel it! Pretty, that'd be!”
+
+“She won't be ashamed of me,” Rhoda faltered; and then hummed a little
+tune, and said firmly--“It's no use my trying to look like what I'm
+not.”
+
+“No, truly;” Mrs. Sumfit assented. “But it's your bein' behind the
+fashions what hurt me. As well you might be an old thing like me,
+for any pleasant looks you'll git. Now, the country--you're like in a
+coalhole for the matter o' that. While London, my dear, its pavement
+and gutter, and omnibus traffic; and if you're not in the fashion,
+the little wicked boys of the streets themselves 'll let you know it;
+they've got such eyes for fashions, they have. And I don't want my
+Dahly's sister to be laughed at, and called 'coal-scuttle,' as happened
+to me, my dear, believe it or not--and shoved aside, and said to--'Who
+are you?' For she reely is nice-looking. Your uncle Anthony and Mr.
+Robert agreed upon that.”
+
+Rhoda coloured, and said, after a time, “It would please me if people
+didn't speak about my looks.”
+
+The looking-glass probably told her no more than that she was nice to
+the eye, but a young man who sees anything should not see like a mirror,
+and a girl's instinct whispers to her, that her image has not been taken
+to heart when she is accurately and impartially described by him.
+
+The key to Rhoda at this period was a desire to be made warm with praise
+of her person. She beheld her face at times, and shivered. The face was
+so strange with its dark thick eyebrows, and peculiarly straight-gazing
+brown eyes; the level long red under-lip and curved upper; and the chin
+and nose, so unlike Dahlia's, whose nose was, after a little dip from
+the forehead, one soft line to its extremity, and whose chin seemed
+shaped to a cup. Rhoda's outlines were harder. There was a suspicion of
+a heavenward turn to her nose, and of squareness to her chin. Her face,
+when studied, inspired in its owner's mind a doubt of her being even
+nice to the eye, though she knew that in exercise, and when smitten by
+a blush, brightness and colour aided her claims. She knew also that her
+head was easily poised on her neck; and that her figure was reasonably
+good; but all this was unconfirmed knowledge, quickly shadowed by
+the doubt. As the sun is wanted to glorify the right features of a
+landscape, this girl thirsted for a dose of golden flattery. She felt,
+without envy of her sister, that Dahlia eclipsed her: and all she
+prayed for was that she might not be quite so much in the background and
+obscure.
+
+But great, powerful London--the new universe to her spirit--was opening
+its arms to her. In her half sleep that night she heard the mighty
+thunder of the city, crashing, tumults of disordered harmonies, and the
+splendour of the lamp-lighted city appeared to hang up under a dark-blue
+heaven, removed from earth, like a fresh planet to which she was being
+beckoned.
+
+At breakfast on the Sunday morning, her departure was necessarily spoken
+of in public. Robert talked to her exactly as he had talked to Dahlia,
+on the like occasion. He mentioned, as she remembered in one or two
+instances, the names of the same streets, and professed a similar
+anxiety as regarded driving her to the station and catching the train.
+“That's a thing which makes a man feel his strength's nothing,” he said.
+“You can't stop it. I fancy I could stop a four-in-hand at full gallop.
+Mind, I only fancy I could; but when you come to do with iron and steam,
+I feel like a baby. You can't stop trains.”
+
+“You can trip 'em,” said Anthony, a remark that called forth general
+laughter, and increased the impression that he was a man of resources.
+
+Rhoda was vexed by Robert's devotion to his strength. She was going, and
+wished to go, but she wished to be regretted as well; and she looked at
+him more. He, on the contrary, scarcely looked at her at all. He threw
+verbal turnips, oats, oxen, poultry, and every possible melancholy
+matter-of-fact thing, about the table, described the farm and his
+fondness for it and the neighbourhood; said a farmer's life was best,
+and gave Rhoda a week in which to be tired of London.
+
+She sneered in her soul, thinking “how little he knows of the constancy
+in the nature of women!” adding, “when they form attachments.”
+
+Anthony was shown at church, in spite of a feeble intimation he
+expressed, that it would be agreeable to him to walk about in the March
+sunshine, and see the grounds and the wild flowers, which never gave
+trouble, nor cost a penny, and were always pretty, and worth twenty of
+your artificial contrivances.
+
+“Same as I say to Miss Dahly,” he took occasion to remark; “but no!--no
+good. I don't believe women hear ye, when you talk sense of that kind.
+'Look,' says I, 'at a violet.' 'Look,' says she, 'at a rose.' Well, what
+can ye say after that? She swears the rose looks best. You swear the
+violet costs least. Then there you have a battle between what it costs
+and how it looks.”
+
+Robert pronounced a conventional affirmative, when called on for it by a
+look from Anthony. Whereupon Rhoda cried out,--
+
+“Dahlia was right--she was right, uncle.”
+
+“She was right, my dear, if she was a ten-thousander. She wasn't right
+as a farmer's daughter with poor expectations.--I'd say humble, if
+humble she were. As a farmer's daughter, she should choose the violet
+side. That's clear as day. One thing's good, I admit; she tells me she
+makes her own bonnets, and they're as good as milliners', and that's a
+proud matter to say of your own niece. And to buy dresses for herself, I
+suppose, she's sat down and she made dresses for fine ladies. I've found
+her at it. Save the money for the work, says I. What does she reply--she
+always has a reply: 'Uncle, I know the value of money better. 'You mean,
+you spend it,' I says to her. 'I buy more than it's worth,' says she.
+And I'll tell you what, Mr. Robert Armstrong, as I find your name to be,
+sir; if you beat women at talking, my lord! you're a clever chap.”
+
+Robert laughed. “I give in at the first mile.”
+
+“Don't think much of women--is that it, sir?”
+
+“I'm glad to say I don't think of them at all.”
+
+“Do you think of one woman, now, Mr. Robert Armstrong?”
+
+“I'd much rather think of two.”
+
+“And why, may I ask?”
+
+“It's safer.”
+
+“Now, I don't exactly see that,” said Anthony.
+
+“You set one to tear the other,” Robert explained.
+
+“You're a Grand Turk Mogul in your reasonings of women, Mr. Robert
+Armstrong. I hope as your morals are sound, sir?”
+
+They were on the road to church, but Robert could not restrain a
+swinging outburst.
+
+He observed that he hoped likewise that his morals were sound.
+
+“Because,” said Anthony, “do you see, sir, two wives--”
+
+“No, no; one wife,” interposed Robert. “You said 'think about;' I'd
+'think about' any number of women, if I was idle. But the woman you mean
+to make your wife, you go to at once, and don't 'think about' her or the
+question either.”
+
+“You make sure of her, do you, sir?”
+
+“No: I try my luck; that is all.”
+
+“Suppose she won't have ye?”
+
+“Then I wait for her.”
+
+“Suppose she gets married to somebody else?”
+
+“Well, you know, I shouldn't cast eye on a woman who was a fool.”
+
+“Well, upon my--” Anthony checked his exclamation, returning to the
+charge with, “Just suppose, for the sake of supposing--supposing she was
+a fool, and gone and got married, and you thrown back'ard on one leg,
+starin' at the other, stupified-like?”
+
+“I don't mind supposing it,” said Robert. “Say, she's a fool. Her being
+a fool argues that I was one in making a fool's choice. So, she jilts
+me, and I get a pistol, or I get a neat bit of rope, or I take a clean
+header with a cannon-ball at my heels, or I go to the chemist's and ask
+for stuff to poison rats,--anything a fool'd do under the circumstances,
+it don't matter what.”
+
+Old Anthony waited for Rhoda to jump over a stile, and said to her,--
+
+“He laughs at the whole lot of ye.”
+
+“Who?” she asked, with betraying cheeks.
+
+“This Mr. Robert Armstrong of yours.”
+
+“Of mine, uncle!”
+
+“He don't seem to care a snap o' the finger for any of ye.”
+
+“Then, none of us must care for him, uncle.”
+
+“Now, just the contrary. That always shows a young fellow who's
+attending to his business. If he'd seen you boil potatoes, make
+dumplings, beds, tea, all that, you'd have had a chance. He'd have
+marched up to ye before you was off to London.”
+
+“Saying, 'You are the woman.'” Rhoda was too desperately tickled by the
+idea to refrain from uttering it, though she was angry, and suffering
+internal discontent. “Or else, 'You are the cook,'” she muttered, and
+shut, with the word, steel bars across her heart, calling him, mentally,
+names not justified by anything he had said or done--such as mercenary,
+tyrannical, and such like.
+
+Robert was attentive to her in church. Once she caught him with his
+eyes on her face; but he betrayed no confusion, and looked away at the
+clergyman. When the text was given out, he found the place in his Bible,
+and handed it to her pointedly--“There shall be snares and traps unto
+you;” a line from Joshua. She received the act as a polite pawing
+civility; but when she was coming out of church, Robert saw that a blush
+swept over her face, and wondered what thoughts could be rising within
+her, unaware that girls catch certain meanings late, and suffer a fiery
+torture when these meanings are clear to them. Rhoda called up the
+pride of her womanhood that she might despise the man who had dared to
+distrust her. She kept her poppy colour throughout the day, so sensitive
+was this pride. But most she was angered, after reflection, by the
+doubts which Robert appeared to cast on Dahlia, in setting his finger
+upon that burning line of Scripture. It opened a whole black kingdom to
+her imagination, and first touched her visionary life with shade. She
+was sincere in her ignorance that the doubts were her own, but they lay
+deep in unawakened recesses of the soul; it was by a natural action of
+her reason that she transferred and forced them upon him who had chanced
+to make them visible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+When young minds are set upon a distant object, they scarcely live
+for anything about them. The drive to the station and the parting
+with Robert, the journey to London, which had latterly seemed to her
+secretly-distressed anticipation like a sunken city--a place of wonder
+with the waters over it--all passed by smoothly; and then it became
+necessary to call a cabman, for whom, as he did her the service to lift
+her box, Rhoda felt a gracious respect, until a quarrel ensued between
+him and her uncle concerning sixpence;--a poor sum, as she thought; but
+representing, as Anthony impressed upon her understanding during the
+conflict of hard words, a principle. Those who can persuade themselves
+that they are fighting for a principle, fight strenuously, and maybe
+reckoned upon to overmatch combatants on behalf of a miserable small
+coin; so the cabman went away discomfited. He used such bad language
+that Rhoda had no pity for him, and hearing her uncle style it “the
+London tongue,” she thought dispiritedly of Dahlia's having had to
+listen to it through so long a season. Dahlia was not at home; but Mrs.
+Wicklow, Anthony's landlady, undertook to make Rhoda comfortable, which
+operation she began by praising dark young ladies over fair ones, at
+the same time shaking Rhoda's arm that she might not fail to see a
+compliment was intended. “This is our London way,” she said. But Rhoda
+was most disconcerted when she heard Mrs. Wicklow relate that her
+daughter and Dahlia were out together, and say, that she had no doubt
+they had found some pleasant and attentive gentleman for a companion, if
+they had not gone purposely to meet one. Her thoughts of her sister were
+perplexed, and London seemed a gigantic net around them both.
+
+“Yes, that's the habit with the girls up here,” said Anthony; “that's
+what fine bonnets mean.”
+
+Rhoda dropped into a bitter depth of brooding. The savage nature of her
+virgin pride was such that it gave her great suffering even to
+suppose that a strange gentleman would dare to address her sister. She
+half-fashioned the words on her lips that she had dreamed of a false
+Zion, and was being righteously punished. By-and-by the landlady's
+daughter returned home alone, saying, with a dreadful laugh, that Dahlia
+had sent her for her Bible; but she would give no explanation of the
+singular mission which had been entrusted to her, and she showed no
+willingness to attempt to fulfil it, merely repeating, “Her Bible!” with
+a vulgar exhibition of simulated scorn that caused Rhoda to shrink from
+her, though she would gladly have poured out a multitude of questions in
+the ear of one who had last been with her beloved. After a while, Mrs.
+Wicklow looked at the clock, and instantly became overclouded with an
+extreme gravity.
+
+“Eleven! and she sent Mary Ann home for her Bible. This looks bad. I
+call it hypocritical, the idea of mentioning the Bible. Now, if she had
+said to Mary Ann, go and fetch any other book but a Bible!”
+
+“It was mother's Bible,” interposed Rhoda.
+
+Mrs. Wicklow replied: “And I wish all young women to be as innocent as
+you, my dear. You'll get you to bed. You're a dear, mild, sweet, good
+young woman. I'm never deceived in character.”
+
+Vaunting her penetration, she accompanied Rhoda to Dahlia's chamber,
+bidding her sleep speedily, or that when her sister came they would be
+talking till the cock crowed hoarse.
+
+“There's a poultry-yard close to us?” said Rhoda; feeling less at home
+when she heard that there was not.
+
+The night was quiet and clear. She leaned her head out of the window,
+and heard the mellow Sunday evening roar of the city as of a sea at ebb.
+And Dahlia was out on the sea. Rhoda thought of it as she looked at the
+row of lamps, and listened to the noise remote, until the sight of
+stars was pleasant as the faces of friends. “People are kind here,”
+ she reflected, for her short experience of the landlady was good, and a
+young gentleman who had hailed a cab for her at the station, had a nice
+voice. He was fair. “I am dark,” came a spontaneous reflection. She
+undressed, and half dozing over her beating heart in bed, heard the
+street door open, and leaped to think that her sister approached,
+jumping up in her bed to give ear to the door and the stairs, that
+were conducting her joy to her: but she quickly recomposed herself,
+and feigned sleep, for the delight of revelling in her sister's first
+wonderment. The door was flung wide, and Rhoda heard her name called
+by Dahlia's voice, and then there was a delicious silence, and she felt
+that Dahlia was coming up to her on tiptoe, and waited for her head to
+be stooped near, that she might fling out her arms, and draw the dear
+head to her bosom. But Dahlia came only to the bedside, without leaning
+over, and spoke of her looks, which held the girl quiet.
+
+“How she sleeps! It's a country sleep!” Dahlia murmured. “She's changed,
+but it's all for the better. She's quite a woman; she's a perfect
+brunette; and the nose I used to laugh at suits her face and those
+black, thick eyebrows of hers; my pet! Oh, why is she here? What's meant
+by it? I knew nothing of her coming. Is she sent on purpose?”
+
+Rhoda did not stir. The tone of Dahlia's speaking, low and almost awful
+to her, laid a flat hand on her, and kept her still.
+
+“I came for my Bible,” she heard Dahlia say. “I promised mother--oh, my
+poor darling mother! And Dody lying in my bed! Who would have thought of
+such things? Perhaps heaven does look after us and interfere. What will
+become of me? Oh, you pretty innocent in your sleep! I lie for hours,
+and can't sleep. She binds her hair in a knot on the pillow, just as she
+used to in the old farm days!”
+
+Rhoda knew that her sister was bending over her now, but she was almost
+frigid, and could not move.
+
+Dahlia went to the looking-glass. “How flushed I am!” she murmured. “No;
+I'm pale, quite white. I've lost my strength. What can I do? How could
+I take mother's Bible, and run from my pretty one, who expects me, and
+dreams she'll wake with me beside her in the morning! I can't--I can't
+If you love me, Edward, you won't wish it.”
+
+She fell into a chair, crying wildly, and muffling her sobs. Rhoda's
+eyelids grew moist, but wonder and the cold anguish of senseless
+sympathy held her still frost-bound. All at once she heard the window
+open. Some one spoke in the street below; some one uttered Dahlia's
+name. A deep bell swung a note of midnight.
+
+“Go!” cried Dahlia.
+
+The window was instantly shut.
+
+The vibration of Dahlia's voice went through Rhoda like the heavy
+shaking of the bell after it had struck, and the room seemed to spin and
+hum. It was to her but another minute before her sister slid softly into
+the bed, and they were locked together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Boyne's bank was of the order of those old and firmly fixed
+establishments which have taken root with the fortunes of the
+country--are honourable as England's name, solid as her prosperity, and
+even as the flourishing green tree to shareholders: a granite house.
+Boyne himself had been disembodied for more than a century: Burt and
+Hamble were still of the flesh; but a greater than Burt or Hamble
+was Blancove--the Sir William Blancove, Baronet, of city feasts and
+charities, who, besides being a wealthy merchant, possessed of a very
+acute head for banking, was a scholarly gentleman, worthy of riches.
+His brother was Squire Blancove, of Wrexby; but between these two close
+relatives there existed no stronger feeling than what was expressed by
+open contempt of a mind dedicated to business on the one side, and quiet
+contempt of a life devoted to indolence on the other. Nevertheless,
+Squire Blancove, though everybody knew how deeply he despised his junior
+for his city-gained title and commercial occupation, sent him his son
+Algernon, to get the youth into sound discipline, if possible. This
+was after the elastic Algernon had, on the paternal intimation of his
+colonel, relinquished his cornetcy and military service. Sir William
+received the hopeful young fellow much in the spirit with which he
+listened to the tales of his brother's comments on his own line of
+conduct; that is to say, as homage to his intellectual superiority. Mr.
+Algernon was installed in the Bank, and sat down for a long career of
+groaning at the desk, with more complacency than was expected from him.
+Sir William forwarded excellent accounts to his brother of the behaviour
+of the heir to his estates. It was his way of rebuking the squire, and
+in return for it the squire, though somewhat comforted, despised
+his clerkly son, and lived to learn how very unjustly he did so.
+Adolescents, who have the taste for running into excesses, enjoy the
+breath of change as another form of excitement: change is a sort of
+debauch to them. They will delight infinitely in a simple country round
+of existence, in propriety and church-going, in the sensation of feeling
+innocent. There is little that does not enrapture them, if you tie them
+down to nothing, and let them try all. Sir William was deceived by his
+nephew. He would have taken him into his town-house; but his own son,
+Edward, who was studying for the Law, had chambers in the Temple,
+and Algernon, receiving an invitation from Edward, declared a gentle
+preference for the abode of his cousin. His allowance from his father
+was properly contracted to keep him from excesses, as the genius of his
+senior devised, and Sir William saw no objection to the scheme, and made
+none. The two dined with him about twice in the month.
+
+Edward Blancove was three-and-twenty years old, a student by fits, and
+a young man given to be moody. He had powers of gaiety far eclipsing
+Algernon's, but he was not the same easy tripping sinner and flippant
+soul. He was in that yeasty condition of his years when action and
+reflection alternately usurp the mind; remorse succeeded dissipation,
+and indulgences offered the soporific to remorse. The friends of the
+two imagined that Algernon was, or would become, his evil genius. In
+reality, Edward was the perilous companion. He was composed of better
+stuff. Algernon was but an airy animal nature, the soul within him being
+an effervescence lightly let loose. Edward had a fatally serious spirit,
+and one of some strength. What he gave himself up to, he could believe
+to be correct, in the teeth of an opposing world, until he tired of
+it, when he sided as heartily with the world against his quondam self.
+Algernon might mislead, or point his cousin's passions for a time; yet
+if they continued their courses together, there was danger that Algernon
+would degenerate into a reckless subordinate--a minister, a valet, and
+be tempted unknowingly to do things in earnest, which is nothing less
+than perdition to this sort of creature.
+
+But the key to young men is the ambition, or, in the place of it,
+the romantic sentiment nourished by them. Edward aspired to become
+Attorney-General of these realms, not a judge, you observe; for a judge
+is to the imagination of youthful minds a stationary being, venerable,
+but not active; whereas, your Attorney-General is always in the fray,
+and fights commonly on the winning side,--a point that renders his
+position attractive to sagacious youth. Algernon had other views.
+Civilization had tried him, and found him wanting; so he condemned it.
+Moreover, sitting now all day at a desk, he was civilization's drudge.
+No wonder, then, that his dream was of prairies, and primeval forests,
+and Australian wilds. He believed in his heart that he would be a man
+new made over there, and always looked forward to savage life as to a
+bath that would cleanse him, so that it did not much matter his being
+unclean for the present.
+
+The young men had a fair cousin by marriage, a Mrs. Margaret Lovell, a
+widow. At seventeen she had gone with her husband to India, where Harry
+Lovell encountered the sword of a Sikh Sirdar, and tried the last of his
+much-vaunted swordsmanship, which, with his skill at the pistols, had
+served him better in two antecedent duels, for the vindication of his
+lovely and terrible young wife. He perished on the field, critically
+admiring the stroke to which he owed his death. A week after Harry's
+burial his widow was asked in marriage by his colonel. Captains, and a
+giddy subaltern likewise, disputed claims to possess her. She, however,
+decided to arrest further bloodshed by quitting the regiment. She always
+said that she left India to save her complexion; “and people don't know
+how very candid I am,” she added, for the colonel above-mentioned was
+wealthy,--a man expectant of a title, and a good match, and she
+was laughed at when she thus assigned trivial reasons for momentous
+resolutions. It is a luxury to be candid; and perfect candour can do
+more for us than a dark disguise.
+
+Mrs. Lovell's complexion was worth saving from the ravages of an Indian
+climate, and the persecution of claimants to her hand. She was golden
+and white, like an autumnal birch-tree--yellow hair, with warm-toned
+streaks in it, shading a fabulously fair skin. Then, too, she was tall,
+of a nervous build, supple and proud in motion, a brilliant horsewoman,
+and a most distinguished sitter in an easy drawing-room chair, which
+is, let me impress upon you, no mean quality. After riding out for hours
+with a sweet comrade, who has thrown the mantle of dignity half-way off
+her shoulders, it is perplexing, and mixed strangely of humiliation and
+ecstasy, to come upon her clouded majesty where she reclines as upon
+rose-hued clouds, in a mystic circle of restriction (she who laughed at
+your jokes, and capped them, two hours ago) a queen.
+
+Between Margaret Lovell and Edward there was a misunderstanding, of
+which no one knew the nature, for they spoke in public very respectfully
+one of the other. It had been supposed that they were lovers once; but
+when lovers quarrel, they snarl, they bite, they worry; their eyes
+are indeed unveiled, and their mouths unmuzzled. Now Margaret said of
+Edward: “He is sure to rise; he has such good principles.” Edward said
+of Margaret: “She only wants a husband who will keep her well in hand.”
+ These sentences scarcely carried actual compliments when you knew the
+speakers; but outraged lovers cannot talk in that style after they have
+broken apart. It is possible that Margaret and Edward conveyed to one
+another as sharp a sting as envenomed lovers attempt. Gossip had once
+betrothed them, but was now at fault. The lady had a small jointure, and
+lived partly with her uncle, Lord Elling, partly with Squire Blancove,
+her aunt's husband, and a little by herself, which was when she counted
+money in her purse, and chose to assert her independence. She had a name
+in the world. There is a fate attached to some women, from Helen of Troy
+downward, that blood is to be shed for them. One duel on behalf of a
+woman is a reputation to her for life; two are notoriety. If she is very
+young, can they be attributable to her? We charge them naturally to her
+overpowering beauty. It happened that Mrs. Lovell was beautiful. Under
+the light of the two duels her beauty shone as from an illumination of
+black flame. Boys adored Mrs. Lovell. These are moths. But more, the
+birds of air, nay, grave owls (who stand in this metaphor for whiskered
+experience) thronged, dashing at the apparition of terrible splendour.
+Was it her fault that she had a name in the world?
+
+Mrs. Margaret Lovell's portrait hung in Edward's room. It was a
+photograph exquisitely coloured, and was on the left of a dark Judith,
+dark with a serenity of sternness. On the right hung another coloured
+photograph of a young lady, also fair; and it was a point of taste to
+choose between them. Do you like the hollowed lily's cheeks, or the
+plump rose's? Do you like a thinnish fall of golden hair, or an abundant
+cluster of nut-brown? Do you like your blonde with limpid blue eyes, or
+prefer an endowment of sunny hazel? Finally, are you taken by an air of
+artistic innocence winding serpentine about your heart's fibres; or
+is blushing simplicity sweeter to you? Mrs. Lovell's eyebrows were the
+faintly-marked trace of a perfect arch. The other young person's were
+thickish, more level; a full brown colour. She looked as if she had not
+yet attained to any sense of her being a professed beauty: but the
+fair widow was clearly bent upon winning you, and had a shy, playful
+intentness of aspect. Her pure white skin was flat on the bone; the
+lips came forward in a soft curve, and, if they were not artistically
+stained, were triumphantly fresh. Here, in any case, she beat her rival,
+whose mouth had the plebeian beauty's fault of being too straight in a
+line, and was not trained, apparently, to tricks of dainty pouting.
+
+It was morning, and the cousins having sponged in pleasant cold water,
+arranged themselves for exercise, and came out simultaneously into the
+sitting-room, slippered, and in flannels. They nodded and went through
+certain curt greetings, and then Algernon stepped to a cupboard and
+tossed out the leather gloves. The room was large and they had a
+tolerable space for the work, when the breakfast-table had been drawn
+a little on one side. You saw at a glance which was the likelier man of
+the two, when they stood opposed. Algernon's rounded features, full lips
+and falling chin, were not a match, though he was quick on his feet, for
+the wary, prompt eyes, set mouth, and hardness of Edward. Both had stout
+muscle, but in Edward there was vigour of brain as well, which seemed
+to knit and inform his shape without which, in fact, a man is as a ship
+under no command. Both looked their best; as, when sparring, men always
+do look.
+
+“Now, then,” said Algernon, squaring up to his cousin in good style,
+“now's the time for that unwholesome old boy underneath to commence
+groaning.”
+
+“Step as light as you can,” replied Edward, meeting him with the pretty
+motion of the gloves.
+
+“I'll step as light as a French dancing-master. Let's go to Paris and
+learn the savate, Ned. It must be a new sensation to stand on one leg
+and knock a fellow's hat off with the other.”
+
+“Stick to your fists.”
+
+“Hang it! I wish your fists wouldn't stick to me so.”
+
+“You talk too much.”
+
+“Gad, I don't get puffy half so soon as you.”
+
+“I want country air.”
+
+“You said you were going out, old Ned.”
+
+“I changed my mind.”
+
+Saying which, Edward shut his teeth, and talked for two or three hot
+minutes wholly with his fists. The room shook under Algernon's boundings
+to right and left till a blow sent him back on the breakfast-table,
+shattered a cup on the floor, and bespattered his close flannel shirt
+with a funereal coffee-tinge.
+
+“What the deuce I said to bring that on myself, I don't know,” Algernon
+remarked as he rose. “Anything connected with the country disagreeable
+to you, Ned? Come! a bout of quiet scientific boxing, and none of these
+beastly rushes, as if you were singling me out of a crowd of magsmen.
+Did you go to church yesterday, Ned? Confound it, you're on me again,
+are you?”
+
+And Algernon went on spouting unintelligible talk under a torrent of
+blows. He lost his temper and fought out at them; but as it speedily
+became evident to him that the loss laid him open to punishment, he
+prudently recovered it, sparred, danced about, and contrived to
+shake the room in a manner that caused Edward to drop his arms, in
+consideration for the distracted occupant of the chambers below.
+Algernon accepted the truce, and made it peace by casting off one glove.
+
+“There! that's a pleasant morning breather,” he said, and sauntered to
+the window to look at the river. “I always feel the want of it when
+I don't get it. I could take a thrashing rather than not on with the
+gloves to begin the day. Look at those boats! Fancy my having to go down
+to the city. It makes me feel like my blood circulating the wrong way.
+My father'll suffer some day, for keeping me at this low ebb of cash, by
+jingo!”
+
+He uttered this with a prophetic fierceness.
+
+“I cannot even scrape together enough for entrance money to a Club.
+It's sickening! I wonder whether I shall ever get used to banking work?
+There's an old clerk in our office who says he should feel ill if he
+missed a day. And the old porter beats him--bangs him to fits. I believe
+he'd die off if he didn't see the house open to the minute. They say
+that old boy's got a pretty niece; but he don't bring her to the office
+now. Reward of merit!--Mr. Anthony Hackbut is going to receive ten
+pounds a year extra. That's for his honesty. I wonder whether I could
+earn a reputation for the sake of a prospect of ten extra pounds to my
+salary. I've got a salary! hurrah! But if they keep me to my hundred
+and fifty per annum, don't let them trust me every day with the bags,
+as they do that old fellow. Some of the men say he's good to lend fifty
+pounds at a pinch.--Are the chops coming, Ned?”
+
+“The chops are coming,” said Edward, who had thrown on a boating-coat
+and plunged into a book, and spoke echoing.
+
+“Here's little Peggy Lovell.” Algernon faced this portrait. “It don't do
+her justice. She's got more life, more change in her, more fire. She's
+starting for town, I hear.”
+
+“She is starting for town,” said Edward.
+
+“How do you know that?” Algernon swung about to ask.
+
+Edward looked round to him. “By the fact of your not having fished for a
+holiday this week. How did you leave her yesterday, Algy? Quite well, I
+hope.”
+
+The ingenuous face of the young gentleman crimsoned.
+
+“Oh, she was well,” he said. “Ha! I see there can be some attraction in
+your dark women.”
+
+“You mean that Judith? Yes, she's a good diversion.” Edward gave a
+two-edged response. “What train did you come up by last night?”
+
+“The last from Wrexby. That reminds me: I saw a young Judith just as
+I got out. She wanted a cab. I called it for her. She belongs to old
+Hackbut of the Bank--the old porter, you know. If it wasn't that there's
+always something about dark women which makes me think they're going to
+have a moustache, I should take to that girl's face.”
+
+Edward launched forth an invective against fair women.
+
+“What have they done to you-what have they done?” said Algernon.
+
+“My good fellow, they're nothing but colour. They've no conscience. If
+they swear a thing to you one moment, they break it the next. They
+can't help doing it. You don't ask a gilt weathercock to keep faith with
+anything but the wind, do you? It's an ass that trusts a fair woman at
+all, or has anything to do with the confounded set. Cleopatra was fair;
+so was Delilah; so is the Devil's wife. Reach me that book of Reports.”
+
+“By jingo!” cried Algernon, “my stomach reports that if provision
+doesn't soon approach----why don't you keep a French cook here, Ned?
+Let's give up the women, and take to a French cook.”
+
+Edward yawned horribly. “All in good time. It's what we come to. It's
+philosophy--your French cook! I wish I had it, or him. I'm afraid a
+fellow can't anticipate his years--not so lucky!”
+
+“By Jove! we shall have to be philosophers before we breakfast!”
+ Algernon exclaimed. “It's nine. I've to be tied to the stake at ten,
+chained and muzzled--a leetle-a dawg! I wish I hadn't had to leave
+the service. It was a vile conspiracy against me there, Ned. Hang all
+tradesmen! I sit on a stool, and add up figures. I work harder than a
+nigger in the office. That's my life: but I must feed. It's no use going
+to the office in a rage.”
+
+“Will you try on the gloves again?” was Edward's mild suggestion.
+
+Algernon thanked him, and replied that he knew him. Edward hit hard when
+he was empty.
+
+They now affected patience, as far as silence went to make up an element
+of that sublime quality. The chops arriving, they disdained the mask.
+Algernon fired his glove just over the waiter's head, and Edward put
+the ease to the man's conscience; after which they sat and ate, talking
+little. The difference between them was, that Edward knew the state of
+Algernon's mind and what was working within it, while the latter stared
+at a blank wall as regarded Edward's.
+
+“Going out after breakfast, Ned?” said Algernon. “We'll walk to the city
+together, if you like.”
+
+Edward fixed one of his intent looks upon his cousin. “You're not going
+to the city to-day?”
+
+“The deuce, I'm not!”
+
+“You're going to dance attendance on Mrs. Lovell, whom it's your
+pleasure to call Peggy, when you're some leagues out of her hearing.”
+
+Algernon failed to command his countenance. He glanced at one of the
+portraits, and said, “Who is that girl up there? Tell us her name.
+Talking of Mrs. Lovell, has she ever seen it?”
+
+“If you'll put on your coat, my dear Algy, I will talk to you about Mrs.
+Lovell.” Edward kept his penetrative eyes on Algernon. “Listen to me:
+you'll get into a mess there.”
+
+“If I must listen, Ned, I'll listen in my shirt-sleeves, with all
+respect to the lady.”
+
+“Very well. The shirt-sleeves help the air of bravado. Now, you know
+that I've what they call 'knelt at her feet.' She's handsome. Don't cry
+out. She's dashing, and as near being a devil as any woman I ever met.
+Do you know why we broke? I'll tell you. Plainly, because I refused to
+believe that one of her men had insulted her. You understand what that
+means. I declined to be a chief party in a scandal.”
+
+“Declined to fight the fellow?” interposed Algernon. “More shame to
+you!”
+
+“I think you're a year younger than I am, Algy. You have the privilege
+of speaking with that year's simplicity. Mrs. Lovell will play you as
+she played me. I acknowledge her power, and I keep out of her way. I
+don't bet; I don't care to waltz; I can't keep horses; so I don't lose
+much by the privation to which I subject myself.”
+
+“I bet, I waltz, and I ride. So,” said Algernon, “I should lose
+tremendously.”
+
+“You will lose, mark my words.”
+
+“Is the lecture of my year's senior concluded?” said Algernon.
+
+“Yes; I've done,” Edward answered.
+
+“Then I'll put on my coat, Ned, and I'll smoke in it. That'll give you
+assurance I'm not going near Mrs. Lovell, if anything will.”
+
+“That gives me assurance that Mrs. Lovell tolerates in you what she
+detests,” said Edward, relentless in his insight; “and, consequently,
+gives me assurance that she finds you of particular service to her at
+present.”
+
+Algernon had a lighted match in his hand. He flung it into the fire.
+“I'm hanged if I don't think you have the confounded vanity to suppose
+she sets me as a spy upon you!”
+
+A smile ran along Edward's lips. “I don't think you'd know it, if she
+did.”
+
+“Oh, you're ten years older; you're twenty,” bawled Algernon, in an
+extremity of disgust. “Don't I know what game you're following up? Isn't
+it clear as day you've got another woman in your eye?”
+
+“It's as clear as day, my good Algy, that you see a portrait hanging in
+my chambers, and you have heard Mrs. Lovell's opinion of the fact. So
+much is perfectly clear. There's my hand. I don't blame you. She's a
+clever woman, and like many of the sort, shrewd at guessing the worst.
+Come, take my hand. I tell you, I don't blame you. I've been little
+dog to her myself, and fetched and carried, and wagged my tail. It's
+charming while it lasts. Will you shake it?”
+
+“Your tail, man?” Algernon roared in pretended amazement.
+
+Edward eased him back to friendliness by laughing. “No; my hand.”
+
+They shook hands.
+
+“All right,” said Algernon. “You mean well. It's very well for you to
+preach virtue to a poor devil; you've got loose, or you're regularly in
+love.”
+
+“Virtue! by heaven!” Edward cried; “I wish I were entitled to preach it
+to any man on earth.”
+
+His face flushed. “There, good-bye, old fellow,” he added.
+
+“Go to the city. I'll dine with you to-night, if you like; come and dine
+with me at my Club. I shall be disengaged.”
+
+Algernon mumbled a flexible assent to an appointment at Edward's Club,
+dressed himself with care, borrowed a sovereign, for which he nodded his
+acceptance, and left him.
+
+Edward set his brain upon a book of law.
+
+It may have been two hours after he had sat thus in his Cistercian
+stillness, when a letter was delivered to him by one of the Inn porters.
+Edward read the superscription, and asked the porter who it was that
+brought it. Two young ladies, the porter said.
+
+These were the contents:--
+
+“I am not sure that you will ever forgive me. I cannot forgive myself
+when I think of that one word I was obliged to speak to you in the cold
+street, and nothing to explain why, and how much I love, you. Oh! how
+I love you! I cry while I write. I cannot help it. I was a sop of tears
+all night long, and oh! if you had seen my face in the morning. I am
+thankful you did not. Mother's Bible brought me home. It must have been
+guidance, for in my bed there lay my sister, and I could not leave her,
+I love her so. I could not have got down stairs again after seeing her
+there; and I had to say that cold word and shut the window on you. May I
+call you Edward still? Oh, dear Edward, do make allowance for me. Write
+kindly to me. Say you forgive me. I feel like a ghost to-day. My life
+seems quite behind me somewhere, and I hardly feel anything I touch.
+I declare to you, dearest one, I had no idea my sister was here. I was
+surprised when I heard her name mentioned by my landlady, and looked on
+the bed; suddenly my strength was gone, and it changed all that I was
+thinking. I never knew before that women were so weak, but now I see
+they are, and I only know I am at my Edward's mercy, and am stupid! Oh,
+so wretched and stupid. I shall not touch food till I hear from you. Oh,
+if, you are angry, write so; but do write. My suspense would make you
+pity me. I know I deserve your anger. It was not that I do not trust
+you, Edward. My mother in heaven sees my heart and that I trust, I trust
+my heart and everything I am and have to you. I would almost wish and
+wait to see you to-day in the Gardens, but my crying has made me such
+a streaked thing to look at. If I had rubbed my face with a
+scrubbing-brush, I could not look worse, and I cannot risk your seeing
+me. It would excuse you for hating me. Do you? Does he hate her? She
+loves you. She would die for you, dear Edward. Oh! I feel that if I was
+told to-day that I should die for you to-morrow, it would be happiness.
+I am dying--yes, I am dying till I hear from you.
+
+             “Believe me,
+
+          “Your tender, loving, broken-hearted,
+
+                  “Dahlia.”
+
+   There was a postscript:--
+
+   “May I still go to lessons?”
+
+Edward finished the letter with a calmly perusing eye. He had winced
+triflingly at one or two expressions contained in it; forcible, perhaps,
+but not such as Mrs. Lovell smiling from the wall yonder would have
+used.
+
+“The poor child threatens to eat no dinner, if I don't write to her,” he
+said; and replied in a kind and magnanimous spirit, concluding--“Go to
+lessons, by all means.”
+
+Having accomplished this, he stood up, and by hazard fell to comparing
+the rival portraits; a melancholy and a comic thing to do, as you will
+find if you put two painted heads side by side, and set their merits
+contesting, and reflect on the contest, and to what advantages,
+personal, or of the artist's, the winner owes the victory. Dahlia had
+been admirably dealt with by the artist; the charm of pure ingenuousness
+without rusticity was visible in her face and figure. Hanging there on
+the wall, she was a match for Mrs. Lovell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Rhoda returned home the heavier for a secret that she bore with her. All
+through the first night of her sleeping in London, Dahlia's sobs, and
+tender hugs, and self-reproaches, had penetrated her dreams, and when
+the morning came she had scarcely to learn that Dahlia loved some one.
+The confession was made; but his name was reserved. Dahlia spoke of him
+with such sacredness of respect that she seemed lost in him, and like a
+creature kissing his feet. With tears rolling down her cheeks, and with
+moans of anguish, she spoke of the deliciousness of loving: of knowing
+one to whom she abandoned her will and her destiny, until, seeing how
+beautiful a bloom love threw upon the tearful worn face of her sister,
+Rhoda was impressed by a mystical veneration for this man, and readily
+believed him to be above all other men, if not superhuman: for she was
+of an age and an imagination to conceive a spiritual pre-eminence over
+the weakness of mortality. She thought that one who could so transform
+her sister, touch her with awe, and give her gracefulness and humility,
+must be what Dahlia said he was. She asked shyly for his Christian name;
+but even so little Dahlia withheld. It was his wish that Dahlia should
+keep silence concerning him.
+
+“Have you sworn an oath?” said Rhoda, wonderingly.
+
+“No, dear love,” Dahlia replied; “he only mentioned what he desired.”
+
+Rhoda was ashamed of herself for thinking it strange, and she
+surrendered her judgement to be stamped by the one who knew him well.
+
+As regarded her uncle, Dahlia admitted that she had behaved forgetfully
+and unkindly, and promised amendment. She talked of the Farm as of an
+old ruin, with nothing but a thin shade of memory threading its walls,
+and appeared to marvel vaguely that it stood yet. “Father shall not
+always want money,” she said. She was particular in prescribing books
+for Rhoda to read; good authors, she emphasized, and named books of
+history, and poets, and quoted their verses. “For my darling will some
+day have a dear husband, and he must not look down on her.” Rhoda
+shook her head, full sure that she could never be brought to utter such
+musical words naturally. “Yes, dearest, when you know what love is,”
+ said Dahlia, in an underbreath.
+
+Could Robert inspire her with the power? Rhoda looked upon that poor
+homely young man half-curiously when she returned, and quite dismissed
+the notion. Besides she had no feeling for herself. Her passion was
+fixed upon her sister, whose record of emotions in the letters from
+London placed her beyond dull days and nights. The letters struck many
+chords. A less subservient reader would have set them down as variations
+of the language of infatuation; but Rhoda was responsive to every word
+and change of mood, from the, “I am unworthy, degraded, wretched,” to
+“I am blest above the angels.” If one letter said, “We met yesterday,”
+ Rhoda's heart beat on to the question, “Shall I see him again
+to-morrow?” And will she see him?--has she seen him?--agitated her and
+absorbed her thoughts.
+
+So humbly did she follow her sister, without daring to forecast a
+prospect for her, or dream of an issue, that when on a summer morning
+a letter was brought in at the breakfast-table, marked “urgent and
+private,” she opened it, and the first line dazzled her eyes--the
+surprise was a shock to her brain. She rose from her unfinished meal,
+and walked out into the wide air, feeling as if she walked on thunder.
+
+The letter ran thus:--
+
+“My Own Innocent!--I am married. We leave England to-day. I must not
+love you too much, for I have all my love to give to my Edward, my own
+now, and I am his trustingly for ever. But he will let me give you some
+of it--and Rhoda is never jealous. She shall have a great deal. Only
+I am frightened when I think how immense my love is for him, so that
+anything--everything he thinks right is right to me. I am not afraid to
+think so. If I were to try, a cloud would come over me--it does, if only
+I fancy for half a moment I am rash, and a straw. I cannot exist except
+through him. So I must belong to him, and his will is my law. My prayer
+at my bedside every night is that I may die for him. We used to think
+the idea of death so terrible! Do you remember how we used to shudder
+together at night when we thought of people lying in the grave? And
+now, when I think that perhaps I may some day die for him, I feel like a
+crying in my heart with joy.
+
+“I have left a letter--sent it, I mean--enclosed to uncle for father.
+He will see Edward by-and-by. Oh! may heaven spare him from any grief.
+Rhoda will comfort him. Tell him how devoted I am. I am like drowned to
+everybody but one.
+
+“We are looking on the sea. In half an hour I shall have forgotten the
+tread of English earth. I do not know that I breathe. All I know is a
+fear that I am flying, and my strength will not continue. That is when
+I am not touching his hand. There is France opposite. I shut my eyes
+and see the whole country, but it is like what I feel for Edward--all in
+dark moonlight. Oh! I trust him so! I bleed for him. I could make all
+my veins bleed out at a sad thought about him. And from France to
+Switzerland and Italy. The sea sparkles just as if it said 'Come to
+the sun;' and I am going. Edward calls. Shall I be punished for so much
+happiness? I am too happy, I am too happy.
+
+“God bless my beloved at home! That is my chief prayer now. I shall
+think of her when I am in the cathedrals.
+
+“Oh, my Father in heaven! bless them all! bless Rhoda! forgive me!
+
+“I can hear the steam of the steamer at the pier. Here is Edward. He
+says I may send his love to you.
+
+“Address:--
+
+     “Mrs. Edward Ayrton,
+        “Poste Restante,
+          “Lausanne,
+             “Switzerland.
+
+“P.S.--Lausanne is where--but another time, and I will always tell you
+the history of the places to instruct you, poor heart in dull England.
+Adieu! Good-bye and God bless my innocent at home, my dear sister. I
+love her. I never can forget her. The day is so lovely. It seems on
+purpose for us. Be sure you write on thin paper to Lausanne. It is on
+a blue lake; you see snow mountains, and now there is a bell
+ringing--kisses from me! we start. I must sign.
+
+             “Dahlia.”
+
+By the reading of this letter, Rhoda was caught vividly to the shore,
+and saw her sister borne away in the boat to the strange countries;
+she travelled with her, following her with gliding speed through a
+multiplicity of shifting scenes, opal landscapes, full of fire and
+dreams, and in all of them a great bell towered. “Oh, my sweet! my own
+beauty!” she cried in Dahlia's language. Meeting Mrs. Sumfit, she called
+her “Mother Dumpling,” as Dahlia did of old, affectionately, and kissed
+her, and ran on to Master Gammon, who was tramping leisurely on to the
+oatfield lying on toward the millholms.
+
+“My sister sends you her love,” she said brightly to the old man. Master
+Gammon responded with no remarkable flash of his eyes, and merely opened
+his mouth and shut it, as when a duck divides its bill, but fails to
+emit the customary quack.
+
+“And to you, little pigs; and to you, Mulberry; and you, Dapple; and
+you, and you, and you.”
+
+Rhoda nodded round to all the citizens of the farmyard; and so eased
+her heart of its laughing bubbles. After which, she fell to a meditative
+walk of demurer joy, and had a regret. It was simply that Dahlia's hurry
+in signing the letter, had robbed her of the delight of seeing “Dahlia
+Ayrton” written proudly out, with its wonderful signification of the
+change in her life.
+
+That was a trifling matter; yet Rhoda felt the letter was not complete
+in the absence of the bridal name. She fancied Dahlia to have meant,
+perhaps, that she was Dahlia to her as of old, and not a stranger.
+“Dahlia ever; Dahlia nothing else for you,” she heard her sister say.
+But how delicious and mournful, how terrible and sweet with meaning
+would “Dahlia Ayrton,” the new name in the dear handwriting, have
+looked! “And I have a brother-in-law,” she thought, and her cheeks
+tingled. The banks of fern and foxglove, and the green young oaks
+fringing the copse, grew rich in colour, as she reflected that this
+beloved unknown husband of her sister embraced her and her father as
+well; even the old bent beggarman on the sandy ridge, though he had a
+starved frame and carried pitiless faggots, stood illumined in a soft
+warmth. Rhoda could not go back to the house.
+
+It chanced that the farmer that morning had been smitten with the
+virtue of his wife's opinion of Robert, and her parting recommendation
+concerning him.
+
+“Have you a mind to either one of my two girls?” he put the question
+bluntly, finding himself alone with Robert.
+
+Robert took a quick breath, and replied, “I have.”
+
+“Then make your choice,” said the farmer, and tried to go about his
+business, but hung near Robert in the fields till he had asked: “Which
+one is it, my boy?”
+
+Robert turned a blade of wheat in his mouth.
+
+“I think I shall leave her to tell that,” was his answer.
+
+“Why, don't ye know which one you prefer to choose, man?” quoth Mr.
+Fleming.
+
+“I mayn't know whether she prefers to choose me,” said Robert.
+
+The farmer smiled.
+
+“You never can exactly reckon about them; that's true.”
+
+He was led to think: “Dahlia's the lass;” seeing that Robert had not had
+many opportunities of speaking with her.
+
+“When my girls are wives, they'll do their work in the house,” he
+pursued. “They may have a little bit o' property in land, ye know, and
+they may have a share in--in gold. That's not to be reckoned on. We're
+an old family, Robert, and I suppose we've our pride somewhere down.
+Anyhow, you can't look on my girls and not own they're superior girls.
+I've no notion of forcing them to clean, and dish up, and do dairying,
+if it's not to their turn. They're handy with th' needle. They dress
+conformably, and do the millinery themselves. And I know they say their
+prayers of a night. That I know, if that's a comfort to ye, and it
+should be, Robert. For pray, and you can't go far wrong; and it's
+particularly good for girls. I'll say no more.”
+
+At the dinner-table, Rhoda was not present. Mr. Fleming fidgeted,
+blamed her and excused her, but as Robert appeared indifferent about her
+absence, he was confirmed in his idea that Dahlia attracted his fancy.
+
+They had finished dinner, and Master Gammon had risen, when a voice
+immediately recognized as the voice of Anthony Hackbut was heard in the
+front part of the house. Mr. Fleming went round to him with a dismayed
+face.
+
+“Lord!” said Mrs. Sumfit, “how I tremble!”
+
+Robert, too, looked grave, and got away from the house. The dread of
+evil news of Dahlia was common to them all; yet none had mentioned it,
+Robert conceiving that it would be impertinence on his part to do so;
+the farmer, that the policy of permitting Dahlia's continued residence
+in London concealed the peril; while Mrs. Sumfit flatly defied the
+threatening of a mischance to one so sweet and fair, and her favourite.
+It is the insincerity of persons of their class; but one need not lay
+stress on the wilfulness of uneducated minds. Robert walked across the
+fields, walking like a man with an object in view. As he dropped
+into one of the close lanes which led up to Wrexby Hall, he saw Rhoda
+standing under an oak, her white morning-dress covered with sun-spots.
+His impulse was to turn back, the problem, how to speak to her, not
+being settled within him. But the next moment his blood chilled; for he
+had perceived, though he had not felt simultaneously, that two gentlemen
+were standing near her, addressing her. And it was likewise manifest
+that she listened to them. These presently raised their hats and
+disappeared. Rhoda came on toward Robert.
+
+“You have forgotten your dinner,” he said, with a queer sense of shame
+at dragging in the mention of that meal.
+
+“I have been too happy to eat,” Rhoda replied.
+
+Robert glanced up the lane, but she gave no heed to this indication, and
+asked: “Has uncle come?”
+
+“Did you expect him?”
+
+“I thought he would come.”
+
+“What has made you happy?”
+
+“You will hear from uncle.”
+
+“Shall I go and hear what those--”
+
+Robert checked himself, but it would have been better had he spoken
+out. Rhoda's face, from a light of interrogation, lowered its look to
+contempt.
+
+She did not affect the feminine simplicity which can so prettily
+misunderstand and put by an implied accusation of that nature. Doubtless
+her sharp instinct served her by telling her that her contempt would
+hurt him shrewdly now. The foolishness of a man having much to say to
+a woman, and not knowing how or where the beginning of it might be, was
+perceptible about him. A shout from her father at the open garden-gate,
+hurried on Rhoda to meet him. Old Anthony was at Mr. Fleming's elbow.
+
+“You know it? You have her letter, father?” said Rhoda, gaily, beneath
+the shadow of his forehead.
+
+“And a Queen of the Egyptians is what you might have been,” said
+Anthony, with a speculating eye upon Rhoda's dark bright face.
+
+Rhoda put out her hand to him, but kept her gaze on her father.
+
+William Fleeting relaxed the knot of his brows and lifted the letter.
+
+“Listen all! This is from a daughter to her father.”
+
+And he read, oddly accentuating the first syllables of the sentences:--
+
+   Dear Father,--
+
+   “My husband will bring me to see you when I return to dear England.
+   I ought to have concealed nothing, I know. Try to forgive me. I
+   hope you will. I shall always think of you. God bless you!
+
+               “I am,
+          “Ever with respect,
+
+             “Your dearly loving Daughter,
+
+                  “Dahlia.”
+
+“Dahlia Blank!” said the farmer, turning his look from face to face.
+
+A deep fire of emotion was evidently agitating him, for the letter
+rustled in his hand, and his voice was uneven. Of this, no sign was
+given by his inexpressive features. The round brown eyes and the ruddy
+varnish on his cheeks were a mask upon grief, if not also upon joy.
+
+“Dahlia--what? What's her name?” he resumed. “Here--'my husband will
+bring me to see you'--who's her husband? Has he got a name? And a blank
+envelope to her uncle here, who's kept her in comfort for so long! And
+this is all she writes to me! Will any one spell out the meaning of it?”
+
+“Dahlia was in great haste, father,” said Rhoda.
+
+“Oh, ay, you!--you're the one, I know,” returned the farmer. “It's
+sister and sister, with you.”
+
+“But she was very, very hurried, father. I have a letter from her, and I
+have only 'Dahlia' written at the end--no other name.”
+
+“And you suspect no harm of your sister.”
+
+“Father, how can I imagine any kind of harm?”
+
+“That letter, my girl, sticks to my skull, as though it meant to say,
+'You've not understood me yet.' I've read it a matter of twenty times,
+and I'm no nearer to the truth of it. But, if she's lying, here in this
+letter, what's she walking on? How long are we to wait for to hear? I
+give you my word, Robert, I'm feeling for you as I am for myself. Or,
+wasn't it that one? Is it this one?” He levelled his finger at Rhoda.
+“In any case, Robert, you'll feel for me as a father. I'm shut in a dark
+room with the candle blown out. I've heard of a sort of fear you have
+in that dilemmer, lest you should lay your fingers on edges of sharp
+knives, and if I think a step--if I go thinking a step, and feel my way,
+I do cut myself, and I bleed, I do. Robert, just take and say, it wasn't
+that one.”
+
+Such a statement would carry with it the confession that it was this
+one for whom he cared this scornful one, this jilt, this brazen girl who
+could make appointments with gentlemen, or suffer them to speak to her,
+and subsequently look at him with innocence and with anger.
+
+“Believe me, Mr. Fleming, I feel for you as much as a man can,” he said,
+uneasily, swaying half round as he spoke.
+
+“Do you suspect anything bad?” The farmer repeated the question, like
+one who only wanted a confirmation of his own suspicions to see the fact
+built up. “Robert, does this look like the letter of a married woman? Is
+it daughter-like--eh, man? Help another: I can't think for myself--she
+ties my hands. Speak out.”
+
+Robert set his eyes on Rhoda. He would have given much to have been able
+to utter, “I do.” Her face was like an eager flower straining for light;
+the very beauty of it swelled his jealous passion, and he flattered
+himself with his incapacity to speak an abject lie to propitiate her.
+
+“She says she is married. We're bound to accept what she says.”
+
+That was his answer.
+
+“Is she married?” thundered the farmer. “Has she been and disgraced her
+mother in her grave? What am I to think? She's my flesh and blood. Is
+she--”
+
+“Oh, hush, father!” Rhoda laid her hand on his arm. “What doubt can
+there be of Dahlia? You have forgotten that she is always truthful. Come
+away. It is shameful to stand here and listen to unmanly things.”
+
+She turned a face of ashes upon Robert.
+
+“Come away, father. She is our own. She is my sister. A doubt of her is
+an insult to us.”
+
+“But Robert don't doubt her--eh?” The farmer was already half distracted
+from his suspicions. “Have you any real doubt about the girl, Robert?”
+
+“I don't trust myself to doubt anybody,” said Robert.
+
+“You don't cast us off, my boy?”
+
+“I'm a labourer on the farm,” said Robert, and walked away.
+
+“He's got reason to feel this more 'n the rest of us, poor lad! It's a
+blow to him.” With which the farmer struck his hand on Rhoda's shoulder.
+
+“I wish he'd set his heart on a safer young woman.”
+
+Rhoda's shudder of revulsion was visible as she put her mouth up to kiss
+her father's cheek.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+That is Wrexby Hall, upon the hill between Fenhurst and Wrexby: the
+white square mansion, with the lower drawing-room windows one full
+bow of glass against the sunlight, and great single trees spotting the
+distant green slopes. From Queen Anne's Farm you could read the hour by
+the stretching of their shadows. Squire Blancove, who lived there, was
+an irascible, gouty man, out of humour with his time, and beginning,
+alas for him! to lose all true faith in his Port, though, to do him
+justice, he wrestled hard with this great heresy. His friends perceived
+the decay in his belief sooner than he did himself. He was sour in the
+evening as in the morning. There was no chirp in him when the bottle
+went round. He had never one hour of a humane mood to be reckoned on
+now. The day, indeed, is sad when we see the skeleton of the mistress by
+whom we suffer, but cannot abandon her. The squire drank, knowing that
+the issue would be the terrific, curse-begetting twinge in his foot;
+but, as he said, he was a man who stuck to his habits. It was over his
+Port that he had quarrelled with his rector on the subject of hopeful
+Algernon, and the system he adopted with that young man. This incident
+has something to do with Rhoda's story, for it was the reason why Mrs.
+Lovell went to Wrexby Church, the spirit of that lady leading her to
+follow her own impulses, which were mostly in opposition. So, when
+perchance she visited the Hall, she chose not to accompany the squire
+and his subservient guests to Fenhurst, but made a point of going down
+to the unoccupied Wrexby pew. She was a beauty, and therefore powerful;
+otherwise her act of nonconformity would have produced bad blood between
+her and the squire.
+
+It was enough to have done so in any case; for now, instead of sitting
+at home comfortably, and reading off the week's chronicle of sport while
+he nursed his leg, the unfortunate gentleman had to be up and away to
+Fenhurst every Sunday morning, or who would have known that the old
+cause of his general abstention from Sabbath services lay in the
+detestable doctrine of Wrexby's rector?
+
+Mrs. Lovell was now at the Hall, and it was Sunday morning after
+breakfast. The lady stood like a rival head among the other guests,
+listening, gloved and bonneted, to the bells of Wrexby, West of the
+hills, and of Fenhurst, Northeast. The squire came in to them, groaning
+over his boots, cross with his fragile wife, and in every mood for
+satire, except to receive it.
+
+“How difficult it is to be gouty and good!” murmured Mrs. Lovell to the
+person next her.
+
+“Well,” said the squire, singling out his enemy, “you're going to that
+fellow, I suppose, as usual--eh?”
+
+“Not 'as usual,'” replied Mrs. Lovell, sweetly; “I wish it were!”
+
+“Wish it were, do you?--you find him so entertaining? Has he got to
+talking of the fashions?”
+
+“He talks properly; I don't ask for more.” Mrs. Lovell assumed an air of
+meekness under persecution.
+
+“I thought you were Low Church.”
+
+“Lowly of the Church, I trust you thought,” she corrected him. “But, for
+that matter, any discourse, plainly delivered, will suit me.”
+
+“His elocution's perfect,” said the squire; “that is, before dinner.”
+
+“I have only to do with him before dinner, you know.”
+
+“Well, I've ordered a carriage out for you.”
+
+“That is very honourable and kind.”
+
+“It would be kinder if I contrived to keep you away from the fellow.”
+
+“Would it not be kinder to yourself,” Mrs. Lovell swam forward to him
+in all tenderness, taking his hands, and fixing the swimming blue of
+her soft eyes upon him pathetically, “if you took your paper and your
+slippers, and awaited our return?”
+
+The squire felt the circulating smile about the room. He rebuked the
+woman's audacity with a frown; “Tis my duty to set an example,” he said,
+his gouty foot and irritable temper now meeting in a common fire.
+
+“Since you are setting an example,” rejoined the exquisite widow, “I
+have nothing more to say.”
+
+The squire looked what he dared not speak. A woman has half, a beauty
+has all, the world with her when she is self-contained, and holds her
+place; and it was evident that Mrs. Lovell was not one to abandon her
+advantages.
+
+He snapped round for a victim, trying his wife first. Then his eyes
+rested upon Algernon.
+
+“Well, here we are; which of us will you take?” he asked Mrs. Lovell in
+blank irony.
+
+“I have engaged my cavalier, who is waiting, and will be as devout as
+possible.” Mrs. Lovell gave Algernon a smile.
+
+“I thought I hit upon the man,” growled the squire. “You're going in to
+Wrexby, sir! Oh, go, by all means, and I shan't be astonished at what
+comes of it. Like teacher, like pupil!”
+
+“There!” Mrs. Lovell gave Algernon another smile. “You have to bear the
+sins of your rector, as well as your own. Can you support it?”
+
+The flimsy fine dialogue was a little above Algernon's level in the
+society of ladies; but he muttered, bowing, that he would endeavour to
+support it, with Mrs. Lovell's help, and this did well enough; after
+which, the slight strain on the intellects of the assemblage relaxed,
+and ordinary topics were discussed. The carriages came round to the
+door; gloves, parasols, and scent-bottles were securely grasped;
+whereupon the squire, standing bare-headed on the steps, insisted upon
+seeing the party of the opposition off first, and waited to hand Mrs.
+Lovell into her carriage, an ironic gallantry accepted by the lady with
+serenity befitting the sacred hour.
+
+“Ah! my pencil, to mark the text for you, squire,” she said, taking her
+seat; and Algernon turned back at her bidding, to get a pencil; and she,
+presenting a most harmonious aspect in the lovely landscape, reclined in
+the carriage as if, like the sweet summer air, she too were quieted by
+those holy bells, while the squire stood, fuming, bareheaded, and with
+boiling blood, just within the bounds of decorum on the steps. She was
+more than his match.
+
+She was more than a match for most; and it was not a secret. Algernon
+knew it as well as Edward, or any one. She was a terror to the soul
+of the youth, and an attraction. Her smile was the richest flattery
+he could feel; the richer, perhaps, from his feeling it to be a thing
+impossible to fix. He had heard tales of her; he remembered Edward's
+warning; but he was very humbly sitting with her now, and very happy.
+
+“I'm in for it,” he said to his fair companion; “no cheque for me next
+quarter, and no chance of an increase. He'll tell me I've got a salary.
+A salary! Good Lord! what a man comes to! I've done for myself with the
+squire for a year.”
+
+“You must think whether you have compensation,” said the lady, and he
+received it in a cousinly squeeze of his hand.
+
+He was about to raise the lank white hand to his lips.
+
+“Ah!” she said, “there would be no compensation to me, if that were
+seen;” and her dainty hand was withdrawn. “Now, tell me,” she changed
+her tone. “How do the loves prosper?”
+
+Algernon begged her not to call them 'loves.' She nodded and smiled.
+
+“Your artistic admirations,” she observed. “I am to see her in church,
+am I not? Only, my dear Algy, don't go too far. Rustic beauties are as
+dangerous as Court Princesses. Where was it you saw her first?”
+
+“At the Bank,” said Algernon.
+
+“Really! at the Bank! So your time there is not absolutely wasted. What
+brought her to London, I wonder?”
+
+“Well, she has an old uncle, a queer old fellow, and he's a sort of
+porter--money porter--in the Bank, awfully honest, or he might half
+break it some fine day, if he chose to cut and run. She's got a sister,
+prettier than this girl, the fellows say; I've never seen her. I expect
+I've seen a portrait of her, though.”
+
+“Ah!” Mrs. Lovell musically drew him on. “Was she dark, too?”
+
+“No, she's fair. At least, she is in her portrait.”
+
+“Brown hair; hazel eyes?”
+
+“Oh--oh! You guess, do you?”
+
+“I guess nothing, though it seems profitable. That Yankee betting man
+'guesses,' and what heaps of money he makes by it!”
+
+“I wish I did,” Algernon sighed. “All my guessing and reckoning goes
+wrong. I'm safe for next Spring, that's one comfort. I shall make twenty
+thousand next Spring.”
+
+“On Templemore?”
+
+“That's the horse. I've got a little on Tenpenny Nail as well. But
+I'm quite safe on Templemore; unless the Evil Principle comes into the
+field.”
+
+“Is he so sure to be against you, if he does appear?” said Mrs. Lovell.
+
+“Certain!” ejaculated Algernon, in honest indignation.
+
+“Well, Algy, I don't like to have him on my side. Perhaps I will take a
+share in your luck, to make it--? to make it?”--She played prettily as
+a mistress teasing her lap-dog to jump for a morsel; adding: “Oh! Algy,
+you are not a Frenchman. To make it divine, sir! you have missed your
+chance.”
+
+“There's one chance I shouldn't like to miss,” said the youth.
+
+“Then, do not mention it,” she counselled him. “And, seriously, I will
+take a part of your risk. I fear I am lucky, which is ruinous. We will
+settle that, by-and-by. Do you know, Algy, the most expensive position
+in the world is a widow's.”
+
+“You needn't be one very long,” growled he.
+
+“I'm so wretchedly fastidious, don't you see? And it's best not to sigh
+when we're talking of business, if you'll take me for a guide. So, the
+old man brought this pretty rustic Miss Rhoda to the Bank?”
+
+“Once,” said Algernon. “Just as he did with her sister. He's proud of
+his nieces; shows them and then hides them. The fellows at the Bank
+never saw her again.”
+
+“Her name is--?”
+
+“Dahlia.”
+
+“Ah, yes!--Dahlia. Extremely pretty. There are brown dahlias--dahlias
+of all colours. And the portrait of this fair creature hangs up in your
+chambers in town?”
+
+“Don't call them my chambers,” Algernon protested.
+
+“Your cousin's, if you like. Probably Edward happened to be at the Bank
+when fair Dahlia paid her visit. Once seems to have been enough for both
+of you.”
+
+Algernon was unread in the hearts of women, and imagined that Edward's
+defection from Mrs. Lovell's sway had deprived him of the lady's
+sympathy and interest in his fortunes.
+
+“Poor old Ned's in some scrape, I think,” he said.
+
+“Where is he?” the lady asked, languidly.
+
+“Paris.”
+
+“Paris? How very odd! And out of the season, in this hot weather. It's
+enough to lead me to dream that he has gone over--one cannot realize
+why.”
+
+“Upon my honour!” Algernon thumped on his knee; “by jingo!” he adopted
+a less compromising interjection; “Ned's fool enough. My idea is, he's
+gone and got married.”
+
+Mrs. Lovell was lying back with the neglectful grace of incontestable
+beauty; not a line to wrinkle her smooth soft features. For one sharp
+instant her face was all edged and puckered, like the face of a fair
+witch. She sat upright.
+
+“Married! But how can that be when we none of us have heard a word of
+it?”
+
+“I daresay you haven't,” said Algernon; “and not likely to. Ned's
+the closest fellow of my acquaintance. He hasn't taken me into his
+confidence, you maybe sure; he knows I'm too leaky. There's no bore like
+a secret! I've come to my conclusion in this affair by putting together
+a lot of little incidents and adding them up. First, I believe he was
+at the Bank when that fair girl was seen there. Secondly, from the
+description the fellows give of her, I should take her to be the
+original of the portrait. Next, I know that Rhoda has a fair sister who
+has run for it. And last, Rhoda has had a letter from her sister, to say
+she's away to the Continent and is married. Ned's in Paris. Those are my
+facts, and I give you my reckoning of them.”
+
+Mrs. Lovell gazed at Algernon for one long meditative moment.
+
+“Impossible,” she exclaimed. “Edward has more brains than heart.” And
+now the lady's face was scarlet. “How did this Rhoda, with her absurd
+name, think of meeting you to tell you such stuff? Indeed, there's a
+simplicity in some of these young women--” She said the remainder to
+herself.
+
+“She's really very innocent and good,” Algernon defended Rhoda, “she is.
+There isn't a particle of nonsense in her. I first met her in town, as I
+stated, at the Bank; just on the steps, and we remembered I had called a
+cab for her a little before; and I met her again by accident yesterday.”
+
+“You are only a boy in their hands, my cousin Algy!” said Mrs. Lovell.
+
+Algernon nodded with a self-defensive knowingness. “I fancy there's no
+doubt her sister has written to her that she's married. It's certain she
+has. She's a blunt sort of girl; not one to lie, not even for a sister
+or a lover, unless she had previously made up her mind to it. In that
+case, she wouldn't stick at much.”
+
+“But, do you know,” said Mrs. Lovell--“do you know that Edward's father
+would be worse than yours over such an act of folly? He would call it
+an offence against common sense, and have no mercy for it. He would be
+vindictive on principle. This story of yours cannot be true. Nothing
+reconciles it.”
+
+“Oh, Sir Billy will be rusty; that stands to reason,” Algernon assented.
+“It mayn't be true. I hope it isn't. But Ned has a madness for fair
+women. He'd do anything on earth for them. He loses his head entirely.”
+
+“That he may have been imprudent--” Mrs. Lovell thus blushingly hinted
+at the lesser sin of his deceiving and ruining the girl.
+
+“Oh, it needn't be true,” said Algernon; and with meaning, “Who's to
+blame if it is?”
+
+Mrs. Lovell again reddened. She touched Algernon's fingers.
+
+“His friends mustn't forsake him, in any case.”
+
+“By Jove! you are the right sort of woman,” cried Algernon.
+
+It was beyond his faculties to divine that her not forsaking of Edward
+might haply come to mean something disastrous to him. The touch of Mrs.
+Lovell's hand made him forget Rhoda in a twinkling. He detained it,
+audaciously, even until she frowned with petulance and stamped her foot.
+
+There was over her bosom a large cameo-brooch, representing a tomb under
+a palm-tree, and the figure of a veiled woman with her head bowed upon
+the tomb. This brooch was falling, when Algernon caught it. The pin tore
+his finger, and in the energy of pain he dashed the brooch to her feet,
+with immediate outcries of violent disgust at himself and exclamations
+for pardon. He picked up the brooch. It was open. A strange,
+discoloured, folded substance lay on the floor of the carriage. Mrs.
+Lovell gazed down at it, and then at him, ghastly pale. He lifted it
+by one corner, and the diminutive folded squares came out, revealing a
+strip of red-stained handkerchief.
+
+Mrs. Lovell grasped it, and thrust it out of sight.
+
+She spoke as they approached the church-door: “Mention nothing of this
+to a soul, or you forfeit my friendship for ever.”
+
+When they alighted, she was smiling in her old affable manner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Some consideration for Robert, after all, as being the man who loved
+her, sufficed to give him rank as a more elevated kind of criminal
+in Rhoda's sight, and exquisite torture of the highest form was
+administered to him. Her faith in her sister was so sure that she could
+half pardon him for the momentary harm he had done to Dahlia with her
+father; but, judging him by the lofty standard of one who craved to be
+her husband, she could not pardon his unmanly hesitation and manner of
+speech. The old and deep grievance in her heart as to what men thought
+of women, and as to the harshness of men, was stirred constantly by the
+remembrance of his irresolute looks, and his not having dared to speak
+nobly for Dahlia, even though he might have had, the knavery to think
+evil. As the case stood, there was still mischief to counteract.
+Her father had willingly swallowed a drug, but his suspicions only
+slumbered, and she could not instil her own vivid hopefulness and trust
+into him. Letters from Dahlia came regularly. The first, from Lausanne,
+favoured Rhoda's conception of her as of a happy spirit resting at
+celestial stages of her ascent upward through spheres of ecstacy. Dahlia
+could see the snow-mountains in a flying glimpse; and again, peacefully
+seated, she could see the snow-mountains reflected in clear blue waters
+from her window, which, Rhoda thought, must be like heaven. On these
+inspired occasions, Robert presented the form of a malignant serpent in
+her ideas. Then Dahlia made excursions upon glaciers with her beloved,
+her helpmate, and had slippings and tumblings--little earthly casualties
+which gave a charming sense of reality to her otherwise miraculous
+flight. The Alps were crossed: Italy was beheld. A profusion of “Oh's!”
+ described Dahlia's impressions of Italy; and “Oh! the heat!” showed her
+to be mortal, notwithstanding the sublime exclamations. Como received
+the blissful couple. Dahlia wrote from Como:--
+
+   “Tell father that gentlemen in my Edward's position cannot always
+   immediately proclaim their marriage to the world. There are
+   reasons. I hope he has been very angry with me: then it will be
+   soon over, and we shall be--but I cannot look back. I shall not
+   look back till we reach Venice. At Venice, I know I shall see you
+   all as clear as day; but I cannot even remember the features of my
+   darling here.”
+
+Her Christian name was still her only signature.
+
+The thin blue-and-pink paper, and the foreign postmarks--testifications
+to Dahlia's journey not being a fictitious event, had a singular
+deliciousness for the solitary girl at the Farm. At times, as she turned
+them over, she was startled by the intoxication of her sentiments, for
+the wild thought would come, that many, many whose passionate hearts she
+could feel as her own, were ready to abandon principle and the bondage
+to the hereafter, for such a long delicious gulp of divine life. Rhoda
+found herself more than once brooding on the possible case that Dahlia
+had done this thing.
+
+The fit of languor came on her unawares, probing at her weakness,
+and blinding her to the laws and duties of earth, until her conscious
+womanhood checked it, and she sprang from the vision in a spasm of
+terror, not knowing how far she had fallen.
+
+After such personal experiences, she suffered great longings to be with
+her sister, that the touch of her hand, the gaze of her eyes, the tone
+of Dahlia's voice, might make her sure of her sister's safety.
+
+Rhoda's devotions in church were frequently distracted by the occupants
+of the Blancove pew. Mrs. Lovell had the habit of looking at her with
+an extraordinary directness, an expressionless dissecting scrutiny, that
+was bewildering and confusing to the country damsel. Algernon likewise
+bestowed marked attention on her. Some curious hints had been thrown out
+to her by this young gentleman on the day when he ventured to speak
+to her in the lane, which led her to fancy distantly that he had some
+acquaintance with Dahlia's husband, or that he had heard of Dahlia.
+
+It was clear to Rhoda that Algernon sought another interview. He
+appeared in the neighbourhood of the farm on Saturdays, and on Sundays
+he was present in the church, sometimes with Mrs. Lovell, and sometimes
+without a companion. His appearance sent her quick wits travelling
+through many scales of possible conduct: and they struck one ringing
+note:--she thought that by the aid of this gentleman a lesson might be
+given to Robert's mean nature. It was part of Robert's punishment to see
+that she was not unconscious of Algernon's admiration.
+
+The first letter from Venice consisted of a series of interjections in
+praise of the poetry of gondolas, varied by allusions to the sad smell
+of the low tide water, and the amazing quality of the heat; and then
+Dahlia wrote more composedly:--
+
+“Titian the painter lived here, and painted ladies, who sat to him
+without a bit of garment on, and indeed, my darling, I often think it
+was more comfortable for the model than for the artist. Even modesty
+seems too hot a covering for human creatures here. The sun strikes me
+down. I am ceasing to have a complexion. It is pleasant to know that my
+Edward is still proud of me. He has made acquaintance with some of the
+officers here, and seems pleased at the compliments they pay me.
+
+“They have nice manners, and white uniforms that fit them like a
+kid glove. I am Edward's 'resplendent wife.' A colonel of one of
+the regiments invited him to dinner (speaking English), 'with your
+resplendent wife.' Edward has no mercy for errors of language, and he
+would not take me. Ah! who knows how strange men are! Never think
+of being happy unless you can always be blind. I see you all at
+home--Mother Dumpling and all--as I thought I should when I was to come
+to Venice.
+
+“Persuade--do persuade father that everything will be well. Some persons
+are to be trusted. Make him feel it. I know that I am life itself to
+Edward. He has lived as men do, and he can judge, and he knows that
+there never was a wife who brought a heart to her husband like mine to
+him. He wants to think, or he wants to smoke, and he leaves me; but, oh!
+when he returns, he can scarcely believe that he has me, his joy is so
+great. He looks like a glad thankful child, and he has the manliest of
+faces. It is generally thoughtful; you might think it hard, at first
+sight.
+
+“But you must be beautiful to please some men. You will laugh--I have
+really got the habit of talking to my face and all myself in the glass.
+Rhoda would think me cracked. And it is really true that I was never so
+humble about my good looks. You used to spoil me at home--you and that
+wicked old Mother Dumpling, and our own dear mother, Rhoda--oh! mother,
+mother! I wish I had always thought of you looking down on me! You made
+me so vain--much more vain than I let you see I was. There were
+times when it is quite true I thought myself a princess. I am not
+worse-looking now, but I suppose I desire to be so beautiful that
+nothing satisfies me.
+
+“A spot on my neck gives me a dreadful fright. If my hair comes out much
+when I comb it, it sets my heart beating; and it is a daily misery to
+me that my hands are larger than they should be, belonging to Edward's
+'resplendent wife.' I thank heaven that you and I always saw the
+necessity of being careful of our fingernails. My feet are of moderate
+size, though they are not French feet, as Edward says. No: I shall never
+dance. He sent me to the dancing-master in London, but it was too late.
+But I have been complimented on my walking, and that seems to please
+Edward. He does not dance (or mind dancing) himself, only he does not
+like me to miss one perfection. It is his love. Oh! if I have seemed to
+let you suppose he does not love me as ever, do not think it. He is most
+tender and true to me. Addio! I am signora, you are signorina.
+
+“They have such pretty manners to us over here. Edward says they think
+less of women: I say they think more. But I feel he must be right. Oh,
+my dear, cold, loving, innocent sister! put out your arms; I shall feel
+them round me, and kiss you, kiss you for ever!”
+
+Onward from city to city, like a radiation of light from the old
+farm-house, where so little of it was, Dahlia continued her journey; and
+then, without a warning, with only a word to say that she neared Rome,
+the letters ceased. A chord snapped in Rhoda's bosom. While she was
+hearing from her sister almost weekly, her confidence was buoyed on a
+summer sea. In the silence it fell upon a dread. She had no answer
+in her mind for her father's unspoken dissatisfaction, and she had to
+conceal her cruel anxiety. There was an interval of two months: a blank
+fell charged with apprehension that was like the humming of a toneless
+wind before storm; worse than the storm, for any human thing to bear.
+
+Rhoda was unaware that Robert, who rarely looked at her, and never
+sought to speak a word to her when by chance they met and were alone,
+studied each change in her face, and read its signs. He was left to his
+own interpretation of them, but the signs he knew accurately. He knew
+that her pride had sunk, and that her heart was desolate. He believed
+that she had discovered her sister's misery.
+
+One day a letter arrived that gave her no joyful colouring, though it
+sent colour to her cheeks. She opened it, evidently not knowing the
+handwriting; her eyes ran down the lines hurriedly. After a time she
+went upstairs for her bonnet.
+
+At the stile leading into that lane where Robert had previously seen
+her, she was stopped by him.
+
+“No farther,” was all that he said, and he was one who could have
+interdicted men from advancing.
+
+“Why may I not go by you?” said Rhoda, with a woman's affected
+humbleness.
+
+Robert joined his hands. “You go no farther, Miss Rhoda, unless you take
+me with you.”
+
+“I shall not do that, Mr. Robert.”
+
+“Then you had better return home.”
+
+“Will you let me know what reasons you have for behaving in this manner
+to me?”
+
+“I'll let you know by-and-by,” said Robert. “At present, You'll let the
+stronger of the two have his way.”
+
+He had always been so meek and gentle and inoffensive, that her contempt
+had enjoyed free play, and had never risen to anger; but violent anger
+now surged against him, and she cried, “Do you dare to touch me?” trying
+to force her passage by.
+
+Robert caught her softly by the wrist. There stood at the same time a
+full-statured strength of will in his eyes, under which her own fainted.
+
+“Go back,” he said; and she turned that he might not see her tears of
+irritation and shame. He was treating her as a child; but it was to
+herself alone that she could defend herself. She marvelled that when she
+thought of an outspoken complaint against him, her conscience gave her
+no support.
+
+“Is there no freedom for a woman at all in this world?” Rhoda framed the
+bitter question.
+
+Rhoda went back as she had come. Algernon Blancove did the same. Between
+them stood Robert, thinking, “Now I have made that girl hate me for
+life.”
+
+It was in November that a letter, dated from London, reached the farm,
+quickening Rhoda's blood anew. “I am alive,” said Dahlia; and she said
+little more, except that she was waiting to see her sister, and bade her
+urgently to travel up alone. Her father consented to her doing so. After
+a consultation with Robert, however, he determined to accompany her.
+
+“She can't object to see me too,” said the farmer; and Rhoda answered
+“No.” But her face was bronze to Robert when they took their departure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Old Anthony was expecting them in London. It was now winter, and the
+season for theatres; so, to show his brother-in-law the fun of a theatre
+was one part of his projected hospitality, if Mr. Fleming should haply
+take the hint that he must pay for himself.
+
+Anthony had laid out money to welcome the farmer, and was shy and
+fidgety as a girl who anticipates the visit of a promising youth, over
+his fat goose for next day's dinner, and his shrimps for this day's tea,
+and his red slice of strong cheese, called of Cheshire by the reckless
+butter-man, for supper.
+
+He knew that both Dahlia and Rhoda must have told the farmer that he
+was not high up in Boyne's Bank, and it fretted him to think that the
+mysterious respect entertained for his wealth by the farmer, which
+delighted him with a novel emotion, might be dashed by what the farmer
+would behold.
+
+During his last visit to the farm, Anthony had talked of the Funds more
+suggestively than usual. He had alluded to his own dealings in them, and
+to what he would do and would not do under certain contingencies; thus
+shadowing out, dimly luminous and immense, what he could do, if his
+sagacity prompted the adventure. The farmer had listened through the
+buzzing of his uncertain grief, only sighing for answer. “If ever you
+come up to London, brother William John,” said Anthony, “you mind you go
+about arm-in-arm with me, or you'll be judging by appearances, and says
+you, 'Lor', what a thousander fellow this is!' and 'What a millioner
+fellow that is!' You'll be giving your millions and your thousands
+to the wrong people, when they haven't got a penny. All London 'll be
+topsy-turvy to you, unless you've got a guide, and he'll show you a
+shabby-coated, head-in-the-gutter old man 'll buy up the lot. Everybody
+that doesn't know him says--look at him! but they that knows him--hats
+off, I can tell you. And talk about lords! We don't mind their coming
+into the city, but they know the scent of cash. I've had a lord take off
+his hat to me. It's a fact, I have.”
+
+In spite of the caution Anthony had impressed upon his country relative,
+that he should not judge by appearances, he was nevertheless under an
+apprehension that the farmer's opinion of him, and the luxurious, almost
+voluptuous, enjoyment he had of it, were in peril. When he had purchased
+the well-probed fat goose, the shrimps, and the cheese, he was only
+half-satisfied. His ideas shot boldly at a bottle of wine, and he
+employed a summer-lighted evening in going a round of wine-merchants'
+placards, and looking out for the cheapest bottle he could buy. And
+he would have bought one--he had sealing-wax of his own and could have
+stamped it with the office-stamp of Boyne's Bank for that matter, to
+make it as dignified and costly as the vaunted red seals and green seals
+of the placards--he would have bought one, had he not, by one of his
+lucky mental illuminations, recollected that it was within his power to
+procure an order to taste wine at the Docks, where you may get as much
+wine as you like out of big sixpenny glasses, and try cask after cask,
+walking down gas-lit paths between the huge bellies of wine which groan
+to be tapped and tried, that men may know them. The idea of paying
+two shillings and sixpence for one miserable bottle vanished at the
+richly-coloured prospect. “That'll show him something of what London
+is,” thought Anthony; and a companion thought told him in addition
+that the farmer, with a skinful of wine, would emerge into the open
+air imagining no small things of the man who could gain admittance into
+those marvellous caverns. “By George! it's like a boy's story-book,”
+ cried Anthony, in his soul, and he chuckled over the vision of the
+farmer's amazement--acted it with his arms extended, and his hat
+unseated, and plunged into wheezy fits of laughter.
+
+He met his guests at the station. Mr. Fleming was soberly attired in
+what, to Anthony's London eye, was a curiosity costume; but the broad
+brim of the hat, the square cut of the brown coat, and the leggings,
+struck him as being very respectable, and worthy of a presentation at
+any Bank in London.
+
+“You stick to a leather purse, brother William John?” he inquired, with
+an artistic sentiment for things in keeping.
+
+“I do,” said the farmer, feeling seriously at the button over it.
+
+“All right; I shan't ask ye to show it in the street,” Anthony rejoined,
+and smote Rhoda's hand as it hung.
+
+“Glad to see your old uncle--are ye?”
+
+Rhoda replied quietly that she was, but had come with the principal
+object of seeing her sister.
+
+“There!” cried Anthony, “you never get a compliment out of this gal.
+She gives ye the nut, and you're to crack it, and there maybe, or there
+mayn't be, a kernel inside--she don't care.”
+
+“But there ain't much in it!” the farmer ejaculated, withdrawing
+his fingers from the button they had been teasing for security since
+Anthony's question about the purse.
+
+“Not much--eh! brother William John?” Anthony threw up a puzzled look.
+“Not much baggage--I see that--” he exclaimed; “and, Lord be thanked! no
+trunks. Aha, my dear”--he turned to Rhoda--“you remember your lesson,
+do ye? Now, mark me--I'll remember you for it. Do you know, my dear,” he
+said to Rhoda confidentially, “that sixpenn'orth of chaff which I made
+the cabman pay for--there was the cream of it!--that was better than
+Peruvian bark to my constitution. It was as good to me as a sniff of
+sea-breeze and no excursion expenses. I'd like another, just to feel
+young again, when I'd have backed myself to beat--cabmen? Ah! I've
+stood up, when I was a young 'un, and shut up a Cheap Jack at a fair.
+Circulation's the soul o' chaff. That's why I don't mind tackling
+cabmen--they sit all day, and all they've got to say is 'rat-tat,' and
+they've done. But I let the boys roar. I know what I was when a boy
+myself. I've got devil in me--never you fear--but it's all on the side
+of the law. Now, let's off, for the gentlemen are starin' at you, which
+won't hurt ye, ye know, but makes me jealous.”
+
+Before the party moved away from the platform, a sharp tussle took place
+between Anthony and the farmer as to the porterage of the bulky bag; but
+it being only half-earnest, the farmer did not put out his strength, and
+Anthony had his way.
+
+“I rather astonished you, brother William John,” he said, when they were
+in the street.
+
+The farmer admitted that he was stronger than he looked.
+
+“Don't you judge by appearances, that's all,” Anthony remarked,
+setting down the bag to lay his finger on one side of his nose for
+impressiveness.
+
+“Now, there we leave London Bridge to the right, and we should away to
+the left, and quiet parts.” He seized the bag anew. “Just listen. That's
+the roaring of cataracts of gold you hear, brother William John. It's a
+good notion, ain't it? Hark!--I got that notion from one of your penny
+papers. You can buy any amount for a penny, now-a-days--poetry up in a
+corner, stories, tales o' temptation--one fellow cut his lucky with
+his master's cash, dashed away to Australia, made millions, fit to be
+a lord, and there he was! liable to the law! and everybody bowing their
+hats and their heads off to him, and his knees knocking at the sight of
+a policeman--a man of a red complexion, full habit of body, enjoyed his
+dinner and his wine, and on account of his turning white so often,
+they called him--'sealing-wax and Parchment' was one name; 'Carrots and
+turnips' was another; 'Blumonge and something,' and so on. Fancy his
+having to pay half his income in pensions to chaps who could have had
+him out of his town or country mansion and popped into gaol in a jiffy.
+And found out at last! Them tales set you thinking. Once I was an idle
+young scaramouch. But you can buy every idea that's useful to you for
+a penny. I tried the halfpenny journals. Cheapness ain't always
+profitable. The moral is, Make your money, and you may buy all the
+rest.”
+
+Discoursing thus by the way, and resisting the farmer's occasional
+efforts to relieve him of the bag, with the observation that appearances
+were deceiving, and that he intended, please his Maker, to live and turn
+over a little more interest yet, Anthony brought them to Mrs. Wicklow's
+house. Mrs. Wicklow promised to put them into the track of the omnibuses
+running toward Dahlia's abode in the Southwest, and Mary Ann Wicklow,
+who had a burning desire in her bosom to behold even the outside
+shell of her friend's new grandeur, undertook very disinterestedly to
+accompany them. Anthony's strict injunction held them due at a lamp-post
+outside Boyne's Bank, at half-past three o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+“My love to Dahly,” he said. “She was always a head and shoulders over
+my size. Tell her, when she rolls by in her carriage, not to mind me. I
+got my own notions of value. And if that Mr. Ayrton of hers 'll bank at
+Boyne's, I'll behave to him like a customer. This here's the girl for my
+money.” He touched Rhoda's arm, and so disappeared.
+
+The farmer chided her for her cold manner to her uncle, murmuring aside
+to her: “You heard what he said.” Rhoda was frozen with her heart's
+expectation, and insensible to hints or reproof. The people who entered
+the omnibus seemed to her stale phantoms bearing a likeness to every
+one she had known, save to her beloved whom she was about to meet, after
+long separation.
+
+She marvelled pityingly at the sort of madness which kept the streets
+so lively for no reasonable purpose. When she was on her feet again, she
+felt for the first time, that she was nearing the sister for whom she
+hungered, and the sensation beset her that she had landed in a foreign
+country. Mary Ann Wicklow chattered all the while to the general ear. It
+was her pride to be the discoverer of Dahlia's terrace.
+
+“Not for worlds would she enter the house,” she said, in a general tone;
+she knowing better than to present herself where downright entreaty did
+not invite her.
+
+Rhoda left her to count the numbers along the terrace-walk, and stood
+out in the road that her heart might select Dahlia's habitation from the
+other hueless residences. She fixed upon one, but she was wrong, and
+her heart sank. The fair Mary Ann fought her and beat her by means of a
+careful reckoning, as she remarked,--
+
+“I keep my eyes open; Number 15 is the corner house, the bow-window, to
+a certainty.”
+
+Gardens were in front of the houses; or, to speak more correctly, strips
+of garden walks. A cab was drawn up close by the shrub-covered iron
+gate leading up to No. 15. Mary Ann hurried them on, declaring that they
+might be too late even now at a couple of dozen paces distant, seeing
+that London cabs, crawlers as they usually were, could, when required,
+and paid for it, do their business like lightning. Her observation
+was illustrated the moment after they had left her in the rear; for a
+gentleman suddenly sprang across the pavement, jumped into a cab, and
+was whirled away, with as much apparent magic to provincial eyes, as if
+a pantomimic trick had been performed. Rhoda pressed forward a step in
+advance of her father.
+
+“It may have been her husband,” she thought, and trembled. The curtains
+up in the drawing-room were moved as by a hand; but where was Dahlia's
+face? Dahlia knew that they were coming, and she was not on the look-out
+for them!--a strange conflict of facts, over which Rhoda knitted her
+black brows, so that she looked menacing to the maid opening the
+door, whose “Oh, if you please, Miss,” came in contact with “My
+sister--Mrs.--, she expects me. I mean, Mrs.--” but no other name than
+“Dahlia” would fit itself to Rhoda's mouth.
+
+“Ayrton,” said the maid, and recommenced, “Oh, if you please, Miss, and
+you are the young lady, Mrs. Ayrton is very sorry, and have left word,
+would you call again to-morrow, as she have made a pressing appointment,
+and was sure you would excuse her, but her husband was very anxious for
+her to go, and could not put it off, and was very sorry, but would you
+call again to-morrow at twelve o'clock? and punctually she would be
+here.”
+
+The maid smiled as one who had fairly accomplished the recital of her
+lesson. Rhoda was stunned.
+
+“Is Mrs. Ayrton at home?--Not at home?” she said.
+
+“No: don't ye hear?” quoth the farmer, sternly.
+
+“She had my letter--do you know?” Rhoda appealed to the maid.
+
+“Oh, yes, Miss. A letter from the country.”
+
+“This morning?”
+
+“Yes, Miss; this morning.”
+
+“And she has gone out? What time did she go out? When will she be in?”
+
+Her father plucked at her dress. “Best not go making the young woman
+repeat herself. She says, nobody's at home to ask us in. There's no
+more, then, to trouble her for.”
+
+“At twelve o'clock to-morrow?” Rhoda faltered.
+
+“Would you, if you please, call again at twelve o'clock to-morrow, and
+punctually she would be here,” said the maid.
+
+The farmer hung his head and turned. Rhoda followed him from the garden.
+She was immediately plied with queries and interjections of wonderment
+by Miss Wicklow, and it was not until she said: “You saw him go out,
+didn't you?--into the cab?” that Rhoda awakened to a meaning in her
+gabble.
+
+Was it Dahlia's husband whom they had seen? And if so, why was Dahlia
+away from her husband? She questioned in her heart, but not for an
+answer, for she allowed no suspicions to live. The farmer led on with
+his plodding country step, burdened shoulders, and ruddy-fowled, serious
+face, not speaking to Rhoda, who had no desire to hear a word from him,
+and let him be. Mary Ann steered him and called from behind the turnings
+he was to take, while she speculated aloud to Rhoda upon the nature of
+the business that had torn Dahlia from the house so inopportunely.
+At last she announced that she knew what it was, but Rhoda failed
+to express curiosity. Mary Ann was driven to whisper something about
+strange things in the way of purchases. At that moment the farmer threw
+up his umbrella, shouting for a cab, and Rhoda ran up to him,--
+
+“Oh, father, why do we want to ride?”
+
+“Yes, I tell ye!” said the farmer, chafing against his coat-collar.
+
+“It is an expense, when we can walk, father.”
+
+“What do I care for th' expense? I shall ride.” He roared again for a
+cab, and one came that took them in; after which, the farmer, not
+being spoken to, became gravely placid as before. They were put down at
+Boyne's Bank. Anthony was on the look-out, and signalled them to stand
+away some paces from the door. They were kept about a quarter of an hour
+waiting between two tides of wayfarers, which hustled them one way
+and another, when out, at last, came the old, broad, bent figure, with
+little finicking steps, and hurried past them head foremost, his arms
+narrowed across a bulgy breast. He stopped to make sure that they were
+following, beckoned with his chin, and proceeded at a mighty rate.
+Marvellous was his rounding of corners, his threading of obstructions,
+his skilful diplomacy with passengers. Presently they lost sight of him,
+and stood bewildered; but while they were deliberating they heard his
+voice. He was above them, having issued from two swinging bright doors;
+and he laughed and nodded, as he ran down the steps, and made signs, by
+which they were to understand that he was relieved of a weight.
+
+“I've done that twenty year of my life, brother William John,” he said.
+“Eh? Perhaps you didn't guess I was worth some thousands when I got away
+from you just now? Let any chap try to stop me! They may just as well
+try to stop a railway train. Steam's up, and I'm off.”
+
+He laughed and wiped his forehead. Slightly vexed at the small amount of
+discoverable astonishment on the farmer's face, he continued,--
+
+“You don't think much of it. Why, there ain't another man but myself
+Boyne's Bank would trust. They've trusted me thirty year:--why shouldn't
+they go on trusting me another thirty year? A good character, brother
+William John, goes on compound-interesting, just like good coin. Didn't
+you feel a sort of heat as I brushed by you--eh? That was a matter of
+one-two-three-four” Anthony watched the farmer as his voice swelled
+up on the heightening numbers: “five-six-six thousand pounds, brother
+William John. People must think something of a man to trust him with
+that sum pretty near every day of their lives, Sundays excepted--eh?
+don't you think so?”
+
+He dwelt upon the immense confidence reposed in him, and the terrible
+temptation it would be to some men, and how they ought to thank their
+stars that they were never thrown in the way of such a temptation, of
+which he really thought nothing at all--nothing! until the farmer's
+countenance was lightened of its air of oppression, for a puzzle was
+dissolved in his brain. It was now manifest to him that Anthony was
+trusted in this extraordinary manner because the heads and managers
+of Boyne's Bank knew the old man to be possessed of a certain very
+respectable sum: in all probability they held it in their coffers for
+safety and credited him with the amount. Nay, more; it was fair to
+imagine that the guileless old fellow, who conceived himself to be so
+deep, had let them get it all into their hands without any suspicion of
+their prominent object in doing so.
+
+Mr. Fleming said, “Ah, yes, surely.”
+
+He almost looked shrewd as he smiled over Anthony's hat. The healthy
+exercise of his wits relieved his apprehensive paternal heart; and when
+he mentioned that Dahlia had not been at home when he called, he at the
+same time sounded his hearer for excuses to be raised on her behalf,
+himself clumsily suggesting one or two, as to show that he was willing
+to swallow a very little for comfort.
+
+“Oh, of course!” said Anthony, jeeringly. “Out? If you catch her in,
+these next three or four days, you'll be lucky. Ah, brother William
+John!”
+
+The farmer, half frightened by Anthony's dolorous shake of his head,
+exclaimed: “What's the matter, man?”
+
+“How proud I should be if only you was in a way to bank at Boyne's!”
+
+“Ah!” went the farmer in his turn, and he plunged his chin deep in his
+neckerchief.
+
+“Perhaps some of your family will, some day, brother William John.”
+
+“Happen, some of my family do, brother Anthony!”
+
+“Will is what I said, brother William John; if good gals, and civil, and
+marry decently--eh?” and he faced about to Rhoda who was walking with
+Miss Wicklow. “What does she look so down about, my dear? Never be down.
+I don't mind you telling your young man, whoever he is; and I'd like him
+to be a strapping young six-footer I've got in my eye, who farms. What
+does he farm with to make farming answer now-a-days? Why, he farms with
+brains. You'll find that in my last week's Journal, brother William
+John, and thinks I, as I conned it--the farmer ought to read that! You
+may tell any young man you like, my dear, that your old uncle's fond of
+ye.”
+
+On their arrival home, Mrs. Wicklow met them with a letter in her hand.
+It was for Rhoda from Dahlia, saying that Dahlia was grieved to the
+heart to have missed her dear father and her darling sister. But her
+husband had insisted upon her going out to make particular purchases,
+and do a dozen things; and he was extremely sorry to have been obliged
+to take her away, but she hoped to see her dear sister and her father
+very, very soon. She wished she were her own mistress that she might run
+to them, but men when they are husbands require so much waiting on that
+she could never call five minutes her own. She would entreat them to
+call tomorrow, only she would then be moving to her new lodgings. “But,
+oh! my dear, my blessed Rhoda!” the letter concluded, “do keep fast in
+your heart that I do love you so, and pray that we may meet soon, as I
+pray it every night and all day long. Beg father to stop till we meet.
+Things will soon be arranged. They must. Oh! oh, my Rhoda, love! how
+handsome you have grown. It is very well to be fair for a time, but the
+brunettes have the happiest lot. They last, and when we blonde ones cry
+or grow thin, oh! what objects we become!”
+
+There were some final affectionate words, but no further explanations.
+
+The wrinkles again settled on the farmer's mild, uncomplaining forehead.
+
+Rhoda said: “Let us wait, father.”
+
+When alone, she locked the letter against her heart, as to suck the
+secret meaning out of it. Thinking over it was useless; except for
+this one thought: how did her sister know she had grown very handsome?
+Perhaps the housemaid had prattled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Dahlia, the perplexity to her sister's heart, lay stretched at full
+length upon the sofa of a pleasantly furnished London drawing-room,
+sobbing to herself, with her handkerchief across her eyes. She had cried
+passion out, and sobbed now for comfort.
+
+She lay in her rich silken dress like the wreck of a joyful creature,
+while the large red Winter sun rounded to evening, and threw
+deep-coloured beams against the wall above her head. They touched the
+nut-brown hair to vivid threads of fire: but she lay faceless. Utter
+languor and the dread of looking at her eyelids in the glass kept her
+prostrate.
+
+So, the darkness closed her about; the sickly gas-lamps of the street
+showing her as a shrouded body.
+
+A girl came in to spread the cloth for dinner, and went through her
+duties with the stolidity of the London lodging-house maidservant,
+poking a clogged fire to perdition, and repressing a songful spirit.
+
+Dahlia knew well what was being done; she would have given much to have
+saved her nostrils from the smell of dinner; it was a great immediate
+evil to her sickened senses; but she had no energy to call out, nor will
+of any kind. The odours floated to her, and passively she combated them.
+
+At first she was nearly vanquished; the meat smelt so acrid, the
+potatoes so sour; each afflicting vegetable asserted itself peculiarly;
+and the bread, the salt even, on the wings of her morbid fancy, came
+steaming about her, subtle, penetrating, thick, and hateful, like the
+pressure of a cloud out of which disease is shot.
+
+Such it seemed to her, till she could have shrieked; but only a few
+fresh tears started down her cheeks, and she lay enduring it.
+
+Dead silence and stillness hung over the dinner-service, when the outer
+door below was opened, and a light foot sprang up the stairs.
+
+There entered a young gentleman in evening dress, with a loose black
+wrapper drooping from his shoulders.
+
+He looked on the table, and then glancing at the sofa, said:
+
+“Oh, there she is!” and went to the window and whistled.
+
+After a minute of great patience, he turned his face back to the room
+again, and commenced tapping his foot on the carpet.
+
+“Well?” he said, finding these indications of exemplary self-command
+unheeded. His voice was equally powerless to provoke a sign of
+animation. He now displaced his hat, and said, “Dahlia!”
+
+She did not move.
+
+“I am here to very little purpose, then,” he remarked.
+
+A guttering fall of her bosom was perceptible.
+
+“For heaven's sake, take away that handkerchief, my good child! Why
+have you let your dinner get cold? Here,” he lifted a cover; “here's
+roast-beef. You like it--why don't you eat it? That's only a small piece
+of the general inconsistency, I know. And why haven't they put champagne
+on the table for you? You lose your spirits without it. If you took it
+when these moody fits came on--but there's no advising a woman to do
+anything for her own good. Dahlia, will you do me the favour to speak
+two or three words with me before I go? I would have dined here, but I
+have a man to meet me at the Club. Of what mortal service is it
+shamming the insensible? You've produced the required effect, I am as
+uncomfortable as I need be. Absolutely!
+
+“Well,” seeing that words were of no avail, he summed up expostulation
+and reproach in this sigh of resigned philosophy: “I am going. Let me
+see--I have my Temple keys?--yes! I am afraid that even when you are
+inclined to be gracious and look at me, I shall not, be visible to you
+for some days. I start for Lord Elling's to-morrow morning at five. I
+meet my father there by appointment. I'm afraid we shall have to stay
+over Christmas. Good-bye.” He paused. “Good-bye, my dear.”
+
+Two or three steps nearer the door, he said, “By the way, do you want
+anything? Money?--do you happen to want any money? I will send a blank
+cheque tomorrow. I have sufficient for both of us. I shall tell the
+landlady to order your Christmas dinner. How about wine? There is
+champagne, I know, and bottled ale. Sherry? I'll drop a letter to my
+wine-merchant; I think the sherry's running dry.”
+
+Her sense of hearing was now afflicted in as gross a manner as had been
+her sense of smell. She could not have spoken, though her vitality
+had pressed for speech. It would have astonished him to hear that his
+solicitude concerning provender for her during his absence was not
+esteemed a kindness; for surely it is a kindly thing to think of it; and
+for whom but for one for whom he cared would he be counting the bottles
+to be left at her disposal, insomuch that the paucity of the bottles of
+sherry in the establishment distressed his mental faculties?
+
+“Well, good-bye,” he said, finally. The door closed.
+
+Had Dahlia's misery been in any degree simulated, her eyes now, as well
+as her ears, would have taken positive assurance of his departure.
+But with the removal of her handkerchief, the loathsome sight of the
+dinner-table would have saluted her, and it had already caused her
+suffering enough. She chose to remain as she was, saying to herself,
+“I am dead;” and softly revelling in that corpse-like sentiment. She
+scarcely knew that the door had opened again.
+
+“Dahlia!”
+
+She heard her name pronounced, and more entreatingly, and closer to her.
+
+“Dahlia, my poor girl!” Her hand was pressed. It gave her no shudders.
+
+“I am dead,” she mentally repeated, for the touch did not run up to her
+heart and stir it.
+
+“Dahlia, do be reasonable! I can't leave you like this. We shall be
+separated for some time. And what a miserable fire you've got here! You
+have agreed with me that we are acting for the best. It's very hard
+on me I try what I can to make you comf--happy; and really, to see you
+leaving your dinner to get cold! Your hands are like ice. The meat won't
+be eatable. You know I'm not my own master. Come, Dahly, my darling!”
+
+He gently put his hand to her chin, and then drew away the handkerchief.
+
+Dahlia moaned at the exposure of her tear-stained face, she turned it
+languidly to the wall.
+
+“Are you ill, my dear?” he asked.
+
+Men are so considerately practical! He begged urgently to be allowed to
+send for a doctor.
+
+But women, when they choose to be unhappy, will not accept of practical
+consolations! She moaned a refusal to see the doctor.
+
+Then what can I do for her? he naturally thought, and he naturally
+uttered it.
+
+“Say good-bye to me,” he whispered. “And my pretty one will write to me.
+I shall reply so punctually! I don't like to leave her at Christmas;
+and she will give me a line of Italian, and a little French--mind
+her accents, though!--and she needn't attempt any of the nasty
+German--kshrra-kouzzra-kratz!--which her pretty lips can't do, and won't
+do; but only French and Italian. Why, she learnt to speak Italian! 'La
+dolcezza ancor dentro me suona.' Don't you remember, and made such fun
+of it at first? 'Amo zoo;' 'no amo me?' my sweet!”
+
+This was a specimen of the baby-lover talk, which is charming in its
+season, and maybe pleasantly cajoling to a loving woman at all times,
+save when she is in Dahlia's condition. It will serve even then, or she
+will pass it forgivingly, as not the food she for a moment requires;
+but it must be purely simple in its utterance, otherwise she detects
+the poor chicanery, and resents the meanness of it. She resents it with
+unutterable sickness of soul, for it is the language of what were to her
+the holiest hours of her existence, which is thus hypocritically used
+to blind and rock her in a cradle of deception. If corrupt, she maybe
+brought to answer to it all the same, and she will do her part of the
+play, and babble words, and fret and pout deliciously; and the old days
+will seem to be revived, when both know they are dead; and she will
+thereby gain any advantage she is seeking.
+
+But Dahlia's sorrow was deep: her heart was sound. She did not even
+perceive the opportunity offered to her for a wily performance. She
+felt the hollowness of his speech, and no more; and she said, “Good-bye,
+Edward.”
+
+He had been on one knee. Springing cheerfully to his feet, “Good-bye,
+darling,” he said. “But I must see her sit to table first. Such a
+wretched dinner for her!” and he mumbled, “By Jove, I suppose I shan't
+get any at all myself!” His watch confirmed it to him that any dinner
+which had been provided for him at the Club would be spoilt.
+
+“Never mind,” he said aloud, and examined the roast-beef ruefully,
+thinking that, doubtless, it being more than an hour behind the
+appointed dinner-time at the Club, his guest must now be gone.
+
+For a minute or so he gazed at the mournful spectacle. The potatoes
+looked as if they had committed suicide in their own steam. There were
+mashed turnips, with a glazed surface, like the bright bottom of a tin
+pan. One block of bread was by the lonely plate. Neither hot nor cold,
+the whole aspect of the dinner-table resisted and repelled the gaze, and
+made no pretensions to allure it.
+
+The thought of partaking of this repast endowed him with a critical
+appreciation of its character, and a gush of charitable emotion for
+the poor girl who had such miserable dishes awaiting her, arrested the
+philosophic reproof which he could have administered to one that knew
+so little how a dinner of any sort should be treated. He strode to the
+windows, pulled down the blind he had previously raised, rang the bell,
+and said,--
+
+“Dahlia, there--I'm going to dine with you, my love. I've rung the bell
+for more candles. The room shivers. That girl will see you, if you don't
+take care. Where is the key of the cupboard? We must have some wine out.
+The champagne, at all events, won't be flat.”
+
+He commenced humming the song of complacent resignation. Dahlia was
+still inanimate, but as the door was about to open, she rose quickly and
+sat in a tremble on the sofa, concealing her face.
+
+An order was given for additional candles, coals, and wood. When the
+maid had disappeared Dahlia got on her feet, and steadied herself by the
+wall, tottering away to her chamber.
+
+“Ah, poor thing!” ejaculated the young man, not without an idea that the
+demonstration was unnecessary. For what is decidedly disagreeable is, in
+a young man's calculation concerning women, not necessary at all,--quite
+the reverse. Are not women the flowers which decorate sublunary life?
+It is really irritating to discover them to be pieces of machinery, that
+for want of proper oiling, creak, stick, threaten convulsions, and are
+tragic and stir us the wrong way. However, champagne does them good: an
+admirable wine--a sure specific for the sex!
+
+He searched around for the keys to get at a bottle and uncork it
+forthwith. The keys were on the mantelpiece a bad comment on Dahlia's
+housekeeping qualities; but in the hurry of action let it pass. He
+welcomed the candles gladly, and soon had all the cupboards in the room
+royally open.
+
+Bustle is instinctively adopted by the human race as the substitute of
+comfort. He called for more lights, more plates, more knives and forks.
+He sent for ice the maid observed that it was not to be had save at a
+distant street: “Jump into a cab--champagne's nothing without ice, even
+in Winter,” he said, and rang for her as she was leaving the house, to
+name a famous fishmonger who was sure to supply the ice.
+
+The establishment soon understood that Mr. Ayrton intended dining within
+those walls. Fresh potatoes were put on to boil. The landlady came
+up herself to arouse the fire. The maid was for a quarter of an hour
+hovering between the order to get ice and the execution of immediate
+commands. One was that she should take a glass of champagne to Mrs.
+Ayrton in her room. He drank off one himself. Mrs. Ayrton's glass being
+brought back untouched, he drank that off likewise, and as he became
+more exhilarated, was more considerate for her, to such a degree, that
+when she appeared he seized her hands and only jestingly scolded her
+for her contempt of sound medicine, declaring, in spite of her
+protestations, that she was looking lovely, and so they sat down to
+their dinner, she with an anguished glance at the looking-glass as she
+sank in her chair.
+
+“It's not bad, after all,” said he, drenching his tasteless mouthful of
+half-cold meat with champagne. “The truth is, that Clubs spoil us. This
+is Spartan fare. Come, drink with me, my dearest. One sip.”
+
+She was coaxed by degrees to empty a glass. She had a gentle heart, and
+could not hold out long against a visible lively kindliness. It pleased
+him that she should bow to him over fresh bubbles; and they went
+formally through the ceremony, and she smiled. He joked and laughed and
+talked, and she eyed him a faint sweetness. He perceived now that she
+required nothing more than the restoration of her personal pride, and
+setting bright eyes on her, hazarded a bold compliment.
+
+Dahlia drooped like a yacht with idle sails struck by a sudden blast,
+that dips them in the salt; but she raised her face with the full bloom
+of a blush: and all was plain sailing afterward.
+
+“Has my darling seen her sister?” he asked softly.
+
+Dahlia answered, “No,” in the same tone.
+
+Both looked away.
+
+“She won't leave town without seeing you?”
+
+“I hope--I don't know. She--she has called at our last lodgings twice.”
+
+“Alone?”
+
+“Yes; I think so.”
+
+Dahlia kept her head down, replying; and his observation of her wavered
+uneasily.
+
+“Why not write to her, then?”
+
+“She will bring father.”
+
+The sob thickened in her throat; but, alas for him who had at first,
+while she was on the sofa, affected to try all measures to revive her,
+that I must declare him to know well how certain was his mastery over
+her, when his manner was thoroughly kind. He had not much fear of her
+relapsing at present.
+
+“You can't see your father?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“But, do. It's best.”
+
+“I can't.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Not--” she hesitated, and clasped her hands in her lap.
+
+“Yes, yes; I know,” said he; “but still! You could surely see him. You
+rouse suspicions that need not exist. Try another glass, my dear.”
+
+“No more.”
+
+“Well; as I was saying, you force him to think--and there is no
+necessity for it. He maybe as hard on this point as you say; but now
+and then a little innocent deception maybe practised. We only require to
+gain time. You place me in a very hard position. I have a father too.
+He has his own idea of things. He's a proud man, as I've told you;
+tremendously ambitious, and he wants to push me, not only at the bar,
+but in the money market matrimonial. All these notions I have to contend
+against. Things can't be done at once. If I give him a shock--well,
+we'll drop any consideration of the consequences. Write to your
+sister to tell her to bring your father. If they make particular
+inquiries--very unlikely I think--but, if they do, put them at their
+ease.”
+
+She sighed.
+
+“Why was my poor darling so upset, when I came in?” said he.
+
+There was a difficulty in her speaking. He waited with much patient
+twiddling of bread crumbs; and at last she said:
+
+“My sister called twice at my--our old lodgings. The second time, she
+burst into tears. The girl told me so.”
+
+“But women cry so often, and for almost anything, Dahlia.”
+
+“Rhoda cries with her hands closed hard, and her eyelids too.”
+
+“Well, that maybe her way.”
+
+“I have only seen her cry once, and that was when mother was dying, and
+asked her to fetch a rose from the garden. I met her on the stairs. She
+was like wood. She hates crying. She loves me so.”
+
+The sympathetic tears rolled down Dahlia's cheeks.
+
+“So, you quite refuse to see your father?” he asked.
+
+“Not yet!”
+
+“Not yet,” he repeated.
+
+At the touch of scorn in his voice, she exclaimed:
+
+“Oh, Edward! not yet, I cannot. I know I am weak. I can't meet him now.
+If my Rhoda had come alone, as I hoped--! but he is with her. Don't
+blame me, Edward. I can't explain. I only know that I really have not
+the power to see him.”
+
+Edward nodded. “The sentiment some women put into things is
+inexplicable,” he said. “Your sister and father will return home. They
+will have formed their ideas. You know how unjust they will be. Since,
+however, the taste is for being a victim--eh?”
+
+London lodging-house rooms in Winter when the blinds are down, and a
+cheerless fire is in the grate, or when blinds are up and street-lamps
+salute the inhabitants with uncordial rays, are not entertaining places
+of residence for restless spirits. Edward paced about the room. He lit a
+cigar and puffed at it fretfully.
+
+“Will you come and try one of the theatres for an hour?” he asked.
+
+She rose submissively, afraid to say that she thought she should look
+ill in the staring lights; but he, with great quickness of perception,
+rendered her task easier by naming the dress she was to wear, the
+jewels, and the colour of the opera cloak. Thus prompted, Dahlia went to
+her chamber, and passively attired herself, thankful to have been spared
+the pathetic troubles of a selection of garments from her wardrobe. When
+she came forth, Edward thought her marvellously beautiful.
+
+Pity that she had no strength of character whatever, nor any pointed
+liveliness of mind to match and wrestle with his own, and cheer the
+domestic hearth! But she was certainly beautiful. Edward kissed her hand
+in commendation. Though it was practically annoying that she should
+be sad, the hue and spirit of sadness came home to her aspect. Sorrow
+visited her tenderly falling eyelids like a sister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Edward's engagement at his Club had been with his unfortunate cousin
+Algernon; who not only wanted a dinner but 'five pounds or so' (the
+hazy margin which may extend illimitably, or miserably contract, at the
+lender's pleasure, and the necessity for which shows the borrower to be
+dancing on Fortune's tight-rope above the old abyss).
+
+“Over claret,” was to have been the time for the asking; and Algernon
+waited dinnerless until the healthy-going minutes distended and swelled
+monstrous and horrible as viper-bitten bodies, and the venerable
+Signior, Time, became of unhealthy hue. For this was the first dinner
+which, during the whole course of the young man's career, had ever been
+failing to him. Reflect upon the mournful gap! He could scarcely believe
+in his ill-luck. He suggested it to himself with an inane grin, as one
+of the far-away freaks of circumstances that had struck him--and was it
+not comical?
+
+He waited from the hour of six till the hour of seven. He compared
+clocks in the hall and the room. He changed the posture of his legs
+fifty times. For a while he wrestled right gallantly with the apparent
+menace of the Fates that he was to get no dinner at all that day; it
+seemed incredibly derisive, for, as I must repeat, it had never happened
+to him by any accident before. “You are born--you dine.” Such appeared
+to him to be the positive regulation of affairs, and a most proper
+one,--of the matters of course following the birth of a young being.
+
+By what frightful mischance, then, does he miss his dinner? By placing
+the smallest confidence in the gentlemanly feeling of another man!
+Algernon deduced this reply accurately from his own experience, and
+whether it can be said by other “undined” mortals, does not matter in
+the least. But we have nothing to do with the constitutionally luckless:
+the calamitous history of a simple empty stomach is enough. Here the
+tragedy is palpable. Indeed, too sadly so, and I dare apply but a flash
+of the microscope to the rageing dilemmas of this animalcule. Five and
+twenty minutes had signalled their departure from the hour of seven,
+when Algernon pronounced his final verdict upon Edward's conduct by
+leaving the Club. He returned to it a quarter of an hour later, and
+lingered on in desperate mood till eight.
+
+He had neither watch in his pocket, nor ring on his finger, nor
+disposable stud in his shirt. The sum of twenty-one pence was in his
+possession, and, I ask you, as he asked himself, how is a gentleman to
+dine upon that? He laughed at the notion. The irony of Providence sent
+him by a cook's shop, where the mingled steam of meats and puddings
+rushed out upon the wayfarer like ambushed bandits, and seized him and
+dragged him in, or sent him qualmish and humbled on his way.
+
+Two little boys had flattened their noses to the whiteness of winkles
+against the jealously misty windows. Algernon knew himself to be
+accounted a generous fellow, and remembering his reputation, he, as to
+hint at what Fortune might do in his case, tossed some coppers to the
+urchins, who ducked to the pavement and slid before the counter, in a
+flash, with never a “thank ye” or the thought of it.
+
+Algernon was incapable of appreciating this childish faith in the
+beneficence of the unseen Powers who feed us, which, I must say for him,
+he had shared in a very similar manner only two hours ago. He laughed
+scornfully: “The little beggars!” considering in his soul that of such
+is humanity composed: as many a dinnerless man has said before, and
+will again, to point the speech of fools. He continued strolling on,
+comparing the cramped misty London aspect of things with his visionary
+free dream of the glorious prairies, where his other life was: the
+forests, the mountains, the endless expanses; the horses, the flocks,
+the slipshod ease of language and attire; and the grog-shops. Aha! There
+could be no mistake about him as a gentleman and a scholar out there!
+Nor would Nature shut up her pocket and demand innumerable things of
+him, as civilization did. This he thought in the vengefulness of his
+outraged mind.
+
+Not only had Algernon never failed to dine every day of his life: he
+had no recollection of having ever dined without drinking wine. His
+conception did not embrace the idea of a dinner lacking wine. Possibly
+he had some embodied understanding that wine did not fall to the lot
+of every fellow upon earth: he had heard of gullets unrefreshed even by
+beer: but at any rate he himself was accustomed to better things, and he
+did not choose to excavate facts from the mass of his knowledge in order
+to reconcile himself to the miserable chop he saw for his dinner in the
+distance--a spot of meat in the arctic circle of a plate, not shone upon
+by any rosy-warming sun of a decanter!
+
+But metaphorical language, though nothing other will convey the
+extremity of his misery, or the form of his thoughts, must be put aside.
+
+“Egad, and every friend I have is out of town!” he exclaimed, quite
+willing to think it part of the plot.
+
+He stuck his hands in his pockets, and felt vagabond-like and reckless.
+The streets were revelling in their winter muck. The carriages rolling
+by insulted him with their display of wealth.
+
+He had democratic sentiments regarding them. Oh for a horse upon the
+boundless plains! he sighed to his heart. He remembered bitterly how he
+had that day ridden his stool at the bank, dreaming of his wilds, where
+bailiff never ran, nor duns obscured the firmament.
+
+And then there were theatres here--huge extravagant places! Algernon
+went over to an entrance of one, to amuse his mind, cynically
+criticizing the bill. A play was going forward within, that enjoyed
+great popular esteem, “The Holly Berries.” Seeing that the pit was
+crammed, Algernon made application to learn the state of the boxes, but
+hearing that one box was empty, he lost his interest in the performance.
+
+As he was strolling forth, his attention was taken by a noise at the
+pit-doors, which swung open, and out tumbled a tough little old man with
+a younger one grasping his coat-collar, who proclaimed that he would
+sicken him of pushing past him at the end of every act.
+
+“You're precious fond of plays,” sneered the junior.
+
+“I'm fond of everything I pay for, young fellow,” replied the shaken
+senior; “and that's a bit of enjoyment you've got to learn--ain't it?”
+
+“Well, don't you knock by me again, that's all,” cried the choleric
+youth.
+
+“You don't think I'm likely to stop in your company, do you?”
+
+“Whose expense have you been drinking at?”
+
+“My country's, young fellow; and mind you don't soon feed at the table.
+Let me go.”
+
+Algernon's hunger was appeased by the prospect of some excitement, and
+seeing a vicious shake administered to the old man by the young one, he
+cried, “Hands off!” and undertook policeman's duty; but as he was not
+in blue, his authoritative mandate obtained no respect until he had
+interposed his fist.
+
+When he had done so, he recognized the porter at Boyne's Bank, whose
+enemy retired upon the threat that there should be no more pushing past
+him to get back to seats for the next act.
+
+“I paid,” said Anthony; “and you're a ticketer, and you ticketers sha'
+n't stop me. I'm worth a thousand of you. Holloa, sir,” he cried to
+Algernon; “I didn't know you. I'm much obliged. These chaps get tickets
+given 'm, and grow as cocky in a theatre as men who pay. He never had
+such wine in him as I've got. That I'd swear. Ha! ha! I come out for an
+airing after every act, and there's a whole pitfall of ticketers yelling
+and tearing, and I chaff my way through and back clean as a red-hot
+poker.”
+
+Anthony laughed, and rolled somewhat as he laughed.
+
+“Come along, sir, into the street,” he said, boring on to the pavement.
+“It's after office hours. And, ha! ha! what do you think? There's old
+farmer in there, afraid to move off his seat, and the girl with him,
+sticking to him tight, and a good girl too. She thinks we've had too
+much. We been to the Docks, wine-tasting: Port--Sherry: Sherry--Port!
+and, ha! ha! 'what a lot of wine!' says farmer, never thinking how much
+he's taking on board. 'I guessed it was night,' says farmer, as we got
+into the air, and to see him go on blinking, and stumbling, and saying
+to me, 'You stand wine, brother Tony!' I'm blest if I ain't bottled
+laughter. So, says I, 'come and see “The Holly Berries,” brother William
+John; it's the best play in London, and a suitable winter piece.' 'Is
+there a rascal hanged in the piece?' says he. 'Oh, yes!' I let him fancy
+there was, and he--ha! ha! old farmer's sticking to his seat, solemn as
+a judge, waiting for the gallows to come on the stage.”
+
+A thought quickened Algernon's spirit. It was a notorious secret among
+the young gentlemen who assisted in maintaining the prosperity
+of Boyne's Bank, that the old porter--the “Old Ant,” as he was
+called--possessed money, and had no objection to put out small sums for
+a certain interest. Algernon mentioned casually that he had left his
+purse at home; and “by the way,” said he, “have you got a few sovereigns
+in your pocket?”
+
+“What! and come through that crush, sir?” Anthony negatived the question
+decisively with a reference to his general knowingness.
+
+Algernon pressed him; saying at last, “Well, have you got one?”
+
+“I don't think I've been such a fool,” said Anthony, feeling slowly
+about his person, and muttering as to the changes that might possibly
+have been produced in him by the Docks.
+
+“Confound it, I haven't dined!” exclaimed Algernon, to hasten his
+proceedings; but at this, Anthony eyed him queerly. “What have you been
+about then, sir?”
+
+“Don't you see I'm in evening dress? I had an appointment to dine with
+a friend. He didn't keep it. I find I've left my purse in my other
+clothes.”
+
+“That's a bad habit, sir,” was Anthony's comment. “You don't care much
+for your purse.”
+
+“Much for my purse, be hanged!” interjected Algernon.
+
+“You'd have felt it, or you'd have heard it, if there 'd been any weight
+in it,” Anthony remarked.
+
+“How can you hear paper?”
+
+“Oh, paper's another thing. You keep paper in your mind, don't you--eh?
+Forget pound notes? Leave pound notes in a purse? And you Sir William's
+nephew, sir, who'd let you bank with him and put down everything in a
+book, so that you couldn't forget, or if you did, he'd remember for you;
+and you might change your clothes as often as not, and no fear of your
+losing a penny.”
+
+Algernon shrugged disgustedly, and was giving the old man up as a bad
+business, when Anthony altered his manner. “Oh! well, sir, I don't mind
+letting you have what I've got. I'm out for fun. Bother affairs!”
+
+The sum of twenty shillings was handed to Algernon, after he had
+submitted to the indignity of going into a public-house, and writing
+his I.O.U. for twenty-three to Anthony Hackbut, which included interest.
+Algernon remonstrated against so needless a formality; but Anthony
+put the startling supposition to him, that he might die that night. He
+signed the document, and was soon feeding and drinking his wine. This
+being accomplished, he took some hasty puffs of tobacco, and returned to
+the theatre, in the hope that the dark girl Rhoda was to be seen there;
+for now that he had dined, Anthony's communication with regard to the
+farmer and his daughter became his uppermost thought, and a young man's
+uppermost thought is usually the propelling engine to his actions.
+
+By good chance, and the aid of a fee, he obtained a front seat,
+commanding an excellent side-view of the pit, which sat wrapt in
+contemplation of a Christmas scene snow, ice, bare twigs, a desolate
+house, and a woman shivering--one of man's victims.
+
+It is a good public, that of Britain, and will bear anything, so long
+as villany is punished, of which there was ripe promise in the oracular
+utterances of a rolling, stout, stage-sailor, whose nose, to say nothing
+of his frankness on the subject, proclaimed him his own worst enemy,
+and whose joke, by dint of repetition, had almost become the joke of the
+audience too; for whenever he appeared, there was agitation in pit and
+gallery, which subsided only on his jovial thundering of the familiar
+sentence; whereupon laughter ensued, and a quieting hum of satisfaction.
+
+It was a play that had been favoured with a great run. Critics had once
+objected to it, that it was made to subsist on scenery, a song, and a
+stupid piece of cockneyism pretending to be a jest, that was really
+no more than a form of slapping the public on the back. But the public
+likes to have its back slapped, and critics, frozen by the Medusa-head
+of Success, were soon taught manners. The office of critic is now,
+in fact, virtually extinct; the taste for tickling and slapping is
+universal and imperative; classic appeals to the intellect, and passions
+not purely domestic, have grown obsolete. There are captains of the
+legions, but no critics. The mass is lord.
+
+And behold our friend the sailor of the boards, whose walk is even
+as two meeting billows, appears upon the lonely moor, and salts that
+uninhabited region with nautical interjections. Loose are his hose in
+one part, tight in another, and he smacks them. It is cold; so let that
+be his excuse for showing the bottom of his bottle to the glittering
+spheres. He takes perhaps a sturdier pull at the liquor than becomes
+a manifest instrument of Providence, whose services may be immediately
+required; but he informs us that his ship was never known not to right
+itself when called upon.
+
+He is alone in the world, he tells us likewise. If his one friend, the
+uplifted flask, is his enemy, why then he feels bound to treat his enemy
+as his friend. This, with a pathetic allusion to his interior economy,
+which was applauded, and the remark “Ain't that Christian?” which was
+just a trifle risky; so he secured pit and gallery at a stroke by a
+surpassingly shrewd blow at the bishops of our Church, who are, it can
+barely be contested, in foul esteem with the multitude--none can say
+exactly, for what reason--and must submit to be occasionally offered up
+as propitiatory sacrifices.
+
+This good sailor was not always alone in the world. A sweet girl, whom
+he describes as reaching to his kneecap, and pathetically believes still
+to be of the same height, once called him brother Jack. To hear that
+name again from her lips, and a particular song!--he attempts it
+ludicrously, yet touchingly withal.
+
+Hark! Is it an echo from a spirit in the frigid air?
+
+The song trembled with a silver ring to the remotest corners of the
+house.
+
+At that moment the breathless hush of the audience was flurried by
+hearing “Dahlia” called from the pit.
+
+Algernon had been spying among the close-packed faces for a sight of
+Rhoda. Rhoda was now standing up amid gathering hisses and outcries. Her
+eyes were bent on a particular box, across which a curtain was hastily
+being drawn. “My sister!” she sent out a voice of anguish, and remained
+with clasped hands and twisted eyebrows, looking toward that one spot,
+as if she would have flown to it. She was wedged in the mass, and could
+not move.
+
+The exclamation heard had belonged to brother Jack, on the stage, whose
+burst of fraternal surprise and rapture fell flat after it, to the
+disgust of numbers keenly awakened for the sentiment of this scene.
+
+Roaring accusations that she was drunk; that she had just escaped from
+Bedlam for an evening; that she should be gagged and turned headlong
+out, surrounded her; but she stood like a sculptured figure, vital
+in her eyes alone. The farmer put his arm about his girl's waist. The
+instant, however, that Anthony's head uprose on the other side of her,
+the evil reputation he had been gaining for himself all through the
+evening produced a general clamour, over which the gallery played,
+miauling, and yelping like dogs that are never to be divorced from a
+noise. Algernon feared mischief. He quitted his seat, and ran out into
+the lobby.
+
+Half-a-dozen steps, and he came in contact with some one, and they were
+mutually drenched with water by the shock. It was his cousin Edward,
+bearing a glass in his hand.
+
+Algernon's wrath at the sight of this offender was stimulated by the
+cold bath; but Edward cut him short.
+
+“Go in there;” he pointed to a box-door. “A lady has fainted. Hold her
+up till I come.”
+
+No time was allowed for explanation. Algernon passed into the box, and
+was alone with an inanimate shape in blue bournous. The uproar in the
+theatre raged; the whole pit was on its legs and shouting. He lifted
+the pallid head over one arm, miserably helpless and perplexed, but
+his anxiety concerning Rhoda's personal safety in that sea of strife
+prompted him to draw back the curtain a little, and he stood exposed.
+Rhoda perceived him. She motioned with both her hands in dumb
+supplication. In a moment the curtain closed between them. Edward's
+sharp white face cursed him mutely for his folly, while he turned and
+put the water to Dahlia's lips, and touched her forehead with it.
+
+“What's the matter?” whispered Algernon.
+
+“We must get her out as quick as we can. This is the way with women!
+Come! she's recovering.” Edward nursed her sternly as he spoke.
+
+“If she doesn't, pretty soon, we shall have the pit in upon us,” said
+Algernon. “Is she that girl's sister?”
+
+“Don't ask damned questions.”
+
+Dahlia opened her eyes, staring placidly.
+
+“Now you can stand up, my dear. Dahlia! all's well. Try,” said Edward.
+
+She sighed, murmuring, “What is the time?” and again, “What noise is
+it?”
+
+Edward coughed in a vexed attempt at tenderness, using all his force to
+be gentle with her as he brought her to her feet. The task was difficult
+amid the threatening storm in the theatre, and cries of “Show the young
+woman her sister!” for Rhoda had won a party in the humane public.
+
+“Dahlia, in God's name give me your help!” Edward called in her ear.
+
+The fair girl's eyelids blinked wretchedly in protestation of her
+weakness. She had no will either way, and suffered herself to be led out
+of the box, supported by the two young men.
+
+“Run for a cab,” said Edward; and Algernon went ahead.
+
+He had one waiting for them as they came out. They placed Dahlia on a
+seat with care, and Edward, jumping in, drew an arm tightly about her.
+“I can't cry,” she moaned.
+
+The cab was driving off as a crowd of people burst from the pit-doors,
+and Algernon heard the voice of Farmer Fleming, very hoarse. He had
+discretion enough to retire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Robert was to drive to the station to meet Rhoda and her father
+returning from London, on a specified day. He was eager to be asking
+cheerful questions of Dahlia's health and happiness, so that he might
+dispel the absurd general belief that he had ever loved the girl, and
+was now regretting her absence; but one look at Rhoda's face when she
+stepped from the railway carriage kept him from uttering a word on that
+subject, and the farmer's heavier droop and acceptance of a helping hand
+into the cart, were signs of bad import.
+
+Mr. Fleming made no show of grief, like one who nursed it. He took it to
+all appearance as patiently as an old worn horse would do, although such
+an outward submissiveness will not always indicate a placid spirit in
+men. He talked at stale intervals of the weather and the state of the
+ground along the line of rail down home, and pointed in contempt or
+approval to a field here and there; but it was as one who no longer had
+any professional interest in the tilling of the land.
+
+Doubtless he was trained to have no understanding of a good to be
+derived by his communicating what he felt and getting sympathy. Once,
+when he was uncertain, and a secret pride in Dahlia's beauty and
+accomplishments had whispered to him that her flight was possibly the
+opening of her road to a higher fortune, he made a noise for comfort,
+believing in his heart that she was still to be forgiven. He knew better
+now. By holding his peace he locked out the sense of shame which speech
+would have stirred within him.
+
+“Got on pretty smooth with old Mas' Gammon?” he expressed his hope; and
+Robert said, “Capitally. We shall make something out of the old man yet,
+never fear.”
+
+Master Gammon was condemned to serve at the ready-set tea-table as a
+butt for banter; otherwise it was apprehended well that Mrs. Sumfit
+would have scorched the ears of all present, save the happy veteran of
+the furrows, with repetitions of Dahlia's name, and wailings about her
+darling, of whom no one spoke. They suffered from her in spite of every
+precaution.
+
+“Well, then, if I'm not to hear anything dooring meals--as if I'd
+swallow it and take it into my stomach!--I'll wait again for what ye've
+got to tell,” she said, and finished her cup at a gulp, smoothing her
+apron.
+
+The farmer then lifted his head.
+
+“Mother, if you've done, you'll oblige me by going to bed,” he said. “We
+want the kitchen.”
+
+“A-bed?” cried Mrs. Sumfit, with instantly ruffled lap.
+
+“Upstairs, mother; when you've done--not before.”
+
+“Then bad's the noos! Something have happened, William. You 'm not
+going to push me out? And my place is by the tea-pot, which I cling to,
+rememberin' how I seen her curly head grow by inches up above the table
+and the cups. Mas' Gammon,” she appealed to the sturdy feeder, “five
+cups is your number?”
+
+Her hope was reduced to the prolonging of the service of tea, with
+Master Gammon's kind assistance.
+
+“Four, marm,” said her inveterate antagonist, as he finished that
+amount, and consequently put the spoon in his cup.
+
+Mrs. Sumfit rolled in her chair.
+
+“O Lord, Mas' Gammon! Five, I say; and never a cup less so long as here
+you've been.”
+
+“Four, marm. I don't know,” said Master Gammon, with a slow nod of his
+head, “that ever I took five cups of tea at a stretch. Not runnin'.”
+
+“I do know, Mas' Gammon. And ought to: for don't I pour out to ye? It's
+five you take, and please, your cup, if you'll hand it over.”
+
+“Four's my number, marm,” Master Gammon reiterated resolutely. He sat
+like a rock.
+
+“If they was dumplins,” moaned Mrs. Sumfit, “not four, no, nor five,
+'d do till enough you'd had, and here we might stick to our chairs, but
+you'd go on and on; you know you would.”
+
+“That's eatin', marm;” Master Gammon condescended to explain the nature
+of his habits. “I'm reg'lar in my drinkin'.”
+
+Mrs. Sumfit smote her hands together. “O Lord, Mas' Gammon, the
+wearisomest old man I ever come across is you. More tea's in the
+pot, and it ain't watery, and you won't be comfortable. May you get
+forgiveness from above! is all I say, and I say no more. Mr. Robert,
+perhaps you'll be so good as let me help you, sir? It's good tea; and
+my Dody,” she added, cajolingly, “my home girl 'll tell us what she saw.
+I'm pinched and starved to hear.”
+
+“By-and-by, mother,” interposed the farmer; “tomorrow.” He spoke gently,
+but frowned.
+
+Both Rhoda and Robert perceived that they were peculiarly implicated in
+the business which was to be discussed without Mrs. Sumfit's assistance.
+Her father's manner forbade Rhoda from making any proposal for the
+relief of the forlorn old woman.
+
+“And me not to hear to-night about your play-going!” sighed Mrs.
+Sumfit. “Oh, it's hard on me. I do call it cruel. And how my sweet was
+dressed--like as for a Ball.”
+
+She saw the farmer move his foot impatiently.
+
+“Then, if nobody drinks this remaining cup, I will,” she pursued.
+
+No voice save her own was heard till the cup was emptied, upon which
+Master Gammon, according to his wont, departed for bed to avoid the
+seduction of suppers, which he shunned as apoplectic, and Mrs. Sumfit
+prepared, in a desolate way, to wash the tea-things, but the farmer,
+saying that it could be done in the morning, went to the door and opened
+it for her.
+
+She fetched a great sigh and folded her hands resignedly. As she was
+passing him to make her miserable enforced exit, the heavy severity
+of his face afflicted her with a deep alarm; she fell on her knees,
+crying,--
+
+“Oh, William! it ain't for sake of hearin' talk; but you, that went to
+see our Dahly, the blossom, 've come back streaky under the eyes, and
+you make the house feel as if we neighboured Judgement Day. Down to tea
+you set the first moment, and me alone with none of you, and my love for
+my girl known well to you. And now to be marched off! How can I go a-bed
+and sleep, and my heart jumps so? It ain't Christian to ask me to. I got
+a heart, dear, I have. Do give a bit of comfort to it. Only a word of my
+Dahly to me.”
+
+The farmer replied: “Mother, let's have no woman's nonsense. What we've
+got to bear, let us bear. And you go on your knees to the Lord, and
+don't be a heathen woman, I say. Get up. There's a Bible in your
+bedroom. Find you out comfort in that.”
+
+“No, William, no!” she sobbed, still kneeling: “there ain't a dose o'
+comfort there when poor souls is in the dark, and haven't got patience
+for passages. And me and my Bible!--how can I read it, and not know my
+ailing, and a'stract one good word, William? It'll seem only the devil's
+shootin' black lightnings across the page, as poor blessed granny used
+to say, and she believed witches could do it to you in her time, when
+they was evil-minded. No! To-night I look on the binding of the Holy
+Book, and I don't, and I won't, I sha' n't open it.”
+
+This violent end to her petition was wrought by the farmer grasping her
+arm to bring her to her feet.
+
+“Go to bed, mother.”
+
+“I shan't open it,” she repeated, defiantly. “And it ain't,” she
+gathered up her comfortable fat person to assist the words “it ain't
+good--no, not the best pious ones--I shall, and will say it! as is
+al'ays ready to smack your face with the Bible.”
+
+“Now, don't ye be angry,” said the farmer.
+
+She softened instantly.
+
+“William, dear, I got fifty-seven pounds sterling, and odd shillings, in
+a Savings-bank, and that I meant to go to Dahly, and not to yond' dark
+thing sitting there so sullen, and me in my misery; I'd give it to you
+now for news of my darlin'. Yes, William; and my poor husband's cottage,
+in Sussex--seventeen pound per annum. That, if you'll be goodness
+itself, and let me hear a word.”
+
+“Take her upstairs,” said the farmer to Rhoda, and Rhoda went by her
+and took her hands, and by dint of pushing from behind and dragging in
+front, Mrs. Sumfit, as near on a shriek as one so fat and sleek
+could be, was ejected. The farmer and Robert heard her struggles
+and exclamations along the passage, but her resistance subsided very
+suddenly.
+
+“There's power in that girl,” said the farmer, standing by the shut
+door.
+
+Robert thought so, too. It affected his imagination, and his heart began
+to beat sickeningly.
+
+“Perhaps she promised to speak--what has happened, whatever that may
+be,” he suggested.
+
+“Not she; not she. She respects my wishes.”
+
+Robert did not ask what had happened.
+
+Mr. Fleming remained by the door, and shut his mouth from a further
+word till he heard Rhoda's returning footstep. He closed the door
+again behind her, and went up to the square deal table, leaned his body
+forward on the knuckles of his trembling fist, and said, “We're pretty
+well broken up, as it is. I've lost my taste for life.”
+
+There he paused. Save by the shining of a wet forehead, his face
+betrayed nothing of the anguish he suffered. He looked at neither of
+them, but sent his gaze straight away under labouring brows to an arm of
+the fireside chair, while his shoulders drooped on the wavering support
+of his hard-shut hands. Rhoda's eyes, ox-like, as were her father's,
+smote full upon Robert's, as in a pang of apprehension of what was about
+to be uttered.
+
+It was a quick blaze of light, wherein he saw that the girl's spirit was
+not with him. He would have stopped the farmer at once, but he had not
+the heart to do it, even had he felt in himself strength to attract an
+intelligent response from that strange, grave, bovine fixity of look,
+over which the human misery sat as a thing not yet taken into the dull
+brain.
+
+“My taste for life,” the old man resumed, “that's gone. I didn't bargain
+at set-out to go on fighting agen the world. It's too much for a man
+o' my years. Here's the farm. Shall 't go to pieces?--I'm a farmer of
+thirty year back--thirty year back, and more: I'm about no better'n a
+farm labourer in our time, which is to-day. I don't cost much. I ask to
+be fed, and to work for it, and to see my poor bit o' property safe,
+as handed to me by my father. Not for myself, 't ain't; though perhaps
+there's a bottom of pride there too, as in most things. Say it's for the
+name. My father seems to demand of me out loud, 'What ha' ye done with
+Queen Anne's Farm, William?' and there's a holler echo in my ears. Well;
+God wasn't merciful to give me a son. He give me daughters.”
+
+Mr. Fleming bowed his head as to the very weapon of chastisement.
+
+“Daughters!” He bent lower.
+
+His hearers might have imagined his headless address to them to be also
+without a distinct termination, for he seemed to have ended as abruptly
+as he had begun; so long was the pause before, with a wearied lifting of
+his body, he pursued, in a sterner voice:
+
+“Don't let none interrupt me.” His hand was raised as toward where Rhoda
+stood, but he sent no look with it; the direction was wide of her.
+
+The aspect of the blank blind hand motioning to the wall away from her,
+smote an awe through her soul that kept her dumb, though his next words
+were like thrusts of a dagger in her side.
+
+“My first girl--she's brought disgrace on this house. She's got a mother
+in heaven, and that mother's got to blush for her. My first girl's gone
+to harlotry in London.”
+
+It was Scriptural severity of speech. Robert glanced quick with intense
+commiseration at Rhoda. He saw her hands travel upward till they fixed
+in at her temples with crossed fingers, making the pressure of an iron
+band for her head, while her lips parted, and her teeth, and cheeks,
+and eyeballs were all of one whiteness. Her tragic, even, in and out
+breathing, where there was no fall of the breast, but the air was taken
+and given, as it were the square blade of a sharp-edged sword, was
+dreadful to see. She had the look of a risen corpse, recalling some one
+of the bloody ends of life.
+
+The farmer went on,--
+
+“Bury her! Now you here know the worst. There's my second girl. She's
+got no stain on her; if people 'll take her for what she is herself.
+She's idle. But I believe the flesh on her bones she'd wear away for any
+one that touched her heart. She's a temper. But she's clean both in body
+and in spirit, as I believe, and say before my God. I--what I'd pray for
+is, to see this girl safe. All I have shall go to her. That is, to the
+man who will--won't be ashamed--marry her, I mean!”
+
+The tide of his harshness failed him here, and he began to pick
+his words, now feeble, now emphatic, but alike wanting in natural
+expression, for he had reached a point of emotion upon the limits of his
+nature, and he was now wilfully forcing for misery and humiliation right
+and left, in part to show what a black star Providence had been over
+him.
+
+“She'll be grateful. I shall be gone. What disgrace I bring to their
+union, as father of the other one also, will, I'm bound to hope, be
+buried with me in my grave; so that this girl's husband shan't have
+to complain that her character and her working for him ain't enough
+to cover any harm he's like to think o' the connexion. And he won't be
+troubled by relationships after that.
+
+“I used to think Pride a bad thing. I thank God we've all got it in our
+blood--the Flemings. I thank God for that now, I do. We don't face again
+them as we offend. Not, that is, with the hand out. We go. We're seen no
+more. And she'll be seen no more. On that, rely.
+
+“I want my girl here not to keep me in the fear of death. For I fear
+death while she's not safe in somebody's hands--kind, if I can get him
+for her. Somebody--young or old!”
+
+The farmer lifted his head for the first time, and stared vacantly at
+Robert.
+
+“I'd marry her,” he said, “if I was knowing myself dying now or
+to-morrow morning, I'd marry her, rather than leave her alone--I'd marry
+her to that old man, old Gammon.”
+
+The farmer pointed to the ceiling. His sombre seriousness cloaked and
+carried even that suggestive indication to the possible bridegroom's
+age and habits, and all things associated with him, through the gates of
+ridicule; and there was no laughter, and no thought of it.
+
+“It stands to reason for me to prefer a young man for her husband. He'll
+farm the estate, and won't sell it; so that it goes to our blood, if
+not to a Fleming. If, I mean, he's content to farm soberly, and not play
+Jack o' Lantern tricks across his own acres. Right in one thing's right,
+I grant; but don't argue right in all. It's right only in one thing.
+Young men, when they've made a true hit or so, they're ready to think
+it's themselves that's right.”
+
+This was of course a reminder of the old feud with Robert, and
+sufficiently showed whom the farmer had in view for a husband to Rhoda,
+if any doubt existed previously.
+
+Having raised his eyes, his unwonted power of speech abandoned him, and
+he concluded, wavering in look and in tone,--
+
+“I'd half forgotten her uncle. I've reckoned his riches when I cared for
+riches. I can't say th' amount; but, all--I've had his word for it--all
+goes to this--God knows how much!--girl. And he don't hesitate to say
+she's worth a young man's fancying. May be so. It depends upon
+ideas mainly, that does. All goes to her. And this farm.--I wish ye
+good-night.”
+
+He gave them no other sign, but walked in his oppressed way quietly to
+the inner door, and forth, leaving the rest to them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+The two were together, and all preliminary difficulties had been cleared
+for Robert to say what he had to say, in a manner to make the saying of
+it well-nigh impossible. And yet silence might be misinterpreted by her.
+He would have drawn her to his heart at one sign of tenderness. There
+came none. The girl was frightfully torn with a great wound of shame.
+She was the first to speak.
+
+“Do you believe what father says of my sister?”
+
+“That she--?” Robert swallowed the words. “No!” and he made a thunder
+with his fist.
+
+“No!” She drank up the word. “You do not? No! You know that Dahlia is
+innocent?”
+
+Rhoda was trembling with a look for the asseveration; her pale face
+eager as a cry for life; but the answer did not come at once hotly as
+her passion for it demanded. She grew rigid, murmuring faintly: “speak!
+Do speak!”
+
+His eyes fell away from hers. Sweet love would have wrought in him to
+think as she thought, but she kept her heart closed from him, and he
+stood sadly judicial, with a conscience of his own, that would not
+permit him to declare Dahlia innocent, for he had long been imagining
+the reverse.
+
+Rhoda pressed her hands convulsively, moaning, “Oh!” down a short deep
+breath.
+
+“Tell me what has happened?” said Robert, made mad by that reproachful
+agony of her voice. “I'm in the dark. I'm not equal to you all. If
+Dahlia's sister wants one to stand up for her, and defend her, whatever
+she has done or not done, ask me. Ask me, and I'll revenge her. Here am
+I, and I know nothing, and you despise me because--don't think me rude
+or unkind. This hand is yours, if you will. Come, Rhoda. Or, let me hear
+the case, and I'll satisfy you as best I can. Feel for her? I feel for
+her as you do. You don't want me to stand a liar to your question? How
+can I speak?”
+
+A woman's instinct at red heat pierces the partial disingenuousness
+which Robert could only have avoided by declaring the doubts he
+entertained. Rhoda desired simply to be supported by his conviction
+of her sister's innocence, and she had scorn of one who would not
+chivalrously advance upon the risks of right and wrong, and rank himself
+prime champion of a woman belied, absent, and so helpless. Besides,
+there was but one virtue possible in Rhoda's ideas, as regarded Dahlia:
+to oppose facts, if necessary, and have her innocent perforce, and fight
+to the death them that dared cast slander on the beloved head.
+
+Her keen instinct served her so far.
+
+His was alive when she refused to tell him what had taken place during
+their visit to London.
+
+She felt that a man would judge evil of the circumstances. Her father
+and her uncle had done so: she felt that Robert would. Love for him
+would have prompted her to confide in him absolutely. She was not
+softened by love; there was no fire on her side to melt and make them
+run in one stream, and they could not meet.
+
+“Then, if you will not tell me,” said Robert, “say what you think of
+your father's proposal? He meant that I may ask you to be my wife.
+He used to fancy I cared for your sister. That's false. I care for
+her--yes; as my sister too; and here is my hand to do my utmost for her,
+but I love you, and I've loved you for some time. I'd be proud to marry
+you and help on with the old farm. You don't love me yet--which is a
+pretty hard thing for me to see to be certain of. But I love you, and I
+trust you. I like the stuff you're made of--and nice stuff I'm talking
+to a young woman,” he added, wiping his forehead at the idea of the fair
+and flattering addresses young women expect when they are being wooed.
+
+As it was, Rhoda listened with savage contempt of his idle talk. Her
+brain was beating at the mystery and misery wherein Dahlia lay engulfed.
+She had no understanding for Robert's sentimentality, or her father's
+requisition. Some answer had to be given, and she said,--
+
+“I'm not likely to marry a man who supposes he has anything to pardon.”
+
+“I don't suppose it,” cried Robert.
+
+“You heard what father said.”
+
+“I heard what he said, but I don't think the same. What has Dahlia to do
+with you?”
+
+He was proceeding to rectify this unlucky sentence. All her covert
+hostility burst out on it.
+
+“My sister?--what has my sister to do with me?--you mean!--you mean--you
+can only mean that we are to be separated and thought of as two people;
+and we are one, and will be till we die. I feel my sister's hand in
+mine, though she's away and lost. She is my darling for ever and ever.
+We're one!”
+
+A spasm of anguish checked the girl.
+
+“I mean,” Robert resumed steadily, “that her conduct, good or bad,
+doesn't touch you. If it did, it'd be the same to me. I ask you to take
+me for your husband. Just reflect on what your father said, Rhoda.”
+
+The horrible utterance her father's lips had been guilty of flashed
+through her, filling her with mastering vindictiveness, now that she had
+a victim.
+
+“Yes! I'm to take a husband to remind me of what he said.”
+
+Robert eyed her sharpened mouth admiringly; her defence of her sister
+had excited his esteem, wilfully though she rebutted his straightforward
+earnestness and he had a feeling also for the easy turns of her neck,
+and the confident poise of her figure.
+
+“Ha! well!” he interjected, with his eyebrows queerly raised, so that
+she could make nothing of his look. It seemed half maniacal, it was so
+ridged with bright eagerness.
+
+“By heaven! the task of taming you--that's the blessing I'd beg for in
+my prayers! Though you were as wild as a cat of the woods, by heaven!
+I'd rather have the taming of you than go about with a leash of
+quiet”--he checked himself--“companions.”
+
+Such was the sudden roll of his tongue, that she was lost in the
+astounding lead he had taken, and stared.
+
+“You're the beauty to my taste, and devil is what I want in a woman!
+I can make something out of a girl with a temper like yours. You don't
+know me, Miss Rhoda. I'm what you reckon a good young man. Isn't that
+it?”
+
+Robert drew up with a very hard smile.
+
+“I would to God I were! Mind, I feel for you about your sister. I
+like you the better for holding to her through thick and thin. But my
+sheepishness has gone, and I tell you I'll have you whether you will or
+no. I can help you and you can help me. I've lived here as if I had no
+more fire in me than old Gammon snoring on his pillow up aloft; and who
+kept me to it? Did you see I never touched liquor? What did you guess
+from that?--that I was a mild sort of fellow? So I am: but I haven't got
+that reputation in other parts. Your father 'd like me to marry you, and
+I'm ready. Who kept me to work, so that I might learn to farm, and be a
+man, and be able to take a wife? I came here--I'll tell you how. I was
+a useless dog. I ran from home and served as a trooper. An old aunt of
+mine left me a little money, which just woke me up and gave me a lift of
+what conscience I had, and I bought myself out.
+
+“I chanced to see your father's advertisement--came, looked at you all,
+and liked you--brought my traps and settled among you, and lived like a
+good young man. I like peace and orderliness, I find. I always thought
+I did, when I was dancing like mad to hell. I know I do now, and you're
+the girl to keep me to it. I've learnt that much by degrees. With any
+other, I should have been playing the fool, and going my old ways, long
+ago. I should have wrecked her, and drunk to forget. You're my match.
+By-and-by you'll know, me yours! You never gave me, or anybody else that
+I've seen, sly sidelooks.
+
+“Come! I'll speak out now I'm at work. I thought you at some girl's
+games in the Summer. You went out one day to meet a young gentleman.
+Offence or no offence, I speak and you listen. You did go out. I was in
+love with you then, too. I saw London had been doing its mischief. I was
+down about it. I felt that he would make nothing of you, but I chose to
+take the care of you, and you've hated me ever since.
+
+“That Mr. Algernon Blancove's a rascal. Stop! You'll say as much as you
+like presently. I give you a warning--the man's a rascal. I didn't play
+spy on your acts, but your looks. I can read a face like yours, and it's
+my home, my home!--by heaven, it is. Now, Rhoda, you know a little more
+of me. Perhaps I'm more of a man than you thought. Marry another, if you
+will; but I'm the man for you, and I know it, and you'll go wrong if you
+don't too. Come! let your father sleep well. Give me your hand.”
+
+All through this surprising speech of Robert's, which was a revelation
+of one who had been previously dark to her, she had steeled her
+spirit as she felt herself being borne upon unexpected rapids, and she
+marvelled when she found her hand in his.
+
+Dismayed, as if caught in a trap, she said,--
+
+“You know I've no love for you at all.”
+
+“None--no doubt,” he answered.
+
+The fit of verbal energy was expended, and he had become listless,
+though he looked frankly at her and assumed the cheerfulness which was
+failing within him.
+
+“I wish to remain as I am,” she faltered, surprised again by the equally
+astonishing recurrence of humility, and more spiritually subdued by it.
+“I've no heart for a change. Father will understand. I am safe.”
+
+She ended with a cry: “Oh! my dear, my own sister! I wish you were safe.
+Get her here to me and I'll do what I can, if you're not hard on her.
+She's so beautiful, she can't do wrong. My Dahlia's in some trouble. Mr.
+Robert, you might really be her friend?”
+
+“Drop the Mister,” said Robert.
+
+“Father will listen to you,” she pleaded. “You won't leave us? Tell
+him you know I am safe. But I haven't a feeling of any kind while my
+sister's away. I will call you Robert, if you like.” She reached her
+hand forth.
+
+“That's right,” he said, taking it with a show of heartiness: “that's a
+beginning, I suppose.”
+
+She shrank a little in his sensitive touch, and he added: “Oh never
+fear. I've spoken out, and don't do the thing too often. Now you know
+me, that's enough. I trust you, so trust me. I'll talk to your father.
+I've got a dad of my own, who isn't so easily managed. You and I,
+Rhoda--we're about the right size for a couple. There--don't be
+frightened! I was only thinking--I'll let go your hand in a minute. If
+Dahlia's to be found, I'll find her. Thank you for that squeeze. You'd
+wake a dead man to life, if you wanted to. To-morrow I set about the
+business. That's settled. Now your hand's loose. Are you going to say
+good night? You must give me your hand again for that. What a rough
+fellow I must seem to you! Different from the man you thought I was? I'm
+just what you choose to make me, Rhoda; remember that. By heaven! go at
+once, for you're an armful--”
+
+She took a candle and started for the door.
+
+“Aha! you can look fearful as a doe. Out! make haste!”
+
+In her hurry at his speeding gestures, the candle dropped; she was going
+to pick it up, but as he approached, she stood away frightened.
+
+“One kiss, my girl,” he said. “Don't keep me jealous as fire. One! and
+I'm a plighted man. One!--or I shall swear you know what kisses are. Why
+did you go out to meet that fellow? Do you think there's no danger in
+it? Doesn't he go about boasting of it now, and saying--that girl! But
+kiss me and I'll forget it; I'll forgive you. Kiss me only once, and I
+shall be certain you don't care for him. That's the thought maddens me
+outright. I can't bear it now I've seen you look soft. I'm stronger than
+you, mind.” He caught her by the waist.
+
+“Yes,” Rhoda gasped, “you are. You are only a brute.”
+
+“A brute's a lucky dog, then, for I've got you!”
+
+“Will you touch me?”
+
+“You're in my power.”
+
+“It's a miserable thing, Robert.”
+
+“Why don't you struggle, my girl? I shall kiss you in a minute.”
+
+“You're never my friend again.”
+
+“I'm not a gentleman, I suppose!”
+
+“Never! after this.”
+
+“It isn't done. And first you're like a white rose, and next you're like
+a red. Will you submit?”
+
+“Oh! shame!” Rhoda uttered.
+
+“Because I'm not a gentleman?”
+
+“You are not.”
+
+“So, if I could make you a lady--eh? the lips 'd be ready in a trice.
+You think of being made a lady--a lady!”
+
+His arm relaxed in the clutch of her figure.
+
+She got herself free, and said: “We saw Mr. Blancove at the theatre with
+Dahlia.”
+
+It was her way of meeting his accusation that she had cherished an
+ambitious feminine dream.
+
+He, to hide a confusion that had come upon him, was righting the fallen
+candle.
+
+“Now I know you can be relied on; you can defend yourself,” he said, and
+handed it to her, lighted. “You keep your kisses for this or that young
+gentleman. Quite right. You really can defend yourself. That's all I was
+up to. So let us hear that you forgive me. The door's open. You won't be
+bothered by me any more; and don't hate me overmuch.”
+
+“You might have learned to trust me without insulting me, Robert,” she
+said.
+
+“Do you fancy I'd take such a world of trouble for a kiss of your lips,
+sweet as they are?”
+
+His blusterous beginning ended in a speculating glance at her mouth.
+
+She saw it would be wise to accept him in his present mood, and go; and
+with a gentle “Good night,” that might sound like pardon, she passed
+through the doorway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Next day, while Squire Blancove was superintending the laying down of
+lines for a new carriage drive in his park, as he walked slowly up the
+green slope he perceived Farmer Fleming, supported by a tall young
+man; and when the pair were nearer, he had the gratification of noting
+likewise that the worthy yeoman was very much bent, as with an acute
+attack of his well-known chronic malady of a want of money.
+
+The squire greatly coveted the freehold of Queen Anne's Farm. He had
+made offers to purchase it till he was tired, and had gained for himself
+the credit of being at the bottom of numerous hypothetical cabals to
+injure and oust the farmer from his possession. But if Naboth came with
+his vineyard in his hand, not even Wrexby's rector (his quarrel with
+whom haunted every turn in his life) could quote Scripture against him
+for taking it at a proper valuation.
+
+The squire had employed his leisure time during service in church to
+discover a text that might be used against him in the event of the
+farmer's reduction to a state of distress, and his, the squire's, making
+the most of it. On the contrary, according to his heathenish reading of
+some of the patriarchal doings, there was more to be said in his favour
+than not, if he increased his territorial property: nor could he,
+throughout the Old Testament, hit on one sentence that looked like a
+personal foe to his projects, likely to fit into the mouth of the rector
+of Wrexby.
+
+“Well, farmer,” he said, with cheerful familiarity, “winter crops
+looking well? There's a good show of green in the fields from my
+windows, as good as that land of yours will allow in heavy seasons.”
+
+To this the farmer replied, “I've not heart or will to be round about,
+squire. If you'll listen to me--here, or where you give command.”
+
+“Has it anything to do with pen and paper, Fleming? In that case you'd
+better be in my study,” said the squire.
+
+“I don't know that it have. I don't know that it have.” The farmer
+sought Robert's face.
+
+“Best where there's no chance of interruption,” Robert counselled, and
+lifted his hat to the squire.
+
+“Eh? Well, you see I'm busy.” The latter affected a particular
+indifference, that in such cases, when well acted (as lords of money can
+do--squires equally with usurers), may be valued at hundreds of pounds
+in the pocket. “Can't you put it off? Come again to-morrow.”
+
+“To-morrow's a day too late,” said the farmer, gravely. Whereto
+replying, “Oh! well, come along in, then,” the squire led the way.
+
+“You're two to one, if it's a transaction,” he said, nodding to Robert
+to close the library door. “Take seats. Now then, what is it? And if I
+make a face, just oblige me by thinking nothing about it, for my gout's
+beginning to settle in the leg again, and shoots like an electric
+telegraph from purgatory.”
+
+He wheezed and lowered himself into his arm-chair; but the farmer and
+Robert remained standing, and the farmer spoke:--
+
+“My words are going to be few, squire. I've got a fact to bring to your
+knowledge, and a question to ask.”
+
+Surprise, exaggerated on his face by a pain he had anticipated, made the
+squire glare hideously.
+
+“Confound it, that's what they say to a prisoner in the box. Here's a
+murder committed:--Are you the guilty person? Fact and question! Well,
+out with 'em, both together.”
+
+“A father ain't responsible for the sins of his children,” said the
+farmer.
+
+“Well, that's a fact,” the squire emphasized. “I've always maintained
+it; but, if you go to your church, farmer--small blame to you if you
+don't; that fellow who preaches there--I forget his name--stands out
+for just the other way. You are responsible, he swears. Pay your son's
+debts, and don't groan over it:--He spent the money, and you're the
+chief debtor; that's his teaching. Well: go on. What's your question?”
+
+“A father's not to be held responsible for the sins of his children,
+squire. My daughter's left me. She's away. I saw my daughter at
+the theatre in London. She saw me, and saw her sister with me. She
+disappeared. It's a hard thing for a man to be saying of his own flesh
+and blood. She disappeared. She went, knowing her father's arms open to
+her. She was in company with your son.”
+
+The squire was thrumming on the arm of his chair. He looked up vaguely,
+as if waiting for the question to follow, but meeting the farmer's
+settled eyes, he cried, irritably, “Well, what's that to me?”
+
+“What's that to you, squire?”
+
+“Are you going to make me out responsible for my son's conduct? My son's
+a rascal--everybody knows that. I paid his debts once, and I've finished
+with him. Don't come to me about the fellow. If there's a greater curse
+than the gout, it's a son.”
+
+“My girl,” said the farmer, “she's my flesh and blood, and I must find
+her, and I'm here to ask you to make your son tell me where she's to be
+found. Leave me to deal with that young man--leave you me! but I want my
+girl.”
+
+“But I can't give her to you,” roared the squire, afflicted by his two
+great curses at once. “Why do you come to me? I'm not responsible for
+the doings of the dog. I'm sorry for you, if that's what you want to
+know. Do you mean to say that my son took her away from your house?”
+
+“I don't do so, Mr. Blancove. I'm seeking for my daughter, and I see her
+in company with your son.”
+
+“Very well, very well,” said the squire; “that shows his habits; I can't
+say more. But what has it got to do with me?”
+
+The farmer looked helplessly at Robert.
+
+“No, no,” the squire sung out, “no interlopers, no interpreting here.
+I listen to you. My son--your daughter. I understand that, so far. It's
+between us two. You've got a daughter who's gone wrong somehow: I'm
+sorry to hear it. I've got a son who never went right; and it's no
+comfort to me, upon my word. If you were to see the bills and the
+letters I receive! but I don't carry my grievances to my neighbours. I
+should think, Fleming, you'd do best, if it's advice you're seeking, to
+keep it quiet. Don't make a noise about it. Neighbours' gossip I find
+pretty well the worst thing a man has to bear, who's unfortunate enough
+to own children.”
+
+The farmer bowed his head with that bitter humbleness which
+characterized his reception of the dealings of Providence toward him.
+
+“My neighbours 'll soon be none at all,” he said. “Let 'em talk. I'm
+not abusing you, Mr. Blancove. I'm a broken man: but I want my poor lost
+girl, and, by God, responsible for your son or not, you must help me
+to find her. She may be married, as she says. She mayn't be. But I must
+find her.”
+
+The squire hastily seized a scrap of paper on the table and wrote on it.
+
+“There!” he handed the paper to the farmer; “that's my son's address,
+'Boyne's Bank, City, London.' Go to him there, and you'll find him
+perched on a stool, and a good drubbing won't hurt him. You've my hearty
+permission, I can assure you: you may say so. 'Boyne's Bank.' Anybody
+will show you the place. He's a rascally clerk in the office, and
+precious useful, I dare swear. Thrash him, if you think fit.”
+
+“Ay,” said the farmer, “Boyne's Bank. I've been there already. He's
+absent from work, on a visit down into Hampshire, one of the young
+gentlemen informed me; Fairly Park was the name of the place: but I came
+to you, Mr. Blancove; for you're his father.”
+
+“Well now, my good Fleming, I hope you think I'm properly punished for
+that fact.” The squire stood up with horrid contortions.
+
+Robert stepped in advance of the farmer.
+
+“Pardon me, sir,” he said, though the squire met his voice with a
+prodigious frown; “this would be an ugly business to talk about, as you
+observe. It would hurt Mr. Fleming in these parts of the country, and he
+would leave it, if he thought fit; but you can't separate your name
+from your son's--begging you to excuse the liberty I take in mentioning
+it--not in public: and your son has the misfortune to be well known
+in one or two places where he was quartered when in the cavalry. That
+matter of the jeweller--”
+
+“Hulloa,” the squire exclaimed, in a perturbation.
+
+“Why, sir, I know all about it, because I was a trooper in the regiment
+your son, Mr. Algernon Blancove, quitted: and his name, if I may take
+leave to remark so, won't bear printing. How far he's guilty before Mr.
+Fleming we can't tell as yet; but if Mr. Fleming holds him guilty of
+an offence, your son 'll bear the consequences, and what's done will be
+done thoroughly. Proper counsel will be taken, as needn't be said. Mr.
+Fleming applied to you first, partly for your sake as well as his own.
+He can find friends, both to advise and to aid him.”
+
+“You mean, sir,” thundered the squire, “that he can find enemies of
+mine, like that infernal fellow who goes by the title of Reverend, down
+below there. That'll do, that will do; there's some extortion at the
+bottom of this. You're putting on a screw.”
+
+“We're putting on a screw, sir,” said Robert, coolly.
+
+“Not a penny will you get by it.”
+
+Robert flushed with heat of blood.
+
+“You don't wish you were a young man half so much as I do just now,” he
+remarked, and immediately they were in collision, for the squire made a
+rush to the bell-rope, and Robert stopped him. “We're going,” he said;
+“we don't want man-servants to show us the way out. Now mark me, Mr.
+Blancove, you've insulted an old man in his misery: you shall suffer
+for it, and so shall your son, whom I know to be a rascal worthy of
+transportation. You think Mr. Fleming came to you for money. Look at
+this old man, whose only fault is that he's too full of kindness; he
+came to you just for help to find his daughter, with whom your rascal of
+a son was last seen, and you swear he's come to rob you of money. Don't
+you know yourself a fattened cur, squire though you be, and called
+gentleman? England's a good place, but you make England a hell to men
+of spirit. Sit in your chair, and don't ever you, or any of you cross my
+path; and speak a word to your servants before we're out of the house,
+and I stand in the hall and give 'em your son's history, and make Wrexby
+stink in your nostril, till you're glad enough to fly out of it. Now,
+Mr. Fleming, there's no more to be done here; the game lies elsewhere.”
+
+Robert took the farmer by the arm, and was marching out of the enemy's
+territory in good order, when the squire, who had presented many
+changeing aspects of astonishment and rage, arrested them with a call.
+He began to say that he spoke to Mr. Fleming, and not to the young
+ruffian of a bully whom the farmer had brought there: and then asked in
+a very reasonable manner what he could do--what measures he could adopt
+to aid the farmer in finding his child. Robert hung modestly in the
+background while the farmer laboured on with a few sentences to explain
+the case, and finally the squire said, that his foot permitting (it was
+an almost pathetic reference to the weakness of flesh), he would go down
+to Fairly on the day following and have a personal interview with his
+son, and set things right, as far as it lay in his power, though he was
+by no means answerable for a young man's follies.
+
+He was a little frightened by the farmer's having said that Dahlia,
+according to her own declaration was married, and therefore himself the
+more anxious to see Mr. Algernon, and hear the truth from his estimable
+offspring, whom he again stigmatized as a curse terrible to him as
+his gouty foot, but nevertheless just as little to be left to his own
+devices. The farmer bowed to these observations; as also when the squire
+counselled him, for his own sake, not to talk of his misfortune all over
+the parish.
+
+“I'm not a likely man for that, squire; but there's no telling where
+gossips get their crumbs. It's about. It's about.”
+
+“About my son?” cried the squire.
+
+“My daughter!”
+
+“Oh, well, good-day,” the squire resumed more cheerfully. “I'll go down
+to Fairly, and you can't ask more than that.”
+
+When the farmer was out of the house and out of hearing, he rebuked
+Robert for the inconsiderate rashness of his behaviour, and pointed out
+how he, the farmer, by being patient and peaceful, had attained to the
+object of his visit. Robert laughed without defending himself.
+
+“I shouldn't ha' known ye,” the farmer repeated frequently; “I shouldn't
+ha' known ye, Robert.”
+
+“No, I'm a trifle changed, may be,” Robert agreed. “I'm going to claim a
+holiday of you. I've told Rhoda that if Dahlia's to be found, I'll find
+her, and I can't do it by sticking here. Give me three weeks. The land's
+asleep. Old Gammon can hardly turn a furrow the wrong way. There's
+nothing to do, which is his busiest occupation, when he's not
+interrupted at it.”
+
+“Mas' Gammon's a rare old man,” said the farmer, emphatically.
+
+“So I say. Else, how would you see so many farms flourishing!”
+
+“Come, Robert: you hit th' old man hard; you should learn to forgive.”
+
+“So I do, and a telling blow's a man's best road to charity. I'd forgive
+the squire and many another, if I had them within two feet of my fist.”
+
+“Do you forgive my girl Rhoda for putting of you off?”
+
+Robert screwed in his cheek.
+
+“Well, yes, I do,” he said. “Only it makes me feel thirsty, that's all.”
+
+The farmer remembered this when they had entered the farm.
+
+“Our beer's so poor, Robert,” he made apology; “but Rhoda shall get you
+some for you to try, if you like. Rhoda, Robert's solemn thirsty.”
+
+“Shall I?” said Rhoda, and she stood awaiting his bidding.
+
+“I'm not a thirsty subject,” replied Robert. “You know I've avoided
+drink of any kind since I set foot on this floor. But when I drink,” he
+pitched his voice to a hard, sparkling heartiness, “I drink a lot, and
+the stuff must be strong. I'm very much obliged to you, Miss Rhoda, for
+what you're so kind as to offer to satisfy my thirst, and you can't give
+better, and don't suppose that I'm complaining; but your father's right,
+it is rather weak, and wouldn't break the tooth of my thirst if I drank
+at it till Gammon left off thinking about his dinner.”
+
+With that he announced his approaching departure.
+
+The farmer dropped into his fireside chair, dumb and spiritless.
+A shadow was over the house, and the inhabitants moved about their
+domestic occupations silent as things that feel the thunder-cloud.
+Before sunset Robert was gone on his long walk to the station, and Rhoda
+felt a woman's great envy of the liberty of a man, who has not, if it
+pleases him not, to sit and eat grief among familiar images, in a home
+that furnishes its altar-flame.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Fairly, Lord Elling's seat in Hampshire, lay over the Warbeach river; a
+white mansion among great oaks, in view of the summer sails and
+winter masts of the yachting squadron. The house was ruled, during
+the congregation of the Christmas guests, by charming Mrs. Lovell,
+who relieved the invalid Lady of the house of the many serious cares
+attending the reception of visitors, and did it all with ease. Under her
+sovereignty the place was delightful, and if it was by repute pleasanter
+to young men than to any other class, it will be admitted that she
+satisfied those who are loudest in giving tongue to praise.
+
+Edward and Algernon journeyed down to Fairly together, after the
+confidence which the astute young lawyer had been compelled to repose in
+his cousin. Sir William Blancove was to be at Fairly, and it was at
+his father's pointed request that Edward had accepted Mrs. Lovell's
+invitation. Half in doubt as to the lady's disposition toward him,
+Edward eased his heart with sneers at the soft, sanguinary graciousness
+they were to expect, and racked mythology for spiteful comparisons;
+while Algernon vehemently defended her with a battering fire of British
+adjectives in superlative. He as much as hinted, under instigation, that
+he was entitled to defend her; and his claim being by-and-by yawningly
+allowed by Edward, and presuming that he now had Edward in his power and
+need not fear him, he exhibited his weakness in the guise of a costly
+gem, that he intended to present to Mrs. Lovell--an opal set in a cross
+pendant from a necklace; a really fine opal, coquetting with the lights
+of every gem that is known: it shot succinct red flashes, and green, and
+yellow; the emerald, the amethyst, the topaz lived in it, and a remote
+ruby; it was veined with lightning hues, and at times it slept in a
+milky cloud, innocent of fire, quite maidenlike.
+
+“That will suit her,” was Edward's remark.
+
+“I didn't want to get anything common,” said Algernon, making the gem
+play before his eyes.
+
+“A pretty stone,” said Edward.
+
+“Do you think so?”
+
+“Very pretty indeed.”
+
+“Harlequin pattern.”
+
+“To be presented to Columbine!”
+
+“The Harlequin pattern is of the best sort, you know. Perhaps you like
+the watery ones best? This is fresh from Russia. There's a set I've my
+eye on. I shall complete it in time. I want Peggy Lovell to wear the
+jolliest opals in the world. It's rather nice, isn't it?”
+
+“It's a splendid opal,” said Edward.
+
+“She likes opals,” said Algernon.
+
+“She'll take your meaning at once,” said Edward.
+
+“How? I'll be hanged if I know what my meaning is, Ned.”
+
+“Don't you know the signification of your gift?”
+
+“Not a bit.”
+
+“Oh! you'll be Oriental when you present it.”
+
+“The deuce I shall!”
+
+“It means, 'You're the prettiest widow in the world.'”
+
+“So she is. I'll be right there, old boy.”
+
+“And, 'You're a rank, right-down widow, and no mistake; you're
+everything to everybody; not half so innocent as you look: you're green
+as jealousy, red as murder, yellow as jaundice, and put on the whiteness
+of a virgin when you ought to be blushing like a penitent.' In short,
+'You have no heart of your own, and you pretend to possess half a dozen:
+you're devoid of one steady beam, and play tricks with every scale of
+colour: you're an arrant widow, and that's what you are.' An eloquent
+gift, Algy.”
+
+“Gad, if it means all that, it'll be rather creditable to me,” said
+Algernon. “Do opals mean widows?”
+
+“Of course,” was the answer.
+
+“Well, she is a widow, and I suppose she's going to remain one, for
+she's had lots of offers. If I marry a girl I shall never like her half
+as much as Peggy Lovell. She's done me up for every other woman living.
+She never lets me feel a fool with her; and she has a way, by Jove, of
+looking at me, and letting me know she's up to my thoughts and isn't
+angry. What's the use of my thinking of her at all? She'd never go to
+the Colonies, and live in a log but and make cheeses, while I tore about
+on horseback gathering cattle.”
+
+“I don't think she would,” observed Edward, emphatically; “I don't think
+she would.”
+
+“And I shall never have money. Confound stingy parents! It's a
+question whether I shall get Wrexby: there's no entail. I'm heir to the
+governor's temper and his gout, I dare say. He'll do as he likes with
+the estate. I call it beastly unfair.”
+
+Edward asked how much the opal had cost.
+
+“Oh, nothing,” said Algernon; “that is, I never pay for jewellery.”
+
+Edward was curious to know how he managed to obtain it.
+
+“Why, you see,” Algernon explained, “they, the jewellers--I've got two
+or three in hand--the fellows are acquainted with my position, and they
+speculate on my expectations. There is no harm in that if they like it.
+I look at their trinkets, and say, 'I've no money;' and they say, 'Never
+mind;' and I don't mind much. The understanding is, that I pay them when
+I inherit.”
+
+“In gout and bad temper?”
+
+“Gad, if I inherit nothing else, they'll have lots of that for
+indemnification. It's a good system, Ned; it enables a young fellow like
+me to get through the best years of his life--which I take to be
+his youth--without that squalid poverty bothering him. You can make
+presents, and wear a pin or a ring, if it takes your eye. You look well,
+and you make yourself agreeable; and I see nothing to complain of in
+that.”
+
+“The jewellers, then, have established an institution to correct one of
+the errors of Providence.”
+
+“Oh! put it in your long-winded way, if you like,” said Algernon; “all I
+know is, that I should often have wanted a five-pound note, if--that
+is, if I hadn't happened to be dressed like a gentleman. With your
+prospects, Ned, I should propose to charming Peggy tomorrow morning
+early. We mustn't let her go out of the family. If I can't have her, I'd
+rather you would.”
+
+“You forget the incumbrances on one side,” said Edward, his face
+darkening.
+
+“Oh! that's all to be managed,” Algernon rallied him. “Why, Ned, you'll
+have twenty thousand a-year, if you have a penny; and you'll go into
+Parliament, and give dinners, and a woman like Peggy Lovell 'd intrigue
+for you like the deuce.”
+
+“A great deal too like,” Edward muttered.
+
+“As for that pretty girl,” continued Algernon; but Edward peremptorily
+stopped all speech regarding Dahlia. His desire was, while he made
+holiday, to shut the past behind a brazen gate; which being communicated
+sympathetically to his cousin, the latter chimed to it in boisterous
+shouts of anticipated careless jollity at Fairly Park, crying out how
+they would hunt and snap fingers at Jews, and all mortal sorrows, and
+have a fortnight, or three weeks, perhaps a full month, of the finest
+life possible to man, with good horses, good dinners, good wines,
+good society, at command, and a queen of a woman to rule and order
+everything. Edward affected a disdainful smile at the prospect; but was
+in reality the weaker of the two in his thirst for it.
+
+They arrived at Fairly in time to dress for dinner, and in the
+drawing-room Mrs. Lovell sat to receive them. She looked up to Edward's
+face an imperceptible half-second longer than the ordinary form of
+welcome accords--one of the looks which are nothing at all when there
+is no spiritual apprehension between young people, and are so much when
+there is. To Algernon, who was gazing opals on her, she simply gave her
+fingers. At her right hand, was Sir John Capes, her antique devotee;
+a pure milky-white old gentleman, with sparkling fingers, who played
+Apollo to his Daphne, and was out of breath. Lord Suckling, a boy with
+a boisterous constitution, and a guardsman, had his place near her left
+hand, as if ready to seize it at the first whisper of encouragement
+or opportunity. A very little lady of seventeen, Miss Adeline Gosling,
+trembling with shyness under a cover of demureness, fell to Edward's
+lot to conduct down to dinner, where he neglected her disgracefully.
+His father, Sir William, was present at the table, and Lord Elling, with
+whom he was in repute as a talker and a wit. Quickened with his host's
+renowned good wine (and the bare renown of a wine is inspiriting),
+Edward pressed to be brilliant. He had an epigrammatic turn, and though
+his mind was prosaic when it ran alone, he could appear inventive and
+fanciful with the rub of other minds. Now, at a table where good talking
+is cared for, the triumphs of the excelling tongue are not for a moment
+to be despised, even by the huge appetite of the monster Vanity. For a
+year, Edward had abjured this feast. Before the birds appeared and the
+champagne had ceased to make its circle, he felt that he was now at home
+again, and that the term of his wandering away from society was one of
+folly. He felt the joy and vigour of a creature returned to his element.
+Why had he ever quitted it? Already he looked back upon Dahlia from a
+prodigious distance. He knew that there was something to be smoothed
+over; something written in the book of facts which had to be smeared
+out, and he seemed to do it, while he drank the babbling wine and heard
+himself talk. Not one man at that table, as he reflected, would consider
+the bond which held him in any serious degree binding. A lady is
+one thing, and a girl of the class Dahlia had sprung from altogether
+another. He could not help imagining the sort of appearance she would
+make there; and the thought even was a momentary clog upon his tongue.
+How he used to despise these people! Especially he had despised the
+young men as brainless cowards in regard to their views of women and
+conduct toward them. All that was changed. He fancied now that they,
+on the contrary, would despise him, if only they could be aware of the
+lingering sense he entertained of his being in bondage under a sacred
+obligation to a farmer's daughter.
+
+But he had one thing to discover, and that was, why Sir William had made
+it a peculiar request that he should come to meet him here. Could the
+desire possibly be to reconcile him with Mrs. Lovell? His common sense
+rejected the idea at once: Sir William boasted of her wit and tact, and
+admired her beauty, but Edward remembered his having responded tacitly
+to his estimate of her character, and Sir William was not the man
+to court the alliance of his son with a woman like Mrs. Lovell. He
+perceived that his father and the fair widow frequently took counsel
+together. Edward laughed at the notion that the grave senior had himself
+become fascinated, but without utterly scouting it, until he found that
+the little lady whom he had led to dinner the first day, was an heiress;
+and from that, and other indications, he exactly divined the nature
+of his father's provident wishes. But this revelation rendered Mrs.
+Lovell's behaviour yet more extraordinary. Could it be credited that
+she was abetting Sir William's schemes with all her woman's craft? “Has
+she,” thought Edward, “become so indifferent to me as to care for my
+welfare?” He determined to put her to the test. He made love to Adeline
+Gosling. Nothing that he did disturbed the impenetrable complacency of
+Mrs. Lovell. She threw them together as she shuffled the guests. She
+really seemed to him quite indifferent enough to care for his welfare.
+It was a point in the mysterious ways of women, or of widows, that
+Edward's experience had not yet come across. All the parties immediately
+concerned were apparently so desperately acquiescing in his suit, that
+he soon grew uneasy. Mrs. Lovell not only shuffled him into places
+with the raw heiress, but with the child's mother; of whom he spoke to
+Algernon as of one too strongly breathing of matrimony to appease the
+cravings of an eclectic mind.
+
+“Make the path clear for me, then,” said Algernon, “if you don't like
+the girl. Pitch her tales about me. Say, I've got a lot in me, though
+I don't let it out. The game's up between you and Peggy Lovell, that's
+clear. She don't forgive you, my boy.”
+
+“Ass!” muttered Edward, seeing by the light of his perception, that he
+was too thoroughly forgiven.
+
+A principal charm of the life at Fairly to him was that there was no
+one complaining. No one looked reproach at him. If a lady was pale and
+reserved, she did not seem to accuse him, and to require coaxing. All
+faces here were as light as the flying moment, and did not carry the
+shadowy weariness of years, like that burdensome fair face in the London
+lodging-house, to which the Fates had terribly attached themselves. So,
+he was gay. He closed, as it were, a black volume, and opened a new and
+a bright one. Young men easily fancy that they may do this, and that
+when the black volume is shut the tide is stopped. Saying, “I was a
+fool,” they believe they have put an end to the foolishness. What father
+teaches them that a human act once set in motion flows on for ever to
+the great account? Our deathlessness is in what we do, not in what we
+are. Comfortable Youth thinks otherwise.
+
+The days at a well-ordered country-house, where a divining lady rules,
+speed to the measure of a waltz, in harmonious circles, dropping like
+crystals into the gulfs of Time, and appearing to write nothing in his
+book. Not a single hinge of existence is heard to creak. There is no
+after-dinner bill. You are waited on, without being elbowed by the
+humanity of your attendants. It is a civilized Arcadia. Only, do not
+desire, that you may not envy. Accept humbly what rights of citizenship
+are accorded to you upon entering. Discard the passions when you cross
+the threshold. To breathe and to swallow merely, are the duties which
+should prescribe your conduct; or, such is the swollen condition of
+the animal in this enchanted region, that the spirit of man becomes
+dangerously beset.
+
+Edward breathed and swallowed, and never went beyond the prescription,
+save by talking. No other junior could enter the library, without
+encountering the scorn of his elders; so he enjoyed the privilege of
+hearing all the scandal, and his natural cynicism was plentifully fed.
+It was more of a school to him than he knew.
+
+These veterans, in their arm-chairs, stripped the bloom from life, and
+showed it to be bare bones: They took their wisdom for an experience of
+the past: they were but giving their sensations in the present. Not to
+perceive this, is Youth's, error when it hears old gentlemen talking at
+their ease.
+
+On the third morning of their stay at Fairly, Algernon came into
+Edward's room with a letter in his hand.
+
+“There! read that!” he said. “It isn't ill-luck; it's infernal
+persecution! What, on earth!--why, I took a close cab to the station.
+You saw me get out of it. I'll swear no creditor of mine knew I was
+leaving London. My belief is that the fellows who give credit have spies
+about at every railway terminus in the kingdom. They won't give me three
+days' peace. It's enough to disgust any man with civilized life; on my
+soul, it is!”
+
+Edward glanced at the superscription of the letter. “Not posted,” he
+remarked.
+
+“No; delivered by some confounded bailiff, who's been hounding me.”
+
+“Bailiffs don't generally deal in warnings.”
+
+“Will you read it!” Algernon shouted.
+
+The letter ran thus:--
+
+   “Mr. Algernon Blancove,--
+
+   “The writer of this intends taking the first opportunity of meeting
+   you, and gives you warning, you will have to answer his question
+   with a Yes or a No; and speak from your conscience. The
+   respectfulness of his behaviour to you as a gentleman will depend
+   upon that.”
+
+Algernon followed his cousin's eye down to the last letter in the page.
+
+“What do you think of it?” he asked eagerly.
+
+Edward's broad thin-lined brows were drawn down in gloom. Mastering
+some black meditation in his brain, he answered Algernon's yells for an
+opinion,--
+
+“I think--well, I think bailiffs have improved in their manners, and
+show you they are determined to belong to the social march in an age of
+universal progress. Nothing can be more comforting.”
+
+“But, suppose this fellow comes across me?”
+
+“Don't know him.”
+
+“Suppose he insists on knowing me?”
+
+“Don't know yourself.”
+
+“Yes; but hang it! if he catches hold of me?”
+
+“Shake him off.”
+
+“Suppose he won't let go?”
+
+“Cut him with your horsewhip.”
+
+“You think it's about a debt, then?”
+
+“Intimidation, evidently.”
+
+“I shall announce to him that the great Edward Blancove is not to be
+intimidated. You'll let me borrow your name, old Ned. I've stood by
+you in my time. As for leaving Fairly, I tell you I can't. It's too
+delightful to be near Peggy Lovell.”
+
+Edward smiled with a peculiar friendliness, and Algernon went off, very
+well contented with his cousin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Within a mile of Fairly Park lay the farm of another yeoman; but he was
+of another character. The Hampshireman was a farmer of renown in his
+profession; fifth of a family that had cultivated a small domain of one
+hundred and seventy acres with sterling profit, and in a style to make
+Sutton the model of a perfect farm throughout the country. Royal eyes
+had inspected his pigs approvingly; Royal wits had taken hints from
+Jonathan Eccles in matters agricultural; and it was his comforting joke
+that he had taught his Prince good breeding. In return for the service,
+his Prince had transformed a lusty Radical into a devoted Royalist.
+Framed on the walls of his parlours were letters from his Prince,
+thanking him for specimen seeds and worthy counsel: veritable autograph
+letters of the highest value. The Prince had steamed up the salt river,
+upon which the Sutton harvests were mirrored, and landed on a spot
+marked in honour of the event by a broad grey stone; and from that
+day Jonathan Eccles stood on a pinnacle of pride, enabling him to see
+horizons of despondency hitherto unknown to him. For he had a son, and
+the son was a riotous devil, a most wild young fellow, who had no
+taste for a farmer's life, and openly declared his determination not to
+perpetuate the Sutton farm in the hands of the Eccleses, by running off
+one day and entering the ranks of the British army.
+
+Those framed letters became melancholy objects for contemplation,
+when Jonathan thought that no posterity of his would point them out
+gloryingly in emulation. Man's aim is to culminate; but it is the
+saddest thing in the world to feel that we have accomplished it. Mr.
+Eccles shrugged with all the philosophy he could summon, and transferred
+his private disappointment to his country, whose agricultural day was,
+he said, doomed. “We shall be beaten by those Yankees.” He gave Old
+England twenty years of continued pre-eminence (due to the impetus of
+the present generation of Englishmen), and then, said he, the Yankees
+will flood the market. No more green pastures in Great Britain; no
+pretty clean-footed animals; no yellow harvests; but huge chimney pots
+everywhere; black earth under black vapour, and smoke-begrimed faces.
+In twenty years' time, sooty England was to be a gigantic manufactory,
+until the Yankees beat us out of that field as well; beyond which
+Jonathan Eccles did not care to spread any distinct border of prophecy;
+merely thanking the Lord that he should then be under grass. The decay
+of our glory was to be edged with blood; Jonathan admitted that there
+would be stuff in the fallen race to deliver a sturdy fight before they
+went to their doom.
+
+For this prodigious curse, England had to thank young Robert, the
+erratic son of Jonathan.
+
+It was now two years since Robert had inherited a small legacy of money
+from an aunt, and spent it in waste, as the farmer bitterly supposed.
+He was looking at some immense seed-melons in his garden, lying about in
+morning sunshine--a new feed for sheep, of his own invention,--when the
+call of the wanderer saluted his ears, and he beheld his son Robert at
+the gate.
+
+“Here I am, sir,” Robert sang out from the exterior.
+
+“Stay there, then,” was his welcome.
+
+They were alike in their build and in their manner of speech. The accost
+and the reply sounded like reports from the same pistol. The old man was
+tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular--a grey edition of the son, upon
+whose disorderly attire he cast a glance, while speaking, with settled
+disgust. Robert's necktie streamed loose; his hair was uncombed; a
+handkerchief dangled from his pocket. He had the look of the prodigal,
+returned with impudence for his portion instead of repentance.
+
+“I can't see how you are, sir, from this distance,” said Robert, boldly
+assuming his privilege to enter.
+
+“Are you drunk?” Jonathan asked, as Robert marched up to him.
+
+“Give me your hand, sir.”
+
+“Give me an answer first. Are you drunk?”
+
+Robert tried to force the complacent aspect of a mind unabashed,
+but felt that he made a stupid show before that clear-headed,
+virtuously-living old, man of iron nerves. The alternative to flying
+into a passion, was the looking like a fool.
+
+“Come, father,” he said, with a miserable snigger, like a yokel's smile;
+“here I am at last. I don't say, kill the fatted calf, and take a
+lesson from Scripture, but give me your hand. I've done no man harm but
+myself--damned if I've done a mean thing anywhere! and there's no shame
+to you in shaking your son's hand after a long absence.”
+
+Jonathan Eccles kept both hands firmly in his pockets.
+
+“Are you drunk?” he repeated.
+
+Robert controlled himself to answer, “I'm not.”
+
+“Well, then, just tell me when you were drunk last.”
+
+“This is a pleasant fatherly greeting!” Robert interjected.
+
+“You get no good by fighting shy of a simple question, Mr. Bob,” said
+Jonathan.
+
+Robert cried querulously, “I don't want to fight shy of a simple
+question.”
+
+“Well, then; when were you drunk last? answer me that.”
+
+“Last night.”
+
+Jonathan drew his hand from his pocket to thump his leg.
+
+“I'd have sworn it!”
+
+All Robert's assurance had vanished in a minute, and he stood like a
+convicted culprit before his father.
+
+“You know, sir, I don't tell lies. I was drunk last night. I couldn't
+help it.”
+
+“No more could the little boy.”
+
+“I was drunk last night. Say, I'm a beast.”
+
+“I shan't!” exclaimed Jonathan, making his voice sound as a defence to
+this vile charge against the brutish character.
+
+“Say, I'm worse than a beast, then,” cried Robert, in exasperation.
+“Take my word that it hasn't happened to me to be in that state for a
+year and more. Last night I was mad. I can't give you any reasons. I
+thought I was cured but I've trouble in my mind, and a tide swims you
+over the shallows--so I felt. Come, sir--father, don't make me mad
+again.”
+
+“Where did you get the liquor?” inquired Jonathan.
+
+“I drank at 'The Pilot.'”
+
+“Ha! there's talk there of 'that damned old Eccles' for a month to
+come--'the unnatural parent.' How long have you been down here?”
+
+“Eight and twenty hours.”
+
+“Eight and twenty hours. When are you going?”
+
+“I want lodging for a night.”
+
+“What else?”
+
+“The loan of a horse that'll take a fence.”
+
+“Go on.”
+
+“And twenty pounds.”
+
+“Oh!” said Jonathan. “If farming came as easy to you as face, you'd be a
+prime agriculturalist. Just what I thought! What's become of that money
+your aunt Jane was fool enough to bequeath to you?”
+
+“I've spent it.”
+
+“Are you a Deserter?”
+
+For a moment Robert stood as if listening, and then white grew his face,
+and he swayed and struck his hands together. His recent intoxication had
+unmanned him.
+
+“Go in--go in,” said his father in some concern, though wrath was
+predominant.
+
+“Oh, make your mind quiet about me.” Robert dropped his arms. “I'm
+weakened somehow--damned weak, I am--I feel like a woman when my father
+asks me if I've been guilty of villany. Desert? I wouldn't desert from
+the hulks. Hear the worst, and this is the worst: I've got no money--I
+don't owe a penny, but I haven't got one.”
+
+“And I won't give you one,” Jonathan appended; and they stood facing one
+another in silence.
+
+A squeaky voice was heard from the other side of the garden hedge of
+clipped yew.
+
+“Hi! farmer, is that the missing young man?” and presently a neighbour,
+by name John Sedgett, came trotting through the gate, and up the garden
+path.
+
+“I say,” he remarked, “here's a rumpus. Here's a bobbery up at Fairly.
+Oh! Bob Eccles! Bob Eccles! At it again!”
+
+Mr. Sedgett shook his wallet of gossip with an enjoying chuckle. He was
+a thin-faced creature, rheumy of eye, and drawing his breath as from a
+well; the ferret of the village for all underlying scandal and tattle,
+whose sole humanity was what he called pitifully 'a peakin' at his
+chest, and who had retired from his business of grocer in the village
+upon the fortune brought to him in the energy and capacity of a third
+wife to conduct affairs, while he wandered up and down and knitted
+people together--an estimable office in a land where your house is so
+grievously your castle.
+
+“What the devil have you got in you now?” Jonathan cried out to him.
+
+Mr. Sedgett was seized by his complaint and demanded commiseration, but,
+recovering, he chuckled again.
+
+“Oh, Bob Eccles! Don't you never grow older? And the first day
+down among us again, too. Why, Bob, as a military man, you ought to
+acknowledge your superiors. Why, Stephen Bilton, the huntsman, says,
+Bob, you pulled the young gentleman off his horse--you on foot, and him
+mounted. I'd ha' given pounds to be there. And ladies present! Lord
+help us! I'm glad you're returned, though. These melons of the farmer's,
+they're a wonderful invention; people are speaking of 'em right
+and left, and says, says they, Farmer Eccles, he's best farmer
+going--Hampshire ought to be proud of him--he's worth two of any others:
+that they are fine ones! And you're come back to keep 'em up, eh, Bob?
+Are ye, though, my man?”
+
+“Well, here I am, Mr. Sedgett,” said Robert, “and talking to my father.”
+
+“Oh! I wouldn't be here to interrupt ye for the world.” Mr. Sedgett made
+a show of retiring, but Jonathan insisted upon his disburdening himself
+of his tale, saying: “Damn your raw beginnings, Sedgett! What's been up?
+Nobody can hurt me.”
+
+“That they can't, neighbour; nor Bob neither, as far as stand up man to
+man go. I give him three to one--Bob Eccles! He took 'em when a boy.
+He may, you know, he may have the law agin him, and by George! if he
+do--why, a man's no match for the law. No use bein' a hero to the
+law. The law masters every man alive; and there's law in everything,
+neighbour Eccles; eh, sir? Your friend, the Prince, owns to it, as much
+as you or me. But, of course, you know what Bob's been doing. What
+I dropped in to ask was, why did ye do it, Bob? Why pull the young
+gentleman off his horse? I'd ha' given pounds to be there!”
+
+“Pounds o' tallow candles don't amount to much,” quoth Robert.
+
+“That's awful bad brandy at 'The Pilot,'” said Mr. Sedgett, venomously.
+
+“Were you drunk when you committed this assault?” Jonathan asked his
+son.
+
+“I drank afterwards,” Robert replied.
+
+“'Pilot' brandy's poor consolation,” remarked Mr. Sedgett.
+
+Jonathan had half a mind to turn his son out of the gate, but the
+presence of Sedgett advised him that his doings were naked to the world.
+
+“You kicked up a shindy in the hunting-field--what about? Who mounted
+ye?”
+
+Robert remarked that he had been on foot.
+
+“On foot--eh? on foot!” Jonathan speculated, unable to realize the image
+of his son as a foot-man in the hunting-field, or to comprehend the
+insolence of a pedestrian who should dare to attack a mounted huntsman.
+“You were on foot? The devil you were on foot! Foot? And caught a man
+out of his saddle?”
+
+Jonathan gave up the puzzle. He laid out his fore finger decisively,--
+
+“If it's an assault, mind, you stand damages. My land gives and my land
+takes my money, and no drunken dog lives on the produce. A row in the
+hunting-field's un-English, I call it.”
+
+“So it is, sir,” said Robert.
+
+“So it be, neighbour,” said Mr. Sedgett.
+
+Whereupon Robert took his arm, and holding the scraggy wretch forward,
+commanded him to out with what he knew.
+
+“Oh, I don't know no more than what I've told you.” Mr. Sedgett twisted
+a feeble remonstrance of his bones, that were chiefly his being, at the
+gripe; “except that you got hold the horse by the bridle, and wouldn't
+let him go, because the young gentleman wouldn't speak as a gentleman,
+and--oh! don't squeeze so hard--”
+
+“Out with it!” cried Robert.
+
+“And you said, Steeve Bilton said, you said, 'Where is she?' you said,
+and he swore, and you swore, and a lady rode up, and you pulled, and
+she sang out, and off went the gentleman, and Steeve said she said, 'For
+shame.'”
+
+“And it was the truest word spoken that day!” Robert released him. “You
+don't know much, Mr. Sedgett; but it's enough to make me explain the
+cause to my father, and, with your leave, I'll do so.”
+
+Mr. Sedgett remarked: “By all means, do;” and rather preferred that his
+wits should be accused of want of brightness, than that he should miss
+a chance of hearing the rich history of the scandal and its origin.
+Something stronger than a hint sent him off at a trot, hugging in his
+elbows.
+
+“The postman won't do his business quicker than Sedgett 'll tap this
+tale upon every door in the parish,” said Jonathan.
+
+“I can only say I'm sorry, for your sake;” Robert was expressing his
+contrition, when his father caught him up,--
+
+“Who can hurt me?--my sake? Have I got the habits of a sot?--what you'd
+call 'a beast!' but I know the ways o' beasts, and if you did too,
+you wouldn't bring them in to bear your beastly sins. Who can hurt
+me?--You've been quarrelling with this young gentleman about a
+woman--did you damage him?”
+
+“If knuckles could do it, I should have brained him, sir,” said Robert.
+
+“You struck him, and you got the best of it?”
+
+“He got the worst of it any way, and will again.”
+
+“Then the devil take you for a fool! why did you go and drink I could
+understand it if you got licked. Drown your memory, then, if that filthy
+soaking's to your taste; but why, when you get the prize, we'll say, you
+go off headlong into a manure pond?--There! except that you're a damned
+idiot!” Jonathan struck the air, as to observe that it beat him, but
+for the foregoing elucidation: thundering afresh, “Why did you go and
+drink?”
+
+“I went, sir, I went--why did I go?” Robert slapped his hand
+despairingly to his forehead. “What on earth did I go for?--because I'm
+at sea, I suppose. Nobody cares for me. I'm at sea, and no rudder to
+steer me. I suppose that's it. So, I drank. I thought it best to take
+spirits on board. No; this was the reason--I remember: that lady,
+whoever she was, said something that stung me. I held the fellow under
+her eyes, and shook him, though she was begging me to let him off. Says
+she--but I've drunk it clean out of my mind.”
+
+“There, go in and look at yourself in the glass,” said Jonathan.
+
+“Give me your hand first,”--Robert put his own out humbly.
+
+“I'll be hanged if I do,” said Jonathan firmly. “Bed and board you shall
+have while I'm alive, and a glass to look at yourself in; but my hand's
+for decent beasts. Move one way or t' other: take your choice.”
+
+Seeing Robert hesitate, he added, “I shall have a damned deal more
+respect for you if you toddle.” He waved his hand away from the
+premises.
+
+“I'm sorry you've taken so to swearing of late, sir,” said Robert.
+
+“Two flints strike fire, my lad. When you keep distant, I'm quiet enough
+in my talk to satisfy your aunt Anne.”
+
+“Look here, sir; I want to make use of you, so I'll go in.”
+
+“Of course you do,” returned Jonathan, not a whit displeased by his
+son's bluntness; “what else is a father good for? I let you know the
+limit, and that's a brick wall; jump it, if you can. Don't fancy it's
+your aunt Jane you're going in to meet.”
+
+Robert had never been a favourite with his aunt Anne, who was Jonathan's
+housekeeper.
+
+“No, poor old soul! and may God bless her in heaven!” he cried.
+
+“For leaving you what you turned into a thundering lot of liquor to
+consume--eh?”
+
+“For doing all in her power to make a man of me; and she was close on
+it--kind, good old darling, that she was! She got me with that money
+of hers to the best footing I've been on yet--bless her heart, or her
+memory, or whatever a poor devil on earth may bless an angel for! But
+here I am.”
+
+The fever in Robert blazed out under a pressure of extinguishing tears.
+
+“There, go along in,” said Jonathan, who considered drunkenness to be
+the main source of water in a man's eyes. “It's my belief you've been at
+it already this morning.”
+
+Robert passed into the house in advance of his father, whom he quite
+understood and appreciated. There was plenty of paternal love for him,
+and a hearty smack of the hand, and the inheritance of the farm, when
+he turned into the right way. Meantime Jonathan was ready to fulfil
+his parental responsibility, by sheltering, feeding, and not publicly
+abusing his offspring, of whose spirit he would have had a higher
+opinion if Robert had preferred, since he must go to the deuce, to go
+without troubling any of his relatives; as it was, Jonathan submitted
+to the infliction gravely. Neither in speech nor in tone did he solicit
+from the severe maiden, known as Aunt Anne, that snub for the wanderer
+whom he introduced, which, when two are agreed upon the infamous
+character of a third, through whom they are suffering, it is always
+agreeable to hear. He said, “Here, Anne; here's Robert. He hasn't
+breakfasted.”
+
+“He likes his cold bath beforehand,” said Robert, presenting his cheek
+to the fleshless, semi-transparent woman.
+
+Aunt Anne divided her lips to pronounce a crisp, subdued “Ow!” to
+Jonathan after inspecting Robert; and she shuddered at sight of
+Robert, and said “Ow!” repeatedly, by way of an interjectory token of
+comprehension, to all that was uttered; but it was a horrified “No!”
+ when Robert's cheek pushed nearer.
+
+“Then, see to getting some breakfast for him,” said Jonathan. “You're
+not anyway bound to kiss a drunken--”
+
+“Dog's the word, sir,” Robert helped him. “Dogs can afford it. I never
+saw one in that state; so they don't lose character.”
+
+He spoke lightly, but dejection was in his attitude. When his aunt Anne
+had left the room, he exclaimed,--
+
+“By jingo! women make you feel it, by some way that they have. She's a
+religious creature. She smells the devil in me.”
+
+“More like, the brandy,” his father responded.
+
+“Well! I'm on the road, I'm on the road!” Robert fetched a sigh.
+
+“I didn't make the road,” said his father.
+
+“No, sir; you didn't. Work hard: sleep sound that's happiness. I've
+known it for a year. You're the man I'd imitate, if I could. The devil
+came first the brandy's secondary. I was quiet so long. I thought myself
+a safe man.”
+
+He sat down and sent his hair distraught with an effort at smoothing it.
+
+“Women brought the devil into the world first. It's women who raise the
+devil in us, and why they--”
+
+He thumped the table just as his aunt Anne was preparing to spread the
+cloth.
+
+“Don't be frightened, woman,” said Jonathan, seeing her start fearfully
+back. “You take too many cups of tea, morning and night--hang the
+stuff!”
+
+“Never, never till now have you abused me, Jonathan,” she whimpered,
+severely.
+
+“I don't tell you to love him; but wait on him. That's all. And I'll
+about my business. Land and beasts--they answer to you.”
+
+Robert looked up.
+
+“Land and beasts! They sound like blessed things. When next I go to
+church, I shall know what old Adam felt. Go along, sir. I shall break
+nothing in the house.”
+
+“You won't go, Jonathan?” begged the trembling spinster.
+
+“Give him some of your tea, and strong, and as much of it as he can
+take--he wants bringing down,” was Jonathan's answer; and casting a
+glance at one of the framed letters, he strode through the doorway,
+and Aunt Anne was alone with the flushed face and hurried eyes of her
+nephew, who was to her little better than a demon in the flesh. But
+there was a Bible in the room.
+
+An hour later, Robert was mounted and riding to the meet of hounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A single night at the Pilot Inn had given life and vigour to Robert's
+old reputation in Warbeach village, as the stoutest of drinkers and dear
+rascals throughout a sailor-breeding district, where Dibdin was still
+thundered in the ale-house, and manhood in a great degree measured by
+the capacity to take liquor on board, as a ship takes ballast. There was
+a profound affectation of deploring the sad fact that he drank as hard
+as ever, among the men, and genuine pity expressed for him by the women
+of Warbeach; but his fame was fresh again. As the Spring brings back
+its flowers, Robert's presence revived his youthful deeds. There had
+not been a boxer in the neighbourhood like Robert Eccles, nor such
+a champion in all games, nor, when he set himself to it, such an
+invincible drinker. It was he who thrashed the brute, Nic Sedgett, for
+stabbing with his clasp-knife Harry Boulby, son of the landlady of the
+Pilot Inn; thrashed him publicly, to the comfort of all Warbeach. He had
+rescued old Dame Garble from her burning cottage, and made his father
+house the old creature, and worked at farming, though he hated it,
+to pay for her subsistence. He vindicated the honour of Warbeach by
+drinking a match against a Yorkshire skipper till four o'clock in
+the morning, when it was a gallant sight, my boys, to see Hampshire
+steadying the defeated North-countryman on his astonished zigzag to
+his flattish-bottomed billyboy, all in the cheery sunrise on the
+river--yo-ho! ahoy!
+
+Glorious Robert had tried, first the sea, and then soldiering. Now let
+us hope he'll settle to farming, and follow his rare old father's ways,
+and be back among his own people for good. So chimed the younger ones,
+and many of the elder.
+
+Danish blood had settled round Warbeach. To be a really popular hero
+anywhere in Britain, a lad must still, I fear, have something of
+a Scandinavian gullet; and if, in addition to his being a powerful
+drinker, he is pleasant in his cups, and can sing, and forgive, be
+freehanded, and roll out the grand risky phrases of a fired brain, he
+stamps himself, in the apprehension of his associates, a king.
+
+Much of the stuff was required to deal King Robert of Warbeach the
+capital stroke, and commonly he could hold on till a puff of cold air
+from the outer door, like an admonitory messenger, reminded him that he
+was, in the greatness of his soul, a king of swine; after which his way
+of walking off, without a word to anybody, hoisting his whole stature,
+while others were staggering, or roaring foul rhymes, or feeling
+consciously mortal in their sensation of feverishness, became a theme
+for admiration; ay, and he was fresh as an orchard apple in the morning!
+there lay his commandership convincingly. What was proved overnight was
+confirmed at dawn.
+
+Mr. Robert had his contrast in Sedgett's son, Nicodemus Sedgett, whose
+unlucky Christian name had assisted the wits of Warbeach in bestowing
+on him a darkly-luminous relationship. Young Nic loved also to steep his
+spirit in the bowl; but, in addition to his never paying for his luxury,
+he drank as if in emulation of the colour of his reputed patron, and
+neighbourhood to Nic Sedgett was not liked when that young man became
+thoughtful over his glass.
+
+The episode of his stabbing the landlady's son Harry clung to him
+fatally. The wound was in the thigh, and nothing serious. Harry was
+up and off to sea before Nic had ceased to show the marks of Robert's
+vengeance upon him; but blood-shedding, even on a small scale, is so
+detested by Englishmen, that Nic never got back to his right hue in the
+eyes of Warbeach. None felt to him as to a countryman, and it may be
+supposed that his face was seen no more in the house of gathering, the
+Pilot Inn.
+
+He rented one of the Fairly farms, known as the Three-Tree Farm,
+subsisting there, men fancied, by the aid of his housekeeper's money.
+For he was of those evil fellows who disconcert all righteous prophecy,
+and it was vain for Mrs. Boulby and Warbeach village to declare that no
+good could come to him, when Fortune manifestly kept him going.
+
+He possessed the rogue's most serviceable art: in spite of a countenance
+that was not attractive, this fellow could, as was proved by evidence,
+make himself pleasing to women. “The truth of it is,” said Mrs. Boulby,
+at a loss for any other explanation, and with a woman's love of sharp
+generalization, “it's because my sex is fools.”
+
+He had one day no money to pay his rent, and forthwith (using for
+the purpose his last five shillings, it was said) advertized for a
+housekeeper; and before Warbeach had done chuckling over his folly, an
+agreeable woman of about thirty-five was making purchases in his name;
+she made tea, and the evening brew for such friends as he could collect,
+and apparently paid his rent for him, after a time; the distress was not
+in the house three days. It seemed to Warbeach an erratic proceeding on
+the part of Providence, that Nic should ever be helped to swim; but
+our modern prophets have small patience, and summon Destiny to strike
+without a preparation of her weapons or a warning to the victim.
+
+More than Robert's old occasional vice was at the bottom of his
+popularity, as I need not say. Let those who generalize upon ethnology
+determine whether the ancient opposition of Saxon and Norman be at an
+end; but it is certain, to my thinking, that when a hero of the
+people can be got from the common popular stock, he is doubly dear. A
+gentleman, however gallant and familiar, will hardly ever be as much
+beloved, until he dies to inform a legend or a ballad: seeing that death
+only can remove the peculiar distinctions and distances which the people
+feel to exist between themselves and the gentleman-class, and which, not
+to credit them with preternatural discernment, they are carefully taught
+to feel. Dead Britons are all Britons, but live Britons are not quite
+brothers.
+
+It was as the son of a yeoman, showing comprehensible accomplishments,
+that Robert took his lead. He was a very brave, a sweet-hearted, and a
+handsome young man, and he had very chivalrous views of life, that were
+understood by a sufficient number under the influence of ale or brandy,
+and by a few in default of that material aid; and they had a family
+pride in him. The pride was mixed with fear, which threw over it a
+tender light, like a mother's dream of her child. The people, I have
+said, are not so lost in self-contempt as to undervalue their best men,
+but it must be admitted that they rarely produce young fellows wearing
+the undeniable chieftain's stamp, and the rarity of one like Robert lent
+a hue of sadness to him in their thoughts.
+
+Fortune, moreover, the favourer of Nic Sedgett, blew foul whichever the
+way Robert set his sails. He would not look to his own advantage; and
+the belief that man should set his little traps for the liberal hand
+of his God, if he wishes to prosper, rather than strive to be merely
+honourable in his Maker's eye, is almost as general among poor people as
+it is with the moneyed classes, who survey them from their height.
+
+When jolly Butcher Billing, who was one of the limited company which had
+sat with Robert at the Pilot last night, reported that he had quitted
+the army, he was hearkened to dolefully, and the feeling was universal
+that glorious Robert had cut himself off from his pension and his
+hospital.
+
+But when gossip Sedgett went his rounds, telling that Robert was down
+among them again upon the darkest expedition their minds could conceive,
+and rode out every morning for the purpose of encountering one of the
+gentlemen up at Fairly, and had already pulled him off his horse and
+laid him in the mud, calling him scoundrel and challenging him either
+to yield his secret or to fight; and that he followed him, and was out
+after him publicly, and matched himself against that gentleman, who
+had all the other gentlemen, and the earl, and the law to back him, the
+little place buzzed with wonder and alarm. Faint hearts declared that
+Robert was now done for. All felt that he had gone miles beyond the
+mark. Those were the misty days when fogs rolled up the salt river
+from the winter sea, and the sun lived but an hour in the clotted sky,
+extinguished near the noon.
+
+Robert was seen riding out, and the tramp of his horse was heard as he
+returned homeward. He called no more at the Pilot. Darkness and mystery
+enveloped him. There were nightly meetings under Mrs. Boulby's roof,
+in the belief that he could not withstand her temptations; nor did she
+imprudently discourage them; but the woman at last overcame the landlady
+within her, and she wailed: “He won't come because of the drink. Oh! why
+was I made to sell liquor, which he says sends him to the devil, poor
+blessed boy? and I can't help begging him to take one little drop. I
+did, the first night he was down, forgetting his ways; he looked so
+desperate, he did, and it went on and went on, till he was primed, and
+me proud to see him get out of his misery. And now he hates the thought
+of me.”
+
+In her despair she encouraged Sedgett to visit her bar and parlour, and
+he became everywhere a most important man.
+
+Farmer Eccles's habits of seclusion (his pride, some said), and more
+especially the dreaded austere Aunt Anne, who ruled that household, kept
+people distant from the Warbeach farm-house, all excepting Sedgett,
+who related that every night on his return, she read a chapter from the
+Bible to Robert, sitting up for him patiently to fulfil her duty; and
+that the farmer's words to his son had been: “Rest here; eat and drink,
+and ride my horse; but not a penny of my money do you have.”
+
+By the help of Steeve Bilton, the Fairly huntsman, Sedgett was enabled
+to relate that there was a combination of the gentlemen against Robert,
+whose behaviour none could absolutely approve, save the landlady and
+jolly Butcher Billing, who stuck to him with a hearty blind faith.
+
+“Did he ever,” asked the latter, “did Bob Eccles ever conduct himself
+disrespectful to his superiors? Wasn't he always found out at his
+wildest for to be right--to a sensible man's way of thinking?--though
+not, I grant ye, to his own interests--there's another tale.” And Mr.
+Billing's staunch adherence to the hero of the village was cried out
+to his credit when Sedgett stated, on Stephen Bilton's authority, that
+Robert's errand was the defence of a girl who had been wronged, and
+whose whereabout, that she might be restored to her parents, was all he
+wanted to know. This story passed from mouth to mouth, receiving much
+ornament in the passage. The girl in question became a lady; for it
+is required of a mere common girl that she should display remarkable
+character before she can be accepted as the fitting companion of a
+popular hero. She became a young lady of fortune, in love with Robert,
+and concealed by the artifice of the offending gentleman whom Robert had
+challenged. Sedgett told this for truth, being instigated to boldness of
+invention by pertinacious inquiries, and the dignified sense which the
+whole story hung upon him.
+
+Mrs. Boulby, who, as a towering woman, despised Sedgett's weak frame,
+had been willing to listen till she perceived him to be but a man of
+fiction, and then she gave him a flat contradiction, having no esteem
+for his custom.
+
+“Eh! but, Missis, I can tell you his name--the gentleman's name,”
+ said Sedgett, placably. “He's a Mr. Algernon Blancove, and a cousin by
+marriage, or something, of Mrs. Lovell.”
+
+“I reckon you're right about that, goodman,” replied Mrs. Boulby, with
+intuitive discernment of the true from the false, mingled with a desire
+to show that she was under no obligation for the news. “All t' other's a
+tale of your own, and you know it, and no more true than your rigmaroles
+about my brandy, which is French; it is, as sure as my blood's British.”
+
+“Oh! Missis,” quoth Sedgett, maliciously, “as to tales, you've got
+witnesses enough it crassed chann'l. Aha! Don't bring 'em into the box.
+Don't you bring 'em into ne'er a box.”
+
+“You mean to say, Mr. Sedgett, they won't swear?”
+
+“No, Missis; they'll swear, fast and safe, if you teach 'em. Dashed if
+they won't run the Pilot on a rock with their swearin'. It ain't a good
+habit.”
+
+“Well, Mr. Sedgett, the next time you drink my brandy and find the
+consequences bad, you let me hear of it.”
+
+“And what'll you do, Missis, may be?”
+
+Listeners were by, and Mrs. Boulby cruelly retorted; “I won't send you
+home to your wife;” which created a roar against this hen-pecked man.
+
+“As to consequences, Missis, it's for your sake I'm looking at them,”
+ Sedgett said, when he had recovered from the blow.
+
+“You say that to the Excise, Mr. Sedgett; it, belike, 'll make 'em
+sorry.”
+
+“Brandy's your weak point, it appears, Missis.”
+
+“A little in you would stiffen your back, Mr. Sedgett.”
+
+“Poor Bob Eccles didn't want no stiffening when he come down first,”
+ Sedgett interjected.
+
+At which, flushing enraged, Mrs. Boulby cried: “Mention him, indeed! And
+him and you, and that son of your'n--the shame of your cheeks if people
+say he's like his father. Is it your son, Nic Sedgett, thinks to inform
+against me, as once he swore to, and to get his wage that he may step
+out of a second bankruptcy? and he a farmer! You let him know that he
+isn't feared by me, Sedgett, and there's one here to give him a
+second dose, without waiting for him to use clasp-knives on harmless
+innocents.”
+
+“Pacify yourself, ma'am, pacify yourself,” remarked Sedgett, hardened
+against words abroad by his endurance of blows at home. “Bob Eccles,
+he's got his hands full, and he, maybe, 'll reach the hulks before my
+Nic do, yet. And how 'm I answerable for Nic, I ask you?”
+
+“More luck to you not to be, I say; and either, Sedgett, you does
+woman's work, gossipin' about like a cracked bell-clapper, or men's the
+biggest gossips of all, which I believe; for there's no beating you at
+your work, and one can't wish ill to you, knowing what you catch.”
+
+“In a friendly way, Missis,”--Sedgett fixed on the compliment to his
+power of propagating news--“in a friendly way. You can't accuse me
+of leavin' out the 'l' in your name, now, can you? I make that
+observation,”--the venomous tattler screwed himself up to the widow
+insinuatingly, as if her understanding could only be seized at close
+quarters, “I make that observation, because poor Dick Boulby, your
+lamented husband--eh! poor Dick! You see, Missis, it ain't the tough
+ones last longest: he'd sing, 'I'm a Sea Booby,' to the song, 'I'm a
+green Mermaid:' poor Dick! 'a-shinin' upon the sea-deeps.' He kept the
+liquor from his head, but didn't mean it to stop down in his leg.”
+
+“Have you done, Mr. Sedgett?” said the widow, blandly.
+
+“You ain't angry, Missis?”
+
+“Not a bit, Mr. Sedgett; and if I knock you over with the flat o' my
+hand, don't you think so.”
+
+Sedgett threw up the wizened skin of his forehead, and retreated from
+the bar. At a safe distance, he called: “Bad news that about Bob Eccles
+swallowing a blow yesterday!”
+
+Mrs. Boulby faced him complacently till he retired, and then observed to
+those of his sex surrounding her, “Don't 'woman-and-dog-and-walnut-tree'
+me! Some of you men 'd be the better for a drubbing every day of your
+lives. Sedgett yond' 'd be as big a villain as his son, only for what he
+gets at home.”
+
+That was her way of replying to the Parthian arrow; but the barb was
+poisoned. The village was at fever heat concerning Robert, and this
+assertion that he had swallowed a blow, produced almost as great a
+consternation as if a fleet of the enemy had been reported off Sandy
+Point.
+
+Mrs. Boulby went into her parlour and wrote a letter to Robert, which
+she despatched by one of the loungers about the bar, who brought back
+news that three of the gentlemen of Fairly were on horseback, talking to
+Farmer Eccles at his garden gate. Affairs were waxing hot. The gentlemen
+had only to threaten Farmer Eccles, to make him side with his son,
+right or wrong. In the evening, Stephen Bilton, the huntsman, presented
+himself at the door of the long parlour of the Pilot, and loud cheers
+were his greeting from a full company.
+
+“Gentlemen all,” said Stephen, with dapper modesty; and acted as if no
+excitement were current, and he had nothing to tell.
+
+“Well, Steeve?” said one, to encourage him.
+
+“How about Bob, to-day?” said another.
+
+Before Stephen had spoken, it was clear to the apprehension of the whole
+room that he did not share the popular view of Robert. He declined to
+understand who was meant by “Bob.” He played the questions off; and then
+shrugged, with, “Oh, let's have a quiet evening.”
+
+It ended in his saying, “About Bob Eccles? There, that's summed up
+pretty quick--he's mad.”
+
+“Mad!” shouted Warbeach.
+
+“That's a lie,” said Mrs. Boulby, from the doorway.
+
+“Well, mum, I let a lady have her own opinion.” Stephen nodded to her.
+“There ain't a doubt as t' what the doctors 'd bring him in I ain't
+speaking my ideas alone. It's written like the capital letters in a
+newspaper. Lunatic's the word! And I'll take a glass of something warm,
+Mrs. Boulby. We had a stiff run to-day.”
+
+“Where did ye kill, Steeve?” asked a dispirited voice.
+
+“We didn't kill at all: he was one of those 'longshore dog-foxes,' and
+got away home on the cliff.” Stephen thumped his knee. “It's my belief
+the smell o' sea gives 'em extra cunning.”
+
+“The beggar seems to have put ye out rether--eh, Steeve?”
+
+So it was generally presumed: and yet the charge of madness was very
+staggering; madness being, in the first place, indefensible, and
+everybody's enemy when at large; and Robert's behaviour looked extremely
+like it. It had already been as a black shadow haunting enthusiastic
+minds in the village, and there fell a short silence, during which
+Stephen made his preparations for filling and lighting a pipe.
+
+“Come; how do you make out he's mad?”
+
+Jolly Butcher Billing spoke; but with none of the irony of confidence.
+
+“Oh!” Stephen merely clapped both elbows against his sides.
+
+Several pairs of eyes were studying him. He glanced over them in turn,
+and commenced leisurely the puff contemplative.
+
+“Don't happen to have a grudge of e'er a kind against old Bob, Steeve?”
+
+“Not I!”
+
+Mrs. Boulby herself brought his glass to Stephen, and, retreating, left
+the parlour-door open.
+
+“What causes you for to think him mad, Steeve?”
+
+A second “Oh!” as from the heights dominating argument, sounded from
+Stephen's throat, half like a grunt. This time he condescended to add,--
+
+“How do you know when a dog's gone mad? Well, Robert Eccles, he's gone
+in like manner. If you don't judge a man by his actions, you've got no
+means of reckoning. He comes and attacks gentlemen, and swears he'll go
+on doing it.”
+
+“Well, and what does that prove?” said jolly Butcher Billing.
+
+Mr. William Moody, boatbuilder, a liver-complexioned citizen, undertook
+to reply.
+
+“What does that prove? What does that prove when the midshipmite was
+found with his head in the mixedpickle jar? It proved that his head was
+lean, and t' other part was rounder.”
+
+The illustration appeared forcible, but not direct, and nothing more was
+understood from it than that Moody, and two or three others who had been
+struck by the image of the infatuated young naval officer, were going
+over to the enemy. The stamp of madness upon Robert's acts certainly
+saved perplexity, and was the easiest side of the argument. By this time
+Stephen had finished his glass, and the effect was seen.
+
+“Hang it!” he exclaimed, “I don't agree he deserves shooting. And he may
+have had harm done to him. In that case, let him fight. And I say, too,
+let the gentleman give him satisfaction.”
+
+“Hear! hear!” cried several.
+
+“And if the gentleman refuse to give him satisfaction in a fair stand-up
+fight, I say he ain't a gentleman, and deserves to be treated as such.
+My objection's personal. I don't like any man who spoils sport, and
+ne'er a rascally vulpeci' spoils sport as he do, since he's been down in
+our parts again. I'll take another brimmer, Mrs. Boulby.”
+
+“To be sure you will, Stephen,” said Mrs. Boulby, bending as in a
+curtsey to the glass; and so soft with him that foolish fellows thought
+her cowed by the accusation thrown at her favourite.
+
+“There's two questions about they valpecies, Master Stephen,” said
+Farmer Wainsby, a farmer with a grievance, fixing his elbow on his knee
+for serious utterance. “There's to ask, and t' ask again. Sport, I grant
+ye. All in doo season. But,” he performed a circle with his pipe stem,
+and darted it as from the centre thereof toward Stephen's breast, with
+the poser, “do we s'pport thieves at public expense for them to keep
+thievin'--black, white, or brown--no matter, eh? Well, then, if the
+public wunt bear it, dang me if I can see why individles shud bear it.
+It ent no manner o' reason, net as I can see; let gentlemen have their
+opinion, or let 'em not. Foxes be hanged!”
+
+Much slow winking was interchanged. In a general sense, Farmer Wainsby's
+remarks were held to be un-English, though he was pardoned for them as
+one having peculiar interests at stake.
+
+“Ay, ay! we know all about that,” said Stephen, taking succour from the
+eyes surrounding him.
+
+“And so, may be, do we,” said Wainsby.
+
+“Fox-hunting 'll go on when your great-grandfather's your youngest son,
+farmer; or t' other way.”
+
+“I reckon it'll be a stuffed fox your chil'ern 'll hunt, Mr. Steeve;
+more straw in 'em than bow'ls.”
+
+“If the country,” Stephen thumped the table, “were what you'd make of
+it, hang me if my name 'd long be Englishman!”
+
+“Hear, hear, Steeve!” was shouted in support of the Conservative
+principle enunciated by him.
+
+“What I say is, flesh and blood afore foxes!”
+
+Thus did Farmer Wainsby likewise attempt a rallying-cry; but Stephen's
+retort, “Ain't foxes flesh and blood?” convicted him of clumsiness, and,
+buoyed on the uproar of cheers, Stephen pursued, “They are; to kill 'em
+in cold blood's beast-murder, so it is. What do we do? We give 'em
+a fair field--a fair field and no favour! We let 'em trust to the
+instincts Nature, she's given 'em; and don't the old woman know best?
+If they cap, get away, they win the day. All's open, and honest, and
+aboveboard. Kill your rats and kill your rabbits, but leave foxes to
+your betters. Foxes are gentlemen. You don't understand? Be hanged if
+they ain't! I like the old fox, and I don't like to see him murdered
+and exterminated, but die the death of a gentleman, at the hands of
+gentlemen--”
+
+“And ladies,” sneered the farmer.
+
+All the room was with Stephen, and would have backed him uproariously,
+had he not reached his sounding period without knowing it, and thus
+allowed his opponent to slip in that abominable addition.
+
+“Ay, and ladies,” cried the huntsman, keen at recovery. “Why shouldn't
+they? I hate a field without a woman in it; don't you? and you? and you?
+And you, too, Mrs. Boulby? There you are, and the room looks better for
+you--don't it, lads? Hurrah!”
+
+The cheering was now aroused, and Stephen had his glass filled again
+in triumph, while the farmer meditated thickly over the ruin of his
+argument from that fatal effort at fortifying it by throwing a hint to
+the discredit of the sex, as many another man has meditated before.
+
+“Eh! poor old Bob!” Stephen sighed and sipped. “I can cry that with any
+of you. It's worse for me to see than for you to hear of him. Wasn't I
+always a friend of his, and said he was worthy to be a gentleman, many
+a time? He's got the manners of a gentleman now; offs with his hat,
+if there's a lady present, and such a neat way of speaking. But there,
+acting's the thing, and his behaviour's beastly bad! You can't call
+it no other. There's two Mr. Blancoves up at Fairly, relations of
+Mrs. Lovell's--whom I'll take the liberty of calling My Beauty, and no
+offence meant: and it's before her that Bob only yesterday rode up--one
+of the gentlemen being Mr. Algernon, free of hand and a good seat in the
+saddle, t' other's Mr. Edward; but Mr. Algernon, he's Robert Eccles's
+man--up rides Bob, just as we was tying Mr. Reenard's brush to the
+pommel of the lady's saddle, down in Ditley Marsh; and he bows to the
+lady. Says he--but he's mad, stark mad!”
+
+Stephen resumed his pipe amid a din of disappointment that made the
+walls ring and the glasses leap.
+
+“A little more sugar, Stephen?” said Mrs. Boulby, moving in lightly from
+the doorway.
+
+“Thank ye, mum; you're the best hostess that ever breathed.”
+
+“So she be; but how about Bob?” cried her guests--some asking whether he
+carried a pistol or flourished a stick.
+
+“Ne'er a blessed twig, to save his soul; and there's the madness written
+on him;” Stephen roared as loud as any of them. “And me to see him
+riding in the ring there, and knowing what the gentleman had sworn to
+do if he came across the hunt; and feeling that he was in the wrong! I
+haven't got a oath to swear how mad I was. Fancy yourselves in my place.
+I love old Bob. I've drunk with him; I owe him obligations from since
+I was a boy up'ard; I don't know a better than Bob in all England. And
+there he was: and says to Mr. Algernon, 'You know what I'm come for.'
+I never did behold a gentleman so pale--shot all over his cheeks as
+he was, and pinkish under the eyes; if you've ever noticed a chap laid
+hands on by detectives in plain clothes. Smack at Bob went Mr. Edward's
+whip.”
+
+“Mr. Algernon's,” Stephen was corrected.
+
+“Mr. Edward's, I tell ye--the cousin. And right across the face. My
+Lord! it made my blood tingle.”
+
+A sound like the swish of a whip expressed the sentiments of that
+assemblage at the Pilot.
+
+“Bob swallowed it?”
+
+“What else could he do, the fool? He had nothing to help him but his
+hand. Says he, 'That's a poor way of trying to stop me. My business is
+with this gentleman;' and Bob set his horse at Mr. Algernon, and Mrs.
+Lovell rode across him with her hand raised; and just at that moment up
+jogged the old gentleman, Squire Blancove, of Wrexby: and Robert Eccles
+says to him, 'You might have saved your son something by keeping your
+word.' It appears according to Bob, that the squire had promised to see
+his son, and settle matters. All Mrs. Lovell could do was hardly enough
+to hold back Mr. Edward from laying out at Bob. He was like a white
+devil, and speaking calm and polite all the time. Says Bob, 'I'm willing
+to take one when I've done with the other;' and the squire began talking
+to his son, Mrs. Lovell to Mr. Edward, and the rest of the gentlemen all
+round poor dear old Bob, rather bullying--like for my blood; till Bob
+couldn't help being nettled, and cried out, 'Gentlemen, I hold him in my
+power, and I'm silent so long as there's a chance of my getting him to
+behave like a man with human feelings.' If they'd gone at him then, I
+don't think I could have let him stand alone: an opinion's one thing,
+but blood's another, and I'm distantly related to Bob; and a man who's
+always thinking of the value of his place, he ain't worth it. But Mrs.
+Lovell, she settled the case--a lady, Farmer Wainsby, with your leave.
+There's the good of having a lady present on the field. That's due to a
+lady!”
+
+“Happen she was at the bottom of it,” the farmer returned Stephen's nod
+grumpily.
+
+“How did it end, Stephen, my lad?” said Butcher Billing, indicating a
+“never mind him.”
+
+“It ended, my boy, it ended like my glass here--hot and strong stuff,
+with sugar at the bottom. And I don't see this, so glad as I saw that,
+my word of honour on it! Boys all!” Stephen drank the dregs.
+
+Mrs. Boulby was still in attendance. The talk over the circumstances was
+sweeter than the bare facts, and the replenished glass enabled Stephen
+to add the picturesque bits of the affray, unspurred by a surrounding
+eagerness of his listeners--too exciting for imaginative effort. In
+particular, he dwelt on Robert's dropping the reins and riding with his
+heels at Algernon, when Mrs. Lovell put her horse in his way, and the
+pair of horses rose like waves at sea, and both riders showed their
+horsemanship, and Robert an adroit courtesy, for which the lady thanked
+him with a bow of her head.
+
+“I got among the hounds, pretending to pacify them, and call 'em
+together,” said Stephen, “and I heard her say--just before all was over,
+and he turned off--I heard her say: 'Trust this to me: I will meet you.'
+I'll swear to them exact words, though there was more, and a 'where' in
+the bargain, and that I didn't hear. Aha! by George! thinks I, old Bob,
+you're a lucky beggar, and be hanged if I wouldn't go mad too for a
+minute or so of short, sweet, private talk with a lovely young widow
+lady as ever the sun did shine upon so boldly--oho!
+
+     You've seen a yacht upon the sea,
+     She dances and she dances, O!
+     As fair is my wild maid to me...
+
+Something about 'prances, O!' on her horse, you know, or you're a hem'd
+fool if you don't. I never could sing; wish I could! It's the joy of
+life! It's utterance! Hey for harmony!”
+
+“Eh! brayvo! now you're a man, Steeve! and welcomer and welcomest;
+yi--yi, O!” jolly Butcher Billing sang out sharp. “Life wants watering.
+Here's a health to Robert Eccles, wheresoever and whatsoever! and ne'er
+a man shall say of me I didn't stick by a friend like Bob. Cheers, my
+lads!”
+
+Robert's health was drunk in a thunder, and praises of the purity of the
+brandy followed the grand roar. Mrs. Boulby received her compliments on
+that head.
+
+“'Pends upon the tide, Missis, don't it?” one remarked with a grin broad
+enough to make the slyness written on it easy reading.
+
+“Ah! first a flow and then a ebb,” said another.
+
+     “It's many a keg I plant i' the mud,
+     Coastguardsman, come! and I'll have your blood!”
+
+Instigation cried, “Cut along;” but the defiant smuggler was deficient
+in memory, and like Steeve Bilton, was reduced to scatter his concluding
+rhymes in prose, as “something about;” whereat jolly Butcher Billing, a
+reader of song-books from a literary delight in their contents, scraped
+his head, and then, as if he had touched a spring, carolled,--
+
+     “In spite of all you Gov'ment pack,
+     I'll land my kegs of the good Cognyac”--
+
+“though,” he took occasion to observe when the chorus and a sort of
+cracker of irrelevant rhymes had ceased to explode; “I'm for none of
+them games. Honesty!--there's the sugar o' my grog.”
+
+“Ay, but you like to be cock-sure of the stuff you drink, if e'er a man
+did,” said the boatbuilder, whose eye blazed yellow in this frothing
+season of song and fun.
+
+“Right so, Will Moody!” returned the jolly butcher: “which means--not
+wrong this time!”
+
+“Then, what's understood by your sticking prongs into your hostess
+here concerning of her brandy? Here it is--which is enough, except for
+discontented fellows.”
+
+“Eh, Missus?” the jolly butcher appealed to her, and pointed at Moody's
+complexion for proof.
+
+It was quite a fiction that kegs of the good cognac were sown at low
+water, and reaped at high, near the river-gate of the old Pilot Inn
+garden; but it was greatly to Mrs. Boulby's interest to encourage the
+delusion which imaged her brandy thus arising straight from the very
+source, without villanous contact with excisemen and corrupting dealers;
+and as, perhaps, in her husband's time, the thing had happened, and
+still did, at rare intervals, she complacently gathered the profitable
+fame of her brandy being the best in the district.
+
+“I'm sure I hope you're satisfied, Mr. Billing,” she said.
+
+The jolly butcher asked whether Will Moody was satisfied, and Mr.
+William Moody declaring himself thoroughly satisfied, “then I'm
+satisfied too!” said the jolly butcher; upon which the boatbuilder
+heightened the laugh by saying he was not satisfied at all; and to
+escape from the execrations of the majority, pleaded that it was because
+his glass was empty: thus making his peace with them. Every glass in the
+room was filled again.
+
+The young fellows now loosened tongue; and Dick Curtis, the promising
+cricketer of Hampshire, cried, “Mr. Moody, my hearty! that's your fourth
+glass, so don't quarrel with me, now!”
+
+“You!” Moody fired up in a bilious frenzy, and called him a this and
+that and t' other young vagabond; for which the company, feeling
+the ominous truth contained in Dick Curtis's remark more than its
+impertinence, fined Mr. Moody in a song. He gave the--
+
+     “So many young Captains have walked o'er my pate,
+     It's no wonder you see me quite bald, sir,”
+
+with emphatic bitterness, and the company thanked him. Seeing him stand
+up as to depart, however, a storm of contempt was hurled at him; some
+said he was like old Sedgett, and was afraid of his wife; and some, that
+he was like Nic Sedgett, and drank blue.
+
+     “You're a bag of blue devils, oh dear! oh dear!”
+
+sang Dick to the tune of “The Campbells are coming.”
+
+“I ask e'er a man present,” Mr. Moody put out his fist, “is that to be
+borne? Didn't you,” he addressed Dick Curtis,--“didn't you sing into my
+chorus--”
+
+     'It's no wonder to hear how you squall'd, sir?'
+
+“You did!”
+
+“Don't he,”--Dick addressed the company, “make Mrs. Boulby's brandy look
+ashamed of itself in his face? I ask e'er a gentleman present.”
+
+Accusation and retort were interchanged, in the course of which, Dick
+called Mr. Moody Nic Sedgett's friend; and a sort of criminal inquiry
+was held. It was proved that Moody had been seen with Nic Sedgett; and
+then three or four began to say that Nic Sedgett was thick with some of
+the gentlemen up at Fairly;--just like his luck! Stephen let it be known
+that he could confirm this fact; he having seen Mr. Algernon Blancove
+stop Nic on the road and talk to him.
+
+“In that case,” said Butcher Billing, “there's mischief in a state of
+fermentation. Did ever anybody see Nic and the devil together?”
+
+“I saw Nic and Mr. Moody together,” said Dick Curtis. “Well, I'm only
+stating a fact,” he exclaimed, as Moody rose, apparently to commence an
+engagement, for which the company quietly prepared, by putting chairs
+out of his way: but the recreant took his advantage from the error, and
+got away to the door, pursued.
+
+“Here's an example of what we lose in having no President,” sighed
+the jolly butcher. “There never was a man built for the chair like Bob
+Eccles I say! Our evening's broke up, and I, for one, 'd ha' made it
+morning. Hark, outside; By Gearge! they're snowballing.”
+
+An adjournment to the front door brought them in view of a white
+and silent earth under keen stars, and Dick Curtis and the bilious
+boatbuilder, foot to foot, snowball in hand. A bout of the smart
+exercise made Mr. Moody laugh again, and all parted merrily, delivering
+final shots as they went their several ways.
+
+“Thanks be to heaven for snowing,” said Mrs. Boulby; “or when I should
+have got to my bed, Goodness only can tell!” With which, she closed the
+door upon the empty inn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+The night was warm with the new-fallen snow, though the stars sparkled
+coldly. A fleet of South-westerly rainclouds had been met in mid-sky by
+a sharp puff from due North, and the moisture had descended like a woven
+shroud, covering all the land, the house-tops, and the trees.
+
+Young Harry Boulby was at sea, and this still weather was just what a
+mother's heart wished for him. The widow looked through her bed-room
+window and listened, as if the absolute stillness must beget a sudden
+cry. The thought of her boy made her heart revert to Robert. She was
+thinking of Robert when the muffled sound of a horse at speed caused her
+to look up the street, and she saw one coming--a horse without a rider.
+The next minute he was out of sight.
+
+Mrs. Boulby stood terrified. The silence of the night hanging everywhere
+seemed to call on her for proof that she had beheld a real earthly
+spectacle, and the dead thump of the hooves on the snow-floor in passing
+struck a chill through her as being phantom-like. But she had seen
+a saddle on the horse, and the stirrups flying, and the horse looked
+affrighted. The scene was too earthly in its suggestion of a tale
+of blood. What if the horse were Robert's? She tried to laugh at her
+womanly fearfulness, and had almost to suppress a scream in doing
+so. There was no help for it but to believe her brandy as good and
+efficacious as her guests did, so she went downstairs and took a
+fortifying draught; after which her blood travelled faster, and the
+event galloped swiftly into the recesses of time, and she slept.
+
+While the morning was still black, and the streets without a sign
+of life, she was aroused by a dream of some one knocking at her
+grave-stone. “Ah, that brandy!” she sighed. “This is what a poor woman
+has to pay for custom!” Which we may interpret as the remorseful morning
+confession of a guilt she had been the victim of over night. She knew
+that good brandy did not give bad dreams, and was self-convicted.
+Strange were her sensations when the knocking continued; and presently
+she heard a voice in the naked street below call in a moan, “Mother!”
+
+“My darling!” she answered, divided in her guess at its being Harry or
+Robert.
+
+A glance from the open window showed Robert leaning in the quaint old
+porch, with his head bound by a handkerchief; but he had no strength to
+reply to a question at that distance, and when she let him in he made
+two steps and dropped forward on the floor.
+
+Lying there, he plucked at her skirts. She was shouting for help, but
+with her ready apprehension of the pride in his character, she knew what
+was meant by his broken whisper before she put her ear to his lips, and
+she was silent, miserable sight as was his feeble efforts to rise on an
+elbow that would not straighten.
+
+His head was streaming with blood, and the stain was on his neck and
+chest. He had one helpless arm; his clothes were torn as from a fierce
+struggle.
+
+“I'm quite sensible,” he kept repeating, lest she should relapse into
+screams.
+
+“Lord love you for your spirit!” exclaimed the widow, and there they
+remained, he like a winged eagle, striving to raise himself from time
+to time, and fighting with his desperate weakness. His face was to the
+ground; after a while he was still. In alarm the widow stooped over him:
+she feared that he had given up his last breath; but the candle-light
+showed him shaken by a sob, as it seemed to her, though she could scarce
+believe it of this manly fellow. Yet it proved true; she saw the very
+tears. He was crying at his helplessness.
+
+“Oh, my darling boy!” she burst out; “what have they done to ye? the
+cowards they are! but do now have pity on a woman, and let me get some
+creature to lift you to a bed, dear. And don't flap at me with your hand
+like a bird that's shot. You're quite, quite sensible, I know; quite
+sensible, dear; but for my sake, Robert, my Harry's good friend, only
+for my sake, let yourself be a carried to a clean, nice bed, till I get
+Dr. Bean to you. Do, do.”
+
+Her entreaties brought on a succession of the efforts to rise, and at
+last, getting round on his back, and being assisted by the widow, he
+sat up against the wall. The change of posture stupified him with a
+dizziness. He tried to utter the old phrase, that he was sensible, but
+his hand beat at his forehead before the words could be shaped.
+
+“What pride is when it's a man!” the widow thought, as he recommenced
+the grievous struggle to rise on his feet; now feeling them up to the
+knee with a questioning hand, and pausing as if in a reflective wonder,
+and then planting them for a spring that failed wretchedly; groaning and
+leaning backward, lost in a fit of despair, and again beginning, patient
+as an insect imprisoned in a circle.
+
+The widow bore with his man's pride, until her nerves became afflicted
+by the character of his movements, which, as her sensations conceived
+them, were like those of a dry door jarring loose. She caught him in her
+arms: “It's let my back break, but you shan't fret to death there, under
+my eyes, proud or humble, poor dear,” she said, and with a great pull
+she got him upright. He fell across her shoulder with so stiff a groan
+that for a moment she thought she had done him mortal injury.
+
+“Good old mother,” he said boyishly, to reassure her.
+
+“Yes; and you'll behave to me like a son,” she coaxed him.
+
+They talked as by slow degrees the stairs were ascended.
+
+“A crack o' the head, mother--a crack o' the head,” said he.
+
+“Was it the horse, my dear?”
+
+“A crack o' the head, mother.”
+
+“What have they done to my boy Robert?”
+
+“They've,”--he swung about humorously, weak as he was and throbbing with
+pain--“they've let out some of your brandy, mother...got into my head.”
+
+“Who've done it, my dear?”
+
+“They've done it, mother.”
+
+“Oh, take care o' that nail at your foot; and oh, that beam to your poor
+poll--poor soul! he's been and hurt himself again. And did they do it to
+him? and what was it for?” she resumed in soft cajolery.
+
+“They did it, because--”
+
+“Yes, my dear; the reason for it?”
+
+“Because, mother, they had a turn that way.”
+
+“Thanks be to Above for leaving your cunning in you, my dear,” said the
+baffled woman, with sincere admiration. “And Lord be thanked, if you're
+not hurt bad, that they haven't spoilt his handsome face,” she added.
+
+In the bedroom, he let her partially undress him, refusing all doctor's
+aid, and commanding her to make no noise about him and then he lay down
+and shut his eyes, for the pain was terrible--galloped him and threw
+him with a shock--and galloped him and threw him again, whenever his
+thoughts got free for a moment from the dizzy aching.
+
+“My dear,” she whispered, “I'm going to get a little brandy.”
+
+She hastened away upon this mission.
+
+He was in the same posture when she returned with bottle and glass.
+
+She poured out some, and made much of it as a specific, and of the great
+things brandy would do; but he motioned his hand from it feebly, till
+she reproached him tenderly as perverse and unkind.
+
+“Now, my dearest boy, for my sake--only for my sake. Will you? Yes, you
+will, my Robert!”
+
+“No brandy, mother.”
+
+“Only one small thimbleful?”
+
+“No more brandy for me!”
+
+“See, dear, how seriously you take it, and all because you want the
+comfort.”
+
+“No brandy,” was all he could say.
+
+She looked at the label on the bottle. Alas! she knew whence it came,
+and what its quality. She could cheat herself about it when herself only
+was concerned--but she wavered at the thought of forcing it upon Robert
+as trusty medicine, though it had a pleasant taste, and was really, as
+she conceived, good enough for customers.
+
+She tried him faintly with arguments in its favour; but his resolution
+was manifested by a deaf ear.
+
+With a perfect faith in it she would, and she was conscious that she
+could, have raised his head and poured it down his throat. The crucial
+test of her love for Robert forbade the attempt. She burst into an
+uncontrollable fit of crying.
+
+“Halloa! mother,” said Robert, opening his eyes to the sad candlelight
+surrounding them.
+
+“My darling boy! whom I do love so; and not to be able to help you! What
+shall I do--what shall I do!”
+
+With a start, he cried, “Where's the horse!”
+
+“The horse?”
+
+“The old dad 'll be asking for the horse to-morrow.”
+
+“I saw a horse, my dear, afore I turned to my prayers at my bedside,
+coming down the street without his rider. He came like a rumble
+of deafness in my ears. Oh, my boy, I thought, Is it Robert's
+horse?--knowing you've got enemies, as there's no brave man has not got
+'em--which is our only hope in the God of heaven!”
+
+“Mother, punch my ribs.”
+
+He stretched himself flat for the operation, and shut his mouth.
+
+“Hard, mother!--and quick!--I can't hold out long.”
+
+“Oh! Robert,” moaned the petrified woman “strike you?”
+
+“Straight in the ribs. Shut your fist and do it--quick.”
+
+“My dear!--my boy!--I haven't the heart to do it!”
+
+“Ah!” Robert's chest dropped in; but tightening his muscles again, he
+said, “now do it--do it!”
+
+“Oh! a poke at a poor fire puts it out, dear. And make a murderess of
+me, you call mother! Oh! as I love the name, I'll obey you, Robert.
+But!--there!”
+
+“Harder, mother.”
+
+“There!--goodness forgive me!”
+
+“Hard as you can--all's right.”
+
+“There!--and there!--oh!--mercy!”
+
+“Press in at my stomach.”
+
+She nerved herself to do his bidding, and, following his orders, took
+his head in her hands, and felt about it. The anguish of the touch wrung
+a stifled scream from him, at which she screamed responsive. He laughed,
+while twisting with the pain.
+
+“You cruel boy, to laugh at your mother,” she said, delighted by the
+sound of safety in that sweet human laughter. “Hey! don't ye shake
+your brain; it ought to lie quiet. And here's the spot of the wicked
+blow--and him in love--as I know he is! What would she say if she saw
+him now? But an old woman's the best nurse--ne'er a doubt of it.”
+
+She felt him heavy on her arm, and knew that he had fainted. Quelling
+her first impulse to scream, she dropped him gently on the pillow, and
+rapped to rouse up her maid.
+
+The two soon produced a fire and hot water, bandages, vinegar in a
+basin, and every crude appliance that could be thought of, the maid
+followed her mistress's directions with a consoling awe, for Mrs. Boulby
+had told her no more than that a man was hurt.
+
+“I do hope, if it's anybody, it's that ther' Moody,” said the maid.
+
+“A pretty sort of a Christian you think yourself, I dare say,” Mrs.
+Boulby replied.
+
+“Christian or not, one can't help longin' for a choice, mum. We ain't
+all hands and knees.”
+
+“Better for you if you was,” said the widow. “It's tongues, you're to
+remember, you're not to be. Now come you up after me--and you'll not
+utter a word. You'll stand behind the door to do what I tell you. You're
+a soldier's daughter, Susan, and haven't a claim to be excitable.”
+
+“My mother was given to faints,” Susan protested on behalf of her
+possible weakness.
+
+“You may peep.” Thus Mrs. Boulby tossed a sop to her frail woman's
+nature.
+
+But for her having been appeased by the sagacious accordance of this
+privilege, the maid would never have endured to hear Robert's voice in
+agony, and to think that it was really Robert, the beloved of Warbeach,
+who had come to harm. Her apprehensions not being so lively as her
+mistress's, by reason of her love being smaller, she was more terrified
+than comforted by Robert's jokes during the process of washing off the
+blood, cutting the hair from the wound, bandaging and binding up the
+head.
+
+His levity seemed ghastly; and his refusal upon any persuasion to see a
+doctor quite heathenish, and a sign of one foredoomed.
+
+She believed that his arm was broken, and smarted with wrath at her
+mistress for so easily taking his word to the contrary. More than all,
+his abjuration of brandy now when it would do him good to take
+it, struck her as an instance of that masculine insanity in the
+comprehension of which all women must learn to fortify themselves. There
+was much whispering in the room, inarticulate to her, before Mrs. Boulby
+came out; enjoining a rigorous silence, and stating that the patient
+would drink nothing but tea.
+
+“He begged,” she said half to herself, “to have the window blinds up
+in the morning, if the sun wasn't strong, for him to look on our river
+opening down to the ships.”
+
+“That looks as if he meant to live,” Susan remarked.
+
+“He!” cried the widow, “it's Robert Eccles. He'd stand on his last
+inch.”
+
+“Would he, now!” ejaculated Susan, marvelling at him, with no question
+as to what footing that might be.
+
+“Leastways,” the widow hastened to add, “if he thought it was only
+devils against him. I've heard him say, 'It's a fool that holds out
+against God, and a coward as gives in to the devil;' and there's my
+Robert painted by his own hand.”
+
+“But don't that bring him to this so often, Mum?” Susan ruefully
+inquired, joining teapot and kettle.
+
+“I do believe he's protected,” said the widow.
+
+With the first morning light Mrs. Boulby was down at Warbeach Farm, and
+being directed to Farmer Eccles in the stables, she found the sturdy
+yeoman himself engaged in grooming Robert's horse.
+
+“Well, Missis,” he said, nodding to her; “you win, you see. I thought
+you would; I'd have sworn you would. Brandy's stronger than blood, with
+some of our young fellows.”
+
+“If you please, Mr. Eccles,” she replied, “Robert's sending of me was to
+know if the horse was unhurt and safe.”
+
+“Won't his legs carry him yet, Missis?”
+
+“His legs have been graciously spared, Mr. Eccles; it's his head.”
+
+“That's where the liquor flies, I'm told.”
+
+“Pray, Mr. Eccles, believe me when I declare he hasn't touched a drop of
+anything but tea in my house this past night.”
+
+“I'm sorry for that; I'd rather have him go to you. If he takes it, let
+him take it good; and I'm given to understand that you've a reputation
+that way. Just tell him from me, he's at liberty to play the devil with
+himself, but not with my beasts.”
+
+The farmer continued his labour.
+
+“No, you ain't a hard man, surely,” cried the widow. “Not when I say he
+was sober, Mr. Eccles; and was thrown, and made insensible?”
+
+“Never knew such a thing to happen to him, Missis, and, what's more,
+I don't believe it. Mayhap you're come for his things: his Aunt Anne's
+indoors, and she'll give 'em up, and gladly. And my compliments to
+Robert, and the next time he fancies visiting Warbeach, he'd best
+forward a letter to that effect.”
+
+Mrs. Boulby curtseyed humbly. “You think bad of me, sir, for keeping a
+public; but I love your son as my own, and if I might presume to say so,
+Mr. Eccles, you will be proud of him too before you die. I know no more
+than you how he fell yesterday, but I do know he'd not been drinking,
+and have got bitter bad enemies.”
+
+“And that's not astonishing, Missis.”
+
+“No, Mr. Eccles; and a man who's brave besides being good soon learns
+that.”
+
+“Well spoken, Missis.”
+
+“Is Robert to hear he's denied his father's house?”
+
+“I never said that, Mrs. Boulby. Here's my principle--My house is open
+to my blood, so long as he don't bring downright disgrace on it, and
+then any one may claim him that likes I won't give him money, because
+I know of a better use for it; and he shan't ride my beasts, because he
+don't know how to treat 'em. That's all.”
+
+“And so you keep within the line of your duty, sir,” the widow summed
+his speech.
+
+“So I hope to,” said the farmer.
+
+“There's comfort in that,” she replied.
+
+“As much as there's needed,” said he.
+
+The widow curtseyed again. “It's not to trouble you, sir, I called.
+Robert--thanks be to Above!--is not hurt serious, though severe.”
+
+“Where's he hurt?” the farmer asked rather hurriedly.
+
+“In the head, it is.”
+
+“What have you come for?”
+
+“First, his best hat.”
+
+“Bless my soul!” exclaimed the farmer. “Well, if that 'll mend his head
+it's at his service, I'm sure.”
+
+Sick at his heartlessness, the widow scattered emphasis over her
+concluding remarks. “First, his best hat, he wants; and his coat and
+clean shirt; and they mend the looks of a man, Mr. Eccles; and it's to
+look well is his object: for he's not one to make a moan of himself, and
+doctors may starve before he'd go to any of them. And my begging prayer
+to you is, that when you see your son, you'll not tell him I let you
+know his head or any part of him was hurt. I wish you good morning, Mr.
+Eccles.”
+
+“Good morning to you, Mrs. Boulby. You're a respectable woman.”
+
+“Not to be soaped,” she murmured to herself in a heat.
+
+The apparently medicinal articles of attire were obtained from Aunt
+Anne, without a word of speech on the part of that pale spinster. The
+deferential hostility between the two women acknowledged an intervening
+chasm. Aunt Anne produced a bundle, and placed the hat on it, upon which
+she had neatly pinned a tract, “The Drunkard's Awakening!” Mrs. Boulby
+glanced her eye in wrath across this superscription, thinking to
+herself, “Oh, you good people! how you make us long in our hearts for
+trouble with you.” She controlled the impulse, and mollified her
+spirit on her way home by distributing stray leaves of the tract to the
+outlying heaps of rubbish, and to one inquisitive pig, who was looking
+up from a badly-smelling sty for what the heavens might send him.
+
+She found Robert with his arm doubled over a basin, and Susan sponging
+cold water on it.
+
+“No bones broken, mother!” he sang out. “I'm sound; all right again. Six
+hours have done it this time. Is it a thaw? You needn't tell me what the
+old dad has been saying. I shall be ready to breakfast in half an hour.”
+
+“Lord, what a big arm it is!” exclaimed the widow. “And no wonder, or
+how would you be a terror to men? You naughty boy, to think of stirring!
+Here you'll lie.”
+
+“Ah, will I?” said Robert: and he gave a spring, and sat upright in the
+bed, rather white with the effort, which seemed to affect his mind, for
+he asked dubiously, “What do I look like, mother?”
+
+She brought him the looking-glass, and Susan being dismissed, he
+examined his features.
+
+“Dear!” said the widow, sitting down on the bed; “it ain't much for me
+to guess you've got an appointment.”
+
+“At twelve o'clock, mother.”
+
+“With her?” she uttered softly.
+
+“It's with a lady, mother.”
+
+“And so many enemies prowling about, Robert, my dear! Don't tell me they
+didn't fall upon you last night. I said nothing, but I'd swear it on the
+Book. Do you think you can go?”
+
+“Why, mother, I go by my feelings, and there's no need to think at all,
+or God knows what I should think.”
+
+The widow shook her head. “Nothing 'll stop you, I suppose?”
+
+“Nothing inside of me will, mother.”
+
+“Doesn't she but never mind. I've no right to ask, Robert; and if I
+have curiosity, it's about last night, and why you should let villains
+escape. But there's no accounting for a man's notions; only, this I say,
+and I do say it, Nic Sedgett, he's at the bottom of any mischief brewed
+against you down here. And last night Stephen Bilton, or somebody,
+declared that Nic Sedgett had been seen up at Fairly.”
+
+“Selling eggs, mother. Why shouldn't he? We mustn't complain of his
+getting an honest livelihood.”
+
+“He's black-blooded, Robert; and I never can understand why the Lord did
+not make him a beast in face. I'm told that creature's found pleasing by
+the girls.”
+
+“Ugh, mother, I'm not.”
+
+“She won't have you, Robert?”
+
+He laughed. “We shall see to-day.”
+
+“You deceiving boy!” cried the widow; “and me not know it's Mrs. Lovell
+you're going to meet! and would to heaven she'd see the worth of ye, for
+it's a born lady you ought to marry.”
+
+“Just feel in my pockets, mother, and you won't be so ready with your
+talk of my marrying. And now I'll get up. I feel as if my legs had to
+learn over again how to bear me. The old dad, bless his heart! gave me
+sound wind and limb to begin upon, so I'm not easily stumped, you see,
+though I've been near on it once or twice in my life.”
+
+Mrs. Boulby murmured, “Ah! are you still going to be at war with those
+gentlemen, Robert?”
+
+He looked at her steadily, while a shrewd smile wrought over his face,
+and then taking her hand, he said, “I'll tell you a little; you
+deserve it, and won't tattle. My curse is, I'm ashamed to talk about
+my feelings; but there's no shame in being fond of a girl, even if she
+refuses to have anything to say to you, is there? No, there isn't.
+I went with my dear old aunt's money to a farmer in Kent, and learnt
+farming; clear of the army first, by--But I must stop that burst of
+swearing. Half the time I've been away, I was there. The farmer's a
+good, sober, downhearted man--a sort of beaten Englishman, who don't
+know it, tough, and always backing. He has two daughters: one went to
+London, and came to harm, of a kind. The other I'd prick this vein
+for and bleed to death, singing; and she hates me! I wish she did. She
+thought me such a good young man! I never drank; went to bed early, was
+up at work with the birds. Mr. Robert Armstrong! That changeing of my
+name was like a lead cap on my head. I was never myself with it, felt
+hang-dog--it was impossible a girl could care for such a fellow as I
+was. Mother, just listen: she's dark as a gipsy. She's the faithfullest,
+stoutest-hearted creature in the world. She has black hair, large brown
+eyes; see her once! She's my mate. I could say to her, 'Stand there;
+take guard of a thing;' and I could be dead certain of her--she'd perish
+at her post. Is the door locked? Lock the door; I won't be seen when I
+speak of her. Well, never mind whether she's handsome or not. She isn't
+a lady; but she's my lady; she's the woman I could be proud of. She
+sends me to the devil! I believe a woman 'd fall in love with her
+cheeks, they are so round and soft and kindly coloured. Think me a fool;
+I am. And here am I, away from her, and I feel that any day harm may
+come to her, and she 'll melt, and be as if the devils of hell were
+mocking me. Who's to keep harm from her when I'm away? What can I do
+but drink and forget? Only now, when I wake up from it, I'm a crawling
+wretch at her feet. If I had her feet to kiss! I've never kissed
+her--never! And no man has kissed her. Damn my head! here's the ache
+coming on. That's my last oath, mother. I wish there was a Bible handy,
+but I'll try and stick to it without. My God! when I think of her, I
+fancy everything on earth hangs still and doubts what's to happen. I'm
+like a wheel, and go on spinning. Feel my pulse now. Why is it I can't
+stop it? But there she is, and I could crack up this old world to know
+what's coming. I was mild as milk all those days I was near her. My
+comfort is, she don't know me. And that's my curse too! If she did,
+she'd know as clear as day I'm her mate, her match, the man for her. I
+am, by heaven!--that's an oath permitted. To see the very soul I want,
+and to miss her! I'm down here, mother; she loves her sister, and I
+must learn where her sister's to be found. One of those gentlemen up at
+Fairly's the guilty man. I don't say which; perhaps I don't know. But
+oh, what a lot of lightnings I see in the back of my head!”
+
+Robert fell back on the pillow. Mrs. Boulby wiped her eyes. Her feelings
+were overwhelmed with mournful devotion to the passionate young man; and
+she expressed them practically: “A rump-steak would never digest in his
+poor stomach!”
+
+He seemed to be of that opinion too, for when, after lying till eleven,
+he rose and appeared at the breakfast-table, he ate nothing but crumbs
+of dry bread. It was curious to see his precise attention to the
+neatness of his hat and coat, and the nervous eye he cast upon the
+clock, while brushing and accurately fixing these garments. The hat
+would not sit as he was accustomed to have it, owing to the bruise on
+his head, and he stood like a woman petulant with her milliner before
+the glass; now pressing the hat down till the pain was insufferable, and
+again trying whether it presented him acceptably in the enforced style
+of his wearing it. He persisted in this, till Mrs. Boulby's exclamation
+of wonder admonished him of the ideas received by other eyes than his
+own. When we appear most incongruous, we are often exposing the key to
+our characters; and how much his vanity, wounded by Rhoda, had to do
+with his proceedings down at Warbeach, it were unfair to measure just
+yet, lest his finer qualities be cast into shade, but to what degree it
+affected him will be seen.
+
+Mrs. Boulby's persuasions induced him to take a stout silver-topped
+walking-stick of her husband's, a relic shaped from the wood of the
+Royal George; leaning upon which rather more like a Naval pensioner than
+he would have cared to know, he went forth to his appointment with the
+lady.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+The park-sward of Fairly, white with snow, rolled down in long sweeps to
+the salt water: and under the last sloping oak of the park there was
+a gorse-bushed lane, green in Summer, but now bearing cumbrous
+blossom--like burdens of the crisp snow-fall. Mrs. Lovell sat on
+horseback here, and alone, with her gauntleted hand at her waist,
+charmingly habited in tone with the landscape. She expected a cavalier,
+and did not perceive the approach of a pedestrian, but bowed quietly
+when Robert lifted his hat.
+
+“They say you are mad. You see, I trust myself to you.”
+
+“I wish I could thank you for your kindness, madam.”
+
+“Are you ill?”
+
+“I had a fall last night, madam.”
+
+The lady patted her horse's neck.
+
+“I haven't time to inquire about it. You understand that I cannot give
+you more than a minute.”
+
+She glanced at her watch.
+
+“Let us say five exactly. To begin: I can't affect to be ignorant of
+the business which brings you down here. I won't pretend to lecture you
+about the course you have taken; but, let me distinctly assure you, that
+the gentleman you have chosen to attack in this extraordinary manner,
+has done no wrong to you or to any one. It is, therefore, disgracefully
+unjust to single him out. You know he cannot possibly fight you. I speak
+plainly.”
+
+“Yes, madam,” said Robert. “I'll answer plainly. He can't fight a man
+like me. I know it. I bear him no ill-will. I believe he's innocent
+enough in this matter, as far as acts go.”
+
+“That makes your behaviour to him worse!”
+
+Robert looked up into her eyes.
+
+“You are a lady. You won't be shocked at what I tell you.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” said Mrs. Lovell, hastily: “I have learnt--I am aware of the
+tale. Some one has been injured or, you think so. I don't accuse you of
+madness, but, good heavens! what means have you been pursuing! Indeed,
+sir, let your feelings be as deeply engaged as possible, you have gone
+altogether the wrong way to work.”
+
+“Not if I have got your help by it, madam.”
+
+“Gallantly spoken.”
+
+She smiled with a simple grace. The next moment she consulted her watch.
+
+“Time has gone faster than I anticipated. I must leave you. Let this be
+our stipulation:”
+
+She lowered her voice.
+
+“You shall have the address you require. I will undertake to see her
+myself, when next I am in London. It will be soon. In return, sir,
+favour me with your word of honour not to molest this gentleman any
+further. Will you do that? You may trust me.”
+
+“I do, madam, with all my soul!” said Robert.
+
+“That's sufficient. I ask no more. Good morning.”
+
+Her parting bow remained with him like a vision. Her voice was like the
+tinkling of harp-strings about his ears. The colour of her riding-habit
+this day, harmonious with the snow-faced earth, as well as the gentle
+mission she had taken upon herself, strengthened his vivid fancy in
+blessing her as something quite divine.
+
+He thought for the first time in his life bitterly of the great fortune
+which fell to gentlemen in meeting and holding equal converse with so
+adorable a creature; and he thought of Rhoda as being harshly earthly;
+repulsive in her coldness as that black belt of water contrasted against
+the snow on the shores.
+
+He walked some paces in the track of Mrs. Lovell's horse, till his doing
+so seemed too presumptuous, though to turn the other way and retrace
+his steps was downright hateful: and he stood apparently in profound
+contemplation of a ship of war and the trees of the forest behind the
+masts. Either the fatigue of standing, or emotion, caused his head to
+throb, so that he heard nothing, not even men's laughter; but looking
+up suddenly, he beheld, as in a picture, Mrs. Lovell with some gentlemen
+walking their horses toward him. The lady gazed softly over his head,
+letting her eyes drop a quiet recognition in passing; one or two of the
+younger gentlemen stared mockingly.
+
+Edward Blancove was by Mrs. Lovell's side. His eyes fixed upon Robert
+with steady scrutiny, and Robert gave him a similar inspection, though
+not knowing why. It was like a child's open look, and he was feeling
+childish, as if his brain had ceased to act. One of the older gentlemen,
+with a military aspect, squared his shoulders, and touching an end of
+his moustache, said, half challengingly,--
+
+“You are dismounted to-day?”
+
+“I have only one horse,” Robert simply replied.
+
+Algernon Blancove came last. He neither spoke nor looked at his enemy,
+but warily clutched his whip. All went by, riding into line some paces
+distant; and again they laughed as they bent forward to the lady,
+shouting.
+
+“Odd, to have out the horses on a day like this,” Robert thought, and
+resumed his musing as before. The lady's track now led him homeward, for
+he had no will of his own. Rounding the lane, he was surprised to see
+Mrs. Boulby by the hedge. She bobbed like a beggar woman, with a rueful
+face.
+
+“My dear,” she said, in apology for her presence, “I shouldn't ha'
+interfered, if there was fair play. I'm Englishwoman enough for that.
+I'd have stood by, as if you was a stranger. Gentlemen always give fair
+play before a woman. That's why I come, lest this appointment should ha'
+proved a pitfall to you. Now you'll come home, won't you; and forgive
+me?”
+
+“I'll come to the old Pilot now, mother,” said Robert, pressing her
+hand.
+
+“That's right; and ain't angry with me for following of you?”
+
+“Follow your own game, mother.”
+
+“I did, Robert; and nice and vexed I am, if I'm correct in what I heard
+say, as that lady and her folk passed, never heeding an old woman's
+ears. They made a bet of you, dear, they did.”
+
+“I hope the lady won,” said Robert, scarce hearing.
+
+“And it was she who won, dear. She was to get you to meet her, and give
+up, and be beaten like, as far as I could understand their chatter;
+gentlefolks laugh so when they talk; and they can afford to laugh, for
+they has the best of it. But I'm vexed; just as if I'd felt big and had
+burst. I want you to be peaceful, of course I do; but I don't like my
+boy made a bet of.”
+
+“Oh, tush, mother,” said Robert impatiently.
+
+“I heard 'em, my dear; and complimenting the lady they was, as they
+passed me. If it vexes you my thinking it, I won't, dear; I reelly
+won't. I see it lowers you, for there you are at your hat again. It is
+lowering, to be made a bet of. I've that spirit, that if you was well
+and sound, I'd rather have you fighting 'em. She's a pleasant enough
+lady to look at, not a doubt; small-boned, and slim, and fair.”
+
+Robert asked which way they had gone.
+
+“Back to the stables, my dear; I heard 'em say so, because one gentleman
+said that the spectacle was over, and the lady had gained the day; and
+the snow was balling in the horses' feet; and go they'd better, before
+my lord saw them out. And another said, you were a wild man she'd tamed;
+and they said, you ought to wear a collar, with Mrs. Lovell's, her
+name, graved on it. But don't you be vexed; you may guess they're not
+my Robert's friends. And, I do assure you, Robert, your hat's neat,
+if you'd only let it be comfortable: such fidgeting worries the brim.
+You're best in appearance--and I always said it--when stripped for
+boxing. Hats are gentlemen's things, and becomes them like as if a title
+to their heads; though you'd bear being Sir Robert, that you would; and
+for that matter, your hat is agreeable to behold, and not like the run
+of our Sunday hats; only you don't seem easy in it. Oh, oh! my tongue's
+a yard too long. It's the poor head aching, and me to forget it. It's
+because you never will act invalidy; and I remember how handsome you
+were one day in the field behind our house, when you boxed a wager
+with Simon Billet, the waterman; and you was made a bet of then, for my
+husband betted on you; and that's what made me think of comparisons of
+you out of your hat and you in it.”
+
+Thus did Mrs. Boulby chatter along the way. There was an eminence a
+little out of the road, overlooking the Fairly stables. Robert left
+her and went to this point, from whence he beheld the horsemen with the
+grooms at the horses' heads.
+
+“Thank God, I've only been a fool for five minutes!” he summed up his
+sensations at the sight. He shut his eyes, praying with all his might
+never to meet Mrs. Lovell more. It was impossible for him to combat the
+suggestion that she had befooled him; yet his chivalrous faith in
+women led him to believe, that as she knew Dahlia's history, she would
+certainly do her best for the poor girl, and keep her word to him.
+The throbbing of his head stopped all further thought. It had become
+violent. He tried to gather his ideas, but the effort was like that of
+a light dreamer to catch the sequence of a dream, when blackness follows
+close up, devouring all that is said and done. In despair, he thought
+with kindness of Mrs. Boulby's brandy.
+
+“Mother,” he said, rejoining her, “I've got a notion brandy can't hurt
+a man when he's in bed. I'll go to bed, and you shall brew me some; and
+you'll let no one come nigh me; and if I talk light-headed, it's blank
+paper and scribble, mind that.”
+
+The widow promised devoutly to obey all his directions; but he had begun
+to talk light-headed before he was undressed. He called on the name of
+a Major Waring, of whom Mrs. Boulby had heard him speak tenderly as a
+gentleman not ashamed to be his friend; first reproaching him for not
+being by, and then by the name of Percy, calling to him endearingly, and
+reproaching himself for not having written to him.
+
+“Two to one, and in the dark!” he kept moaning “and I one to twenty,
+Percy, all in broad day. Was it fair, I ask?”
+
+Robert's outcries became anything but “blank paper and scribble” to the
+widow, when he mentioned Nic Sedgett's name, and said: “Look over his
+right temple he's got my mark a second time.”
+
+Hanging by his bedside, Mrs. Boulby strung together, bit by bit, the
+history of that base midnight attack, which had sent her glorious boy
+bleeding to her. Nic Sedgett; she could understand, was the accomplice
+of one of the Fairly gentlemen; but of which one, she could not
+discover, and consequently set him down as Mr. Algernon Blancove.
+
+By diligent inquiry, she heard that Algernon had been seen in company
+with the infamous Nic, and likewise that the countenance of Nicodemus
+was reduced to accept the consolation of a poultice, which was
+confirmation sufficient. By nightfall Robert was in the doctor's hands,
+unconscious of Mrs. Boulby's breach of agreement. His father and his
+aunt were informed of his condition, and prepared, both of them, to
+bow their heads to the close of an ungodly career. It was known over
+Warbeach, that Robert lay in danger, and believed that he was dying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Mrs. Boulby's ears had not deceived her; it had been a bet: and the day
+would have gone disastrously with Robert, if Mrs. Lovell had not won
+her bet. What was heroism to Warbeach, appeared very outrageous
+blackguardism up at Fairly. It was there believed by the gentlemen,
+though rather against evidence, that the man was a sturdy ruffian,
+and an infuriated sot. The first suggestion was to drag him before
+the magistrates; but against this Algernon protested, declaring his
+readiness to defend himself, with so vehement a magnanimity, that it was
+clearly seen the man had a claim on him. Lord Elling, however, when he
+was told of these systematic assaults upon one of his guests, announced
+his resolve to bring the law into operation. Algernon heard it as the
+knell to his visit.
+
+He was too happy, to go away willingly; and the great Jew City of London
+was exceedingly hot for him at that period; but to stay and risk an
+exposure of his extinct military career, was not possible. In his
+despair, he took Mrs. Lovell entirely into his confidence; in doing
+which, he only filled up the outlines of what she already knew
+concerning Edward. He was too useful to the lady for her to afford to
+let him go. No other youth called her “angel” for listening complacently
+to strange stories of men and their dilemmas; no one fetched and carried
+for her like Algernon; and she was a woman who cherished dog-like
+adoration, and could not part with it. She had also the will to reward
+it.
+
+At her intercession, Robert was spared an introduction to the
+magistrates. She made light of his misdemeanours, assuring everybody
+that so splendid a horseman deserved to be dealt with differently from
+other offenders. The gentlemen who waited upon Farmer Eccles went in
+obedience to her orders.
+
+Then came the scene on Ditley Marsh, described to that assembly at the
+Pilot, by Stephen Bilton, when she perceived that Robert was manageable
+in silken trammels, and made a bet that she would show him tamed. She
+won her bet, and saved the gentlemen from soiling their hands, for which
+they had conceived a pressing necessity, and they thanked her, and paid
+their money over to Algernon, whom she constituted her treasurer. She
+was called “the man-tamer,” gracefully acknowledging the compliment.
+Colonel Barclay, the moustachioed horseman, who had spoken the few words
+to Robert in passing, now remarked that there was an end of the military
+profession.
+
+“I surrender my sword,” he said gallantly.
+
+Another declared that ladies would now act in lieu of causing an appeal
+to arms.
+
+“Similia similibus, &c.,” said Edward. “They can, apparently, cure what
+they originate.”
+
+“Ah, the poor sex!” Mrs. Lovell sighed. “When we bring the millennium to
+you, I believe you will still have a word against Eve.”
+
+The whole parade back to the stables was marked by pretty speeches.
+
+“By Jove! but he ought to have gone down on his knees, like a horse when
+you've tamed him,” said Lord Suckling, the young guardsman.
+
+“I would mark a distinction between a horse and a brave man, Lord
+Suckling,” said the lady; and such was Mrs. Lovell's dignity when an
+allusion to Robert was forced on her, and her wit and ease were so
+admirable, that none of those who rode with her thought of sitting in
+judgement on her conduct. Women can make for themselves new spheres,
+new laws, if they will assume their right to be eccentric as an
+unquestionable thing, and always reserve a season for showing forth like
+the conventional women of society.
+
+The evening was Mrs. Lovell's time for this important re-establishment
+of her position; and many a silly youth who had sailed pleasantly with
+her all the day, was wrecked when he tried to carry on the topics where
+she reigned the lady of the drawing-room. Moreover, not being eccentric
+from vanity, but simply to accommodate what had once been her tastes,
+and were now her necessities, she avoided slang, and all the insignia of
+eccentricity.
+
+Thus she mastered the secret of keeping the young men respectfully
+enthusiastic; so that their irrepressible praises did not (as is usual
+when these are in acclamation) drag her to their level; and the female
+world, with which she was perfectly feminine, and as silkenly insipid
+every evening of her life as was needed to restore her reputation,
+admitted that she belonged to it, which is everything to an adventurous
+spirit of that sex: indeed, the sole secure basis of operations.
+
+You are aware that men's faith in a woman whom her sisters
+discountenance, and partially repudiate, is uneasy, however deeply
+they may be charmed. On the other hand, she maybe guilty of prodigious
+oddities without much disturbing their reverence, while she is in the
+feminine circle.
+
+But what fatal breath was it coming from Mrs. Lovell that was always
+inflaming men to mutual animosity? What encouragement had she given to
+Algernon, that Lord Suckling should be jealous of him? And what to Lord
+Suckling, that Algernon should loathe the sight of the young lord? And
+why was each desirous of showing his manhood in combat before an eminent
+peacemaker?
+
+Edward laughed--“Ah-ha!” and rubbed his hands as at a special
+confirmation of his prophecy, when Algernon came into his room and
+said, “I shall fight that fellow Suckling. Hang me if I can stand his
+impudence! I want to have a shot at a man of my own set, just to let
+Peggy Lovell see! I know what she thinks.”
+
+“Just to let Mrs. Lovell see!” Edward echoed. “She has seen it lots of
+times, my dear Algy. Come; this looks lively. I was sure she would soon
+be sick of the water-gruel of peace.”
+
+“I tell you she's got nothing to do with it, Ned. Don't be confoundedly
+unjust. She didn't tell me to go and seek him. How can she help his
+whispering to her? And then she looks over at me, and I swear I'm not
+going to be defended by a woman. She must fancy I haven't got the pluck
+of a flea. I know what her idea of young fellows is. Why, she said
+to me, when Suckling went off from her, the other day, 'These are our
+Guards.' I shall fight him.”
+
+“Do,” said Edward.
+
+“Will you take a challenge?”
+
+“I'm a lawyer, Mr. Mars.”
+
+“You won't take a challenge for a friend, when he's insulted?”
+
+“I reply again, I am a lawyer. But this is what I'll do, if you like.
+I'll go to Mrs. Lovely and inform her that it is your desire to gain her
+esteem by fighting with pistols. That will accomplish the purpose you
+seek. It will possibly disappoint her, for she will have to stop the
+affair; but women are born to be disappointed--they want so much.”
+
+“I'll fight him some way or other,” said Algernon, glowering; and
+then his face became bright: “I say, didn't she manage that business
+beautifully this morning? Not another woman in the world could have done
+it.”
+
+“Oh, Una and the Lion! Mrs. Valentine and Orson! Did you bet with the
+rest?” his cousin asked.
+
+“I lost my tenner; but what's that!”
+
+“There will be an additional five to hand over to the man Sedgett.
+What's that!”
+
+“No, hang it!” Algernon shouted.
+
+“You've paid your ten for the shadow cheerfully. Pay your five for the
+substance.”
+
+“Do you mean to say that Sedgett--” Algernon stared.
+
+“Miracles, if you come to examine them, Algy, have generally had a
+pathway prepared for them; and the miracle of the power of female
+persuasion exhibited this morning was not quite independent of the
+preliminary agency of a scoundrel.”
+
+“So that's why you didn't bet.” Algernon signified the opening of his
+intelligence with his eyelids, pronouncing “by jingos” and “by Joves,”
+ to ease the sudden rush of ideas within him. “You might have let me
+into the secret, Ned. I'd lose any number of tens to Peggy Lovell, but a
+fellow don't like to be in the dark.”
+
+“Except, Algy, that when you carry light, you're a general illuminator.
+Let the matter drop. Sedgett has saved you from annoyance. Take him his
+five pounds.”
+
+“Annoyance be hanged, my good Ned!” Algernon was aroused to reply. “I
+don't complain, and I've done my best to stand in front of you; and as
+you've settled the fellow, I say nothing; but, between us two, who's the
+guilty party, and who's the victim?”
+
+“Didn't he tell you he had you in his power?”
+
+“I don't remember that he did.”
+
+“Well, I heard him. The sturdy cur refused to be bribed, so there was
+only one way of quieting him; and you see what a thrashing does for that
+sort of beast. I, Algy, never abandon a friend; mark that. Take the five
+pounds to Sedgett.”
+
+Algernon strode about the room. “First of all, you stick me up in a
+theatre, so that I'm seen with a girl; and then you get behind me, and
+let me be pelted,” he began grumbling. “And ask a fellow for money, who
+hasn't a farthing! I shan't literally have a farthing till that horse
+'Templemore' runs; and then, by George! I'll pay my debts. Jews are
+awful things!”
+
+“How much do you require at present?” said Edward, provoking his
+appetite for a loan.
+
+“Oh, fifty--that is, just now. More like a thousand when I get to town.
+And where it's to come from! but never mind. 'Pon my soul, I pity the
+fox I run down here. I feel I'm exactly in his case in London. However,
+if I can do you any service, Ned--”
+
+Edward laughed. “You might have done me the service of not excusing
+yourself to the squire when he came here, in such a way as to implicate
+me.”
+
+“But I was so tremendously badgered, Ned.”
+
+“You had a sort of gratification in letting the squire crow over his
+brother. And he did crow for a time.”
+
+“On my honour, Ned, as to crowing! he went away cursing at me. Peggy
+Lovell managed it somehow for you. I was really awfully badgered.”
+
+“Yes; but you know what a man my father is. He hasn't the squire's
+philosophy in those affairs.”
+
+“'Pon my soul, Mr. Ned, I never guessed it before; but I rather fancy
+you got clear with Sir Billy the banker by washing in my basin--eh, did
+you?”
+
+Edward looked straight at his cousin, saying, “You deserved worse than
+that. You were treacherous. You proved you were not to be trusted; and
+yet, you see, I trust you. Call it my folly. Of course (and I don't mind
+telling you) I used my wits to turn the point of the attack. I may be
+what they call unscrupulous when I'm surprised. I have to look to
+money as well as you; and if my father thought it went in a--what he
+considers--wrong direction, the source would be choked by paternal
+morality. You betrayed me. Listen.”
+
+“I tell you, Ned, I merely said to my governor--”
+
+“Listen to me. You betrayed me. I defended myself; that is, I've managed
+so that I may still be of service to you. It was a near shave; but you
+now see the value of having a character with one's father. Just open my
+writing-desk there, and toss out the cheque-book. I confess I can't see
+why you should have objected--but let that pass. How much do you want?
+Fifty? Say forty-five, and five I'll give you to pay to Sedgett--making
+fifty. Eighty before, and fifty--one hundred and thirty. Write that you
+owe me that sum, on a piece of paper. I can't see why you should wish to
+appear so uncommonly virtuous.”
+
+Algernon scribbled the written acknowledgment, which he despised himself
+for giving, and the receiver for taking, but was always ready to give
+for the money, and said, as he put the cheque in his purse: “It was this
+infernal fellow completely upset me. If you were worried by a bull-dog,
+by Jove, Ned, you'd lose your coolness. He bothered my head off. Ask me
+now, and I'll do anything on earth for you. My back's broad. Sir Billy
+can't think worse of me than he does. Do you want to break positively
+with that pretty rival to Peggy L.? I've got a scheme to relieve you,
+my poor old Ned, and make everybody happy. I'll lay the foundations of a
+fresh and brilliant reputation for myself.”
+
+Algernon took a chair. Edward was fathoms deep in his book.
+
+The former continued: “I'd touch on the money-question last, with any
+other fellow than you; but you always know that money's the hinge, and
+nothing else lifts a man out of a scrape. It costs a stiff pull on your
+banker, and that reminds me, you couldn't go to Sir Billy for it; you'd
+have to draw in advance, by degrees anyhow, look here:--There are lots
+of young farmers who want to emigrate and want wives and money. I know
+one. It's no use going into particulars, but it's worth thinking over.
+Life is made up of mutual help, Ned. You can help another fellow better
+than yourself. As for me, when I'm in a hobble, I give you my word of
+honour, I'm just like a baby, and haven't an idea at my own disposal.
+The same with others. You can't manage without somebody's assistance.
+What do you say, old boy?”
+
+Edward raised his head from his book. “Some views of life deduced
+from your private experience?” he observed; and Algernon cursed at
+book-worms, who would never take hints, and left him.
+
+But when he was by himself, Edward pitched his book upon the floor and
+sat reflecting. The sweat started on his forehead. He was compelled to
+look into his black volume and study it. His desire was to act humanely
+and generously; but the question inevitably recurred: “How can I utterly
+dash my prospects in the world?” It would be impossible to bring Dahlia
+to great houses; and he liked great houses and the charm of mixing among
+delicately-bred women. On the other hand, lawyers have married beneath
+them--married cooks, housemaids, governesses, and so forth. And what has
+a lawyer to do with a dainty lady, who will constantly distract him with
+finicking civilities and speculations in unprofitable regions? What he
+does want is a woman amiable as a surface of parchment, serviceable
+as his inkstand; one who will be like the wig in which he closes his
+forensic term, disreputable from overwear, but suited to the purpose.
+
+“Ah! if I meant to be nothing but a lawyer!” Edward stopped the flow of
+this current in Dahlia's favour. His passion for her was silent. Was it
+dead? It was certainly silent. Since Robert had come down to play his
+wild game of persecution at Fairly, the simple idea of Dahlia had been
+Edward's fever. He detested brute force, with a finely-witted man's full
+loathing; and Dahlia's obnoxious champion had grown to be associated
+in his mind with Dahlia. He swept them both from his recollection
+abhorrently, for in his recollection he could not divorce them. He
+pretended to suppose that Dahlia, whose only reproach to him was her
+suffering, participated in the scheme to worry him. He could even forget
+her beauty--forget all, save the unholy fetters binding him. She seemed
+to imprison him in bare walls. He meditated on her character. She had
+no strength. She was timid, comfort-loving, fond of luxury, credulous,
+preposterously conventional; that is, desirous more than the ordinary
+run of women of being hedged about and guarded by ceremonies--“mere
+ceremonies,” said Edward, forgetting the notion he entertained of women
+not so protected. But it may be, that in playing the part of fool and
+coward, we cease to be mindful of the absolute necessity for sheltering
+the weak from that monstrous allied army, the cowards and the fools.
+He admitted even to himself that he had deceived her, at the same time
+denouncing her unheard-of capacity of belief, which had placed him in a
+miserable hobble, and that was the truth.
+
+Now, men confessing themselves in a miserable hobble, and knowing they
+are guilty of the state of things lamented by them, intend to drown that
+part of their nature which disturbs them by its outcry. The submission
+to a tangle that could be cut through instantaneously by any exertion of
+a noble will, convicts them. They had better not confide, even to their
+secret hearts, that they are afflicted by their conscience and the
+generosity of their sentiments, for it will be only to say that these
+high qualities are on the failing side. Their inclination, under
+the circumstances, is generally base, and no less a counsellor than
+uncorrupted common sense, when they are in such a hobble, will sometimes
+advise them to be base. But, in admitting the plea which common sense
+puts forward on their behalf, we may fairly ask them to be masculine in
+their baseness. Or, in other words, since they must be selfish, let them
+be so without the poltroonery of selfishness. Edward's wish was to be
+perfectly just, as far as he could be now--just to himself as well; for
+how was he to prove of worth and aid to any one depending on him, if he
+stood crippled? Just, also, to his family; to his possible posterity;
+and just to Dahlia. His task was to reconcile the variety of justness
+due upon all sides. The struggle, we will assume, was severe, for he
+thought so; he thought of going to Dahlia and speaking the word of
+separation; of going to her family and stating his offence, without
+personal exculpation; thus masculine in baseness, he was in idea; but
+poltroonery triumphed, the picture of himself facing his sin and its
+victims dismayed him, and his struggle ended in his considering as
+to the fit employment of one thousand pounds in his possession, the
+remainder of a small legacy, hitherto much cherished.
+
+A day later, Mrs. Lovell said to him: “Have you heard of that
+unfortunate young man? I am told that he lies in great danger from a
+blow on the back of his head. He looked ill when I saw him, and however
+mad he may be, I'm sorry harm should have come to one who is really
+brave. Gentle means are surely best. It is so with horses, it must be so
+with men. As to women, I don't pretend to unriddle them.”
+
+“Gentle means are decidedly best,” said Edward, perceiving that her
+little dog Algy had carried news to her, and that she was setting
+herself to fathom him. “You gave an eminent example of it yesterday. I
+was so sure of the result that I didn't bet against you.”
+
+“Why not have backed me?”
+
+The hard young legal face withstood the attack of her soft blue eyes,
+out of which a thousand needles flew, seeking a weak point in the mask.
+
+“The compliment was, to incite you to a superhuman effort.”
+
+“Then why not pay the compliment?”
+
+“I never pay compliments to transparent merit; I do not hold candles to
+lamps.”
+
+“True,” said she.
+
+“And as gentle means are so admirable, it would be as well to stop
+incision and imbruing between those two boys.”
+
+“Which?” she asked innocently.
+
+“Suckling and Algy.”
+
+“Is it possible? They are such boys.”
+
+“Exactly of the kind to do it. Don't you know?” and Edward explained
+elaborately and cruelly the character of the boys who rushed into
+conflicts. Colour deep as evening red confused her cheeks, and she said,
+“We must stop them.”
+
+“Alas!” he shook his head; “if it's not too late.”
+
+“It never is too late.”
+
+“Perhaps not, when the embodiment of gentle means is so determined.”
+
+“Come; I believe they are in the billiard room now, and you shall see,”
+ she said.
+
+The pair were found in the billiard room, even as a pair of terriers
+that remember a bone. Mrs. Lovell proposed a game, and offered herself
+for partner to Lord Suckling.
+
+“Till total defeat do us part,” the young nobleman acquiesced; and total
+defeat befell them. During the play of the balls, Mrs. Lovell threw a
+jealous intentness of observation upon all the strokes made by Algernon;
+saying nothing, but just looking at him when he did a successful thing.
+She winked at some quiet stately betting that went on between him and
+Lord Suckling.
+
+They were at first preternaturally polite and formal toward one another;
+by degrees, the influence at work upon them was manifested in a thaw
+of their stiff demeanour, and they fell into curt dialogues, which Mrs.
+Lovell gave herself no concern to encourage too early.
+
+Edward saw, and was astonished himself to feel that she had ceased to
+breathe that fatal inciting breath, which made men vindictively emulous
+of her favour, and mad to match themselves for a claim to the chief
+smile. No perceptible change was displayed. She was Mrs. Lovell still;
+vivacious and soft; flame-coloured, with the arrowy eyelashes; a
+pleasant companion, who did not play the woman obtrusively among men,
+and show a thirst for homage. All the difference appeared to be, that
+there was an absence as of some evil spiritual emanation.
+
+And here a thought crossed him--one of the memorable little evanescent
+thoughts which sway us by our chance weakness; “Does she think me
+wanting in physical courage?”
+
+Now, though the difference between them had been owing to a scornful
+remark that she had permitted herself to utter, on his refusal to accept
+a quarrel with one of her numerous satellites, his knowledge of her
+worship of brains, and his pride in his possession of the burdensome
+weight, had quite precluded his guessing that she might haply suppose
+him to be deficient in personal bravery. He was astounded by the
+reflection that she had thus misjudged him. It was distracting;
+sober-thoughted as he was by nature. He watched the fair simplicity of
+her new manner with a jealous eye. Her management of the two youths
+was exquisite; but to him, Edward, she had never condescended to show
+herself thus mediating and amiable. Why? Clearly, because she conceived
+that he had no virile fire in his composition. Did the detestable little
+devil think silly duelling a display of valour? Did the fair seraph
+think him anything less than a man?
+
+How beautifully hung the yellow loop of her hair as she leaned over the
+board! How gracious she was and like a Goddess with these boys, as he
+called them! She rallied her partner, not letting him forget that he
+had the honour of being her partner; while she appeared envious of
+Algernon's skill, and talked to both and got them upon common topics,
+and laughed, and was like a fair English flower of womanhood; nothing
+deadly.
+
+“There, Algy; you have beaten us. I don't think I'll have Lord Suckling
+for my partner any more,” she said, putting up her wand, and pouting.
+
+“You don't bear malice?” said Algernon, revived.
+
+“There is my hand. Now you must play a game alone with Lord Suckling,
+and beat him; mind you beat him, or it will redound to my discredit.”
+
+With which, she and Edward left them.
+
+“Algy was a little crestfallen, and no wonder,” she said. “He is soon
+set up again. They will be good friends now.”
+
+“Isn't it odd, that they should be ready to risk their lives for
+trifles?”
+
+Thus Edward tempted her to discuss the subject which he had in his mind.
+
+She felt intuitively the trap in his voice.
+
+“Ah, yes,” she replied; “it must be because they know their lives are
+not precious.”
+
+So utterly at her mercy had he fallen, that her pronunciation of that
+word “precious” carried a severe sting to him, and it was not spoken
+with peculiar emphasis; on the contrary, she wished to indicate that she
+was of his way of thinking, as regarded this decayed method of settling
+disputes. He turned to leave her.
+
+“You go to your Adeline, I presume,” she said.
+
+“Ah! that reminds me. I have never thanked you.”
+
+“For my good services? such as they are. Sir William will be very happy,
+and it was for him, a little more than for you, that I went out of my
+way to be a matchmaker.”
+
+“It was her character, of course, that struck you as being so eminently
+suited to mine.”
+
+“Can I tell what is the character of a girl? She is mild and shy, and
+extremely gentle. In all probability she has a passion for battles and
+bloodshed. I judged from your father's point of view. She has money, and
+you are to have money; and the union of money and money is supposed to
+be a good thing. And besides, you are variable, and off to-morrow what
+you are on to-day; is it not so? and heiresses are never jilted. Colonel
+Barclay is only awaiting your retirement. Le roi est mort; vive le roi!
+Heiresses may cry it like kingdoms.”
+
+“I thought,” said Edward, meaningly, “the colonel had better taste.”
+
+“Do you not know that my friends are my friends because they are not
+allowed to dream they will do anything else? If they are taken poorly, I
+commend them to a sea-voyage--Africa, the North-West Passage, the source
+of the Nile. Men with their vanity wounded may discover wonders! They
+return friendly as before, whether they have done the Geographical
+Society a service or not. That is, they generally do.”
+
+“Then I begin to fancy I must try those latitudes.”
+
+“Oh! you are my relative.”
+
+He scarcely knew that he had uttered “Margaret.”
+
+She replied to it frankly, “Yes, Cousin Ned. You have made the voyage,
+you see, and have come back friends with me. The variability of opals!
+Ah! Sir John, you join us in season. We were talking of opals. Is the
+opal a gem that stands to represent women?”
+
+Sir John Capes smoothed his knuckles with silken palms, and with
+courteous antique grin, responded, “It is a gem I would never dare to
+offer to a lady's acceptance.”
+
+“It is by repute unlucky; so you never can have done so.
+
+“Exquisite!” exclaimed the veteran in smiles, “if what you deign to
+imply were only true!”
+
+They entered the drawing-room among the ladies.
+
+Edward whispered in Mrs. Lovell's ear, “He is in need of the voyage.”
+
+“He is very near it,” she answered in the same key, and swam into
+general conversation.
+
+Her cold wit, Satanic as the gleam of it struck through his mind, gave
+him a throb of desire to gain possession of her, and crush her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+The writing of a letter to Dahlia had previously been attempted and
+abandoned as a sickening task. Like an idle boy with his holiday
+imposition, Edward shelved it among the nightmares, saying, “How can I
+sit down and lie to her!” and thinking that silence would prepare her
+bosom for the coming truth.
+
+Silence is commonly the slow poison used by those who mean to murder
+love. There is nothing violent about it; no shock is given; Hope is not
+abruptly strangled, but merely dreams of evil, and fights with gradually
+stifling shadows. When the last convulsions come they are not terrific;
+the frame has been weakened for dissolution; love dies like natural
+decay. It seems the kindest way of doing a cruel thing. But Dahlia
+wrote, crying out her agony at the torture. Possibly your nervously
+organized natures require a modification of the method.
+
+Edward now found himself able to conduct a correspondence. He despatched
+the following:--
+
+   “My Dear Dahlia,--Of course I cannot expect you to be aware of the
+   bewildering occupations of a country house, where a man has
+   literally not five minutes' time to call his own; so I pass by your
+   reproaches. My father has gone at last. He has manifested an
+   extraordinary liking for my society, and I am to join him elsewhere
+   --perhaps run over to Paris (your city)--but at present for a few
+   days I am my own master, and the first thing I do is to attend to
+   your demands: not to write 'two lines,' but to give you a good long
+   letter.
+
+   “What on earth makes you fancy me unwell? You know I am never
+   unwell. And as to your nursing me--when has there ever been any
+   need for it?
+
+   “You must positively learn patience. I have been absent a week or
+   so, and you talk of coming down here and haunting the house! Such
+   ghosts as you meet with strange treatment when they go about
+   unprotected, let me give you warning. You have my full permission
+   to walk out in the Parks for exercise. I think you are bound to do
+   it, for your health's sake.
+
+   “Pray discontinue that talk about the alteration in your looks. You
+   must learn that you are no longer a child. Cease to write like a
+   child. If people stare at you, as you say, you are very well aware
+   it is not because you are becoming plain. You do not mean it, I
+   know; but there is a disingenuousness in remarks of this sort that
+   is to me exceedingly distasteful. Avoid the shadow of hypocrisy.
+   Women are subject to it--and it is quite innocent, no doubt. I
+   won't lecture you.
+
+   “My cousin Algernon is here with me. He has not spoken of your
+   sister. Your fears in that direction are quite unnecessary. He is
+   attached to a female cousin of ours, a very handsome person, witty,
+   and highly sensible, who dresses as well as the lady you talk about
+   having seen one day in Wrexby Church. Her lady's-maid is a
+   Frenchwoman, which accounts for it. You have not forgotten the
+   boulevards?
+
+   “I wish you to go on with your lessons in French. Educate yourself,
+   and you will rise superior to these distressing complaints. I
+   recommend you to read the newspapers daily. Buy nice picture-books,
+   if the papers are too matter-of-fact for you. By looking eternally
+   inward, you teach yourself to fret, and the consequence is, or will
+   be, that you wither. No constitution can stand it. All the ladies
+   here take an interest in Parliamentary affairs. They can talk to
+   men upon men's themes. It is impossible to explain to you how
+   wearisome an everlasting nursery prattle becomes. The idea that men
+   ought never to tire of it is founded on some queer belief that they
+   are not mortal.
+
+   “Parliament opens in February. My father wishes me to stand for
+   Selborough. If he or some one will do the talking to the tradesmen,
+   and provide the beer and the bribes, I have no objection. In that
+   case my Law goes to the winds. I'm bound to make a show of
+   obedience, for he has scarcely got over my summer's trip. He holds
+   me a prisoner to him for heaven knows how long--it may be months.
+
+   “As for the heiress whom he has here to make a match for me, he and
+   I must have a pitched battle about her by and by. At present my
+   purse insists upon my not offending him. When will old men
+   understand young ones? I burn your letters, and beg you to follow
+   the example. Old letters are the dreariest ghosts in the world, and
+   you cannot keep more treacherous rubbish in your possession. A
+   discovery would exactly ruin me.
+
+   “Your purchase of a black-velvet bonnet with pink ribands, was very
+   suitable. Or did you write 'blue' ribands? But your complexion can
+   bear anything.
+
+   “You talk of being annoyed when you walk out. Remember, that no
+   woman who knows at all how to conduct herself need for one moment
+   suffer annoyance.
+
+   “What is the 'feeling' you speak of? I cannot conceive any
+   'feeling' that should make you helpless when you consider that you
+   are insulted. There are women who have natural dignity, and women
+   who have none.
+
+   “You ask the names of the gentlemen here:--Lord Carey, Lord Wippern
+   (both leave to-morrow), Sir John Capes, Colonel Barclay, Lord
+   Suckling. The ladies:--Mrs. Gosling, Miss Gosling, Lady Carey.
+   Mrs. Anybody--to any extent.
+
+   “They pluck hen's feathers all day and half the night. I see them
+   out, and make my bow to the next batch of visitors, and then I don't
+   know where I am.
+
+   “Read poetry, if it makes up for my absence, as you say. Repeat it
+   aloud, minding the pulsation of feet. Go to the theatre now and
+   then, and take your landlady with you. If she's a cat, fit one of
+   your dresses on the servant-girl, and take her. You only want a
+   companion--a dummy will do. Take a box and sit behind the curtain,
+   back to the audience.
+
+   “I wrote to my wine-merchant to send Champagne and Sherry. I hope
+   he did: the Champagne in pints and half-pints; if not, return them
+   instantly. I know how Economy, sitting solitary, poor thing, would
+   not dare to let the froth of a whole pint bottle fly out.
+
+   “Be an obedient girl and please me.
+
+          “Your stern tutor,
+
+             “Edward the First.”
+
+He read this epistle twice over to satisfy himself that it was a warm
+effusion, and not too tender; and it satisfied him. By a stretch of
+imagination, he could feel that it represented him to her as in a higher
+atmosphere, considerate for her, and not so intimate that she could
+deem her spirit to be sharing it. Another dose of silence succeeded this
+discreet administration of speech.
+
+Dahlia replied with letter upon letter; blindly impassioned, and again
+singularly cold; but with no reproaches. She was studying, she said.
+Her head ached a little; only a little. She walked; she read poetry;
+she begged him to pardon her for not drinking wine. She was glad that
+he burnt her letters, which were so foolish that if she could have the
+courage to look at them after they were written, they would never be
+sent. He was slightly revolted by one exclamation: “How ambitious you
+are!”
+
+“Because I cannot sit down for life in a London lodging-house!” he
+thought, and eyed her distantly as a poor good creature who had already
+accepted her distinctive residence in another sphere than his. From such
+a perception of her humanity, it was natural that his livelier sense of
+it should diminish. He felt that he had awakened; and he shook her off.
+
+And now he set to work to subdue Mrs. Lovell. His own subjugation was
+the first fruit of his effort. It was quite unacknowledged by him: but
+when two are at this game, the question arises--“Which can live without
+the other?” and horrid pangs smote him to hear her telling musically of
+the places she was journeying to, the men she would see, and the chances
+of their meeting again before he was married to the heiress Adeline.
+
+“I have yet to learn that I am engaged to her,” he said. Mrs. Lovell
+gave him a fixed look,--
+
+“She has a half-brother.”
+
+He stepped away in a fury.
+
+“Devil!” he muttered, absolutely muttered it, knowing that he fooled and
+frowned like a stage-hero in stagey heroics. “You think to hound me into
+this brutal stupidity of fighting, do you? Upon my honour,” he added in
+his natural manner, “I believe she does, though!”
+
+But the look became his companion. It touched and called up great vanity
+in his breast, and not till then could he placably confront the look.
+He tried a course of reading. Every morning he was down in the library,
+looking old in an arm-chair over his book; an intent abstracted figure.
+
+Mrs. Lovell would enter and eye him carelessly; utter little
+commonplaces and go forth. The silly words struck on his brain. The
+book seemed hollow; sounded hollow as he shut it. This woman breathed of
+active striving life. She was a spur to black energies; a plumed glory;
+impulsive to chivalry. Everything she said and did held men in scales,
+and approved or rejected them.
+
+Intoxication followed this new conception of her. He lost altogether his
+right judgement; even the cooler after-thoughts were lost. What sort of
+man had Harry been, her first husband? A dashing soldier, a quarrelsome
+duellist, a dull dog. But, dull to her? She, at least, was reverential
+to the memory of him.
+
+She lisped now and then of “my husband,” very prettily, and with intense
+provocation; and yet she worshipped brains. Evidently she thirsted
+for that rare union of brains and bravery in a man, and would never
+surrender till she had discovered it. Perhaps she fancied it did not
+exist. It might be that she took Edward as the type of brains, and
+Harry of bravery, and supposed that the two qualities were not to be had
+actually in conjunction.
+
+Her admiration of his (Edward's) wit, therefore, only strengthened the
+idea she entertained of his deficiency in that other companion manly
+virtue.
+
+Edward must have been possessed, for he ground his teeth villanously in
+supposing himself the victim of this outrageous suspicion. And how
+to prove it false? How to prove it false in a civilized age, among
+sober-living men and women, with whom the violent assertion of bravery
+would certainly imperil his claim to brains? His head was like a
+stew-pan over the fire, bubbling endlessly.
+
+He railed at her to Algernon, and astonished the youth, who thought them
+in a fair way to make an alliance. “Milk and capsicums,” he called her,
+and compared her to bloody mustard-haired Saxon Queens of history, and
+was childishly spiteful. And Mrs. Lovell had it all reported to her, as
+he was-quite aware.
+
+“The woman seeking for an anomaly wants a master.”
+
+With this pompous aphorism, he finished his reading of the fair Enigma.
+
+Words big in the mouth serve their turn when there is no way of
+satisfying the intelligence.
+
+To be her master, however, one must not begin by writhing as her slave.
+
+The attempt to read an inscrutable woman allows her to dominate us too
+commandingly. So the lordly mind takes her in a hard grasp, cracks the
+shell, and drawing forth the kernel, says, “This was all the puzzle.”
+
+Doubtless it is the fate which women like Mrs. Lovell provoke. The truth
+was, that she could read a character when it was under her eyes; but
+its yesterday and to-morrow were a blank. She had no imaginative hold
+on anything. For which reason she was always requiring tangible signs of
+virtues that she esteemed.
+
+The thirst for the shows of valour and wit was insane with her; but she
+asked for nothing that she herself did not give in abundance, and with
+beauty super-added. Her propensity to bet sprang of her passion for
+combat; she was not greedy of money, or reckless in using it; but a
+difference of opinion arising, her instinct forcibly prompted her to
+back her own. If the stake was the risk of a lover's life, she was ready
+to put down the stake, and would have marvelled contemptuously at the
+lover complaining. “Sheep! sheep!” she thought of those who dared not
+fight, and had a wavering tendency to affix the epithet to those who
+simply did not fight.
+
+Withal, Mrs. Lovell was a sensible person; clearheaded and shrewd;
+logical, too, more than the run of her sex: I may say, profoundly
+practical. So much so, that she systematically reserved the after-years
+for enlightenment upon two or three doubts of herself, which struck her
+in the calm of her spirit, from time to time.
+
+“France,” Edward called her, in one of their colloquies.
+
+It was an illuminating title. She liked the French (though no one was
+keener for the honour of her own country in opposition to them), she
+liked their splendid boyishness, their unequalled devotion, their
+merciless intellects; the oneness of the nation when the sword is bare
+and pointing to chivalrous enterprise.
+
+She liked their fine varnish of sentiment, which appears so much on the
+surface that Englishmen suppose it to have nowhere any depth; as if the
+outer coating must necessarily exhaust the stock, or as if what is at
+the source of our being can never be made visible.
+
+She had her imagination of them as of a streaming banner in the jaws
+of storm, with snows among the cloud-rents and lightning in the
+chasms:--which image may be accounted for by the fact that when a girl
+she had in adoration kissed the feet of Napoleon, the giant of the later
+ghosts of history.
+
+It was a princely compliment. She received it curtseying, and disarmed
+the intended irony. In reply, she called him “Great Britain.” I regret
+to say that he stood less proudly for his nation. Indeed, he flushed.
+He remembered articles girding at the policy of peace at any price, and
+half felt that Mrs. Lovell had meant to crown him with a Quaker's
+hat. His title fell speedily into disuse; but, “Yes, France,” and “No,
+France,” continued, his effort being to fix the epithet to frivolous
+allusions, from which her ingenuity rescued it honourably.
+
+Had she ever been in love? He asked her the question. She stabbed him
+with so straightforward an affirmative that he could not conceal the
+wound.
+
+“Have I not been married?” she said.
+
+He began to experience the fretful craving to see the antecedents of the
+torturing woman spread out before him. He conceived a passion for her
+girlhood. He begged for portraits of her as a girl. She showed him the
+portrait of Harry Lovell in a locket. He held the locket between his
+fingers. Dead Harry was kept very warm. Could brains ever touch her
+emotions as bravery had done?
+
+“Where are the brains I boast of?” he groaned, in the midst of these
+sensational extravagances.
+
+The lull of action was soon to be disturbed. A letter was brought to
+him.
+
+He opened it and read--
+
+   “Mr. Edward Blancove,--When you rode by me under Fairly Park, I did
+   not know you. I can give you a medical certificate that since then
+   I have been in the doctor's hands. I know you now. I call upon you
+   to meet me, with what weapons you like best, to prove that you are
+   not a midnight assassin. The place shall be where you choose to
+   appoint. If you decline I will make you publicly acknowledge what
+   you have done. If you answer, that I am not a gentleman and you are
+   one, I say that you have attacked me in the dark, when I was on
+   horseback, and you are now my equal, if I like to think so. You
+   will not talk about the law after that night. The man you employed
+   I may punish or I may leave, though he struck the blow. But I will
+   meet you. To-morrow, a friend of mine, who is a major in the army,
+   will be down here, and will call on you from me; or on any friend of
+   yours you are pleased to name. I will not let you escape. Whether
+   I shall face a guilty man in you, God knows; but I know I have a
+   right to call upon you to face me.
+
+          “I am, Sir,
+
+             “Yours truly,
+
+               “Robert Eccles.”
+
+Edward's face grew signally white over the contents of this
+unprecedented challenge. The letter had been brought in to him at the
+breakfast table. “Read it, read it,” said Mrs. Lovell, seeing him put it
+by; and he had read it with her eyes on him.
+
+The man seemed to him a man of claws, who clutched like a demon. Would
+nothing quiet him? Edward thought of bribes for the sake of peace; but a
+second glance at the letter assured his sagacious mind that bribes were
+powerless in this man's case; neither bribes nor sticks were of service.
+Departure from Fairly would avail as little: the tenacious devil would
+follow him to London; and what was worse, as a hound from Dahlia's
+family he was now on the right scent, and appeared to know that he was.
+How was a scandal to be avoided? By leaving Fairly instantly for any
+place on earth, he could not avoid leaving the man behind; and if the
+man saw Mrs. Lovell again, her instincts as a woman of her class were
+not to be trusted. As likely as not she would side with the ruffian;
+that is, she would think he had been wronged--perhaps think that he
+ought to have been met. There is the democratic virus secret in
+every woman; it was predominant in Mrs. Lovell, according to Edward's
+observation of the lady. The rights of individual manhood were, as he
+angrily perceived, likely to be recognized by her spirit, if only they
+were stoutly asserted; and that in defiance of station, of reason, of
+all the ideas inculcated by education and society.
+
+“I believe she'll expect me to fight him,” he exclaimed. At least, he
+knew she would despise him if he avoided the brutal challenge without
+some show of dignity.
+
+On rising from the table, he drew Algernon aside. It was an insufferable
+thought that he was compelled to take his brainless cousin into his
+confidence, even to the extent of soliciting his counsel, but there was
+no help for it. In vain Edward asked himself why he had been such an
+idiot as to stain his hands with the affair at all. He attributed it to
+his regard for Algernon. Having commonly the sway of his passions, he
+was in the habit of forgetting that he ever lost control of them; and
+the fierce black mood, engendered by Robert's audacious persecution, had
+passed from his memory, though it was now recalled in full force.
+
+“See what a mess you drag a man into,” he said.
+
+Algernon read a line of the letter. “Oh, confound this infernal fellow!”
+ he shouted, in sickly wonderment; and snapped sharp, “drag you into the
+mess? Upon my honour, your coolness, Ned, is the biggest part about you,
+if it isn't the best.”
+
+Edward's grip fixed on him, for they were only just out of earshot of
+Mrs. Lovell. They went upstairs, and Algernon read the letter through.
+
+“'Midnight assassin,'” he repeated; “by Jove! how beastly that sounds.
+It's a lie that you attacked him in the dark, Ned--eh?”
+
+“I did not attack him at all,” said Edward. “He behaved like a ruffian
+to you, and deserved shooting like a mad dog.”
+
+“Did you, though,” Algernon persisted in questioning, despite his
+cousin's manifest shyness of the subject “did you really go out with
+that man Sedgett, and stop this fellow on horseback? He speaks of a
+blow. You didn't strike him, did you, Ned? I mean, not a hit, except in
+self-defence?”
+
+Edward bit his lip, and shot a level reflective side-look, peculiar to
+him when meditating. He wished his cousin to propose that Mrs. Lovell
+should see the letter. He felt that by consulting with her, he could
+bring her to apprehend the common sense of the position, and be so far
+responsible for what he might do, that she would not dare to let her
+heart be rebellious toward him subsequently. If he himself went to her
+it would look too much like pleading for her intercession. The subtle
+directness of the woman's spirit had to be guarded against at every
+point.
+
+He replied to Algernon,--
+
+“What I did was on your behalf. Oblige me by not interrogating me. I
+give you my positive assurance that I encouraged no unmanly assault on
+him.”
+
+“That'll do, that'll do,” said Algernon, eager not to hear more, lest
+there should come an explanation of what he had heard. “Of course, then,
+this fellow has no right--the devil's in him! If we could only make him
+murder Sedgett and get hanged for it! He's got a friend who's a major in
+the army? Oh, come, I say; this is pitching it too stiff. I shall insist
+upon seeing his commission. Really, Ned, I can't advise. I'll stand by
+you, that you may be sure of--stand by you; but what the deuce to say
+to help you! Go before the magistrate.... Get Lord Elling to issue a
+warrant to prevent a breach of the peace. No; that won't do. This quack
+of a major in the army's to call to-morrow. I don't mind, if he shows
+his credentials all clear, amusing him in any manner he likes. I can't
+see the best scheme. Hang it, Ned, it's very hard upon me to ask me
+to do the thinking. I always go to Peggy Lovell when I'm bothered.
+There--Mrs. Lovell! Mistress Lovell! Madame! my Princess Lovell, if you
+want me to pronounce respectable titles to her name. You're too proud to
+ask a woman to help you, ain't you, Ned?”
+
+“No,” said Edward, mildly. “In some cases their wits are keen enough.
+One doesn't like to drag her into such a business.”
+
+“Hm,” went Algernon. “I don't think she's so innocent of it as you
+fancy.”
+
+“She's very clever,” said Edward.
+
+“She's awfully clever!” cried Algernon. He paused to give room for more
+praises of her, and then pursued:
+
+“She's so kind. That's what you don't credit her for. I'll go and
+consult her, if positively you don't mind. Trust her for keeping it
+quiet. Come, Ned, she's sure to hit upon the right thing. May I go?”
+
+“It's your affair, more than mine,” said Edward.
+
+“Have it so, if you like,” returned the good-natured fellow. “It's worth
+while consulting her, just to see how neatly she'll take it. Bless your
+heart, she won't know a bit more than you want her to know. I'm off to
+her now.” He carried away the letter.
+
+Edward's own practical judgement would have advised his instantly
+sending a short reply to Robert, explaining that he was simply in
+conversation with the man Sedgett, when Robert, the old enemy of the
+latter, rode by, and, that while regretting Sedgett's proceedings, he
+could not be held accountable for them. But it was useless to think of
+acting in accordance with his reason. Mrs. Lovell was queen, and sat
+in reason's place. It was absolutely necessary to conciliate her
+approbation of his conduct in this dilemma, by submitting to the decided
+unpleasantness of talking with her on a subject that fevered him, and of
+allowing her to suppose he required the help of her sagacity. Such was
+the humiliation imposed upon him. Further than this he had nothing to
+fear, for no woman could fail to be overborne by the masculine force
+of his brain in an argument. The humiliation was bad enough, and half
+tempted him to think that his old dream of working as a hard student,
+with fair and gentle Dahlia ministering to his comforts, and too happy
+to call herself his, was best. Was it not, after one particular step
+had been taken, the manliest life he could have shaped out? Or did
+he imagine it so at this moment, because he was a coward, and because
+pride, and vanity, and ferocity alternately had to screw him up to meet
+the consequences of his acts, instead of the great heart?
+
+If a coward, Dahlia was his home, his refuge, his sanctuary. Mrs. Lovell
+was perdition and its scorching fires to a man with a taint of cowardice
+in him.
+
+Whatever he was, Edward's vanity would not permit him to acknowledge
+himself that. Still, he did not call on his heart to play inspiriting
+music. His ideas turned to subterfuge. His aim was to keep the
+good opinion of Mrs. Lovell while he quieted Robert; and he entered
+straightway upon that very perilous course, the attempt, for the sake of
+winning her, to bewilder and deceive a woman's instincts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Over a fire in one of the upper sitting-rooms of the Pilot Inn, Robert
+sat with his friend, the beloved friend of whom he used to speak to
+Dahlia and Rhoda, too proudly not to seem betraying the weaker point of
+pride. This friend had accepted the title from a private soldier of his
+regiment; to be capable of doing which, a man must be both officer and
+gentleman in a sterner and less liberal sense than is expressed by that
+everlasting phrase in the mouth of the military parrot. Major Percy
+Waring, the son of a clergyman, was a working soldier, a slayer, if you
+will, from pure love of the profession of arms, and all the while the
+sweetest and gentlest of men. I call him a working soldier in opposition
+to the parading soldier, the coxcomb in uniform, the hero by accident,
+and the martial boys of wealth and station, who are of the army of
+England. He studied war when the trumpet slumbered, and had no place but
+in the field when it sounded. To him the honour of England was as a babe
+in his arms: he hugged it like a mother. He knew the military history of
+every regiment in the service. Disasters even of old date brought groans
+from him. This enthusiastic face was singularly soft when the large dark
+eyes were set musing. The cast of it being such, sometimes in speaking
+of a happy play of artillery upon congregated masses, an odd effect
+was produced. Ordinarily, the clear features were reflective almost to
+sadness, in the absence of animation; but an exulting energy for action
+would now and then light them up. Hilarity of spirit did not belong to
+him. He was, nevertheless, a cheerful talker, as could be seen in
+the glad ear given to him by Robert. Between them it was “Robert” and
+“Percy.” Robert had rescued him from drowning on the East Anglian
+shore, and the friendship which ensued was one chief reason for Robert's
+quitting the post of trooper and buying himself out. It was against
+Percy's advice, who wanted to purchase a commission for him; but the
+humbler man had the sturdy scruples of his rank regarding money, and
+his romantic illusions being dispersed by an experience of the absolute
+class-distinctions in the service, Robert; that he might prevent his
+friend from violating them, made use of his aunt's legacy to obtain
+release. Since that date they had not met; but their friendship was
+fast. Percy had recently paid a visit to Queen Anne's Farm, where he had
+seen Rhoda and heard of Robert's departure. Knowing Robert's birthplace,
+he had come on to Warbeach, and had seen Jonathan Eccles, who referred
+him to Mrs. Boulby, licenced seller of brandy, if he wished to enjoy an
+interview with Robert Eccles.
+
+“The old man sent up regularly every day to inquire how his son was
+faring on the road to the next world,” said Robert, laughing. “He's
+tough old English oak. I'm just to him what I appear at the time. It's
+better having him like that than one of your jerky fathers, who seem to
+belong to the stage of a theatre. Everybody respects my old dad, and I
+can laugh at what he thinks of me. I've only to let him know I've
+served an apprenticeship in farming, and can make use of some of his
+ideas--sound! every one of 'em; every one of 'em sound! And that I say
+of my own father.”
+
+“Why don't you tell him?” Percy asked.
+
+“I want to forget all about Kent and drown the county,” said Robert.
+“And I'm going to, as far as my memory's concerned.”
+
+Percy waited for some seconds. He comprehended perfectly this state of
+wilfulness in an uneducated sensitive man.
+
+“She has a steadfast look in her face, Robert. She doesn't look as if
+she trifled. I've really never seen a finer, franker girl in my life, if
+faces are to be trusted.”
+
+“It's t' other way. There's no trifling in her case. She's frank. She
+fires at you point blank.”
+
+“You never mentioned her in your letters to me, Robert.”
+
+“No. I had a suspicion from the first I was going to be a fool about the
+girl.”
+
+Percy struck his hand.
+
+“You didn't do quite right.”
+
+“Do you say that?”
+
+Robert silenced him with this question, for there was a woman in Percy's
+antecedent history.
+
+The subject being dismissed, they talked more freely. Robert related the
+tale of Dahlia, and of his doings at Fairly.
+
+“Oh! we agree,” he said, noting a curious smile that Percy could
+not smooth out of sight. “I know it was odd conduct. I do respect my
+superiors; but, believe me or not, Percy, injury done to a girl makes me
+mad, and I can't hold back; and she's the sister of the girl you saw. By
+heaven! if it weren't for my head getting blind now when my blood boils,
+I've the mind to walk straight up to the house and screw the secret out
+of one of them. What I say is--Is there a God up aloft? Then, he sees
+all, and society is vapour, and while I feel the spirit in me to do it,
+I go straight at my aim.”
+
+“If, at the same time, there's no brandy in you,” said Percy, “which
+would stop your seeing clear or going straight.”
+
+The suggestion was a cruel shock. Robert nodded. “That's true. I suppose
+it's my bad education that won't let me keep cool. I'm ashamed of myself
+after it. I shout and thunder, and the end of it is, I go away and think
+about the same of Robert Eccles that I've frightened other people into
+thinking. Perhaps you'll think me to blame in this case? One of those
+Mr. Blancoves--not the one you've heard of--struck me on the field
+before a lady. I bore it. It was part of what I'd gone out to meet. I
+was riding home late at night, and he stood at the corner of the
+lane, with an old enemy of mine, and a sad cur that is! Sedgett's his
+name--Nic, the Christian part of it. There'd just come a sharp snowfall
+from the north, and the moonlight shot over the flying edge of the
+rear-cloud; and I saw Sedgett with a stick in his hand; but the
+gentleman had no stick. I'll give Mr. Edward Blancove credit for not
+meaning to be active in a dastardly assault.
+
+“But why was he in consultation with my enemy? And he let my enemy--by
+the way, Percy, you dislike that sort of talk of 'my enemy,' I know. You
+like it put plain and simple: but down in these old parts again, I catch
+at old habits; and I'm always a worse man when I haven't seen you for
+a time. Sedgett, say. Sedgett, as I passed, made a sweep at my horse's
+knees, and took them a little over the fetlock. The beast reared. While
+I was holding on he swung a blow at me, and took me here.”
+
+Robert touched his head. “I dropped like a horse-chestnut from the tree.
+When I recovered, I was lying in the lane. I think I was there flat,
+face to the ground, for half an hour, quite sensible, looking at the
+pretty colour of my blood on the snow. The horse was gone. I just
+managed to reel along to this place, where there's always a home for me.
+Now, will you believe it possible? I went out next day: I saw Mr. Edward
+Blancove, and I might have seen a baby and felt the same to it. I didn't
+know him a bit. Yesterday morning your letter was sent up from Sutton
+farm. Somehow, the moment I'd read it, I remembered his face. I sent
+him word there was a matter to be settled between us. You think I was
+wrong?”
+
+Major Waring had set a deliberately calculating eye on him.
+
+“I want to hear more,” he said.
+
+“You think I have no claim to challenge a man in his position?”
+
+“Answer me first, Robert. You think this Mr. Blancove helped, or
+instigated this man Sedgett in his attack upon you?”
+
+“I haven't a doubt that he did.”
+
+“It's not plain evidence.”
+
+“It's good circumstantial evidence.”
+
+“At any rate, you are perhaps justified in thinking him capable of this:
+though the rule is, to believe nothing against a gentleman until it is
+flatly proved--when we drum him out of the ranks. But, if you can fancy
+it true, would you put yourself upon an equal footing with him?”
+
+“I would,” said Robert.
+
+“Then you accept his code of morals.”
+
+“That's too shrewd for me: but men who preach against duelling, or any
+kind of man-to-man in hot earnest, always fence in that way.”
+
+“I detest duelling,” Major Waring remarked. “I don't like a system that
+permits knaves and fools to exercise a claim to imperil the lives of
+useful men. Let me observe, that I am not a preacher against it. I
+think you know my opinions; and they are not quite those of the English
+magistrate, and other mild persons who are wrathful at the practice upon
+any pretence. Keep to the other discussion. You challenge a man--you
+admit him your equal. But why do I argue with you? I know your mind as
+well as my own. You have some other idea in the background.”
+
+“I feel that he's the guilty man,” said Robert.
+
+“You feel called upon to punish him.”
+
+“No. Wait: he will not fight; but I have him and I'll hold him. I feel
+he's the man who has injured this girl, by every witness of facts that I
+can bring together; and as for the other young fellow I led such a dog's
+life down here, I could beg his pardon. This one's eye met mine. I
+saw it wouldn't have stopped short of murder--opportunity given. Why?
+Because I pressed on the right spring. I'm like a woman in seeing some
+things. He shall repent. By--! Slap me on the face, Percy. I've taken to
+brandy and to swearing. Damn the girl who made me forget good lessons!
+Bless her heart, I mean. She saw you, did she? Did she colour when she
+heard your name?”
+
+“Very much,” said Major Waring.
+
+“Was dressed in--?”
+
+“Black, with a crimson ribbon round the collar.”
+
+Robert waved the image from his eyes.
+
+“I'm not going to dream of her. Peace, and babies, and farming, and
+pride in myself with a woman by my side--there! You've seen her--all
+that's gone. I might as well ask the East wind to blow West. Her face is
+set the other way. Of course, the nature and value of a man is shown by
+how he takes this sort of pain; and hark at me! I'm yelling. I thought
+I was cured. I looked up into the eyes of a lady ten times
+sweeter--when?--somewhen! I've lost dates. But here's the girl at me
+again. She cuddles into me--slips her hand into my breast and tugs at
+strings there. I can't help talking to you about her, now we've got over
+the first step. I'll soon give it up.
+
+“She wore a red ribbon? If it had been Spring, you'd have seen roses.
+Oh! what a stanch heart that girl has. Where she sets it, mind! Her life
+where that creature sets her heart! But, for me, not a penny of comfort!
+Now for a whole week of her, day and night, in that black dress with
+the coloured ribbon. On she goes: walking to church; sitting at table;
+looking out of the window!
+
+“Will you believe I thought those thick eyebrows of hers ugly once--a
+tremendous long time ago. Yes; but what eyes she has under them! And if
+she looks tender, one corner of her mouth goes quivering; and the eyes
+are steady, so that it looks like some wonderful bit of mercy.
+
+“I think of that true-hearted creature praying and longing for her
+sister, and fearing there's shame--that's why she hates me. I wouldn't
+say I was certain her sister had not fallen into a pit. I couldn't. I
+was an idiot. I thought I wouldn't be a hypocrite. I might have said I
+believed as she did. There she stood ready to be taken--ready to have
+given herself to me, if I had only spoken a word! It was a moment of
+heaven, and God the Father could not give it to me twice The chance has
+gone.
+
+“Oh! what a miserable mad dog I am to gabble on in this way.--Come in!
+come in, mother.”
+
+Mrs. Boulby entered, with soft footsteps, bearing a letter.
+
+“From the Park,” she said, and commenced chiding Robert gently, to
+establish her right to do it with solemnity.
+
+“He will talk, sir. He's one o' them that either they talk or they hang
+silent, and no middle way will they take; and the doctor's their foe,
+and health they despise; and since this cruel blow, obstinacy do seem to
+have been knocked like a nail into his head so fast, persuasion have not
+a atom o' power over him.”
+
+“There must be talking when friends meet, ma'am,” said Major Waring.
+
+“Ah!” returned the widow, “if it wouldn't be all on one side.”
+
+“I've done now, mother,” said Robert.
+
+Mrs. Boulby retired, and Robert opened the letter.
+
+It ran thus:--
+
+   “Sir, I am glad you have done me the favour of addressing me
+   temperately, so that I am permitted to clear myself of an unjust and
+   most unpleasant imputation. I will, if you please, see you, or your
+   friend; to whom perhaps I shall better be able to certify how
+   unfounded is the charge you bring against me. I will call upon you
+   at the Pilot Inn, where I hear that you are staying; or, if you
+   prefer it, I will attend to any appointment you may choose to direct
+   elsewhere. But it must be immediate, as the term of my residence in
+   this neighbourhood is limited.
+
+               “I am,
+
+                  “Sir,
+
+               “Yours obediently,
+
+                    “Edward Blancove.”
+
+Major Waning read the lines with a critical attention.
+
+“It seems fair and open,” was his remark.
+
+“Here,” Robert struck his breast, “here's what answers him. What shall I
+do? Shall I tell him to come?”
+
+“Write to say that your friend will meet him at a stated place.”
+
+Robert saw his prey escaping. “I'm not to see him?”
+
+“No. The decent is the right way in such cases. You must leave it to me.
+This will be the proper method between gentlemen.”
+
+“It appears to my idea,” said Robert, “that gentlemen are always,
+somehow, stopped from taking the straight-ahead measure.”
+
+“You,” Percy rejoined, “are like a civilian before a fortress. Either he
+finds it so easy that he can walk into it, or he gives it up in despair
+as unassailable. You have followed your own devices, and what have you
+accomplished?”
+
+“He will lie to you smoothly.”
+
+“Smoothly or not, if I discover that he has spoken falsely, he is
+answerable to me.”
+
+“To me, Percy.”
+
+“No; to me. He can elude you; and will be acquitted by the general
+verdict. But when he becomes answerable to me, his honour, in the
+conventional, which is here the practical, sense, is at stake, and I
+have him.”
+
+“I see that. Yes; he can refuse to fight me,” Robert sighed. “Hey, Lord!
+it's a heavy world when we come to methods. But will you, Percy, will
+you put it to him at the end of your fist--'Did you deceive the girl,
+and do you know where the girl now is?' Why, great heaven! we only ask
+to know where she is. She may have been murdered. She's hidden from her
+family. Let him confess, and let him go.”
+
+Major Waring shook his head. “You see like a woman perhaps, Robert. You
+certainly talk like a woman. I will state your suspicions. When I have
+done so, I am bound to accept his reply. If we discover it to have been
+false, I have my remedy.”
+
+“Won't you perceive, that it isn't my object to punish him by and by,
+but to tear the secret out of him on the spot--now--instantly,” Robert
+cried.
+
+“I perceive your object, and you have experienced some of the results
+of your system. It's the primitive action of an appeal to the god of
+combats, that is exploded in these days. You have no course but to take
+his word.”
+
+“She said”--Robert struck his knee--“she said I should have the girl's
+address. She said she would see her. She pledged that to me. I'm
+speaking of the lady up at Fairly. Come! things get clearer. If she
+knows where Dahlia is, who told her? This Mr. Algernon--not Edward
+Blancove--was seen with Dahlia in a box at the Playhouse. He was there
+with Dahlia, yet I don't think him the guilty man. There's a finger of
+light upon that other.”
+
+“Who is this lady?” Major Waring asked, with lifted eyebrows.
+
+“Mrs. Lovell.”
+
+At the name, Major Waring sat stricken.
+
+“Lovell!” he repeated, under his breath. “Lovell! Was she ever in
+India?”
+
+“I don't know, indeed.”
+
+“Is she a widow?”
+
+“Ay; that I've heard.”
+
+“Describe her.”
+
+Robert entered upon the task with a dozen headlong exclamations, and
+very justly concluded by saying that he could give no idea of her; but
+his friend apparently had gleaned sufficient.
+
+Major Waring's face was touched by a strange pallor, and his smile had
+vanished. He ran his fingers through his hair, clutching it in a knot,
+as he sat eyeing the red chasm in the fire, where the light of old days
+and wild memories hangs as in a crumbling world.
+
+Robert was aware of there being a sadness in Percy's life, and that he
+had loved a woman and awakened from his passion. Her name was unknown to
+him. In that matter, his natural delicacy and his deference to Percy had
+always checked him from sounding the subject closely. He might be, as
+he had said, keen as a woman where his own instincts were in action;
+but they were ineffective in guessing at the cause for Percy's sudden
+depression.
+
+“She said--this lady, Mrs. Lovell, whoever she may be--she said you
+should have the girl's address:--gave you that pledge of her word?”
+ Percy spoke, half meditating. “How did this happen? When did you see
+her?”
+
+Robert related the incident of his meeting with her, and her effort to
+be a peacemaker, but made no allusion to Mrs. Boulby's tale of the bet.
+
+“A peacemaker!” Percy interjected. “She rides well?”
+
+“Best horsewoman I ever saw in my life,” was Robert's ready answer.
+
+Major Waring brushed at his forehead, as in impatience of thought.
+
+“You must write two letters: one to this Mrs. Lovell. Say, you are
+about to leave the place, and remind her of her promise. It's
+incomprehensible; but never mind. Write that first. Then to the man. Say
+that your friend--by the way, this Mrs. Lovell has small hands, has she?
+I mean, peculiarly small? Did you notice, or not? I may know her. Never
+mind. Write to the man. Say--don't write down my name--say that I will
+meet him.” Percy spoke on as in a dream. “Appoint any place and hour.
+To-morrow at ten, down by the river--the bridge. Write briefly. Thank
+him for his offer to afford you explanations. Don't argue it with me any
+more. Write both the letters straight off.”
+
+His back was to Robert as he uttered the injunction. Robert took pen and
+paper, and did as he was bidden, with all the punctilious obedience of a
+man who consents perforce to see a better scheme abandoned.
+
+One effect of the equality existing between these two of diverse rank in
+life and perfect delicacy of heart, was, that the moment Percy assumed
+the lead, Robert never disputed it. Muttering simply that he was
+incapable of writing except when he was in a passion, he managed to
+produce what, in Percy's eyes, were satisfactory epistles, though Robert
+had horrible misgivings in regard to his letter to Mrs. Lovell--the
+wording of it, the cast of the sentences, even down to the character of
+the handwriting. These missives were despatched immediately.
+
+“You are sure she said that?” Major Waring inquired more than once
+during the afternoon, and Robert assured him that Mrs. Lovell had given
+him her word. He grew very positive, and put it on his honour that she
+had said it.
+
+“You may have heard incorrectly.”
+
+“I've got the words burning inside me,” said Robert.
+
+They walked together, before dark, to Sutton Farm, but Jonathan Eccles
+was abroad in his fields, and their welcome was from Mistress Anne, whom
+Major Waring had not power to melt; the moment he began speaking praise
+of Robert, she closed her mouth tight and crossed her wrists meekly.
+
+“I see,” said Major Waring, as they left the farm, “your aunt is of the
+godly who have no forgiveness.”
+
+“I'm afraid so,” cried Robert. “Cold blood never will come to an
+understanding with hot blood, and the old lady's is like frozen milk.
+She's right in her way, I dare say. I don't blame her. Her piety's right
+enough, take it as you find it.”
+
+Mrs. Boulby had a sagacious notion that gentlemen always dined well
+every day of their lives, and claimed that much from Providence as their
+due. She had exerted herself to spread a neat little repast for Major
+Waring, and waited on the friends herself; grieving considerably to
+observe that the major failed in his duty as a gentleman, as far as the
+relish of eating was concerned.
+
+“But,” she said below at her bar, “he smokes the beautifullest--smelling
+cigars, and drinks coffee made in his own way. He's very particular.”
+ Which was reckoned to be in Major Waring's favour.
+
+The hour was near midnight when she came into the room, bearing another
+letter from the Park. She thumped it on the table, ruffling and making
+that pretence at the controlling of her bosom which precedes a feminine
+storm. Her indignation was caused by a communication delivered by Dick
+Curtis, in the parlour underneath, to the effect that Nicodemus Sedgett
+was not to be heard of in the neighbourhood.
+
+Robert laughed at her, and called her Hebrew woman--eye-for-eye and
+tooth-for-tooth woman.
+
+“Leave real rascals to the Lord above, mother. He's safe to punish them.
+They've stepped outside the chances. That's my idea. I wouldn't go out
+of my way to kick them--not I! It's the half-and-half villains we've got
+to dispose of. They're the mischief, old lady.”
+
+Percy, however, asked some questions about Sedgett, and seemed to think
+his disappearance singular. He had been examining the handwriting of the
+superscription to the letter. His face was flushed as he tossed it for
+Robert to open. Mrs. Boulby dropped her departing curtsey, and Robert
+read out, with odd pauses and puzzled emphasis:
+
+   “Mrs. Lovell has received the letter which Mr. Robert Eccles has
+   addressed to her, and regrets that a misconception should have
+   arisen from anything that was uttered during their interview. The
+   allusions are obscure, and Mrs. Lovell can only remark, that she is
+   pained if she at all misled Mr. Eccles in what she either spoke or
+   promised. She is not aware that she can be of any service to him.
+   Should such an occasion present itself, Mr. Eccles may rest assured
+   that she will not fail to avail herself of it, and do her utmost to
+   redeem a pledge to which he has apparently attached a meaning she
+   can in no way account for or comprehend.”
+
+When Robert had finished, “It's like a female lawyer,” he said.
+“That woman speaking, and that woman writing, they're two different
+creatures--upon my soul, they are! Quick, sharp, to the point, when she
+speaks; and read this! Can I venture to say of a lady, she's a liar?”
+
+“Perhaps you had better not,” said Major Waring, who took the letter in
+his hand and seemed to study it. After which he transferred it to his
+pocket.
+
+“To-morrow? To-morrow's Sunday,” he observed. “We will go to church
+to-morrow.” His eyes glittered.
+
+“Why, I'm hardly in the mood,” Robert protested. “I haven't had the
+habit latterly.”
+
+“Keep up the habit,” said Percy. “It's a good thing for men like you.”
+
+“But what sort of a fellow am I to be showing myself there among all
+the people who've been talking about me--and the people up at Fairly!”
+ Robert burst out in horror of the prospect. “I shall be a sight among
+the people. Percy, upon my honour, I don't think I well can. I'll read
+the Bible at home if you like.”
+
+“No; you'll do penance,” said Major Waring.
+
+“Are you meaning it?”
+
+“The penance will be ten times greater on my part, believe me.”
+
+Robert fancied him to be referring to some idea of mocking the
+interposition of religion.
+
+“Then we'll go to Upton Church,” he said. “I don't mind it at Upton.”
+
+“I intend to go to the church attended by 'The Family,' as we say in our
+parts; and you must come with me to Warbeach.”
+
+Clasping one hand across his forehead, Robert cried, “You couldn't ask
+me to do a thing I hate so much. Go, and sit, and look sheepish, and
+sing hymns with the people I've been badgering; and everybody seeing me!
+How can it be anything to you like what it is to me?”
+
+“You have only to take my word for it that it is, and far more,” said
+Major Waring, sinking his voice. “Come; it won't do you any harm to make
+an appointment to meet your conscience now and then. You will never be
+ruled by reason, and your feelings have to teach you what you learn. At
+any rate, it's my request.”
+
+This terminated the colloquy upon that topic. Robert looked forward to a
+penitential Sabbath-day.
+
+“She is a widow still,” thought Major Waring, as he stood alone in his
+bed-room, and, drawing aside the curtains of his window, looked up at
+the white moon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+When the sun takes to shining in winter, and the Southwest to blowing,
+the corners of the earth cannot hide from him--the mornings are like
+halls full of light. Robert had spent his hopes upon a wet day that
+would have kept the congregation sparse and the guests at Fairly absent
+from public devotions.
+
+He perceived at once that he was doomed to be under everybody's eyes
+when he walked down the aisle, for everybody would attend the service on
+such a morning as this.
+
+Already he had met his conscience, in so far as that he shunned asking
+Percy again what was the reason for their going to church, and he
+had not the courage to petition to go in the afternoon instead of the
+morning.
+
+The question, “Are you ashamed of yourself, then?” sang in his ears as a
+retort ready made.
+
+There was no help for it; so he set about assisting his ingenuity
+to make the best appearance possible--brushing his hat and coat with
+extraordinary care.
+
+Percy got him to point out the spot designated for the meeting, and
+telling him to wait in the Warbeach churchyard, or within sight of it,
+strolled off in the direction of the river. His simple neatness and
+quiet gentlemanly air abashed Robert, and lured him from his intense
+conception of abstract right and wrong, which had hitherto encouraged
+and incited him, so that he became more than ever crestfallen at
+the prospect of meeting the eyes of the church people, and with the
+trembling sensitiveness of a woman who weighs the merits of a lover when
+passion is having one of its fatal pauses, he looked at himself, and
+compared himself with the class of persons he had outraged, and tried
+to think better of himself, and to justify himself, and sturdily reject
+comparisons. They would not be beaten back. His enemies had never
+suggested them, but they were forced on him by the aspect of his friend.
+
+Any man who takes the law into his own hands, and chooses to stand
+against what is conventionally deemed fitting:--against the world, as we
+say, is open to these moods of degrading humility. Robert waited for the
+sound of the bells with the emotions of a common culprit. Could he have
+been driven to the church and deposited suddenly in his pew, his mind
+would have been easier.
+
+It was the walking there, the walking down the aisle, the sense of his
+being the fellow who had matched himself against those well-attired
+gentlemen, which entirely confused him. And not exactly for his own
+sake--for Percy's partly. He sickened at the thought of being seen by
+Major Waring's side. His best suit and his hat were good enough, as
+far as they went, only he did not feel that he wore them--he could not
+divine how it was--with a proper air, an air of signal comfort. In
+fact, the graceful negligence of an English gentleman's manner had been
+unexpectedly revealed to him; and it was strange, he reflected, that
+Percy never appeared to observe how deficient he was, and could still
+treat him as an equal, call him by his Christian name, and not object to
+be seen with him in public.
+
+Robert did not think at the same time that illness had impoverished his
+blood. Your sensational beings must keep a strong and a good flow of
+blood in their veins to be always on a level with the occasion which
+they provoke. He remembered wonderingly that he had used to be easy
+in gait and ready of wit when walking from Queen Anne's Farm to Wrexby
+village church. Why was he a different creature now? He could not answer
+the question.
+
+Two or three of his Warbeach acquaintances passed him in the lanes. They
+gave him good day, and spoke kindly, and with pleasant friendly looks.
+
+Their impression when they left him was that he was growing proud.
+
+The jolly butcher of Warbeach, who had a hearty affection for him,
+insisted upon clapping his hand, and showing him to Mrs. Billing, and
+showing their two young ones to Robert. With a kiss to the children, and
+a nod, Robert let them pass.
+
+Here and there, he was hailed by young fellows who wore their hats on
+one side, and jaunty-fashioned coats--Sunday being their own bright day
+of exhibition. He took no notice of the greetings.
+
+He tried to feel an interest in the robins and twittering wrens, and
+called to mind verses about little birds, and kept repeating them,
+behind a face that chilled every friendly man who knew him.
+
+Moody the boat-builder asked him, with a stare, if he was going to
+church, and on Robert's replying that perhaps he was, said “I'm dashed!”
+ and it was especially discouraging to one in Robert's condition.
+
+Further to inspirit him, he met Jonathan Eccles, who put the same
+question to him, and getting the same answer, turned sharp round and
+walked homeward.
+
+Robert had a great feeling of relief when the bells were silent, and
+sauntered with a superior composure round the holly and laurel bushes
+concealing the church. Not once did he ponder on the meeting between
+Major Waring and Mr. Edward Blancove, until he beheld the former
+standing alone by the churchyard gate, and then he thought more of the
+empty churchyard and the absence of carriages, proclaiming the dreadful
+admonition that he must immediately consider as to the best way of
+comporting himself before an observant and censorious congregation.
+
+Major Waring remarked, “You are late.”
+
+“Have I kept you waiting?” said Robert.
+
+“Not long. They are reading the lessons.”
+
+“Is it full inside?”
+
+“I dare say it is.”
+
+“You have seen him, I suppose?”
+
+“Oh yes; I have seen him.”
+
+Percy was short in his speech, and pale as Robert had never seen him
+before. He requested hastily to be told the situation of Lord Elling's
+pew.
+
+“Don't you think of going into the gallery?” said Robert, but received
+no answer, and with an inward moan of “Good God! they'll think I've come
+here in a sort of repentance,” he found himself walking down the aisle;
+and presently, to his amazement, settled in front of the Fairly pew, and
+with his eyes on Mrs. Lovell.
+
+What was the matter with her? Was she ill? Robert forgot his own
+tribulation in an instant. Her face was like marble, and as she stood
+with the prayer-book in her hand, her head swayed over it: her lips made
+a faint effort at smiling, and she sat quietly down, and was concealed.
+Algernon and Sir John Capes were in the pew beside her, as well as Lady
+Elling, who, with a backward-turned hand and disregarding countenance,
+reached out her smelling-bottle.
+
+“Is this because she fancies I know of her having made a bet of me?”
+ thought Robert, and it was not his vanity prompted the supposition,
+though his vanity was awakened by it. “Or is she ashamed of her
+falsehood?” he thought again, and forgave her at the sight of her sweet
+pale face. The singing of the hymns made her evident suffering seem holy
+as a martyr's. He scarce had the power to conduct himself reverently, so
+intense was his longing to show her his sympathy.
+
+“That is Mrs. Lovell--did you see her just now?” he whispered.
+
+“Ah?” said Major Waring.
+
+“I'm afraid she has fainted.”
+
+“Possibly.”
+
+But Mrs. Lovell had not fainted. She rose when the time for rising came
+again, and fixing her eyes with a grave devotional collectedness upon
+the vicar at his reading-desk, looked quite mistress of herself--but
+mistress of herself only when she kept them so fixed. When they moved,
+it was as if they had relinquished some pillar of support, and they
+wavered; livid shades chased her face, like the rain-clouds on a grey
+lake-water. Some one fronting her weighed on her eyelids. This was
+evident. Robert thought her a miracle of beauty. She was in colour like
+days he had noted thoughtfully: days with purple storm, and with golden
+horizon edges. She had on a bonnet of black velvet, with a delicate
+array of white lace, that was not suffered to disturb the contrast to
+her warm yellow hair. Her little gloved hands were both holding the
+book; at times she perused it, or, the oppression becoming unendurable,
+turned her gaze toward the corner of the chancel, and thence once more
+to her book. Robert rejected all idea of his being in any way the cause
+of her strange perturbation. He cast a glance at his friend. He had
+begun to nourish a slight suspicion; but it was too slight to bear up
+against Percy's self-possession; for, as he understood the story, Percy
+had been the sufferer, and the lady had escaped without a wound. How,
+then, if such were the case, would she be showing emotion thus deep,
+while he stood before her with perfect self-command?
+
+Robert believed that if he might look upon that adorable face for many
+days together, he could thrust Rhoda's from his memory. The sermon was
+not long enough for him; and he was angry with Percy for rising before
+there was any movement for departure in the Fairly pew. In the doorway
+of the church Percy took his arm, and asked him to point out the family
+tombstone. They stood by it, when Lady Elling and Mrs. Lovell came forth
+and walked to the carriage, receiving respectful salutes from the people
+of Warbeach.
+
+“How lovely she is!” said Robert.
+
+“Do you think her handsome?” said Major Waring.
+
+“I can't understand such a creature dying.” Robert stepped over an open
+grave.
+
+The expression of Percy's eyes was bitter.
+
+“I should imagine she thinks it just as impossible.”
+
+The Warbeach villagers waited for Lady Elling's carriage to roll away,
+and with a last glance at Robert, they too went off in gossiping groups.
+Robert's penance was over, and he could not refrain from asking what
+good his coming to church had done.
+
+“I can't assist you,” said Percy. “By the way, Mr. Blancove denies
+everything. He thinks you mad. He promises, now that you have adopted
+reasonable measures, to speak to his cousin, and help, as far as he can,
+to discover the address you are in search of.”
+
+“That's all?” cried Robert.
+
+“That is all.”
+
+“Then where am I a bit farther than when I began?”
+
+“You are only at the head of another road, and a better one.”
+
+“Oh, why do I ever give up trusting to my right hand--” Robert muttered.
+
+But the evening brought a note to him from Algernon Blancove. It
+contained a dignified condemnation of Robert's previous insane
+behaviour, and closed by giving Dahlia's address in London.
+
+“How on earth was this brought about?” Robert now questioned.
+
+“It's singular, is it not?” said Major blaring; “but if you want a dog
+to follow you, you don't pull it by the collar; and if you want a potato
+from the earth, you plant the potato before you begin digging. You are
+a soldier by instinct, my good Robert: your first appeal is to force.
+I, you see, am a civilian: I invariably try the milder methods. Do
+you start for London tonight? I remain. I wish to look at the
+neighbourhood.”
+
+Robert postponed his journey to the morrow, partly in dread of his
+approaching interview with Dahlia, but chiefly to continue a little
+longer by the side of him whose gracious friendship gladdened his life.
+They paid a second visit to Sutton Farm. Robert doggedly refused to
+let a word be said to his father about his having taken to farming,
+and Jonathan listened to all Major Waring said of his son like a man
+deferential to the accomplishment of speaking, but too far off to hear
+more than a chance word. He talked, in reply, quite cheerfully of
+the weather and the state of the ground; observed that the soil was
+a perpetual study, but he knew something of horses and dogs, and
+Yorkshiremen were like Jews in the trouble they took to over-reach in
+a bargain. “Walloping men is poor work, if you come to compare it
+with walloping Nature,” he said, and explained that, according to
+his opinion, “to best a man at buying and selling was as wholesome an
+occupation as frowzlin' along the gutters for parings and strays.” He
+himself preferred to go to the heart of things: “Nature makes you rich,
+if your object is to do the same for her. Yorkshire fellows never think
+except of making theirselves rich by fattening on your blood, like
+sheep-ticks.” In fine, Jonathan spoke sensibly, and abused Yorkshire,
+without hesitating to confess that a certain Yorkshireman, against whom
+he had matched his wits in a purchase of horseflesh, had given him a
+lively recollection of the encounter.
+
+Percy asked him what he thought of his country. “I'll tell you,” said
+Jonathan; “Englishmen's business is to go to war with the elements, and
+so long as we fight them, we're in the right academy for learnin' how
+the game goes. Our vulnerability commences when we think we'll sit
+down and eat the fruits, and if I don't see signs o' that, set me
+mole-tunnelling. Self-indulgence is the ruin of our time.”
+
+This was the closest remark he made to his relations with Robert, who
+informed him that he was going to London on the following day. Jonathan
+shook his hand heartily, without troubling himself about any inquiries.
+
+“There's so much of that old man in me,” said Robert, when Percy praised
+him, on their return, “that I daren't call him a Prince of an old
+boy: and never a spot of rancour in his soul. Have a claim on him--and
+there's your seat at his table: take and offend him--there's your seat
+still. Eat and drink, but you don't get near his heart. I'll surprise
+him some day. He fancies he's past surprises.”
+
+“Well,” said Percy, “you're younger than I am, and may think the future
+belongs to you.”
+
+Early next morning they parted. Robert was in town by noon. He lost no
+time in hurrying to the Western suburb. As he neared the house where
+he was to believe Dahlia to be residing, he saw a man pass through the
+leafless black shrubs by the iron gate; and when he came to the gate
+himself the man was at the door. The door opened and closed on this man.
+It was Nicodemus Sedgett, or Robert's eyes did him traitorous service.
+He knocked at the door violently, and had to knock a second and a third
+time. Dahlia was denied to him. He was told that Mrs. Ayrton had lived
+there, but had left, and her present address was unknown. He asked to
+be allowed to speak a word to the man who had just entered the house.
+No one had entered for the last two hours, was the reply. Robert had
+an impulse to rush by the stolid little female liar, but Percy's recent
+lesson to him acted as a restraint; though, had it been a brawny woman
+or a lacquey in his path, he would certainly have followed his natural
+counsel. He turned away, lingering outside till it was dusk and the
+bruise on his head gave great throbs, and then he footed desolately
+farther and farther from the house. To combat with evil in his own
+country village had seemed a simple thing enough, but it appeared a
+superhuman task in giant London.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+It requires, happily, many years of an ordinary man's life to teach him
+to believe in the exceeding variety and quantity of things money can
+buy: yet, when ingenuous minds have fully comprehended the potent
+character of the metal, they are likely enough to suppose that it will
+buy everything: after which comes the groaning anxiety to possess it.
+
+This stage of experience is a sublime development in the great souls of
+misers. It is their awakening moment, and it is their first real sense
+of a harvest being in their hands. They have begun under the influence
+of the passion for hoarding, which is but a blind passion of the
+finger-ends. The idea that they have got together, bit by bit, a
+power, travels slowly up to their heavy brains. Once let it be grasped,
+however, and they clutch a god. They feed on everybody's hunger for it.
+And, let us confess, they have in that a mighty feast.
+
+Anthony Hackbut was not a miser. He was merely a saving old man. His
+vanity was, to be thought a miser, envied as a miser. He lived in daily
+hearing of the sweet chink of gold, and loved the sound, but with a
+poetical love, rather than with the sordid desire to amass gold pieces.
+Though a saving old man, he had his comforts; and if they haunted him
+and reproached him subsequently, for indulging wayward appetites for
+herrings and whelks and other sea-dainties that render up no account to
+you when they have disappeared, he put by copper and silver continually,
+weekly and monthly, and was master of a sum.
+
+He knew the breadth of this sum with accuracy, and what it would expand
+to this day come a year, and probably this day come five years. He knew
+it only too well. The sum took no grand leaps. It increased, but did not
+seem to multiply. And he was breathing in the heart of the place, of all
+places in the world, where money did multiply.
+
+He was the possessor of twelve hundred pounds, solid, and in haven; that
+is, the greater part in the Bank of England, and a portion in Boyne's
+Bank. He had besides a few skirmishing securities, and some such bits of
+paper as Algernon had given him in the public-house on that remarkable
+night of his visit to the theatre.
+
+These, when the borrowers were defaulters in their payments and pleaded
+for an extension of time, inspired him with sentiments of grandeur that
+the solid property could not impart. Nevertheless, the anti-poetical
+tendency within him which warred with the poetical, and set him reducing
+whatsoever he claimed to plain figures, made it but a fitful hour of
+satisfaction.
+
+He had only to fix his mind upon Farmer Fleming's conception of his
+wealth, to feel the miserable smallness of what seemed legitimately his
+own; and he felt it with so poignant an emotion that at times his fears
+of death were excited by the knowledge of a dead man's impotence to
+suggest hazy margins in the final exposure of his property. There it
+would lie, dead as himself! contracted, coffined, contemptible!
+
+What would the farmer think when he came to hear that his brother Tony's
+estate was not able to buy up Queen Anne's Farm?--when, in point of
+fact, he found that he had all along been the richer man of the two!
+
+Anthony's comfort was in the unfaltering strength of his constitution.
+He permitted his estimate of it to hint at the probability of his
+outlasting his brother William John, to whom he wished no earthly ill,
+but only that he should not live with a mitigated veneration for him. He
+was really nourished by the farmer's gluttonous delight in his supposed
+piles of wealth. Sometimes, for weeks, he had the gift of thinking
+himself one of the Bank with which he had been so long connected; and
+afterward a wretched reaction set in.
+
+It was then that his touch upon Bank money began to intoxicate him
+strangely. He had at times thousands hugged against his bosom, and his
+heart swelled to the money-bags immense. He was a dispirited, but a
+grateful creature, after he had delivered them up. The delirium came by
+fits, as if a devil lurked to surprise him.
+
+“With this money,” said the demon, “you might speculate, and in two days
+make ten times the amount.”
+
+To which Anthony answered: “My character's worth fifty times the
+amount.”
+
+Such was his reply, but he did not think it. He was honest, and his
+honesty had become a habit; but the money was the only thing which acted
+on his imagination; his character had attained to no sacred halo, and
+was just worth his annual income and the respect of the law for his
+person. The money fired his brain!
+
+“Ah! if it was mine!” he sighed. “If I could call it mine for just forty
+or fifty hours! But it ain't, and I can't.”
+
+He fought dogged battles with the tempter, and beat him off again and
+again. One day he made a truce with him by saying that if ever the
+farmer should be in town of an afternoon he would steal ten minutes
+or so, and make an appointment with him somewhere and show him the
+money-bags without a word: let him weigh and eye them: and then the plan
+was for Anthony to talk of politics, while the farmer's mind was in a
+ferment.
+
+With this arrangement the infernal Power appeared to be content, and
+Anthony was temporarily relieved of his trouble. In other words, the
+intermittent fever of a sort of harmless rascality was afflicting this
+old creature. He never entertained the notion of running clear away with
+the money entrusted to him.
+
+Whither could an aged man fly? He thought of foreign places as of spots
+that gave him a shivering sense of its being necessary for him to be
+born again in nakedness and helplessness, if ever he was to see them and
+set foot on them.
+
+London was his home, and clothed him about warmly and honourably, and so
+he said to the demon in their next colloquy.
+
+Anthony had become guilty of the imprudence of admitting him to
+conferences and arguing with him upon equal terms. They tell us, that
+this is the imprudence of women under temptation; and perhaps Anthony
+was pushed to the verge of the abyss from causes somewhat similar to
+those which imperil them, and employed the same kind of efforts in his
+resistance.
+
+In consequence of this compromise, the demon by degrees took seat at
+his breakfast-table, when Mrs. Wicklow, his landlady, could hear Anthony
+talking in the tone of voice of one who was pushed to his sturdiest
+arguments. She conceived that the old man's head was softening.
+
+He was making one of his hurried rushes with the porterage of money on
+an afternoon in Spring, when a young female plucked at his coat, and his
+wrath at offenders against the law kindled in a minute into fury.
+
+“Hands off, minx!” he cried. “You shall be given in charge. Where's a
+policeman?”
+
+“Uncle!” she said.
+
+“You precious swindler in petticoats!” Anthony fumed.
+
+But he had a queer recollection of her face, and when she repeated
+piteously: “Uncle!” he peered at her features, saying,--
+
+“No!” in wonderment, several times.
+
+Her hair was cut like a boy's. She was in common garments, with a
+close-shaped skull-cap and a black straw bonnet on her head; not gloved,
+of ill complexion, and with deep dark lines slanting down from the
+corners of her eyes. Yet the inspection convinced him that he beheld
+Dahlia, his remembering the niece. He was amazed; but speedily priceless
+trust in his arms, and the wickedness of the streets, he bade her
+follow him. She did so with some difficulty, for he ran, and dodged, and
+treated the world as his enemy, suddenly vanished, and appeared again
+breathing freely.
+
+“Why, my girl?” he said: “Why, Dahl--Mrs. What's-your-name? Why, who'd
+have known you? Is that”--he got his eyes close to her hair; “is that
+the ladies' fashion now? 'Cause, if it is, our young street scamps has
+only got to buy bonnets, and--I say, you don't look the Pomp. Not as you
+used to, Miss Ma'am, I mean--no, that you don't. Well, what's the news?
+How's your husband?”
+
+“Uncle,” said Dahlia; “will you, please, let me speak to you somewhere?”
+
+“Ain't we standing together?”
+
+“Oh! pray, out of the crowd!”
+
+“Come home with me, if my lodgings ain't too poor for you,” said
+Anthony.
+
+“Uncle, I can't. I have been unwell. I cannot walk far. Will you take me
+to some quiet place?”
+
+“Will you treat me to a cab?” Anthony sneered vehemently.
+
+“I have left off riding, uncle.”
+
+“What! Hulloa!” Anthony sang out. “Cash is down in the mouth at home, is
+it? Tell me that, now?”
+
+Dahlia dropped her eyelids, and then entreated him once more to conduct
+her to a quiet place where they might sit together, away from noise. She
+was very earnest and very sad, not seeming to have much strength.
+
+“Do you mind taking my arm?” said Anthony.
+
+She leaned her hand on his arm, and he dived across the road with her,
+among omnibuses and cabs, shouting to them through the roar,--
+
+“We're the Independence on two legs, warranted sound, and no
+competition;” and saying to Dahlia: “Lor' bless you! there's no retort
+in 'em, or I'd say something worth hearing. It's like poking lions in
+cages with raw meat, afore you get a chaffing-match out o' them. Some
+of 'em know me. They'd be good at it, those fellows. I've heard of
+good things said by 'em. But there they sit, and they've got no
+circulation--ain't ready, except at old women, or when they catch you in
+a mess, and getting the worst of it. Let me tell you; you'll never
+get manly chaff out of big bundles o' fellows with ne'er an atom o'
+circulation. The river's the place for that. I've heard uncommon good
+things on the river--not of 'em, but heard 'em. T' other's most part
+invention. And, they tell me, horseback's a prime thing for chaff.
+Circulation, again. Sharp and lively, I mean; not bawl, and answer
+over your back--most part impudence, and nothing else--and then out
+of hearing. That sort o' chaff's cowardly. Boys are stiff young
+parties--circulation--and I don't tackle them pretty often, 'xcept when
+I'm going like a ball among nine-pins. It's all a matter o' circulation.
+I say, my dear,” Anthony addressed her seriously, “you should never lay
+hold o' my arm when you see me going my pace of an afternoon. I took you
+for a thief, and worse--I did. That I did. Had you been waiting to see
+me?”
+
+“A little,” Dahlia replied, breathless.
+
+“You have been ill?”
+
+“A little,” she said.
+
+“You've written to the farm? O' course you have!”
+
+“Oh! uncle, wait,” moaned Dahlia.
+
+“But, ha' you been sick, and not written home?”
+
+“Wait; please, wait,” she entreated him.
+
+“I'll wait,” said Anthony; “but that's no improvement to queerness; and
+'queer''s your motto. Now we cross London Bridge. There's the Tower that
+lived in times when no man was safe of keeping his own money, 'cause of
+grasping kings--all claws and crown. I'm Republican as far as 'none o'
+them'--goes. There's the ships. The sun rises behind 'em, and sets
+afore 'em, and you may fancy, if you like, there's always gold in their
+rigging. Gals o' your sort think I say, come! tell me, if you are a
+lady?”
+
+“No, uncle, no!” Dahlia cried, and then drawing in her breath, added:
+“not to you.”
+
+“Last time I crossed this bridge with a young woman hanging on my arm,
+it was your sister; they say she called on you, and you wouldn't see
+her; and a gal so good and a gal so true ain't to be got for a sister
+every day in the year! What are you pulling me for?”
+
+Dahlia said nothing, but clung to him with a drooping head, and so they
+hurried along, until Anthony stopped in front of a shop displaying cups
+and muffins at the window, and leprous-looking strips of bacon, and
+sausages that had angled for appetites till they had become pallid
+sodden things, like washed-out bait.
+
+Into this shop he led her, and they took possession of a compartment,
+and ordered tea and muffins.
+
+The shop was empty.
+
+“It's one of the expenses of relationship,” Anthony sighed, after
+probing Dahlia unsatisfactorily to see whether she intended to pay for
+both, or at least for herself; and finding that she had no pride at all.
+“My sister marries your father, and, in consequence--well! a muffin now
+and then ain't so very much. We'll forget it, though it is a breach,
+mind, in counting up afterwards, and two-pences every day's equal to a
+good big cannonball in the castle-wall at the end of the year. Have you
+written home?”
+
+Dahlia's face showed the bright anguish of unshed tears.
+
+“Uncle-oh! speak low. I have been near death. I have been ill for so
+long a time. I have come to you to hear about them--my father and Rhoda.
+Tell me what they are doing, and do they sleep and eat well, and are not
+in trouble? I could not write. I was helpless. I could not hold a pen.
+Be kind, dear uncle, and do not reproach me. Please, tell me that they
+have not been sorrowful.”
+
+A keenness shot from Anthony's eyes. “Then, where's your husband?” he
+asked.
+
+She made a sad attempt at smiling. “He is abroad.”
+
+“How about his relations? Ain't there one among 'em to write for you
+when you're ill?”
+
+“He... Yes, he has relatives. I could not ask them. Oh! I am not strong,
+uncle; if you will only leave following me so with questions; but tell
+me, tell me what I want to know.”
+
+“Well, then, you tell me where your husband banks,” returned Anthony.
+
+“Indeed, I cannot say.”
+
+“Do you,” Anthony stretched out alternative fingers, “do you get money
+from him to make payments in gold, or, do you get it in paper?”
+
+She stared as in terror of a pit-fall. “Paper,” she said at a venture.
+
+“Well, then, name your Bank.”
+
+There was no cunning in her eye as she answered: “I don't know any bank,
+except the Bank of England.”
+
+“Why the deuce didn't you say so at once--eh?” cried Anthony. “He gives
+you bank-notes. Nothing better in the world. And he a'n't been givin'
+you many lately--is that it? What's his profession, or business?”
+
+“He is...he is no profession.”
+
+“Then, what is he? Is he a gentleman?”
+
+“Yes,” she breathed plaintively.
+
+“Your husband's a gentleman. Eh?--and lost his money?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“How did he lose it?”
+
+The poor victim of this pertinacious interrogatory now beat about within
+herself for succour. “I must not say,” she replied.
+
+“You're going to try to keep a secret, are ye?” said Anthony; and she,
+in her relief at the pause to her torment, said: “I am,” with a little
+infantile, withering half-smile.
+
+“Well, you've been and kept yourself pretty secret,” the old man
+pursued. “I suppose your husband's proud? He's proud, ain't he? He's
+of a family, I'll be bound. Is he of a family? How did he like your
+dressing up like a mill'ner gal to come down in the City and see me?”
+
+Dahlia's guile was not ready. “He didn't mind,” she said.
+
+“He didn't mind, didn't he? He don't mind your cutting of your hair
+so?--didn't mind that?”
+
+She shook her head. “No.”
+
+Anthony was down upon her like a hawk.
+
+“Why, he's abroad!”
+
+“Yes; I mean, he did not see me.”
+
+With which, in a minute, she was out of his grasp; but her heart beat
+thick, her lips were dry, and her thoughts were in disorder.
+
+“Then, he don't know you've been and got shaved, and a poll like a
+turnip-head of a thief? That's something for him to learn, is it?”
+
+The picture of her beauty gone, seared her eyes like heated brass. She
+caught Anthony's arm with one firm hand to hold him silent, and with the
+other hand covered her sight and let the fit of weeping pass.
+
+When the tears had spent themselves, she relinquished her hold of the
+astonished old man, who leaned over the table to her, and dominated by
+the spirit of her touch, whispered, like one who had accepted a bond
+of secresy: “Th' old farmer's well. So's Rhoda--my darkie lass. They've
+taken on a bit. And then they took to religion for comfort. Th' old
+farmer attends Methody meetin's, and quotes Scriptur' as if he was fixed
+like a pump to the Book, and couldn't fetch a breath without quotin'.
+Rhoda's oftenest along with your rector's wife down there, and does
+works o' charity, sicknussin', readin'--old farmer does the preachin'.
+Old mother Sumfit's fat as ever, and says her money's for you. Old
+Gammon goes on eatin' of the dumplins. Hey! what a queer old ancient he
+is. He seems to me to belong to a time afore ever money was. That Mr.
+Robert's off...never been down there since he left, 'cause my darkie
+lass thought herself too good for him. So she is!--too good for anybody.
+They're going to leave the farm; sell, and come to London.”
+
+“Oh, no!” exclaimed Dahlia; “not going to leave the dear old farm, and
+our lane, and the old oaks, leading up to the heath. Are they? Father
+will miss it. Rhoda will mourn so. No place will ever be like that to
+them. I love it better than any place on earth.”
+
+“That's queer,” said Anthony. “Why do you refuse to go, or won't
+let your husband take you down there; if you like the place that
+raving-like? But 'queer''s your motto. The truth is this--you just
+listen. Hear me--hush! I won't speak in a bawl. You're a reasonable
+being, and you don't--that's to say, you do understand, the old farmer
+feels it uncomfortable--”
+
+“But I never helped him when I was there,” said Dahlia, suddenly
+shrinking in a perceptible tremble of acute divination. “I was no use. I
+never helped him--not at all. I was no--no use!”
+
+Anthony blinked his eyes, not knowing how it was that he had thus been
+thrown out of his direct road. He began again, in his circumlocutory
+delicacy: “Never mind; help or no help, what th' old farmer feels
+is--and quite nat'ral. There's sensations as a father, and sensations as
+a man; and what th' old farmer feels is--”
+
+“But Rhoda has always been more to father than I have,” Dahlia cried,
+now stretching forward with desperate courage to confront her uncle,
+distract his speech, and avert the saying of the horrible thing she
+dreaded. “Rhoda was everything to him. Mother perhaps took to me--my
+mother!”
+
+The line of her long underlie drawn sharp to check her tears, stopped
+her speaking.
+
+“All very well about Rhoda,” said Anthony. “She's everything to me,
+too.”
+
+“Every--everybody loves her!” Dahlia took him up.
+
+“Let 'em, so long as they don't do no harm to her,” was Anthony's
+remark. There was an idea in this that he had said, and the light of it
+led off his fancy. It was some time before he returned to the attack.
+
+“Neighbours gossip a good deal. O' course you know that.”
+
+“I never listen to them,” said Dahlia, who now felt bare at any instant
+for the stab she saw coming.
+
+“No, not in London; but country's different, and a man hearing of his
+child 'it's very odd!' and 'keepin' away like that!' and 'what's become
+of her?' and that sort of thing, he gets upset.”
+
+Dahlia swallowed in her throat, as in perfect quietude of spirit, and
+pretended to see no meaning for herself in Anthony's words.
+
+But she said, inadvertently, “Dear father!” and it gave Anthony his
+opening.
+
+“There it is. No doubt you're fond of him. You're fond o' th' old
+farmer, who's your father. Then, why not make a entry into the village,
+and show 'em? I loves my father, says you. I can or I can't bring my
+husband, you seems to say; but I'm come to see my old father. Will you
+go down to-morrow wi' me?”
+
+“Oh!” Dahlia recoiled and abandoned all defence in a moan: “I can't--I
+can't!”
+
+“There,” said Anthony, “you can't. You confess you can't; and there's
+reason for what's in your father's mind. And he hearin' neighbours'
+gossip, and it comes to him by a sort of extractin'--'Where's her
+husband?' bein' the question; and 'She ain't got one,' the answer--it's
+nat'ral for him to leave the place. I never can tell him how you went
+off, or who's the man, lucky or not. You went off sudden, on a morning,
+after kissin' me at breakfast; and no more Dahly visible. And he
+suspects--he more'n suspects. Farm's up for sale. Th' old farmer thinks
+it's unbrotherly of me not to go and buy, and I can't make him see I
+don't understand land: it's about like changeing sovereigns for lumps
+o' clay, in my notions; and that ain't my taste. Long and the short
+is--people down there at Wrexby and all round say you ain't married. He
+ain't got a answer for 'em; it's cruel to hear, and crueller to think:
+he's got no answer, poor old farmer! and he's obliged to go inter exile.
+Farm's up for sale.”
+
+Anthony thumped with his foot conclusively.
+
+“Say I'm not married!” said Dahlia, and a bad colour flushed her
+countenance. “They say--I'm not married. I am--I am. It's false. It's
+cruel of father to listen to them--wicked people! base--base people! I
+am married, uncle. Tell father so, and don't let him sell the farm. Tell
+him, I said I was married. I am. I'm respected. I have only a little
+trouble, and I'm sure others have too. We all have. Tell father not to
+leave. It breaks my heart. Oh! uncle, tell him that from me.”
+
+Dahlia gathered her shawl close, and set an irresolute hand upon her
+bonnet strings, that moved as if it had forgotten its purpose. She could
+say no more. She could only watch her uncle's face, to mark the effect
+of what she had said.
+
+Anthony nodded at vacancy. His eyebrows were up, and did not descend
+from their elevation. “You see, your father wants assurances; he wants
+facts. They're easy to give, if give 'em you can. Ah, there's a weddin'
+ring on your finger, sure enough. Plain gold--and, Lord! how bony your
+fingers ha' got, Dahly. If you are a sinner, you're a bony one now, and
+that don't seem so bad to me. I don't accuse you, my dear. Perhaps I'd
+like to see your husband's banker's book. But what your father hears,
+is--You've gone wrong.”
+
+Dahlia smiled in a consummate simulation of scorn.
+
+“And your father thinks that's true.”
+
+She smiled with an equal simulation of saddest pity.
+
+“And he says this: 'Proof,' he says, 'proof's what I want, that she's
+an honest woman.' He asks for you to clear yourself. He says, 'It's hard
+for an old man'--these are his words 'it's hard for an old man to hear
+his daughter called...'”
+
+Anthony smacked his hand tight on his open mouth.
+
+He was guiltless of any intended cruelty, and Dahlia's first impulse
+when she had got her breath, was to soothe him. She took his hand. “Dear
+father! poor father! Dear, dear father!” she kept saying.
+
+“Rhoda don't think it,” Anthony assured her.
+
+“No?” and Dahlia's bosom exulted up to higher pain.
+
+“Rhoda declares you are married. To hear that gal fight for you--there's
+ne'er a one in Wrexby dares so much as hint a word within a mile of
+her.”
+
+“My Rhoda! my sister!” Dahlia gasped, and the tears came pouring down
+her face.
+
+In vain Anthony lifted her tea-cup and the muffin-plate to her for
+consolation. His hushings and soothings were louder than her weeping.
+Incapable of resisting such a protest of innocence, he said, “And I
+don't think it, neither.”
+
+She pressed his fingers, and begged him to pay the people of the shop:
+at which sign of her being probably moneyless, Anthony could not help
+mumbling, “Though I can't make out about your husband, and why he lets
+ye be cropped--that he can't help, may be--but lets ye go about dressed
+like a mill'ner gal, and not afford cabs. Is he very poor?”
+
+She bowed her head.
+
+“Poor?”
+
+“He is very poor.”
+
+“Is he, or ain't he, a gentleman?”
+
+Dahlia seemed torn by a new anguish.
+
+“I see,” said Anthony. “He goes and persuades you he is, and you've
+been and found out he's nothin' o' the sort--eh? That'd be a way of
+accounting for your queerness, more or less. Was it that fellow that
+Wicklow gal saw ye with?”
+
+Dahlia signified vehemently, “No.”
+
+“Then, I've guessed right; he turns out not to be a gentleman--eh,
+Dahly? Go on noddin', if ye like. Never mind the shop people; we're
+well-conducted, and that's all they care for. I say, Dahly, he ain't a
+gentleman? You speak out or nod your head. You thought you'd caught a
+gentleman and 'taint the case. Gentlemen ain't caught so easy. They
+all of 'em goes to school, and that makes 'em knowin'. Come; he ain't a
+gentleman?”
+
+Dahlia's voice issued, from a terrible inward conflict, like a voice of
+the tombs. “No,” she said.
+
+“Then, will you show him to me? Let me have a look at him.”
+
+Pushed from misery to misery, she struggled within herself again, and
+again in the same hollow manner said, “Yes.”
+
+“You will?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Seein's believin'. If you'll show him to me, or me to him...”
+
+“Oh! don't talk of it.” Dahlia struck her fingers in a tight lock.
+
+“I only want to set eye on him, my gal. Whereabouts does he live?”
+
+“Down--down a great--very great way in the West.”
+
+Anthony stared.
+
+She replied to the look: “In the West of London--a long way down.”
+
+“That's where he is?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I thought--hum!” went the old man suspiciously. “When am I to see him?
+Some day?”
+
+“Yes; some day.”
+
+“Didn't I say, Sunday?”
+
+“Next Sunday?”--Dahlia gave a muffled cry.
+
+“Yes, next Sunday. Day after to-morrow. And I'll write off to-morrow,
+and ease th' old farmer's heart, and Rhoda 'll be proud for you. She
+don't care about gentleman--or no gentleman. More do th' old farmer.
+It's let us, live and die respectable, and not disgrace father nor
+mother. Old-fashioned's best-fashioned about them things, I think.
+Come, you bring him--your husband--to me on Sunday, if you object to my
+callin' on you. Make up your mind to.”
+
+“Not next Sunday--the Sunday after,” Dahlia pleaded. “He is not here
+now.”
+
+“Where is he?” Anthony asked.
+
+“He's in the country.”
+
+Anthony pounced on her, as he had done previously.
+
+“You said to me he was abroad.”
+
+“In the country--abroad. Not--not in the great cities. I could not make
+known your wishes to him.”
+
+She gave this cool explanation with her eyelids fluttering timorously,
+and rose as she uttered it, but with faint and ill-supporting limbs,
+for during the past hour she had gone through the sharpest trial of her
+life, and had decided for the course of her life. Anthony was witless
+thereof, and was mystified by his incapability of perceiving where and
+how he had been deluded; but he had eaten all the muffin on the plate,
+and her rising proclaimed that she had no intention of making him call
+for another; which was satisfactory. He drank off her cup of tea at a
+gulp.
+
+The waitress named the sum he was to pay, and receiving a meditative
+look in return for her air of expectancy after the amount had been laid
+on the table, at once accelerated their passage from the shop by opening
+the door.
+
+“If ever I did give pennies, I'd give 'em to you,” said Anthony, when
+he was out of her hearing. “Women beat men in guessing at a man by his
+face. Says she--you're honourable--you're legal--but prodigal ain't your
+portion. That's what she says, without the words, unless she's a reader.
+Now, then, Dahly, my lass, you take my arm. Buckle to. We'll to the
+West. Don't th' old farmer pronounce like 'toe' the West? We'll 'toe'
+the West. I can afford to laugh at them big houses up there.
+
+“Where's the foundation, if one of them's sound? Why, in the City.
+
+“I'll take you by our governor's house. You know--you know--don't ye,
+Dahly, know we been suspecting his nephew? 'cause we saw him with you at
+the theatre.
+
+“I didn't suspect. I knew he found you there by chance, somehow. And I
+noticed your dress there. No wonder your husband's poor. He wanted to
+make you cut a figure as one of the handsomes, and that's as ruinous as
+cabs--ha! ha!”
+
+Anthony laughed, but did not reveal what had struck him.
+
+“Sir William Blancove's house is a first-rater. I've been in it. He
+lives in the library. All the other rooms--enter 'em, and if 'taint like
+a sort of, a social sepulchre! Dashed if he can get his son to live with
+him; though they're friends, and his son'll get all the money, and go
+into Parliament, and cut a shine, never fear.
+
+“By the way, I've seen Robert, too. He called on me at the Bank. Asked
+after you.
+
+“'Seen her?' says he.
+
+“'No,' I says.
+
+“'Ever see Mr. Edward Blancove here?' he says.
+
+“I told him, I'd heard say, Mr. Edward was Continentalling. And then
+Robert goes off. His opinion is you ain't in England; 'cause a policeman
+he spoke to can't find you nowhere.
+
+“'Come,” says I, 'let's keep our detectives to catch thieves, and not go
+distracting of 'em about a parcel o' women.'
+
+“He's awfully down about Rhoda. She might do worse than take him. I
+don't think he's got a ounce of a chance now Religion's set in, though
+he's the mildest big 'un I ever come across. I forgot to haul him
+over about what he 'd got to say about Mr. Edward. I did remark, I
+thought--ain't I right?--Mr. Algernon's not the man?--eh? How come you
+in the theatre with him?”
+
+Dahlia spoke huskily. “He saw me. He had seen me at home. It was an
+accident.”
+
+“Exactly how I put it to Robert. And he agreed with me. There's sense
+in that young man. Your husband wouldn't let you come to us there--eh?
+because he...why was that?”
+
+Dahlia had it on her lips to say it “Because he was poorer than I
+thought;” but in the intensity of her torment, the wretchedness of
+this lie, revolted her. “Oh! for God's sake, uncle, give me peace about
+that.”
+
+The old man murmured: “Ay, ay;” and thought it natural that she should
+shun an allusion to the circumstance.
+
+They crossed one of the bridges, and Dahlia stopped and said: “Kiss me,
+uncle.”
+
+“I ain't ashamed,” said Anthony.
+
+This being over, she insisted on his not accompanying her farther.
+
+Anthony made her pledge her word of honour as a married woman, to bring
+her husband to the identical spot where they stood at three o'clock in
+the afternoon of Sunday week. She promised it.
+
+“I'll write home to th' old farmer--a penny,” said Anthony, showing that
+he had considered the outlay and was prepared for it.
+
+“And uncle,” she stipulated in turn, “they are not to see me yet. Very
+soon; but not yet. Be true to me, and come alone, or it will be your
+fault--I shall not appear. Now, mind. And beg them not to leave
+the farm. It will kill father. Can you not,” she said, in the faded
+sweetness of her speech, “could you not buy it, and let father be your
+tenant, uncle? He would pay you regularly.”
+
+Anthony turned a rough shoulder on her.
+
+“Good-bye, Dahly. You be a good girl, and all 'll go right. Old farmer
+talks about praying. If he didn't make it look so dark to a chap, I'd be
+ready to fancy something in that. You try it. You try, Dahly. Say a bit
+of a prayer to-night.”
+
+“I pray every night,” Dahlia answered.
+
+Her look of meek despair was hauntingly sad with Anthony on his way
+home.
+
+He tracked her sorrowfulness to the want of money; and another of his
+terrific vague struggles with the money-demon set in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Sir William Blancove did business at his Bank till the hour of three in
+the afternoon, when his carriage conveyed him to a mews near the park of
+Fashion, where he mounted horse and obeyed the bidding of his doctor for
+a space, by cantering in a pleasant, portly, cock-horsey style, up and
+down the Row.
+
+It was the day of the great race on Epsom Downs, and elderly gentlemen
+pricked by the doctors were in the ascendant in all London congregations
+on horseback.
+
+Like Achilles (if the bilious Shade will permit the impudent
+comparison), they dragged their enemy, Gout, at their horses' heels
+for a term, and vengeance being accomplished went to their dinners and
+revived him.
+
+Sir William was disturbed by his son's absence from England. A youth
+to whom a baronetcy and wealth are to be bequeathed is an important
+organism; and Sir William, though his faith reposed in his son, was
+averse to his inexplicably prolonged residence in the French metropolis,
+which, a school for many things, is not a school for the study of our
+Parliamentary system, and still less for that connubial career Sir
+William wished him to commence.
+
+Edward's delightful cynical wit--the worldly man's profundity--and his
+apt quotations of the wit of others, would have continued to exercise
+their charm, if Sir William had not wanted to have him on the spot that
+he might answer certain questions pertinaciously put by Mama Gosling on
+behalf of her daughter.
+
+“There is no engagement,” Edward wrote; “let the maiden wait and discern
+her choice: let her ripen;” and he quoted Horace up to a point.
+
+Nor could his father help smiling and completing the lines. He laughed,
+too, as he read the jog of a verse: “Were I to marry the Gosling, pray,
+which would be the goose?”
+
+He laughed, but with a shade of disappointment in the fancy that
+he perceived a wearing away of the robust mental energy which had
+characterized his son: and Sir William knew the danger of wit, and how
+the sharp blade cuts the shoots of the sapling. He had thought that
+Edward was veritable tough oak, and had hitherto encouraged his light
+play with the weapon.
+
+It became a question with him now, whether Wit and Ambition may dwell
+together harmoniously in a young man: whether they will not give such
+manifestation of their social habits as two robins shut in a cage
+will do: of which pretty birds one will presently be discovered with a
+slightly ruffled bosom amid the feathers of his defunct associate.
+
+Thus painfully revolving matters of fact and feeling, Sir William
+cantered, and, like a cropped billow blown against by the wind, drew up
+in front of Mrs. Lovell, and entered into conversation with that lady,
+for the fine needles of whose brain he had the perfect deference of an
+experienced senior. She, however, did not give him comfort. She informed
+him that something was wrong with Edward; she could not tell what. She
+spoke of him languidly, as if his letters contained wearisome trifling.
+
+“He strains to be Frenchy,” she said. “It may be a good compliment for
+them to receive: it's a bad one for him to pay.”
+
+“Alcibiades is not the best of models,” murmured Sir William. “He
+doesn't mention Miss Gosling.”
+
+“Oh dear, yes. I have a French acrostic on her name.”
+
+“An acrostic!”
+
+A more contemptible form of mental exercise was not to be found,
+according to Sir William's judgement.
+
+“An acrostic!” he made it guttural. “Well!”
+
+“He writes word that he hears Moliere every other night. That can't harm
+him. His reading is principally Memoirs, which I think I have heard you
+call 'The backstairs of history.' We are dull here, and I should not
+imagine it to be a healthy place to dwell in, if the absence of friends
+and the presence of sunshine conspire to dullness. Algy, of course, is
+deep in accounts to-day?”
+
+Sir William remarked that he had not seen the young man at the office,
+and had not looked for him; but the mention of Algernon brought
+something to his mind, and he said,--
+
+“I hear he is continually sending messengers from the office to you
+during the day. You rule him with a rod of iron. Make him discontinue
+that practice. I hear that he despatched our old porter to you yesterday
+with a letter marked 'urgent.'”
+
+Mrs. Lovell laughed pleadingly for Algernon.
+
+“No; he shall not do it again. It occurred yesterday, and on no other
+occasion that I am aware of. He presumes that I am as excited as he is
+himself about the race--”
+
+The lady bowed to a passing cavalier; a smarting blush dyed her face.
+
+“He bets, does he!” said Sir William. “A young man, whose income, at the
+extreme limit, is two hundred pounds a year.”
+
+“May not the smallness of the amount in some degree account for the
+betting?” she asked whimsically. “You know, I bet a little--just a
+little. If I have but a small sum, I already regard it as a stake; I am
+tempted to bid it fly.”
+
+“In his case, such conduct puts him on the high road to rascality,” said
+Sir William severely. “He is doing no good.”
+
+“Then the squire is answerable for such conduct, I think.”
+
+“You presume to say that he is so because he allows his son very little
+money to squander? How many young men have to contain their expenses
+within two hundred pounds a year!”
+
+“Not sons of squires and nephews of baronets,” said Mrs. Lovell. “Adieu!
+I think I see a carrier-pigeon flying overhead, and, as you may suppose,
+I am all anxiety.”
+
+Sir William nodded to her. He disliked certain of her ways; but they
+were transparent bits of audacity and restlessness pertaining to a
+youthful widow, full of natural dash; and she was so sweetly mistress of
+herself in all she did, that he never supposed her to be needing caution
+against excesses. Old gentlemen have their pets, and Mrs. Lovell was a
+pet of Sir William's.
+
+She was on the present occasion quite mistress of herself, though the
+stake was large. She was mistress of herself when Lord Suckling, who had
+driven from the Downs and brushed all save a spot of white dust out of
+his baby moustache to make himself presentable, rode up to her to say
+that the horse Templemore was beaten, and that his sagacity in always
+betting against favourites would, in this last instance, transfer a “pot
+of money” from alien pockets to his own.
+
+“Algy Blancove's in for five hundred to me,” he said; adding with
+energy, “I hope you haven't lost? No, don't go and dash my jolly feeling
+by saying you have. It was a fine heat; neck-and-neck past the Stand.
+Have you?”
+
+“A little,” she confessed. “It's a failing of mine to like favourites.
+I'm sorry for Algy.”
+
+“I'm afraid he's awfully hit.”
+
+“What makes you think so?”
+
+“He took it so awfully cool.”
+
+“That may mean the reverse.”
+
+“It don't with him. But, Mrs. Lovell, do tell me you haven't lost.
+Not much, is it? Because, I know there's no guessing, when you are
+concerned.”
+
+The lady trifled with her bridle-rein.
+
+“I really can't tell you yet. I may have lost. I haven't won. I'm not
+cool-blooded enough to bet against favourites. Addio, son of Fortune!
+I'm at the Opera to-night.”
+
+As she turned her horse from Lord Suckling, the cavalier who had saluted
+her when she was with Sir William passed again. She made a signal to her
+groom, and sent the man flying in pursuit of him, while she turned and
+cantered. She was soon overtaken.
+
+“Madam, you have done me the honour.”
+
+“I wish to know why it is your pleasure to avoid me, Major Waring?”
+
+“In this place?”
+
+“Wherever we may chance to meet.”
+
+“I must protest.”
+
+“Do not. The thing is evident.”
+
+They rode together silently.
+
+Her face was toward the sunset. The light smote her yellow hair, and
+struck out her grave and offended look, as in a picture.
+
+“To be condemned without a hearing!” she said. “The most dastardly
+criminal gets that. Is it imagined that I have no common feelings? Is it
+manly to follow me with studied insult? I can bear the hatred of fools.
+Contempt I have not deserved. Dead! I should be dead, if my conscience
+had once reproached me. I am a mark for slander, and brave men should
+beware of herding with despicable slanderers.”
+
+She spoke, gazing frontward all the while. The pace she maintained in no
+degree impeded the concentrated passion of her utterance.
+
+But it was a more difficult task for him, going at that pace, to make
+explanations, and she was exquisitely fair to behold! The falling beams
+touched her with a mellow sweetness that kindled bleeding memories.
+
+“If I defend myself?” he said.
+
+“No. All I ask is that you should Accuse me. Let me know what I have
+done--done, that I have not been bitterly punished for? What is it? what
+is it? Why do you inflict a torture on me whenever you see me? Not
+by word, not by look. You are too subtle in your cruelty to give me
+anything I can grasp. You know how you wound me. And I am alone.”
+
+“That is supposed to account for my behaviour?”
+
+She turned her face to him. “Oh, Major blaring! say nothing unworthy of
+yourself. That would be a new pain to me.”
+
+He bowed. In spite of a prepossessing anger, some little softness crept
+through his heart.
+
+“You may conceive that I have dropped my pride,” she said. “That is the
+case, or my pride is of a better sort.”
+
+“Madam, I fully hope and trust,” said he.
+
+“And believe,” she added, twisting his words to the ironic tongue. “You
+certainly must believe that my pride has sunk low. Did I ever speak to
+you in this manner before?”
+
+“Not in this manner, I can attest.”
+
+“Did I speak at all, when I was hurt?” She betrayed that he had planted
+a fresh sting.
+
+“If my recollection serves me,” said he, “your self-command was
+remarkable.”
+
+Mrs. Lovell slackened her pace.
+
+“Your recollection serves you too well, Major Waring. I was a girl. You
+judged the acts of a woman. I was a girl, and you chose to put your own
+interpretation on whatever I did. You scourged me before the whole army.
+Was not that enough? I mean, enough for you? For me, perhaps not, for I
+have suffered since, and may have been set apart to suffer. I saw you in
+that little church at Warbeach; I met you in the lanes; I met you on the
+steamer; on the railway platform; at the review. Everywhere you kept
+up the look of my judge. You! and I have been 'Margaret' to you. Major
+Waring, how many a woman in my place would attribute your relentless
+condemnation of her to injured vanity or vengeance? In those days I
+trifled with everybody. I played with fire. I was ignorant of life.
+I was true to my husband; and because I was true, and because I was
+ignorant, I was plunged into tragedies I never suspected. This is to be
+what you call a coquette. Stamping a name saves thinking. Could I
+read my husband's temper? Would not a coquette have played her cards
+differently? There never was need for me to push my husband to a
+contest. I never had the power to restrain him. Now I am wiser; and now
+is too late; and now you sit in judgement on me. Why? It is not fair; it
+is unkind.”
+
+Tears were in her voice, though not in her eyes.
+
+Major Waring tried to study her with the coolness of a man who has
+learnt to doubt the truth of women; but he had once yearned in a young
+man's frenzy of love to take that delicate shape in his arms, and he was
+not proof against the sedate sweet face and keen sad ring of the voice.
+
+He spoke earnestly.
+
+“You honour me by caring for my opinion. The past is buried. I have some
+forgiveness to ask. Much, when I think of it--very much. I did you a
+public wrong. From a man to a woman it was unpardonable. It is a blot on
+my career. I beg you humbly to believe that I repent it.”
+
+The sun was flaming with great wings red among the vapours; and in the
+recollection of the two, as they rode onward facing it, arose that day
+of the forlorn charge of English horse in the Indian jungle, the thunder
+and the dust, the fire and the dense knot of the struggle. And like
+a ghost sweeping across her eyeballs, Mrs. Lovell beheld, part in his
+English freshness, part ensanguined, the image of the gallant boy who
+had ridden to perish at the spur of her mad whim. She forgot all present
+surroundings.
+
+“Percy!” she said.
+
+“Madam?”
+
+“Percy!”
+
+“Margaret?”
+
+“Oh, what an undying day, Percy!”
+
+And then she was speechless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+The Park had been empty, but the opera-house was full; and in the
+brilliance of the lights and divine soaring of the music, the genius of
+Champagne luncheons discussed the fate of the horse Templemore; some, as
+a matter of remote history; some, as another delusion in horse-flesh
+the greater number, however, with a determination to stand by the beaten
+favourite, though he had fallen, and proclaim him the best of racers
+and an animal foully mishandled on the course. There were whispers,
+and hints, and assertions; now implicating the jockey, now the owner
+of Templemore. The Manchester party, and the Yorkshire party, and their
+diverse villanous tricks, came under review. Several offered to back
+Templemore at double the money they had lost, against the winner. A
+favourite on whom money has been staked, not only has friends, but in
+adversity he is still believed in; nor could it well be otherwise, for
+the money, no doubt, stands for faith, or it would never have been put
+up to the risks of a forfeit.
+
+Foremost and wildest among the excited young men who animated the
+stalls, and rushed about the lobby, was Algernon. He was the genius of
+Champagne luncheon incarnate. On him devolves, for a time, the movement
+of this story, and we shall do well to contemplate him, though he may
+seem possibly to be worthless. What is worthless, if it be well
+looked at? Nay, the most worthless creatures are most serviceable for
+examination, when the microscope is applied to them, as a simple study
+of human mechanism. This youth is one of great Nature's tom-fools:
+an elegant young gentleman outwardly, of the very large class who are
+simply the engines of their appetites, and, to the philosophic eye,
+still run wild in woods, as did the primitive nobleman that made a noise
+in the earlier world.
+
+Algernon had this day lost ten times more than he could hope to be in a
+position to pay within ten years, at the least, if his father continued
+to argue the matter against Providence, and live. He had lost, and might
+speedily expect to be posted in all good betting circles as something
+not pleasantly odoriferous for circles where there is no betting.
+Nevertheless, the youth was surcharged with gaiety. The soul of mingled
+chicken and wine illumined his cheeks and eyes. He laughed and joked
+about the horse--his horse, as he called Templemore--and meeting Lord
+Suckling, won five sovereigns of him by betting that the colours of one
+of the beaten horses, Benloo, were distinguished by a chocolate bar. The
+bet was referred to a dignified umpire, who, a Frenchman, drew his right
+hand down an imperial tuft of hair dependent from his chin, and gave a
+decision in Algernon's favour. Lord Suckling paid the money on the spot,
+and Algernon pocketed it exulting. He had the idea that it was the first
+start in his making head against the flood. The next instant he could
+have pitched himself upon the floor and bellowed. For, a soul of chicken
+and wine, lightly elated, is easily dashed; and if he had but said to
+Lord Suckling that, it might as well be deferred, the thing would have
+become a precedent, and his own debt might have been held back. He went
+on saying, as he rushed forward alone: “Never mind, Suckling. Oh, hang
+it! put it in your pocket;” and the imperative necessity for talking,
+and fancying what was adverse to fact, enabled him to feel for a time
+as if he had really acted according to the prompting of his wisdom. It
+amazed him to see people sitting and listening. The more he tried it,
+the more unendurable it became. Those sitters and loungers appeared like
+absurd petrifactions to him. If he abstained from activity for ever so
+short a term, he was tormented by a sense of emptiness; and, as he said
+to himself, a man who has eaten a chicken, and part of a game-pie, and
+drunk thereto Champagne all day, until the popping of the corks has
+become as familiar as minute-guns, he can hardly be empty. It
+was peculiar. He stood, just for the sake of investigating the
+circumstance--it was so extraordinary. The music rose in a triumphant
+swell. And now he was sure that he was not to be blamed for thinking
+this form of entertainment detestable. How could people pretend to
+like it? “Upon my honour!” he said aloud. The hypocritical nonsense of
+pretending to like opera-music disgusted him.
+
+“Where is it, Algy?” a friend of his and Suckling's asked, with a
+languid laugh.
+
+“Where's what?”
+
+“Your honour.”
+
+“My honour? Do you doubt my honour?” Algernon stared defiantly at the
+inoffensive little fellow.
+
+“Not in the slightest. Very sorry to, seeing that I have you down in my
+book.”
+
+“Latters? Ah, yes,” said Algernon, musically, and letting his under-lip
+hang that he might restrain the impulse to bite it. “Fifty, or a
+hundred, is it? I lost my book on the Downs.”
+
+“Fifty; but wait till settling-day, my good fellow, and don't fiddle at
+your pockets as if I'd been touching you up for the money. Come and sup
+with me to-night.”
+
+Algernon muttered a queer reply in a good-tempered tone, and escaped
+him.
+
+He was sobered by that naming of settling-day. He could now listen to
+the music with attention, if not with satisfaction. As he did so, the
+head of drowned memory rose slowly up through the wine-bubbles in his
+brain, and he flung out a far thought for relief: “How, if I were to
+leave England with that dark girl Rhoda at Wrexby, marry her like a man,
+and live a wild ramping life in the colonies?” A curtain closed on the
+prospect, but if memory was resolved that it would not be drowned, he
+had at any rate dosed it with something fresh to occupy its digestion.
+
+His opera-glass had been scouring the house for a sight of Mrs. Lovell,
+and at last she appeared in Lord Elling's box.
+
+“I can give you two minutes, Algy,” she said, as he entered and found
+her opportunely alone. “We have lost, I hear. No interjection, pray. Let
+it be, fors l'honneur, with us. Come to me to-morrow. You have tossed
+trinkets into my lap. They were marks of esteem, my cousin. Take them in
+the same light back from me. Turn them into money, and pay what is most
+pressing. Then go to Lord Suckling. He is a good boy, and won't distress
+you; but you must speak openly to him at once. Perhaps he will help you.
+I will do my best, though whether I can, I have yet to learn.”
+
+“Dear Mrs. Lovell!” Algernon burst out, and the corners of his mouth
+played nervously.
+
+He liked her kindness, and he was wroth at the projected return of his
+gifts. A man's gifts are an exhibition of the royalty of his soul, and
+they are the last things which should be mentioned to him as matters to
+be blotted out when he is struggling against ruin. The lady had blunt
+insight just then. She attributed his emotion to gratitude.
+
+“The door may be opened at any minute,” she warned him.
+
+“It's not about myself,” he said; “it's you. I believe I tempted you to
+back the beastly horse. And he would have won--a fair race, and he would
+have won easy. He was winning. He passed the stand a head ahead. He did
+win. It's a scandal to the Turf. There's an end of racing in England.
+It's up. They've done for themselves to-day. There's a gang. It's in the
+hands of confederates.”
+
+“Think so, if it consoles you,” said Mrs. Lovell, “don't mention your
+thoughts, that is all.”
+
+“I do think so. Why should we submit to a robbery? It's a sold affair.
+That Frenchman, Baron Vistocq, says we can't lift our heads after it.”
+
+“He conducts himself with decency, I hope.”
+
+“Why, he's won!”
+
+“Imitate him.”
+
+Mrs. Lovell scanned the stalls.
+
+“Always imitate the behaviour of the winners when you lose,” she
+resumed. “To speak of other things: I have had no letter of late from
+Edward. He should be anxious to return. I went this morning to see that
+unhappy girl. She consents.”
+
+“Poor creature,” murmured Algernon; and added “Everybody wants money.”
+
+“She decides wisely; for it is the best she can do. She deserves pity,
+for she has been basely used.”
+
+“Poor old Ned didn't mean,” Algernon began pleading on his cousin's
+behalf, when Mrs. Lovell's scornful eye checked the feeble attempt.
+
+“I am a woman, and, in certain cases, I side with my sex.”
+
+“Wasn't it for you?”
+
+“That he betrayed her? If that were so, I should be sitting in ashes.”
+
+Algernon's look plainly declared that he thought her a mystery.
+
+The simplicity of his bewilderment made her smile.
+
+“I think your colonies are the right place for you, Algy, if you can get
+an appointment; which must be managed by-and-by. Call on me to-morrow,
+as I said.”
+
+Algernon signified positively that he would not, and doggedly refused to
+explain why.
+
+“Then I will call on you,” said Mrs. Lovell.
+
+He was going to say something angrily, when Mrs. Lovell checked him:
+“Hush! she is singing.”
+
+Algernon listened to the prima donna in loathing; he had so much to
+inquire about, and so much to relate: such a desire to torment and be
+comforted!
+
+Before he could utter a word further, the door opened, and Major Waring
+appeared, and he beheld Mrs. Lovell blush strangely. Soon after, Lord
+Elling came in, and spoke the ordinary sentence or two concerning the
+day's topic--the horse Templemore. Algernon quitted the box. His ears
+were surcharged with sound entirely foreign to his emotions, and he
+strolled out of the house and off to his dingy chambers, now tenanted by
+himself alone, and there faced the sealed letters addressed to Edward,
+which had, by order, not been forwarded. No less than six were in
+Dahlia's handwriting. He had imagination sufficient to conceive the
+lamentations they contained, and the reproach they were to his own
+subserviency in not sending them. He looked at the postmarks. The last
+one was dated two months back.
+
+“How can she have cared a hang for Ned, if she's ready to go and marry a
+yokel, for the sake of a home and respectability?” he thought, rather in
+scorn; and, having established this contemptuous opinion of one of the
+sex, he felt justified in despising all. “Just like women! They--no!
+Peggy Lovell isn't. She's a trump card, and she's a coquette--can't
+help being one. It's in the blood. I never saw her look so confoundedly
+lovely as when that fellow came into the box. One up, one down. Ned's
+away, and it's this fellow's turn. Why the deuce does she always
+think I'm a boy? or else, she pretends to. But I must give my mind to
+business.”
+
+He drew forth the betting-book which his lively fancy had lost on the
+Downs. Prompted by an afterthought, he went to the letter-box, saying,--
+
+“Who knows? Wait till the day's ended before you curse your luck.”
+
+There was a foreign letter in it from Edward, addressed to him, and
+another addressed to “Mr. Blancuv,” that he tore open and read with
+disgusted laughter. It was signed “N. Sedgett.” Algernon read it twice
+over, for the enjoyment of his critical detection of the vile grammar,
+with many “Oh! by Joves!” and a concluding, “This is a curiosity!”
+
+It was a countryman's letter, ill-spelt, involved, and of a character
+to give Algernon a fine scholarly sense of superiority altogether novel.
+Everybody abused Algernon for his abuse of common Queen's English in his
+epistles: but here was a letter in comparison with which his own were
+doctorial, and accordingly he fell upon it with an acrimonious rapture
+of pedantry known to dull wits that have by extraordinary hazard pounced
+on a duller.
+
+“You're 'willing to forgeit and forgeive,' are you, you dog!” he
+exclaimed, half dancing. “You'd forge anything, you rascal, if you could
+disguise your hand--that, I don't doubt. You 'expeck the thousand pound
+to be paid down the day of my marriage,' do you, you impudent ruffian!
+'acording to agremint.' What a mercenary vagabond this is!”
+
+Algernon reflected a minute. The money was to pass through his hands. He
+compressed a desire to dispute with Sedgett that latter point about the
+agreement, and opened Edward's letter.
+
+It contained an order on a firm of attorneys to sell out so much Bank
+Stock and pay over one thousand pounds to Mr. A. Blancove.
+
+The beautiful concision of style in this document gave Algernon a
+feeling of profound deference toward the law and its officers.
+
+“Now, that's the way to Write!” he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+Accompanying this pleasant, pregnant bit of paper, possessed of such
+admirable literary excellence, were the following flimsy lines from
+Edward's self, to Algernon incomprehensible.
+
+As there is a man to be seen behind these lines in the dull unconscious
+process of transformation from something very like a villain to
+something by a few degrees more estimable, we may as well look at the
+letter in full.
+
+It begins with a neat display of consideration for the person addressed,
+common to letters that are dictated by overpowering egoism:--
+
+   “Dear Algy,--I hope you are working and attending regularly to
+   office business. Look to that and to your health at present.
+   Depend upon it, there is nothing like work. Fix your teeth in it.
+   Work is medicine. A truism! Truisms, whether they lie in the
+   depths of thought, or on the surface, are at any rate the pearls of
+   experience.
+
+   “I am coming home. Let me know the instant this affair is over. I
+   can't tell why I wait here. I fall into lethargies. I write to no
+   one but to you. Your supposition that I am one of the hangers-on of
+   the coquette of her time, and that it is for her I am seeking to get
+   free, is conceived with your usual discrimination. For Margaret
+   Lovell? Do you imagine that I desire to be all my life kicking the
+   beam, weighed in capricious scales, appraised to the direct nicety,
+   petulantly taken up, probed for my weakest point, and then flung
+   into the grate like a child's toy? That's the fate of the several
+   asses who put on the long-eared Lovell-livery.
+
+   “All women are the same. Know one, know all. Aware of this, and
+   too wise to let us study them successfully, Nature pretty language
+   this is for you, Algy! I can do nothing but write nonsense. I am
+   sick of life. I feel choked. After a month, Paris is sweet
+   biscuit.
+
+   “I have sent you the order for the money. If it were two, or
+   twenty, thousand pounds, it would be the same to me.
+
+   “I swear to heaven that my lowest cynical ideas of women, and the
+   loathing with which their simply animal vagaries inspires a
+   thoughtful man, are distanced and made to seem a benevolent
+   criticism, by the actualities of my experience. I say that you
+   cannot put faith in a woman. Even now, I do not--it's against
+   reason--I do not believe that she--this Dahlia--means to go through
+   with it. She is trying me. I have told her that she was my wife.
+   Her self-respect--everything that keeps a woman's head up--must have
+   induced her to think so. Why, she is not a fool! How can she mean
+   to give herself to an ignorant country donkey? She does not: mark
+   me. For her, who is a really--I may say, the most refined nature I
+   have ever met, to affect this, and think of deceiving me, does not
+   do credit to her wits--and she is not without her share.
+
+   “I did once mean that she should be honourably allied to me. It's
+   comforting that the act is not the wife of the intention, or I
+   should now be yoked to a mere thing of the seasons and the hours--a
+   creature whose 'No' to-day is the 'Yes' of to-morrow. Women of this
+   cast are sure to end comfortably for themselves, they are so
+   obedient to the whips of Providence.
+
+   “But I tell you candidly, Algy, I believe she's pushing me, that she
+   may see how far I will let her go. I do not permit her to play at
+   this game with me.” The difficulty is in teaching women that we are
+   not constituted as they are, and that we are wilfully earnest, while
+   they, who never can be so save under compulsion, carry it on with
+   us, expecting that at a certain crisis a curtain will drop, and we
+   shall take a deep breath, join hands, and exclaim, 'What an exciting
+   play!'--weeping luxuriously. The actualities of life must be
+   branded on their backs--you can't get their brains to apprehend
+   them.
+
+   “Poor things! they need pity. I am ready to confess I did not keep
+   my promise to her. I am very sorry she has been ill. Of course,
+   having no brains--nothing but sensations wherewith to combat every
+   new revolution of fortune, she can't but fall ill. But I think of
+   her; and I wish to God I did not. She is going to enter her own
+   sphere--though, mark me, it will turn out as I say, that, when it
+   comes to the crisis, there will be shrieks and astonishment that the
+   curtain doesn't fall and the whole resolve itself to what they call
+   a dream in our language, a farce.
+
+   “I am astonished that there should be no letters for me. I can
+   understand her not writing at first; but apparently she cherishes
+   rancour. It is not like her. I can't help thinking there must be
+   one letter from her, and that you keep it back. I remember that I
+   told you when I left England I desired to have no letter forwarded
+   to me, but I have repeatedly asked you since if there was a letter,
+   and it appears to me that you have shuffled in your answer. I
+   merely wish to know if there is a letter; because I am at present
+   out in my study of her character. It seems monstrous that she
+   should never have written! Don't you view it in that light? To be
+   ready to break with me, without one good-bye!--it's gratifying, but
+   I am astonished; for so gentle and tender a creature, such as I knew
+   her, never existed to compare with her. Ce qui est bien la preuve
+   que je ne la connaissais pas! I thought I did, which was my error.
+   I have a fatal habit of trusting to my observation less than to my
+   divining wit; and La Rochefoucauld is right: 'on est quelquefois un
+   sot avec de l'esprit; mais on ne Pest jamais avec du jugement.'
+   Well! better be deceived in a character than doubt it.
+
+   “This will soon be over. Then back to the dear old dusky chambers,
+   with the pick and the axe in the mine of law, till I strike a gold
+   vein, and follow it to the woolsack. I want peace. I begin to hate
+   pleading. I hope to meet Death full-wigged. By my troth, I will
+   look as grimly at him as he at me. Meantime, during a vacation, I
+   will give you holiday (or better, in the February days, if I can
+   spare time and Equity is dispensed without my aid), dine you, and
+   put you in the whirl of Paris. You deserve a holiday. Nunc est
+   bibendum! You shall sing it. Tell me what you think of her
+   behaviour. You are a judge of women. I think I am developing
+   nerves. In fact, work is what I need--a file to bite. And send me
+   also the name of this man who has made the bargain--who is to be her
+   husband. Give me a description of him. It is my duty to see that
+   he has principle; at least we're bound to investigate his character,
+   if it's really to go on. I wonder whether you will ever perceive
+   the comedy of, life. I doubt whether a man is happier when he does
+   perceive it. Perhaps the fact is, that he has by that time lost his
+   power of laughter; except in the case of here and there a very
+   tremendous philosopher.
+
+   “I believe that we comic creatures suffer more than your tragic
+   personages. We, do you see, are always looking to be happy and
+   comfortable; but in a tragedy, the doomed wretches are
+   liver-complexioned from the opening act. Their laughter is the owl:
+   their broadest smile is twilight. All the menacing horrors of an
+   eclipse are ours, for we have a sun over us; but they are born in
+   shades, with the tuck of a curtain showing light, and little can be
+   taken from them; so that they find scarce any terrors in the
+   inevitable final stroke. No; the comedy is painfullest. You and I,
+   Algy, old bachelors, will earn the right just to chuckle. We will
+   take the point of view of science, be the stage carpenters, and let
+   the actors move on and off. By this, we shall learn to take a
+   certain pride in the machinery. To become stage carpenter, is to
+   attain to the highest rank within the reach of intellectual man.
+   But your own machinery must be sound, or you can't look after that
+   of the theatre. Don't over-tax thy stomach, O youth!
+
+   “And now, farewell, my worthy ass! You have been thinking me one
+   through a fair half of this my letter, so I hasten to be in advance
+   of you, by calling you one. You are one: I likewise am one. We are
+   all one. The universal language is hee-haw, done in a grievous
+   yawn.
+
+                  “Yours,
+
+                    “Edward B.
+
+   “P.S.--Don't fail to send a letter by the next post; then, go and
+   see her; write again exactly what she says, and let me know the
+   man's name. You will not lose a minute. Also, don't waste ink in
+   putting Mrs. Lovell's name to paper: I desire not to hear anything
+   of the woman.”
+
+Algernon read this letter in a profound mystification, marvelling how it
+could possibly be that Edward and Mrs. Lovell had quarrelled once more,
+and without meeting.
+
+They had parted, he knew or supposed that he knew, under an engagement
+to arrange the preliminaries of an alliance, when Edward should return
+from France; in other words, when Edward had thrown grave-dust on a
+naughty portion of his past; severing an unwise connection. Such had
+certainly been Edward's view of the matter. But Mrs. Lovell had never
+spoken to Algernon on that subject. She had spoken willingly and in deep
+sympathy of Dahlia. She had visited her, pitied her, comforted her; and
+Algernon remembered that she had looked very keen and pinched about
+the mouth in alluding to Dahlia; but how she and Edward had managed to
+arrive at another misunderstanding was a prodigious puzzle to him; and
+why, if their engagement had snapped, each consented to let Dahlia's
+marriage (which was evidently distasteful to both) go on to the
+conclusion of the ceremony, he could not comprehend. There were,
+however, so many things in the world that he could not comprehend, and
+he had grown so accustomed, after an effort to master a difficulty,
+to lean his head back upon downy ignorance, that he treated this
+significant letter of Edward's like a tough lesson, and quietly put it
+by, together with every recommendation it contained. For all that was
+practical in it, it might just as well not have been written.
+
+The value of the letter lies in the exhibition it presents of a rather
+mark-worthy young man, who has passed through the hands of a--(what I
+must call her; and in doing so, I ask pardon of all the Jack Cades of
+Letters, who, in the absence of a grammatical king and a government,
+sit as lords upon the English tongue) a crucible woman. She may be
+inexcusable herself; but you for you to be base, for you to be cowardly,
+even to betray a weakness, though it be on her behalf,--though you can
+plead that all you have done is for her, yea, was partly instigated by
+her,--it will cause her to dismiss you with the inexorable contempt of
+Nature, when she has tried one of her creatures and found him wanting.
+
+Margaret Lovell was of this description: a woman fashioned to do both
+harm and good, and more of harm than of good; but never to sanction
+a scheme of evil or blink at it in alliance with another: a woman, in
+contact with whom you were soon resolved to your component elements.
+Separated from a certain fascination that there was for her in Edward's
+acerb wit, she saw that he was doing a dastardly thing in cold blood. We
+need not examine their correspondence. In a few weeks she had contrived
+to put a chasm between them as lovers. Had he remained in England,
+boldly facing his own evil actions, she would have been subjugated, for
+however keenly she might pierce to the true character of a man, the show
+of an unflinching courage dominated her; but his departure, leaving all
+the brutality to be done for him behind his back, filled this woman with
+a cutting spleen. It is sufficient for some men to know that they are
+seen through, in order to turn away in loathing from her whom they have
+desired; and when they do thus turn away, they not uncommonly turn with
+a rush of old affection to those who have generously trusted them in the
+days past, and blindly thought them estimable beings.
+
+Algernon was by no means gifted to perceive whether this was the case
+with his cousin in Paris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+So long as the fool has his being in the world, he will be a part of
+every history, nor can I keep him from his place in a narrative that is
+made to revolve more or less upon its own wheels. Algernon went to
+bed, completely forgetting Edward and his own misfortunes, under the
+influence of the opiate of the order for one thousand pounds, to
+be delivered to him upon application. The morning found him calmly
+cheerful, until a little parcel was brought to his door, together with
+a note from Mrs. Lovell, explaining that the parcel contained those
+jewels, his precious gifts of what she had insultingly chosen to call
+“esteem” for her.
+
+Algernon took it in his hand, and thought of flinging it through the
+window; but as the window happened to be open, he checked the impulse,
+and sent it with great force into a corner of the room: a perfectly
+fool-like proceeding, for the fool is, after his fashion, prudent, and
+will never, if he can help it, do himself thorough damage, that he may
+learn by it and be wiser.
+
+“I never stand insult,” he uttered, self-approvingly, and felt manlier.
+“No; not even from you, ma'am,” he apostrophized Mrs. Lovell's portrait,
+that had no rival now upon the wall, and that gave him a sharp fight
+for the preservation of his anger, so bewitching she was to see. Her not
+sending up word that she wished him to come to her rendered his battle
+easier.
+
+“It looks rather like a break between us,” he said. “If so, you won't
+find me so obedient to your caprices, Mrs. Margaret L.; though you are a
+pretty woman, and know it. Smile away. I prefer a staunch, true sort of
+a woman, after all. And the colonies it must be, I begin to suspect.”
+ This set him conjuring before his eyes the image of Rhoda, until he
+cried, “I'll be hanged if the girl doesn't haunt me!” and considered the
+matter with some curiosity.
+
+He was quickly away, and across the square of Lincoln's Inn Fields to
+the attorney's firm, where apparently his coming was expected, and he
+was told that the money would be placed in his hands on the following
+day. He then communicated with Edward, in the brief Caesarian tongue
+of the telegraph: “All right. Stay. Ceremony arranged.” After which, he
+hailed a skimming cab, and pronouncing the word “Epsom,” sank back in
+it, and felt in his breast-pocket for his cigar-case, without casting
+one glance of interest at the deep fit of cogitation the cabman had been
+thrown into by the suddenness of the order.
+
+“Dash'd if it ain't the very thing I went and gone and dreamed last
+night,” said the cabman, as he made his dispositions to commence the
+journey.
+
+Certain boys advised him to whip it away as hard as he could, and he
+would come in the winner.
+
+“Where shall I grub, sir?” the cabman asked through the little door
+above, to get some knowledge of the quality of his fare.
+
+“Eat your 'grub' on the course,” said Algernon.
+
+“Ne'er a hamper to take up nowheres, is there, sir?”
+
+“Do you like the sight of one?”
+
+“Well, it ain't what I object to.”
+
+“Then go fast, my man, and you will soon see plenty.”
+
+“If you took to chaffin' a bit later in the day, it'd impart more
+confidence to my bosom,” said the cabman; but this he said to that bosom
+alone.
+
+“Ain't no particular colours you'd like me to wear, is there? I'll get
+a rosette, if you like, sir, and enter in triumph. Gives ye something to
+stand by. That's always my remark, founded on observation.”
+
+“Go to the deuce! Drive on,” Algernon sang out. “Red, yellow, and
+green.”
+
+“Lobster, ale, and salad!” said the cabman, flicking his whip; “and good
+colours too. Tenpenny Nail's the horse. He's the colours I stick to.”
+ And off he drove, envied of London urchins, as mortals would have envied
+a charioteer driving visibly for Olympus.
+
+Algernon crossed his arms, with the frown of one looking all inward.
+
+At school this youth had hated sums. All arithmetical difficulties had
+confused and sickened him. But now he worked with indefatigable industry
+on an imaginary slate; put his postulate, counted probabilities, allowed
+for chances, added, deducted, multiplied, and unknowingly performed
+algebraic feats, till his brows were stiff with frowning, and his brain
+craved for stimulant.
+
+This necessity sent his hand to his purse, for the calling of the
+cab had not been a premeditated matter. He discovered therein some
+half-crowns and a sixpence, the latter of which he tossed in contempt at
+some boys who were cheering the vehicles on their gallant career.
+
+There was something desperately amusing to him in the thought that he
+had not even money enough to pay the cabman, or provide for a repast. He
+rollicked in his present poverty. Yesterday he had run down with a party
+of young guardsmen in a very royal manner; and yesterday he had lost.
+To-day he journeyed to the course poorer than many of the beggars he
+would find there; and by a natural deduction, to-day he was to win.
+
+He whistled mad waltzes to the measure of the wheels. He believed that
+he had a star. He pitched his half-crowns to the turnpike-men, and
+sought to propitiate Fortune by displaying a signal indifference to
+small change; in which method of courting her he was perfectly serious.
+He absolutely rejected coppers. They “crossed his luck.” Nor can we say
+that he is not an authority on this point: the Goddess certainly does
+not deal in coppers.
+
+Anxious efforts at recollection perplexed him. He could not remember
+whether he had “turned his money” on looking at the last new moon. When
+had he seen the last new moon, and where? A cloud obscured it; he had
+forgotten. He consoled himself by cursing superstition. Tenpenny
+Nail was to gain the day in spite of fortune. Algernon said this, and
+entrenched his fluttering spirit behind common sense, but he found it a
+cold corner. The longing for Champagne stimulant increased in fervour.
+Arithmetic languished.
+
+As he was going up the hill, the wheels were still for a moment, and
+hearing “Tenpenny Nail” shouted, he put forth his head, and asked what
+the cry was, concerning that horse.
+
+“Gone lame,” was the answer.
+
+It hit the centre of his nerves, without reaching his comprehension, and
+all Englishmen being equal on Epsom Downs, his stare at the man who had
+spoken, and his sickly colour, exposed him to pungent remarks.
+
+“Hullos! here's another Ninepenny--a penny short!” and similar specimens
+of Epsom wit, encouraged by the winks and retorts of his driver,
+surrounded him; but it was empty clamour outside. A rage of emotions
+drowned every idea in his head, and when he got one clear from the mass,
+it took the form of a bitter sneer at Providence, for cutting off his
+last chance of reforming his conduct and becoming good. What would he
+not have accomplished, that was brilliant, and beautiful, and soothing,
+but for this dead set against him!
+
+It was clear that Providence cared “not a rap,” whether he won or
+lost--was good or bad. One might just as well be a heathen; why not?
+
+He jumped out of the cab (tearing his coat in the acts minor evil,
+but “all of a piece,” as he said), and made his way to the Ring. The
+bee-swarm was thick as ever on the golden bough. Algernon heard no
+curses, and began to nourish hope again, as he advanced. He began to
+hope wildly that this rumour about the horse was a falsity, for there
+was no commotion, no one declaiming.
+
+He pushed to enter the roaring circle, which the demand for an
+entrance-fee warned him was a privilege, and he stammered, and forgot
+the gentlemanly coolness commonly distinguishing him, under one of the
+acuter twinges of his veteran complaint of impecuniosity. And then the
+cabman made himself heard: a civil cabman, but without directions, and
+uncertain of his dinner and his pay, tolerably hot, also, from threading
+a crowd after a deaf gentleman. His half-injured look restored to
+Algernon his self-possession.
+
+“Ah! there you are:--scurry away and fetch my purse out of the bottom of
+the cab. I've dropped it.”
+
+On this errand, the confiding cabman retired. Holding to a gentleman's
+purse is even securer than holding to a gentleman.
+
+While Algernon was working his forefinger in his waistcoat-pocket
+reflectively, a man at his elbow said, with a show of familiar
+deference,--
+
+“If it's any convenience to you, sir,” and showed the rim of a gold
+piece 'twixt finger and thumb.
+
+“All right,” Algernon replied readily, and felt that he was known, but
+tried to keep his eyes from looking at the man's face; which was a vain
+effort. He took the money, nodded curtly, and passed in.
+
+Once through the barrier, he had no time to be ashamed. He was in the
+atmosphere of challenges. He heard voices, and saw men whom not to
+challenge, or try a result with, was to acknowledge oneself mean, and to
+abandon the manliness of life. Algernon's betting-book was soon out and
+in operation. While thus engaged, he beheld faces passing and repassing
+that were the promise of luncheon and a loan; and so comfortable was the
+assurance thereof to him, that he laid the thought of it aside, quite in
+the background, and went on betting with an easy mind.
+
+Small, senseless bets, they merely occupied him; and winning them was
+really less satisfactory than losing, which, at all events, had the
+merit of adding to the bulk of his accusation against the ruling Powers
+unseen.
+
+Algernon was too savage for betting when the great race was run. He
+refused both at taunts and cajoleries; but Lord Suckling coming by, said
+“Name your horse,” and, caught unawares, Algernon named Little John, one
+of the ruck, at a hazard. Lord Suckling gave him fair odds, asking: “In
+tens?--fifties?”
+
+“Silver,” shrugged Algernon, implacable toward Fortune; and the kindly
+young nobleman nodded, and made allowance for his ill-temper and want of
+spirit, knowing the stake he had laid on the favourite.
+
+Little John startled the field by coming in first at a canter.
+
+“Men have committed suicide for less than this” said Algernon within
+his lips, and a modest expression of submission to fate settled on his
+countenance. He stuck to the Ring till he was haggard with fatigue. His
+whole nature cried out for Champagne, and now he burst away from that
+devilish circle, looking about for Lord Suckling and a hamper. Food and
+a frothing drink were all that he asked from Fortune. It seemed to him
+that the concourse on the downs shifted in a restless way.
+
+“What's doing, I wonder?” he thought aloud.
+
+“Why, sir, the last race ain't generally fashionable,” said his cabman,
+appearing from behind his shoulder. “Don't you happen to be peckish,
+sir?--'cause, luck or no luck, that's my case. I couldn't see, your
+purse, nowheres.”
+
+“Confound you! how you hang about me! What do you want?” Algernon cried;
+and answered his own question, by speeding the cabman to a booth with
+what money remained to him, and appointing a place of meeting for the
+return. After which he glanced round furtively to make sure that he was
+not in view of the man who had lent him the sovereign. It became evident
+that the Downs were flowing back to London.
+
+He hurried along the lines of carriages, all getting into motion. The
+ghastly conviction overtook him that he was left friendless, to starve.
+Wherever he turned, he saw strangers and empty hampers, bottles, straw,
+waste paper--the ruins of the feast: Fate's irony meantime besetting him
+with beggars, who swallowed his imprecations as the earnest of coming
+charity in such places.
+
+At last, he was brought almost to sigh that he might see the man who had
+lent him the sovereign, and his wish was hardly formed, when Nicodemus
+Sedgett approached, waving a hat encircled by preposterous wooden
+figures, a trifle less lightly attired than the ladies of the ballet,
+and as bold in the matter of leg as the female fashion of the period.
+
+Algernon eyed the lumpy-headed, heavy-browed rascal with what disgust he
+had left in him, for one who came as an instrument of the Fates to help
+him to some poor refreshment. Sedgett informed him that he had never had
+such fun in his life.
+
+“Just 'fore matrimony,” he communicated in a dull whisper, “a fellow
+ought to see a bit o' the world, I says--don't you, sir? and this has
+been rare sport, that it has! Did ye find your purse, sir? Never mind
+'bout that ther' pound. I'll lend you another, if ye like. How sh'll it
+be? Say the word.”
+
+Algernon was meditating, apparently on a remote subject. He nodded
+sharply.
+
+“Yes. Call at my chambers to-morrow.”
+
+Another sovereign was transferred to him: but Sedgett would not be
+shaken off.
+
+“I just wanted t' have a bit of a talk with you,” he spoke low.
+
+“Hang it! I haven't eaten all day,” snapped the irritable young
+gentleman, fearful now of being seen in the rascal's company.
+
+“You come along to the jolliest booth--I'll show it to you,” said
+Sedgett, and lifted one leg in dancing attitude. “Come along, sir: the
+jolliest booth I ever was in, dang me if it ain't! Ale and music--them's
+my darlings!” the wretch vented his slang. “And I must have a talk with
+you. I'll stick to you. I'm social when I'm jolly, that I be: and I
+don't know a chap on these here downs. Here's the pint: Is all square?
+Am I t' have the cash in cash counted down, I asks? And is it to be
+before, or is it to be after, the ceremony? There! bang out! say, yes or
+no.”
+
+Algernon sent him to perdition with infinite heartiness, but he was dry,
+dispirited, and weak, and he walked on, Sedgett accompanying him. He
+entered a booth, and partook of ale and ham, feeling that he was in the
+dregs of calamity. Though the ale did some service in reviving, it
+did not cheer him, and he had a fit of moral objection to Sedgett's
+discourse.
+
+Sedgett took his bluntness as a matter to be endured for the honour of
+hob-a-nobbing with a gentleman. Several times he recurred to the theme
+which he wanted, as he said, to have a talk upon.
+
+He related how he had courted the young woman, “bashful-like,” and had
+been so; for she was a splendid young woman; not so handsome now, as
+she used to be when he had seen her in the winter: but her illness had
+pulled her down and made her humble: they had cut her hair during the
+fever, which had taken her pride clean out of her; and when he had put
+the question to her on the evening of last Sunday, she had gone into a
+sort of faint, and he walked away with her affirmative locked up in his
+breast-pocket, and was resolved always to treat her well--which he swore
+to.
+
+“Married, and got the money, and the lease o' my farm disposed of, I'm
+off to Australia and leave old England behind me, and thank ye, mother,
+thank ye! and we shan't meet again in a hurry. And what sort o' song I'm
+to sing for 'England is my nation, ain't come across me yet. Australia's
+such a precious big world; but that'll come easy in time. And there'll I
+farm, and damn all you gentlemen, if you come anigh me.”
+
+The eyes of the fellow were fierce as he uttered this; they were
+rendered fierce by a peculiar blackish flush that came on his brows and
+cheek-bones; otherwise, the yellow about the little brown dot in the
+centre of the eyeball had not changed; but the look was unmistakably
+savage, animal, and bad. He closed the lids on them, and gave a sort of
+churlish smile immediately afterward.
+
+“Harmony's the game. You act fair, I act fair. I've kept to the
+condition. She don't know anything of my whereabouts--res'dence, I mean;
+and thinks I met you in her room for the first time. That's the truth,
+Mr. Blancove. And thinks me a sheepish chap, and I'm that, when I'm
+along wi' her. She can't make out how I come to call at her house and
+know her first. Gives up guessing, I suppose, for she's quiet about it;
+and I pitch her tales about Australia, and life out there. I've got her
+to smile, once or twice. She'll turn her hand to making cheeses, never
+you fear. Only, this I say. I must have the money. It's a thousand and a
+bargain. No thousand, and no wife for me. Not that I don't stand by the
+agreement. I'm solid.”
+
+Algernon had no power of encountering a human eye steadily, or he would
+have shown the man with a look how repulsive he was to a gentleman. His
+sensations grew remorseful, as if he were guilty of handing a victim to
+the wretch.
+
+But the woman followed her own inclination, did she not? There was no
+compulsion: she accepted this man. And if she could do that, pity was
+wasted on her!
+
+So thought he: and so the world would think of the poor forlorn soul
+striving to expiate her fault, that her father and sister might be at
+peace, without shame.
+
+Algernon signified to Sedgett that the agreement was fixed and
+irrevocable on his part.
+
+Sedgett gulped some ale.
+
+“Hands on it,” he said, and laid his huge hand open across the table.
+
+This was too much.
+
+“My word must satisfy you,” said Algernon, rising.
+
+“So it shall. So it do,” returned Sedgett, rising with him. “Will you
+give it in writing?”
+
+“I won't.”
+
+“That's blunt. Will you come and have a look at a sparring-match in
+yond' brown booth, sir?”
+
+“I am going back to London.”
+
+“London and the theayter that's the fun, now, ain't it!” Sedgett
+laughed.
+
+Algernon discerned his cabman and the conveyance ready, and beckoned
+him.
+
+“Perhaps, sir,” said Sedgett, “if I might make so bold--I don't want to
+speak o' them sovereigns--but I've got to get back too, and cash is run
+low. D' ye mind, sir? Are you kind-hearted?”
+
+A constitutional habit of servility to his creditor when present before
+him signalized Algernon. He detested the man, but his feebleness was
+seized by the latter question, and he fancied he might, on the road to
+London, convey to Sedgett's mind that it would be well to split that
+thousand, as he had previously devised.
+
+“Jump in,” he said.
+
+When Sedgett was seated, Algernon would have been glad to walk the
+distance to London to escape from the unwholesome proximity. He took the
+vacant place, in horror of it. The man had hitherto appeared respectful;
+and in Dahlia's presence he had seemed a gentle big fellow with a
+reverent, affectionate heart. Sedgett rallied him.
+
+“You've had bad luck--that's wrote on your hatband. Now, if you was a
+woman, I'd say, tak' and go and have a peroose o' your Bible. That's
+what my young woman does; and by George! it's just like medicine to
+her--that 'tis! I've read out to her till I could ha' swallowed two
+quart o' beer at a gulp--I was that mortal thirsty. It don't somehow
+seem to improve men. It didn't do me no good. There was I, cursin' at
+the bother, down in my boots, like, and she with her hands in a knot,
+staring the fire out o' count'nance. They're weak, poor sort o' things.”
+
+The intolerable talk of the ruffian prompted Algernon to cry out, for
+relief,--
+
+“A scoundrel like you must be past any good to be got from reading his
+Bible.”
+
+Sedgett turned his dull brown eyes on him, the thick and hateful flush
+of evil blood informing them with detestable malignity.
+
+“Come; you be civil, if you're going to be my companion,” he said. “I
+don't like bad words; they don't go down my windpipe. 'Scoundrel 's
+a name I've got a retort for, and if it hadn't been you, and you a
+gentleman, you'd have had it spanking hot from the end o' my fist.
+Perhaps you don't know what sort of a arm I've got? Just you feel that
+ther' muscle.”
+
+He doubled his arm, the knuckles of the fist toward Algernon's face.
+
+“Down with it, you dog!” cried Algernon, crushing his hat as he started
+up.
+
+“It'll come on your nose, if I downs with it, my lord,” said Sedgett.
+“You've what they Londoners calls 'bonneted yourself.'”
+
+He pulled Algernon by the coat-tail into his seat.
+
+“Stop!” Algernon shouted to the cabman.
+
+“Drive ahead!” roared Sedgett.
+
+This signal of a dissension was heard along the main street of Epsom,
+and re-awakened the flagging hilarity of the road.
+
+Algernon shrieked his commands; Sedgett thundered his. They tussled,
+and each having inflicted an unpleasant squeeze on the other, they came
+apart by mutual consent, and exchanged half-length blows. Overhead, the
+cabman--not merely a cabman, but an individual--flicked the flanks of
+his horse, and cocked his eye and head in answer to gesticulations from
+shop-doors and pavement.
+
+“Let 'em fight it out, I'm impartial,” he remarked; and having lifted
+his little observing door, and given one glance, parrot-wise, below,
+he shut away the troubled prospect of those mortals, and drove along
+benignly.
+
+Epsom permitted it; but Ewell contained a sturdy citizen, who, smoking
+his pipe under his eaves, contemplative of passers-by, saw strife
+rushing on like a meteor. He raised the waxed end of his pipe, and with
+an authoritative motion of his head at the same time, pointed out the
+case to a man in a donkey-cart, who looked behind, saw pugnacity upon
+wheels, and manoeuvred a docile and wonderfully pretty-stepping little
+donkey in such a manner that the cabman was fain to pull up.
+
+The combatants jumped into the road.
+
+“That's right, gentlemen; I don't want to spile sport,” said the
+donkey's man. “O' course you ends your Epsom-day with spirit.”
+
+“There's sunset on their faces,” said the cabman. “Would you try a
+by-lane, gentlemen?”
+
+But now the donkey's man had inspected the figures of the antagonistic
+couple.
+
+“Taint fair play,” he said to Sedgett. “You leave that gentleman alone,
+you, sir?”
+
+The man with the pipe came up.
+
+“No fighting,” he observed. “We ain't going to have our roads disgraced.
+It shan't be said Englishmen don't know how to enjoy themselves without
+getting drunk and disorderly. You drop your fists.”
+
+The separation had to be accomplished by violence, for Algernon's blood
+was up.
+
+A crowd was not long in collecting, which caused a stoppage of vehicles
+of every description.
+
+A gentleman leaned from an open carriage to look at the fray critically,
+and his companion stretching his neck to do likewise, “Sedgett!” burst
+from his lips involuntarily.
+
+The pair of original disputants (for there were many by this time)
+turned their heads simultaneously toward the carriage.
+
+“Will you come on?” Sedgett roared, but whether to Algernon, or to one
+of the gentlemen, or one of the crowd, was indefinite. None responding,
+he shook with ox-like wrath, pushed among shoulders, and plunged back to
+his seat, making the cabman above bound and sway, and the cab-horse to
+start and antic.
+
+Greatly to the amazement of the spectators, the manifest gentleman (by
+comparison) who had recently been at a pummelling match with him, and
+bore the stains of it, hung his head, stepped on the cab, and suffered
+himself to be driven away.
+
+“Sort of a 'man-and-wife' quarrel,” was the donkey's man's comment.
+“There's something as corks 'em up, and something uncorks 'em; but what
+that something is, I ain't, nor you ain't, man enough to inform the
+company.”
+
+He rubbed his little donkey's nose affectionately.
+
+“Any gentleman open to a bet I don't overtake that ere Hansom within
+three miles o' Ewell?” he asked, as he took the rein.
+
+But his little donkey's quality was famous in the neighbourhood.
+
+“Come on, then,” he said; “and show what you can do, without emilation,
+Master Tom.”
+
+Away the little donkey trotted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+Those two in the open carriage, one of whom had called out Sedgett's
+name, were Robert and Major Waring. When the cab had flown by, they fell
+back into their seats, and smoked; the original stipulation for the day
+having been that no harassing matter should be spoken of till nightfall.
+
+True to this, Robert tried to think hard on the scene of his recent
+enjoyment. Horses were to him what music is to a poet, and the glory
+of the Races he had witnessed was still quick in heart, and partly
+counteracted his astonishment at the sight of his old village enemy in
+company with Algernon Blancove.
+
+It was not astonishing at all to him that they should have quarrelled
+and come to blows; for he knew Sedgett well, and the imperative
+necessity for fighting him, if only to preserve a man's self-respect and
+the fair division of peace, when once he had been allowed to get upon
+terms sufficiently close to assert his black nature; but how had it come
+about? How was it that a gentleman could consent to appear publicly
+with such a fellow? He decided that it meant something, and something
+ominous--but what? Whom could it affect? Was Algernon Blancove such a
+poor creature that, feeling himself bound by certain dark dealings with
+Sedgett to keep him quiet, he permitted the bullying dog to hang to his
+coat-tail? It seemed improbable that any young gentleman should be so
+weak, but it might be the case; and “if so,” thought Robert, “and I let
+him know I bear him no ill-will for setting Sedgett upon me, I may be
+doing him a service.”
+
+He remembered with pain Algernon's glance of savage humiliation upward,
+just before he turned to follow Sedgett into the cab; and considered
+that he ought in kindness to see him and make him comfortable by
+apologizing, as if he himself had no complaint to make.
+
+He resolved to do it when the opportunity should come. Meantime, what on
+earth brought them together?
+
+“How white the hedges are!” he said.
+
+“There's a good deal of dust,” Major Waring replied.
+
+“I wasn't aware that cabs came to the races.”
+
+“They do, you see.”
+
+Robert perceived that Percy meant to fool him if he attempted a breach
+of the bond; but he longed so much for Percy's opinion of the strange
+alliance between Sedgett and Algernon Blancove, that at any cost he was
+compelled to say, “I can't get to the bottom of that.”
+
+“That squabble in the road?” said Percy. “We shall see two or three more
+before we reach home.”
+
+“No. What's the meaning of a gentleman consorting with a blackguard?”
+ Robert persisted.
+
+“One or the other has discovered an assimilation, I suppose,” Percy gave
+answer. “That's an odd remark on returning from Epsom. Those who jump
+into the same pond generally come out the same colour.”
+
+Robert spoke low.
+
+“Has it anything to do with the poor girl, do you think?”
+
+“I told you I declined to think till we were home again. Confound it,
+man, have you no idea of a holiday?”
+
+Robert puffed his tobacco-smoke.
+
+“Let's talk of Mrs. Lovell,” he said.
+
+“That's not a holiday for me,” Percy murmured but Robert's mind was too
+preoccupied to observe the tone, and he asked,--
+
+“Is she to be trusted to keep her word faithfully this time?”
+
+“Come,” said Percy, “we haven't betted to-day. I'll bet you she will, if
+you like. Will you bet against it?”
+
+“I won't. I can't nibble at anything. Betting's like drinking.”
+
+“But you can take a glass of wine. This sort of bet is much the same.
+However, don't; for you would lose.”
+
+“There,” said Robert; “I've heard of being angry with women for
+fickleness, changeableness, and all sorts of other things. She's a
+lady I couldn't understand being downright angry with, and here's the
+reason--it ain't a matter of reason at all--she fascinates me. I do,
+I declare, clean forget Rhoda; I forget the girl, if only I see Mrs.
+Lovell at a distance. How's that? I'm not a fool, with nonsensical
+fancies of any kind. I know what loving a woman is; and a man in my
+position might be ass enough to--all sorts of things. It isn't that;
+it's fascination. I'm afraid of her. If she talks to me, I feel
+something like having gulped a bottle of wine. Some women you have a
+respect for; some you like or you love; some you despise: with her, I
+just feel I'm intoxicated.”
+
+Major Waring eyed him steadily. He said: “I'll unriddle it, if I can, to
+your comprehension. She admires you for what you are, and she lets you
+see it; I dare say she's not unwilling that you should see it. She has a
+worship for bravery: it's a deadly passion with her.”
+
+Robert put up a protesting blush of modesty, as became him. “Then why,
+if she does me the honour to think anything of me, does she turn against
+me?”
+
+“Ah! now you go deeper. She is giving you what assistance she can; at
+present: be thankful, if you can be satisfied with her present doings.
+Perhaps I'll answer the other question by-and-by. Now we enter London,
+and our day is over. How did you like it?”
+
+Robert's imagination rushed back to the downs.
+
+“The race was glorious. I wish we could go at that pace in life; I
+should have a certainty of winning. How miserably dull the streets look;
+and the people creep along--they creep, and seem to like it. Horseback's
+my element.”
+
+They drove up to Robert's lodgings, where, since the Winter, he had been
+living austerely and recklessly; exiled by his sensitiveness from his
+two homes, Warbeach and Wrexby; and seeking over London for Dahlia--a
+pensioner on his friend's bounty; and therein had lain the degrading
+misery to a man of his composition. Often had he thought of enlisting
+again, and getting drafted to a foreign station. Nothing but the
+consciousness that he was subsisting on money not his own would have
+kept him from his vice. As it was, he had lived through the months
+between Winter and Spring, like one threading his way through the
+tortuous lengths of a cavern; never coming to the light, but coming
+upon absurd mishaps in his effort to reach it. His adventures in London
+partook somewhat of the character of those in Warbeach, minus the
+victim; for whom two or three gentlemen in public thoroughfares had been
+taken. These misdemeanours, in the face of civil society, Robert made no
+mention of in his letters to Percy.
+
+But there was light now, though at first it gave but a faint glimmer,
+in a lady's coloured envelope, lying on the sitting-room table. Robert
+opened it hurriedly, and read it; seized Dahlia's address, with a brain
+on fire, and said:
+
+“It's signed 'Margaret Lovell.' This time she calls me 'Dear Sir.'”
+
+“She could hardly do less,” Percy remarked.
+
+“I know: but there is a change in her. There's a summer in her writing
+now. She has kept her word, Percy. She's the dearest lady in the world.
+I don't ask why she didn't help me before.”
+
+“You acknowledge the policy of mild measures,” said Major Waring.
+
+“She's the dearest lady in the world,” Robert repeated. He checked his
+enthusiasm. “Lord in heaven! what an evening I shall have.”
+
+The thought of his approaching interview with Dahlia kept him dumb.
+
+As they were parting in the street, Major Waring said, “I will be here
+at twelve. Let me tell you this, Robert: she is going to be married; say
+nothing to dissuade her; it's the best she can do; take a manly view of
+it. Good-bye.”
+
+Robert was but slightly affected by the intelligence. His thoughts were
+on Dahlia as he had first seen her, when in her bloom, and the sister
+of his darling; now miserable; a thing trampled to earth! With him, pity
+for a victim soon became lost in rage at the author of the wrong, and
+as he walked along he reflected contemptuously on his feeble efforts to
+avenge her at Warbeach. She lived in a poor row of cottages, striking
+off from one of the main South-western suburb roads, not very distant
+from his own lodgings, at which he marvelled, as at a cruel irony. He
+could not discern the numbers, and had to turn up several of the dusky
+little strips of garden to read the numbers on the doors. A faint smell
+of lilac recalled the country and old days, and some church bells began
+ringing. The number of the house where he was to find Dahlia was seven.
+He was at the door of the house next to it, when he heard voices in the
+garden beside him.
+
+A man said, “Then I have your answer?”
+
+A woman said, “Yes; yes.”
+
+“You will not trust to my pledged honour?”
+
+“Pardon me; not that. I will not live in disgrace.”
+
+“When I promise, on my soul, that the moment I am free I will set you
+right before the world?”
+
+“Oh! pardon me.”
+
+“You will?”
+
+“No; no! I cannot.”
+
+“You choose to give yourself to an obscure dog, who'll ill-treat you,
+and for whom you don't care a pin's-head; and why? that you may be
+fenced from gossip, and nothing more. I thought you were a woman above
+that kind of meanness. And this is a common countryman. How will you
+endure that kind of life? You were made for elegance and happiness: you
+shall have it. I met you before your illness, when you would not listen
+to me: I met you after. I knew you at once. Am I changed? I swear to you
+I have dreamed of you ever since, and love you. Be as faded as you like;
+be hideous, if you like; but come with me. You know my name, and what I
+am. Twice I have followed you, and found your name and address; twice I
+have written to you, and made the same proposal. And you won't trust
+to my honour? When I tell you I love you tenderly? When I give you my
+solemn assurance that you shall not regret it? You have been deceived by
+one man: why punish me? I know--I feel you are innocent and good. This
+is the third time that you have permitted me to speak to you: let it
+be final. Say you will trust yourself to me--trust in my honour. Say
+it shall be to-morrow. Yes; say the word. To-morrow. My sweet
+creature--do!”
+
+The man spoke earnestly, but a third person and extraneous hearer could
+hardly avoid being struck by the bathetic conclusion. At least, in tone
+it bordered on a fall; but the woman did not feel it so.
+
+She replied: “You mean kindly to me, sir. I thank you indeed, for I am
+very friendless. Oh! pardon me: I am quite--quite determined. Go--pray,
+forget me.”
+
+This was Dahlia's voice.
+
+Robert was unconscious of having previously suspected it. Heartily
+ashamed of letting his ears be filled with secret talk, he went from the
+garden and crossed the street.
+
+He knew this to be one of the temptations of young women in London.
+
+Shortly after, the man came through the iron gateway of the garden. He
+passed under lamplight, and Robert perceived him to be a gentleman in
+garb.
+
+A light appeared in the windows of the house. Now that he had heard
+her voice, the terrors of his interview were dispersed, and he had only
+plain sadness to encounter. He knocked at the door quietly. There was
+a long delay after he had sent in his name; but finally admission was
+given.
+
+“If I had loved her!” groaned Robert, before he looked on her; but when
+he did look on her, affectionate pity washed the selfish man out of
+him. All these false sensations, peculiar to men, concerning the soiled
+purity of woman, the lost innocence; the brand of shame upon her, which
+are commonly the foul sentimentalism of such as can be too eager in
+the chase of corruption when occasion suits, and are another side of
+pruriency, not absolutely foreign to the best of us in our youth--all
+passed away from him in Dahlia's presence.
+
+The young man who can look on them we call fallen women with a noble
+eye, is to my mind he that is most nobly begotten of the race, and
+likeliest to be the sire of a noble line. Robert was less than he; but
+Dahlia's aspect helped him to his rightful manliness. He saw that her
+worth survived.
+
+The creature's soul had put no gloss upon her sin. She had sinned, and
+her suffering was manifest.
+
+She had chosen to stand up and take the scourge of God; after which the
+stones cast by men are not painful.
+
+By this I mean that she had voluntarily stripped her spirit bare of
+evasion, and seen herself for what she was; pleading no excuse. His
+scourge is the Truth, and she had faced it.
+
+Innumerable fanciful thoughts, few of them definite, beset the mind at
+interviews such as these; but Robert was distinctly impressed by her
+look. It was as that of one upon the yonder shore. Though they stood
+close together, he had the thought of their being separate--a gulf
+between.
+
+The colourlessness of her features helped to it, and the odd
+little close-fitting white linen cap which she wore to conceal the
+stubborn-twisting clipped curls of her shorn head, made her unlike women
+of our world. She was dressed in black up to the throat. Her eyes were
+still luminously blue, and she let them dwell on Robert one gentle
+instant, giving him her hand humbly.
+
+“Dahlia!--my dear sister, I wish I could say; but the luck's against
+me,” Robert began.
+
+She sat, with her fingers locked together in her lap, gazing forward on
+the floor, her head a little sideways bent.
+
+“I believe,” he went on--“I haven't heard, but I believe Rhoda is well.”
+
+“She and father are well, I know,” said Dahlia.
+
+Robert started: “Are you in communication with them?”
+
+She shook her head. “At the end of some days I shall see them.”
+
+“And then perhaps you'll plead my cause, and make me thankful to you for
+life, Dahlia?”
+
+“Rhoda does not love you.”
+
+“That's the fact, if a young woman's to be trusted to know her own mind,
+in the first place, and to speak it, in the second.”
+
+Dahlia, closed her lips. The long-lined underlip was no more very red.
+Her heart knew that it was not to speak of himself that he had come; but
+she was poor-witted, through weakness of her blood, and out of her
+own immediate line of thought could think neither far nor deep. He
+entertained her with talk of his notions of Rhoda, finishing:
+
+“But at the end of a week you will see her, and I dare say she'll give
+you her notions of me. Dahlia! how happy this'll make them. I do say
+thank God! from my soul, for this.”
+
+She pressed her hands in her lap, trembling. “If you will, please, not
+speak of it, Mr. Robert.”
+
+“Say only you do mean it, Dahlia. You mean to let them see you?”
+
+She shivered out a “Yes.”
+
+“That's right. Because, a father and a sister--haven't they a claim?
+Think a while. They've had a terrible time. And it's true that you've
+consented to a husband, Dahlia? I'm glad, if it is; and he's good and
+kind. Right soul-glad I am.”
+
+While he was speaking, her eyelids lifted and her eyes became fixed on
+him in a stony light of terror, like a creature in anguish before her
+executioner. Then again her eyelids dropped. She had not moved from her
+still posture.
+
+“You love him?” he asked, in some wonderment.
+
+She gave no answer.
+
+“Don't you care for him?”
+
+There was no reply.
+
+“Because, Dahlia, if you do not I know I have no right to fancy you do
+not. How is it? Tell me. Marriage is an awful thing, where there's
+no love. And this man, whoever he is--is he in good circumstances? I
+wouldn't speak of him; but, you see, I must, as your friend--and I'm
+that. Come: he loves you? Of course he does. He has said so. I believe
+it. And he's a man you can honour and esteem? You wouldn't consent
+without, I'm sure. What makes me anxious--I look on you as my sister,
+whether Rhoda will have it so or not; I'm anxious because--I'm anxious
+it should be over, for then Rhoda will be proud of the faith she had in
+you, and it will lighten the old man's heart.”
+
+Once more the inexplicable frozen look struck over him from her opened
+eyes, as if one of the minutes of Time had yawned to show him its deep,
+mute, tragic abyss, and was extinguished.
+
+“When does it take place, Dahlia?”
+
+Her long underlip, white almost as the row of teeth it revealed, hung
+loose.
+
+“When?” he asked, leaning forward to hear, and the word was “Saturday,”
+ uttered with a feeble harshness, not like the gentle voice of Dahlia.
+
+“This coming Saturday?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Saturday week?”
+
+She fell into a visible trembling.
+
+“You named the day?”
+
+He pushed for an indication of cheerful consent to the act she was about
+to commit, or of reluctance.
+
+Possibly she saw this, for now she answered, “I did.” The sound was deep
+in her throat.
+
+“Saturday week,” said Robert. “I feel to the man as a brother, already.
+Do you live--you'll live in the country?”
+
+“Abroad.”
+
+“Not in Old England? I'm sorry for that. But--well! Things must be as
+they're ordered. Heigho! I've got to learn it.”
+
+Dahlia smiled kindly.
+
+“Rhoda will love you. She is firm when she loves.”
+
+“When she loves. Where's the consolation to me?”
+
+“Do you think she loves me as much--as much”
+
+“As much as ever? She loves her sister with all her heart--all, for I
+haven't a bit of it.”
+
+“It is because,” said Dahlia slowly, “it is because she thinks I am--”
+
+Here the poor creature's bosom heaved piteously.
+
+“What has she said of me? I wish her to have blamed me--it is less
+pain.”
+
+“Listen,” said Robert. “She does not, and couldn't blame you, for it's a
+sort of religion with her to believe no wrong of you. And the reason why
+she hates me is, that I, knowing something more of the world, suspected,
+and chose to let her know it--I said it, in fact--that you had been
+deceived by a--But this isn't the time to abuse others. She would
+have had me, if I had thought proper to think as she thinks, or play
+hypocrite, and pretend to. I'll tell you openly, Dahlia; your father
+thinks the worst. Ah! you look the ghost again. It's hard for you to
+hear, but you give me a notion of having got strength to hear it. It's
+your father's way to think the worst. Now, when you can show him your
+husband, my dear, he'll lift his head. He's old English. He won't dream
+of asking questions. He'll see a brave and honest young man who must
+love you, or--he does love you, that's settled. Your father'll shake his
+hand, and as for Rhoda, she'll triumph. The only person to speak out to,
+is the man who marries you, and that you've done.”
+
+Robert looked the interrogation he did not utter.
+
+“I have,” said Dahlia.
+
+“Good: if I may call him brother, some day, all the better for me. Now,
+you won't leave England the day you're married.”
+
+“Soon. I pray that it may be soon.”
+
+“Yes; well, on that morning, I'll have your father and Rhoda at my
+lodgings, not wide from here: if I'd only known it earlier!--and you and
+your husband shall come there and join us. It'll be a happy meeting at
+last.”
+
+Dahlia stopped her breathing.
+
+“Will you see Rhoda?”
+
+“I'll go to her to-morrow, if you like.”
+
+“If I might see her, just as I am leaving England! not before.”
+
+“That's not generous,” said Robert.
+
+“Isn't it?” she asked like a child.
+
+“Fancy!--to see you she's been longing for, and the ship that takes you
+off, perhaps everlastingly, as far as this world's concerned!”
+
+“Mr. Robert, I do not wish to deceive my sister. Father need not be
+distressed. Rhoda shall know. I will not be guilty of falsehoods any
+more--no more! Will you go to her? Tell her--tell Rhoda what I am. Say I
+have been ill. It will save her from a great shock.”
+
+She covered her eyes.
+
+“I said in all my letters that my husband was a gentleman.”
+
+It was her first openly penitential utterance in his presence, and her
+cheeks were faintly reddened. It may have been this motion of her blood
+which aroused the sunken humanity within her; her heart leaped, and she
+cried “I can see her as I am, I can. I thought it impossible. Oh! I can.
+Will she come to me? My sister is a Christian and forgives. Oh! let me
+see her. And go to her, dear Mr. Robert, and ask her--tell her all, and
+ask her if I may be spared, and may work at something--anything, for my
+livelihood near my sister. It is difficult for women to earn money,
+but I think I can. I have done so since my illness. I have been in the
+hospital with brain fever. He was lodging in the house with me before.
+He found me at the hospital. When I came out, he walked with me to
+support me: I was very weak. He read to me, and then asked me to marry
+him. He asked again. I lay in bed one night, and with my eyes open, I
+saw the dangers of women, and the trouble of my father and sister;
+and pits of wickedness. I saw like places full of snakes. I had such a
+yearning for protection. I gave him my word I would be his wife, if he
+was not ashamed of a wife like me. I wished to look once in father's
+face. I had fancied that Rhoda would spurn me, when she discovered my
+falsehood. She--sweet dear! would she ever? Go to her. Say, I do not
+love any man. I am heart-dead. I have no heart except for her. I cannot
+love a husband. He is good, and it is kind: but, oh! let me be spared.
+His face!--”
+
+She pressed her hands tight into the hollow of her eyes.
+
+“No; it can't be meant. Am I very ungrateful? This does not seem to be
+what God orders. Only if this must be! only if it must be! If my sister
+cannot look on me without! He is good, and it is unselfish to take a
+moneyless, disgraced creature: but, my misery!--If my sister will see
+me, without my doing this!--Go to her, Mr. Robert. Say, Dahlia was
+false, and repents, and has worked with her needle to subsist, and can,
+and will, for her soul strives to be clean. Try to make her understand.
+If Rhoda could love you, she would know. She is locked up--she is only
+ideas. My sweet is so proud. I love her for her pride, if she will only
+let me creep to her feet, kiss her feet. Dear Mr. Robert, help me! help
+me! I will do anything she says. If she says I am to marry him, I will.
+Don't mind my tears--they mean nothing now. Tell my dear, I will obey
+her. I will not be false any more to her. I wish to be quite stripped.
+And Rhoda may know me, and forgive me, if she can. And--Oh! if she
+thinks, for father's sake, I ought, I will submit and speak the words; I
+will; I am ready. I pray for mercy.”
+
+Robert sat with his fist at his temples, in a frowning meditation.
+
+Had she declared her reluctance to take the step, in the first moments
+of their interview, he might have been ready to support her: but a
+project fairly launched becomes a reality in the brain--a thing once
+spoken of attracts like a living creature, and does not die voluntarily.
+Robert now beheld all that was in its favour, and saw nothing but
+flighty flimsy objections to it. He was hardly moved by her unexpected
+outburst.
+
+Besides, there was his own position in the case. Rhoda would smile on
+him, if he brought Dahlia to her, and brought her happy in the world's
+eye. It will act as a sort of signal for general happiness. But if he
+had to go and explain matters base and mournful to her, there would be
+no smile on her face, and not much gratitude in her breast. There would
+be none for a time, certainly. Proximity to her faded sister made him
+conceive her attainable, and thrice precious by contrast.
+
+He fixed his gaze on Dahlia, and the perfect refinement of her
+simplicity caused him to think that she might be aware of an
+inappropriateness in the contemplated union.
+
+“Is he a clumsy fellow? I mean, do you read straight off that he has no
+pretension to any manners of a gentleman--nothing near it?”
+
+To this question, put with hesitation by Robert, Dahlia made answer, “I
+respect him.”
+
+She would not strengthen her prayer by drawing the man's portrait.
+Speedily she forgot how the doing so would in any way have strengthened
+her prayer. The excitement had left her brain dull. She did little more
+than stare mildly, and absently bend her head, while Robert said that he
+would go to Rhoda on the morrow, and speak seriously with her.
+
+“But I think I can reckon her ideas will side with mine, that it is to
+your interest, my dear, to make your feelings come round warm to a man
+you can respect, and who offers you a clear path,” he said.
+
+Whereat Dahlia quietly blinked her eyes.
+
+When he stood up, she rose likewise.
+
+“Am I to take a kiss to Rhoda?” he said, and seeing her answer, bent his
+forehead, to which she put her lips.
+
+“And now I must think all night long about the method of transferring
+it. Good-bye, Dahlia. You shall hear from your sister the morning after
+to-morrow. Good-bye!”
+
+He pressed her hand, and went to the door.
+
+“There's nothing I can do for you, Dahlia?”
+
+“Not anything.”
+
+“God bless you, my dear!”
+
+Robert breathed with the pleasant sense of breathing, when he was again
+in the street. Amazement, that what he had dreaded so much should be so
+easily over, set him thinking, in his fashion, on the marvels of life,
+and the naturalness in the aspect of all earthly things when you look at
+them with your eyes.
+
+But in the depths of his heart there was disquiet.
+
+“It's the best she can do; she can do no better,” he said; and said it
+more frequently than it needed by a mind established in the conviction.
+Gradually he began to feel that certain things seen with the eyes,
+natural as they may then appear and little terrible, leave distinct,
+solid, and grave impressions. Something of what our human tragedy may
+show before high heaven possessed him. He saw it bare of any sentiment,
+in the person of the girl Dahlia. He could neither put a halo of
+imagination about her, nor could he conceive one degraded thought of the
+creature. She stood a naked sorrow, haunting his brain.
+
+And still he continued saying, “It's the best she can do: it's best for
+all. She can do nothing better.”
+
+He said it, unaware that he said it in self-defence.
+
+The pale nun-like ghostly face hung before him, stronger in outline the
+farther time widened between him and that suffering flesh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+The thousand pounds were in Algernon's hands at last. He had made his
+escape from Boyne's Bank early in the afternoon, that he might obtain
+the cheque and feel the money in his pocket before that day's sun
+was extinguished. There was a note for five hundred; four notes for a
+hundred severally; and two fifties. And all had come to him through the
+mere writing down of his name as a recipient of the sum!
+
+It was enough to make one in love with civilization. Money, when it is
+once in your pocket, seems to have come there easily, even if you have
+worked for it; but if you have done no labour whatever, and still find
+it there, your sensations (supposing you to be a butterfly youth--the
+typical child of a wealthy country) exult marvellously, and soar above
+the conditions of earth.
+
+He knew the very features of the notes. That gallant old Five Hundred,
+who might have been a Thousand, but that he had nobly split himself into
+centurions and skirmishers, stood in his imaginative contemplation
+like a grand white-headed warrior, clean from the slaughter and in
+court-ruffles--say, Blucher at the court of the Waterloo Regent. The
+Hundreds were his Generals; the Fifties his captains; and each one
+was possessed of unlimited power of splitting himself into serviceable
+regiments, at the call of his lord, Algernon.
+
+He scarcely liked to make the secret confession that it was the
+largest sum he had ever as yet carried about; but, as it heightened his
+pleasure, he did confess it for half an instant. Five Hundred in the
+bulk he had never attained to. He felt it as a fortification against
+every mishap in life.
+
+To a young man commonly in difficulties with regard to the paying of his
+cabman, and latterly the getting of his dinner, the sense of elevation
+imparted by the sum was intoxicating. But, thinking too much of the
+Five Hundred waxed dangerous for the fifties; it dwarfed them to such
+insignificance that it made them lose their self-respect. So, Algernon,
+pursuing excellent tactics, set his mind upon some stray shillings that
+he had a remainder of five pounds borrowed from old Anthony, when he
+endeavoured to obtain repayment of the one pound and interest dating
+from the night at the theatre. Algernon had stopped his mouth on
+that point, as well as concerning his acquaintance with Dahlia, by
+immediately attempting to borrow further, whenever Anthony led the way
+for a word in private. A one-pound creditor had no particular terrors
+for him, and he manoeuvred the old man neatly, saying, as previously,
+“Really, I don't know the young person you allude to: I happened to
+meet her, or some one like her, casually,” and dropping his voice, “I'm
+rather short--what do you think? Could you?--a trifling accommodation?”
+ from which Anthony fled.
+
+But on the day closing the Epsom week he beckoned Anthony secretly to
+follow him out of the office, and volunteered to give news that he had
+just heard of Dahlia.
+
+“Oh,” said Anthony, “I've seen her.”
+
+“I haven't,” said Algernon, “upon my honour.”
+
+“Yes, I've seen her, sir, and sorry to hear her husband's fallen a bit
+low.” Anthony touched his pocket. “What they calls 'nip' tides, ain't
+it?”
+
+Algernon sprang a compliment under him, which sent the vain old fellow
+up, whether he would or not, to the effect that Anthony's tides were not
+subject to lunar influence.
+
+“Now, Mr. Blancove, you must change them notions o' me. I don't say I
+shouldn't be richer if I'd got what's owing to me.”
+
+“You'd have to be protected; you'd be Bullion on two legs,” said
+Algernon, always shrewd in detecting a weakness. “You'd have to go about
+with sentries on each side, and sleep in an iron safe!”
+
+The end of the interview was a visit to the public-house, and the
+transferring of another legal instrument from Algernon to Anthony. The
+latter departed moaning over his five pounds ten shillings in paper; the
+former rejoicing at his five pounds in gold. That day was Saturday. On
+Monday, only a few shillings of the five pounds remained; but they were
+sufficient to command a cab, and, if modesty in dining was among the
+prescriptions for the day, a dinner. Algernon was driven to the West.
+
+He remembered when he had plunged in the midst of the fashionable
+whirlpool, having felt reckless there formerly, but he had become
+remarkably sedate when he stepped along the walks. A certain equipage,
+or horse, was to his taste, and once he would have said: “That's the
+thing for me;” being penniless. Now, on the contrary, he reckoned the
+possible cost, grudgingly, saying “Eh?” to himself, and responding “No,”
+ faintly, and then more positively, “Won't do.”
+
+He was by no means acting as one on a footing of equality with the
+people he beholds. A man who is ready to wager a thousand pounds that no
+other man present has that amount in his pocket, can hardly feel unequal
+to his company.
+
+Charming ladies on horseback cantered past. “Let them go,” he thought.
+Yesterday, the sight of one would have set him dreaming on grand
+alliances. When you can afford to be a bachelor, the case is otherwise.
+Presently, who should ride by but Mrs. Lovell! She was talking more
+earnestly than was becoming, to that easy-mannered dark-eyed fellow; the
+man who had made him savage by entering the opera-box.
+
+“Poor old Ned!” said Algernon; “I must put him on his guard.” But, even
+the lifting of a finger--a hint on paper--would bring Edward over from
+Paris, as he knew; and that was not in his scheme; so he only determined
+to write to his cousin.
+
+A flood of evening gold lay over the Western park.
+
+“The glory of this place,” Algernon said to himself, “is, that you're
+sure of meeting none but gentlemen here;” and he contrasted it with
+Epsom Downs.
+
+A superstitious horror seized him when, casting his eyes ahead, he
+perceived Sedgett among the tasteful groups--as discordant a figure as
+could well be seen, and clumsily aware of it, for he could neither step
+nor look like a man at ease. Algernon swung round and retraced his way;
+but Sedgett had long sight.
+
+“I'd heard of London”--Algernon soon had the hated voice in his
+ears,--“and I've bin up to London b'fore; I came here to have a wink
+at the fash'nables--hang me, if ever I see such a scrumptious lot. It's
+worth a walk up and down for a hour or more. D' you come heer often,
+sir?”
+
+“Eh? Who are you? Oh!” said Algernon, half mad with rage. “Excuse me;”
+ and he walked faster.
+
+“Fifty times over,” Sedgett responded cheerfully. “I'd pace you for a
+match up and down this place if you liked. Ain't the horses a spectacle?
+I'd rather be heer than there at they Races. As for the ladies, I'll
+tell you what: ladies or no ladies, give my young woman time for her
+hair to grow; and her colour to come, by George! if she wouldn't shine
+against e'er a one--smite me stone blind, if she wouldn't! So she shall!
+Australia'll see. I owe you my thanks for interdoocin' me, and never
+fear my not remembering.”
+
+Where there was a crowd, Algernon could elude his persecutor by
+threading his way rapidly; but the open spaces condemned him to
+merciless exposure, and he flew before eyes that his imagination
+exaggerated to a stretch of supernatural astonishment. The tips of
+his fingers, the roots of his hair, pricked with vexation, and still,
+manoeuvre as he might, Sedgett followed him.
+
+“Call at my chambers,” he said sternly.
+
+“You're never at home, sir.”
+
+“Call to-morrow morning, at ten.”
+
+“And see a great big black door, and kick at it till my toe comes
+through my boot. Thank ye.”
+
+“I tell you, I won't have you annoying me in public; once for all.”
+
+“Why, sir; I thought we parted friends, last time. Didn't you shake my
+hand, now, didn't you shake my hand, sir? I ask you, whether you shook
+my hand, or whether you didn't? A plain answer. We had a bit of a
+scrimmage, coming home. I admit we had; but shaking hands, means
+'friends again we are.' I know you're a gentleman, and a man like me
+shouldn't be so bold as fur to strike his betters. Only, don't you see,
+sir, Full-o'-Beer's a hasty chap, and up in a minute; and he's sorry for
+it after.”
+
+Algernon conceived a brilliant notion. Drawing five shillings from his
+pocket, he held them over to Sedgett, and told him to drive down to his
+chambers, and await his coming. Sedgett took the money; but it was five
+shillings lost. He made no exhibition of receiving orders, and it was
+impossible to address him imperiously without provoking observations of
+an animated kind from the elegant groups parading and sitting.
+
+Young Harry Latters caught Algernon's eye; never was youth more joyfully
+greeted. Harry spoke of the Friday's race, and the defection of the
+horse Tenpenny Nail. A man passed with a nod and “How d' ye do?” for
+which he received in reply a cool stare.
+
+“Who's that?” Algernon asked.
+
+“The son of a high dignitary,” said Harry.
+
+“You cut him.”
+
+“I can do the thing, you see, when it's a public duty.”
+
+“What's the matter with him?”
+
+“Merely a black-leg, a grec, a cheat, swindler, or whatever name you
+like,” said Harry. “We none of us nod to the professionals in this line;
+and I won't exchange salutes with an amateur. I'm peculiar. He chose to
+be absent on the right day last year; so from that date; I consider
+him absent in toto; 'none of your rrrrr--m reckonings, let's have the
+rrrrr--m toto;'--you remember Suckling's story of the Yankee fellow?
+Bye-bye; shall see you the day after to-morrow. You dine with me and
+Suckling at the club.”
+
+Latters was hailed by other friends. Algernon was forced to let him
+go. He dipped under the iron rail, and crossed the row at a run; an
+indecorous proceeding; he could not help it. The hope was that Sedgett
+would not have the like audacity, or might be stopped, and Algernon's
+reward for so just a calculation was, that on looking round, he found
+himself free. He slipped with all haste out of the Park. Sedgett's
+presence had the deadening power of the torpedo on the thousand pounds.
+
+For the last quarter of an hour, Algernon had not felt a motion of it. A
+cab, to make his escape certain, was suggested to his mind; and he would
+have called a cab, had not the novel apparition of economy, which now
+haunted him, suggested that he had recently tossed five shillings into
+the gutter. A man might dine on four shillings and sixpence, enjoying
+a modest half-pint of wine, and he possessed that sum. To pinch himself
+and deserve well of Providence, he resolved not to drink wine, but beer,
+that day. He named the beverage; a pint-bottle of ale; and laughed, as a
+royal economist may, who punishes himself to please himself.
+
+“Mighty jolly, ain't it, sir?” said Sedgett, at his elbow.
+
+Algernon faced about, and swore an oath from his boots upward; so
+vehement was his disgust, and all-pervading his amazement.
+
+“I'll wallop you at that game,” said Sedgett.
+
+“You infernal scoundrel!”
+
+“If you begin swearing,” Sedgett warned him.
+
+“What do you want with me?”
+
+“I'll tell you, sir. I don't want to go to ne'er a cock-fight, nor
+betting hole.”
+
+“Here, come up this street,” said Algernon, leading the way into a
+dusky defile from a main parade of fashion. “Now, what's your business,
+confound you!”
+
+“Well, sir, I ain't goin' to be confounded: that, I'll--I'll swear to.
+The long and the short is, I must have some money 'fore the week's out.”
+
+“You won't have a penny from me.”
+
+“That's blunt, though it ain't in my pocket,” said Sedgett, grinning.
+“I say, sir, respectful as you like, I must. I've got to pay for
+passengerin' over the sea, self and wife; and quick it must be. There's
+things to buy on both sides. A small advance and you won't be bothered.
+Say, fifty. Fifty, and you don't see me till Saturday, when, accordin'
+to agreement, you hand to me the cash, outside the church door; and then
+we parts to meet no more. Oh! let us be joyful--I'll sing.”
+
+Algernon's loathing of the coarseness and profanity of villany increased
+almost to the depth of a sentiment as he listened to Sedgett.
+
+“I do nothing of the sort,” he said. “You shall not have a farthing. Be
+off. If you follow me, I give you into custody of a policeman.”
+
+“You durst n't.” Sedgett eyed him warily.
+
+He could spy a physical weakness, by affinity of cowardice, as quickly
+as Algernon a moral weakness, by the same sort of relationship to it.
+
+“You don't dare,” Sedgett pursued. “And why should you, sir? there's
+ne'er a reason why. I'm civil. I asks for my own: no more 'n my own, it
+ain't. I call the bargain good: why sh'd I want fur to break it? I want
+the money bad. I'm sick o' this country. I'd like to be off in the first
+ship that sails. Can't you let me have ten till to-morrow? then t' other
+forty. I've got a mortal need for it, that I have. Come, it's no use
+your walking at that rate; my legs are's good as yours.”
+
+Algernon had turned back to the great thoroughfare. He was afraid that
+ten pounds must be forfeited to this worrying demon in the flesh, and
+sought the countenance of his well-dressed fellows to encourage him in
+resisting. He could think of no subterfuge; menace was clearly useless:
+and yet the idea of changeing one of the notes and for so infamous a
+creature, caused pangs that helped him further to endure his dogging
+feet and filthy tongue. This continued until he saw a woman's hand
+waving from a cab. Presuming that such a signal, objectionable as it
+was, must be addressed to himself, he considered whether he should lift
+his hat, or simply smile as a favoured, but not too deeply flattered,
+man. The cab drew up, and the woman said, “Sedgett.” She was a
+well-looking woman, strongly coloured, brown-eyed, and hearty in
+appearance.
+
+“What a brute you are, Sedgett, not to be at home when you brought me up
+to London with all the boxes and bedding--my goodness! It's a Providence
+I caught you in my eye, or I should have been driving down to the docks,
+and seeing about the ship. You are a brute. Come in, at once.”
+
+“If you're up to calling names, I've got one or two for you,” Sedgett
+growled.
+
+Algernon had heard enough. Sure that he had left Sedgett in hands not
+likely to relinquish him, he passed on with elastic step. Wine was
+greatly desired, after his torments. Where was credit to be had? True,
+he looked contemptuously on the blooming land of credit now, but an
+entry to it by one of the back doors would have been convenient, so that
+he might be nourished and restored by a benevolent dinner, while he kept
+his Thousand intact. However, he dismissed the contemplation of credit
+and its transient charms. “I won't dine at all,” he said.
+
+A beggar woman stretched out her hand--he dropped a shilling in it.
+
+“Hang me, if I shall be able to,” was his next reflection; and with
+the remaining three and sixpence, he crossed the threshold of a
+tobacconist's shop and bought cigars, to save himself from excesses
+in charity. After gravely reproaching the tobacconist for the growing
+costliness of cigars, he came into the air, feeling extraordinarily
+empty. Of this he soon understood the cause, and it amused him.
+Accustomed to the smell of tobacco always when he came from his dinner,
+it seemed, as the fumes of the shop took his nostril, that demands were
+being made within him by an inquisitive spirit, and dissatisfaction
+expressed at the vacancy there.
+
+“What's the use? I can't dine,” he uttered argumentatively. “I'm not
+going to change a note, and I won't dine. I've no Club. There's not a
+fellow I can see who'll ask me to dine. I'll lounge along home. There is
+some Sherry there.”
+
+But Algernon bore vividly in mind that he did not approve of that
+Sherry.
+
+“I've heard of fellows frying sausages at home, and living on something
+like two shillings a day,” he remarked in meditation; and then it struck
+him that Mrs. Lovell's parcel of returned jewels lay in one of
+his drawers at home--that is, if the laundress had left the parcel
+untouched.
+
+In an agony of alarm, he called a cab, and drove hotly to the Temple.
+Finding the packet safe, he put a couple of rings and the necklace with
+the opal in his waistcoat pocket. The cabman must be paid, of course;
+so a jewel must be pawned. Which shall it be? diamond or opal? Change a
+dozen times and let it be the trinket in the right hand--the opal; let
+it be the opal. How much would the opal fetch? The pawnbroker can best
+inform us upon that point. So he drove to the pawnbroker; one whom he
+knew. The pawnbroker offered him five-and-twenty pounds on the security
+of the opal.
+
+“What on earth is it that people think disgraceful in your entering a
+pawnbroker's shop?” Algernon asked himself when, taking his ticket and
+the five-and-twenty pounds, he repelled the stare of a man behind a
+neighbouring partition.
+
+“There are not many of that sort in the kingdom,” he said to the
+pawnbroker, who was loftily fondling the unlucky opal.
+
+“Well--h'm; perhaps there's not;” the pawnbroker was ready to admit it,
+now that the arrangement had been settled.
+
+“I shan't be able to let you keep it long.”
+
+“As quick back as you like, sir.”
+
+Algernon noticed as he turned away that the man behind the partition,
+who had more the look of a dapper young shopman than of a needy
+petitioner for loans or securities, stretched over the counter to look
+at the opal; and he certainly heard his name pronounced. It enraged
+him; but policy counselled a quiet behaviour in this place, and no
+quarrelling with his pawnbroker. Besides, his whole nature cried out for
+dinner. He dined and had his wine; as good, he ventured to assert,
+as any man could get for the money; for he knew the hotels with the
+venerable cellars.
+
+“I should have made a first-rate courier to a millionaire,” he said,
+with scornful candour, but without abusing the disposition of things
+which had ordered his being a gentleman. Subsequently, from his having
+sat so long over his wine without moving a leg, he indulged in the
+belief that he had reflected profoundly; out of which depths he started,
+very much like a man who has dozed, and felt a discomfort in his limbs
+and head.
+
+“I must forget myself,” he said. Nor was any grave mentor by, to assure
+him that his tragic state was the issue of an evil digestion of his
+dinner and wine. “I must forget myself. I'm under some doom. I see it
+now. Nobody cares for me. I don't know what happiness is. I was born
+under a bad star. My fate's written.” Following his youthful wisdom,
+this wounded hart dragged his slow limbs toward the halls of brandy and
+song.
+
+One learns to have compassion for fools, by studying them: and the
+fool, though Nature is wise, is next door to Nature. He is naked in
+his simplicity; he can tell us much, and suggest more. My excuse for
+dwelling upon him is, that he holds the link of my story. Where fools
+are numerous, one of them must be prominent now and then in a veracious
+narration. There comes an hour when the veil drops on him, he not being
+always clean to the discreeter touch.
+
+Algernon was late at the Bank next day, and not cheerful, though he
+received his customary reprimand with submission. This day was after the
+pattern of the day preceding, except that he did not visit the Park; the
+night likewise.
+
+On Wednesday morning, he arose with the conviction that England was no
+place for him to dwell in. What if Rhoda were to accompany him to one of
+the colonies? The idea had been gradually taking shape in his mind from
+the moment that he had possessed the Thousand. Could she not make butter
+and cheeses capitally, while he rode on horseback through space? She was
+a strong girl, a loyal girl, and would be a grateful wife.
+
+“I'll marry her,” he said; and hesitated. “Yes, I'll marry her.” But it
+must be done immediately.
+
+He resolved to run down to Wrexby, rejoice her with a declaration of
+love, astound her with a proposal of marriage, bewilder her little brain
+with hurrying adjectives, whisk her up to London, and in little
+more than a week be sailing on the high seas, new born; nothing of
+civilization about him, save a few last very first-rate cigars which he
+projected to smoke on the poop of the vessel, and so dream of the world
+he left behind.
+
+He went down to the Bank in better spirits, and there wrote off a
+straightforward demand of an interview, to Rhoda, hinting at the purpose
+of it. While at his work, he thought of Harry Latters and Lord
+Suckling, and the folly of his dining with men in his present position.
+Settling-day, it or yesterday might be, but a colonist is not supposed
+to know anything of those arrangements. One of his fellow-clerks
+reminded him of a loan he had contracted, and showed him his name
+written under obligatory initials. He paid it, ostentatiously drawing
+out one of his fifties. Up came another, with a similar strip of paper.
+“You don't want me to change this, do you?” said Algernon; and heard a
+tale of domestic needs--and a grappling landlady. He groaned inwardly:
+“Odd that I must pay for his landlady being a vixen!” The note was
+changed; the debt liquidated. On the door-step, as he was going to
+lunch, old Anthony waylaid him, and was almost noisily persistent in
+demanding his one pound three and his five pound ten. Algernon paid
+the sums, ready to believe that there was a suspicion abroad of his
+intention to become a colonist.
+
+He employed the luncheon hour in a visit to a colonial shipping office,
+and nearly ran straight upon Sedgett at the office-door. The woman who
+had hailed him from the cab, was in Sedgett's company, but Sedgett saw
+no one. His head hung and his sullen brows were drawn moodily. Algernon
+escaped from observation. His first inquiry at the office was as to the
+business of the preceding couple, and he was satisfied by hearing that
+Sedgett wanted berths for himself and wife.
+
+“Who's the woman, I wonder!” Algernon thought, and forgot her.
+
+He obtained some particular information, and returning to the Bank,
+was called before his uncle, who curtly reckoned up his merits in a
+contemptuous rebuke, and confirmed him in his resolution to incur this
+sort of thing no longer. In consequence, he promised Sir William that
+he would amend his ways, and these were the first hopeful words that Sir
+William had ever heard from him.
+
+Algernon's design was to dress, that evening, in the uniform of society,
+so that, in the event of his meeting Harry Latters, he might assure him
+he was coming to his Club, and had been compelled to dine elsewhere with
+his uncle, or anybody. When he reached the door of his chambers, a man
+was standing there, who said,--
+
+“Mr. Algernon Blancove?”
+
+“Yes,” Algernon prolonged an affirmative, to diminish the confidence it
+might inspire, if possible.
+
+“May I speak with you, sir?”
+
+Algernon told him to follow in. The man was tall and large-featured,
+with an immense blank expression of face.
+
+“I've come from Mr. Samuels, sir,” he said, deferentially.
+
+Mr. Samuels was Algernon's chief jeweller.
+
+“Oh,” Algernon remarked. “Well, I don't want anything; and let me say,
+I don't approve of this touting for custom. I thought Mr. Samuels was
+above it.”
+
+The man bowed. “My business is not that, sir. Ahem! I dare say you
+remember an opal you had from our house. It was set in a necklace.”
+
+“All right; I remember it, perfectly,” said Algernon; cool, but not of
+the collected colour.
+
+“The cost of it was fifty-five pounds, sir.”
+
+“Was it? Well, I've forgotten.”
+
+“We find that it has been pawned for five-and-twenty.”
+
+“A little less than half,” said Algernon. “Pawnbrokers are simply
+cheats.”
+
+“They mayn't be worse than others,” the man observed.
+
+Algernon was exactly in the position where righteous anger is the proper
+weapon, if not the sole resource. He flushed, but was not sure of his
+opportunity for the explosion. The man read the flush.
+
+“May I ask you, did you pawn it, sir? I'm obliged to ask the question.”
+
+“I?--I really don't--I don't choose to answer impudent questions. What
+do you mean by coming here?”
+
+“I may as well be open with you, sir, to prevent misunderstandings. One
+of the young men was present when you pawned it. He saw the thing done.”
+
+“Suppose he did?”
+
+“He would be a witness.”
+
+“Against me? I've dealt with Samuels for three-four years.”
+
+“Yes, sir; but you have never yet paid any account; and I believe I am
+right in saying that this opal is not the first thing coming from
+our house that has been pledged--I can't say you did it on the other
+occasions.”
+
+“You had better not,” rejoined Algernon.
+
+He broke an unpleasant silence by asking, “What further?”
+
+“My master has sent you his bill.”
+
+Algernon glanced at the prodigious figures.
+
+“Five hun--!” he gasped, recoiling; and added, “Well, I can't pay it on
+the spot.”
+
+“Let me tell you, you're liable to proceedings you'd better avoid, sir,
+for the sake of your relations.”
+
+“You dare to threaten to expose me to my relatives?” Algernon said
+haughtily, and immediately perceived that indignation at this point was
+a clever stroke; for the man, while deprecating the idea of doing so,
+showed his more established belief in the possible virtue of such a
+threat.
+
+“Not at all, sir; but you know that pledging things not paid for is
+illegal, and subject to penalties. No tradesman likes it; they can't
+allow it. I may as well let you know that Mr. Samuels--”
+
+“There, stop!” cried Algernon, laughing, as he thought, heartily. “Mr.
+Samuels is a very tolerable Jew; but he doesn't seem to understand
+dealing with gentlemen. Pressure comes;” he waved his hand swimmingly;
+“one wants money, and gets it how one can. Mr. Samuels shall not go to
+bed thinking he has been defrauded. I will teach Mr. Samuels to think
+better of us Gentiles. Write me a receipt.”
+
+“For what amount, sir?” said the man, briskly.
+
+“For the value of the opal--that is to say, for the value put upon it by
+Mr. Samuels. Con! hang! never mind. Write the receipt.”
+
+He cast a fluttering fifty and a fluttering five on the table, and
+pushed paper to the man for a receipt.
+
+The man reflected, and refused to take them.
+
+“I don't think, sir,” he said, “that less than two-thirds of the bill
+will make Mr. Samuels easy. You see, this opal was in a necklace. It
+wasn't like a ring you might have taken off your finger. It's a lady's
+ornament; and soon after you obtain it from us; you make use of it by
+turning it into cash. It's a case for a criminal prosecution, which, for
+the sake of your relations, Mr. Samuels wouldn't willingly bring on.
+The criminal box is no place for you, sir; but Mr. Samuels must have his
+own. His mind is not easy. I shouldn't like, sir, to call a policeman.”
+
+“Hey!” shouted Algernon; “you'd have to get a warrant.”
+
+“It's out, sir.”
+
+Though inclined toward small villanies, he had not studied law, and
+judging from his own affrighted sensations, and the man's impassive
+face, Algernon supposed that warrants were as lightly granted as writs
+of summons.
+
+He tightened his muscles. In his time he had talked glibly of Perdition;
+but this was hot experience. He and the man measured the force of their
+eyes. Algernon let his chest fall.
+
+“Do you mean?” he murmured.
+
+“Why, sir, it's no use doing things by halves. When a tradesman says he
+must have his money, he takes his precautions.”
+
+“Are you in Mr. Samuels' shop?”
+
+“Not exactly, sir.”
+
+“You're a detective?”
+
+“I have been in the service, sir.”
+
+“Ah! now I understand.” Algernon raised his head with a strain
+at haughtiness. “If Mr. Samuels had accompanied you, I would have
+discharged the debt: It's only fair that I should insist upon having a
+receipt from him personally, and for the whole amount.”
+
+With this, he drew forth his purse and displayed the notable Five
+hundred.
+
+His glow of victory was short. The impassive man likewise had something
+to exhibit.
+
+“I assure you, sir,” he said, “Mr. Samuels does know how to deal with
+gentlemen. If you will do me the honour, sir, to run up with me to Mr.
+Samuels' shop? Or, very well, sir; to save you that annoyance here is
+his receipt to the bill.”
+
+Algernon mechanically crumpled up his note.
+
+“Samuels?” ejaculated the unhappy fellow. “Why, my mother dealt with
+Samuels. My aunt dealt with Samuels. All my family have dealt with him
+for years; and he talks of proceeding against me, because--upon my
+soul, it's too absurd! Sending a policeman, too! I'll tell you what--the
+exposure would damage Mister Samuels most materially. Of course, my
+father would have to settle the matter; but Mister--Mister Samuels would
+not recover so easily. He'd be glad to refund the five hundred--what is
+it?--and twenty-five--why not, 'and sixpence three farthings?' I tell
+you, I shall let my father pay. Mr. Samuels had better serve me with
+a common writ. I tell you, I'm not going to denude myself of money
+altogether. I haven't examined the bill. Leave it here. You can tear off
+the receipt. Leave it here.”
+
+The man indulged in a slight demonstration of dissent.
+
+“No, sir, that won't do.”
+
+“Half the bill,” roared Algernon; “half the bill, I wouldn't mind
+paying.”
+
+“About two-thirds, sir, is what Mr. Samuels asked for, and he'll stop,
+and go on as before.”
+
+“He'll stop and he'll go on, will he? Mr. Samuels is amazingly like one
+of his own watches,” Algernon sneered vehemently. “Well,” he pursued, in
+fancied security, “I'll pay two-thirds.”
+
+“Three hundred, sir.”
+
+“Ay, three hundred. Tell him to send a receipt for the three hundred,
+and he shall have it. As to my entering his shop again, that I shall
+have to think over.”
+
+“That's what gentlemen in Mr. Samuels' position have to run risk of,
+sir,” said the man.
+
+Algernon, more in astonishment than trepidation, observed him feeling
+at his breast-pocket. The action resulted in an exhibition of a second
+bill, with a legal receipt attached to it, for three hundred pounds.
+
+“Mr. Samuels is anxious to accommodate you in every way, sir. It isn't
+the full sum he wants; it's a portion. He thought you might prefer to
+discharge a portion.”
+
+After this exhibition of foresight on the part of the jeweller, there
+was no more fight in Algernon beyond a strenuous “Faugh!” of uttermost
+disgust.
+
+He examined the bill and receipt in the man's hand with great apparent
+scrupulousness; not, in reality, seeing a clear syllable.
+
+“Take it and change it,” he threw his Five hundred down, but recovered
+it from the enemy's grasp; and with a “one, two, three,” banged his
+hundreds on the table: for which he had the loathsome receipt handed to
+him.
+
+“How,” he asked, chokingly, “did Mr. Samuels know I could--I had money?”
+
+“Why, sir, you see,” the man, as one who throws off a mask, smiled
+cordially, after buttoning up the notes; “credit 'd soon give up the
+ghost, if it hadn't its own dodges,' as I may say. This is only a feeler
+on Mr. Samuels' part. He heard of his things going to pledge. Halloa!
+he sings out. And tradesmen are human, sir. Between us, I side with
+gentlemen, in most cases. Hows'-ever, I'm, so to speak, in Mr. Samuels'
+pay. A young gentleman in debt, give him a good fright, out comes his
+money, if he's got any. Sending of a bill receipted's a good trying
+touch. It's a compliment to him to suppose he can pay. Mr. Samuels, sir,
+wouldn't go issuing a warrant: if he could, he wouldn't. You named a
+warrant; that set me up to it. I shouldn't have dreamed of a gentleman
+supposing it otherwise. Didn't you notice me show a wall of a face?
+I shouldn't ha' dared to have tried that on an old hand--begging your
+pardon; I mean a real--a scoundrel. The regular ones must see features:
+we mustn't be too cunning with them, else they grow suspicious: they're
+keen as animals; they are. Good afternoon to you, sir.”
+
+Algernon heard the door shut. He reeled into a chair, and muffling his
+head in his two arms on the table, sobbed desperately; seeing himself
+very distinctly reflected in one of the many facets of folly. Daylight
+became undesireable to him. He went to bed.
+
+A man who can, in such extremities of despair, go premeditatingly to
+his pillow, obeys an animal instinct in pursuit of oblivion, that will
+befriend his nerves. Algernon awoke in deep darkness, with a delicious
+sensation of hunger. He jumped up. Six hundred and fifty pounds of the
+money remained intact; and he was joyful. He struck a light to look at
+his watch: the watch had stopped;--that was a bad sign. He could not
+forget it. Why had his watch stopped? A chilling thought as to whether
+predestination did not govern the world, allayed all tumult in his mind.
+He dressed carefully, and soon heard a great City bell, with horrid
+gulfs between the strokes, tell him that the hour was eleven toward
+midnight. “Not late,” he said.
+
+“Who'd have thought it?” cried a voice on the landing of the stairs, as
+he went forth.
+
+It was Sedgett.
+
+Algernon had one inclination to strangle, and another to mollify the
+wretch.
+
+“Why, sir, I've been lurking heer for your return from your larks. Never
+guessed you was in.”
+
+“It's no use,” Algernon began.
+
+“Ay; but it is, though,” said Sedgett, and forced his way into the room.
+“Now, just listen. I've got a young woman I want to pack out o' the
+country. I must do it, while I'm a--a bachelor boy. She must go, or we
+shall be having shindies. You saw how she caught me out of a cab. She's
+sure to be in the place where she ain't wanted. She goes to America.
+I've got to pay her passage, and mine too. Here's the truth: she thinks
+I'm off with her. She knows I'm bankrup' at home. So I am. All the more
+reason for her thinking me her companion. I get her away by train to the
+vessel, and on board, and there I give her the slip.
+
+“Ship's steaming away by this time t'morrow night. I've paid for
+her--and myself too, she thinks. Leave it to me. I'll manage all that
+neatly enough. But heer's the truth: I'm stumped. I must, and I will
+have fifty; I don't want to utter ne'er a threat. I want the money, and
+if you don't give it, I break off; and you mind this, Mr. Blancove: you
+don't come off s' easy, if I do break off, mind. I know all about your
+relations, and by--! I'll let 'em know all about you. Why, you're as
+quiet heer, sir, as if you was miles away, in a wood cottage, and ne'er
+a dog near.”
+
+So Algernon was thinking; and without a light, save the gas lamp in the
+square, moreover.
+
+They wrangled for an hour. When Algernon went forth a second time, he
+was by fifty pounds poorer. He consoled himself by thinking that the
+money had only anticipated its destination as arranged, and it became a
+partial gratification to him to reflect that he had, at any rate, paid
+so much of the sum, according to his bond in assuming possession of it.
+
+And what were to be his proceedings? They were so manifestly in the
+hands of fate, that he declined to be troubled on that head.
+
+Next morning came the usual short impatient scrawl on thin blue paper
+from Edward, scarce worthy of a passing thought. In a postscript, he
+asked: “Are there, on your oath, no letters for me? If there are, send
+them immediately--every one, bills as well. Don't fail. I must have
+them.”
+
+Algernon was at last persuaded to pack up Dahlia's letters, saying:
+“I suppose they can't do any harm now.” The expense of the postage
+afflicted him; but “women always cost a dozen to our one,” he remarked.
+On his way to the City, he had to decide whether he would go to the
+Bank, or take the train leading to Wrexby. He chose the latter course,
+until, feeling that he was about to embark in a serious undertaking, he
+said to himself, “No! duty first;” and postponed the expedition for the
+day following.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+Squire Blancove, having business in town, called on his brother at the
+Bank, asking whether Sir William was at home, with sarcastic emphasis
+on the title, which smelt to him of commerce. Sir William invited him to
+dine and sleep at his house that night.
+
+“You will meet Mrs. Lovell, and a Major Waring, a friend of hers, who
+knew her and her husband in India,” said the baronet.
+
+“The deuce I shall,” said the squire, and accepted maliciously.
+
+Where the squire dined, he drank, defying ladies and the new-fangled
+subserviency to those flustering teabodies. This was understood;
+so, when the Claret and Port had made a few rounds, Major Waring was
+permitted to follow Mrs. Lovell, and the squire and his brother settled
+to conversation; beginning upon gout. Sir William had recently had a
+touch of the family complaint, and spoke of it in terms which gave
+the squire some fraternal sentiment. From that, they fell to talking
+politics, and differed. The breach was healed by a divergence to their
+sons. The squire knew his own to be a scamp.
+
+“You'll never do anything with him,” he said.
+
+“I don't think I shall,” Sir William admitted.
+
+“Didn't I tell you so?”
+
+“You did. But, the point is, what will you do with him?”
+
+“Send him to Jericho to ride wild jackasses. That's all he's fit for.”
+
+The superior complacency of Sir William's smile caught the squire's
+attention.
+
+“What do you mean to do with Ned?” he asked.
+
+“I hope,” was the answer, “to have him married before the year is out.”
+
+“To the widow?”
+
+“The widow?” Sir William raised his eyebrows.
+
+“Mrs. Lovell, I mean.”
+
+“What gives you that idea?”
+
+“Why, Ned has made her an offer. Don't you know that?”
+
+“I know nothing of the sort.”
+
+“And don't believe it? He has. He's only waiting now, over there in
+Paris, to get comfortably out of a scrape--you remember what I told you
+at Fairly--and then Mrs. Lovell's going to have him--as he thinks; but,
+by George, it strikes me this major you've got here, knows how to follow
+petticoats and get in his harvest in the enemy's absence.”
+
+“I think you're quite under a delusion, in both respects,” observed Sir
+William.
+
+“What makes you think that?”
+
+“I have Edward's word.”
+
+“He lies as naturally as an infant sucks.”
+
+“Pardon me; this is my son you are speaking of.”
+
+“And this is your Port I'm drinking; so I'll say no more.”
+
+The squire emptied his glass, and Sir William thrummed on the table.
+
+“Now, my dog has got his name,” the squire resumed. “I'm not ambitious
+about him. You are, about yours; and you ought to know him. He spends
+or he don't spend. It's not the question whether he gets into debt,
+but whether he does mischief with what he spends. If Algy's a bad
+fish, Ned's a bit of a serpent; damned clever, no doubt. I suppose, you
+wouldn't let him marry old Fleming's daughter, now, if he wanted to?”
+
+“Who is Fleming?” Sir William thundered out.
+
+“Fleming's the father of the girl. I'm sorry for him. He sells his
+farm-land which I've been looking at for years; so I profit by it; but
+I don't like to see a man like that broken up. Algy, I said before, 's a
+bad fish. Hang me, if I think he'd have behaved like Ned. If he had, I'd
+have compelled him to marry her, and shipped them both off, clean out of
+the country, to try their luck elsewhere.
+
+“You're proud; I'm practical. I don't expect you to do the same. I'm up
+in London now to raise money to buy the farm--Queen's Anne's Farm; it's
+advertized for sale, I see. Fleeting won't sell it to me privately,
+because my name's Blancove, and I'm the father of my son, and he fancies
+Algy's the man. Why? he saw Algy at the theatre in London with this
+girl of his;--we were all young fellows once!--and the rascal took Ned's
+burden on his shoulders. So, I shall have to compete with other buyers,
+and pay, I dare say, a couple of hundred extra for the property. Do you
+believe what I tell you now?”
+
+“Not a word of it,” said Sir William blandly.
+
+The squire seized the decanter and drank in a fury.
+
+“I had it from Algy.”
+
+“That would all the less induce me to believe it.”
+
+“H'm!” the squire frowned. “Let me tell you--he's a dog--but it's a
+damned hard thing to hear one's own flesh and blood abused. Look here:
+there's a couple. One of them has made a fool of a girl. It can't be my
+rascal--stop a minute--he isn't the man, because she'd have been sure to
+have made a fool of him, that's certain. He's a soft-hearted dog. He'd
+aim at a cock-sparrow, and be glad if he missed. There you have him.
+He was one of your good boys. I used to tell his poor mother, 'When you
+leave off thinking for him, he'll go to the first handy villain--and
+that's the devil.' And he's done it. But, here's the difference. He goes
+himself; he don't send another. I'll tell you what: if you don't know
+about Mr. Ned's tricks, you ought. And you ought to make him marry the
+girl, and be off to New Zealand, or any of the upside-down places, where
+he might begin by farming, and soon, with his abilities, be cock o' the
+walk. He would, perhaps, be sending us a letter to say that he preferred
+to break away from the mother country and establish a republic. He's got
+the same political opinions as you. Oh! he'll do well enough over here;
+of course he will. He's the very fellow to do well. Knock at him, he's
+hard as nails, and 'll stick anywhere. You wouldn't listen to me, when
+I told you about this at Fairly, where some old sweetheart of the girl
+mistook that poor devil of a scapegoat, Algy, for him, and went pegging
+at him like a madman.”
+
+“No,” said Sir William; “No, I would not. Nor do I now. At least,” he
+struck out his right hand deprecatingly, “I listen.”
+
+“Can you tell me what he was doing when he went to Italy?”
+
+“He went partly at my suggestion.”
+
+“Turns you round his little finger! He went off with this girl: wanted
+to educate her, or some nonsense of the sort. That was Mr. Ned's
+business. Upon my soul, I'm sorry for old Fleming. I'm told he takes it
+to heart. It's done him up. Now, if it should turn out to be Ned, would
+you let him right the girl by marrying her? You wouldn't!”
+
+“The principle of examining your hypothesis before you proceed to
+decide by it, is probably unknown to you,” Sir William observed, after
+bestowing a considerate smile on his brother, who muffled himself up
+from the chilling sententiousness, and drank.
+
+Sir William, in the pride of superior intellect, had heard as good as
+nothing of the charge against his son.
+
+“Well,” said the squire, “think as you like, act as you like; all's one
+to me. You're satisfied; that's clear; and I'm some hundred of pounds
+out of pocket. This major's paying court to the widow, is he?”
+
+“I can't say that he is.”
+
+“It would be a good thing for her to get married.”
+
+“I should be glad.”
+
+“A good thing for her, I say.”
+
+“A good thing for him, let us hope.”
+
+“If he can pay her debts.”
+
+Sir William was silent, and sipped his wine.
+
+“And if he can keep a tight hand on the reins. That's wanted,” said the
+squire.
+
+The gentleman whose road to happiness was thus prescribed stood by Mrs.
+Lovell's chair, in the drawing-room. He held a letter in his hand, for
+which her own was pleadingly extended.
+
+“I know you to be the soul of truth, Percy,” she was saying.
+
+“The question is not that; but whether you can bear the truth.”
+
+“Can I not? Who would live without it?”
+
+“Pardon me; there's more. You say, you admire this friend of mine; no
+doubt you do. Mind, I am going to give you the letter. I wish you simply
+to ask yourself now, whether you are satisfied at my making a confidant
+of a man in Robert Eccles's position, and think it natural and just--you
+do?”
+
+“Quite just,” said Mrs. Lovell; “and natural? Yes, natural; though not
+common. Eccentric; which only means, hors du commun; and can be natural.
+It is natural. I was convinced he was a noble fellow, before I knew that
+you had made a friend of him. I am sure of it now. And did he not save
+your life, Percy?”
+
+“I have warned you that you are partly the subject of the letter.”
+
+“Do you forget that I am a woman, and want it all the more impatiently?”
+
+Major Waring suffered the letter to be snatched from his hand, and stood
+like one who is submitting to a test, or watching the effect of a potent
+drug.
+
+“It is his second letter to you,” Mrs. Lovell murmured. “I see; it is a
+reply to yours.”
+
+She read a few lines, and glanced up, blushing. “Am I not made to bear
+more than I deserve?”
+
+“If you can do such mischief, without meaning any, to a man who is in
+love with another woman--,” said Percy.
+
+“Yes,” she nodded, “I perceive the deduction; but inferences are like
+shadows on the wall--they are thrown from an object, and are monstrous
+distortions of it. That is why you misjudge women. You infer one thing
+from another, and are ruled by the inference.”
+
+He simply bowed. Edward would have answered her in a bright strain, and
+led her on to say brilliant things, and then have shown her, as by a
+sudden light, that she had lost herself, and reduced her to feel the
+strength and safety of his hard intellect. That was the idea in her
+brain. The next moment her heart ejected it.
+
+“Petty, when I asked permission to look at this letter, I was not aware
+how great a compliment it would be to me if I was permitted to see it.
+It betrays your friend.”
+
+“It betrays something more,” said he.
+
+Mrs. Lovell cast down her eyes and read, without further comment.
+
+These were the contents:--
+
+   “My Dear Percy,--Now that I see her every day again, I am worse than
+   ever; and I remember thinking once or twice that Mrs. L. had cured
+   me. I am a sort of man who would jump to reach the top of a
+   mountain. I understand how superior Mrs. L. is to every woman in
+   the world I have seen; but Rhoda cures me on that head. Mrs. Lovell
+   makes men mad and happy, and Rhoda makes them sensible and
+   miserable. I have had the talk with Rhoda. It is all over. I have
+   felt like being in a big room with one candle alight ever since.
+   She has not looked at me, and does nothing but get by her father
+   whenever she can, and takes his hand and holds it. I see where the
+   blow has struck her: it has killed her pride; and Rhoda is almost
+   all pride. I suppose she thinks our plan is the best. She has not
+   said she does, and does not mention her sister. She is going to
+   die, or she turns nun, or marries a gentleman. I shall never get
+   her. She will not forgive me for bringing this news to her. I told
+   you how she coloured, the first day I came; which has all gone now.
+   She just opens her lips to me. You remember Corporal Thwaites--you
+   caught his horse, when he had his foot near wrenched off, going
+   through the gate--and his way of breathing through the under-row of
+   his teeth--the poor creature was in such pain--that's just how she
+   takes her breath. It makes her look sometimes like that woman's
+   head with the snakes for her hair. This bothers me--how is it you
+   and Mrs. Lovell manage to talk together of such things? Why, two
+   men rather hang their heads a bit. My notion is, that women--
+   ladies, in especial, ought never to hear of sad things of this sort.
+   Of course, I mean, if they do, it cannot harm them. It only upsets
+   me. Why are ladies less particular than girls in Rhoda's place?”
+
+   (“Shame being a virtue,” was Mrs. Lovell's running comment.)
+
+   “She comes up to town with her father to-morrow. The farm is
+   ruined. The poor old man had to ask me for a loan to pay the
+   journey. Luckily, Rhoda has saved enough with her pennies and
+   two-pences. Ever since I left the farm, it has been in the hands
+   of an old donkey here, who has worked it his own way. What is in
+   the ground will stop there, and may as well.
+
+   “I leave off writing, I write such stuff; and if I go on
+   writing to you, I shall be putting these things '--!--!--!' The way
+   you write about Mrs. Lovell, convinces me you are not in my scrape,
+   or else gentlemen are just as different from their inferiors as
+   ladies are from theirs. That's the question. What is the meaning
+   of your 'not being able to leave her for a day, for fear she should
+   fall under other influences'? Then, I copy your words, you say,
+   'She is all things to everybody, and cannot help it.' In that case,
+   I would seize my opportunity and her waist, and tell her she was
+   locked up from anybody else. Friendship with men--but I cannot
+   understand friendship with women, and watching them to keep them
+   right, which must mean that you do not think much of them.”
+
+Mrs. Lovell, at this point, raised her eyes abruptly from the letter and
+returned it.
+
+“You discuss me very freely with your friend,” she said.
+
+Percy drooped to her. “I warned you when you wished to read it.”
+
+“But, you see, you have bewildered him. It was scarcely wise to write
+other than plain facts. Men of that class.” She stopped.
+
+“Of that class?” said he.
+
+“Men of any class, then: you yourself: if any one wrote to you such
+things, what would you think? It is very unfair. I have the honour of
+seeing you daily, because you cannot trust me out of your sight? What is
+there inexplicable about me? Do you wonder that I talk openly of women
+who are betrayed, and do my best to help them?”.
+
+“On the contrary; you command my esteem,” said Percy.
+
+“But you think me a puppet?”
+
+“Fond of them, perhaps?” his tone of voice queried in a manner that made
+her smile.
+
+“I hate them,” she said, and her face expressed it.
+
+“But you make them.”
+
+“How? You torment me.”
+
+“How can I explain the magic? Are you not making one of me now, where I
+stand?”
+
+“Then, sit.”
+
+“Or kneel?”
+
+“Oh, Percy! do nothing ridiculous.”
+
+Inveterate insight was a characteristic of Major Waring; but he was
+not the less in Mrs. Lovell's net. He knew it to be a charm that she
+exercised almost unknowingly. She was simply a sweet instrument for
+those who could play on it, and therein lay her mighty fascination.
+Robert's blunt advice that he should seize the chance, take her and
+make her his own, was powerful with him. He checked the particular
+appropriating action suggested by Robert.
+
+“I owe you an explanation,” he said. “Margaret, my friend.”
+
+“You can think of me as a friend, Percy?”
+
+“If I can call you my friend, what would I not call you besides? I did
+you a great and shameful wrong when you were younger. Hush! you did
+not deserve that. Judge of yourself as you will; but I know now what my
+feelings were then. The sublime executioner was no more than a spiteful
+man. You give me your pardon, do you not? Your hand?”
+
+She had reached her hand to him, but withdrew it quickly.
+
+“Not your hand, Margaret? But, you must give it to some one. You will be
+ruined, if you do not.”
+
+She looked at him with full eyes. “You know it then?” she said slowly;
+but the gaze diminished as he went on.
+
+“I know, by what I know of you, that you of all women should owe a
+direct allegiance. Come; I will assume privileges. Are you free?”
+
+“Would you talk to me so, if you thought otherwise?” she asked.
+
+“I think I would,” said Percy. “A little depends upon the person. Are
+you pledged at all to Mr. Edward Blancove?”
+
+“Do you suppose me one to pledge myself?”
+
+“He is doing a base thing.”
+
+“Then, Percy, let an assurance of my knowledge of that be my answer.”
+
+“You do not love the man?”
+
+“Despise him, say!”
+
+“Is he aware of it?”
+
+“If clear writing can make him.”
+
+“You have told him as much?”
+
+“To his apprehension, certainly.”
+
+“Further, Margaret, I must speak:--did he act with your concurrence, or
+knowledge of it at all, in acting as he has done?”
+
+“Heavens! Percy, you question me like a husband.”
+
+“It is what I mean to be, if I may.”
+
+The frame of the fair lady quivered as from a blow, and then her eyes
+rose tenderly.
+
+“I thought you knew me. This is not possible.”
+
+“You will not be mine? Why is it not possible?”
+
+“I think I could say, because I respect you too much.”
+
+“Because you find you have not the courage?”
+
+“For what?”
+
+“To confess that you were under bad influence, and were not the Margaret
+I can make of you. Put that aside. If you remain as you are, think of
+the snares. If you marry one you despise, look at the pit. Yes; you will
+be mine! Half my love of my country and my profession is love of you.
+Margaret is fire in my blood. I used to pray for opportunities, that
+Margaret might hear of me. I knew that gallant actions touched her; I
+would have fallen gladly; I was sure her heart would leap when she heard
+of me. Let it beat against mine. Speak!”
+
+“I will,” said Mrs. Lovell, and she suppressed the throbs of her bosom.
+Her voice was harsh and her face bloodless. “How much money have you,
+Percy?”
+
+This sudden sluicing of cold water on his heat of passion petrified him.
+
+“Money,” he said, with a strange frigid scrutiny of her features. As in
+the flash of a mirror, he beheld her bony, worn, sordid, unacceptable.
+But he was fain to admit it to be an eminently proper demand for
+enlightenment.
+
+He said deliberately, “I possess an income of five hundred a year,
+extraneous, and in addition to my pay as major in Her Majesty's
+service.”
+
+Then he paused, and the silence was like a growing chasm between them.
+
+She broke it by saying, “Have you any expectations?”
+
+This was crueller still, though no longer astonishing. He complained in
+his heart merely that her voice had become so unpleasant.
+
+With emotionless precision, he replied, “At my mother's death--”
+
+She interposed a soft exclamation.
+
+“At my mother's death there will come to me by reversion, five or six
+thousand pounds. When my father dies, he may possibly bequeath his
+property to me. On that I cannot count.”
+
+Veritable tears were in her eyes. Was she affecting to weep
+sympathetically in view of these remote contingencies?
+
+“You will not pretend that you know me now, Percy,” she said, trying to
+smile; and she had recovered the natural feminine key of her voice.
+“I am mercenary, you see; not a mercenary friend. So, keep me as a
+friend--say you will be my friend.”
+
+“Nay, you had a right to know,” he protested.
+
+“It was disgraceful--horrible; but it was necessary for me to know.”
+
+“And now that you do know?”
+
+“Now that I know, I have only to say--be as merciful in your idea of me
+as you can.”
+
+She dropped her hand in his, and it was with a thrill of dismay that he
+felt the rush of passion reanimating his frozen veins.
+
+“Be mercenary, but be mine! I will give you something better to live
+for than this absurd life of fashion. You reckon on what our expenditure
+will be by that standard. It's comparative poverty; but--but you can
+have some luxuries. You can have a carriage, a horse to ride. Active
+service may come: I may rise. Give yourself to me, and you must love me,
+and regret nothing.”
+
+“Nothing! I should regret nothing. I don't want carriages, or horses, or
+luxuries. I could live with you on a subaltern's pay. I can't marry you,
+Percy, and for the very reason which would make me wish to marry you.”
+
+“Charade?” said he; and the contempt of the utterance brought her head
+close under his.
+
+“Dearest friend, you have not to learn how to punish me.”
+
+The little reproach, added to the wound to his pride, required a healing
+medicament; she put her lips to his fingers.
+
+Assuredly the comedy would not have ended there, but it was stopped
+by an intrusion of the squire, followed by Sir William, who, while
+the squire--full of wine and vindictive humours--went on humming, “Ah!
+h'm--m--m! Soh!” said in the doorway to some one behind him: “And if
+you have lost your key, and Algernon is away, of what use is it to drive
+down to the Temple for a bed? I make it an especial request that you
+sleep here tonight. I wish it. I have to speak with you.”
+
+Mrs. Lovell was informed that the baronet had been addressing his
+son, who was fresh from Paris, and not, in his own modest opinion,
+presentable before a lady.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+Once more Farmer Fleming and Rhoda prepared for their melancholy journey
+up to London. A light cart was at the gateway, near which Robert stood
+with the farmer, who, in his stiff brown overcoat, that reached to his
+ankles, and broad country-hat, kept his posture of dumb expectation
+like a stalled ox, and nodded to Robert's remarks on the care which the
+garden had been receiving latterly, the many roses clean in bud, and the
+trim blue and white and red garden beds. Every word was a blow to him;
+but he took it, as well as Rhoda's apparent dilatoriness, among the
+things to be submitted to by a man cut away by the roots from the home
+of his labour and old associations. Above his bowed head there was a
+board proclaiming that Queen Anne's Farm, and all belonging thereunto,
+was for sale. His prospect in the vague wilderness of the future, was
+to seek for acceptance as a common labourer on some kind gentleman's
+property. The phrase “kind gentleman” was adopted by his deliberate
+irony of the fate which cast him out. Robert was stamping fretfully for
+Rhoda to come. At times, Mrs. Sumfit showed her head from the window of
+her bed-room, crying, “D'rectly!” and disappearing.
+
+The still aspect of the house on the shining May afternoon was otherwise
+undisturbed. Besides Rhoda, Master Gammon was being waited for; on whom
+would devolve the driving of the cart back from the station. Robert
+heaped his vexed exclamations upon this old man. The farmer restrained
+his voice in Master Gammon's defence, thinking of the comparison he
+could make between him and Robert: for Master Gammon had never run
+away from the farm and kept absent, leaving it to take care of itself.
+Gammon, slow as he might be, was faithful, and it was not he who had
+made it necessary for the farm to be sold. Gammon was obstinate, but it
+was not he who, after taking a lead, and making the farm dependent on
+his lead, had absconded with the brains and energy of the establishment.
+Such reflections passed through the farmer's mind.
+
+Rhoda and Mrs. Sumfit came together down the trim pathway; and Robert
+now had a clear charge against Master Gammon. He recommended an
+immediate departure.
+
+“The horse 'll bring himself home quite as well and as fast as Gammon
+will,” he said.
+
+“But for the shakin' and the joltin', which tells o' sovereigns and
+silver,” Mrs. Sumfit was observing to Rhoda, “you might carry the
+box--and who would have guessed how stout it was, and me to hit it with
+a poker and not break it, I couldn't, nor get a single one through the
+slit;--the sight I was, with a poker in my hand! I do declare I felt
+azactly like a housebreaker;--and no soul to notice what you carries.
+Where you hear the gold, my dear, go so”--Mrs. Sumfit performed a
+methodical “Ahem!” and noised the sole of her shoe on the gravel “so,
+and folks 'll think it's a mistake they made.”
+
+“What's that?”--the farmer pointed at a projection under Rhoda's shawl.
+
+“It is a present, father, for my sister,” said Rhoda.
+
+“What is it?” the farmer questioned again.
+
+Mrs. Sumfit fawned before him penitently--“Ah! William, she's poor,
+and she do want a little to spend, or she will be so nipped and like a
+frost-bitten body, she will. And, perhaps, dear, haven't money in her
+sight for next day's dinner, which is--oh, such a panic for a young
+wife! for it ain't her hunger, dear William--her husband, she thinks of.
+And her cookery at a stand-still! Thinks she, 'he will charge it on the
+kitchen;' so unreasonable's men. Yes,” she added, in answer to the rigid
+dejection of his look, “I said true to you. I know I said, 'Not a penny
+can I get, William,' when you asked me for loans; and how could I get
+it? I can't get it now. See here, dear!”
+
+She took the box from under Rhoda's shawl, and rattled it with a down
+turn and an up turn.
+
+“You didn't ask me, dear William, whether I had a money-box. I'd ha'
+told you so at once, had ye but asked me. And had you said, 'Gi' me your
+money-box,' it was yours, only for your asking. You do see, you can't
+get any of it out. So, when you asked for money I was right to say, I'd
+got none.”
+
+The farmer bore with her dreary rattling of the box in demonstration of
+its retentive capacities. The mere force of the show stopped him from
+retorting; but when, to excuse Master Gammon for his tardiness, she
+related that he also had a money-box, and was in search of it, the
+farmer threw up his head with the vigour of a young man, and thundered
+for Master Gammon, by name, vehemently wrathful at the combined
+hypocrisy of the pair. He called twice, and his face was purple and red
+as he turned toward the cart, saying,--
+
+“We'll go without the old man.”
+
+Mrs. Sumfit then intertwisted her fingers, and related how that she and
+Master Gammon had one day, six years distant, talked on a lonely evening
+over the mischances which befel poor people when they grew infirm, or
+met with accident, and what “useless clays” they were; and yet they had
+their feelings. It was a long and confidential talk on a summer evening;
+and, at the end of it, Master Gammon walked into Wrexby, and paid
+a visit to Mr. Hammond, the carpenter, who produced two strong
+saving-boxes excellently manufactured by his own hand, without a lid to
+them, or lock and key: so that there would be no getting at the contents
+until the boxes were full, or a pressing occasion counselled the
+destruction of the boxes. A constant subject of jest between Mrs. Sumfit
+and Master Gammon was, as to which first of them would be overpowered
+by curiosity to know the amount of their respective savings; and their
+confessions of mutual weakness and futile endeavours to extract one
+piece of gold from the hoard.
+
+“And now, think it or not,” said Mrs. Sumfit, “I got that power over
+him, from doctorin' him, and cookin' for him, I persuaded him to help my
+poor Dahly in my blessed's need. I'd like him to do it by halves, but he
+can't.”
+
+Master Gammon appeared round a corner of the house, his box, draped by
+his handkerchief, under his arm. The farmer and Robert knew, when he was
+in sight, that gestures and shouts expressing extremities of the need
+for haste, would fail to accelerate his steps, so they allowed him to
+come on at his own equal pace, steady as Time, with the peculiar lopping
+bend of knees which jerked the moveless trunk regularly upward, and
+the ancient round eyes fixed contemplatively forward. There was an
+affectingness in this view of the mechanical old man bearing his poor
+hoard to bestow it.
+
+Robert said out, unawares, “He mustn't be let to part with h'old
+pennies.”
+
+“No;” the farmer took him up; “nor I won't let him.”
+
+“Yes, father!” Rhoda intercepted his address to Master Gammon. “Yes,
+father!” she hardened her accent. “It is for my sister. He does a good
+thing. Let him do it.”
+
+“Mas' Gammon, what ha' ye got there?” the farmer sung out.
+
+But Master Gammon knew that he was about his own business. He was a
+difficult old man when he served the farmer; he was quite unmanageable
+in his private affairs.
+
+Without replying, he said to Mrs. Sumfit,--
+
+“I'd gummed it.”
+
+The side of the box showed that it had been made adhesive, for the sake
+of security, to another substance.
+
+“That's what's caused ye to be so long, Mas' Gammon?”
+
+The veteran of the fields responded with a grin, designed to show a
+lively cunning.
+
+“Deary me, Mas' Gammon, I'd give a fortnight's work to know how much
+you'm saved, now, I would. And, there! Your comfort's in your heart. And
+it shall be paid to you. I do pray heaven in mercy to forgive me,” she
+whimpered, “if ever knowin'ly I hasted you at a meal, or did deceive you
+when you looked for the pickings of fresh-killed pig. But if you only
+knew how--to cookit spoils the temper of a woman! I'd a aunt was cook
+in a gentleman's fam'ly, and daily he dirtied his thirteen plates--never
+more nor never less; and one day--was ever a woman punished so! her best
+black silk dress she greased from the top to the bottom, and he sent
+down nine clean plates, and no word vouchsafed of explanation. For
+gentlefolks, they won't teach themselves how it do hang together with
+cooks in a kitchen--”
+
+“Jump up, Mas' Gammon,” cried the farmer, wrathful at having been
+deceived by two members of his household, who had sworn to him, both,
+that they had no money, and had disregarded his necessity. Such being
+human nature!
+
+Mrs. Sumfit confided the termination of her story to Rhoda; or suggested
+rather, at what distant point it might end; and then, giving Master
+Gammon's box to her custody, with directions for Dahlia to take the
+boxes to a carpenter's shop--not attempting the power of pokers upon
+them--and count and make a mental note of the amount of the rival
+hoards, she sent Dahlia all her messages of smirking reproof, and
+delighted love, and hoped that they would soon meet and know happiness.
+
+Rhoda, as usual, had no emotion to spare. She took possession of the
+second box, and thus laden, suffered Robert to lift her into the cart.
+They drove across the green, past the mill and its flashing waters, and
+into the road, where the waving of Mrs. Sumfit's desolate handkerchief
+was latest seen.
+
+A horseman rode by, whom Rhoda recognized, and she blushed and had a
+boding shiver. Robert marked him, and the blush as well.
+
+It was Algernon, upon a livery-stable hack. His countenance expressed a
+mighty disappointment.
+
+The farmer saw no one. The ingratitude and treachery of Robert, and of
+Mrs. Sumfit and Master Gammon, kept him brooding in sombre disgust of
+life. He remarked that the cart jolted a good deal.
+
+“If you goes in a cart, wi' company o' four, you expects to be jolted,”
+ said Master Gammon.
+
+“You seem to like it,” Robert observed to the latter.
+
+“It don't disturb my in'ards,” quoth the serenest of mankind.
+
+“Gammon,” the farmer addressed him from the front seat, without turning
+his head: “you'll take and look about for a new place.”
+
+Master Gammon digested the recommendation in silence. On its being
+repeated, with, “D' ye hear?” he replied that he heard well enough.
+
+“Well, then, look about ye sharp, or maybe, you'll be out in the cold,”
+ said the farmer.
+
+“Na,” returned Master Gammon, “ah never frets till I'm pinched.”
+
+“I've given ye notice,” said the farmer.
+
+“No, you ha'n't,” said Master Gammon.
+
+“I give ye notice now.”
+
+“No, you don't.”
+
+“How d' ye mean?”
+
+“Cause I don't take ne'er a notice.”
+
+“Then you'll be kicked out, old man.”
+
+“Hey! there y' have me,” said Master Gammon. “I growed at the farm, and
+you don't go and tell ne'er a tree t' walk.”
+
+Rhoda laid her fingers in the veteran's palm.
+
+“You're a long-lived family, aren't you, Master Gammon?” said Robert,
+eyeing Rhoda's action enviously.
+
+Master Gammon bade him go to a certain churchyard in Sussex, and
+inspect a particular tombstone, upon which the ages of his ancestry were
+written. They were more like the ages of oaks than of men.
+
+“It's the heart kills,” said Robert.
+
+“It's damned misfortune,” murmured the farmer.
+
+“It is the wickedness in the world,” thought Rhoda.
+
+“It's a poor stomach, I reckon,” Master Gammon ruminated.
+
+They took leave of him at the station, from which eminence it was a
+notable thing to see him in the road beneath, making preparations for
+his return, like a conqueror of the hours. Others might run, and stew,
+if they liked: Master Gammon had chosen his pace, and was not of a mind
+to change it for anybody or anything. It was his boast that he had never
+ridden by railway: “nor ever means to, if I can help it,” he would say.
+He was very much in harmony with universal nature, if to be that is the
+secret of human life.
+
+Meantime, Algernon retraced his way to the station in profound chagrin:
+arriving there just as the train was visible. He caught sight of the
+cart with Master Gammon in it, and asked him whether all his people were
+going up to London; but the reply was evidently a mile distant, and had
+not started; so putting a sovereign in Master Gammon's hand, together
+with the reins of his horse, Algernon bade the old man conduct the
+animal to the White Bear Inn, and thus violently pushing him off the
+tramways of his intelligence, left him stranded.
+
+He had taken a first-class return-ticket, of course, being a gentleman.
+In the desperate hope that he might jump into a carriage with Rhoda, he
+entered one of the second-class compartments; a fact not only foreign to
+his tastes and his habits, but somewhat disgraceful, as he thought. His
+trust was, that the ignoble of this earth alone had beheld him: at
+any rate, his ticket was first class, as the guard would instantly and
+respectfully perceive, and if he had the discomforts, he had also some
+of the consolations of virtue.
+
+Once on his way, the hard seat and the contemptible society surrounding
+him, assured his reflective spirit that he loved: otherwise, was it in
+reason that he should endure these hardships? “I really love the girl,”
+ he said, fidgeting for cushions.
+
+He was hot, and wanted the window up, to which his fellow-travellers
+assented. Then, the atmosphere becoming loaded with offence to his
+morbid sense of smell, he wanted the windows down; and again they
+assented. “By Jove! I must love the girl,” ejaculated Algernon inwardly,
+as cramp, cold, and afflicted nostrils combined to astonish his
+physical sensations. Nor was it displeasing to him to evince that he was
+unaccustomed to bare boards.
+
+“We're a rich country,” said a man to his neighbour; “but, if you
+don't pay for it, you must take your luck, and they'll make you as
+uncomfortable as they can.”
+
+“Ay,” said the other. “I've travelled on the Continent. The second-class
+carriages there are fit for anybody to travel in. This is what comes of
+the worship of money--the individual is not respected. Pounds alone!”
+
+“These,” thought Algernon, “are beastly democrats.”
+
+Their remarks had been sympathetic with his manifestations, which had
+probably suggested them. He glowered out of the window in an exceedingly
+foreign manner. A plainly dressed woman requested that the window should
+be closed. One of the men immediately proceeded to close it. Algernon
+stopped him.
+
+“Pardon me, sir,” said the man; “it's a lady wants it done;” and he did
+it.
+
+A lady! Algernon determined that these were the sort of people he should
+hate for life. “Go among them and then see what they are,” he addressed
+an imaginary assembly of anti-democrats, as from a senatorial chair set
+in the after days. Cramp, cold, ill-ordered smells, and eternal hatred
+of his fellow-passengers, convinced him, in their aggregation, that he
+surmounted not a little for love of Rhoda.
+
+The train arrived in London at dusk. Algernon saw Rhoda step from a
+carriage near the engine, assisted by Robert; and old Anthony was on the
+platform to welcome her; and Anthony seized her bag, and the troop
+of passengers moved away. It may be supposed that Algernon had angry
+sensations at sight of Robert; and to a certain extent this was the
+case; but he was a mercurial youth, and one who had satisfactorily
+proved superior strength enjoyed a portion of his respect. Besides, if
+Robert perchance should be courting Rhoda, he and Robert would enter
+into another field of controversy; and Robert might be taught a lesson.
+
+He followed the party on foot until they reached Anthony's
+dwelling-place, noted the house, and sped to the Temple. There, he found
+a telegraphic message from Edward, that had been awaiting him since the
+morning.
+
+“Stop It,” were the sole words of the communication brief, and if one
+preferred to think so, enigmatic.
+
+“What on earth does he mean?” cried Algernon, and affected again
+and again to see what Edward meant, without success. “Stop it?--stop
+what?--Stop the train? Stop my watch? Stop the universe? Oh! this is
+rank humbug.” He flung the paper down, and fell to counting the money in
+his possession. The more it dwindled, the more imperative it became that
+he should depart from his country.
+
+Behind the figures, he calculated that, in all probability, Rhoda would
+visit her sister this night. “I can't stop that,” he said: and hearing
+a clock strike, “nor that” a knock sounded on the door; “nor that.” The
+reflection inspired him with fatalistic views.
+
+Sedgett appeared, and was welcome. Algernon had to check the impulse of
+his hand to stretch out to the fellow, so welcome was he: Sedgett stated
+that everything stood ready for the morrow. He had accomplished all that
+had to be done.
+
+“And it's more than many'd reckon,” he said, and rubbed his hands, and
+laughed. “I was aboard ship in Liverpool this morning, that I was.
+That ere young woman's woke up from her dream”, (he lengthened the word
+inexpressibly) “by this time, that she is. I had to pay for my passage,
+though;” at which recollection he swore. “That's money gone. Never mind:
+there's worse gone with it. Ain't it nasty--don't you think, sir--to get
+tired of a young woman you've been keepin' company with, and have to be
+her companion, whether you will, or whether you won't? She's sick enough
+now. We travelled all night. I got her on board; got her to go to her
+bed; and, says I, I'll arrange about the luggage. I packs myself down
+into a boat, and saw the ship steam away a good'n. Hanged if I didn't
+catch myself singin'. And haven't touched a drop o' drink, nor will,
+till tomorrow's over. Don't you think 'Daehli's' a very pretty name,
+sir? I run back to her as hard as rail 'd carry me. She's had a letter
+from her sister, recommending o' her to marry me: 'a noble man,' she
+calls me--ha, ha! that's good. 'And what do you think, my dear?' says I;
+and, bother me, if I can screw either a compliment or a kiss out of her.
+She's got fine lady airs of her own. But I'm fond of her, that I am.
+Well, sir, at the church door, after the ceremony, you settle our
+business, honour bright--that's it, en't it?”
+
+Algernon nodded. Sedgett's talk always produced discomfort in his
+ingenuous bosom.
+
+“By the way, what politics are you?” he asked.
+
+Sedgett replied, staring, that he was a Tory, and Algernon nodded again,
+but with brows perturbed at the thought of this ruffian being of the
+same political persuasion as himself.
+
+“Eh?” cried Sedgett; “I don't want any of your hustings pledges,
+though. You'll be at the door tomorrow, or I'll have a row--mind that. A
+bargain's a bargain. I like the young woman, but I must have the money.
+Why not hand it over now?”
+
+“Not till the deed's done,” said Algernon, very reasonably.
+
+Sedgett studied his features, and as a result remarked: “You put me up
+to this: I'll do it, and trust you so far, but if I'm played on, I
+throw the young woman over and expose you out and out. But you mean
+honourable?”
+
+“I do,” Algernon said of his meaning.
+
+Another knock sounded on the door. It proved to be a footman in Sir
+William's livery, bearing a letter from Edward; an amplification of the
+telegram:
+
+   “Dear Algy, Stop it. I'm back, and have to see
+   my father. I may be down about two, or three, or four,
+   in the morning. No key; so, keep in. I want to see
+   you. My whole life is changed. I must see her. Did
+   you get my telegram? Answer, by messenger; I shall
+   come to you the moment my father has finished his
+   lecture.
+               “Yours,
+                  “E.B.”
+
+Algernon told Sedgett to wait while he dressed in evening uniform, and
+gave him a cigar to smoke.
+
+He wrote:--
+
+   “Dear Ned, Stop what? Of course, I suppose there's only one thing,
+   and how can I stop it? What for? You ridiculous old boy! What a
+   changeable old fellow you are!--Off, to see what I can do. After
+   eleven o'clock to-morrow, you'll feel comfortable.--If the Governor
+   is sweet, speak a word for the Old Brown; and bring two dozen in a
+   cab, if you can. There's no encouragement to keep at home in this
+   place. Put that to him. I, in your place, could do it. Tell him
+   it's a matter of markets. If I get better wine at hotels, I go to
+   hotels, and I spend twice--ten times the money. And say, we intend
+   to make the laundress cook our dinners in chambers, as a rule. Old
+   B. an inducement.
+
+                    “Yours aff.
+                       “A.B.”
+
+This epistle he dispatched by the footman, and groaned to think that
+if, perchance, the Old Brown Sherry should come, he would, in all
+probability, barely drink more than half-a-dozen bottles of that prime
+vintage. He and Sedgett, soon after, were driving down to Dahlia's poor
+lodgings in the West. On the way, an idea struck him:
+
+Would not Sedgett be a noisier claimant for the thousand than Edward?
+If he obeyed Edward's direction and stopped the marriage, he could hand
+back a goodly number of hundreds, and leave it to be supposed that he
+had advanced the remainder to Sedgett. How to do it? Sedgett happened to
+say: “If you won't hand the money now, I must have it when I've married
+her. Swear you'll be in the vestry when we're signing. I know all about
+marriages. You swear, or I tell you, if I find I'm cheated, I will throw
+the young woman over slap.”
+
+Algernon nodded: “I shall be there,” he said, and thought that he
+certainly would not. The thought cleared an oppression in his head,
+though it obscured the pretty prospect of a colonial but and horse, with
+Rhoda cooking for him, far from cares. He did his best to resolve that
+he would stop the business, if he could. But, if it is permitted to the
+fool to create entanglements and set calamity in motion, to arrest its
+course is the last thing the Gods allow of his doing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+In the shadowy library light, when there was dawn out of doors, Edward
+sat with his father, and both were silent, for Edward had opened his
+heart, and his father had breathed some of the dry stock of wisdom on
+it. Many times Edward rose to go; and Sir William signalled with his
+finger that he should stay: an impassive motion, not succeeded by
+speech. And, in truth, the baronet was revolving such a problem as a
+long career of profitable banking refreshed by classical exercitations
+does not help us to solve. There sat the son of his trust and his pride,
+whose sound and equal temperament, whose precocious worldly wit, whose
+precise and broad intelligence, had been the visionary comfort of his
+paternal days to come; and his son had told him, reiterating it in
+language special and exact as that of a Chancery barrister unfolding
+his case to the presiding judge, that he had deceived and wronged
+an under-bred girl of the humbler classes; and that, after a term of
+absence from her, he had discovered her to be a part of his existence,
+and designed “You would marry her?” Sir William asked, though less
+forcibly than if he could have put on a moral amazement.
+
+“That is my intention, sir, with your permission,” Edward replied
+firmly, and his father understood that he had never known this young
+man, and dealt virtually with a stranger in his son--as shrewd a blow as
+the vanity which is in paternal nature may have to endure.
+
+He could not fashion the words, “Cerritus fuit,” though he thought
+the thing in both tenses: Edward's wits had always been too clearly in
+order: and of what avail was it to repeat great and honoured prudential
+maxims to a hard-headed fellow, whose choice was to steer upon the
+rocks? He did remark, in an undertone,--
+
+“The 'misce stultitiam' seems to be a piece of advice you have adopted
+too literally. I quote what you have observed of some one else.”
+
+“It is possible, sir,” said Edward. “I was not particularly sparing when
+I sat in the high seat. 'Non eadem est aetas, non mens.' I now think
+differently.”
+
+“I must take your present conduct as the fruit of your premature
+sagacity, I suppose. By the same rule, your cousin Algernon may prove to
+be some comfort to his father, in the end.”
+
+“Let us hope he will, sir. His father will not have deserved it so well
+as mine.”
+
+“The time is morning,” said Sir William, looking at his watch, and
+bestowing, in the bitterness of his reflections, a hue of triumph on the
+sleep of his brother upstairs. “You are your own master, Edward. I will
+detain you no more.”
+
+Edward shook his limbs, rejoicing.
+
+“You prepare for a life of hard work,” Sir William resumed, not without
+some instigation to sternness from this display of alacrity. “I counsel
+you to try the Colonial Bar.”
+
+Edward read in the first sentence, that his income would be restricted;
+and in the second, that his father's social sphere was no longer to be
+his.
+
+“Exactly, sir; I have entertained that notion myself,” he said; and his
+breast narrowed and his features grew sharp.
+
+“And, if I may suggest such matters to you, I would advise you to see
+very little company for some years to come.”
+
+“There, sir, you only anticipate my previously formed resolution. With
+a knavery on my conscience, and a giddy-pated girl on my hands, and
+the doors of the London world open to me, I should scarcely have been
+capable of serious work. The precious metal, which is Knowledge, sir,
+is only to be obtained by mining for it; and that excellent occupation
+necessarily sends a man out of sight for a number of years. In the
+meantime, 'mea virtute me involvo.'”
+
+“You need not stop short,” said his father, with a sardonic look for the
+concluding lines.
+
+“The continuation is becoming in the mouth of a hero; but humbler
+persons must content themselves not to boast the patent fact, I think.”
+ Edward warmed as he spoke. “I am ready to bear it. I dislike poverty;
+but, as I say, I am ready to bear it. Come, sir; you did me the honour
+once to let me talk to you as a friend, with the limits which I have
+never consciously overstepped; let me explain myself plainly and
+simply.”
+
+Sir William signified, “Pray speak,” from the arms of his chair! and
+Edward, standing, went on: “After all, a woman's devotion is worth
+having, when one is not asked for the small change every ten minutes. I
+am aware of the philosophic truth, that we get nothing in life for which
+we don't pay. The point is, to appreciate what we desire; and so we
+reach a level that makes the payment less--” He laughed. Sir William
+could hardly keep back the lines of an ironical smile from his lips.
+
+“This,” pursued the orator, “is not the language for the Colonial Bar.
+I wish to show you that I shall understand the character of my vocation
+there. No, sir; my deeper wish is that you may accept my view of the
+sole course left to a man whose sense of honour is of accord with
+the inclination of his heart, and not in hostility to his clearer
+judgement.”
+
+“Extremely forensic,” said Sir William, not displeased by the promise of
+the periods.
+
+“Well, sir, I need not remark to you that rhetoric, though it should
+fail to convey, does not extinguish, or imply the absence of emotion in
+the speaker; but rather that his imagination is excited by his theme,
+and that he addresses more presences than such as are visible. It is,
+like the Roman mask, fashioned for large assemblages.”
+
+“By a parity of reasoning, then,”--Sir William was seduced into
+colloquy,--“an eternal broad grin is not, in the instance of a dualogue,
+good comedy.”
+
+“It may hide profound grief.” Edward made his eyes flash. “I find I can
+laugh; it would be difficult for me to smile. Sir, I pray that you will
+listen to me seriously, though my language is not of a kind to make you
+think me absolutely earnest in what I say, unless you know me.”
+
+“Which, I must protest, I certainly do not,” interposed Sir William.
+
+“I will do my best to instruct you, sir. Until recently, I have not
+known myself. I met this girl. She trusted herself to me. You are aware
+that I know a little of men and of women; and when I tell you that I
+respect her now even more than I did at first--much more--so thoroughly,
+that I would now put my honour in her hands, by the counsel of my
+experience, as she, prompted by her instinct and her faith in me,
+confided hers to mine,--perhaps, even if you persist in accusing me
+of rashness, you will allow that she must be in the possession of
+singularly feminine and estimable qualities. I deceived her. My object
+in doing so was to spare you. Those consequences followed which can
+hardly fail to ensue, when, of two living together, the woman is at a
+disadvantage, and eats her heart without complaining. I could have borne
+a shrewish tongue better, possibly because I could have answered it
+better. It is worse to see a pale sad face with a smile of unalterable
+tenderness. The very sweetness becomes repugnant.”
+
+“As little boys requiring much medicine have anticipated you by noting
+in this world,” observed Sir William.
+
+“I thank you for the illustration.” Edward bowed, but he smarted. “A man
+so situated lives with the ghost of his conscience.”
+
+“A doubtful figure of speech,” Sir William broke in. “I think you should
+establish the personality before you attempt to give a feature to the
+essence. But, continue.”
+
+Edward saw that by forfeiting simplicity, in order to catch his father's
+peculiar cast of mind, he had left him cold and in doubt as to the
+existence of the powerful impulse by which he was animated. It is a
+prime error in the orator not to seize the emotions and subdue the
+humanity of his hearers first. Edward perceived his mistake. He had,
+however, done well in making a show of the unabated vigour of his wits.
+Contempt did not dwell in the baronet's tone. On the contrary, they
+talked and fenced, and tripped one another as of old; and, considering
+the breach he had been compelled to explode between his father and
+himself, Edward understood that this was a real gain.
+
+He resumed: “All figures of speech must be inadequate--”
+
+“Ah, pardon me,” said Sir William, pertinaciously; “the figure I alluded
+to was not inadequate. A soap-bubble is not inadequate.”
+
+“Plainly, sir, in God's name, hear me out,” cried Edward. “She--what
+shall I call her? my mistress, my sweetheart, if you like--let the name
+be anything 'wife' it should have been, and shall be--I left her, and
+have left her and have not looked on her for many months. I thought I
+was tired of her--I was under odd influences--witchcraft, it seems. I
+could believe in witchcraft now. Brutal selfishness is the phrase for my
+conduct. I have found out my villany. I have not done a day's sensible
+work, or had a single clear thought, since I parted from her. She has
+had brain-fever. She has been in the hospital. She is now prostrate with
+misery. While she suffered, I--I can't look back on myself. If I had to
+plead before you for more than manly consideration, I could touch you. I
+am my own master, and am ready to subsist by my own efforts; there is no
+necessity for me to do more than say I abide by the choice I make, and
+my own actions. In deciding to marry her, I do a good thing--I do a just
+thing. I will prove to you that I have done a wise thing.
+
+“Let me call to your recollection what you did me the honour to remark
+of my letters from Italy. Those were written with her by my side. Every
+other woman vexed me. This one alone gives me peace, and nerve to work.
+If I did not desire to work, should I venture to run the chances of
+an offence to you? Your girls of society are tasteless to me. And they
+don't makes wives to working barristers. No, nor to working Members.
+
+“They are very ornamental and excellent, and, as I think you would
+call them, accomplished. All England would leap to arms to defend their
+incontestible superiority to their mothers and their duties. I have not
+the wish to stand opposed to my countrymen on any question, although
+I go to other shores, and may be called upon to make capital out of
+opposition. They are admirable young persons, no doubt. I do not offer
+you a drab for your daughter-in-law, sir. If I rise, she will be equal
+to my station. She has the manners of a lady; a lady, I say; not of the
+modern young lady; with whom, I am happy to think, she does not come
+into competition. She has not been sedulously trained to pull her way,
+when she is to go into harness with a yokefellow.
+
+“But I am laying myself open to the charge of feeling my position weak,
+seeing that I abuse the contrary one. Think what you will of me, sir,
+you will know that I have obeyed my best instinct and my soundest
+judgement in this matter; I need not be taught, that if it is my destiny
+to leave England I lose the association with him who must ever be my
+dearest friend. And few young men can say as much of one standing in the
+relation of father.”
+
+With this, Edward finished; not entirely to his satisfaction; for he had
+spoken with too distinct a sincerity to please his own critical taste,
+which had been educated to delight in acute antithesis and culminating
+sentences--the grand Biscayan billows of rhetorical utterance, in
+comparison wherewith his talk was like the little chopping waves of a
+wind-blown lake. But he had, as he could see, produced an impression.
+His father stood up.
+
+“We shall be always friends; I hope,” Sir William said. “As regards a
+provision for you, suitable to your estate, that will be arranged. You
+must have what comforts you have been taught to look to. At the same
+time, I claim a personal freedom for my own actions.”
+
+“Certainly, sir,” said Edward, not conceiving any new development in
+these.
+
+“You have an esteem for Mrs. Lovell, have you not?”
+
+Edward flushed. “I should have a very perfect esteem for her, if--” he
+laughed slightly--“you will think I want everybody to be married and in
+the traces now; she will never be manageable till she is married.”
+
+“I am also of that opinion,” said Sir William. “I will detain you no
+longer. It is a quarter to five in the morning. You will sleep here, of
+course.”
+
+“No, I must go to the Temple. By the way, Algy prefers a petition for
+Sherry. He is beginning to discern good wine from bad, which may be a
+hopeful augury.”
+
+“I will order Holmes to send some down to him when he has done a week's
+real duty at the Bank.”
+
+“Sooner or later, then. Good morning, sir.”
+
+“Good morning.” Sir William shook his son's hand.
+
+A minute after, Edward had quitted the house. “That's over!” he said,
+sniffing the morning air gratefully, and eyeing certain tinted wisps of
+cloud that were in a line of the fresh blue sky.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+A shy and humble entreaty had been sent by Dahlia through Robert to
+Rhoda, saying that she wished not to be seen until the ceremony was at
+an end; but Rhoda had become mentally stern toward her sister, and as
+much to uphold her in the cleansing step she was about to take, as in
+the desire to have the dear lost head upon her bosom, she disregarded
+Dahlia's foolish prayer, and found it was well that she had done so;
+for, to her great amazement, Dahlia, worn, shorn, sickened, and reduced
+to be a mark for the scorn of the cowardice which is in the world,
+through the selfishness of a lying man, loved the man still, and
+wavered, or rather shrank with a pitiful fleshly terror from the noble
+husband who would wipe the spot of shame from her forehead.
+
+When, after their long separation, the sisters met, Dahlia was mistress
+of herself, and pronounced Rhoda's name softly, as she moved up to kiss
+her. Rhoda could not speak. Oppressed by the strangeness of the white
+face which had passed through fire, she gave a mute kiss and a single
+groan, while Dahlia gently caressed her on the shoulder. The frail touch
+of her hand was harder to bear than the dreary vision had been, and
+seemed not so real as many a dream of it. Rhoda sat by her, overcome by
+the awfulness of an actual sorrow, never imagined closely, though she
+had conjured up vague pictures of Dahlia's face. She had imagined agony,
+tears, despair, but not the spectral change, the burnt-out look. It
+was a face like a crystal lamp in which the flame has died. The ghastly
+little skull-cap showed forth its wanness rigidly. Rhoda wondered to
+hear her talk simply of home and the old life. At each question, the
+then and the now struck her spirit with a lightning flash of opposing
+scenes. But the talk deepened. Dahlia's martyrdom was near, and their
+tongues were hurried into plain converse of the hour, and then Dahlia
+faltered and huddled herself up like a creature swept by the torrent;
+Rhoda learnt that, instead of hate or loathing of the devilish man who
+had deceived her, love survived. Upon Dahlia's lips it was compassion
+and forgiveness; but Rhoda, in her contempt for the word, called it
+love. Dahlia submitted gladly to the torture of interrogation; “Do you,
+can you care for him still?” and sighed in shame and fear of her sister,
+not daring to say she thought her harsh, not daring to plead for escape,
+as she had done with Robert.
+
+“Why is there no place for the unhappy, who do not wish to live, and
+cannot die?” she moaned.
+
+And Rhoda cruelly fixed her to the marriage, making it seem irrevocable,
+and barring all the faint lights to the free outer world, by praise of
+her--passionate praise of her--when she confessed, that half inanimate
+after her recovery from the fever, and in the hope that she might
+thereby show herself to her father, she had consented to devote her life
+to the only creature who was then near her to be kind to her. Rhoda
+made her relate how this man had seen her first, and how, by untiring
+diligence, he had followed her up and found her. “He--he must love you,”
+ said Rhoda; and in proportion as she grew more conscious of her sister's
+weakness, and with every access of tenderness toward her, she felt that
+Dahlia must be thought for very much as if she were a child.
+
+Dahlia tried to float out some fretting words for mercy, on one or other
+of her heavy breathings; but her brain was under lead. She had a thirst
+for Rhoda's praise in her desolation; it was sweet, though the price of
+it was her doing an abhorred thing. Abhorred? She did not realize the
+consequences of the act, or strength would have come to her to wrestle
+with the coil: a stir of her blood would have endued her with womanly
+counsel and womanly frenzy; nor could Rhoda have opposed any real
+vehemence of distaste to the union on Dahlia's part. But Dahlia's blood
+was frozen, her brain was under lead. She clung to the poor delight
+in her sister's praise, and shuddered and thirsted. She caught at the
+minutes, and saw them slip from her. All the health of her thoughts
+went to establish a sort of blind belief that God; having punished
+her enough, would not permit a second great misery to befall her. She
+expected a sudden intervention, even though at the altar. She argued to
+herself that misery, which follows sin, cannot surely afflict us further
+when we are penitent, and seek to do right: her thought being, that
+perchance if she refrained from striving against the current, and if
+she suffered her body to be borne along, God would be the more merciful.
+With the small cunning of an enfeebled spirit, she put on a mute
+submissiveness, and deceived herself by it sufficiently to let the
+minutes pass with a lessened horror and alarm.
+
+This was in the first quarter of the night. The dawn was wearing near.
+Sedgett had been seen by Rhoda; a quiet interview; a few words on either
+side, attention paid to them by neither. But the girl doated on his
+ugliness; she took it for plain proof of his worthiness; proof too that
+her sister must needs have seen the latter very distinctly, or else she
+could not have submitted.
+
+Dahlia looked at the window-blinds and at the candlelight. The little
+which had been spoken between her and her sister in such a chasm of
+time, gave a terrible swiftness to the hours. Half shrieking, she
+dropped her head in Rhoda's lap. Rhoda, thinking that with this
+demonstration she renounced the project finally, prepared to say what
+she had to say, and to yield. But, as was natural after a paroxysm of
+weakness, Dahlia's frenzy left no courage behind it.
+
+Dahlia said, as she swept her brows, “I am still subject to nervous
+attacks.”
+
+“They will soon leave you,” said Rhoda, nursing her hand.
+
+Dahlia contracted her lips. “Is father very unforgiving to women?”
+
+“Poor father!” Rhoda interjected for answer, and Dahlia's frame was
+taken with a convulsion.
+
+“Where shall I see him to-morrow?” she asked; and, glancing from the
+beamless candle to the window-blinds “Oh! it's day. Why didn't I sleep!
+It's day! where am I to see him?”
+
+“At Robert's lodgings. We all go there.”
+
+“We all go?--he goes?”
+
+“Your husband will lead you there.”
+
+“My heaven! my heaven! I wish you had known what this is, a little--just
+a little.”
+
+“I do know that it is a good and precious thing to do right,” said
+Rhoda.
+
+“If you had only had an affection, dear! Oh I how ungrateful I am to
+you.”
+
+“It is only, darling, that I seem unkind to you,” said Rhoda.
+
+“You think I must do this? Must? Why?”
+
+“Why?” Rhoda pressed her fingers. “Why, when you were ill, did you not
+write to me, that I might have come to you?”
+
+“I was ashamed,” said Dahlia.
+
+“You shall not be ashamed any more, my sister.”
+
+Dahlia seized the window-blind with her trembling finger-tips, and
+looked out on the day. As if it had smitten her eyeballs, she covered
+her face, giving dry sobs.
+
+“Oh! I wish--I wish you had known what this is. Must I do it? His face!
+Dear, I am very sorry to distress you. Must I do it? The doctor says I
+am so strong that nothing will break in me, and that I must live, if I
+am not killed. But, if I might only be a servant in father's house--I
+would give all my love to a little bed of flowers.”
+
+“Father has no home now,” said Rhoda.
+
+“I know--I know. I am ready. I will submit, and then father will not be
+ashamed to remain at the Farm. I am ready. Dear, I am ready. Rhoda, I
+am ready. It is not much.” She blew the candle out. “See. No one will do
+that for me. We are not to live for ourselves. I have done wrong, and I
+am going to be humble; yes, I am. I never was when I was happy, and that
+proves I had no right to be happy. All I ask is for another night
+with you. Why did we not lie down together and sleep? We can't sleep
+now--it's day.”
+
+“Come and lie down with me for a few hours, my darling,” said Rhoda.
+
+While she was speaking, Dahlia drew the window-blind aside, to look out
+once more upon the vacant, inexplicable daylight, and looked, and then
+her head bent like the first thrust forward of a hawk's sighting quarry;
+she spun round, her raised arms making a cramped, clapping motion.
+
+“He is there.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+At once Rhoda perceived that it was time for her to act. The name of
+him who stood in the street below was written on her sister's face. She
+started to her side, got possession of her hands, murmuring,--
+
+“Come with me. You are to come with me. Don't speak. I know. I will go
+down. Yes; you are to obey, and do what I tell you.”
+
+Dahlia's mouth opened, but like a child when it is warned not to cry,
+she uttered a faint inward wailing, lost her ideas, and was passive in a
+shuddering fit.
+
+“What am I to do?” she said supplicatingly, as Rhoda led her to her
+bedroom.
+
+“Rest here. Be perfectly quiet. Trust everything to me. I am your
+sister.”
+
+Leaving her under the spell of coldly-spoken words, Rhoda locked the
+door on her. She was herself in great agitation, but nerved by deeper
+anger there was no faltering in her movements. She went to the glass a
+minute, as she tied her bonnet-strings under her chin, and pinned her
+shawl. A night's vigil had not chased the bloom from her cheek, or the
+swimming lustre from her dark eyes. Content that her aspect should
+be seemly, she ran down the stairs, unfastened the bolts, and without
+hesitation closed the door behind her. At the same instant, a gentleman
+crossed the road. He asked whether Mrs. Ayrton lived in that house?
+Rhoda's vision danced across his features, but she knew him unerringly
+to be the cruel enemy.
+
+“My sister, Dahlia Fleming, lives there,” she said.
+
+“Then, you are Rhoda?”
+
+“My name is Rhoda.”
+
+“Mine--I fear it will not give you pleasure to hear it--is Edward
+Blancove. I returned late last night from abroad.”
+
+She walked to a distance, out of hearing and out of sight of the house,
+and he silently followed. The streets were empty, save for the solitary
+footing of an early workman going to his labour.
+
+She stopped, and he said, “I hope your sister is well.”
+
+“She is quite well.”
+
+“Thank heaven for that! I heard of some illness.”
+
+“She has quite recovered.”
+
+“Did she--tell me the truth--did she get a letter that I sent two days
+ago, to her? It was addressed to 'Miss Fleming, Wrexby, Kent, England.'
+Did it reach her?”
+
+“I have not seen it.”
+
+“I wrote,” said Edward.
+
+His scrutiny of her features was not reassuring to him. But he had a
+side-thought, prompted by admiration of her perfect build of figure, her
+succinct expression of countenance, and her equable manner of speech: to
+the effect, that the true English yeomanry can breed consummate women.
+Perhaps--who knows? even resolute human nature is the stronger for an
+added knot--it approved the resolution he had formed, or stamped with a
+justification the series of wild impulses, the remorse, and the returned
+tenderness and manliness which had brought him to that spot.
+
+“You know me, do you not?” he said.
+
+“Yes,” she answered shortly.
+
+“I wish to see Dahlia.”
+
+“You cannot.”
+
+“Not immediately, of course. But when she has risen later in the
+morning. If she has received my letter, she will, she must see me.”
+
+“No, not later; not at all,” said Rhoda.
+
+“Not at all? Why not?”
+
+Rhoda controlled the surging of her blood for a vehement reply; saying
+simply, “You will not see her.”
+
+“My child, I must.”
+
+“I am not a child, and I say what I mean.”
+
+“But why am I not to see her? Do you pretend that it is her wish not to
+see me? You can't. I know her perfectly. She is gentleness itself.”
+
+“Yes; you know that,” said Rhoda, with a level flash of her eyes, and
+confronting him in a way so rarely distinguishing girls of her class,
+that he began to wonder and to ache with an apprehension.
+
+“She has not changed? Rhoda--for we used to talk of you so often! You
+will think better of me, by-and-by.
+
+“Naturally enough, you detest me at present. I have been a brute.
+I can't explain it, and I don't excuse myself. I state the fact to
+you--her sister. My desire is to make up for the past. Will you take a
+message to her from me?”
+
+“I will not.”
+
+“You are particularly positive.”
+
+Remarks touching herself Rhoda passed by.
+
+“Why are you so decided?” he said more urgently. “I know I have deeply
+offended and hurt you. I wish, and intend to repair the wrong to the
+utmost of my power. Surely it's mere silly vindictiveness on your part
+to seek to thwart me. Go to her; say I am here. At all events, let it be
+her choice not to see me, if I am to be rejected at the door. She can't
+have had my letter. Will you do that much?”
+
+“She knows that you are here; she has seen you.”
+
+“Has seen me?” Edward drew in his breath sharply. “Well? and she sends
+you out to me?”
+
+Rhoda did not answer. She was strongly tempted to belie Dahlia's frame
+of mind.
+
+“She does send you to speak to me,” Edward insisted.
+
+“She knows that I have come.”
+
+“And you will not take one message in?”
+
+“I will take no message from you.”
+
+“You hate me, do you not?”
+
+Again she controlled the violent shock of her heart to give him hard
+speech. He went on:--
+
+“Whether you hate me or not is beside the matter. It lies between Dahlia
+and me. I will see her. When I determine, I allow of no obstacles,
+not even of wrong-headed girls. First, let me ask, is your father in
+London?”
+
+Rhoda threw a masculine meaning into her eyes.
+
+“Do not come before him, I advise you.”
+
+“If,” said Edward, with almost womanly softness, “you could know what
+I have passed through in the last eight-and-forty hours, you would
+understand that I am equal to any meeting; though, to speak truth, I
+would rather not see him until I have done what I mean to do. Will you
+be persuaded? Do you suppose that I have ceased to love your sister?”
+
+This, her execrated word, coming from his mouth, vanquished her
+self-possession.
+
+“Are you cold?” he said, seeing the ripple of a trembling run over her.
+
+“I am not cold. I cannot remain here.” Rhoda tightened her intertwisting
+fingers across under her bosom. “Don't try to kill my sister outright.
+She's the ghost of what she was. Be so good as to go. She will soon be
+out of your reach. You will have to kill me first, if you get near her.
+Never! you never shall. You have lied to her--brought disgrace on her
+poor head. We poor people read our Bibles, and find nothing that excuses
+you. You are not punished, because there is no young man in our family.
+Go.”
+
+Edward gazed at her for some time. “Well, I've deserved worse,” he said,
+not sorry, now that he saw an opponent in her, that she should waste her
+concentrated antagonism in this fashion, and rejoiced by the testimony
+it gave him that he was certainly not too late.
+
+“You know, Rhoda, she loves me.”
+
+“If she does, let her pray to God on her knees.”
+
+“My good creature, be reasonable. Why am I here? To harm her? You take
+me for a kind of monster. You look at me very much, let me say, like
+a bristling cat. Here are the streets getting full of people, and you
+ought not to be seen. Go to Dahlia. Tell her I am here. Tell her I am
+come to claim her for good, and that her troubles are over. This is a
+moment to use your reason. Will you do what I ask?”
+
+“I would cut my tongue out, if it did you a service,” said Rhoda.
+
+“Citoyenne Corday,” thought Edward, and observed: “Then I will dispense
+with your assistance.”
+
+He moved in the direction of the house. Rhoda swiftly outstripped him.
+They reached the gates together. She threw herself in the gateway. He
+attempted to parley, but she was dumb to it.
+
+“I allow nothing to stand between her and me,” he said, and seized her
+arm. She glanced hurriedly to right and left. At that moment Robert
+appeared round a corner of the street. He made his voice heard, and,
+coming up at double quick, caught Edward Blancove by the collar,
+swinging him off. Rhoda, with a sign, tempered him to muteness, and the
+three eyed one another.
+
+“It's you,” said Robert, and, understanding immediately the tactics
+desired by Rhoda, requested Edward to move a step or two away in his
+company.
+
+Edward settled the disposition of his coat-collar, as a formula
+wherewith to regain composure of mind, and passed along beside Robert,
+Rhoda following.
+
+“What does this mean?” said Robert sternly.
+
+Edward's darker nature struggled for ascendancy within him. It was
+this man's violence at Fairly which had sickened him, and irritated him
+against Dahlia, and instigated him, as he remembered well, more than
+Mrs. Lovell's witcheries, to the abhorrent scheme to be quit of her, and
+rid of all botheration, at any cost.
+
+“You're in some conspiracy to do her mischief, all of you,” he cried.
+
+“If you mean Dahlia Fleming,” said Robert, “it'd be a base creature that
+would think of doing harm to her now.”
+
+He had a man's perception that Edward would hardly have been found in
+Dahlia's neighbourhood with evil intentions at this moment, though it
+was a thing impossible to guess. Generous himself, he leaned to the more
+generous view.
+
+“I think your name is Eccles,” said Edward. “Mr. Eccles, my position
+here is a very sad one. But first, let me acknowledge that I have
+done you personally a wrong. I am ready to bear the burden of your
+reproaches, or what you will. All that I beg is, that you will do me the
+favour to grant me five minutes in private. It is imperative.”
+
+Rhoda burst in--“No, Robert!” But Robert said, “It is a reasonable
+request;” and, in spite of her angry eyes, he waved her back, and walked
+apart with Edward.
+
+She stood watching them, striving to divine their speech by their
+gestures, and letting her savage mood interpret the possible utterances.
+It went ill with Robert in her heart that he did not suddenly grapple
+and trample the man, and so break away from him. She was outraged to see
+Robert's listening posture. “Lies! lies!” she said to herself, “and
+he doesn't know them to be lies.” The window-blinds in Dahlia's
+sitting-room continued undisturbed; but she feared the agency of the
+servant of the house in helping to release her sister. Time was flowing
+to dangerous strands. At last Robert turned back singly. Rhoda fortified
+her soul to resist.
+
+“He has fooled you,” she murmured, inaudibly, before he spoke.
+
+“Perhaps, Rhoda, we ought not to stand in his way. He wishes to do
+what a man can do in his case. So he tells me, and I'm bound not to
+disbelieve him. He says he repents--says the word; and gentlemen seem to
+mean it when they use it. I respect the word, and them when they're up
+to that word. He wrote to her that he could not marry her, and it did
+the mischief, and may well be repented of; but he wishes to be forgiven
+and make amends--well, such as he can. He's been abroad, and only
+received Dahlia's letters within the last two or three days. He seems to
+love her, and to be heartily wretched. Just hear me out; you'll decide;
+but pray, pray don't be rash. He wishes to marry her; says he has spoken
+to his father this very night; came straight over from France, after he
+had read her letters. He says--and it seems fair--he only asks to see
+Dahlia for two minutes. If she bids him go, he goes. He's not a friend
+of mine, as I could prove to you; but I do think he ought to see her. He
+says he looks on her as his wife; always meant her to be his wife, but
+things were against him when he wrote that letter. Well, he says so; and
+it's true that gentlemen are situated--they can't always, or think they
+can't, behave quite like honest men. They've got a hundred things to
+consider for our one. That's my experience, and I know something of the
+best among 'em. The question is about this poor young fellow who's to
+marry her to-day. Mr. Blancove talks of giving him a handsome sum--a
+thousand pounds--and making him comfortable--”
+
+“There!” Rhoda exclaimed, with a lightning face. “You don't see what he
+is, after that? Oh!--” She paused, revolted.
+
+“Will you let me run off to the young man, wherever he's to be found,
+and put the case to him--that is, from Dahlia? And you know she doesn't
+like the marriage overmuch, Rhoda. Perhaps he may think differently when
+he comes to hear of things. As to Mr. Blancove, men change and change
+when they're young. I mean, gentlemen. We must learn to forgive. Either
+he's as clever as the devil, or he's a man in earnest, and deserves
+pity. If you'd heard him!”
+
+“My poor sister!” sighed Rhoda. The mentioning of money to be paid
+had sickened and weakened her, as with the very physical taste of
+degradation.
+
+Hearing the sigh, Robert thought she had become subdued. Then Rhoda
+said: “We are bound to this young man who loves my sister--bound to him
+in honour: and Dahlia must esteem him, to have consented. As for the
+other...” She waved the thought of his claim on her sister aside with a
+quick shake of her head. “I rely on you to do this:--I will speak to Mr.
+Blancove myself. He shall not see her there.” She indicated the house.
+“Go to my sister; and lose no time in taking her to your lodgings.
+Father will not arrive till twelve. Wait and comfort her till I come,
+and answer no questions. Robert,” she gave him her hand gently, and,
+looking sweetly, “if you will do this!”
+
+“If I will!” cried Robert, transported by the hopeful tenderness. The
+servant girl of the house had just opened the front door, intent on
+scrubbing, and he passed in. Rhoda walked on to Edward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+A profound belief in the efficacy of his eloquence, when he chose
+to expend it, was one of the principal supports of Edward's sense of
+mastery; a secret sense belonging to certain men in every station
+of life, and which is the staff of many an otherwise impressible and
+fluctuating intellect. With this gift, if he trifled, or slid downward
+in any direction, he could right himself easily, as he satisfactorily
+conceived. It is a gift that may now and then be the ruin of promising
+youths, though as a rule they find it helpful enough. Edward had exerted
+it upon his father, and upon Robert. Seeing Rhoda's approach, he thought
+of it as a victorious swordsman thinks of his weapon, and aimed his
+observation over her possible weak and strong points, studying
+her curiously even when she was close up to him. With Robert, the
+representative of force, to aid her, she could no longer be regarded
+in the light of a despicable hindrance to his wishes. Though inclined
+strongly to detest, he respected her. She had decision, and a worthy
+bearing, and a marvellously blooming aspect, and a brain that worked
+withal. When she spoke, desiring him to walk on by her side, he was
+pleased by her voice, and recognition of the laws of propriety, and
+thought it a thousand pities that she likewise should not become the
+wife of a gentleman. By degrees, after tentative beginnings, he put his
+spell upon her ears, for she was attentive, and walked with a demure
+forward look upon the pavement; in reality taking small note of what
+things he said, until he quoted, as against himself, sentences from
+Dahlia's letters; and then she fixed her eyes on him, astonished that he
+should thus heap condemnation on his own head. They were most pathetic
+scraps quoted by him, showing the wrestle of love with a petrifying
+conviction of its hopelessness, and with the stealing on of a malady of
+the blood. They gave such a picture of Dahlia's reverent love for this
+man, her long torture, her chastity of soul and simple innocence, and
+her gathering delirium of anguish, as Rhoda had never taken at all
+distinctly to her mind. She tried to look out on him from a mist of
+tears.
+
+“How could you bear to read the letters?” she sobbed.
+
+“Could any human being read them and not break his heart for her?” said
+he.
+
+“How could you bear to read them and leave her to perish!”
+
+His voice deepened to an impressive hollow: “I read them for the first
+time yesterday morning, in France, and I am here!”
+
+It was undeniably, in its effect on Rhoda, a fine piece of pleading
+artifice. It partially excused or accounted for his behaviour, while
+it filled her with emotions which she felt to be his likewise, and
+therefore she could not remain as an unsympathetic stranger by his side.
+
+With this, he flung all artifice away. He told her the whole story,
+saving the one black episode of it--the one incomprehensible act of
+a desperate baseness that, blindly to get free, he had deliberately
+permitted, blinked at, and had so been guilty of. He made a mental pause
+as he was speaking, to consider in amazement how and by what agency
+he had been reduced to shame his manhood, and he left it a marvel.
+Otherwise, he in no degree exonerated himself. He dwelt sharply on his
+vice of ambition, and scorned it as a misleading light. “Yet I have
+done little since I have been without her!” And then, with a persuasive
+sincerity, he assured her that he could neither study nor live apart
+from Dahlia. “She is the dearest soul to me on earth; she is the purest
+woman. I have lived with her, I have lived apart from her, and I cannot
+live without her. I love her with a husband's love. Now, do you suppose
+I will consent to be separated from her? I know that while her heart
+beats, it's mine. Try to keep her from me--you kill her.”
+
+“She did not die,” said Rhoda. It confounded his menaces.
+
+“This time she might,” he could not refrain from murmuring.
+
+“Ah!” Rhoda drew off from him.
+
+“But I say,” cried he, “that I will see her.”
+
+“We say, that she shall do what is for her good.”
+
+“You have a project? Let me hear it. You are mad, if you have.”
+
+“It is not our doing, Mr. Blancove. It was--it was by her own choice.
+She will not always be ashamed to look her father in the face. She dare
+not see him before she is made worthy to see him. I believe her to have
+been directed right.”
+
+“And what is her choice?”
+
+“She has chosen for herself to marry a good and worthy man.”
+
+Edward called out, “Have you seen him--the man?”
+
+Rhoda, thinking he wished to have the certainty of the stated fact
+established, replied, “I have.”
+
+“A good and worthy man,” muttered Edward. “Illness, weakness, misery,
+have bewildered her senses. She thinks him a good and worthy man?”
+
+“I think him so.”
+
+“And you have seen him?”
+
+“I have.”
+
+“Why, what monstrous delusion is this? It can't be! My good creature,
+you're oddly deceived, I imagine. What is the man's name? I can
+understand that she has lost her will and distinct sight; but you are
+clear-sighted, and can estimate. What is the man's name?”
+
+“I can tell you,” said Rhoda; “his name is Mr. Sedgett.”
+
+“Mister--!” Edward gave one hollow stave of laughter. “And you have seen
+him, and think him--”
+
+“I know he is not a gentleman,” said Rhoda. “He has been deeply good to
+my sister, and I thank him, and do respect him.”
+
+“Deeply!” Edward echoed. He was prompted to betray and confess himself:
+courage failed.
+
+They looked around simultaneously on hearing an advancing footstep.
+
+The very man appeared--in holiday attire, flushed, smiling, and with a
+nosegay of roses in his hand. He studied the art of pleasing women. His
+eye struck on Edward, and his smile vanished. Rhoda gave him no word of
+recognition. As he passed on, he was led to speculate from his having
+seen Mr. Edward instead of Mr. Algernon, and from the look of the
+former, that changes were in the air, possibly chicanery, and the
+proclaiming of himself as neatly diddled by the pair whom, with another,
+he heartily hoped to dupe.
+
+After he had gone by, Edward and Rhoda changed looks. Both knew the
+destination of that lovely nosegay. The common knowledge almost kindled
+an illuminating spark in her brain; but she was left in the dark, and
+thought him strangely divining, or only strange. For him, a horror
+cramped his limbs. He felt that he had raised a devil in that abominable
+smirking ruffian. It may not, perhaps, be said that he had distinctly
+known Sedgett to be the man. He had certainly suspected the possibility
+of his being the man. It is out of the power of most wilful and selfish
+natures to imagine, so as to see accurately, the deeds they prompt
+or permit to be done. They do not comprehend them until these black
+realities stand up before their eyes.
+
+Ejaculating “Great heaven!” Edward strode some steps away, and returned.
+
+“It's folly, Rhoda!--the uttermost madness ever conceived! I do not
+believe--I know that Dahlia would never consent--first, to marry any man
+but myself; secondly, to marry a man who is not a perfect gentleman. Her
+delicacy distinguishes her among women.”
+
+“Mr. Blancove, my sister is nearly dead, only that she is so strong.
+The disgrace has overwhelmed her, it has. When she is married, she will
+thank and honour him, and see nothing but his love and kindness. I will
+leave you now.”
+
+“I am going to her,” said Edward.
+
+“Do not.”
+
+“There's an end of talking. I trust no one will come in my path. Where
+am I?”
+
+He looked up at the name of the street, and shot away from her. Rhoda
+departed in another direction, firm, since she had seen Sedgett pass,
+that his nobleness should not meet with an ill reward. She endowed
+him with fair moral qualities, which she contrasted against Edward
+Blancove's evil ones; and it was with a democratic fervour of contempt
+that she dismissed the superior outward attractions of the gentleman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+This neighbourhood was unknown to Edward, and, after plunging about in
+one direction and another, he found that he had missed his way. Down
+innumerable dusky streets of dwarfed houses, showing soiled silent
+window-blinds, he hurried and chafed; at one moment in sharp joy that
+he had got a resolution, and the next dismayed by the singular petty
+impediments which were tripping him. “My dearest!” his heart cried to
+Dahlia, “did I wrong you so? I will make all well. It was the work of a
+fiend.” Now he turned to right, now to left, and the minutes flew. They
+flew; and in the gathering heat of his brain he magnified things until
+the sacrifice of herself Dahlia was preparing for smote his imagination
+as with a blaze of the upper light, and stood sublime before him in the
+grandeur of old tragedy. “She has blinded her eyes, stifled her senses,
+eaten her heart. Oh! my beloved! my wife! my poor girl! and all to be
+free from shame in her father's sight!” Who could have believed that a
+girl of Dahlia's class would at once have felt the shame so keenly, and
+risen to such pure heights of heroism? The sacrifice flouted conception;
+it mocked the steady morning. He refused to believe in it, but the short
+throbs of his blood were wiser.
+
+A whistling urchin became his guide. The little lad was carelessly
+giving note to a popular opera tune, with happy disregard of concord.
+It chanced that the tune was one which had taken Dahlia's ear, and,
+remembering it and her pretty humming of it in the old days, Edward's
+wrestling unbelief with the fatality of the hour sank, so entirely was
+he under the sovereignty of his sensations. He gave the boy a big fee,
+desiring superstitiously to feel that one human creature could bless the
+hour. The house was in view. He knocked, and there came a strange murmur
+of some denial. “She is here,” he said, menacingly.
+
+“She was taken away, sir, ten minutes gone, by a gentleman,” the servant
+tied to assure him.
+
+The landlady of the house, coming up the kitchen stairs, confirmed the
+statement. In pity for his torpid incredulity she begged him to examine
+her house from top to bottom, and herself conducted him to Dahlia's
+room.
+
+“That bed has not been slept in,” said the lawyer, pointing his finger
+to it.
+
+“No, sir; poor thing! she didn't sleep last night. She's been wearying
+for weeks; and last night her sister came, and they hadn't met for very
+long. Two whole candles they burnt out, or near upon it.”
+
+“Where?--” Edward's articulation choked.
+
+“Where they're gone to, sir? That I do not know. Of course she will come
+back.”
+
+The landlady begged him to wait; but to sit and see the minutes--the
+black emissaries of perdition--fly upon their business, was torture as
+big as to endure the tearing off of his flesh till the skeleton stood
+out. Up to this point he had blamed himself; now he accused the just
+heavens. Yea! is not a sinner their lawful quarry? and do they not slip
+the hounds with savage glee, and hunt him down from wrong to evil, from
+evil to infamy, from infamy to death, from death to woe everlasting?
+And is this their righteousness?--He caught at the rusty garden rails to
+steady his feet.
+
+Algernon was employed in the comfortable degustation of his breakfast,
+meditating whether he should transfer a further slice of ham or of
+Yorkshire pie to his plate, or else have done with feeding and light a
+cigar, when Edward appeared before him.
+
+“Do you know where that man lives?”
+
+Algernon had a prompting to respond, “Now, really! what man?” But
+passion stops the breath of fools. He answered, “Yes.”
+
+“Have you the thousand in your pocket?”
+
+Algernon nodded with a sickly grin.
+
+“Jump up! Go to him. Give it up to him! Say, that if he leaves London on
+the instant, and lets you see him off--say, it shall be doubled. Stay,
+I'll write the promise, and put my signature. Tell him he shall, on my
+word of honour, have another--another thousand pounds--as soon as I can
+possibly obtain it, if he holds his tongue, and goes with you; and
+see that he goes. Don't talk to me on any other subject, or lose one
+minute.”
+
+Algernon got his limbs slackly together, trying to think of the
+particular pocket in which he had left his cigar-case. Edward wrote a
+line on a slip of note-paper, and signed his name beneath. With this and
+an unsatisfied longing for tobacco Algernon departed, agreeing to meet
+his cousin in the street where Dahlia dwelt.
+
+“By Jove! two thousand! It's an expensive thing not to know your own
+mind,” he thought.
+
+“How am I to get out of this scrape? That girl Rhoda doesn't care a
+button for me. No colonies for me. I should feel like a convict if I
+went alone. What on earth am I to do?”
+
+It seemed preposterous to him that he should take a cab, when he had not
+settled upon a scheme. The sight of a tobacconist's shop charmed one of
+his more immediate difficulties to sleep. He was soon enabled to puff
+consoling smoke.
+
+“Ned's mad,” he pursued his soliloquy. “He's a weather-cock. Do I ever
+act as he does? And I'm the dog that gets the bad name. The idea of
+giving this fellow two thousand--two thousand pounds! Why, he might live
+like a gentleman.”
+
+And that when your friend proves himself to be distraught, the proper
+friendly thing to do is to think for him, became eminently clear in
+Algernon's mind.
+
+“Of course, it's Ned's money. I'd give it if I had it, but I haven't;
+and the fellow won't take a farthing less; I know him. However, it's my
+duty to try.”
+
+He summoned a vehicle. It was a boast of his proud youth that never in
+his life had he ridden in a close cab. Flinging his shoulders back,
+he surveyed the world on foot. “Odd faces one sees,” he meditated. “I
+suppose they've got feelings, like the rest; but a fellow can't help
+asking--what's the use of them? If I inherit all right, as I ought
+to--why shouldn't I?--I'll squat down at old Wrexby, garden and farm,
+and drink my Port. I hate London. The squire's not so far wrong, I
+fancy.”
+
+It struck him that his chance of inheriting was not so very obscure,
+after all. Why had he ever considered it obscure? It was decidedly next
+to certain, he being an only son. And the squire's health was bad!
+
+While speculating in this wise he saw advancing, arm-in-arm, Lord
+Suckling and Harry Latters. They looked at him, and evidently spoke
+together, but gave neither nod, nor smile, nor a word, in answer to his
+flying wave of the hand. Furious, and aghast at this signal of exclusion
+from the world, just at the moment when he was returning to it almost
+cheerfully in spirit, he stopped the cab, jumped out, and ran after the
+pair.
+
+“I suppose I must say Mr. Latters,” Algernon commenced.
+
+Harry deliberated a quiet second or two. “Well, according to our laws of
+primogeniture, I don't come first, and therefore miss a better title,”
+ he said.
+
+“How are you?” Algernon nodded to Lord Suckling, who replied, “Very
+well, I thank you.”
+
+Their legs were swinging forward concordantly. Algernon plucked out his
+purse. “I have to beg you to excuse me,” he said, hurriedly; “my
+cousin Ned's in a mess, and I've been helping him as well as I
+can--bothered--not an hour my own. Fifty, I think?” That amount he
+tendered to Harry Latters, who took it most coolly.
+
+“A thousand?” he queried of Lord Suckling.
+
+“Divided by two,” replied the young nobleman, and the Blucher of
+bank-notes was proffered to him. He smiled queerly, hesitating to take
+it.
+
+“I was looking for you at all the Clubs last night,” said Algernon.
+
+Lord Suckling and Latters had been at theirs, playing whist till past
+midnight; yet is money, even when paid over in this egregious public
+manner by a nervous hand, such testimony to the sincerity of a man, that
+they shouted a simultaneous invitation for him to breakfast with them,
+in an hour, at the Club, or dine with them there that evening. Algernon
+affected the nod of haste and acquiescence, and ran, lest they should
+hear him groan. He told the cabman to drive Northward, instead of to
+the South-west. The question of the thousand pounds had been decided
+for him--“by fate,” he chose to affirm. The consideration that one is
+pursued by fate, will not fail to impart a sense of dignity even to the
+meanest. “After all, if I stop in England,” said he, “I can't afford to
+lose my position in society; anything's better than that an unmitigated
+low scoundrel like Sedgett should bag the game.” Besides, is it not
+somewhat sceptical to suppose that when Fate decides, she has not
+weighed the scales, and decided for the best? Meantime, the whole energy
+of his intellect was set reflecting on the sort of lie which Edward
+would, by nature and the occasion, be disposed to swallow. He quitted
+the cab, and walked in the Park, and au diable to him there! the fool
+has done his work.
+
+It was now half-past ten. Robert, with a most heavy heart, had
+accomplished Rhoda's commands upon him. He had taken Dahlia to his
+lodgings, whither, when free from Edward, Rhoda proceeded in a mood
+of extreme sternness. She neither thanked Robert, nor smiled upon her
+sister. Dahlia sent one quivering look up at her, and cowered lower in
+her chair near the window.
+
+“Father comes at twelve?” Rhoda said.
+
+Robert replied: “He does.”
+
+After which a silence too irritating for masculine nerves filled the
+room.
+
+“You will find, I hope, everything here that you may want,” said Robert.
+“My landlady will attend to the bell. She is very civil.”
+
+“Thank you; we shall not want anything,” said Rhoda. “There is my
+sister's Bible at her lodgings.”
+
+Robert gladly offered to fetch it, and left them with a sense of relief
+that was almost joy. He waited a minute in the doorway, to hear whether
+Dahlia addressed him. He waited on the threshold of the house, that he
+might be sure Dahlia did not call for his assistance. Her cry of appeal
+would have fortified him to stand against Rhoda; but no cry was heard.
+He kept expecting it, pausing for it, hoping it would come to solve his
+intense perplexity. The prolonged stillness terrified him; for, away
+from the sisters, he had power to read the anguish of Dahlia's heart,
+her frozen incapacity, and the great and remorseless mastery which lay
+in Rhoda's inexorable will.
+
+A few doors down the street he met Major blaring, on his way to him.
+“Here's five minutes' work going to be done, which we may all of us
+regret till the day of our deaths,” Robert said, and related what had
+passed during the morning hours.
+
+Percy approved Rhoda, saying, “She must rescue her sister at all
+hazards. The case is too serious for her to listen to feelings, and
+regrets, and objections. The world against one poor woman is unfair
+odds, Robert. I come to tell you I leave England in a day or two. Will
+you join me?”
+
+“How do I know what I shall or can do?” said Robert, mournfully: and
+they parted.
+
+Rhoda's unflickering determination to carry out, and to an end,
+this tragic struggle of duty against inclination; on her own sole
+responsibility forcing it on; acting like a Fate, in contempt of mere
+emotions,--seemed barely real to his mind: each moment that he conceived
+it vividly, he became more certain that she must break down. Was it in
+her power to drag Dahlia to the steps of the altar? And would not her
+heart melt when at last Dahlia did get her voice? “This marriage can
+never take place!” he said, and was convinced of its being impossible.
+He forgot that while he was wasting energy at Fairly, Rhoda had sat
+hiving bitter strength in the loneliness of the Farm; with one vile
+epithet clapping on her ears, and nothing but unavailing wounded love
+for her absent unhappy sister to make music of her pulses.
+
+He found his way to Dahlia's room; he put her Bible under his arm,
+and looked about him sadly. Time stood at a few minutes past eleven.
+Flinging himself into a chair, he thought of waiting in that place; but
+a crowd of undefinable sensations immediately beset him. Seeing Edward
+Blancove in the street below, he threw up the window compassionately,
+and Edward, casting a glance to right and left, crossed the road. Robert
+went down to him.
+
+“I am waiting for my cousin.” Edward had his watch in his hand. “I think
+I am fast. Can you tell me the time exactly?”
+
+“Why, I'm rather slow,” said Robert, comparing time with his own watch.
+“I make it four minutes past the hour.”
+
+“I am at fourteen,” said Edward. “I fancy I must be fast.”
+
+“About ten minutes past, is the time, I think.”
+
+“So much as that!”
+
+“It may be a minute or so less.”
+
+“I should like,” said Edward, “to ascertain positively.”
+
+“There's a clock down in the kitchen here, I suppose,” said Robert.
+“Safer, there's a clock at the church, just in sight from here.”
+
+“Thank you; I will go and look at that.”
+
+Robert bethought himself suddenly that Edward had better not. “I can
+tell you the time to a second,” he said. “It's now twelve minutes past
+eleven.”
+
+Edward held his watch balancing. “Twelve,” he repeated; and, behind this
+mask of common-place dialogue, they watched one another--warily, and
+still with pity, on Robert's side.
+
+“You can't place any reliance on watches,” said Edward.
+
+“None, I believe,” Robert remarked.
+
+“If you could see the sun every day in this climate!” Edward looked up.
+
+“Ah, the sun's the best timepiece, when visible,” Robert acquiesced.
+“Backwoodsmen in America don't need watches.”
+
+“Unless it is to astonish the Indians with them.”
+
+“Ah! yes!” hummed Robert.
+
+“Twelve--fifteen--it must be a quarter past. Or, a three quarters to the
+next hour, as the Germans say.”
+
+“Odd!” Robert ejaculated. “Foreigners have the queerest ways in the
+world. They mean no harm, but they make you laugh.”
+
+“They think the same of us, and perhaps do the laughing more loudly.”
+
+“Ah! let them,” said Robert, not without contemptuous indignation,
+though his mind was far from the talk.
+
+The sweat was on Edward's forehead. “In a few minutes it will be
+half-past--half-past eleven! I expect a friend; that makes me impatient.
+Mr. Eccles”--Edward showed his singular, smallish, hard-cut and flashing
+features, clear as if he had blown off a mist--“you are too much of a
+man to bear malice. Where is Dahlia? Tell me at once. Some one seems to
+be cruelly driving her. Has she lost her senses? She has:--or else she
+is coerced in an inexplicable and shameful manner.”
+
+“Mr. Blancove,” said Robert, “I bear you not a bit of malice--couldn't
+if I would. I'm not sure I could have said guilty to the same sort of
+things, in order to tell an enemy of mine I was sorry for what I had
+done, and I respect you for your courage. Dahlia was taken from here by
+me.”
+
+Edward nodded, as if briefly assenting, while his features sharpened.
+
+“Why?” he asked.
+
+“It was her sister's wish.”
+
+“Has she no will of her own?”
+
+“Very little, I'm afraid, just now, sir.”
+
+“A remarkable sister! Are they of Puritan origin?”
+
+“Not that I am aware of.”
+
+“And this father?”
+
+“Mr. Blancove, he is one of those sort--he can't lift up his head if he
+so much as suspects a reproach to his children.”
+
+Edward brooded. “I desire--as I told you, as I told her sister, as I
+told my father last night--I desire to make her my wife. What can I do
+more? Are they mad with some absurd country pride? Half-past eleven!--it
+will be murder if they force her to it! Where is she? To such a man as
+that! Poor soul! I can hardly fear it, for I can't imagine it. Here--the
+time is going. You know the man yourself.”
+
+“I know the man?” said Robert. “I've never set eyes on him--I've never
+set eyes on him, and never liked to ask much about him. I had a sort
+of feeling. Her sister says he is a good, and kind, honourable young
+fellow, and he must be.”
+
+“Before it's too late,” Edward muttered hurriedly--“you know him--his
+name is Sedgett.”
+
+Robert hung swaying over him with a big voiceless chest.
+
+“That Sedgett?” he breathed huskily, and his look was hard to meet.
+
+Edward frowned, unable to raise his head.
+
+“Lord in heaven! some one has something to answer for!” cried Robert.
+“Come on; come to the church. That foul dog?--Or you, stay where you
+are. I'll go. He to be Dahlia's husband! They've seen him, and can't
+see what he is!--cunning with women as that? How did they meet? Do you
+know?--can't you guess?”
+
+He flung a lightning at Edward and ran off. Bursting into the aisle, he
+saw the minister closing the Book at the altar, and three persons moving
+toward the vestry, of whom the last, and the one he discerned, was
+Rhoda.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+Late into the afternoon, Farmer Fleming was occupying a chair in
+Robert's lodgings, where he had sat since the hour of twelve, without a
+movement of his limbs or of his mind, and alone. He showed no sign that
+he expected the approach of any one. As mute and unremonstrant as a
+fallen tree, nearly as insensible, his eyes half closed, and his hands
+lying open, the great figure of the old man kept this attitude as
+of stiff decay through long sunny hours, and the noise of the London
+suburb. Although the wedding people were strangely late, it was
+unnoticed by him. When the door opened and Rhoda stepped into the room,
+he was unaware that he had been waiting, and only knew that the hours
+had somehow accumulated to a heavy burden upon him.
+
+“She is coming, father; Robert is bringing her up,” Rhoda said.
+
+“Let her come,” he answered.
+
+Robert's hold was tight under Dahlia's arm as they passed the doorway,
+and then the farmer stood. Robert closed the door.
+
+For some few painful moments the farmer could not speak, and his hand
+was raised rejectingly. The return of human animation to his heart made
+him look more sternly than he felt; but he had to rid himself of one
+terrible question before he satisfied his gradual desire to take his
+daughter to his breast. It came at last like a short roll of drums, the
+words were heard,--
+
+“Is she an honest woman?”
+
+“She is,” said Rhoda.
+
+The farmer was looking on Robert.
+
+Robert said it likewise in a murmur, but with steadfast look.
+
+Bending his eyes now upon Dahlia, a mist of affection grew in them. He
+threw up his head, and with a choking, infantine cry, uttered, “Come.”
+
+Robert placed her against her father's bosom.
+
+He moved to the window beside Rhoda, and whispered, and she answered,
+and they knew not what they said. The joint moans of father and
+daughter--the unutterable communion of such a meeting--filled their
+ears. Grief held aloof as much as joy. Neither joy nor grief were in
+those two hearts of parent and child; but the senseless contentment of
+hard, of infinite hard human craving.
+
+The old man released her, and Rhoda undid her hands from him, and led
+the pale Sacrifice to another room.
+
+“Where's...?” Mr. Fleming asked.
+
+Robert understood him.
+
+“Her husband will not come.”
+
+It was interpreted by the farmer as her husband's pride. Or, may be, the
+man who was her husband now had righted her at last, and then flung her
+off in spite for what he had been made to do.
+
+“I'm not being deceived, Robert?”
+
+“No, sir; upon my soul!”
+
+“I've got that here,” the farmer struck his ribs.
+
+Rhoda came back. “Sister is tired,” she said. “Dahlia is going down home
+with you, for...I hope, for a long stay.”
+
+“All the better, while home we've got. We mayn't lose time, my girl.
+Gammon's on 's way to the station now. He'll wait. He'll wait till
+midnight. You may always reckon on a slow man like Gammon for waitin'.
+Robert comes too?”
+
+“Father, we have business to do. Robert gives me his rooms here for a
+little time; his landlady is a kind woman, and will take care of me. You
+will trust me to Robert.”
+
+“I'll bring Rhoda down on Monday evening,” Robert said to the farmer.
+“You may trust me, Mr. Fleming.”
+
+“That I know. That I'm sure of. That's a certainty,” said the farmer.
+“I'd do it for good, if for good was in the girl's heart, Robert. There
+seems,” he hesitated; “eh, Robert, there seems a something upon us all.
+There's a something to be done, is there? But if I've got my flesh and
+blood, and none can spit on her, why should I be asking 'whats' and
+'whys'? I bow my head; and God forgive me, if ever I complained. And you
+will bring Rhoda to us on Monday?”
+
+“Yes; and try and help to make the farm look up again, if Gammon'll do
+the ordering about.”
+
+“Poor old Mas' Gammon! He's a rare old man. Is he changed by adversity,
+Robert? Though he's awful secret, that old man! Do you consider a bit
+Gammon's faithfulness, Robert!”
+
+“Ay, he's above most men in that,” Robert agreed.
+
+“On with Dahlia's bonnet--sharp!” the farmer gave command. He felt, now
+that he was growing accustomed to the common observation of things,
+that the faces and voices around him were different from such as the
+day brings in its usual course. “We're all as slow as Mas' Gammon, I
+reckon.”
+
+“Father,” said Rhoda, “she is weak. She has been very unwell. Do not
+trouble her with any questions. Do not let any questions be asked of her
+at hone. Any talking fatigues; it may be dangerous to her.”
+
+The farmer stared. “Ay, and about her hair....I'm beginning to remember.
+She wears a cap, and her hair's cut off like an oakum-picker's. That's
+more gossip for neighbours!”
+
+“Mad people! will they listen to truth?” Rhoda flamed out in her dark
+fashion. “We speak truth, nothing but truth. She has had a brain fever.
+That makes her very weak, and every one must be silent at home. Father,
+stop the sale of the farm, for Robert will work it into order. He has
+promised to be our friend, and Dahlia will get her health there, and be
+near mother's grave.”
+
+The farmer replied, as from a far thought, “There's money in my pocket
+to take down two.”
+
+He continued: “But there's not money there to feed our family a week on;
+I leave it to the Lord. I sow; I dig, and I sow, and when bread fails
+to us the land must go; and let it go, and no crying about it. I'm
+astonishing easy at heart, though if I must sell, and do sell, I shan't
+help thinking of my father, and his father, and the father before
+him--mayhap, and in most likelihood, artfuller men 'n me--for what they
+was born to they made to flourish. They'll cry in their graves. A man's
+heart sticks to land, Robert; that you'll find, some day. I thought I
+cared none but about land till that poor, weak, white thing put her arms
+on my neck.”
+
+Rhoda had slipped away from them again.
+
+The farmer stooped to Robert's ear. “Had a bit of a disagreement with
+her husband, is it?”
+
+Robert cleared his throat. “Ay, that's it,” he said.
+
+“Serious, at all?”
+
+“One can't tell, you know.”
+
+“And not her fault--not my girl's fault, Robert?”
+
+“No; I can swear to that.”
+
+“She's come to the right home, then. She'll be near her mother and me.
+Let her pray at night, and she'll know she's always near her blessed
+mother. Perhaps the women 'll want to take refreshment, if we may so far
+make free with your hospitality; but it must be quick, Robert--or will
+they? They can't eat, and I can't eat.”
+
+Soon afterward Mr. Fleming took his daughter Dahlia from the house and
+out of London. The deeply-afflicted creature was, as the doctors had
+said of her, too strong for the ordinary modes of killing. She could
+walk and still support herself, though the ordeal she had gone through
+this day was such as few women could have traversed. The terror to
+follow the deed she had done was yet unseen by her; and for the hour she
+tasted, if not peace, the pause to suffering which is given by an act
+accomplished.
+
+Robert and Rhoda sat in different rooms till it was dusk. When she
+appeared before him in the half light, the ravage of a past storm was
+visible on her face. She sat down to make tea, and talked with singular
+self command.
+
+“Mr. Fleming mentioned the gossips down at Wrexby,” said Robert: “are
+they very bad down there?”
+
+“Not worse than in other villages,” said Rhoda. “They have not been
+unkind. They have spoken about us, but not unkindly--I mean, not
+spitefully.”
+
+“And you forgive them?”
+
+“I do: they cannot hurt us now.”
+
+Robert was but striving to master some comprehension of her character.
+
+“What are we to resolve, Rhoda?”
+
+“I must get the money promised to this man.”
+
+“When he has flung off his wife at the church door?”
+
+“He married my sister for the money. He said it. Oh! he said it. He
+shall not say that we have deceived him. I told him he should have it.
+He married her for money!”
+
+“You should not have told him so, Rhoda.”
+
+“I did, and I will not let my word be broken.”
+
+“Pardon me if I ask you where you will get the money? It's a large sum.”
+
+“I will get it,” Rhoda said firmly.
+
+“By the sale of the farm?”
+
+“No, not to hurt father.”
+
+“But this man's a scoundrel. I know him. I've known him for years. My
+fear is that he will be coming to claim his wife. How was it I never
+insisted on seeing the man before--! I did think of asking, but
+fancied--a lot of things; that you didn't wish it and he was shy. Ah,
+Lord! what miseries happen from our not looking straight at facts! We
+can't deny she's his wife now.”
+
+“Not if we give him the money.”
+
+Rhoda spoke of “the money” as if she had taken heated metal into her
+mouth.
+
+“All the more likely,” said Robert. “Let him rest. Had you your eyes on
+him when he saw me in the vestry? For years that man has considered me
+his deadly enemy, because I punished him once. What a scene! I'd have
+given a limb, I'd have given my life, to have saved you from that scene,
+Rhoda.”
+
+She replied: “If my sister could have been spared! I ought to know
+what wickedness there is in the world. It's ignorance that leads to the
+unhappiness of girls.”
+
+“Do you know that I'm a drunkard?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“He called me something like it; and he said something like the truth.
+There's the sting. Set me adrift, and I drink hard. He spoke a fact, and
+I couldn't answer him.”
+
+“Yes, it's the truth that gives such pain,” said Rhoda, shivering. “How
+can girls know what men are? I could not guess that you had any fault.
+This man was so respectful; he sat modestly in the room when I saw him
+last night--last night, was it? I thought, 'he has been brought up
+with sisters and a mother.' And he has been kind to my dear--and all we
+thought love for her, was--shameful! shameful!”
+
+She pressed her eyelids, continuing: “He shall have the money--he shall
+have it. We will not be in debt to such a man. He has saved my sister
+from one as bad--who offered it to be rid of her. Oh, men!--you heard
+that?--and now pretends to love her. I think I dream. How could she ever
+have looked happily on that hateful face?”
+
+“He would be thought handsome,” said Robert, marvelling how it was that
+Rhoda could have looked on Sedgett for an instant without reading his
+villanous nature. “I don't wish you to regret anything you have done
+or you may do, Rhoda. But this is what made me cry out when I looked on
+that man, and knew it was he who had come to be Dahlia's husband. He'll
+be torture to her. The man's temper, his habits--but you may well say
+you are ignorant of us men. Keep so. What I do with all my soul entreat
+of you is--to get a hiding-place for your sister. Never let him take her
+off. There's such a thing as hell upon earth. If she goes away with him
+she'll know it. His black temper won't last. He will come for her, and
+claim her.”
+
+“He shall have money.” Rhoda said no more.
+
+On a side-table in the room stood a remarkable pile, under cover of a
+shawl. Robert lifted the shawl, and beheld the wooden boxes, one upon
+the other, containing Master Gammon's and Mrs. Sumfit's rival savings,
+which they had presented to Dahlia, in the belief that her husband was
+under a cloud of monetary misfortune that had kept her proud heart from
+her old friends. The farmer had brought the boxes and left them there,
+forgetting them.
+
+“I fancy,” said Robert, “we might open these.”
+
+“It may be a little help,” said Rhoda.
+
+“A very little,” Robert thought; but, to relieve the oppression of
+the subject they had been discussing, he forthwith set about procuring
+tools, with which he split first the box which proved to be Mrs.
+Sumfit's, for it contained, amid six gold sovereigns and much silver
+and pence, a slip of paper, whereon was inscribed, in a handwriting
+identified by Rhoda as peculiar to the loving woman,--
+
+     “And sweetest love to her ever dear.”
+
+Altogether the sum amounted to nine pounds, three shillings, and a
+farthing.
+
+“Now for Master Gammon--he's heavy,” said Robert; and he made the
+savings of that unpretentious veteran bare. Master Gammon had likewise
+written his word. It was discovered on the blank space of a bit of
+newspaper, and looked much as if a fat lobworm had plunged himself into
+a bowl of ink, and in his literary delirium had twisted uneasily to the
+verge of the paper. With difficulty they deciphered,--
+
+          “Complemens.”
+
+Robert sang, “Bravo, Gammon!” and counted the hoard. All was in
+copper coinage, Lycurgan and severe, and reached the sum of one pound,
+seventeen shillings. There were a number of farthings of Queen Anne's
+reign, and Robert supposed them to be of value. “So that, as yet, we
+can't say who's the winner,” he observed.
+
+Rhoda was in tears.
+
+“Be kind to him, please, when you see him,” she whispered. The smaller
+gift had touched her heart more tenderly.
+
+“Kind to the old man!” Robert laughed gently, and tied the two hoards in
+separate papers, which he stowed into one box, and fixed under string.
+“This amount, put all in one, doesn't go far, Rhoda.”
+
+“No,” said she: “I hope we may not need it.” She broke out: “Dear, good,
+humble friends! The poor are God's own people. Christ has said so.
+This is good, this is blessed money!” Rhoda's cheeks flushed to their
+orange-rounded swarthy red, and her dark eyes had the fervour of an
+exalted earnestness. “They are my friends for ever. They save me from
+impiety. They help me, as if God had answered my prayer. Poor pennies!
+and the old man not knowing where his days may end! He gives all--he
+must have true faith in Providence. May it come back to him multiplied a
+thousand fold! While I have strength to work, the bread I earn shall be
+shared with him. Old man, old man, I love you--how I love you! You
+drag me out of deep ditches. Oh, good and dear old man, if God takes
+me first, may I have some power to intercede for you, if you have ever
+sinned! Everybody in the world is not wicked. There are some who go the
+ways directed by the Bible. I owe you more than I can ever pay.”
+
+She sobbed, but told Robert it was not for sorrow. He, longing to catch
+her in his arms, and punctilious not to overstep the duties of his post
+of guardian, could merely sit by listening, and reflecting on her as a
+strange Biblical girl, with Hebrew hardness of resolution, and Hebrew
+exaltation of soul; beautiful, too, as the dark women of the East. He
+admitted to himself that he never could have taken it on his conscience
+to subdue a human creature's struggling will, as Rhoda had not hesitated
+to do with Dahlia, and to command her actions, and accept all imminent
+responsibilities; not quailing with any outcry, or abandonment of
+strength, when the shock of that revelation in the vestry came violently
+on her. Rhoda, seeing there that it was a brute, and not a man, into
+whose hand she had perilously forced her sister's, stood steadying
+her nerves to act promptly with advantage; less like a woman, Robert
+thought, than a creature born for battle. And she appeared to be still
+undaunted, full of her scheme, and could cry without fear of floods.
+Something of the chivalrous restraint he put upon the motions of his
+heart, sprang from the shadowy awe which overhung that impressible
+organ. This feeling likewise led him to place a blind reliance on her
+sagacity and sense of what was just, and what should be performed.
+
+“You promised this money to him,” he said, half thinking it incredible.
+
+“On Monday,” said Rhoda.
+
+“You must get a promise from him in return.”
+
+She answered: “Why? when he could break it the instant he cared to, and
+a promise would tempt him to it. He does not love her.”
+
+“No; he does not love her,” said Robert, meditating whether he could
+possibly convey an idea of the character of men to her innocent mind.
+
+“He flung her off. Thank heaven for it! I should have been punished too
+much--too much. He has saved her from the perils of temptation. He shall
+be paid for it. To see her taken away by such a man! Ah!” She shuddered
+as at sight of a hideous pit.
+
+But Robert said: “I know him, Rhoda. That was his temper. It'll last
+just four-and-twenty hours, and then we shall need all our strength and
+cunning. My dear, it would be the death of Dahlia. You've seen the man
+as he is. Take it for a warning. She belongs to him. That's the law,
+human and divine.”
+
+“Not when he has flung her off, Robert?” Rhoda cried piteously.
+
+“Let us take advantage of that. He did fling her off, spat at us all,
+and showed the blackest hellish plot I ever in my life heard of. He's
+not the worst sinner, scoundrel as he is. Poor girl! poor soul! a hard
+lot for women in this world! Rhoda, I suppose I may breakfast with you
+in the morning? I hear Major Waring's knock below. I want a man to talk
+to.”
+
+“Do come, Robert,” Rhoda said, and gave him her hand. He strove to
+comprehend why it was that her hand was merely a hand, and no more to
+him just then; squeezed the cold fingers, and left her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+So long as we do not know that we are performing any remarkable feat,
+we may walk upon the narrowest of planks between precipices with perfect
+security; but when we suffer our minds to eye the chasm underneath, we
+begin to be in danger, and we are in very great fear of losing our equal
+balance the moment we admit the insidious reflection that other men,
+placed as we are, would probably topple headlong over. Anthony Hackbut,
+of Boyne's Bank, had been giving himself up latterly to this fatal
+comparison. The hour when gold was entrusted to his charge found him
+feverish and irritable. He asked himself whether he was a mere machine
+to transfer money from spot to spot, and he spurned at the pittance
+bestowed upon honesty in this life. Where could Boyne's Bank discover
+again such an honest man as he? And because he was honest he was poor!
+The consideration that we alone are capable of doing the unparalleled
+thing may sometimes inspire us with fortitude; but this will depend
+largely upon the antecedent moral trials of a man. It is a temptation
+when we look on what we accomplish at all in that light. The temptation
+being inbred, is commonly a proof of internal corruption. “If I take a
+step, suppose now, to the right, or to the left,” Anthony had got
+into the habit of saying, while he made his course, and after he had
+deposited his charge he would wipe his moist forehead, in a state of
+wretched exultation over his renowned trustworthiness.
+
+He had done the thing for years. And what did the people in the streets
+know about him? Formerly, he had used to regard the people in the
+streets, and their opinions, with a voluptuous contempt; but he was no
+longer wrapped in sweet calculations of his savings, and his chances,
+and his connection with a mighty Bank. The virtue had gone out of him.
+Yet he had not the slightest appetite for other men's money; no hunger,
+nor any definite notion of enjoyment to be derived from money not
+his own. Imagination misled the old man. There have been spotless
+reputations gained in the service of virtue before now; and chaste and
+beautiful persons have walked the narrow plank, envied and admired; and
+they have ultimately tottered and all but fallen; or they have quite
+fallen, from no worse an incitement than curiosity. Cold curiosity,
+as the directors of our human constitution tell us, is, in the colder
+condition of our blood, a betraying vice, leading to sin at a period
+when the fruits of sin afford the smallest satisfaction. It is, in fact,
+our last probation, and one of our latest delusions. If that is passed
+successfully, we may really be pronounced as of some worth. Anthony
+wished to give a light indulgence to his curiosity; say, by running away
+and over London Bridge on one side, and back on the other, hugging the
+money. For two weeks, he thought of this absurd performance as a comical
+and agreeable diversion. How would he feel when going in the direction
+of the Surrey hills? And how, when returning, and when there was a
+prospect of the Bank, where the money was to be paid in, being shut?
+Supposing that he was a minute behind his time, would the Bank-doors
+remain open, in expectation of him? And if the money was not paid in,
+what would be thought? What would be thought at Boyne's, if, the next
+day, he was late in making his appearance?
+
+“Holloa! Hackbut, how's this?”--“I'm a bit late, sir, morning.”--“Late!
+you were late yesterday evening, weren't you?”--“Why, sir, the way the
+clerks at that Bank of Mortimer and Pennycuick's rush away from business
+and close the doors after 'em, as if their day began at four p.m., and
+business was botheration: it's a disgrace to the City o' London. And I
+beg pardon for being late, but never sleeping a wink all night for fear
+about this money, I am late this morning, I humbly confess. When I got
+to the Bank, the doors were shut. Our clock's correct; that I know.
+My belief, sir, is, the clerks at Mortimer and Pennycuick's put on the
+time.”--“Oh! we must have this inquired into.”
+
+Anthony dramatized the farcical scene which he imagined between himself
+and Mr. Sequin, the head clerk at Boyne's, with immense relish; and
+terminated it by establishing his reputation for honesty higher than
+ever at the Bank, after which violent exercise of his fancy, the old
+man sank into a dulness during several days. The farmer slept at his
+lodgings for one night, and talked of money, and of selling his farm;
+and half hinted that it would be a brotherly proceeding on Anthony's
+part to buy it, and hold it, so as to keep it in the family. The
+farmer's deep belief in the existence of his hoards always did Anthony
+peculiar mischief. Anthony grew conscious of a giddiness, and all the
+next day he was scarcely fit for his work. But the day following that he
+was calm and attentive. Two bags of gold were placed in his hands, and
+he walked with caution down the steps of the Bank, turned the corner,
+and went straight on to the West, never once hesitating, or casting a
+thought behind upon Mortimer and Pennycuick's. He had not, in truth, one
+that was loose to be cast. All his thoughts were boiling in his head,
+obfuscating him with a prodigious steam, through which he beheld the
+city surging, and the streets curving like lines in water, and the
+people mixing and passing into and out of one another in an astonishing
+manner--no face distinguishable; the whole thick multitude appearing to
+be stirred like glue in a gallipot. The only distinct thought which he
+had sprang from a fear that the dishonest ruffians would try to steal
+his gold, and he hugged it, and groaned to see that villany was abroad.
+Marvellous, too, that the clocks on the churches, all the way along
+the Westward thoroughfare, stuck at the hour when Banks are closed
+to business! It was some time, or a pretence at some time, before the
+minute-hands surmounted that difficulty. Having done so, they rushed
+ahead to the ensuing hour with the mad precipitation of pantomimic
+machinery. The sight of them presently standing on the hour, like a
+sentinel presenting arms, was startling--laughable. Anthony could not
+have flipped with his fingers fifty times in the interval; he was sure
+of it, “or not much more,” he said. So the City was shut to him behind
+iron bars.
+
+Up in the West there is not so much to be dreaded from the rapacity of
+men. You do not hear of such alarming burglaries there every day; every
+hand is not at another's throat there, or in another's pocket; at least,
+not until after nightfall; and when the dark should come on, Anthony
+had determined to make for his own quarter with all speed. Darkness is
+horrible in foreign places, but foreign places are not so accusing to
+you by daylight.
+
+The Park was vastly pleasant to the old man.
+
+“Ah!” he sniffed, “country air,” and betook himself to a seat.
+“Extraordinary,” he thought, “what little people they look on their
+horses and in their carriages! That's the aristocracy, is it!” The
+aristocracy appeared oddly diminutive to him. He sneered at the
+aristocracy, but, beholding a policeman, became stolid of aspect. The
+policeman was a connecting link with his City life, the true lord of
+his fearful soul. Though the moneybags were under his arm, beneath his
+buttoned coat, it required a deep pause before he understood what he had
+done; and then the Park began to dance and curve like the streets, and
+there was a singular curtseying between the heavens and the earth.
+He had to hold his money-bags tight, to keep them from plunging into
+monstrous gulfs. “I don't remember that I've taken a drink of any sort,”
+ he said, “since I and the old farmer took our turn down in the Docks.
+How's this?” He seemed to rock. He was near upon indulging in a fit of
+terror; but the impolicy of it withheld him from any demonstration, save
+an involuntary spasmodic ague. When this had passed, his eyesight and
+sensations grew clearer, and he sat in a mental doze, looking at things
+with quiet animal observation. His recollection of the state, after a
+lapse of minutes, was pleasurable. The necessity for motion, however,
+set him on his feet, and off he went, still Westward, out of the Park,
+and into streets. He trotted at a good pace. Suddenly came a call of his
+name in his ear, and he threw up one arm in self-defence.
+
+“Uncle Anthony, don't you know me?”
+
+“Eh? I do; to be sure I do,” he answered, peering dimly upon Rhoda: “I'm
+always meeting one of you.”
+
+“I've been down in the City, trying to find you all day, uncle. I meet
+you--I might have missed! It is direction from heaven, for I prayed.”
+
+Anthony muttered, “I'm out for a holiday.”
+
+“This”--Rhoda pointed to a house--“is where I am lodging.”
+
+“Oh!” said Anthony; “and how's your family?”
+
+Rhoda perceived that he was rather distraught. After great persuasion,
+she got him to go upstairs with her.
+
+“Only for two seconds,” he stipulated. “I can't sit.”
+
+“You will have a cup of tea with me, uncle?”
+
+“No; I don't think I'm equal to tea.”
+
+“Not with Rhoda?”
+
+“It's a name in Scripture,” said Anthony, and he drew nearer to her.
+“You're comfortable and dark here, my dear. How did you come here?
+What's happened? You won't surprise me.”
+
+“I'm only stopping for a day or two in London, uncle.”
+
+“Ah! a wicked place; that it is. No wickeder than other places, I'll be
+bound. Well; I must be trotting. I can't sit, I tell you. You're as dark
+here as a gaol.”
+
+“Let me ring for candles, uncle.”
+
+“No; I'm going.”
+
+She tried to touch him, to draw him to a chair. The agile old man
+bounded away from her, and she had to pacify him submissively before he
+would consent to be seated. The tea-service was brought, and Rhoda made
+tea, and filled a cup for him. Anthony began to enjoy the repose of
+the room. But it made the money-bags' alien to him, and serpents in his
+bosom. Fretting--on his chair, he cried: “Well! well! what's to talk
+about? We can't drink tea and not talk!”
+
+Rhoda deliberated, and then said: “Uncle, I think you have always loved
+me.”
+
+It seemed to him a merit that he should have loved her. He caught at the
+idea.
+
+“So I have, Rhoda, my dear; I have. I do.”
+
+“You do love me, dear uncle!”
+
+“Now I come to think of it, Rhoda--my Dody, I don't think ever I've
+loved anybody else. Never loved e'er a young woman in my life. As a
+young man.”
+
+“Tell me, uncle; are you not very rich?”
+
+“No, I ain't; not 'very'; not at all.”
+
+“You must not tell untruths, uncle.”
+
+“I don't,” said Anthony; only, too doggedly to instil conviction.
+
+“I have always felt, uncle, that you love money too much. What is the
+value of money, except to give comfort, and help you to be a blessing to
+others in their trouble? Does not God lend it you for that purpose? It
+is most true! And if you make a store of it, it will only be unhappiness
+to yourself. Uncle, you love me. I am in great trouble for money.”
+
+Anthony made a long arm over the projection of his coat, and clasped it
+securely; sullenly refusing to answer. “Dear uncle; hear me out. I come
+to you, because I know you are rich. I was on my way to your lodgings
+when we met; we were thrown together. You have more money than you know
+what to do with. I am a beggar to you for money. I have never asked
+before; I never shall ask again. Now I pray for your help. My life, and
+the life dearer to me than any other, depend on you. Will you help me,
+Uncle Anthony? Yes!”
+
+“No!” Anthony shouted.
+
+“Yes! yes!”
+
+“Yes, if I can. No, if I can't. And 'can't' it is. So, it's 'No.'”
+
+Rhoda's bosom sank, but only as a wave in the sea-like energy of her
+spirit.
+
+“Uncle, you must.”
+
+Anthony was restrained from jumping up and running away forthwith by the
+peace which was in the room, and the dread of being solitary after he
+had tasted of companionship.
+
+“You have money, uncle. You are rich. You must help me. Don't you
+ever think what it is to be an old man, and no one to love you and be
+grateful to you? Why do you cross your arms so close?”
+
+Anthony denied that he crossed his arms closely.
+
+Rhoda pointed to his arms in evidence; and he snarled out: “There, now;
+'cause I'm supposed to have saved a trifle, I ain't to sit as I like.
+It's downright too bad! It's shocking!”
+
+But, seeing that he did not uncross his arms, and remained bunched up
+defiantly, Rhoda silently observed him. She felt that money was in the
+room.
+
+“Don't let it be a curse to you,” she said. And her voice was hoarse
+with agitation.
+
+“What?” Anthony asked. “What's a curse?”
+
+“That.”
+
+Did she know? Had she guessed? Her finger was laid in a line at the
+bags. Had she smelt the gold?
+
+“It will be a curse to you, uncle. Death is coming. What's money then?
+Uncle, uncross your arms. You are afraid; you dare not. You carry it
+about; you have no confidence anywhere. It eats your heart. Look at
+me. I have nothing to conceal. Can you imitate me, and throw your hands
+out--so? Why, uncle, will you let me be ashamed of you? You have the
+money there.
+
+“You cannot deny it. Me crying to you for help! What have we talked
+together?--that we would sit in a country house, and I was to look to
+the flower-beds, and always have dishes of green peas for you-plenty, in
+June; and you were to let the village boys know what a tongue you have,
+if they made a clatter of their sticks along the garden-rails; and you
+were to drink your tea, looking on a green and the sunset. Uncle! Poor
+old, good old soul! You mean kindly. You must be kind. A day will make
+it too late. You have the money there. You get older and older every
+minute with trying to refuse me. You know that I can make you happy.
+I have the power, and I have the will. Help me, I say, in my great
+trouble. That money is a burden. You are forced to carry it about, for
+fear. You look guilty as you go running in the streets, because you fear
+everybody. Do good with it. Let it be money with a blessing on it! It
+will save us from horrid misery! from death! from torture and death!
+Think, uncle! look, uncle! You with the money--me wanting it. I pray to
+heaven, and I meet you, and you have it. Will you say that you refuse
+to give it, when I see--when I show you, you are led to meet me and help
+me? Open;--put down that arm.”
+
+Against this storm of mingled supplication and shadowy menace, Anthony
+held out with all outward firmness until, when bidding him to put down
+his arm, she touched the arm commandingly, and it fell paralyzed.
+
+Rhoda's eyes were not beautiful as they fixed on the object of her
+quest. In this they were of the character of her mission. She was
+dealing with an evil thing, and had chosen to act according to her
+light, and by the counsel of her combative and forceful temper. At each
+step new difficulties had to be encountered by fresh contrivances; and
+money now--money alone had become the specific for present use. There
+was a limitation of her spiritual vision to aught save to money; and the
+money being bared to her eyes, a frightful gleam of eagerness shot from
+them. Her hands met Anthony's in a common grasp of the money-bags.
+
+“It's not mine!” Anthony cried, in desperation.
+
+“Whose money is it?” said Rhoda, and caught up her hands as from fire.
+
+“My Lord!” Anthony moaned, “if you don't speak like a Court o' Justice.
+Hear yourself!”
+
+“Is the money yours, uncle?”
+
+“It--is,” and “isn't” hung in the balance.
+
+“It is not?” Rhoda dressed the question for him in the terror of
+contemptuous horror.
+
+“It is. I--of course it is; how could it help being mine? My money? Yes.
+What sort o' thing's that to ask--whether what I've got's mine or yours,
+or somebody else's? Ha!”
+
+“And you say you are not rich, uncle?”
+
+A charming congratulatory smile was addressed to him, and a shake of the
+head of tender reproach irresistible to his vanity.
+
+“Rich! with a lot o' calls on me; everybody wantin' to borrow--I'm rich!
+And now you coming to me! You women can't bring a guess to bear upon the
+right nature o' money.”
+
+“Uncle, you will decide to help me, I know.”
+
+She said it with a staggering assurance of manner.
+
+“How do you know?” cried Anthony.
+
+“Why do you carry so much money about with you in bags, uncle?”
+
+“Hear it, my dear.” He simulated miser's joy.
+
+“Ain't that music? Talk of operas! Hear that; don't it talk? don't it
+chink? don't it sing?” He groaned “Oh, Lord!” and fell back.
+
+This transition from a state of intensest rapture to the depths of pain
+alarmed her.
+
+“Nothing; it's nothing.” Anthony anticipated her inquiries. “They bags
+is so heavy.”
+
+“Then why do you carry them about?”
+
+“Perhaps it's heart disease,” said Anthony, and grinned, for he knew the
+soundness of his health.
+
+“You are very pale, uncle.”
+
+“Eh? you don't say that?”
+
+“You are awfully white, dear uncle.”
+
+“I'll look in the glass,” said Anthony. “No, I won't.” He sank back in
+his chair. “Rhoda, we're all sinners, ain't we? All--every man and woman
+of us, and baby, too. That's a comfort; yes, it is a comfort. It's a
+tremendous comfort--shuts mouths. I know what you're going to say--some
+bigger sinners than others. If they're sorry for it, though, what then?
+They can repent, can't they?”
+
+“They must undo any harm they may have done. Sinners are not to repent
+only in words, uncle.”
+
+“I've been feeling lately,” he murmured.
+
+Rhoda expected a miser's confession.
+
+“I've been feeling, the last two or three days,” he resumed.
+
+“What, uncle?”
+
+“Sort of taste of a tremendous nice lemon in my mouth, my dear, and
+liked it, till all of a sudden I swallowed it whole--such a gulp! I felt
+it just now. I'm all right.”
+
+“No, uncle,” said Rhoda: “you are not all right: this money makes you
+miserable. It does; I can see that it does. Now, put those bags in my
+hands. For a minute, try; it will do you good. Attend to me; it will.
+Or, let me have them. They are poison to you. You don't want them.”
+
+“I don't,” cried Anthony. “Upon my soul, I don't. I don't want 'em. I'd
+give--it is true, my dear, I don't want 'em. They're poison.”
+
+“They're poison to you,” said Rhoda; “they're health, they're life
+to me. I said, 'My uncle Anthony will help me. He is not--I know his
+heart--he is not a miser.' Are you a miser, uncle?”
+
+Her hand was on one of his bags. It was strenuously withheld: but while
+she continued speaking, reiterating the word “miser,” the hold relaxed.
+She caught the heavy bag away, startled by its weight.
+
+He perceived the effect produced on her, and cried; “Aha! and I've been
+carrying two of 'em--two!”
+
+Rhoda panted in her excitement.
+
+“Now, give it up,” said he. She returned it. He got it against his
+breast joylessly, and then bade her to try the weight of the two. She
+did try them, and Anthony doated on the wonder of her face.
+
+“Uncle, see what riches do! You fear everybody--you think there is no
+secure place--you have more? Do you carry about all your money?”
+
+“No,” he chuckled at her astonishment. “I've...Yes. I've got more of my
+own.” Her widened eyes intoxicated him. “More. I've saved. I've put by.
+Say, I'm an old sinner. What'd th' old farmer say now? Do you love your
+uncle Tony? 'Old Ant,' they call me down at--” “The Bank,” he was on
+the point of uttering; but the vision of the Bank lay terrific in
+his recollection, and, summoned at last, would not be wiped away. The
+unbearable picture swam blinking through accumulating clouds; remote and
+minute as the chief scene of our infancy, but commanding him with the
+present touch of a mighty arm thrown out. “I'm honest,” he cried. “I
+always have been honest. I'm known to be honest. I want no man's money.
+I've got money of my own. I hate sin. I hate sinners. I'm an honest man.
+Ask them, down at--Rhoda, my dear! I say, don't you hear me? Rhoda, you
+think I've a turn for misering. It's a beastly mistake: poor savings,
+and such a trouble to keep honest when you're poor; and I've done it
+for years, spite o' temptation 't 'd send lots o' men to the hulks. Safe
+into my hand, safe out o' my hands! Slip once, and there ain't mercy in
+men. And you say, 'I had a whirl of my head, and went round, and didn't
+know where I was for a minute, and forgot the place I'd to go to, and
+come away to think in a quiet part.'...” He stopped abruptly in his
+ravings. “You give me the money, Rhoda!”
+
+She handed him the money-bags.
+
+He seized them, and dashed them to the ground with the force of madness.
+Kneeling, he drew out his penknife, and slit the sides of the bags, and
+held them aloft, and let the gold pour out in torrents, insufferable to
+the sight; and uttering laughter that clamoured fierily in her ears
+for long minutes afterwards, the old man brandished the empty bags, and
+sprang out of the room.
+
+She sat dismayed in the centre of a heap of gold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+On the Monday evening, Master Gammon was at the station with the cart.
+Robert and Rhoda were a train later, but the old man seemed to be
+unaware of any delay, and mildly staring, received their apologies, and
+nodded. They asked him more than once whether all was well at the Farm;
+to which he replied that all was quite well, and that he was never
+otherwise. About half-an-hour after, on the road, a gradual dumb chuckle
+overcame his lower features. He flicked the horse dubitatively, and
+turned his head, first to Robert, next to Rhoda; and then he chuckled
+aloud:
+
+“The last o' they mel'ns rotted yest'day afternoon!”
+
+“Did they?” said Robert. “You'll have to get fresh seed, that's all.”
+
+Master Gammon merely showed his spirit to be negative.
+
+“You've been playing the fool with the sheep,” Robert accused him.
+
+It hit the old man in a very tender part.
+
+“I play the fool wi' ne'er a sheep alive, Mr. Robert. Animals likes
+their 'customed food, and don't like no other. I never changes my
+food, nor'd e'er a sheep, nor'd a cow, nor'd a bullock, if animals was
+masters. I'd as lief give a sheep beer, as offer him, free-handed--of my
+own will, that's to say--a mel'n. They rots.”
+
+Robert smiled, though he was angry. The delicious unvexed country-talk
+soothed Rhoda, and she looked fondly on the old man, believing that he
+could not talk on in his sedate way, if all were not well at home.
+
+The hills of the beacon-ridge beyond her home, and the line of stunted
+firs, which she had named “the old bent beggarmen,” were visible in the
+twilight. Her eyes flew thoughtfully far over them, with the feeling
+that they had long known what would come to her and to those dear to
+her, and the intense hope that they knew no more, inasmuch as they
+bounded her sight.
+
+“If the sheep thrive,” she ventured to remark, so that the comforting
+old themes might be kept up.
+
+“That's the particular 'if!'” said Robert, signifying something that had
+to be leaped over.
+
+Master Gammon performed the feat with agility.
+
+“Sheep never was heartier,” he pronounced emphatically.
+
+“Lots of applications for melon-seed, Gammon?”
+
+To this the veteran's tardy answer was: “More fools 'n one about, I
+reckon”; and Robert allowed him the victory implied by silence.
+
+“And there's no news in Wrexby? none at all?” said Rhoda.
+
+A direct question inevitably plunged Master Gammon so deep amid
+the soundings of his reflectiveness, that it was the surest way
+of precluding a response from him; but on this occasion his honest
+deliberation bore fruit.
+
+“Squire Blancove, he's dead.”
+
+The name caused Rhoda to shudder.
+
+“Found dead in 's bed, Sat'day morning,” Master Gammon added, and,
+warmed upon the subject, went on: “He's that stiff, folks say, that
+stiff he is, he'll have to get into a rounded coffin: he's just like
+half a hoop. He was all of a heap, like. Had a fight with 's bolster,
+and got th' wust of it. But, be 't the seizure, or be 't gout in 's
+belly, he's gone clean dead. And he wunt buy th' Farm, nether. Shutters
+is all shut up at the Hall. He'll go burying about Wednesday. Men that
+drinks don't keep.”
+
+Rhoda struck at her brain to think in what way this death could work and
+show like a punishment of the heavens upon that one wrong-doer; but it
+was not manifest as a flame of wrath, and she laid herself open to the
+peace of the fields and the hedgeways stepping by. The farm-house came
+in sight, and friendly old Adam and Eve turning from the moon. She heard
+the sound of water. Every sign of peace was around the farm. The cows
+had been milked long since; the geese were quiet. There was nothing but
+the white board above the garden-gate to speak of the history lying in
+her heart.
+
+They found the farmer sitting alone, shading his forehead. Rhoda kissed
+his cheeks and whispered for tidings of Dahlia.
+
+“Go up to her,” the farmer said.
+
+Rhoda grew very chill. She went upstairs with apprehensive feet, and
+recognizing Mrs. Sumfit outside the door of Dahlia's room, embraced her,
+and heard her say that Dahlia had turned the key, and had been crying
+from mornings to nights. “It can't last,” Mrs. Sumfit sobbed: “lonesome
+hysterics, they's death to come. She's falling into the trance. I'll go,
+for the sight o' me shocks her.”
+
+Rhoda knocked, waited patiently till her persistent repetition of her
+name gained her admission. She beheld her sister indeed, but not the
+broken Dahlia from whom she had parted. Dahlia was hard to her caress,
+and crying, “Has he come?” stood at bay, white-eyed, and looking like a
+thing strung with wires.
+
+“No, dearest; he will not trouble you. Have no fear.”
+
+“Are you full of deceit?” said Dahlia, stamping her foot.
+
+“I hope not, my sister.”
+
+Dahlia let fall a long quivering breath. She went to her bed, upon which
+her mother's Bible was lying, and taking it in her two hands, held it
+under Rhoda's lips.
+
+“Swear upon that?”
+
+“What am I to swear to, dearest?”
+
+“Swear that he is not in the house.”
+
+“He is not, my own sister; believe me. It is no deceit. He is not.
+He will not trouble you. See; I kiss the Book, and swear to you,
+my beloved! I speak truth. Come to me, dear.” Rhoda put her arms up
+entreatingly, but Dahlia stepped back.
+
+“You are not deceitful? You are not cold? You are not inhuman? Inhuman!
+You are not? You are not? Oh, my God! Look at her!”
+
+The toneless voice was as bitter for Rhoda to hear as the accusations.
+She replied, with a poor smile: “I am only not deceitful. Come, and see.
+You will not be disturbed.”
+
+“What am I tied to?” Dahlia struggled feebly as against a weight of
+chains. “Oh! what am I tied to? It's on me, tight like teeth. I can't
+escape. I can't breathe for it. I was like a stone when he asked
+me--marry him!--loved me! Some one preached--my duty! I am lost, I am
+lost! Why? you girl!--why?--What did you do? Why did you take my hand
+when I was asleep and hurry me so fast? What have I done to you? Why did
+you push me along?--I couldn't see where. I heard the Church babble. For
+you--inhuman! inhuman! What have I done to you? What have you to do with
+punishing sin? It's not sin. Let me be sinful, then. I am. I am sinful.
+Hear me. I love him; I love my lover, and,” she screamed out, “he loves
+me!”
+
+Rhoda now thought her mad.
+
+She looked once at the rigid figure of her transformed sister, and
+sitting down, covered her eyes and wept.
+
+To Dahlia, the tears were at first an acrid joy; but being weak, she
+fell to the bed, and leaned against it, forgetting her frenzy for a
+time.
+
+“You deceived me,” she murmured; and again, “You deceived me.” Rhoda did
+not answer. In trying to understand why her sister should imagine it,
+she began to know that she had in truth deceived Dahlia. The temptation
+to drive a frail human creature to do the thing which was right, had
+led her to speak falsely for a good purpose. Was it not righteously
+executed? Away from the tragic figure in the room, she might have
+thought so, but the horror in the eyes and voice of this awakened
+Sacrifice, struck away the support of theoretic justification. Great
+pity for the poor enmeshed life, helpless there, and in a woman's worst
+peril,--looking either to madness, or to death, for an escape--drowned
+her reason in a heavy cloud of tears. Long on toward the stroke of the
+hour, Dahlia heard her weep, and she murmured on, “You deceived me;”
+ but it was no more to reproach; rather, it was an exculpation of her
+reproaches. “You did deceive me, Rhoda.” Rhoda half lifted her head; the
+slight tone of a change to tenderness swelled the gulfs of pity, and
+she wept aloud. Dahlia untwisted her feet, and staggered up to her, fell
+upon her shoulder, and called her, “My love!--good sister!” For a
+great mute space they clung together. Their lips met and they kissed
+convulsively. But when Dahlia had close view of Rhoda's face, she drew
+back, saying in an under-breath,--
+
+“Don't cry. I see my misery when you cry.”
+
+Rhoda promised that she would check her tears, and they sat quietly,
+side by side, hand in hand. Mrs. Sumfit, outside, had to be dismissed
+twice with her fresh brews of supplicating tea and toast, and the cakes
+which, when eaten warm with good country butter and a sprinkle of salt,
+reanimate (as she did her utmost to assure the sisters through the
+closed door) humanity's distressed spirit. At times their hands
+interchanged a fervent pressure, their eyes were drawn to an equal gaze.
+
+In the middle of the night Dahlia said: “I found a letter from Edward
+when I came here.”
+
+“Written--Oh, base man that he is!” Rhoda could not control the impulse
+to cry it out.
+
+“Written before,” said Dahlia, divining her at once. “I read it; did not
+cry. I have no tears. Will you see it? It is very short-enough; it
+said enough, and written before--” She crumpled her fingers in Rhoda's;
+Rhoda, to please her, saying “Yes,” she went to the pillow of the bed,
+and drew the letter from underneath.
+
+“I know every word,” she said; “I should die if I repeated it. 'My wife
+before heaven,' it begins. So, I was his wife. I must have broken his
+heart--broken my husband's.” Dahlia cast a fearful eye about her; her
+eyelids fluttered as from a savage sudden blow. Hardening her mouth to
+utter defiant spite: “My lover's,” she cried. “He is. If he loves me and
+I love him, he is my lover, my lover, my lover! Nothing shall stop
+me from saying it--lover! and there is none to claim me but he. Oh,
+loathsome! What a serpent it is I've got round me! And you tell me God
+put it. Do you? Answer that; for I want to know, and I don't know where
+I am. I am lost! I am lost! I want to get to my lover. Tell me, Rhoda,
+you would curse me if I did. And listen to me. Let him open his arms to
+me, I go; I follow him as far as my feet will bear me. I would go if it
+lightened from heaven. If I saw up there the warning, 'You shall not!' I
+would go. But, look on me!” she smote contempt upon her bosom. “He would
+not call to such a thing as me. Me, now? My skin is like a toad's to
+him. I've become like something in the dust. I could hiss like adders.
+I am quite impenitent. I pray by my bedside, my head on my Bible, but I
+only say, 'Yes, yes; that's done; that's deserved, if there's no mercy.'
+Oh, if there is no mercy, that's deserved! I say so now. But this is
+what I say, Rhoda (I see nothing but blackness when I pray), and I say,
+'Permit no worse!' I say, 'Permit no worse, or take the consequences.'
+He calls me his wife. I am his wife. And if--” Dahlia fell to speechless
+panting; her mouth was open; she made motion with her hands; horror, as
+of a blasphemy struggling to her lips, kept her dumb, but the prompting
+passion was indomitable.... “Read it,” said her struggling voice; and
+Rhoda bent over the letter, reading and losing thought of each sentence
+as it passed. To Dahlia, the vital words were visible like evanescent
+blue gravelights. She saw them rolling through her sister's mind; and
+just upon the conclusion, she gave out, as in a chaunt: “And I who have
+sinned against my innocent darling, will ask her to pray with me
+that our future may be one, so that may make good to her what she has
+suffered, and to the God whom we worship, the offence I have committed.”
+
+Rhoda looked up at the pale penetrating eyes.
+
+“Read. Have you read to the last?” said Dahlia. “Speak it. Let me hear
+you. He writes it.... Yes? you will not? 'Husband,' he says,” and then
+she took up the sentences of the letter backwards to the beginning,
+pausing upon each one with a short moan, and smiting her bosom. “I found
+it here, Rhoda. I found his letter here when I came.. I came a dead
+thing, and it made me spring up alive. Oh, what bliss to be dead! I've
+felt nothing...nothing, for months.” She flung herself on the bed,
+thrusting her handkerchief to her mouth to deaden the outcry. “I'm
+punished. I'm punished, because I did not trust to my darling. No, not
+for one year! Is it that since we parted? I am an impatient creature,
+and he does not reproach me. I tormented my own, my love, my dear, and
+he thought I--I was tired of our life together. No; he does not accuse
+me,” Dahlia replied to her sister's unspoken feeling, with the shrewd
+divination which is passion's breathing space. “He accuses himself. He
+says it--utters it--speaks it 'I sold my beloved.' There is no guile in
+him. Oh, be just to us, Rhoda! Dearest,” she came to Rhoda's side, “you
+did deceive me, did you not? You are a deceiver, my love?”
+
+Rhoda trembled, and raising her eyelids, answered, “Yes.”
+
+“You saw him in the street that morning?”
+
+Dahlia smiled a glittering tenderness too evidently deceitful in part,
+but quite subduing.
+
+“You saw him, my Rhoda, and he said he was true to me, and sorrowful;
+and you told him, dear one, that I had no heart for him, and wished to
+go to hell--did you not, good Rhoda? Forgive me; I mean 'good;' my true,
+good Rhoda. Yes, you hate sin; it is dreadful; but you should never
+speak falsely to sinners, for that does not teach them to repent. Mind
+you never lie again. Look at me. I am chained, and I have no repentance
+in me. See me. I am nearer it...the other--sin, I mean. If that man
+comes...will he?”
+
+“No--no!” Rhoda cried.
+
+“If that man comes--”
+
+“He will not come!”
+
+“He cast me off at the church door, and said he had been cheated. Money!
+Oh, Edward!”
+
+Dahlia drooped her head.
+
+“He will keep away. You are safe,” said Rhoda.
+
+“Because, if no help comes, I am lost--I am lost for ever!”
+
+“But help will come. I mean peace will come. We will read; we will work
+in the garden. You have lifted poor father up, my dear.”
+
+“Ah! that old man!” Dahlia sighed.
+
+“He is our father.”
+
+“Yes, poor old man!” and Dahlia whispered: “I have no pity for him. If I
+am dragged away, I'm afraid I shall curse him. He seems a stony old
+man. I don't understand fathers. He would make me go away. He talks the
+Scriptures when he is excited. I'm afraid he would shut my Bible for me.
+Those old men know nothing of the hearts of women. Now, darling, go to
+your room.”
+
+Rhoda begged earnestly for permission to stay with her, but Dahlia said:
+“My nights are fevers. I can't have arms about me.”
+
+They shook hands when they separated, not kissing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+Three days passed quietly at the Farm, and each morning Dahlia came down
+to breakfast, and sat with the family at their meals; pale, with the
+mournful rim about her eyelids, but a patient figure. No questions were
+asked. The house was guarded from visitors, and on the surface the home
+was peaceful. On the Wednesday Squire Blancove was buried, when Master
+Gammon, who seldom claimed a holiday or specified an enjoyment of which
+he would desire to partake, asked leave to be spared for a couple of
+hours, that he might attend the ceremonious interment of one to whom a
+sort of vagrant human sentiment of clanship had made him look up, as to
+the chief gentleman of the district, and therefore one having claims on
+his respect. A burial had great interest for the old man.
+
+“I'll be home for dinner; it'll gi'e me an appetite,” Master Gammon
+said solemnly, and he marched away in his serious Sunday hat and careful
+coat, blither than usual.
+
+After his departure, Mrs. Sumfit sat and discoursed on deaths and
+burials, the certain end of all: at least, she corrected herself, the
+deaths were. The burials were not so certain. Consequently, we might
+take the burials, as they were a favour, to be a blessing, except in
+the event of persons being buried alive. She tried to make her hearers
+understand that the idea of this calamity had always seemed intolerable
+to her, and told of numerous cases which, the coffin having been opened,
+showed by the convulsed aspect of the corpse, or by spots of blood upon
+the shroud, that the poor creature had wakened up forlorn, “and not a
+kick allowed to him, my dears.”
+
+“It happens to women, too, does it not, mother?” said Dahlia.
+
+“They're most subject to trances, my sweet. From always imitatin' they
+imitates their deaths at last; and, oh!” Mrs. Sumfit was taken with
+nervous chokings of alarm at the thought. “Alone--all dark! and hard
+wood upon your chest, your elbows, your nose, your toes, and you under
+heaps o' gravel! Not a breath for you, though you snap and catch for
+one--worse than a fish on land.”
+
+“It's over very soon, mother,” said Dahlia.
+
+“The coldness of you young women! Yes; but it's the time--you feeling,
+trying for air; it's the horrid 'Oh, dear me!' You set your mind on it!”
+
+“I do,” said Dahlia. “You see coffin-nails instead of stars. You'd give
+the world to turn upon one side. You can't think. You can only hate
+those who put you there. You see them taking tea, saying prayers,
+sleeping in bed, putting on bonnets, walking to church, kneading dough,
+eating--all at once, like the firing of a gun. They're in one world;
+you're in another.”
+
+“Why, my goodness, one'd say she'd gone through it herself,” ejaculated
+Mrs. Sumfit, terrified.
+
+Dahlia sent her eyes at Rhoda.
+
+“I must go and see that poor man covered.” Mrs. Sumfit succumbed to a
+fit of resolution much under the pretence that it had long been forming.
+
+“Well, and mother,” said Dahlia, checking her, “promise me. Put a
+feather on my mouth; put a glass to my face, before you let them carry
+me out. Will you? Rhoda promises. I have asked her.”
+
+“Oh! the ideas of this girl!” Mrs. Sumfit burst out. “And looking so, as
+she says it. My love, you didn't mean to die?”
+
+Dahlia soothed her, and sent her off.
+
+“I am buried alive!” she said. “I feel it all--the stifling! the
+hopeless cramp! Let us go and garden. Rhoda, have you got laudanum in
+the house?”
+
+Rhoda shook her head, too sick at heart to speak. They went into the
+garden, which was Dahlia's healthfullest place. It seemed to her that
+her dead mother talked to her there. That was not a figure of speech,
+when she said she felt buried alive. She was in the state of sensational
+delusion. There were times when she watched her own power of motion
+curiously: curiously stretched out her hands, and touched things, and
+moved them. The sight was convincing, but the shudder came again. In
+a frame less robust the brain would have given way. It was the very
+soundness of the brain which, when her blood was a simple tide of life
+in her veins, and no vital force, had condemned her to see the wisdom
+and the righteousness of the act of sacrifice committed by her, and had
+urged her even up to the altar. Then the sudden throwing off of the mask
+by that man to whom she had bound herself, and the reading of Edward's
+letter of penitence and love, thwarted reason, but without blinding or
+unsettling it. Passion grew dominant; yet against such deadly matters
+on all sides had passion to strive, that, under a darkened sky, visibly
+chained, bound down, and hopeless, she felt between-whiles veritably
+that she was a living body buried. Her senses had become semi-lunatic.
+
+She talked reasonably; and Rhoda, hearing her question and answer at
+meal-times like a sane woman, was in doubt whether her sister wilfully
+simulated a partial insanity when they were alone together. Now, in the
+garden, Dahlia said: “All those flowers, my dear, have roots in mother
+and me. She can't feel them, for her soul's in heaven. But mine is down
+there. The pain is the trying to get your soul loose. It's the edge of a
+knife that won't cut through. Do you know that?”
+
+Rhoda said, as acquiescingly as she could, “Yes.”
+
+“Do you?” Dahlia whispered. “It's what they call the 'agony.' Only, to
+go through it in the dark, when you are all alone! boarded round! you
+will never know that. And there's an angel brings me one of mother's
+roses, and I smell it. I see fields of snow; and it's warm there, and
+no labour for breath. I see great beds of flowers; I pass them like a
+breeze. I'm shot, and knock on the ground, and they bury me for dead
+again. Indeed, dearest, it's true.”
+
+She meant, true as regarded her sensations. Rhoda could barely give
+a smile for response; and Dahlia's intelligence being supernaturally
+active, she read her sister's doubt, and cried out,--
+
+“Then let me talk of him!”
+
+It was the fiery sequence to her foregone speech, signifying that if her
+passion had liberty to express itself, she could clear understandings.
+But even a moment's free wing to passion renewed the blinding terror
+within her. Rhoda steadied her along the walks, praying for the time to
+come when her friends, the rector and his wife, might help in the task
+of comforting this poor sister. Detestation of the idea of love made her
+sympathy almost deficient, and when there was no active work to do in
+aid, she was nearly valueless, knowing that she also stood guilty of a
+wrong.
+
+The day was very soft and still. The flowers gave light for light. They
+heard through the noise of the mill-water the funeral bell sound.
+It sank in Rhoda like the preaching of an end that was promise of a
+beginning, and girdled a distancing land of trouble. The breeze that
+blew seemed mercy. To live here in forgetfulness with Dahlia was the
+limit of her desires. Perhaps, if Robert worked among them, she would
+gratefully give him her hand. That is, if he said not a word of love.
+
+Master Gammon and Mrs. Sumfit were punctual in their return near the
+dinnerhour; and the business of releasing the dumplings and potatoes,
+and spreading out the cold meat and lettuces, restrained for some period
+the narrative of proceedings at the funeral. Chief among the incidents
+was, that Mrs. Sumfit had really seen, and only wanted, by corroboration
+of Master Gammon, to be sure she had positively seen, Anthony Hackbut
+on the skirts of the funeral procession. Master Gammon, however, was no
+supporter of conjecture. What he had thought he had thought; but that
+was neither here nor there. He would swear to nothing that he had not
+touched;--eyes deceived;--he was never a guesser. He left Mrs. Sumfit
+to pledge herself in perturbation of spirit to an oath that her eyes had
+seen Anthony Hackbut; and more, which was, that after the close of the
+funeral service, the young squire had caught sight of Anthony crouching
+in a corner of the churchyard, and had sent a man to him, and they had
+disappeared together. Mrs. Sumfit was heartily laughed at and rallied
+both by Robert and the farmer. “Tony at a funeral! and train expenses!”
+ the farmer interjected. “D'ye think, mother, Tony'd come to Wrexby
+churchyard 'fore he come Queen Anne's Farm? And where's he now, mayhap?”
+
+Mrs. Sumfit appealed in despair to Master Gammon, with entreaties, and a
+ready dumpling.
+
+“There, Mas' Gammon; and why you sh'd play at 'do believe' and at 'don't
+believe,' after that awesome scene, the solem'est of life's, when you
+did declare to me, sayin', it was a stride for boots out o' London this
+morning. Your words, Mas' Gammon! and 'boots'-=it's true, if by that
+alone! For, 'boots,' I says to myself--he thinks by 'boots,' there being
+a cord'er in his family on the mother's side; which you yourself told
+to me, as you did, Mas' Gammon, and now holds back, you did, like a bad
+horse.”
+
+“Hey! does Gammon jib?” said the farmer, with the ghost of old laughter
+twinkling in his eyes.
+
+“He told me this tale,” Mrs. Sumfit continued, daring her irresponsive
+enemy to contradict her, with a threatening gaze. “He told me this tale,
+he did; and my belief's, his game 's, he gets me into a corner--there to
+be laughed at! Mas' Gammon, if you're not a sly old man, you said, you
+did, he was drownded; your mother's brother's wife's brother; and he had
+a brother, and what he was to you--that brother--” Mrs. Sumfit smote her
+hands--“Oh, my goodness, my poor head! but you shan't slip away, Mas'
+Gammon; no, try you ever so much. Drownded he was, and eight days in the
+sea, which you told me over a warm mug of ale by the fire years back.
+And I do believe them dumplings makes ye obstinate; for worse you get,
+and that fond of 'em, I sh'll soon not have enough in our biggest pot.
+Yes, you said he was eight days in the sea, and as for face, you said,
+poor thing! he was like a rag of towel dipped in starch, was your own
+words, and all his likeness wiped out; and Joe, the other brother, a
+cord'er--bootmaker, you call 'em--looked down him, as he was stretched
+out on the shore of the sea, all along, and didn't know him till he come
+to the boots, and he says, 'It's Abner;' for there was his boots to know
+him by. Now, will you deny, Mas' Gammon, you said, Mr. Hackbut's boots,
+and a long stride it was for 'em from London? And I won't be laughed at
+through arts of any sly old man!”
+
+The circumstantial charge made no impression on Master Gammon, who was
+heard to mumble, as from the inmost recesses of tight-packed dumpling;
+but he left the vindication of his case to the farmer's laughter. The
+mention of her uncle had started a growing agitation in Rhoda, to whom
+the indication of his eccentric behaviour was a stronger confirmation of
+his visit to the neighbourhood. And wherefore had he journeyed down? Had
+he come to haunt her on account of the money he had poured into her lap?
+Rhoda knew in a moment that she was near a great trial of her strength
+and truth. She had more than once, I cannot tell you how distantly,
+conceived that the money had been money upon which the mildest word
+for “stolen” should be put to express the feeling she had got about
+it, after she had parted with the bulk of it to the man Sedgett. Not
+“stolen,” not “appropriated,” but money that had perhaps been entrusted,
+and of which Anthony had forgotten the rightful ownership. This idea
+of hers had burned with no intolerable fire; but, under a weight of all
+discountenancing appearances, feeble though it was, it had distressed
+her. The dealing with money, and the necessity for it, had given Rhoda a
+better comprehension of its nature and value. She had taught herself to
+think that her suspicion sprang from her uncle's wild demeanour, and the
+scene of the gold pieces scattered on the floor, as if a heart had burst
+at her feet.
+
+No sooner did she hear that Anthony had been, by supposition, seen, than
+the little light of secret dread flamed a panic through her veins. She
+left the table before Master Gammon had finished, and went out of the
+house to look about for her uncle. He was nowhere in the fields, nor in
+the graveyard. She walked over the neighbourhood desolately, until her
+quickened apprehension was extinguished, and she returned home relieved,
+thinking it folly to have imagined her uncle was other than a man of
+hoarded wealth, and that he was here. But, in the interval, she had
+experienced emotions which warned her of a struggle to come. Who would
+be friendly to her, and an arm of might? The thought of the storm she
+had sown upon all sides made her tremble foolishly. When she placed her
+hand in Robert's, she gave his fingers a confiding pressure, and all but
+dropped her head upon his bosom, so sick she was with weakness. It would
+have been a deceit toward him, and that restrained her; perhaps, yet
+more, she was restrained by the gloomy prospect of having to reply to
+any words of love, without an idea of what to say, and with a loathing
+of caresses. She saw herself condemned to stand alone, and at a season
+when she was not strengthened by pure self-support.
+
+Rhoda had not surrendered the stern belief that she had done well by
+forcing Dahlia's hand to the marriage, though it had resulted evilly. In
+reflecting on it, she had still a feeling of the harsh joy peculiar to
+those who have exercised command with a conscious righteousness upon
+wilful, sinful, and erring spirits, and have thwarted the wrongdoer.
+She could only admit that there was sadness in the issue; hitherto,
+at least, nothing worse than sad disappointment. The man who was her
+sister's husband could no longer complain that he had been the victim
+of an imposition. She had bought his promise that he would leave the
+country, and she had rescued the honour of the family by paying him. At
+what cost? She asked herself that now, and then her self-support became
+uneven. Could her uncle have parted with the great sum--have shed it
+upon her, merely beneficently, and because he loved her? Was it possible
+that he had the habit of carrying his own riches through the streets of
+London? She had to silence all questions imperiously, recalling exactly
+her ideas of him, and the value of money in the moment when money was an
+object of hunger--when she had seized it like a wolf, and its value was
+quite unknown, unguessed at.
+
+Rhoda threw up her window before she slept, that she might breathe the
+cool night air; and, as she leaned out, she heard steps moving away, and
+knew them to be Robert's, in whom that pressure of her hand had cruelly
+resuscitated his longing for her. She drew back, wondering at the
+idleness of men--slaves while they want a woman's love, savages when
+they have won it. She tried to pity him, but she had not an emotion to
+spare, save perhaps one of dull exultation, that she, alone of women,
+was free from that wretched mess called love; and upon it she slept.
+
+It was between the breakfast and dinner hours, at the farm, next day,
+when the young squire, accompanied by Anthony Hackbut, met farmer
+Fleming in the lane bordering one of the outermost fields of wheat.
+Anthony gave little more than a blunt nod to his relative, and slouched
+on, leaving the farmer in amazement, while the young squire stopped him
+to speak with him. Anthony made his way on to the house. Shortly after,
+he was seen passing through the gates of the garden, accompanied by
+Rhoda. At the dinner-hour, Robert was taken aside by the farmer.
+Neither Rhoda nor Anthony presented themselves. They did not appear till
+nightfall. When Anthony came into the room, he took no greetings and
+gave none. He sat down on the first chair by the door, shaking his
+head, with vacant eyes. Rhoda took off her bonnet, and sat as strangely
+silent. In vain Mrs. Sumfit asked her; “Shall it be tea, dear, and a
+little cold meat?” The two dumb figures were separately interrogated,
+but they had no answer.
+
+“Come! brother Tony?” the farmer tried to rally him.
+
+Dahlia was knitting some article of feminine gear. Robert stood by the
+musk-pots at the window, looking at Rhoda fixedly. Of this gaze she
+became conscious, and glanced from him to the clock.
+
+“It's late,” she said, rising.
+
+“But you're empty, my dear. And to think o' going to bed without a
+dinner, or your tea, and no supper! You'll never say prayers, if you
+do,” said Mrs. Sumfit.
+
+The remark engendered a notion in the farmer's head, that Anthony
+promised to be particularly prayerless.
+
+“You've been and spent a night at the young squire's, I hear, brother
+Tony. All right and well. No complaints on my part, I do assure ye. If
+you're mixed up with that family, I won't bring it in you're anyways
+mixed up with this family; not so as to clash, do you see. Only, man,
+now you are here, a word'd be civil, if you don't want a doctor.”
+
+“I was right,” murmured Mrs. Sumfit. “At the funeral, he was; and Lord
+be thanked! I thought my eyes was failin'. Mas' Gammon, you'd ha' lost
+no character by sidin' wi' me.”
+
+“Here's Dahlia, too,” said the farmer. “Brother Tony, don't you see her?
+She's beginning to be recognizable, if her hair'd grow a bit faster.
+She's...well, there she is.”
+
+A quavering, tiny voice, that came from Anthony, said: “How d' ye
+do--how d' ye do;” sounding like the first effort of a fife. But Anthony
+did not cast eye on Dahlia.
+
+“Will you eat, man?--will you smoke a pipe?--won't you talk a
+word?--will you go to bed?”
+
+These several questions, coming between pauses, elicited nothing from
+the staring oldman.
+
+“Is there a matter wrong at the Bank?” the farmer called out, and
+Anthony jumped in a heap.
+
+“Eh?” persisted the farmer.
+
+Rhoda interposed: “Uncle is tired; he is unwell. Tomorrow he will talk
+to you.”
+
+“No, but is there anything wrong up there, though?” the farmer asked
+with eager curiosity, and a fresh smile at the thought that those
+Banks and city folk were mortal, and could upset, notwithstanding their
+crashing wheels. “Brother Tony, you speak out; has anybody been and
+broke? Never mind a blow, so long, o' course, as they haven't swallowed
+your money. How is it? Why, I never saw such a sight as you. You come
+down from London; you play hide and seek about your relation's house;
+and here, when you do condescend to step in--eh? how is it? You ain't, I
+hope, ruined, Tony, are ye?”
+
+Rhoda stood over her uncle to conceal him.
+
+“He shall not speak till he has had some rest. And yes, mother, he shall
+have some warm tea upstairs in bed. Boil some water. Now, uncle, come
+with me.”
+
+“Anybody broke?” Anthony rolled the words over, as Rhoda raised his arm.
+“I'm asked such a lot, my dear, I ain't equal to it. You said here 'd
+be a quiet place. I don't know about money. Try my pockets. Yes, mum, if
+you was forty policemen, I'm empty; you'd find it. And no objection to
+nod to prayers; but never was taught one of my own. Where am I going, my
+dear?”
+
+“Upstairs with me, uncle.”
+
+Rhoda had succeeded in getting him on his feet.
+
+The farmer tapped at his forehead, as a signification to the others
+that Anthony had gone wrong in the head, which reminded him that he had
+prophesied as much. He stiffened out his legs, and gave a manful spring,
+crying, “Hulloa, brother Tony! why, man, eh? Look here. What, goin'
+to bed? What, you, Tony? I say--I say--dear me!” And during these
+exclamations intricate visions of tripping by means of gold wires danced
+before him.
+
+Rhoda hurried Anthony out.
+
+After the door had shut, the farmer said: “That comes of it; sooner or
+later, there it is! You give your heart to money--you insure in a ship,
+and as much as say, here's a ship, and, blow and lighten, I defy you.
+Whereas we day-by-day people, if it do blow and if it do lighten, and
+the waves are avilanches, we've nothing to lose. Poor old Tony--a smash,
+to a certainty. There's been a smash, and he's gone under the harrow.
+Any o' you here might ha' heard me say, things can't last for ever.
+Ha'n't you, now?”
+
+The persons present meekly acquiesced in his prophetic spirit to this
+extent. Mrs. Sumfit dolorously said, “Often, William dear,” and accepted
+the incontestable truth in deep humiliation of mind.
+
+“Save,” the farmer continued, “save and store, only don't put your heart
+in the box.”
+
+“It's true, William;” Mrs. Sumfit acted clerk to the sermon.
+
+Dahlia took her softly by the neck, and kissed her.
+
+“Is it love for the old woman?” Mrs. Sumfit murmured fondly; and Dahlia
+kissed her again.
+
+The farmer had by this time rounded to the thought of how he personally
+might be affected by Anthony's ill-luck, supposing; perchance, that
+Anthony was suffering from something more than a sentimental attachment
+to the Bank of his predilection: and such a reflection instantly
+diverted his tendency to moralize.
+
+“We shall hear to-morrow,” he observed in conclusion; which, as it
+caused a desire for the morrow to spring within his bosom, sent his eyes
+at Master Gammon, who was half an hour behind his time for bed, and had
+dropped asleep in his chair. This unusual display of public somnolence
+on Master Gammon's part, together with the veteran's reputation
+for slowness, made the farmer fret at him as being in some way an
+obstruction to the lively progress of the hours.
+
+“Hoy, Gammon!” he sang out, awakeningly to ordinary ears; but Master
+Gammon was not one who took the ordinary plunge into the gulf of sleep,
+and it was required to shake him and to bellow at him--to administer at
+once earthquake and thunder--before his lizard eyelids would lift over
+the great, old-world eyes; upon which, like a clayey monster refusing to
+be informed with heavenly fire, he rolled to the right of his chair and
+to the left, and pitched forward, and insisted upon being inanimate.
+Brought at last to a condition of stale consciousness, he looked at
+his master long, and uttered surprisingly “Farmer, there's queer things
+going on in this house,” and then relapsed to a combat with Mrs. Sumfit,
+regarding the candle; she saying that it was not to be entrusted to him,
+and he sullenly contending that it was.
+
+“Here, we'll all go to bed,” said the farmer. “What with one person
+queer, and another person queer, I shall be in for a headache, if I take
+to thinking. Gammon's a man sees in 's sleep what he misses awake. Did
+you ever know,” he addressed anybody, “such a thing as Tony Hackbut
+coming into a relation's house, and sitting there, and not a word for
+any of us? It's, I call it, dumbfoundering. And that's me: why didn't I
+go up and shake his hand, you ask. Well, why not? If he don't know he's
+welcome, without ceremony, he's no good. Why, I've got matters t' occupy
+my mind, too, haven't I? Every man has, and some more'n others, let
+alone crosses. There's something wrong with my brother-in-law, Tony,
+that's settled. Odd that we country people, who bide, and take the
+Lord's gifts--” The farmer did not follow out this reflection, but
+raising his arms, shepherd-wise, he puffed as if blowing the two women
+before him to their beds, and then gave a shy look at Robert, and nodded
+good-night to him. Robert nodded in reply. He knew the cause of the
+farmer's uncommon blitheness. Algernon Blancove, the young squire, had
+proposed for Rhoda's hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+Anthony had robbed the Bank. The young squire was aware of the fact,
+and had offered to interpose for him, and to make good the money to the
+Bank, upon one condition. So much, Rhoda had gathered from her uncle's
+babbling interjections throughout the day. The farmer knew only of the
+young squire's proposal, which had been made direct to him; and he had
+left it to Robert to state the case to Rhoda, and plead for himself. She
+believed fully, when she came downstairs into the room where Robert was
+awaiting her, that she had but to speak and a mine would be sprung; and
+shrinking from it, hoping for it, she entered, and tried to fasten her
+eyes upon Robert distinctly, telling him the tale. Robert listened with
+a calculating seriousness of manner that quieted her physical dread
+of his passion. She finished; and he said “It will, perhaps, save your
+uncle: I'm sure it will please your father.”
+
+She sat down, feeling that a warmth had gone, and that she was very
+bare.
+
+“Must I consent, then?”
+
+“If you can, I suppose.”
+
+Both being spirits formed for action, a perplexity found them weak as
+babes. He, moreover, was stung to see her debating at all upon such a
+question; and he was in despair before complicated events which gave
+nothing for his hands and heart to do. Stiff endurance seemed to him to
+be his lesson; and he made a show of having learnt it.
+
+“Were you going out, Robert?”
+
+“I usually make the rounds of the house, to be sure all's safe.”
+
+His walking about the garden at night was not, then, for the purpose of
+looking at her window. Rhoda coloured in all her dark crimson with shame
+for thinking that it had been so.
+
+“I must decide to-morrow morning.”
+
+“They say, the pillow's the best counsellor.”
+
+A reply that presumed she would sleep appeared to her as bitterly
+unfriendly.
+
+“Did father wish it?”
+
+“Not by what he spoke.”
+
+“You suppose he does wish it?”
+
+“Where's the father who wouldn't? Of course, he wishes it. He's kind
+enough, but you may be certain he wishes it.”
+
+“Oh! Dahlia, Dahlia!” Rhoda moaned, under a rush of new sensations,
+unfilial, akin to those which her sister had distressed her by speaking
+shamelessly out.
+
+“Ah! poor soul!” added Robert.
+
+“My darling must be brave: she must have great courage. Dahlia cannot be
+a coward. I begin to see.”
+
+Rhoda threw up her face, and sat awhile as one who was reading old
+matters by a fresh light.
+
+“I can't think,” she said, with a start. “Have I been dreadfully cruel?
+Was I unsisterly? I have such a horror of some things--disgrace. And men
+are so hard on women; and father--I felt for him. And I hated that base
+man. It's his cousin and his name! I could almost fancy this trial is
+brought round to me for punishment.”
+
+An ironic devil prompted Robert to say, “You can't let harm come to your
+uncle.”
+
+The thing implied was the farthest in his idea of any woman's possible
+duty.
+
+“Are you of that opinion?” Rhoda questioned with her eyes, but uttered
+nothing.
+
+Now, he had spoken almost in the ironical tone. She should have noted
+that. And how could a true-hearted girl suppose him capable of giving
+such counsel to her whom he loved? It smote him with horror and anger;
+but he was much too manly to betray these actual sentiments, and
+continued to dissemble. You see, he had not forgiven her for her
+indifference to him.
+
+“You are no longer your own mistress,” he said, meaning exactly the
+reverse.
+
+This--that she was bound in generosity to sacrifice herself--was what
+Rhoda feared. There was no forceful passion in her bosom to burst
+through the crowd of weak reasonings and vanities, to bid her be a
+woman, not a puppet; and the passion in him, for which she craved, that
+she might be taken up by it and whirled into forgetfulness, with a seal
+of betrothal upon her lips, was absent so that she thought herself
+loved no more by Robert. She was weary of thinking and acting on her
+own responsibility, and would gladly have abandoned her will; yet her
+judgement, if she was still to exercise it, told her that the step she
+was bidden to take was one, the direct consequence and the fruit of her
+other resolute steps. Pride whispered, “You could compel your sister
+to do that which she abhorred;” and Pity pleaded for her poor old
+uncle Anthony. She looked back in imagination at that scene with him
+in London, amazed at her frenzy of power, and again, from that
+contemplation, amazed at her present nervelessness.
+
+“I am not fit to be my own mistress,” she said.
+
+“Then, the sooner you decide the better,” observed Robert, and the room
+became hot and narrow to him.
+
+“Very little time is given me,” she murmured. The sound was like a
+whimper; exasperating to one who had witnessed her remorseless energy.
+
+“I dare say you won't find the hardship so great,” said he.
+
+“Because,” she looked up quickly, “I went out one day to meet him? Do
+you mean that, Robert? I went to hear news of my sister. I had received
+no letters from her. And he wrote to say that he could tell me about
+her. My uncle took me once to the Bank. I saw him there first. He spoke
+of Wrexby, and of my sister. It is pleasant to inexperienced girls to
+hear themselves praised. Since the day when you told me to turn back I
+have always respected you.”
+
+Her eyelids lowered softly.
+
+Could she have humbled herself more? But she had, at the same time,
+touched his old wound: and his rival then was the wooer now, rich, and a
+gentleman. And this room, Robert thought as he looked about it, was the
+room in which she had refused him, when he first asked her to be his.
+
+“I think,” he said, “I've never begged your pardon for the last occasion
+of our being alone here together. I've had my arm round you. Don't be
+frightened. That's my marriage, and there was my wife. And there's an
+end of my likings and my misconduct. Forgive me for calling it to mind.”
+
+“No, no, Robert,” Rhoda lifted her hands, and, startled by the impulse,
+dropped them, saying: “What forgiveness? Was I ever angry with you?”
+
+A look of tenderness accompanied the words, and grew into a dusky
+crimson rose under his eyes.
+
+“When you went into the wood, I saw you going: I knew it was for some
+good object,” he said, and flushed equally.
+
+But, by the recurrence to that scene, he had checked her sensitive
+developing emotion. She hung a moment in languor, and that oriental
+warmth of colour ebbed away from her cheeks.
+
+“You are very kind,” said she.
+
+Then he perceived in dimmest fashion that possibly a chance had come
+to ripeness, withered, and fallen, within the late scoffing seconds
+of time. Enraged at his blindness, and careful, lest he had wrongly
+guessed, not to expose his regret (the man was a lover), he remarked,
+both truthfully and hypocritically: “I've always thought you were born
+to be a lady.” (You had that ambition, young madam.)
+
+She answered: “That's what I don't understand.” (Your saying it, O my
+friend!)
+
+“You will soon take to your new duties.” (You have small objection to
+them even now.)
+
+“Yes, or my life won't be worth much.” (Know, that you are driving me to
+it.)
+
+“And I wish you happiness, Rhoda.” (You are madly imperilling the
+prospect thereof.)
+
+To each of them the second meaning stood shadowy behind the utterances.
+And further,--
+
+“Thank you, Robert.” (I shall have to thank you for the issue.)
+
+“Now it's time to part.” (Do you not see that there's a danger for me in
+remaining?)
+
+“Good night.” (Behold, I am submissive.)
+
+“Good night, Rhoda.” (You were the first to give the signal of parting.)
+
+“Good night.” (I am simply submissive.)
+
+“Why not my name? Are you hurt with me?”
+
+Rhoda choked. The indirectness of speech had been a shelter to her,
+permitting her to hint at more than she dared clothe in words.
+
+Again the delicious dusky rose glowed beneath his eyes.
+
+But he had put his hand out to her, and she had not taken it.
+
+“What have I done to offend you? I really don't know, Rhoda.”
+
+“Nothing.” The flower had closed.
+
+He determined to believe that she was gladdened at heart by the prospect
+of a fine marriage, and now began to discourse of Anthony's delinquency,
+saying,--
+
+“It was not money taken for money's sake: any one can see that. It was
+half clear to me, when you told me about it, that the money was not his
+to give, but I've got the habit of trusting you to be always correct.”
+
+“And I never am,” said Rhoda, vexed at him and at herself.
+
+“Women can't judge so well about money matters. Has your uncle no
+account of his own at the Bank? He was thought to be a bit of a miser.”
+
+“What he is, or what he was, I can't guess. He has not been near the
+Bank since that day; nor to his home. He has wandered down on his way
+here, sleeping in cottages. His heart seems broken. I have still a great
+deal of the money. I kept it, thinking it might be a protection for
+Dahlia. Oh! my thoughts and what I have done! Of course, I imagined him
+to be rich. A thousand pounds seemed a great deal to me, and very little
+for one who was rich. If I had reflected at all, I must have seen that
+Uncle Anthony would never have carried so much through the streets.
+I was like a fiend for money. I must have been acting wrongly. Such a
+craving as that is a sign of evil.”
+
+“What evil there is, you're going to mend, Rhoda.”
+
+“I sell myself, then.”
+
+“Hardly so bad as that. The money will come from you instead of from
+your uncle.”
+
+Rhoda bent forward in her chair, with her elbows on her knees, like a
+man brooding. Perhaps, it was right that the money should come from her.
+And how could she have hoped to get the money by any other means? Here
+at least was a positive escape from perplexity. It came at the right
+moment; was it a help divine? What cowardice had been prompting her to
+evade it? After all, could it be a dreadful step that she was required
+to take?
+
+Her eyes met Robert's, and he said startlingly: “Just like a woman!”
+
+“Why?” but she had caught the significance, and blushed with spite.
+
+“He was the first to praise you.”
+
+“You are brutal to me, Robert.”
+
+“My name at last! You accused me of that sort of thing before, in this
+room.”
+
+Rhoda stood up. “I will wish you good night.”
+
+“And now you take my hand.”
+
+“Good night,” they uttered simultaneously; but Robert did not give up
+the hand he had got in his own. His eyes grew sharp, and he squeezed the
+fingers.
+
+“I'm bound,” she cried.
+
+“Once!” Robert drew her nearer to him.
+
+“Let me go.”
+
+“Once!” he reiterated. “Rhoda, as I've never kissed you--once!”
+
+“No: don't anger me.”
+
+“No one has ever kissed you?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“Then, I--” His force was compelling the straightened figure.
+
+Had he said, “Be mine!” she might have softened to his embrace; but
+there was no fire of divining love in her bosom to perceive her lover's
+meaning. She read all his words as a placard on a board, and revolted
+from the outrage of submitting her lips to one who was not to be her
+husband. His jealousy demanded that gratification foremost. The “Be
+mine!” was ready enough to follow.
+
+“Let me go, Robert.”
+
+She was released. The cause for it was the opening of the door. Anthony
+stood there.
+
+A more astounding resemblance to the phantasm of a dream was never
+presented. He was clad in a manner to show forth the condition of his
+wits, in partial night and day attire: one of the farmer's nightcaps
+was on his head, surmounted by his hat. A confused recollection of the
+necessity for trousers, had made him draw on those garments sufficiently
+to permit of the movement of his short legs, at which point their
+subserviency to the uses ended. Wrinkled with incongruous clothing from
+head to foot, and dazed by the light, he peered on them, like a mouse
+magnified and petrified.
+
+“Dearest uncle!” Rhoda went to him.
+
+Anthony nodded, pointing to the door leading out of the house.
+
+“I just want to go off--go off. Never you mind me. I'm only going off.”
+
+“You must go to your bed, uncle.”
+
+“Oh, Lord! no. I'm going off, my dear. I've had sleep enough for forty.
+I--” he turned his mouth to Rhoda's ear, “I don't want t' see th' old
+farmer.” And, as if he had given a conclusive reason for his departure,
+he bored towards the door, repeating it, and bawling additionally, “in
+the morning.”
+
+“You have seen him, uncle. You have seen him. It's over,” said Rhoda.
+
+Anthony whispered: “I don't want t' see th' old farmer.”
+
+“But, you have seen him, uncle.”
+
+“In the morning, my dear. Not in the morning. He'll be looking and
+asking, 'Where away, brother Tony?' 'Where's your banker's book, brother
+Tony?' 'How's money-market, brother Tony?' I can't see th' old farmer.”
+
+It was impossible to avoid smiling: his imitation of the farmer's
+country style was exact.
+
+She took his hands, and used every persuasion she could think of to
+induce him to return to his bed; nor was he insensible to argument, or
+superior to explanation.
+
+“Th' old farmer thinks I've got millions, my dear. You can't satisfy
+him. He... I don't want t' see him in the morning. He thinks I've got
+millions. His mouth'll go down. I don't want... You don't want him to
+look... And I can't count now; I can't count a bit. And every post I see
+'s a policeman. I ain't hiding. Let 'em take the old man. And he was a
+faithful servant, till one day he got up on a regular whirly-go-round,
+and ever since...such a little boy! I'm frightened o' you, Rhoda.”
+
+“I will do everything for you,” said Rhoda, crying wretchedly.
+
+“Because, the young squire says,” Anthony made his voice mysterious.
+
+“Yes, yes,” Rhoda stopped him; “and I consent:” she gave a hurried
+half-glance behind her. “Come, uncle. Oh! pity! don't let me think your
+reason's gone. I can get you the money, but if you go foolish, I cannot
+help you.”
+
+Her energy had returned to her with the sense of sacrifice. Anthony
+eyed her tears. “We've sat on a bank and cried together, haven't we?”
+ he said. “And counted ants, we have. Shall we sit in the sun together
+to-morrow? Say, we shall. Shall we? A good long day in the sun and
+nobody looking at me 's my pleasure.”
+
+Rhoda gave him the assurance, and he turned and went upstairs with her,
+docile at the prospect of hours to be passed in the sunlight.
+
+Yet, when morning came, he had disappeared. Robert also was absent from
+the breakfast-table. The farmer made no remarks, save that he reckoned
+Master Gammon was right--in allusion to the veteran's somnolent
+observation overnight; and strange things were acted before his eyes.
+
+There came by the morning delivery of letters one addressed to “Miss
+Fleming.” He beheld his daughters rise, put their hands out, and claim
+it, in a breath; and they gazed upon one another like the two women
+demanding the babe from the justice of the Wise King. The letter was
+placed in Rhoda's hand; Dahlia laid hers on it. Their mouths were shut;
+any one not looking at them would have been unaware that a supreme
+conflict was going on in the room. It was a strenuous wrestle of their
+eyeballs, like the “give way” of athletes pausing. But the delirious
+beat down the constitutional strength. A hard bright smile ridged the
+hollow of Dahlia's cheeks. Rhoda's dark eyes shut; she let go her hold,
+and Dahlia thrust the letter in against her bosom, snatched it out
+again, and dipped her face to roses in a jug, and kissing Mrs. Sumfit,
+ran from the room for a single minute; after which she came back smiling
+with gravely joyful eyes and showing a sedate readiness to eat and
+conclude the morning meal.
+
+What did this mean? The farmer could have made allowance for Rhoda's
+behaving so, seeing that she notoriously possessed intellect; and he had
+the habit of charging all freaks and vagaries of manner upon intellect.
+
+But Dahlia was a soft creature, without this apology for extravagance,
+and what right had she to letters addressed to “Miss Fleming?” The
+farmer prepared to ask a question, and was further instigated to it
+by seeing Mrs. Sumfit's eyes roll sympathetic under a burden of
+overpowering curiosity and bewilderment. On the point of speaking, he
+remembered that he had pledged his word to ask no questions; he feared
+to--that was the secret; he had put his trust in Rhoda's assurance, and
+shrank from a spoken suspicion. So, checking himself, he broke out upon
+Mrs. Sumfit: “Now, then, mother!” which caused her to fluster guiltily,
+she having likewise given her oath to be totally unquestioning, even
+as was Master Gammon, whom she watched with a deep envy. Mrs. Sumfit
+excused the anxious expression of her face by saying that she was
+thinking of her dairy, whither, followed by the veteran, she retired.
+
+Rhoda stood eyeing Dahlia, nerved to battle against the contents of
+that letter, though in the first conflict she had been beaten. “Oh, this
+curse of love!” she thought in her heart; and as Dahlia left the room,
+flushed, stupefied, and conscienceless, Rhoda the more readily told
+her father the determination which was the result of her interview with
+Robert.
+
+No sooner had she done so, than a strange fluttering desire to look on
+Robert awoke within her bosom. She left the house, believing that she
+went abroad to seek her uncle, and walked up a small grass-knoll, a
+little beyond the farm-yard, from which she could see green corn-tracts
+and the pastures by the river, the river flowing oily under summer
+light, and the slow-footed cows, with their heads bent to the herbage;
+far-away sheep, and white hawthorn bushes, and deep hedge-ways bursting
+out of the trimness of the earlier season; and a nightingale sang among
+the hazels near by.
+
+This scene of unthrobbing peacefulness was beheld by Rhoda with her
+first conscious delight in it. She gazed round on the farm, under a
+quick new impulse of affection for her old home. And whose hand was
+it that could alone sustain the working of the farm, and had done so,
+without reward? Her eyes travelled up to Wrexby Hall, perfectly barren
+of any feeling that she was to enter the place, aware only that it was
+full of pain for her. She accused herself, but could not accept the
+charge of her having ever hoped for transforming events that should
+twist and throw the dear old farm-life long back into the fields of
+memory. Nor could she understand the reason of her continued coolness
+to Robert. Enough of accurate reflection was given her to perceive that
+discontent with her station was the original cause of her discontent
+now. What she had sown she was reaping:--and wretchedly colourless are
+these harvests of our dream! The sun has not shone on them. They may
+have a tragic blood-hue, as with Dahlia's; but they will never have
+any warm, and fresh, and nourishing sweetness--the juice which is in a
+single blade of grass.
+
+A longing came upon Rhoda to go and handle butter. She wished to smell
+it as Mrs. Sumfit drubbed and patted and flattened and rounded it in the
+dairy; and she ran down the slope, meeting her father at the gate. He
+was dressed in his brushed suit, going she knew whither, and when he
+asked if she had seen her uncle, she gave for answer a plain negative,
+and longed more keenly to be at work with her hands, and to smell the
+homely creamy air under the dairy-shed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+She watched her father as he went across the field and into the lane.
+Her breathing was suppressed till he appeared in view at different
+points, more and more distant, and then she sighed heavily, stopped her
+breathing, and hoped her unshaped hope again. The last time he was in
+sight, she found herself calling to him with a voice like that of a
+burdened sleeper: her thought being, “How can you act so cruelly to
+Robert!” He passed up Wrexby Heath, and over the black burnt patch where
+the fire had caught the furzes on a dry Maynight, and sank on the side
+of the Hall.
+
+When we have looked upon a picture of still green life with a troubled
+soul, and the blow falls on us, we accuse Nature of our own treachery
+to her. Rhoda hurried from the dairy-door to shut herself up in her room
+and darken the light surrounding her. She had turned the lock, and
+was about systematically to pull down the blind, when the marvel of
+beholding Dahlia stepping out of the garden made her for a moment less
+the creature of her sickened senses. Dahlia was dressed for a walk, and
+she went very fast. The same paralysis of motion afflicted Rhoda as
+when she was gazing after her father; but her hand stretched out
+instinctively for her bonnet when Dahlia had crossed the green and the
+mill-bridge, and was no more visible. Rhoda drew her bonnet on, and
+caught her black silk mantle in her hand, and without strength to throw
+it across her shoulders, dropped before her bed, and uttered a strange
+prayer. “Let her die rather than go back to disgrace, my God! my God!”
+
+She tried to rise, and failed in the effort, and superstitiously renewed
+her prayer. “Send death to her rather!”--and Rhoda's vision under
+her shut eyes conjured up clouds and lightnings, and spheres in
+conflagration.
+
+There is nothing so indicative of fevered or of bad blood as the
+tendency to counsel the Almighty how he shall deal with his creatures.
+The strain of a long uncertainty, and the late feverish weeks had
+distempered the fine blood of the girl, and her acts and words were
+becoming remoter exponents of her character.
+
+She bent her head in a blind doze that gave her strength to rise. As
+swiftly as she could she went in the track of her sister.
+
+That morning, Robert had likewise received a letter. It was from Major
+Waring, and contained a bank-note, and a summons to London, as also
+an enclosure from Mrs. Boulby of Warbeach; the nature of which was
+an advertisement cut out of the county paper, notifying to one Robert
+Eccles that his aunt Anne had died, and that there was a legacy for him,
+to be paid over upon application. Robert crossed the fields, laughing
+madly at the ironical fate which favoured him a little and a little, and
+never enough, save just to keep him swimming.
+
+The letter from Major Waring said:--
+
+“I must see you immediately. Be quick and come. I begin to be of your
+opinion--there are some things which we must take into our own hands and
+deal summarily with.”
+
+“Ay!--ay!” Robert gave tongue in the clear morning air, scenting
+excitement and eager for it as a hound.
+
+More was written, which he read subsequently
+
+   “I wrong,” Percy's letter continued, “the best of women. She was
+   driven to my door. There is, it seems, some hope that Dahlia will
+   find herself free. At any rate, keep guard over her, and don't
+   leave her. Mrs. Lovell has herself been moving to make discoveries
+   down at Warbeach. Mr. Blancove has nearly quitted this sphere. She
+   nursed him--I was jealous!--the word's out. Truth, courage, and
+   suffering touch Margaret's heart.
+
+                  “Yours,
+
+                       “Percy.”
+
+Jumping over a bank, Robert came upon Anthony, who was unsteadily gazing
+at a donkey that cropped the grass by a gate.
+
+“Here you are,” said Robert, and took his arm.
+
+Anthony struggled, though he knew the grasp was friendly; but he was
+led along: nor did Robert stop until they reached Greatham, five miles
+beyond Wrexby, where he entered the principal inn and called for wine.
+
+“You want spirit: you want life,” said Robert.
+
+Anthony knew that he wanted no wine, whatever his needs might be. Yet
+the tender ecstacy of being paid for was irresistible, and he drank,
+saying, “Just one glass, then.”
+
+Robert pledged him. They were in a private room, of which, having
+ordered up three bottles of sherry, Robert locked the door. The devil
+was in him. He compelled Anthony to drink an equal portion with himself,
+alternately frightening and cajoling the old man.
+
+“Drink, I tell you. You've robbed me, and you shall drink!”
+
+“I haven't, I haven't,” Anthony whined.
+
+“Drink, and be silent. You've robbed me, and you shall drink! and by
+heaven! if you resist, I'll hand you over to bluer imps than you've ever
+dreamed of, old gentleman! You've robbed me, Mr. Hackbut. Drink! I tell
+you.”
+
+Anthony wept into his glass.
+
+“That's a trick I could never do,” said Robert, eyeing the drip of the
+trembling old tear pitilessly. “Your health, Mr. Hackbut. You've robbed
+me of my sweetheart. Never mind. Life's but the pop of a gun. Some of us
+flash in the pan, and they're the only ones that do no mischief. You're
+not one of them, sir; so you must drink, and let me see you cheerful.”
+
+By degrees, the wine stirred Anthony's blood, and he chirped feebly, as
+one who half remembered that he ought to be miserable. Robert listened
+to his maundering account of his adventure with the Bank money, sternly
+replenishing his glass. His attention was taken by the sight of Dahlia
+stepping forth from a chemist's shop in the street nearly opposite
+to the inn. “This is my medicine,” said Robert; “and yours too,” he
+addressed Anthony.
+
+The sun had passed its meridian when they went into the streets again.
+Robert's head was high as a cock's, and Anthony leaned on his arm;
+performing short half-circles headlong to the front, until the mighty
+arm checked and uplifted him. They were soon in the fields leading to
+Wrexby. Robert saw two female figures far ahead. A man was hastening
+to join them. The women started and turned suddenly: one threw up her
+hands, and darkened her face. It was in the pathway of a broad meadow,
+deep with grass, wherein the red sorrel topped the yellow buttercup,
+like rust upon the season's gold. Robert hastened on. He scarce at the
+moment knew the man whose shoulder he seized, but he had recognised
+Dahlia and Rhoda, and he found himself face to face with Sedgett.
+
+“It's you!”
+
+“Perhaps you'll keep your hands off; before you make sure, another
+time.”
+
+Robert said: “I really beg your pardon. Step aside with me.”
+
+“Not while I've a ha'p'orth o' brains in my noddle,” replied Sedgett,
+drawling an imitation of his enemy's courteous tone. “I've come for my
+wife. I'm just down by train, and a bit out of my way, I reckon.
+I'm come, and I'm in a hurry. She shall get home, and have on her
+things--boxes packed, and we go.”
+
+Robert waved Dahlia and Rhoda to speed homeward. Anthony had fallen
+against the roots of a banking elm, and surveyed the scene with
+philosophic abstractedness. Rhoda moved, taking Dahlia's hand.
+
+“Stop,” cried Sedgett. “Do you people here think me a fool? Eccles, you
+know me better 'n that. That young woman's my wife. I've come for her, I
+tell ye.”
+
+“You've no claim on her,” Rhoda burst forth weakly, and quivered, and
+turned her eyes supplicatingly on Robert. Dahlia was a statue of icy
+fright.
+
+“You've thrown her off, man, and sold what rights you had,” said Robert,
+spying for the point of his person where he might grasp the wretch and
+keep him off.
+
+“That don't hold in law,” Sedgett nodded. “A man may get in a passion,
+when he finds he's been cheated, mayn't he?”
+
+“I have your word of honour,” said Rhoda; muttering, “Oh! devil come to
+wrong us!”
+
+“Then, you shouldn't ha' run ferreting down in my part o' the country.
+You, or Eccles--I don't care who 'tis--you've been at my servants to get
+at my secrets. Some of you have. You've declared war. You've been trying
+to undermine me. That's a breach, I call it. Anyhow, I've come for my
+wife. I'll have her.”
+
+“None of us, none of us; no one has been to your house,” said Rhoda,
+vehemently. “You live in Hampshire, sir, I think; I don't know any more.
+I don't know where. I have not asked my sister. Oh! spare us, and go.”
+
+“No one has been down into your part of the country,” said Robert, with
+perfect mildness.
+
+To which Sedgett answered bluffly, “There ye lie, Bob Eccles;” and he
+was immediately felled by a tremendous blow. Robert strode over him,
+and taking Dahlia by the elbow, walked three paces on, as to set her in
+motion. “Off!” he cried to Rhoda, whose eyelids cowered under the blaze
+of his face.
+
+It was best that her sister should be away, and she turned and walked
+swiftly, hurrying Dahlia, and touching her. “Oh! don't touch my arm,”
+ Dahlia said, quailing in the fall of her breath. They footed together,
+speechless; taking the woman's quickest gliding step. At the last stile
+of the fields, Rhoda saw that they were not followed. She stopped,
+panting: her heart and eyes were so full of that flaming creature who
+was her lover. Dahlia took from her bosom the letter she had won in the
+morning, and held it open in both hands to read it. The pause was short.
+Dahlia struck the letter into her bosom again, and her starved features
+had some of the bloom of life. She kept her right hand in her pocket,
+and Rhoda presently asked,--
+
+“What have you there?”
+
+“You are my enemy, dear, in some things,” Dahlia replied, a muscular
+shiver passing over her.
+
+“I think,” said Rhoda, “I could get a little money to send you away.
+Will you go? I am full of grief for what I have done. God forgive me.”
+
+“Pray, don't speak so; don't let us talk,” said Dahlia.
+
+Scorched as she felt both in soul and body, a touch or a word was a
+wound to her. Yet she was the first to resume: “I think I shall be
+saved. I can't quite feel I am lost. I have not been so wicked as that.”
+
+Rhoda gave a loving answer, and again Dahlia shrank from the miserable
+comfort of words.
+
+As they came upon the green fronting the iron gateway, Rhoda perceived
+that the board proclaiming the sale of Queen Anne's Farm had been
+removed, and now she understood her father's readiness to go up to
+Wrexby Hall. “He would sell me to save the farm.” She reproached herself
+for the thought, but she could not be just; she had the image of her
+father plodding relentlessly over the burnt heath to the Hall, as
+conceived by her agonized sensations in the morning, too vividly to be
+just, though still she knew that her own indecision was to blame.
+
+Master Gammon met them in the garden.
+
+Pointing aloft, over the gateway, “That's down,” he remarked, and
+the three green front teeth of his quiet grin were stamped on the
+impressionable vision of the girls in such a way that they looked at one
+another with a bare bitter smile. Once it would have been mirth.
+
+“Tell father,” Dahlia said, when they were at the back doorway, and her
+eyes sparkled piteously, and she bit on her underlip. Rhoda tried to
+detain her; but Dahlia repeated, “Tell father,” and in strength and in
+will had become more than a match for her sister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+Rhoda spoke to her father from the doorway, with her hand upon the lock
+of the door.
+
+At first he paid little attention to her, and, when he did so, began
+by saying that he hoped she knew that she was bound to have the young
+squire, and did not intend to be prankish and wilful; because the young
+squire was eager to settle affairs, that he might be settled himself.
+“I don't deny it's honour to us, and it's a comfort,” said the farmer.
+“This is the first morning I've thought easily in my chair for years.
+I'm sorry about Robert, who's a twice unlucky 'un; but you aimed at
+something higher, I suppose.”
+
+Rhoda was prompted to say a word in self-defence, but refrained, and
+again she told Dahlia's story, wondering that her father showed no
+excitement of any kind. On the contrary, there was the dimple of one of
+his voiceless chuckles moving about the hollow of one cheek, indicating
+some slow contemplative action that was not unpleasant within. He said:
+“Ah! well, it's very sad;--that is, if 'tis so,” and no more, for a
+time.
+
+She discovered that he was referring to her uncle Anthony, concerning
+whose fortunate position in the world, he was beginning to entertain
+some doubts. “Or else,” said the farmer, with a tap on his forehead,
+“he's going here. It 'd be odd after all, if commercially, as he 'd call
+it, his despised brother-in-law--and I say it in all kindness--should
+turn out worth, not exactly millions, but worth a trifle.”
+
+The farmer nodded with an air of deprecating satisfaction.
+
+Rhoda did not gain his ear until, as by an instinct, she perceived what
+interest the story of her uncle and the money-bags would have for him.
+She related it, and he was roused. Then, for the third time, she told
+him of Dahlia.
+
+Rhoda saw her father's chest grow large, while his eyes quickened with
+light. He looked on her with quite a strange face. Wrath, and a
+revived apprehension, and a fixed will were expressed in it, and as he
+catechized her for each particular of the truth which had been concealed
+from him, she felt a respectfulness that was new in her personal
+sensations toward her father, but it was at the expense of her love.
+
+When he had heard and comprehended all, he said, “Send the girl down to
+me.”
+
+But Rhoda pleaded, “She is too worn, she is tottering. She cannot endure
+a word on this; not even of kindness and help.”
+
+“Then, you,” said the farmer, “you tell her she's got a duty's her first
+duty now. Obedience to her husband! Do you hear? Then, let her hear it.
+Obedience to her husband! And welcome's the man when he calls on me.
+He's welcome. My doors are open to him. I thank him. I honour him. I
+bless his name. It's to him I owe--You go up to her and say, her father
+owes it to the young man who's married her that he can lift up his head.
+Go aloft. Ay! for years I've been suspecting something of this. I tell
+ye, girl, I don't understand about church doors and castin' of her
+off--he's come for her, hasn't he? Then, he shall have her. I tell ye,
+I don't understand about money: he's married her. Well, then, she's his
+wife; and how can he bargain not to see her?”
+
+“The base wretch!” cried Rhoda.
+
+“Hasn't he married her?” the farmer retorted. “Hasn't he given the poor
+creature a name? I'm not for abusing her, but him I do thank, and I say,
+when he calls, here's my hand for him. Here, it's out and waiting for
+him.”
+
+“Father, if you let me see it--” Rhoda checked the intemperate outburst.
+“Father, this is a bad--a bad man. He is a very wicked man. We were all
+deceived by him. Robert knows him. He has known him for years, and knows
+that he is very wicked. This man married our Dahlia to get--” Rhoda
+gasped, and could not speak it. “He flung her off with horrible words at
+the church door. After this, how can he claim her? I paid him all he had
+to expect with uncle's money, for his promise by his sacred oath never,
+never to disturb or come near my sister. After that he can't, can't
+claim her. If he does--”
+
+“He's her husband,” interrupted the farmer; “when he comes here, he's
+welcome. I say he's welcome. My hand's out to him:--If it's alone
+that he's saved the name of Fleming from disgrace! I thank him, and my
+daughter belongs to him. Where is he now? You talk of a scuffle with
+Robert. I do hope Robert will not forget his proper behaviour. Go you up
+to your sister, and say from me--All's forgotten and forgiven; say, It's
+all underfoot; but she must learn to be a good girl from this day. And,
+if she's at the gate to welcome her husband, so much the better 'll her
+father be pleased;--say that. I want to see the man. It'll gratify me
+to feel her husband's flesh and blood. His being out of sight so long's
+been a sore at my heart; and when I see him I'll welcome him, and so
+must all in my house.”
+
+This was how William Fleming received the confession of his daughter's
+unhappy plight.
+
+Rhoda might have pleaded Dahlia's case better, but that she was too
+shocked and outraged by the selfishness she saw in her father, and the
+partial desire to scourge which she was too intuitively keen at
+the moment not to perceive in the paternal forgiveness, and in the
+stipulation of the forgiveness.
+
+She went upstairs to Dahlia, simply stating that their father was aware
+of all the circumstances.
+
+Dahlia looked at her, but dared ask nothing.
+
+So the day passed. Neither Robert nor Anthony appeared. The night came:
+all doors were locked. The sisters that night slept together, feeling
+the very pulses of the hours; yet neither of them absolutely hopelessly,
+although in a great anguish.
+
+Rhoda was dressed by daylight. The old familiar country about the house
+lay still as if it knew no expectation. She observed Master Gammon
+tramping forth afield, and presently heard her father's voice below. All
+the machinery of the daily life got into motion; but it was evident that
+Robert and Anthony continued to be absent. A thought struck her that
+Robert had killed the man. It came with a flash of joy that was speedily
+terror, and she fell to praying vehemently and vaguely. Dahlia lay
+exhausted on the bed, but nigh the hour when letters were delivered, she
+sat up, saying, “There is one for me; get it.”
+
+There was in truth a letter for her below, and it was in her father's
+hand and open.
+
+“Come out,” said the farmer, as Rhoda entered to him. When they were in
+the garden, he commanded her to read and tell him the meaning of it. The
+letter was addressed to Dahlia Fleming.
+
+“It's for my sister,” Rhoda murmured, in anger, but more in fear.
+
+She was sternly bidden to read, and she read,--
+
+   Dahlia,--There is mercy for us. You are not lost to me.
+
+                  “Edward.”
+
+After this, was appended in a feminine hand:--
+
+   “There is really hope. A few hours will tell us. But keep firm.
+   If he comes near you, keep from him. You are not his. Run, hide,
+   go anywhere, if you have reason to think he is near. I dare not
+   write what it is we expect. Yesterday I told you to hope; to-day I
+   can say, believe that you will be saved. You are not lost.
+   Everything depends on your firmness.
+
+                  “Margaret L.”
+
+Rhoda lifted up her eyes.
+
+The farmer seized the letter, and laid his finger on the first
+signature.
+
+“Is that the christian name of my girl's seducer?”
+
+He did not wait for an answer, but turned and went into the
+breakfast-table, when he ordered a tray with breakfast for Dahlia to
+betaken up to her bed-room; and that done, he himself turned the key
+of the door, and secured her. Mute woe was on Mrs. Sumfit's face at
+all these strange doings, but none heeded her, and she smothered her
+lamentations. The farmer spoke nothing either of Robert or of Anthony.
+He sat in his chair till the dinner hour, without book or pipe, without
+occupation for eyes or hands; silent, but acute in his hearing.
+
+The afternoon brought relief to Rhoda's apprehensions. A messenger ran
+up to the farm bearing a pencilled note to her from Robert, which said
+that he, in company with her uncle, was holding Sedgett at a distance
+by force of arm, and that there was no fear. Rhoda kissed the words,
+hurrying away to the fields for a few minutes to thank and bless and
+dream of him who had said that there was no fear. She knew that Dahlia
+was unconscious of her imprisonment, and had less compunction in
+counting the minutes of her absence. The sun spread in yellow and fell
+in red before she thought of returning, so sweet it had become to her
+to let her mind dwell with Robert; and she was half a stranger to the
+mournfulness of the house when she set her steps homeward. But when she
+lifted the latch of the gate, a sensation, prompted by some unwitting
+self-accusal, struck her with alarm. She passed into the room, and
+beheld her father, and Mrs. Sumfit, who was sitting rolling, with her
+apron over her head.
+
+The man Sedgett was between them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+No sooner had Rhoda appeared than her father held up the key of Dahlia's
+bed-room, and said, “Unlock your sister, and fetch her down to her
+husband.”
+
+Mechanically Rhoda took the key.
+
+“And leave our door open,” he added.
+
+She went up to Dahlia, sick with a sudden fright lest evil had come to
+Robert, seeing that his enemy was here; but that was swept from her by
+Dahlia's aspect.
+
+“He is in the house,” Dahlia said; and asked, “Was there no letter--no
+letter; none, this morning?”
+
+Rhoda clasped her in her arms, seeking to check the convulsions of her
+trembling.
+
+“No letter! no letter! none? not any? Oh! no letter for me!”
+
+The strange varying tones of musical interjection and interrogation were
+pitiful to hear.
+
+“Did you look for a letter?” said Rhoda, despising herself for so
+speaking.
+
+“He is in the house! Where is my letter?”
+
+“What was it you hoped? what was it you expected, darling?”
+
+Dahlia moaned: “I don't know. I'm blind. I was told to hope. Yesterday I
+had my letter, and it told me to hope. He is in the house!”
+
+“Oh, my dear, my love!” cried Rhoda; “come down a minute. See him. It is
+father's wish. Come only for a minute. Come, to gain time, if there is
+hope.”
+
+“But there was no letter for me this morning, Rhoda. I can't hope. I am
+lost. He is in the house!”
+
+“Dearest, there was a letter,” said Rhoda, doubting that she did well in
+revealing it.
+
+Dahlia put out her hands dumb for the letter.
+
+“Father opened it, and read it, and keeps it,” said Rhoda, clinging
+tight to the stricken form.
+
+“Then, he is against me? Oh, my letter!” Dahlia wrung her hands.
+
+While they were speaking, their father's voice was heard below calling
+for Dahlia to descend. He came thrice to the foot of the stairs, and
+shouted for her.
+
+The third time he uttered a threat that sprang an answer from her bosom
+in shrieks.
+
+Rhoda went out on the landing and said softly, “Come up to her, father.”
+
+After a little hesitation, he ascended the stairs.
+
+“Why, girl, I only ask you to come down and see your husband,” he
+remarked with an attempt at kindliness of tone. “What's the harm, then?
+Come and see him; that's all; come and see him.”
+
+Dahlia was shrinking out of her father's sight as he stood in the
+doorway. “Say,” she communicated to Rhoda, “say, I want my letter.”
+
+“Come!” William Fleming grew impatient.
+
+“Let her have her letter, father,” said Rhoda. “You have no right to
+withhold it.”
+
+“That letter, my girl” (he touched Rhoda's shoulder as to satisfy
+her that he was not angry), “that letter's where it ought to be.
+I've puzzled out the meaning of it. That letter's in her husband's
+possession.”
+
+Dahlia, with her ears stretching for all that might be uttered, heard
+this. Passing round the door, she fronted her father.
+
+“My letter gone to him!” she cried. “Shameful old man! Can you look on
+me? Father, could you give it? I'm a dead woman.”
+
+She smote her bosom, stumbling backward upon Rhoda's arm.
+
+“You have been a wicked girl,” the ordinarily unmoved old man retorted.
+“Your husband has come for you, and you go with him. Know that, and let
+me hear no threats. He's a modest-minded, quiet young man, and a farmer
+like myself, and needn't be better than he is. Come you down to him at
+once. I'll tell you: he comes to take you away, and his cart's at the
+gate. To the gate you go with him. When next I see you--you visiting me
+or I visiting you--I shall see a respected creature, and not what you
+have been and want to be. You have racked the household with fear
+and shame for years. Now come, and carry out what you've begun in the
+contrary direction. You've got my word o' command, dead woman or live
+woman. Rhoda, take one elbow of your sister. Your aunt's coming up to
+pack her box. I say I'm determined, and no one stops me when I say that.
+Come out, Dahlia, and let our parting be like between parent and child.
+Here's the dark falling, and your husband's anxious to be away. He has
+business, and 'll hardly get you to the station for the last train to
+town. Hark at him below! He's naturally astonished, he is, and you're
+trying his temper, as you'd try any man's. He wants to be off. Come, and
+when next we meet I shall see you a happy wife.”
+
+He might as well have spoken to a corpse.
+
+“Speak to her still, father,” said Rhoda, as she drew a chair upon which
+she leaned her sister's body, and ran down full of the power of hate and
+loathing to confront Sedgett; but great as was that power within her,
+it was overmatched by his brutal resolution to take his wife away. No
+argument, no irony, no appeals, can long withstand the iteration of
+a dogged phrase. “I've come for my wife,” Sedgett said to all her
+instances. His voice was waxing loud and insolent, and, as it sounded,
+Mrs. Sumfit moaned and flapped her apron.
+
+“Then, how could you have married him?”
+
+They heard the farmer's roar of this unanswerable thing, aloft.
+
+“Yes--how! how!” cried Rhoda below, utterly forgetting the part she had
+played in the marriage.
+
+“It's too late to hate a man when you've married him, my girl.”
+
+Sedgett went out to the foot of the stairs.
+
+“Mr. Fleming--she's my wife. I'll teach her about hating and loving.
+I'll behave well to her, I swear. I'm in the midst of enemies; but I say
+I do love my wife, and I've come for her, and have her I will. Now,
+in two minutes' time. Mr. Fleming, my cart's at the gate, and I've got
+business, and she's my wife.”
+
+The farmer called for Mrs. Sumfit to come up and pack Dahlia's box, and
+the forlorn woman made her way to the bedroom. All the house was silent.
+Rhoda closed her sight, and she thought: “Does God totally abandon us?”
+
+She let her father hear: “Father, you know that you are killing your
+child.”
+
+“I hear ye, my lass,” said he.
+
+“She will die, father.”
+
+“I hear ye, I hear ye.”
+
+“She will die, father.”
+
+He stamped furiously, exclaiming: “Who's got the law of her better and
+above a husband? Hear reason, and come and help and fetch down your
+sister. She goes!”
+
+“Father!” Rhoda cried, looking at her open hands, as if she marvelled to
+see them helpless.
+
+There was for a time that silence which reigns in a sickchamber when
+the man of medicine takes the patient's wrist. And in the silence came a
+blessed sound--the lifting of a latch. Rhoda saw Robert's face.
+
+“So,” said Robert, as she neared him, “you needn't tell me what's
+happened. Here's the man, I see. He dodged me cleverly. The hound wants
+practice; the fox is born with his cunning.”
+
+Few words were required to make him understand the position of things in
+the house. Rhoda spoke out all without hesitation in Sedgett's hearing.
+
+But the farmer respected Robert enough to come down to him and explain
+his views of his duty and his daughter's duty. By the kitchen firelight
+he and Robert and Sedgett read one another's countenances.
+
+“He has a proper claim to take his wife, Robert,” said the farmer. “He's
+righted her before the world, and I thank him; and if he asks for her of
+me he must have her, and he shall.”
+
+“All right, sir,” replied Robert, “and I say too, shall, when I'm stiff
+as log-wood.”
+
+“Oh! Robert, Robert!” Rhoda cried in great joy.
+
+“Do you mean that you step 'twixt me and my own?” said Mr. Fleming.
+
+“I won't let you nod at downright murder--that's all,” said Robert.
+“She--Dahlia, take the hand of that creature!”
+
+“Why did she marry me?” thundered Sedgett.
+
+“There's one o' the wonders!” Robert rejoined. “Except that you're an
+amazingly clever hypocrite with women; and she was just half dead and
+had no will of her own; and some one set you to hunt her down. I tell
+you, Mr. Fleming, you might as well send your daughter to the hangman as
+put her in this fellow's hands.”
+
+“She's his wife, man.”
+
+“May be,” Robert assented.
+
+“You, Robert Eccles!” said Sedgett hoarsely; “I've come for my wife--do
+you hear?”
+
+“You have, I dare say,” returned Robert. “You dodged me cleverly, that
+you did. I'd like to know how it was done. I see you've got a cart
+outside and a boy at the horse's head. The horse steps well, does he?
+I'm about three hours behind him, I reckon:--not too late, though!”
+
+He let fall a great breath of weariness.
+
+Rhoda went to the cupboard and drew forth a rarely touched bottle of
+spirits, with which she filled a small glass, and handing the glass to
+him, said, “Drink.” He smiled kindly and drank it off.
+
+“The man's in your house, Mr. Fleming,” he said.
+
+“And he's my guest, and my daughter's husband, remember that,” said the
+farmer.
+
+“And mean to wait not half a minute longer till I've taken her off--mark
+that,” Sedgett struck in. “Now, Mr. Fleming, you see you keep good your
+word to me.”
+
+“I'll do no less,” said the farmer. He went into the passage shouting
+for Mrs. Sumfit to bring down the box.
+
+“She begs,” Mrs. Sumfit answered to him--“She begs, William, on'y a
+short five minutes to pray by herself, which you will grant unto her,
+dear, you will. Lord! what's come upon us?”
+
+“Quick, and down with the box, then, mother,” he rejoined.
+
+The box was dragged out, and Dahlia's door was shut, that she might have
+her last minutes alone.
+
+Rhoda kissed her sister before leaving her alone: and so cold were
+Dahlia's lips, so tight the clutch of her hands, that she said:
+“Dearest, think of God:” and Dahlia replied: “I do.”
+
+“He will not forsake you,” Rhoda said.
+
+Dahlia nodded, with shut eyes, and Rhoda went forth.
+
+“And now, Robert, you and I'll see who's master on these premises,” said
+the farmer. “Hear, all! I'm bounders under a sacred obligation to the
+husband of my child, and the Lord's wrath on him who interferes and
+lifts his hand against me when I perform my sacred duty as a father.
+Place there! I'm going to open the door. Rhoda, see to your sister's
+bonnet and things. Robert, stand out of my way. There's no refreshment
+of any sort you'll accept of before starting, Mr. Sedgett? None at all!
+That's no fault of my hospitality. Stand out of my way, Robert.”
+
+He was obeyed. Robert looked at Rhoda, but had no reply for her gaze of
+despair.
+
+The farmer threw the door wide open.
+
+There were people in the garden--strangers. His name was inquired
+for out of the dusk. Then whisperings were heard passing among the
+ill-discerned forms, and the farmer went out to them. Robert listened
+keenly, but the touch of Rhoda's hand upon his own distracted his
+hearing. “Yet it must be!” he said. “Why does she come here?”
+
+Both he and Rhoda followed the farmer's steps, drawn forth by the
+ever-credulous eagerness which arises from an interruption to excited
+wretchedness. Near and nearer to the group, they heard a quaint old
+woman exclaim: “Come here to you for a wife, when he has one of his own
+at home; a poor thing he shipped off to America, thinking himself more
+cunning than devils or angels: and she got put out at a port, owing to
+stress of weather, to defeat the man's wickedness! Can't I prove it to
+you, sir, he's a married man, which none of us in our village knew till
+the poor tricked thing crawled back penniless to find him;--and there
+she is now with such a story of his cunning to tell to anybody as will
+listen; and why he kept it secret to get her pension paid him still on.
+It's all such a tale for you to hear by-and-by.”
+
+Robert burst into a glorious laugh.
+
+“Why, mother! Mrs. Boulby! haven't you got a word for me?”
+
+“My blessedest Robert!” the good woman cried, as she rushed up to kiss
+him. “Though it wasn't to see you I came exactly.” She whispered: “The
+Major and the good gentleman--they're behind. I travelled down with
+them. Dear,--you'd like to know:--Mrs. Lovell sent her little cunning
+groom down to Warbeach just two weeks back to make inquiries about that
+villain; and the groom left me her address, in case, my dear, when
+the poor creature--his true wife--crawled home, and we knew of her at
+Three-Tree Farm and knew her story. I wrote word at once, I did, to Mrs.
+Lovell, and the sweet good lady sent down her groom to fetch me to
+you to make things clear here. You shall understand them soon. It's
+Providence at work. I do believe that now there's a chance o' punishing
+the wicked ones.”
+
+The figure of Rhoda with two lights in her hand was seen in the porch,
+and by the shadowy rays she beheld old Anthony leaning against the
+house, and Major Waring with a gentleman beside him close upon the gate.
+
+At the same time a sound of wheels was heard.
+
+Robert rushed back into the great parlour-kitchen, and finding it empty,
+stamped with vexation. His prey had escaped.
+
+But there was no relapse to give spare thoughts to that pollution of the
+house. It had passed. Major Waring was talking earnestly to Mr. Fleming,
+who held his head low, stupefied, and aware only of the fact that it
+was a gentleman imparting to him strange matters. By degrees all were
+beneath the farmer's roof--all, save one, who stood with bowed head by
+the threshold.
+
+There is a sort of hero, and a sort of villain, to this story: they are
+but instruments. Hero and villain are combined in the person of Edward,
+who was now here to abase himself before the old man and the family he
+had injured, and to kneel penitently at the feet of the woman who had
+just reason to spurn him. He had sold her as a slave is sold; he had
+seen her plunged into the blackest pit; yet was she miraculously kept
+pure for him, and if she could give him her pardon, might still be his.
+The grief for which he could ask no compassion had at least purified him
+to meet her embrace. The great agony he had passed through of late had
+killed his meaner pride. He stood there ready to come forward and ask
+forgiveness from unfriendly faces, and beg that he might be in Dahlia's
+eyes once--that he might see her once.
+
+He had grown to love her with the fullest force of a selfish, though
+not a common, nature. Or rather he had always loved her, and much of the
+selfishness had fallen away from his love. It was not the highest form
+of love, but the love was his highest development. He had heard that
+Dahlia, lost to him, was free. Something like the mortal yearning to
+look upon the dead risen to life, made it impossible for him to remain
+absent and in doubt. He was ready to submit to every humiliation that he
+might see the rescued features; he was willing to pay all his penalties.
+Believing, too, that he was forgiven, he knew that Dahlia's heart would
+throb for him to be near her, and he had come.
+
+The miraculous agencies which had brought him and Major Waring and Mrs.
+Boulby to the farm, that exalted woman was relating to Mrs. Sumfit in
+another part of the house.
+
+The farmer, and Percy, and Robert were in the family sitting-room,
+when, after an interval, William Fleming said aloud, “Come in, sir,” and
+Edward stepped in among them.
+
+Rhoda was above, seeking admittance to her sisters door, and she heard
+her father utter that welcome. It froze her limbs, for still she hated
+the evil-doer. Her hatred of him was a passion. She crouched over the
+stairs, listening to a low and long-toned voice monotonously telling
+what seemed to be one sole thing over and over, without variation, in
+the room where the men were. Words were indistinguishable. Thrice, after
+calling to Dahlia and getting no response, she listened again, and awe
+took her soul at last, for, abhorred as he was by her, his power was
+felt: she comprehended something of that earnestness which made the
+offender speak of his wrongful deeds, and his shame, and his remorse,
+before his fellow-men, straight out and calmly, like one who has been
+plunged up to the middle in the fires of the abyss, and is thereafter
+insensible to meaner pains. The voice ended. She was then aware that
+it had put a charm upon her ears. The other voices following it sounded
+dull.
+
+“Has he--can he have confessed in words all his wicked baseness?” she
+thought, and in her soul the magnitude of his crime threw a gleam of
+splendour on his courage, even at the bare thought that he might have
+done this. Feeling that Dahlia was saved, and thenceforth at liberty to
+despise him and torture him, Rhoda the more readily acknowledged that it
+might be a true love for her sister animating him. From the height of a
+possible vengeance it was perceptible.
+
+She turned to her sister's door and knocked at it, calling to her,
+“Safe, safe!” but there came no answer; and she was half glad, for she
+had a fear that in the quick revulsion of her sister's feelings, mere
+earthly love would act like heavenly charity, and Edward would find
+himself forgiven only too instantly and heartily.
+
+In the small musk-scented guest's parlour, Mrs. Boulby was giving
+Mrs. Sumfit and poor old sleepy Anthony the account of the miraculous
+discovery of Sedgett's wickedness, which had vindicated all one hoped
+for from Above; as also the narration of the stabbing of her boy, and
+the heroism and great-heartedness of Robert. Rhoda listened to her for
+a space, and went to her sister's door again; but when she stood outside
+the kitchen she found all voices silent within.
+
+It was, in truth, not only very difficult for William Fleming to change
+his view of the complexion of circumstances as rapidly as circumstances
+themselves changed, but it was very bitter for him to look upon Edward,
+and to see him in the place of Sedgett.
+
+He had been struck dumb by the sudden revolution of affairs in his
+house; and he had been deferentially convinced by Major Waring's tone
+that he ought rightly to give his hearing to an unknown young gentleman
+against whom anger was due. He had listened to Edward without one
+particle of comprehension, except of the fact that his behaviour was
+extraordinary. He understood that every admission made by Edward with
+such grave and strange directness, would justly have condemned him
+to punishment which the culprit's odd, and upright, and even-toned
+self-denunciation rendered it impossible to think of inflicting. He
+knew likewise that a whole history was being narrated to him, and that,
+although the other two listeners manifestly did not approve it, they
+expected him to show some tolerance to the speaker.
+
+He said once, “Robert, do me the favour to look about outside for t'
+other.” Robert answered him, that the man was far away by this time.
+
+The farmer suggested that he might be waiting to say his word presently.
+
+“Don't you know you've been dealing with a villain, sir?” cried Robert.
+“Throw ever so little light upon one of that breed, and they skulk in
+a hurry. Mr. Fleming, for the sake of your honour, don't mention him
+again. What you're asked to do now, is to bury the thoughts of him.”
+
+“He righted my daughter when there was shame on her,” the farmer
+replied.
+
+That was the idea printed simply on his understanding.
+
+For Edward to hear it was worse than a scourging with rods. He bore it,
+telling the last vitality of his pride to sleep, and comforting himself
+with the drowsy sensuous expectation that he was soon to press the hand
+of his lost one, his beloved, who was in the house, breathing the same
+air with him; was perhaps in the room above, perhaps sitting impatiently
+with clasped fingers, waiting for the signal to unlock them and fling
+them open. He could imagine the damp touch of very expectant fingers;
+the dying look of life-drinking eyes; and, oh! the helplessness of her
+limbs as she sat buoying a heart drowned in bliss.
+
+It was unknown to him that the peril of her uttermost misery had been
+so imminent, and the picture conjured of her in his mind was that of a
+gentle but troubled face--a soul afflicted, yet hoping because it had
+been told to hope, and half conscious that a rescue, almost divine in
+its suddenness and unexpectedness, and its perfect clearing away of all
+shadows, approached.
+
+Manifestly, by the pallid cast of his visage, he had tasted shrewd and
+wasting grief of late. Robert's heart melted as he beheld the change in
+Edward.
+
+“I believe, Mr. Blancove, I'm a little to blame,” he said. “Perhaps when
+I behaved so badly down at Fairly, you may have thought she sent me, and
+it set your heart against her for a time. I can just understand how it
+might.”
+
+Edward thought for a moment, and conscientiously accepted the
+suggestion; for, standing under that roof, with her whom he loved near
+him, it was absolutely out of his power for him to comprehend that his
+wish to break from Dahlia, and the measures he had taken or consented
+to, had sprung from his own unassisted temporary baseness.
+
+Then Robert spoke to the farmer.
+
+Rhoda could hear Robert's words. Her fear was that Dahlia might hear
+them too, his pleading for Edward was so hearty. “Yet why should I
+always think differently from Robert?” she asked herself, and with that
+excuse for changeing, partially thawed.
+
+She was very anxious for her father's reply; and it was late in coming.
+She felt that he was unconvinced. But suddenly the door opened, and the
+farmer called into the darkness,--
+
+“Dahlia down here!”
+
+Previously emotionless, an emotion was started in Rhoda's bosom by the
+command, and it was gladness. She ran up and knocked, and found herself
+crying out: “He is here--Edward.”
+
+But there came no answer.
+
+“Edward is here. Come, come and see him.”
+
+Still not one faint reply.
+
+“Dahlia! Dahlia!”
+
+The call of Dahlia's name seemed to travel endlessly on. Rhoda knelt,
+and putting her mouth to the door, said,--
+
+“My darling, I know you will reply to me. I know you do not doubt me
+now. Listen. You are to come down to happiness.”
+
+The silence grew heavier; and now a doubt came shrieking through her
+soul.
+
+“Father!” rang her outcry.
+
+The father came; and then the lover came, and neither to father nor to
+lover was there any word from Dahlia's voice.
+
+She was found by the side of the bed, inanimate, and pale as a sister of
+death.
+
+But you who may have cared for her through her many tribulations, have
+no fear for this gentle heart. It was near the worst; yet not the worst.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+Up to the black gates, but not beyond them. The dawn following such a
+night will seem more like a daughter of the night than promise of day.
+It is day that follows, notwithstanding: The sad fair girl survived,
+and her flickering life was the sole light of the household; at
+times burying its members in dusk, to shine on them again more like a
+prolonged farewell than a gladsome restoration.
+
+She was saved by what we call chance; for it had not been in her design
+to save herself. The hand was firm to help her to the deadly draught. As
+far as could be conjectured, she had drunk it between hurried readings
+from her mother's Bible; the one true companion to which she had often
+clung, always half-availingly. The Bible was found by her side, as if
+it had fallen from the chair before which she knelt to read her last
+quickening verses, and had fallen with her. One arm was about it; one
+grasped the broken phial with its hideous label.
+
+It was uncomplainingly registered among the few facts very distinctly
+legible in Master Gammon's memory, that for three entire weeks he had
+no dumplings for dinner at the farm; and although, upon a computation,
+articles of that description, amounting probably to sixty-three (if
+there is any need for our being precise), were due to him, and would
+necessarily be for evermore due to him, seeing that it is beyond all
+human and even spiritual agency to make good unto man the dinner he has
+lost, Master Gammon uttered no word to show that he was sensible of a
+slight, which was the only indication given by him of his knowledge of a
+calamity having changed the order of things at the farm. On the day when
+dumplings reappeared, he remarked, with a glance at the ceiling: “Goin'
+on better--eh, marm?”
+
+“Oh! Mas' Gammon,” Mrs. Sumfit burst out; “if I was only certain you
+said your prayers faithful every night!” The observation was apparently
+taken by Master Gammon to express one of the mere emotions within her
+bosom, for he did not reply to it.
+
+She watched him feeding in his steady way, with the patient bent back,
+and slowly chopping old grey jaws, and struck by a pathos in the sight,
+exclaimed,--
+
+“We've all been searched so, Mas' Gammon! I feel I know everything
+that's in me. I'd say, I couldn't ha' given you dumplin's and tears; but
+think of our wickedness, when I confess to you I did feel spiteful at
+you to think that you were wiltin' to eat the dumplin's while all of
+us mourned and rocked as in a quake, expecting the worst to befall; and
+that made me refuse them to you. It was cruel of me, and well may you
+shake your head. If I was only sure you said your prayers!”
+
+The meaning in her aroused heart was, that if she could be sure Master
+Gammon said his prayers, so as to be searched all through by them,
+as she was herself, and to feel thereby, as she did, that he knew
+everything that was within him, she would then, in admiration of his
+profound equanimity, acknowledge him to be a superior Christian.
+
+Naturally enough, Master Gammon allowed the interjection to pass,
+regarding it as simply a vagrant action of the engine of speech; while
+Mrs. Sumfit, with an interjector's consciousness of prodigious things
+implied which were not in any degree comprehended, left his presence
+in kindness, and with a shade less of the sense that he was a superior
+Christian.
+
+Nevertheless, the sight of Master Gammon was like a comforting medicine
+to all who were in the house. He was Mrs. Sumfit's clock; he was balm
+and blessedness in Rhoda's eyes; Anthony was jealous of him; the farmer
+held to him as to a stake in the ground: even Robert, who rallied and
+tormented, and was vexed by him, admitted that he stood some way between
+an example and a warning, and was a study. The grand primaeval quality
+of unchangeableness, as exhibited by this old man, affected them
+singularly in their recovery from the storm and the wreck of the hours
+gone by; so much so that they could not divest themselves of the idea
+that it was a manifestation of power in Master Gammon to show forth
+undisturbed while they were feeling their life shaken in them to
+the depths. I have never had the opportunity of examining the
+idol-worshipping mind of a savage; but it seems possible that the
+immutability of aspect of his little wooden God may sometimes touch him
+with a similar astounded awe;--even when, and indeed especially after,
+he has thrashed it. Had the old man betrayed his mortality in a sign of
+curiosity to know why the hubbub of trouble had arisen, and who was
+to blame, and what was the story, the effect on them would have been
+diminished. He really seemed granite among the turbulent waves. “Give me
+Gammon's life!” was Farmer Fleming's prayerful interjection; seeing him
+come and go, sit at his meals, and sleep and wake in season, all through
+those tragic hours of suspense, without a question to anybody. Once
+or twice, when his eye fell upon the doctor, Master Gammon appeared to
+meditate. He observed that the doctor had never been called in to one
+of his family, and it was evident that he did not understand the
+complication of things which rendered the doctor's visit necessary.
+
+“You'll never live so long as that old man,” the farmer said to Robert.
+
+“No; but when he goes, all of him's gone,” Robert answered.
+
+“But Gammon's got the wisdom to keep himself safe, Robert; there's no
+one to blame for his wrinkles.”
+
+“Gammon's a sheepskin old Time writes his nothings on,” said Robert.
+“He's safe--safe enough. An old hulk doesn't very easily manage to
+founder in the mud, and Gammon's been lying on the mud all his life.”
+
+“Let that be how 't will,” returned the farmer; “I've had days o' mortal
+envy of that old man.”
+
+“Well, it's whether you prefer being the fiddle or the fiddle-case,”
+ quoth Robert.
+
+Of Anthony the farmer no longer had any envy. In him, though he was as
+passive as Master Gammon, the farmer beheld merely a stupefied old
+man, and not a steady machine. He knew that some queer misfortune had
+befallen Anthony.
+
+“He'll find I'm brotherly,” said Mr. Fleming; but Anthony had darkened
+his golden horizon for him, and was no longer an attractive object to
+his vision.
+
+Upon an Autumn afternoon; Dahlia, looking like a pale Spring flower,
+came down among them. She told her sister that it was her wish to see
+Edward. Rhoda had lost all power of will, even if she had desired to
+keep them asunder. She mentioned Dahlia's wish to her father, who at
+once went for his hat, and said: “Dress yourself neat, my lass.” She
+knew what was meant by that remark. Messages daily had been coming down
+from the Hall, but the rule of a discerning lady was then established
+there, and Rhoda had been spared a visit from either Edward or Algernon,
+though she knew them to be at hand. During Dahlia's convalescence, the
+farmer had not spoken to Rhoda of her engagement to the young squire.
+The great misery intervening, seemed in her mind to have cancelled all
+earthly engagements; and when he said that she must use care in her
+attire he suddenly revived a dread within her bosom, as if he had
+plucked her to the verge of a chasm.
+
+But Mrs. Lovell's delicacy was still manifest: Edward came alone, and he
+and Dahlia were left apart.
+
+There was no need to ask for pardon from those gentle eyes. They joined
+hands. She was wasted and very weak, but she did not tremble. Passion
+was extinguished. He refrained from speaking of their union, feeling
+sure that they were united. It required that he should see her to know
+fully the sinner he had been. Wasted though she was, he was ready to
+make her his own, if only for the sake of making amends to this dear
+fair soul, whose picture of Saint was impressed on him, first as a
+response to the world wondering at his sacrifice of himself, and next,
+by degrees, as an absolute visible fleshly fact. She had come out of her
+martyrdom stamped with the heavenly sign-mark.
+
+“Those are the old trees I used to speak of,” she said, pointing to the
+two pines in the miller's grounds. “They always look like Adam and Eve
+turning away.”
+
+“They do not make you unhappy to see them, Dahlia?”
+
+“I hope to see them till I am gone.”
+
+Edward pressed her fingers. He thought that warmer hopes would soon flow
+into her.
+
+“The neighbours are kind?” he asked.
+
+“Very kind. They, inquire after me daily.”
+
+His cheeks reddened; he had spoken at random, and he wondered that
+Dahlia should feel it pleasurable to be inquired after, she who was so
+sensitive.
+
+“The clergyman sits with me every day, and knows my heart,” she added.
+
+“The clergyman is a comfort to women,” said Edward.
+
+Dahlia looked at him gently. The round of her thin eyelids dwelt on him.
+She wished. She dared not speak her wish to one whose remembered mastery
+in words forbade her poor speechlessness. But God would hear her prayers
+for him.
+
+Edward begged that he might come to her often, and she said,--
+
+“Come.”
+
+He misinterpreted the readiness of the invitation.
+
+When he had left her, he reflected on the absence of all endearing
+epithets in her speech, and missed them. Having himself suffered, he
+required them. For what had she wrestled so sharply with death, if not
+to fall upon his bosom and be his in a great outpouring of gladness? In
+fact he craved the immediate reward for his public acknowledgement of
+his misdeeds. He walked in this neighbourhood known by what he had done,
+and his desire was to take his wife away, never more to be seen there.
+Following so deep a darkness, he wanted at least a cheerful dawn: not
+one of a penitential grey--not a hooded dawn, as if the paths of life
+were to be under cloistral arches. And he wanted a rose of womanhood
+in his hand like that he had parted with, and to recover which he had
+endured every earthly mortification, even to absolute abasement. The
+frail bent lily seemed a stranger to him.
+
+Can a man go farther than his nature? Never, when he takes passion on
+board. By other means his nature may be enlarged and nerved, but passion
+will find his weakness, and, while urging him on, will constantly betray
+him at that point. Edward had three interviews with Dahlia; he wrote to
+her as many times. There was but one answer for him; and when he ceased
+to charge her with unforgivingness, he came to the strange conclusion
+that beyond our calling of a woman a Saint for rhetorical purposes, and
+esteeming her as one for pictorial, it is indeed possible, as he had
+slightly discerned in this woman's presence, both to think her saintly
+and to have the sentiments inspired by the overearthly in her person.
+Her voice, her simple words of writing, her gentle resolve, all issuing
+of a capacity to suffer evil, and pardon it, conveyed that character to
+a mind not soft for receiving such impressions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+Major Waring came to Wrexby Hall at the close of the October month. He
+came to plead his own cause with Mrs. Lovell; but she stopped him by
+telling him that his friend Robert was in some danger of losing his
+love.
+
+“She is a woman, Percy; I anticipate your observation. But, more than
+that, she believes she is obliged to give her hand to my cousin, the
+squire. It's an intricate story relating to money. She does not care for
+Algy a bit, which is not a matter that greatly influences him. He has
+served her in some mysterious way; by relieving an old uncle of hers.
+Algy has got him the office of village postman for this district, I
+believe; if it's that; but I think it should be more, to justify her. At
+all events, she seems to consider that her hand is pledged. You know the
+kind of girl your friend fancies. Besides, her father insists she is to
+marry 'the squire,' which is certainly the most natural thing of all.
+So, don't you think, dear Percy, you had better take your friend on the
+Continent for some weeks? I never, I confess, exactly understood the
+intimacy existing between you, but it must be sincere.”
+
+“Are you?” said Percy.
+
+“Yes, perfectly; but always in a roundabout way. Why do you ask me in
+this instance?”
+
+“Because you could stop this silly business in a day.”
+
+“I know I could.”
+
+“Then, why do you not?”
+
+“Because of a wish to be sincere. Percy, I have been that throughout,
+if you could read me. I tried to deliver my cousin Edward from what I
+thought was a wretched entanglement. His selfish falseness offended me,
+and I let him know that I despised him. When I found that he was a man
+who had courage, and some heart, he gained my friendship once more, and
+I served him as far as I could--happily, as it chanced. I tell you all
+this, because I don't care to forfeit your esteem, and heaven knows, I
+may want it in the days to come. I believe I am the best friend in the
+world--and bad anything else. No one perfectly pleases me, not even
+you: you are too studious of character, and, like myself, exacting of
+perfection in one or two points. But now hear what I have done, and
+approve it if you think fit. I have flirted--abominable word!--I am
+compelled to use the language of the Misses--yes, I have flirted with my
+cousin Algy. I do it too well, I know--by nature! and I hate it. He has
+this morning sent a letter down to the farm saying, that, as he
+believes he has failed in securing Rhoda's affections, he renounces all
+pretensions, etc., subject to her wishes, etc. The courting, I imagine,
+can scarcely have been pleasant to him. My delightful manner with him
+during the last fortnight has been infinitely pleasanter. So, your
+friend Robert may be made happy by-and-by; that is to say, if his Rhoda
+is not too like her sex.”
+
+“You're an enchantress,” exclaimed Percy.
+
+“Stop,” said she, and drifted into seriousness. “Before you praise me
+you must know more. Percy, that duel in India--”
+
+He put out his hand to her.
+
+“Yes, I forgive,” she resumed. “You were cruel then. Remember that,
+and try to be just now. The poor boy would go to his doom. I could have
+arrested it. I partly caused it. I thought the honour of the army at
+stake. I was to blame on that day, and I am to blame again, but I feel
+that I am almost excuseable, if you are not too harsh a judge. No, I am
+not; I am execrable; but forgive me.”
+
+Percy's face lighted up in horrified amazement as Margaret Lovell
+unfastened the brooch at her neck and took out the dull-red
+handkerchief.
+
+“It was the bond between us,” she pursued, “that I was to return this
+to you when I no longer remained my own mistress. Count me a miserably
+heartless woman. I do my best. You brought this handkerchief to me
+dipped in the blood of the poor boy who was slain. I have worn it. It
+was a safeguard. Did you mean it to serve as such? Oh, Percy! I felt
+continually that blood was on my bosom. I felt it fighting with me. It
+has saved me from much. And now I return it to you.”
+
+He could barely articulate “Why?”
+
+“Dear friend, by the reading of the bond you should know. I asked you
+when I was leaving India, how long I was to keep it by me. You said,
+'Till you marry.' Do not be vehement, Percy. This is a thing that could
+not have been averted.”
+
+“Is it possible,” Percy cried, “that you carried the play out so far as
+to promise him to marry him?”
+
+“Your forehead is thunder, Percy. I know that look.”
+
+“Margaret, I think I could bear to see our army suffer another defeat
+rather than you should be contemptible.”
+
+“Your chastisement is not given in half measures, Percy.”
+
+“Speak on,” said he; “there is more to come. You are engaged to marry
+him?”
+
+“I engaged that I would take the name of Blancove.”
+
+“If he would cease to persecute Rhoda Fleming!”
+
+“The stipulation was exactly in those words.”
+
+“You mean to carry it out?”
+
+“To be sincere? I do, Percy!
+
+“You mean to marry Algernon Blancove?”
+
+“I should be contemptible indeed if I did, Percy!
+
+“You do not?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“And you are sincere? By all the powers of earth and heaven, there's no
+madness like dealing with an animated enigma! What is it you do mean?”
+
+“As I said--to be sincere. But I was also bound to be of service to your
+friend. It is easy to be sincere and passive.”
+
+Percy struck his brows. “Can you mean that Edward Blancove is the man?”
+
+“Oh! no. Edward will never marry any one. I do him the justice to say
+that his vice is not that of unfaithfulness. He had but one love, and
+her heart is quite dead. There is no marriage for him--she refuses. You
+may not understand the why of that, but women will. She would marry him
+if she could bring herself to it;--the truth is, he killed her pride.
+Her taste for life has gone. She is bent on her sister's marrying your
+friend. She has no other thought of marriage, and never will have. I
+know the state. It is not much unlike mine.”
+
+Waring fixed her eyes. “There is a man?”
+
+“Yes,” she answered bluntly.
+
+“It is somebody, then, whose banker's account is, I hope, satisfactory.”
+
+“Yes, Percy;” she looked eagerly forward, as thanking him for releasing
+her from a difficulty. “You still can use the whip, but I do not feel
+the sting. I marry a banker's account. Do you bear in mind the day I
+sent after you in the park? I had just heard that I was ruined. You know
+my mania for betting. I heard it, and knew when I let my heart warm to
+you that I could never marry you. That is one reason, perhaps, why I
+have been an enigma. I am sincere in telling Algy I shall take the name
+of Blancove. I marry the banker. Now take this old gift of yours.”
+
+Percy grasped the handkerchief, and quitted her presence forthwith,
+feeling that he had swallowed a dose of the sex to serve him for a
+lifetime. Yet he lived to reflect on her having decided practically,
+perhaps wisely for all parties. Her debts expunged, she became an old
+gentleman's demure young wife, a sweet hostess, and, as ever, a true
+friend: something of a miracle to one who had inclined to make a heroine
+of her while imagining himself to accurately estimate her deficiencies.
+Honourably by this marriage the lady paid for such wild oats as she had
+sown in youth.
+
+There were joy-bells for Robert and Rhoda, but none for Dahlia and
+Edward.
+
+Dahlia lived seven years her sister's housemate, nurse of the growing
+swarm. She had gone through fire, as few women have done in like manner,
+to leave their hearts among the ashes; but with that human heart she
+left regrets behind her. The soul of this young creature filled its
+place. It shone in her eyes and in her work, a lamp to her little
+neighbourhood; and not less a lamp of cheerful beams for one day being
+as another to her. In truth, she sat above the clouds. When she died she
+relinquished nothing. Others knew the loss. Between her and Robert there
+was deeper community on one subject than she let Rhoda share. Almost
+her last words to him, spoken calmly, but with the quaver of breath
+resembling sobs, were: “Help poor girls.”
+
+
+
+
+  ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+  A fleet of South-westerly rainclouds had been met in mid-sky
+  All women are the same--Know one, know all
+  Ashamed of letting his ears be filled with secret talk
+  Borrower to be dancing on Fortune's tight-rope above the old abyss
+  But you must be beautiful to please some men
+  But the key to young men is the ambition, or, in the place of it.....
+  But great, powerful London--the new universe to her spirit
+  Can a man go farther than his nature?
+  Childish faith in the beneficence of the unseen Powers who feed us
+  Cold curiosity
+  Dahlia, the perplexity to her sister's heart, lay stretched....
+  Dead Britons are all Britons, but live Britons are not quite brothers
+  Developing stiff, solid, unobtrusive men, and very personable women
+  Exceeding variety and quantity of things money can buy
+  Found by the side of the bed, inanimate, and pale as a sister of death
+  Full-o'-Beer's a hasty chap
+  Gravely reproaching the tobacconist for the growing costliness of cigars
+  He had no recollection of having ever dined without drinking wine
+  He tried to gather his ideas, but the effort was like that of a light dreamer
+  He lies as naturally as an infant sucks
+  He will be a part of every history (the fool)
+  I haven't got the pluck of a flea
+  I never pay compliments to transparent merit
+  I would cut my tongue out, if it did you a service
+  Inferences are like shadows on the wall
+  It was her prayer to heaven that she might save a doctor's bill
+  Land and beasts! They sound like blessed things
+  Love dies like natural decay
+  Marriage is an awful thing, where there's no love
+  Mrs. Fleming, of Queen Anne's Farm, was the wife of a yeoman
+  My first girl--she's brought disgrace on this house
+  My plain story is of two Kentish damsels
+  One learns to have compassion for fools, by studying them
+  Pleasant companion, who did not play the woman obtrusively among men
+  Principle of examining your hypothesis before you proceed to decide by it
+  Rhoda will love you. She is firm when she loves
+  Silence is commonly the slow poison used by those who mean to murder love
+  Sinners are not to repent only in words
+  So long as we do not know that we are performing any remarkable feat
+  Sort of religion with her to believe no wrong of you
+  The unhappy, who do not wish to live, and cannot die
+  The kindest of men can be cruel
+  The idea of love upon the lips of ordinary men, provoked Dahlia's irony
+  The backstairs of history (Memoirs)
+  The woman seeking for an anomaly wants a master
+  Then, if you will not tell me
+  There were joy-bells for Robert and Rhoda, but none for Dahlia
+  To be a really popular hero anywhere in Britain (must be a drinker)
+  To be her master, however, one must not begin by writhing as her slave
+  Wait till the day's ended before you curse your luck
+  William John Fleming was simply a poor farmer
+  With this money, said the demon, you might speculate
+  Work is medicine
+  You who may have cared for her through her many tribulations, have no fear
+  You choose to give yourself to an obscure dog
+  You're a rank, right-down widow, and no mistake
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Rhoda Fleming, Complete, by George Meredith
+
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Rhoda Fleming, Complete, by George Meredith
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    pre     { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rhoda Fleming, Complete, by George Meredith
+
+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: Rhoda Fleming, Complete
+
+Author: George Meredith
+
+Release Date: October 13, 2006 [EBook #4426]
+Last Updated: February 26, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RHODA FLEMING, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <h1>
+      RHODA FLEMING, Complete
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By George Meredith
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER XXXV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XXXVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER XXXVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER XXXVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0039"> CHAPTER XXXIX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0040"> CHAPTER XI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0041"> CHAPTER XLI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0042"> CHAPTER XLII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0043"> CHAPTER XLIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0044"> CHAPTER XLIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0045"> CHAPTER XLV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0046"> CHAPTER XLVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0047"> CHAPTER XLVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0048"> CHAPTER XLVIII </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Remains of our good yeomanry blood will be found in Kent, developing
+      stiff, solid, unobtrusive men, and very personable women. The distinction
+      survives there between Kentish women and women of Kent, as a true
+      South-eastern dame will let you know, if it is her fortune to belong to
+      that favoured portion of the county where the great battle was fought, in
+      which the gentler sex performed manful work, but on what luckless heads we
+      hear not; and when garrulous tradition is discreet, the severe historic
+      Muse declines to hazard a guess. Saxon, one would presume, since it is
+      thought something to have broken them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My plain story is of two Kentish damsels, and runs from a home of flowers
+      into regions where flowers are few and sickly, on to where the flowers
+      which breathe sweet breath have been proved in mortal fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Fleming, of Queen Anne's Farm, was the wife of a yeoman-farmer of the
+      county. Both were of sound Kentish extraction, albeit varieties of the
+      breed. The farm had its name from a tradition, common to many other
+      farmhouses within a circuit of the metropolis, that the ante-Hanoverian
+      lady had used the place in her day as a nursery-hospital for the royal
+      little ones. It was a square three-storied building of red brick, much
+      beaten and stained by the weather, with an ivied side, up which the ivy
+      grew stoutly, topping the roof in triumphant lumps. The house could hardly
+      be termed picturesque. Its aspect had struck many eyes as being very much
+      that of a red-coat sentinel grenadier, battered with service, and standing
+      firmly enough, though not at ease. Surrounding it was a high wall, built
+      partly of flint and partly of brick, and ringed all over with grey lichen
+      and brown spots of bearded moss, that bore witness to the touch of many
+      winds and rains. Tufts of pale grass, and gilliflowers, and travelling
+      stone-crop, hung from the wall, and driblets of ivy ran broadening to the
+      outer ground. The royal Arms were said to have surmounted the great iron
+      gateway; but they had vanished, either with the family, or at the
+      indications of an approaching rust. Rust defiled its bars; but, when you
+      looked through them, the splendour of an unrivalled garden gave vivid
+      signs of youth, and of the taste of an orderly, laborious, and cunning
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The garden was under Mrs. Fleming's charge. The joy of her love for it was
+      written on its lustrous beds, as poets write. She had the poetic passion
+      for flowers. Perhaps her taste may now seem questionable. She cherished
+      the old-fashioned delight in tulips; the house was reached on a
+      gravel-path between rows of tulips, rich with one natural blush, or
+      freaked by art. She liked a bulk of colour; and when the dahlia dawned
+      upon our gardens, she gave her heart to dahlias. By good desert, the
+      fervent woman gained a prize at a flower-show for one of her dahlias, and
+      `Dahlia' was the name uttered at the christening of her eldest daughter,
+      at which all Wrexby parish laughed as long as the joke could last. There
+      was laughter also when Mrs. Fleming's second daughter received the name of
+      'Rhoda;' but it did not endure for so long a space, as it was known that
+      she had taken more to the solitary and reflective reading of her Bible,
+      and to thoughts upon flowers eternal. Country people are not inclined to
+      tolerate the display of a passion for anything. They find it as intrusive
+      and exasperating as is, in the midst of larger congregations, what we call
+      genius. For some years, Mrs. Fleming's proceedings were simply a theme for
+      gossips, and her vanity was openly pardoned, until that delusively
+      prosperous appearance which her labour lent to the house, was worn through
+      by the enforced confession of there being poverty in the household. The
+      ragged elbow was then projected in the face of Wrexby in a manner to
+      preclude it from a sober appreciation of the fairness of the face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Critically, moreover, her admission of great poppy-heads into her garden
+      was objected to. She would squander her care on poppies, and she had been
+      heard to say that, while she lived, her children should be fully fed. The
+      encouragement of flaunting weeds in a decent garden was indicative of a
+      moral twist that the expressed resolution to supply her table with
+      plentiful nourishment, no matter whence it came, or how provided,
+      sufficiently confirmed. The reason with which she was stated to have
+      fortified her stern resolve was of the irritating order, right in the
+      abstract, and utterly unprincipled in the application. She said, `Good
+      bread, and good beef, and enough of both, make good blood; and my children
+      shall be stout.' This is such a thing as maybe announced by foreign
+      princesses and rulers over serfs; but English Wrexby, in cogitative mood,
+      demanded an equivalent for its beef and divers economies consumed by the
+      hungry children of the authoritative woman. Practically it was obedient,
+      for it had got the habit of supplying her. Though payment was long in
+      arrear, the arrears were not treated as lost ones by Mrs. Fleming, who,
+      without knowing it, possessed one main secret for mastering the custodians
+      of credit. She had a considerate remembrance and regard for the most
+      distant of her debts, so that she seemed to be only always a little late,
+      and exceptionally wrongheaded in theory. Wrexby, therefore, acquiesced in
+      helping to build up her children to stoutness, and but for the blindness
+      of all people, save artists, poets, novelists, to the grandeur of their
+      own creations, the inhabitants of this Kentish village might have had an
+      enjoyable pride in the beauty and robust grace of the young girls,&mdash;fair-haired,
+      black-haired girls, a kindred contrast, like fire and smoke, to look upon.
+      In stature, in bearing, and in expression, they were, if I may adopt the
+      eloquent modern manner of eulogy, strikingly above their class. They
+      carried erect shoulders, like creatures not ashamed of showing a merely
+      animal pride, which is never quite apart from the pride of developed
+      beauty. They were as upright as Oriental girls, whose heads are nobly
+      poised from carrying the pitcher to the well. Dark Rhoda might have passed
+      for Rachel, and Dahlia called her Rachel. They tossed one another their
+      mutual compliments, drawn from the chief book of their reading. Queen of
+      Sheba was Dahlia's title. No master of callisthenics could have set them
+      up better than their mother's receipt for making good blood, combined with
+      a certain harmony of their systems, had done; nor could a schoolmistress
+      have taught them correcter speaking. The characteristic of girls having a
+      disposition to rise, is to be cravingly mimetic; and they remembered, and
+      crooned over, till by degrees they adopted the phrases and manner of
+      speech of highly grammatical people, such as the rector and his lady, and
+      of people in story-books, especially of the courtly French fairy-books,
+      wherein the princes talk in periods as sweetly rounded as are their silken
+      calves; nothing less than angelically, so as to be a model to ordinary
+      men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The idea of love upon the lips of ordinary men, provoked Dahlia's irony;
+      and the youths of Wrexby and Fenhurst had no chance against her secret
+      Prince Florizels. Them she endowed with no pastoral qualities; on the
+      contrary, she conceived that such pure young gentlemen were only to be
+      seen, and perhaps met, in the great and mystic City of London. Naturally,
+      the girls dreamed of London. To educate themselves, they copied out whole
+      pages of a book called the `Field of Mars,' which was next to the family
+      Bible in size among the volumes of the farmer's small library. The deeds
+      of the heroes of this book, and the talk of the fairy princes, were
+      assimilated in their minds; and as they looked around them upon millers',
+      farmers', maltsters', and tradesmen's sons, the thought of what manner of
+      youth would propose to marry them became a precocious tribulation. Rhoda,
+      at the age of fifteen, was distracted by it, owing to her sister's habit
+      of masking her own dismal internal forebodings on the subject, under the
+      guise of a settled anxiety concerning her sad chance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In dress, the wife of the rector of Wrexby was their model. There came
+      once to Squire Blancove's unoccupied pew a dazzling vision of a fair lady.
+      They heard that she was a cousin of his third wife, and a widow, Mrs.
+      Lovell by name. They looked at her all through the service, and the lady
+      certainly looked at them in return; nor could they, with any distinctness,
+      imagine why, but the look dwelt long in their hearts, and often afterward,
+      when Dahlia, upon taking her seat in church, shut her eyes, according to
+      custom, she strove to conjure up the image of herself, as she had appeared
+      to the beautiful woman in the dress of grey-shot silk, with violet mantle
+      and green bonnet, rose-trimmed; and the picture she conceived was the one
+      she knew herself by, for many ensuing years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Fleming fought her battle with a heart worthy of her countrywomen,
+      and with as much success as the burden of a despondent husband would allow
+      to her. William John Fleming was simply a poor farmer, for whom the wheels
+      of the world went too fast:&mdash;a big man, appearing to be difficult to
+      kill, though deeply smitten. His cheeks bloomed in spite of lines and
+      stains, and his large, quietly dilated, brown ox-eyes, that never gave out
+      a meaning, seldom showed as if they had taken one from what they saw.
+      Until his wife was lost to him, he believed that he had a mighty grievance
+      against her; but as he was not wordy, and was by nature kind, it was her
+      comfort to die and not to know it. This grievance was rooted in the idea
+      that she was ruinously extravagant. The sight of the plentiful table was
+      sore to him; the hungry mouths, though he grudged to his offspring nothing
+      that he could pay for, were an afflicting prospect. &ldquo;Plump 'em up, and
+      make 'em dainty,&rdquo; he advanced in contravention of his wife's talk of bread
+      and beef.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he did not complain. If it came to an argument, the farmer sidled into
+      a secure corner of prophecy, and bade his wife to see what would come of
+      having dainty children. He could not deny that bread and beef made blood,
+      and were cheaper than the port-wine which doctors were in the habit of
+      ordering for this and that delicate person in the neighbourhood; so he was
+      compelled to have recourse to secret discontent. The attention, the time,
+      and the trifles of money shed upon the flower garden, were hardships
+      easier to bear. He liked flowers, and he liked to hear the praise of his
+      wife's horticultural skill. The garden was a distinguishing thing to the
+      farm, and when on a Sunday he walked home from church among full June
+      roses, he felt the odour of them to be so like his imagined sensations of
+      prosperity, that the deception was worth its cost. Yet the garden in its
+      bloom revived a cruel blow. His wife had once wounded his vanity. The
+      massed vanity of a silent man, when it does take a wound, desires a
+      giant's vengeance; but as one can scarcely seek to enjoy that monstrous
+      gratification when one's wife is the offender, the farmer escaped from his
+      dilemma by going apart into a turnip-field, and swearing, with his fist
+      outstretched, never to forget it. His wife had asked him, seeing that the
+      garden flourished and the farm decayed, to yield the labour of the farm to
+      the garden; in fact, to turn nurseryman under his wife's direction. The
+      woman could not see that her garden drained the farm already, distracted
+      the farm, and most evidently impoverished him. She could not understand,
+      that in permitting her, while he sweated fruitlessly, to give herself up
+      to the occupation of a lady, he had followed the promptings of his native
+      kindness, and certainly not of his native wisdom. That she should deem
+      herself `best man' of the two, and suggest his stamping his name to such
+      an opinion before the world, was an outrage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Fleming was failing in health. On that plea, with the solemnity
+      suited to the autumn of her allotted days, she persuaded her husband to
+      advertise for an assistant, who would pay a small sum of money to learn
+      sound farming, and hear arguments in favour of the Corn Laws. To please
+      her, he threw seven shillings away upon an advertisement, and laughed when
+      the advertisement was answered, remarking that he doubted much whether
+      good would come of dealings with strangers. A young man, calling himself
+      Robert Armstrong, underwent a presentation to the family. He paid the
+      stipulated sum, and was soon enrolled as one of them. He was of a
+      guardsman's height and a cricketer's suppleness, a drinker of water, and
+      apparently the victim of a dislike of his species; for he spoke of the
+      great night-lighted city with a horror that did not seem to be an
+      estimable point in him, as judged by a pair of damsels for whom the
+      mysterious metropolis flew with fiery fringes through dark space, in their
+      dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In other respects, the stranger was well thought of, as being handsome and
+      sedate. He talked fondly of one friend that he had, an officer in the
+      army, which was considered pardonably vain. He did not reach to the ideal
+      of his sex which had been formed by the sisters; but Mrs. Fleming,
+      trusting to her divination of his sex's character, whispered a mother's
+      word about him to her husband a little while before her death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was her prayer to heaven that she might save a doctor's bill. She died,
+      without lingering illness, in her own beloved month of June; the roses of
+      her tending at the open window, and a soft breath floating up to her from
+      the garden. On the foregoing May-day, she had sat on the green that
+      fronted the iron gateway, when Dahlia and Rhoda dressed the children of
+      the village in garlands, and crowned the fairest little one queen of May:
+      a sight that revived in Mrs. Fleming's recollection the time of her own
+      eldest and fairest taking homage, shy in her white smock and light thick
+      curls. The gathering was large, and the day was of the old nature of May,
+      before tyrannous Eastwinds had captured it and spoiled its consecration.
+      The mill-stream of the neighbouring mill ran blue among the broad green
+      pastures; the air smelt of cream-bowls and wheaten loaves; the firs on the
+      beacon-ridge, far southward, over Fenhurst and Helm villages, were
+      transported nearer to see the show, and stood like friends anxious to
+      renew acquaintance. Dahlia and Rhoda taught the children to perceive how
+      they resembled bent old beggar-men. The two stone-pines in the miller's
+      grounds were likened by them to Adam and Eve turning away from the blaze
+      of Paradise; and the saying of one receptive child, that they had nothing
+      but hair on, made the illustration undying both to Dahlia and Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The magic of the weather brought numerous butterflies afield, and one
+      fiddler, to whose tuning the little women danced; others closer upon
+      womanhood would have danced likewise, if the sisters had taken partners;
+      but Dahlia was restrained by the sudden consciousness that she was under
+      the immediate observation of two manifestly London gentlemen, and she
+      declined to be led forth by Robert Armstrong. The intruders were youths of
+      good countenance, known to be the son and the nephew of Squire Blancove of
+      Wrexby Hall. They remained for some time watching the scene, and destroyed
+      Dahlia's single-mindedness. Like many days of gaiety, the Gods consenting,
+      this one had its human shadow. There appeared on the borders of the
+      festivity a young woman, the daughter of a Wrexby cottager, who had left
+      her home and but lately returned to it, with a spotted name. No one
+      addressed her, and she stood humbly apart. Dahlia, seeing that every one
+      moved away from her, whispering with satisfied noddings, wished to draw
+      her in among the groups. She mentioned the name of Mary Burt to her
+      father, supposing that so kind a man would not fail to sanction her going
+      up to the neglected young woman. To her surprise, her father became
+      violently enraged, and uttered a stern prohibition, speaking a word that
+      stained her cheeks. Rhoda was by her side, and she wilfully, without
+      asking leave, went straight over to Mary, and stood with her under the
+      shadow of the Adam and Eve, until the farmer sent a messenger to say that
+      he was about to enter the house. Her punishment for the act of sinfulness
+      was a week of severe silence; and the farmer would have kept her to it
+      longer, but for her mother's ominously growing weakness. The sisters were
+      strangely overclouded by this incident. They could not fathom the meaning
+      of their father's unkindness, coarseness, and indignation. Why, and why?
+      they asked one another, blankly. The Scriptures were harsh in one part,
+      but was the teaching to continue so after the Atonement? By degrees they
+      came to reflect, and not in a mild spirit, that the kindest of men can be
+      cruel, and will forget their Christianity toward offending and repentant
+      women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Fleming had a brother in London, who had run away from his Kentish
+      home when a small boy, and found refuge at a Bank. The position of Anthony
+      Hackbut in that celebrated establishment, and the degree of influence
+      exercised by him there, were things unknown; but he had stuck to the Bank
+      for a great number of years, and he had once confessed to his sister that
+      he was not a beggar. Upon these joint facts the farmer speculated,
+      deducing from them that a man in a London Bank, holding money of his own,
+      must have learnt the ways of turning it over&mdash;farming golden ground,
+      as it were; consequently, that amount must now have increased to a very
+      considerable sum. You ask, What amount? But one who sits brooding upon a
+      pair of facts for years, with the imperturbable gravity of creation upon
+      chaos, will be as successful in evoking the concrete from the abstract.
+      The farmer saw round figures among the possessions of the family, and he
+      assisted mentally in this money-turning of Anthony's, counted his gains
+      for him, disposed his risks, and eyed the pile of visionary gold with an
+      interest so remote, that he was almost correct in calling it
+      disinterested. The brothers-in-law had a mutual plea of expense that kept
+      them separate. When Anthony refused, on petition, to advance one hundred
+      pounds to the farmer, there was ill blood to divide them. Queen Anne's
+      Farm missed the flourishing point by one hundred pounds exactly. With that
+      addition to its exchequer, it would have made head against its old enemy,
+      Taxation, and started rejuvenescent. But the Radicals were in power to
+      legislate and crush agriculture, and &ldquo;I've got a miser for my
+      brother-in-law,&rdquo; said the farmer. Alas! the hundred pounds to back him, he
+      could have sowed what he pleased, and when it pleased him, partially
+      defying the capricious clouds and their treasures, and playing tunefully
+      upon his land, his own land. Instead of which, and while too keenly aware
+      that the one hundred would have made excesses in any direction tributary
+      to his pocket, the poor man groaned at continuous falls of moisture, and
+      when rain was prayed for in church, he had to be down on his knees,
+      praying heartily with the rest of the congregation. It was done, and
+      bitter reproaches were cast upon Anthony for the enforced necessity to do
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the occasion of his sister's death, Anthony informed his bereaved
+      brother-in-law that he could not come down to follow the hearse as a
+      mourner. &ldquo;My place is one of great trust;&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I cannot be
+      spared.&rdquo; He offered, however, voluntarily to pay half the expenses of the
+      funeral, stating the limit of the cost. It is unfair to sound any man's
+      springs of action critically while he is being tried by a sorrow; and the
+      farmer's angry rejection of Anthony's offer of aid must pass. He remarked
+      in his letter of reply, that his wife's funeral should cost no less than
+      he chose to expend on it. He breathed indignant fumes against
+      &ldquo;interferences.&rdquo; He desired Anthony to know that he also was &ldquo;not a
+      beggar,&rdquo; and that he would not be treated as one. The letter showed a
+      solid yeoman's fist. Farmer Fleming told his chums, and the shopkeeper of
+      Wrexby, with whom he came into converse, that he would honour his dead
+      wife up to his last penny. Some month or so afterward it was generally
+      conjectured that he had kept his word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony's rejoinder was characterized by a marked humility. He expressed
+      contrition for the farmer's misunderstanding of his motives. His
+      fathomless conscience had plainly been reached. He wrote again, without
+      waiting for an answer, speaking of the Funds indeed, but only to pronounce
+      them worldly things, and hoping that they all might meet in heaven, where
+      brotherly love, as well as money, was ready made, and not always in the
+      next street. A hint occurred that it would be a gratification to him to be
+      invited down, whether he could come or no; for holidays were expensive,
+      and journeys by rail had to be thought over before they were undertaken;
+      and when you are away from your post, you never knew who maybe supplanting
+      you. He did not promise that he could come, but frankly stated his
+      susceptibility to the friendliness of an invitation. The feeling indulged
+      by Farmer Fleming in refusing to notice Anthony's advance toward a
+      reconciliation, was, on the whole, not creditable to him. Spite is more
+      often fattened than propitiated by penitence. He may have thought besides
+      (policy not being always a vacant space in revengeful acts) that Anthony
+      was capable of something stronger and warmer, now that his humanity had
+      been aroused. The speculation is commonly perilous; but Farmer Fleming had
+      the desperation of a man who has run slightly into debt, and has heard the
+      first din of dunning, which to the unaccustomed imagination is fearful as
+      bankruptcy (shorn of the horror of the word). And, moreover, it was so
+      wonderful to find Anthony displaying humanity at all, that anything might
+      be expected of him. &ldquo;Let's see what he will do,&rdquo; thought the farmer in an
+      interval of his wrath; and the wrath is very new which has none of these
+      cool intervals. The passions, do but watch them, are all more or less
+      intermittent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As it chanced, he acted sagaciously, for Anthony at last wrote to say that
+      his home in London was cheerless, and that he intended to move into fresh
+      and airier lodgings, where the presence of a discreet young housekeeper,
+      who might wish to see London, and make acquaintance with the world, would
+      be agreeable to him. His project was that one of his nieces should fill
+      this office, and he requested his brother-in-law to reflect on it, and to
+      think of him as of a friend of the family, now and in the time to come.
+      Anthony spoke of the seductions of London quite unctuously. Who could
+      imagine this to be the letter of an old crabbed miser? &ldquo;Tell her,&rdquo; he
+      said, &ldquo;there's fruit at stalls at every street-corner all the year through&mdash;oysters
+      and whelks, if she likes&mdash;winkles, lots of pictures in shops&mdash;a
+      sight of muslin and silks, and rides on omnibuses&mdash;bands of all
+      sorts, and now and then we can take a walk to see the military on
+      horseback, if she's for soldiers.&rdquo; Indeed, he joked quite comically in
+      speaking of the famous horse-guards&mdash;warriors who sit on their horses
+      to be looked at, and do not mind it, because they are trained so
+      thoroughly. &ldquo;Horse-guards blue, and horse-guards red,&rdquo; he wrote&mdash;&ldquo;the
+      blue only want boiling.&rdquo; There is reason to suppose that his disrespectful
+      joke was not original in him, but it displayed his character in a fresh
+      light. Of course, if either of the girls was to go, Dahlia was the person.
+      The farmer commenced his usual process of sitting upon the idea. That it
+      would be policy to attach one of the family to this chirping old miser, he
+      thought incontestable. On the other hand, he had a dread of London, and
+      Dahlia was surpassingly fair. He put the case to Robert, in remembrance of
+      what his wife had spoken, hoping that Robert would amorously stop his
+      painful efforts to think fast enough for the occasion. Robert, however,
+      had nothing to say, and seemed willing to let Dahlia depart. The only
+      opponents to the plan were Mrs. Sumfit, a kindly, humble relative of the
+      farmer's, widowed out of Sussex, very loving and fat; the cook to the
+      household, whose waist was dimly indicated by her apron-string; and, to
+      aid her outcries, the silently-protesting Master Gammon, an old man with
+      the cast of eye of an antediluvian lizard, the slowest old man of his time&mdash;a
+      sort of foreman of the farm before Robert had come to take matters in
+      hand, and thrust both him and his master into the background. Master
+      Gammon remarked emphatically, once and for all, that &ldquo;he never had much
+      opinion of London.&rdquo; As he had never visited London, his opinion was
+      considered the less weighty, but, as he advanced no further speech, the
+      sins and backslidings of the metropolis were strongly brought to mind by
+      his condemnatory utterance. Policy and Dahlia's entreaties at last
+      prevailed with the farmer, and so the fair girl went up to the great city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After months of a division that was like the division of her living veins,
+      and when the comfort of letters was getting cold, Rhoda, having previously
+      pledged herself to secresy, though she could not guess why it was
+      commanded, received a miniature portrait of Dahlia, so beautiful that her
+      envy of London for holding her sister away from her, melted in gratitude.
+      She had permission to keep the portrait a week; it was impossible to
+      forbear from showing it to Mrs. Sumfit, who peeped in awe, and that
+      emotion subsiding, shed tears abundantly. Why it was to be kept secret,
+      they failed to inquire; the mystery was possibly not without its delights
+      to them. Tears were shed again when the portrait had to be packed up and
+      despatched. Rhoda lived on abashed by the adorable new refinement of
+      Dahlia's features, and her heart yearned to her uncle for so caring to
+      decorate the lovely face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day Rhoda was at her bed-room window, on the point of descending to
+      encounter the daily dumpling, which was the principal and the unvarying
+      item of the midday meal of the house, when she beheld a stranger trying to
+      turn the handle of the iron gate. Her heart thumped. She divined correctly
+      that it was her uncle. Dahlia had now been absent for very many months,
+      and Rhoda's growing fretfulness sprang the conviction in her mind that
+      something closer than letters must soon be coming. She ran downstairs, and
+      along the gravel-path. He was a little man, square-built, and looking as
+      if he had worn to toughness; with an evident Sunday suit on: black, and
+      black gloves, though the day was only antecedent to Sunday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me help you, sir,&rdquo; she said, and her hands came in contact with his,
+      and were squeezed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is my sister?&rdquo; She had no longer any fear in asking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, you let me through, first,&rdquo; he replied, imitating an arbitrary
+      juvenile. &ldquo;You're as tight locked in as if you was in dread of all the
+      thieves of London. You ain't afraid o' me, miss? I'm not the party
+      generally outside of a fortification; I ain't, I can assure you. I'm a
+      defence party, and a reg'lar lion when I've got the law backing me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke in a queer, wheezy voice, like a cracked flute, combined with the
+      effect of an ill-resined fiddle-bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are in the garden of Queen Anne's Farm,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you're my pretty little niece, are you? 'the darkie lass,' as your
+      father says. 'Little,' says I; why, you needn't be ashamed to stand beside
+      a grenadier. Trust the country for growing fine gals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are my uncle, then?&rdquo; said Rhoda. &ldquo;Tell me how my sister is. Is she
+      well? Is she quite happy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahly?&rdquo; returned old Anthony, slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes; my sister!&rdquo; Rhoda looked at him with distressful eagerness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, don't you be uneasy about your sister Dahly.&rdquo; Old Anthony, as he
+      spoke, fixed his small brown eyes on the girl, and seemed immediately to
+      have departed far away in speculation. A question recalled him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is her health good?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay; stomach's good, head's good, lungs, brain, what not, all good. She's
+      a bit giddy, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In her head?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay; and on her pins. Never you mind. You look a steady one, my dear. I
+      shall take to you, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But my sister&mdash;&rdquo; Rhoda was saying, when the farmer came out, and
+      sent a greeting from the threshold,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother Tony!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here he is, brother William John.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely, and so he is, at last.&rdquo; The farmer walked up to him with his hand
+      out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it ain't too late, I hope. Eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's never too late&mdash;to mend,&rdquo; said the farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? not my manners, eh?&rdquo; Anthony struggled to keep up the ball; and in
+      this way they got over the confusion of the meeting after many years and
+      some differences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Made acquaintance with Rhoda, I see,&rdquo; said the farmer, as they turned to
+      go in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The 'darkie lass' you write of. She's like a coal nigh a candle. She
+      looks, as you'd say, 't' other side of her sister.' Yes, we've had a
+      talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just in time for dinner, brother Tony. We ain't got much to offer, but
+      what there is, is at your service. Step aside with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer got Anthony out of hearing a moment, questioned, and was
+      answered: after which he looked less anxious, but a trifle perplexed, and
+      nodded his head as Anthony occasionally lifted his, to enforce certain
+      points in some halting explanation. You would have said that a debtor was
+      humbly putting his case in his creditor's ear, and could only now and then
+      summon courage to meet the censorious eyes. They went in to Mrs. Sumfit's
+      shout that the dumplings were out of the pot: old Anthony bowed upon the
+      announcement of his name, and all took seats. But it was not the same sort
+      of dinner-hour as that which the inhabitants of the house were accustomed
+      to; there was conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer asked Anthony by what conveyance he had come. Anthony shyly,
+      but not without evident self-approbation, related how, having come by the
+      train, he got into conversation with the driver of a fly at a station, who
+      advised him of a cart that would be passing near Wrexby. For
+      threepennyworth of beer, he had got a friendly introduction to the carman,
+      who took him within two miles of the farm for one shilling, a distance of
+      fifteen miles. That was pretty good!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Home pork, brother Tony,&rdquo; said the farmer, approvingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And home-made bread, too, brother William John,&rdquo; said Anthony, becoming
+      brisk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, and the beer, such as it is.&rdquo; The farmer drank and sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony tried the beer, remarking, &ldquo;That's good beer; it don't cost much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It ain't adulterated. By what I read of your London beer, this stuff's
+      not so bad, if you bear in mind it's pure. Pure's my motto. 'Pure, though
+      poor!'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Up there, you pay for rank poison,&rdquo; said Anthony. &ldquo;So, what do I do? I
+      drink water and thank 'em, that's wise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saves stomach and purse.&rdquo; The farmer put a little stress on 'purse.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I calculate I save threepence a day in beer alone,&rdquo; said Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three times seven's twenty-one, ain't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Fleming said this, and let out his elbow in a small perplexity, as
+      Anthony took him up: &ldquo;And fifty-two times twenty-one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that's, that's&mdash;how much is that, Mas' Gammon?&rdquo; the farmer
+      asked in a bellow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Master Gammon was laboriously and steadily engaged in tightening himself
+      with dumpling. He relaxed his exertions sufficiently to take this new
+      burden on his brain, and immediately cast it off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah never thinks when I feeds&mdash;Ah was al'ays a bad hand at 'counts.
+      Gi'es it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you're like a horse that never was rode! Try again, old man,&rdquo; said
+      the farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I drags a cart,&rdquo; Master Gammon replied, &ldquo;that ain't no reason why I
+      should leap a gate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer felt that he was worsted as regarded the illustration, and with
+      a bit of the boy's fear of the pedagogue, he fought Anthony off by still
+      pressing the arithmetical problem upon Master Gammon; until the old man,
+      goaded to exasperation, rolled out thunderingly,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I works fer ye, that ain't no reason why I should think fer ye,&rdquo; which
+      caused him to be left in peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh, Robert?&rdquo; the farmer transferred the question; &ldquo;Come! what is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert begged a minute's delay, while Anthony watched him with hawk eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you what it is&mdash;it's pounds,&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This tickled Anthony, who let him escape, crying: &ldquo;Capital! Pounds it is
+      in your pocket, sir, and you hit that neatly, I will say. Let it be five.
+      You out with your five at interest, compound interest; soon comes another
+      five; treat it the same: in ten years&mdash;eh? and then you get into
+      figures; you swim in figures!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think you did!&rdquo; said the farmer, winking slyly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony caught the smile, hesitated and looked shrewd, and then covered
+      his confusion by holding his plate to Mrs. Sumfit for a help. The manifest
+      evasion and mute declaration that dumpling said &ldquo;mum&rdquo; on that head, gave
+      the farmer a quiet glow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you are ready to tell me all about my darlin', sir,&rdquo; Mrs. Sumfit
+      suggested, coaxingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After dinner, mother&mdash;after dinner,&rdquo; said the farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And we're waitin', are we, till them dumplings is finished?&rdquo; she
+      exclaimed, piteously, with a glance at Master Gammon's plate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After dinner we'll have a talk, mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Sumfit feared from this delay that there was queer news to be told of
+      Dahlia's temper; but she longed for the narrative no whit the less, and
+      again cast a sad eye on the leisurely proceedings of Master Gammon. The
+      veteran was still calmly tightening. His fork was on end, with a vast
+      mouthful impaled on the prongs. Master Gammon, a thoughtful eater, was
+      always last at the meal, and a latent, deep-lying irritation at Mrs.
+      Sumfit for her fidgetiness, day after day, toward the finish of the dish,
+      added a relish to his engulfing of the monstrous morsel. He looked at her
+      steadily, like an ox of the fields, and consumed it, and then holding his
+      plate out, in a remorseless way, said, &ldquo;You make 'em so good, marm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Sumfit, fretted as she was, was not impervious to the sound sense of
+      the remark, as well as to the compliment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't want to hurry you, Mas' Gammon,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;Lord knows, I like to
+      see you and everybody eat his full and be thankful; but, all about my
+      Dahly waitin',&mdash;I feel pricked wi' a pin all over, I do; and there's
+      my blessed in London,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;and we knowin' nothin' of her, and
+      one close by to tell me! I never did feel what slow things dumplin's was,
+      afore now!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The kettle simmered gently on the hob. Every other knife and fork was
+      silent; so was every tongue. Master Gammon ate and the kettle hummed.
+      Twice Mrs. Sumfit sounded a despairing, &ldquo;Oh, deary me!&rdquo; but it was
+      useless. No human power had ever yet driven Master Gammon to a
+      demonstration of haste or to any acceleration of the pace he had chosen
+      for himself. At last, she was not to be restrained from crying out, almost
+      tearfully,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When do you think you'll have done, Mas' Gammon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus pointedly addressed, Master Gammon laid down his knife and fork. He
+      half raised his ponderous, curtaining eyelids, and replied,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I feels my buttons, marm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After which he deliberately fell to work again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Sumfit dropped back in her chair as from a blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even dumplings, though they resist so doggedly for a space, do
+      ultimately submit to the majestic march of Time, and move. Master Gammon
+      cleared his plate. There stood in the dish still half a dumpling. The
+      farmer and Rhoda, deeming that there had been a show of inhospitality,
+      pressed him to make away with this forlorn remainder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The vindictive old man, who was as tight as dumpling and buttons could
+      make him, refused it in a drooping tone, and went forth, looking at none.
+      Mrs. Sumfit turned to all parties, and begged them to say what more, to
+      please Master Gammon, she could have done? When Anthony was ready to speak
+      of her Dahlia, she obtruded this question in utter dolefulness. Robert was
+      kindly asked by the farmer to take a pipe among them. Rhoda put a chair
+      for him, but he thanked them both, and said he could not neglect some work
+      to be done in the fields. She thought that he feared pain from hearing
+      Dahlia's name, and followed him with her eyes commiseratingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does that young fellow attend to business?&rdquo; said Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer praised Robert as a rare hand, but one affected with bees in
+      his nightcap,&mdash;who had ideas of his own about farming, and was
+      obstinate with them; &ldquo;pays you due respect, but's got a notion as how his
+      way of thinking's better 'n his seniors. It's the style now with all young
+      folks. Makes a butt of old Mas' Gammon; laughs at the old man. It ain't
+      respectful t' age, I say. Gammon don't understand nothing about new feeds
+      for sheep, and dam nonsense about growing such things as melons,
+      fiddle-faddle, for 'em. Robert's a beginner. What he knows, I taught the
+      young fellow. Then, my question is, where's his ideas come from, if
+      they're contrary to mine? If they're contrary to mine, they're contrary to
+      my teaching. Well, then, what are they worth? He can't see that. He's a
+      good one at work&mdash;I'll say so much for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Anthony gave Rhoda a pat on the shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pipes in the middle of the day's regular revelry,&rdquo; ejaculated Anthony,
+      whose way of holding the curved pipe-stem displayed a mind bent on
+      reckless enjoyment, and said as much as a label issuing from his mouth,
+      like a figure in a comic woodcut of the old style:&mdash;&ldquo;that's,&rdquo; he
+      pursued, &ldquo;that's if you haven't got to look up at the clock every two
+      minutes, as if the devil was after you. But, sitting here, you know, the
+      afternoon's a long evening; nobody's your master. You can on wi' your
+      slippers, up wi' your legs, talk, or go for'ard, counting, twicing, and
+      three-timesing; by George! I should take to drinking beer if I had my
+      afternoons to myself in the city, just for the sake of sitting and doing
+      sums in a tap-room; if it's a big tap-room, with pew sort o' places, and
+      dark red curtains, a fire, and a smell of sawdust; ale, and tobacco, and a
+      boy going by outside whistling a tune of the day. Somebody comes in. 'Ah,
+      there's an idle old chap,' he says to himself, (meaning me), and where, I
+      should like to ask him, 'd his head be if he sat there dividing two
+      hundred and fifty thousand by forty-five and a half!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer nodded encouragingly. He thought it not improbable that a short
+      operation with these numbers would give the sum in Anthony's possession,
+      the exact calculation of his secret hoard, and he set to work to stamp
+      them on his brain, which rendered him absent in manner, while Mrs. Sumfit
+      mixed liquor with hot water, and pushed at his knee, doubling in her
+      enduring lips, and lengthening her eyes to aim a side-glance of
+      reprehension at Anthony's wandering loquacity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda could bear it no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now let me hear of my sister, uncle,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you what,&rdquo; Anthony responded, &ldquo;she hasn't got such a pretty
+      sort of a sweet blackbirdy voice as you've got.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl blushed scarlet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, she can mount them colours, too,&rdquo; said Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His way of speaking of Dahlia indicated that he and she had enough of one
+      another; but of the peculiar object of his extraordinary visit not even
+      the farmer had received a hint. Mrs. Sumfit ventured to think aloud that
+      his grog was not stiff enough, but he took a gulp under her eyes, and
+      smacked his lips after it in a most convincing manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! that stuff wouldn't do for me in London, half-holiday or no
+      half-holiday,&rdquo; said Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; the farmer asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should be speculating&mdash;deep&mdash;couldn't hold myself in:
+      Mexicans, Peroovians, Venzeshoolians, Spaniards, at 'em I should go. I see
+      bonds in all sorts of colours, Spaniards in black and white, Peruvians&mdash;orange,
+      Mexicans&mdash;red as the British army. Well, it's just my whim. If I like
+      red, I go at red. I ain't a bit of reason. What's more, I never
+      speculate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, that's safest, brother Tony,&rdquo; said the farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And safe's my game&mdash;always was, always will be! Do you think&rdquo;&mdash;Anthony
+      sucked his grog to the sugar-dregs, till the spoon settled on his nose&mdash;&ldquo;do
+      you think I should hold the position I do hold, be trusted as I am
+      trusted? Ah! you don't know much about that. Should I have money placed in
+      my hands, do you think&mdash;and it's thousands at a time, gold, and
+      notes, and cheques&mdash;if I was a risky chap? I'm known to be thoroughly
+      respectable. Five and forty years I've been in Boyne's Bank, and thank ye,
+      ma'am, grog don't do no harm down here. And I will take another glass.
+      'When the heart of a man!'&mdash;but I'm no singer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Sumfit simpered, &ldquo;Hem; it's the heart of a woman, too: and she have
+      one, and it's dying to hear of her darlin' blessed in town, and of who
+      cuts her hair, and where she gets her gownds, and whose pills&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer interrupted her irritably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Divide a couple o' hundred thousand and more by forty-five and a half,&rdquo;
+       he said. &ldquo;Do wait, mother; all in good time. Forty-five and a-half,
+      brother Tony; that was your sum&mdash;ah!&mdash;you mentioned it some time
+      back&mdash;half of what? Is that half a fraction, as they call it? I
+      haven't forgot fractions, and logareems, and practice, and so on to
+      algebrae, where it always seems to me to blow hard, for, whizz goes my
+      head in a jiffy, as soon as I've mounted the ladder to look into that
+      country. How 'bout that forty-five and a half, brother Tony, if you don't
+      mind condescending to explain?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forty-five and a half?&rdquo; muttered Anthony, mystified.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, never mind, you know, if you don't like to say, brother Tony.&rdquo; The
+      farmer touched him up with his pipe-stem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five and a half,&rdquo; Anthony speculated. &ldquo;That's a fraction you got hold of,
+      brother William John,&mdash;I remember the parson calling out those names
+      at your wedding: 'I, William John, take thee, Susan;' yes, that's a
+      fraction, but what's the good of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I mean is, it ain't forty-five and half of forty-five. Half of one,
+      eh? That's identical with a fraction. One&mdash;a stroke&mdash;and two
+      under it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've got it correct,&rdquo; Anthony assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many thousand divide it by?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Divide what by, brother William John? I'm beat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! out comes the keys: lockup everything; it's time!&rdquo; the farmer
+      laughed, rather proud of his brother-in-law's perfect wakefulness after
+      two stiff tumblers. He saw that Anthony was determined with all due
+      friendly feeling to let no one know the sum in his possession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it's four o'clock, it is time to lock up,&rdquo; said Anthony, &ldquo;and bang to
+      go the doors, and there's the money for thieves to dream of&mdash;they
+      can't get a-nigh it, let them dream as they like. What's the hour, ma'am?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not three, it ain't,&rdquo; returned Mrs. Sumfit; &ldquo;and do be good creatures,
+      and begin about my Dahly, and where she got that Bumptious gownd, and the
+      bonnet with blue flowers lyin' by on the table: now, do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda coughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she wears lavender gloves like a lady,&rdquo; Mrs. Sumfit was continuing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda stamped on her foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! cruel!&rdquo; the comfortable old woman snapped in pain, as she applied her
+      hand to the inconsolable fat foot, and nursed it. &ldquo;What's roused ye, you
+      tiger girl? I shan't be able to get about, I shan't, and then who's to
+      cook for ye all? For you're as ignorant as a raw kitchen wench, and knows
+      nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Dody, you're careless,&rdquo; the farmer spoke chidingly through Mrs.
+      Sumfit's lamentations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She stops uncle Anthony when he's just ready, father,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want to know?&rdquo; Anthony set his small eyes on her: &ldquo;do you want to
+      know, my dear?&rdquo; He paused, fingering his glass, and went on: &ldquo;I, Susan,
+      take thee, William John, and you've come of it. Says I to myself, when I
+      hung sheepish by your mother and by your father, my dear, says I to
+      myself, I ain't a marrying man: and if these two, says I, if any progeny
+      comes to 'em&mdash;to bless them, some people'd say, but I know what life
+      is, and what young ones are&mdash;if&mdash;where was I? Liquor makes you
+      talk, brother William John, but where's your ideas? Gone, like hard cash!
+      What I meant was, I felt I might some day come for'ard and help the issue
+      of your wife's weddin', and wasn't such a shady object among you, after
+      all. My pipe's out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda stood up, and filled the pipe, and lit it in silence. She divined
+      that the old man must be allowed to run on in his own way, and for a long
+      time he rambled, gave a picture of the wedding, and of a robbery of
+      Boyne's Bank: the firm of Boyne, Burt, Hamble, and Company. At last, he
+      touched on Dahlia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What she wants, I can't make out,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;and what that good lady
+      there, or somebody, made mention of&mdash;how she manages to dress as she
+      do! I can understand a little goin' a great way, if you're clever in any
+      way; but I'm at my tea&rdquo;&mdash;Anthony laid his hand out as to exhibit a
+      picture. &ldquo;I ain't a complaining man, and be young, if you can, I say, and
+      walk about and look at shops; but, I'm at my tea: I come home rather tired
+      there's the tea-things, sure enough, and tea's made, and, maybe, there's a
+      shrimp or two; she attends to your creature comforts. When everything's
+      locked up and tight and right, I'm gay, and ask for a bit of society:
+      well, I'm at my tea: I hear her foot thumping up and down her bed-room
+      overhead: I know the meaning of that: I'd rather hear nothing: down she
+      runs: I'm at my tea, and in she bursts.&rdquo;&mdash;Here followed a dramatic
+      account of Dahlia's manner of provocation, which was closed by the
+      extinction of his pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer, while his mind still hung about thousands of pounds and a
+      certain incomprehensible division of them to produce a distinct
+      intelligible total, and set before him the sum of Anthony's riches, could
+      see that his elder daughter was behaving flightily and neglecting the true
+      interests of the family, and he was chagrined. But Anthony, before he
+      entered the house, had assured him that Dahlia was well, and that nothing
+      was wrong with her. So he looked at Mrs. Sumfit, who now took upon herself
+      to plead for Dahlia: a young thing, and such a handsome creature! and we
+      were all young some time or other; and would heaven have mercy on us, if
+      we were hard upon the young, do you think? The motto of a truly religious
+      man said, try 'em again. And, maybe, people had been a little hard upon
+      Dahlia, and the girl was apt to take offence. In conclusion, she appealed
+      to Rhoda to speak up for her sister. Rhoda sat in quiet reserve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was sure her sister must be justified in all she did but the picture
+      of the old man coming from his work every night to take his tea quite
+      alone made her sad. She found herself unable to speak, and as she did not,
+      Mrs. Sumfit had an acute twinge from her recently trodden foot, and called
+      her some bitter names; which was not an unusual case, for the kind old
+      woman could be querulous, and belonged to the list of those whose hearts
+      are as scales, so that they love not one person devotedly without a
+      corresponding spirit of opposition to another. Rhoda merely smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By-and-by, the women left the two men alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony turned and struck the farmer's knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've got a jewel in that gal, brother William John.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh! she's a good enough lass. Not much of a manager, brother Tony. Too
+      much of a thinker, I reckon. She's got a temper of her own too. I'm a bit
+      hurt, brother Tony, about that other girl. She must leave London, if she
+      don't alter. It's flightiness; that's all. You mustn't think ill of poor
+      Dahly. She was always the pretty one, and when they know it, they act up
+      to it: she was her mother's favourite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! poor Susan! an upright woman before the Lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was,&rdquo; said the farmer, bowing his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a good wife,&rdquo; Anthony interjected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None better&mdash;never a better; and I wish she was living to look after
+      her girls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came through the churchyard, hard by,&rdquo; said Anthony; &ldquo;and I read that
+      writing on her tombstone. It went like a choke in my throat. The first
+      person I saw next was her child, this young gal you call Rhoda; and,
+      thinks I to myself, you might ask me, I'd do anything for ye&mdash;that I
+      could, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer's eye had lit up, but became overshadowed by the characteristic
+      reservation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nobody'd ask you to do more than you could,&rdquo; he remarked, rather coldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'll never be much,&rdquo; sighed Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, the world's nothing, if you come to look at it close,&rdquo; the farmer
+      adopted a similar tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's money!&rdquo; said Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer immediately resumed his this-worldliness:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it's fine to go about asking us poor devils to answer ye that,&rdquo; he
+      said, and chuckled, conceiving that he had nailed Anthony down to a
+      partial confession of his ownership of some worldly goods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you call having money?&rdquo; observed the latter, clearly in the trap.
+      &ldquo;Fifty thousand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whew!&rdquo; went the farmer, as at a big draught of powerful stuff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ten thousand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Fleming took this second gulp almost contemptuously, but still kindly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; quoth Anthony, &ldquo;ten thousand's not so mean, you know. You're a
+      gentleman on ten thousand. So, on five. I'll tell ye, many a gentleman'd
+      be glad to own it. Lor' bless you! But, you know nothing of the world,
+      brother William John. Some of 'em haven't one&mdash;ain't so rich as you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or you, brother Tony?&rdquo; The farmer made a grasp at his will-o'-the-wisp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! me!&rdquo; Anthony sniggered. &ldquo;I'm a scraper of odds and ends. I pick up
+      things in the gutter. Mind you, those Jews ain't such fools, though a
+      curse is on 'em, to wander forth. They know the meaning of the
+      multiplication table. They can turn fractions into whole numbers. No; I'm
+      not to be compared to gentlemen. My property's my respectability. I said
+      that at the beginning, and I say it now. But, I'll tell you what, brother
+      William John, it's an emotion when you've got bags of thousands of pounds
+      in your arms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ordinarily, the farmer was a sensible man, as straight on the level of
+      dull intelligence as other men; but so credulous was he in regard to the
+      riches possessed by his wife's brother, that a very little tempted him to
+      childish exaggeration of the probable amount. Now that Anthony himself
+      furnished the incitement, he was quite lifted from the earth. He had,
+      besides, taken more of the strong mixture than he was ever accustomed to
+      take in the middle of the day; and as it seemed to him that Anthony was
+      really about to be seduced into a particular statement of the extent of
+      the property which formed his respectability (as Anthony had chosen to put
+      it), he got up a little game in his head by guessing how much the amount
+      might positively be, so that he could subsequently compare his shrewd
+      reckoning with the avowed fact. He tamed his wild ideas as much as
+      possible; thought over what his wife used to say of Anthony's saving ways
+      from boyhood, thought of the dark hints of the Funds, of many bold strokes
+      for money made by sagacious persons; of Anthony's close style of living,
+      and of the lives of celebrated misers; this done, he resolved to make a
+      sure guess, and therefore aimed below the mark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Money, when the imagination deals with it thus, has no substantial
+      relation to mortal affairs. It is a tricksy thing, distending and
+      contracting as it dances in the mind, like sunlight on the ceiling cast
+      from a morning tea-cup, if a forced simile will aid the conception. The
+      farmer struck on thirty thousand and some odd hundred pounds&mdash;outlying
+      debts, or so, excluded&mdash;as what Anthony's will, in all likelihood,
+      would be sworn under: say, thirty thousand, or, safer, say, twenty
+      thousand. Bequeathed&mdash;how? To him and to his children. But to the
+      children in reversion after his decease? Or how? In any case, they might
+      make capital marriages; and the farm estate should go to whichever of the
+      two young husbands he liked the best. Farmer Fleming asked not for any
+      life of ease and splendour, though thirty thousand pounds was a fortune;
+      or even twenty thousand. Noblemen have stooped to marry heiresses owning
+      no more than that! The idea of their having done so actually shot across
+      him, and his heart sent up a warm spring of tenderness toward the patient,
+      good, grubbing old fellow, sitting beside him, who had lived and died to
+      enrich and elevate the family. At the same time, he could not refrain from
+      thinking that Anthony, broad-shouldered as he was, though bent, sound on
+      his legs, and well-coloured for a Londoner, would be accepted by any Life
+      Insurance office, at a moderate rate, considering his age. The farmer
+      thought of his own health, and it was with a pang that he fancied himself
+      being probed by the civil-speaking Life Insurance doctor (a gentleman who
+      seems to issue upon us applicants from out the muffled folding doors of
+      Hades; taps us on the chest, once, twice, and forthwith writes down our
+      fateful dates). Probably, Anthony would not have to pay a higher rate of
+      interest than he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you insured, brother Tony?&rdquo; the question escaped him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I ain't, brother William John;&rdquo; Anthony went on nodding like an
+      automaton set in motion. &ldquo;There's two sides to that. I'm a long-lived man.
+      Long-lived men don't insure; that is, unless they're fools. That's how the
+      Offices thrive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Case of accident?&rdquo; the farmer suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! nothing happens to me,&rdquo; replied Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer jumped on his legs, and yawned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we take a turn in the garden, brother Tony?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With all my heart, brother William John.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer had conscience to be ashamed of the fit of irritable vexation
+      which had seized on him; and it was not till Anthony being asked the date
+      of his birth, had declared himself twelve years his senior, that the
+      farmer felt his speculations to be justified. Anthony was nearly a
+      generation ahead. They walked about, and were seen from the windows
+      touching one another on the shoulder in a brotherly way. When they came
+      back to the women, and tea, the farmer's mind was cooler, and all his
+      reckonings had gone to mist. He was dejected over his tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter, father?&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you, my dear,&rdquo; Anthony replied for him. &ldquo;He's envying me some
+      one I want to ask me that question when I'm at my tea in London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Fleming kept his forehead from his daughter's good-night kiss until
+      the room was cleared, after supper, and then embracing her very heartily,
+      he informed her that her uncle had offered to pay her expenses on a visit
+      to London, by which he contrived to hint that a golden path had opened to
+      his girl, and at the same time entreated her to think nothing of it; to
+      dismiss all expectations and dreams of impossible sums from her mind, and
+      simply to endeavour to please her uncle, who had a right to his own, and a
+      right to do what he liked with his own, though it were forty, fifty times
+      as much as he possessed&mdash;and what that might amount to no one knew.
+      In fact, as is the way with many experienced persons, in his attempt to
+      give advice to another, he was very impressive in lecturing himself, and
+      warned that other not to succumb to a temptation principally by indicating
+      the natural basis of the allurement. Happily for young and for old, the
+      intense insight of the young has much to distract or soften it. Rhoda
+      thanked her father, and chose to think that she had listened to good and
+      wise things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your sister,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;but we won't speak of her. If I could part
+      with you, my lass, I'd rather she was the one to come back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahlia would be killed by our quiet life now,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; the farmer mused. &ldquo;If she'd got to pay six men every Saturday night,
+      she wouldn't complain o' the quiet. But, there&mdash;you neither of you
+      ever took to farming or to housekeeping; but any gentleman might be proud
+      to have one of you for a wife. I said so when you was girls. And if,
+      you've been dull, my dear, what's the good o' society? Tea-cakes mayn't
+      seem to cost money, nor a glass o' grog to neighbours; but once open the
+      door to that sort o' thing and your reckoning goes. And what I said to
+      your poor mother's true. I said: Our girls, they're mayhap not equals of
+      the Hollands, the Nashaws, the Perrets, and the others about here&mdash;no;
+      they're not equals, because the others are not equals o' them, maybe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The yeoman's pride struggled out in this obscure way to vindicate his
+      unneighbourliness and the seclusion of his daughters from the society of
+      girls of their age and condition; nor was it hard for Rhoda to assure him,
+      as she earnestly did, that he had acted rightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda, assisted by Mrs. Sumfit, was late in the night looking up what poor
+      decorations she possessed wherewith to enter London, and be worthy of her
+      sister's embrace, so that she might not shock the lady Dahlia had become.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Depend you on it, my dear,&rdquo; said Mrs. Sumfit, &ldquo;my Dahly's grown above
+      him. That's nettles to your uncle, my dear. He can't abide it. Don't you
+      see he can't? Some men's like that. Others 'd see you dressed like a
+      princess, and not be satisfied. They vary so, the teasin' creatures! But
+      one and all, whether they likes it or not, owns a woman's the better for
+      bein' dressed in the fashion. What do grieve me to my insidest heart, it
+      is your bonnet. What a bonnet that was lying beside her dear round arm in
+      the po'trait, and her finger up making a dimple in her cheek, as if she
+      was thinking of us in a sorrowful way. That's the arts o' being lady-like&mdash;look
+      sad-like. How could we get a bonnet for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My own must do,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and you to look like lady and servant-gal a-goin' out for an airin';
+      and she to feel it! Pretty, that'd be!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She won't be ashamed of me,&rdquo; Rhoda faltered; and then hummed a little
+      tune, and said firmly&mdash;&ldquo;It's no use my trying to look like what I'm
+      not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, truly;&rdquo; Mrs. Sumfit assented. &ldquo;But it's your bein' behind the
+      fashions what hurt me. As well you might be an old thing like me, for any
+      pleasant looks you'll git. Now, the country&mdash;you're like in a
+      coalhole for the matter o' that. While London, my dear, its pavement and
+      gutter, and omnibus traffic; and if you're not in the fashion, the little
+      wicked boys of the streets themselves 'll let you know it; they've got
+      such eyes for fashions, they have. And I don't want my Dahly's sister to
+      be laughed at, and called 'coal-scuttle,' as happened to me, my dear,
+      believe it or not&mdash;and shoved aside, and said to&mdash;'Who are you?'
+      For she reely is nice-looking. Your uncle Anthony and Mr. Robert agreed
+      upon that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda coloured, and said, after a time, &ldquo;It would please me if people
+      didn't speak about my looks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The looking-glass probably told her no more than that she was nice to the
+      eye, but a young man who sees anything should not see like a mirror, and a
+      girl's instinct whispers to her, that her image has not been taken to
+      heart when she is accurately and impartially described by him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The key to Rhoda at this period was a desire to be made warm with praise
+      of her person. She beheld her face at times, and shivered. The face was so
+      strange with its dark thick eyebrows, and peculiarly straight-gazing brown
+      eyes; the level long red under-lip and curved upper; and the chin and
+      nose, so unlike Dahlia's, whose nose was, after a little dip from the
+      forehead, one soft line to its extremity, and whose chin seemed shaped to
+      a cup. Rhoda's outlines were harder. There was a suspicion of a heavenward
+      turn to her nose, and of squareness to her chin. Her face, when studied,
+      inspired in its owner's mind a doubt of her being even nice to the eye,
+      though she knew that in exercise, and when smitten by a blush, brightness
+      and colour aided her claims. She knew also that her head was easily poised
+      on her neck; and that her figure was reasonably good; but all this was
+      unconfirmed knowledge, quickly shadowed by the doubt. As the sun is wanted
+      to glorify the right features of a landscape, this girl thirsted for a
+      dose of golden flattery. She felt, without envy of her sister, that Dahlia
+      eclipsed her: and all she prayed for was that she might not be quite so
+      much in the background and obscure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But great, powerful London&mdash;the new universe to her spirit&mdash;was
+      opening its arms to her. In her half sleep that night she heard the mighty
+      thunder of the city, crashing, tumults of disordered harmonies, and the
+      splendour of the lamp-lighted city appeared to hang up under a dark-blue
+      heaven, removed from earth, like a fresh planet to which she was being
+      beckoned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At breakfast on the Sunday morning, her departure was necessarily spoken
+      of in public. Robert talked to her exactly as he had talked to Dahlia, on
+      the like occasion. He mentioned, as she remembered in one or two
+      instances, the names of the same streets, and professed a similar anxiety
+      as regarded driving her to the station and catching the train. &ldquo;That's a
+      thing which makes a man feel his strength's nothing,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You can't
+      stop it. I fancy I could stop a four-in-hand at full gallop. Mind, I only
+      fancy I could; but when you come to do with iron and steam, I feel like a
+      baby. You can't stop trains.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can trip 'em,&rdquo; said Anthony, a remark that called forth general
+      laughter, and increased the impression that he was a man of resources.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda was vexed by Robert's devotion to his strength. She was going, and
+      wished to go, but she wished to be regretted as well; and she looked at
+      him more. He, on the contrary, scarcely looked at her at all. He threw
+      verbal turnips, oats, oxen, poultry, and every possible melancholy
+      matter-of-fact thing, about the table, described the farm and his fondness
+      for it and the neighbourhood; said a farmer's life was best, and gave
+      Rhoda a week in which to be tired of London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sneered in her soul, thinking &ldquo;how little he knows of the constancy in
+      the nature of women!&rdquo; adding, &ldquo;when they form attachments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony was shown at church, in spite of a feeble intimation he expressed,
+      that it would be agreeable to him to walk about in the March sunshine, and
+      see the grounds and the wild flowers, which never gave trouble, nor cost a
+      penny, and were always pretty, and worth twenty of your artificial
+      contrivances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Same as I say to Miss Dahly,&rdquo; he took occasion to remark; &ldquo;but no!&mdash;no
+      good. I don't believe women hear ye, when you talk sense of that kind.
+      'Look,' says I, 'at a violet.' 'Look,' says she, 'at a rose.' Well, what
+      can ye say after that? She swears the rose looks best. You swear the
+      violet costs least. Then there you have a battle between what it costs and
+      how it looks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert pronounced a conventional affirmative, when called on for it by a
+      look from Anthony. Whereupon Rhoda cried out,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahlia was right&mdash;she was right, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was right, my dear, if she was a ten-thousander. She wasn't right as
+      a farmer's daughter with poor expectations.&mdash;I'd say humble, if
+      humble she were. As a farmer's daughter, she should choose the violet
+      side. That's clear as day. One thing's good, I admit; she tells me she
+      makes her own bonnets, and they're as good as milliners', and that's a
+      proud matter to say of your own niece. And to buy dresses for herself, I
+      suppose, she's sat down and she made dresses for fine ladies. I've found
+      her at it. Save the money for the work, says I. What does she reply&mdash;she
+      always has a reply: 'Uncle, I know the value of money better. 'You mean,
+      you spend it,' I says to her. 'I buy more than it's worth,' says she. And
+      I'll tell you what, Mr. Robert Armstrong, as I find your name to be, sir;
+      if you beat women at talking, my lord! you're a clever chap.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert laughed. &ldquo;I give in at the first mile.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't think much of women&mdash;is that it, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm glad to say I don't think of them at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think of one woman, now, Mr. Robert Armstrong?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd much rather think of two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's safer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, I don't exactly see that,&rdquo; said Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You set one to tear the other,&rdquo; Robert explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're a Grand Turk Mogul in your reasonings of women, Mr. Robert
+      Armstrong. I hope as your morals are sound, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were on the road to church, but Robert could not restrain a swinging
+      outburst.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He observed that he hoped likewise that his morals were sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because,&rdquo; said Anthony, &ldquo;do you see, sir, two wives&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no; one wife,&rdquo; interposed Robert. &ldquo;You said 'think about;' I'd 'think
+      about' any number of women, if I was idle. But the woman you mean to make
+      your wife, you go to at once, and don't 'think about' her or the question
+      either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You make sure of her, do you, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No: I try my luck; that is all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose she won't have ye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I wait for her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose she gets married to somebody else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you know, I shouldn't cast eye on a woman who was a fool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, upon my&mdash;&rdquo; Anthony checked his exclamation, returning to the
+      charge with, &ldquo;Just suppose, for the sake of supposing&mdash;supposing she
+      was a fool, and gone and got married, and you thrown back'ard on one leg,
+      starin' at the other, stupified-like?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't mind supposing it,&rdquo; said Robert. &ldquo;Say, she's a fool. Her being a
+      fool argues that I was one in making a fool's choice. So, she jilts me,
+      and I get a pistol, or I get a neat bit of rope, or I take a clean header
+      with a cannon-ball at my heels, or I go to the chemist's and ask for stuff
+      to poison rats,&mdash;anything a fool'd do under the circumstances, it
+      don't matter what.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Anthony waited for Rhoda to jump over a stile, and said to her,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He laughs at the whole lot of ye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo; she asked, with betraying cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This Mr. Robert Armstrong of yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of mine, uncle!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He don't seem to care a snap o' the finger for any of ye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, none of us must care for him, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, just the contrary. That always shows a young fellow who's attending
+      to his business. If he'd seen you boil potatoes, make dumplings, beds,
+      tea, all that, you'd have had a chance. He'd have marched up to ye before
+      you was off to London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saying, 'You are the woman.'&rdquo; Rhoda was too desperately tickled by the
+      idea to refrain from uttering it, though she was angry, and suffering
+      internal discontent. &ldquo;Or else, 'You are the cook,'&rdquo; she muttered, and
+      shut, with the word, steel bars across her heart, calling him, mentally,
+      names not justified by anything he had said or done&mdash;such as
+      mercenary, tyrannical, and such like.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert was attentive to her in church. Once she caught him with his eyes
+      on her face; but he betrayed no confusion, and looked away at the
+      clergyman. When the text was given out, he found the place in his Bible,
+      and handed it to her pointedly&mdash;&ldquo;There shall be snares and traps unto
+      you;&rdquo; a line from Joshua. She received the act as a polite pawing
+      civility; but when she was coming out of church, Robert saw that a blush
+      swept over her face, and wondered what thoughts could be rising within
+      her, unaware that girls catch certain meanings late, and suffer a fiery
+      torture when these meanings are clear to them. Rhoda called up the pride
+      of her womanhood that she might despise the man who had dared to distrust
+      her. She kept her poppy colour throughout the day, so sensitive was this
+      pride. But most she was angered, after reflection, by the doubts which
+      Robert appeared to cast on Dahlia, in setting his finger upon that burning
+      line of Scripture. It opened a whole black kingdom to her imagination, and
+      first touched her visionary life with shade. She was sincere in her
+      ignorance that the doubts were her own, but they lay deep in unawakened
+      recesses of the soul; it was by a natural action of her reason that she
+      transferred and forced them upon him who had chanced to make them visible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When young minds are set upon a distant object, they scarcely live for
+      anything about them. The drive to the station and the parting with Robert,
+      the journey to London, which had latterly seemed to her
+      secretly-distressed anticipation like a sunken city&mdash;a place of
+      wonder with the waters over it&mdash;all passed by smoothly; and then it
+      became necessary to call a cabman, for whom, as he did her the service to
+      lift her box, Rhoda felt a gracious respect, until a quarrel ensued
+      between him and her uncle concerning sixpence;&mdash;a poor sum, as she
+      thought; but representing, as Anthony impressed upon her understanding
+      during the conflict of hard words, a principle. Those who can persuade
+      themselves that they are fighting for a principle, fight strenuously, and
+      maybe reckoned upon to overmatch combatants on behalf of a miserable small
+      coin; so the cabman went away discomfited. He used such bad language that
+      Rhoda had no pity for him, and hearing her uncle style it &ldquo;the London
+      tongue,&rdquo; she thought dispiritedly of Dahlia's having had to listen to it
+      through so long a season. Dahlia was not at home; but Mrs. Wicklow,
+      Anthony's landlady, undertook to make Rhoda comfortable, which operation
+      she began by praising dark young ladies over fair ones, at the same time
+      shaking Rhoda's arm that she might not fail to see a compliment was
+      intended. &ldquo;This is our London way,&rdquo; she said. But Rhoda was most
+      disconcerted when she heard Mrs. Wicklow relate that her daughter and
+      Dahlia were out together, and say, that she had no doubt they had found
+      some pleasant and attentive gentleman for a companion, if they had not
+      gone purposely to meet one. Her thoughts of her sister were perplexed, and
+      London seemed a gigantic net around them both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that's the habit with the girls up here,&rdquo; said Anthony; &ldquo;that's what
+      fine bonnets mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda dropped into a bitter depth of brooding. The savage nature of her
+      virgin pride was such that it gave her great suffering even to suppose
+      that a strange gentleman would dare to address her sister. She
+      half-fashioned the words on her lips that she had dreamed of a false Zion,
+      and was being righteously punished. By-and-by the landlady's daughter
+      returned home alone, saying, with a dreadful laugh, that Dahlia had sent
+      her for her Bible; but she would give no explanation of the singular
+      mission which had been entrusted to her, and she showed no willingness to
+      attempt to fulfil it, merely repeating, &ldquo;Her Bible!&rdquo; with a vulgar
+      exhibition of simulated scorn that caused Rhoda to shrink from her, though
+      she would gladly have poured out a multitude of questions in the ear of
+      one who had last been with her beloved. After a while, Mrs. Wicklow looked
+      at the clock, and instantly became overclouded with an extreme gravity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eleven! and she sent Mary Ann home for her Bible. This looks bad. I call
+      it hypocritical, the idea of mentioning the Bible. Now, if she had said to
+      Mary Ann, go and fetch any other book but a Bible!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was mother's Bible,&rdquo; interposed Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wicklow replied: &ldquo;And I wish all young women to be as innocent as
+      you, my dear. You'll get you to bed. You're a dear, mild, sweet, good
+      young woman. I'm never deceived in character.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vaunting her penetration, she accompanied Rhoda to Dahlia's chamber,
+      bidding her sleep speedily, or that when her sister came they would be
+      talking till the cock crowed hoarse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a poultry-yard close to us?&rdquo; said Rhoda; feeling less at home
+      when she heard that there was not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night was quiet and clear. She leaned her head out of the window, and
+      heard the mellow Sunday evening roar of the city as of a sea at ebb. And
+      Dahlia was out on the sea. Rhoda thought of it as she looked at the row of
+      lamps, and listened to the noise remote, until the sight of stars was
+      pleasant as the faces of friends. &ldquo;People are kind here,&rdquo; she reflected,
+      for her short experience of the landlady was good, and a young gentleman
+      who had hailed a cab for her at the station, had a nice voice. He was
+      fair. &ldquo;I am dark,&rdquo; came a spontaneous reflection. She undressed, and half
+      dozing over her beating heart in bed, heard the street door open, and
+      leaped to think that her sister approached, jumping up in her bed to give
+      ear to the door and the stairs, that were conducting her joy to her: but
+      she quickly recomposed herself, and feigned sleep, for the delight of
+      revelling in her sister's first wonderment. The door was flung wide, and
+      Rhoda heard her name called by Dahlia's voice, and then there was a
+      delicious silence, and she felt that Dahlia was coming up to her on
+      tiptoe, and waited for her head to be stooped near, that she might fling
+      out her arms, and draw the dear head to her bosom. But Dahlia came only to
+      the bedside, without leaning over, and spoke of her looks, which held the
+      girl quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How she sleeps! It's a country sleep!&rdquo; Dahlia murmured. &ldquo;She's changed,
+      but it's all for the better. She's quite a woman; she's a perfect
+      brunette; and the nose I used to laugh at suits her face and those black,
+      thick eyebrows of hers; my pet! Oh, why is she here? What's meant by it? I
+      knew nothing of her coming. Is she sent on purpose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda did not stir. The tone of Dahlia's speaking, low and almost awful to
+      her, laid a flat hand on her, and kept her still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came for my Bible,&rdquo; she heard Dahlia say. &ldquo;I promised mother&mdash;oh,
+      my poor darling mother! And Dody lying in my bed! Who would have thought
+      of such things? Perhaps heaven does look after us and interfere. What will
+      become of me? Oh, you pretty innocent in your sleep! I lie for hours, and
+      can't sleep. She binds her hair in a knot on the pillow, just as she used
+      to in the old farm days!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda knew that her sister was bending over her now, but she was almost
+      frigid, and could not move.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia went to the looking-glass. &ldquo;How flushed I am!&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;No;
+      I'm pale, quite white. I've lost my strength. What can I do? How could I
+      take mother's Bible, and run from my pretty one, who expects me, and
+      dreams she'll wake with me beside her in the morning! I can't&mdash;I
+      can't If you love me, Edward, you won't wish it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She fell into a chair, crying wildly, and muffling her sobs. Rhoda's
+      eyelids grew moist, but wonder and the cold anguish of senseless sympathy
+      held her still frost-bound. All at once she heard the window open. Some
+      one spoke in the street below; some one uttered Dahlia's name. A deep bell
+      swung a note of midnight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go!&rdquo; cried Dahlia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The window was instantly shut.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The vibration of Dahlia's voice went through Rhoda like the heavy shaking
+      of the bell after it had struck, and the room seemed to spin and hum. It
+      was to her but another minute before her sister slid softly into the bed,
+      and they were locked together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Boyne's bank was of the order of those old and firmly fixed establishments
+      which have taken root with the fortunes of the country&mdash;are
+      honourable as England's name, solid as her prosperity, and even as the
+      flourishing green tree to shareholders: a granite house. Boyne himself had
+      been disembodied for more than a century: Burt and Hamble were still of
+      the flesh; but a greater than Burt or Hamble was Blancove&mdash;the Sir
+      William Blancove, Baronet, of city feasts and charities, who, besides
+      being a wealthy merchant, possessed of a very acute head for banking, was
+      a scholarly gentleman, worthy of riches. His brother was Squire Blancove,
+      of Wrexby; but between these two close relatives there existed no stronger
+      feeling than what was expressed by open contempt of a mind dedicated to
+      business on the one side, and quiet contempt of a life devoted to
+      indolence on the other. Nevertheless, Squire Blancove, though everybody
+      knew how deeply he despised his junior for his city-gained title and
+      commercial occupation, sent him his son Algernon, to get the youth into
+      sound discipline, if possible. This was after the elastic Algernon had, on
+      the paternal intimation of his colonel, relinquished his cornetcy and
+      military service. Sir William received the hopeful young fellow much in
+      the spirit with which he listened to the tales of his brother's comments
+      on his own line of conduct; that is to say, as homage to his intellectual
+      superiority. Mr. Algernon was installed in the Bank, and sat down for a
+      long career of groaning at the desk, with more complacency than was
+      expected from him. Sir William forwarded excellent accounts to his brother
+      of the behaviour of the heir to his estates. It was his way of rebuking
+      the squire, and in return for it the squire, though somewhat comforted,
+      despised his clerkly son, and lived to learn how very unjustly he did so.
+      Adolescents, who have the taste for running into excesses, enjoy the
+      breath of change as another form of excitement: change is a sort of
+      debauch to them. They will delight infinitely in a simple country round of
+      existence, in propriety and church-going, in the sensation of feeling
+      innocent. There is little that does not enrapture them, if you tie them
+      down to nothing, and let them try all. Sir William was deceived by his
+      nephew. He would have taken him into his town-house; but his own son,
+      Edward, who was studying for the Law, had chambers in the Temple, and
+      Algernon, receiving an invitation from Edward, declared a gentle
+      preference for the abode of his cousin. His allowance from his father was
+      properly contracted to keep him from excesses, as the genius of his senior
+      devised, and Sir William saw no objection to the scheme, and made none.
+      The two dined with him about twice in the month.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward Blancove was three-and-twenty years old, a student by fits, and a
+      young man given to be moody. He had powers of gaiety far eclipsing
+      Algernon's, but he was not the same easy tripping sinner and flippant
+      soul. He was in that yeasty condition of his years when action and
+      reflection alternately usurp the mind; remorse succeeded dissipation, and
+      indulgences offered the soporific to remorse. The friends of the two
+      imagined that Algernon was, or would become, his evil genius. In reality,
+      Edward was the perilous companion. He was composed of better stuff.
+      Algernon was but an airy animal nature, the soul within him being an
+      effervescence lightly let loose. Edward had a fatally serious spirit, and
+      one of some strength. What he gave himself up to, he could believe to be
+      correct, in the teeth of an opposing world, until he tired of it, when he
+      sided as heartily with the world against his quondam self. Algernon might
+      mislead, or point his cousin's passions for a time; yet if they continued
+      their courses together, there was danger that Algernon would degenerate
+      into a reckless subordinate&mdash;a minister, a valet, and be tempted
+      unknowingly to do things in earnest, which is nothing less than perdition
+      to this sort of creature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the key to young men is the ambition, or, in the place of it, the
+      romantic sentiment nourished by them. Edward aspired to become
+      Attorney-General of these realms, not a judge, you observe; for a judge is
+      to the imagination of youthful minds a stationary being, venerable, but
+      not active; whereas, your Attorney-General is always in the fray, and
+      fights commonly on the winning side,&mdash;a point that renders his
+      position attractive to sagacious youth. Algernon had other views.
+      Civilization had tried him, and found him wanting; so he condemned it.
+      Moreover, sitting now all day at a desk, he was civilization's drudge. No
+      wonder, then, that his dream was of prairies, and primeval forests, and
+      Australian wilds. He believed in his heart that he would be a man new made
+      over there, and always looked forward to savage life as to a bath that
+      would cleanse him, so that it did not much matter his being unclean for
+      the present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young men had a fair cousin by marriage, a Mrs. Margaret Lovell, a
+      widow. At seventeen she had gone with her husband to India, where Harry
+      Lovell encountered the sword of a Sikh Sirdar, and tried the last of his
+      much-vaunted swordsmanship, which, with his skill at the pistols, had
+      served him better in two antecedent duels, for the vindication of his
+      lovely and terrible young wife. He perished on the field, critically
+      admiring the stroke to which he owed his death. A week after Harry's
+      burial his widow was asked in marriage by his colonel. Captains, and a
+      giddy subaltern likewise, disputed claims to possess her. She, however,
+      decided to arrest further bloodshed by quitting the regiment. She always
+      said that she left India to save her complexion; &ldquo;and people don't know
+      how very candid I am,&rdquo; she added, for the colonel above-mentioned was
+      wealthy,&mdash;a man expectant of a title, and a good match, and she was
+      laughed at when she thus assigned trivial reasons for momentous
+      resolutions. It is a luxury to be candid; and perfect candour can do more
+      for us than a dark disguise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovell's complexion was worth saving from the ravages of an Indian
+      climate, and the persecution of claimants to her hand. She was golden and
+      white, like an autumnal birch-tree&mdash;yellow hair, with warm-toned
+      streaks in it, shading a fabulously fair skin. Then, too, she was tall, of
+      a nervous build, supple and proud in motion, a brilliant horsewoman, and a
+      most distinguished sitter in an easy drawing-room chair, which is, let me
+      impress upon you, no mean quality. After riding out for hours with a sweet
+      comrade, who has thrown the mantle of dignity half-way off her shoulders,
+      it is perplexing, and mixed strangely of humiliation and ecstasy, to come
+      upon her clouded majesty where she reclines as upon rose-hued clouds, in a
+      mystic circle of restriction (she who laughed at your jokes, and capped
+      them, two hours ago) a queen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Between Margaret Lovell and Edward there was a misunderstanding, of which
+      no one knew the nature, for they spoke in public very respectfully one of
+      the other. It had been supposed that they were lovers once; but when
+      lovers quarrel, they snarl, they bite, they worry; their eyes are indeed
+      unveiled, and their mouths unmuzzled. Now Margaret said of Edward: &ldquo;He is
+      sure to rise; he has such good principles.&rdquo; Edward said of Margaret: &ldquo;She
+      only wants a husband who will keep her well in hand.&rdquo; These sentences
+      scarcely carried actual compliments when you knew the speakers; but
+      outraged lovers cannot talk in that style after they have broken apart. It
+      is possible that Margaret and Edward conveyed to one another as sharp a
+      sting as envenomed lovers attempt. Gossip had once betrothed them, but was
+      now at fault. The lady had a small jointure, and lived partly with her
+      uncle, Lord Elling, partly with Squire Blancove, her aunt's husband, and a
+      little by herself, which was when she counted money in her purse, and
+      chose to assert her independence. She had a name in the world. There is a
+      fate attached to some women, from Helen of Troy downward, that blood is to
+      be shed for them. One duel on behalf of a woman is a reputation to her for
+      life; two are notoriety. If she is very young, can they be attributable to
+      her? We charge them naturally to her overpowering beauty. It happened that
+      Mrs. Lovell was beautiful. Under the light of the two duels her beauty
+      shone as from an illumination of black flame. Boys adored Mrs. Lovell.
+      These are moths. But more, the birds of air, nay, grave owls (who stand in
+      this metaphor for whiskered experience) thronged, dashing at the
+      apparition of terrible splendour. Was it her fault that she had a name in
+      the world?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Margaret Lovell's portrait hung in Edward's room. It was a photograph
+      exquisitely coloured, and was on the left of a dark Judith, dark with a
+      serenity of sternness. On the right hung another coloured photograph of a
+      young lady, also fair; and it was a point of taste to choose between them.
+      Do you like the hollowed lily's cheeks, or the plump rose's? Do you like a
+      thinnish fall of golden hair, or an abundant cluster of nut-brown? Do you
+      like your blonde with limpid blue eyes, or prefer an endowment of sunny
+      hazel? Finally, are you taken by an air of artistic innocence winding
+      serpentine about your heart's fibres; or is blushing simplicity sweeter to
+      you? Mrs. Lovell's eyebrows were the faintly-marked trace of a perfect
+      arch. The other young person's were thickish, more level; a full brown
+      colour. She looked as if she had not yet attained to any sense of her
+      being a professed beauty: but the fair widow was clearly bent upon winning
+      you, and had a shy, playful intentness of aspect. Her pure white skin was
+      flat on the bone; the lips came forward in a soft curve, and, if they were
+      not artistically stained, were triumphantly fresh. Here, in any case, she
+      beat her rival, whose mouth had the plebeian beauty's fault of being too
+      straight in a line, and was not trained, apparently, to tricks of dainty
+      pouting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was morning, and the cousins having sponged in pleasant cold water,
+      arranged themselves for exercise, and came out simultaneously into the
+      sitting-room, slippered, and in flannels. They nodded and went through
+      certain curt greetings, and then Algernon stepped to a cupboard and tossed
+      out the leather gloves. The room was large and they had a tolerable space
+      for the work, when the breakfast-table had been drawn a little on one
+      side. You saw at a glance which was the likelier man of the two, when they
+      stood opposed. Algernon's rounded features, full lips and falling chin,
+      were not a match, though he was quick on his feet, for the wary, prompt
+      eyes, set mouth, and hardness of Edward. Both had stout muscle, but in
+      Edward there was vigour of brain as well, which seemed to knit and inform
+      his shape without which, in fact, a man is as a ship under no command.
+      Both looked their best; as, when sparring, men always do look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, then,&rdquo; said Algernon, squaring up to his cousin in good style,
+      &ldquo;now's the time for that unwholesome old boy underneath to commence
+      groaning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Step as light as you can,&rdquo; replied Edward, meeting him with the pretty
+      motion of the gloves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll step as light as a French dancing-master. Let's go to Paris and
+      learn the savate, Ned. It must be a new sensation to stand on one leg and
+      knock a fellow's hat off with the other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stick to your fists.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hang it! I wish your fists wouldn't stick to me so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You talk too much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gad, I don't get puffy half so soon as you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want country air.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said you were going out, old Ned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I changed my mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Saying which, Edward shut his teeth, and talked for two or three hot
+      minutes wholly with his fists. The room shook under Algernon's boundings
+      to right and left till a blow sent him back on the breakfast-table,
+      shattered a cup on the floor, and bespattered his close flannel shirt with
+      a funereal coffee-tinge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the deuce I said to bring that on myself, I don't know,&rdquo; Algernon
+      remarked as he rose. &ldquo;Anything connected with the country disagreeable to
+      you, Ned? Come! a bout of quiet scientific boxing, and none of these
+      beastly rushes, as if you were singling me out of a crowd of magsmen. Did
+      you go to church yesterday, Ned? Confound it, you're on me again, are
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Algernon went on spouting unintelligible talk under a torrent of
+      blows. He lost his temper and fought out at them; but as it speedily
+      became evident to him that the loss laid him open to punishment, he
+      prudently recovered it, sparred, danced about, and contrived to shake the
+      room in a manner that caused Edward to drop his arms, in consideration for
+      the distracted occupant of the chambers below. Algernon accepted the
+      truce, and made it peace by casting off one glove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! that's a pleasant morning breather,&rdquo; he said, and sauntered to the
+      window to look at the river. &ldquo;I always feel the want of it when I don't
+      get it. I could take a thrashing rather than not on with the gloves to
+      begin the day. Look at those boats! Fancy my having to go down to the
+      city. It makes me feel like my blood circulating the wrong way. My
+      father'll suffer some day, for keeping me at this low ebb of cash, by
+      jingo!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He uttered this with a prophetic fierceness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot even scrape together enough for entrance money to a Club. It's
+      sickening! I wonder whether I shall ever get used to banking work? There's
+      an old clerk in our office who says he should feel ill if he missed a day.
+      And the old porter beats him&mdash;bangs him to fits. I believe he'd die
+      off if he didn't see the house open to the minute. They say that old boy's
+      got a pretty niece; but he don't bring her to the office now. Reward of
+      merit!&mdash;Mr. Anthony Hackbut is going to receive ten pounds a year
+      extra. That's for his honesty. I wonder whether I could earn a reputation
+      for the sake of a prospect of ten extra pounds to my salary. I've got a
+      salary! hurrah! But if they keep me to my hundred and fifty per annum,
+      don't let them trust me every day with the bags, as they do that old
+      fellow. Some of the men say he's good to lend fifty pounds at a pinch.&mdash;Are
+      the chops coming, Ned?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The chops are coming,&rdquo; said Edward, who had thrown on a boating-coat and
+      plunged into a book, and spoke echoing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's little Peggy Lovell.&rdquo; Algernon faced this portrait. &ldquo;It don't do
+      her justice. She's got more life, more change in her, more fire. She's
+      starting for town, I hear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is starting for town,&rdquo; said Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know that?&rdquo; Algernon swung about to ask.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward looked round to him. &ldquo;By the fact of your not having fished for a
+      holiday this week. How did you leave her yesterday, Algy? Quite well, I
+      hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The ingenuous face of the young gentleman crimsoned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, she was well,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Ha! I see there can be some attraction in
+      your dark women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean that Judith? Yes, she's a good diversion.&rdquo; Edward gave a
+      two-edged response. &ldquo;What train did you come up by last night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The last from Wrexby. That reminds me: I saw a young Judith just as I got
+      out. She wanted a cab. I called it for her. She belongs to old Hackbut of
+      the Bank&mdash;the old porter, you know. If it wasn't that there's always
+      something about dark women which makes me think they're going to have a
+      moustache, I should take to that girl's face.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward launched forth an invective against fair women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have they done to you-what have they done?&rdquo; said Algernon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My good fellow, they're nothing but colour. They've no conscience. If
+      they swear a thing to you one moment, they break it the next. They can't
+      help doing it. You don't ask a gilt weathercock to keep faith with
+      anything but the wind, do you? It's an ass that trusts a fair woman at
+      all, or has anything to do with the confounded set. Cleopatra was fair; so
+      was Delilah; so is the Devil's wife. Reach me that book of Reports.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By jingo!&rdquo; cried Algernon, &ldquo;my stomach reports that if provision doesn't
+      soon approach&mdash;&mdash;why don't you keep a French cook here, Ned?
+      Let's give up the women, and take to a French cook.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward yawned horribly. &ldquo;All in good time. It's what we come to. It's
+      philosophy&mdash;your French cook! I wish I had it, or him. I'm afraid a
+      fellow can't anticipate his years&mdash;not so lucky!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By Jove! we shall have to be philosophers before we breakfast!&rdquo; Algernon
+      exclaimed. &ldquo;It's nine. I've to be tied to the stake at ten, chained and
+      muzzled&mdash;a leetle-a dawg! I wish I hadn't had to leave the service.
+      It was a vile conspiracy against me there, Ned. Hang all tradesmen! I sit
+      on a stool, and add up figures. I work harder than a nigger in the office.
+      That's my life: but I must feed. It's no use going to the office in a
+      rage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you try on the gloves again?&rdquo; was Edward's mild suggestion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon thanked him, and replied that he knew him. Edward hit hard when
+      he was empty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They now affected patience, as far as silence went to make up an element
+      of that sublime quality. The chops arriving, they disdained the mask.
+      Algernon fired his glove just over the waiter's head, and Edward put the
+      ease to the man's conscience; after which they sat and ate, talking
+      little. The difference between them was, that Edward knew the state of
+      Algernon's mind and what was working within it, while the latter stared at
+      a blank wall as regarded Edward's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Going out after breakfast, Ned?&rdquo; said Algernon. &ldquo;We'll walk to the city
+      together, if you like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward fixed one of his intent looks upon his cousin. &ldquo;You're not going to
+      the city to-day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The deuce, I'm not!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're going to dance attendance on Mrs. Lovell, whom it's your pleasure
+      to call Peggy, when you're some leagues out of her hearing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon failed to command his countenance. He glanced at one of the
+      portraits, and said, &ldquo;Who is that girl up there? Tell us her name. Talking
+      of Mrs. Lovell, has she ever seen it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you'll put on your coat, my dear Algy, I will talk to you about Mrs.
+      Lovell.&rdquo; Edward kept his penetrative eyes on Algernon. &ldquo;Listen to me:
+      you'll get into a mess there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I must listen, Ned, I'll listen in my shirt-sleeves, with all respect
+      to the lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. The shirt-sleeves help the air of bravado. Now, you know that
+      I've what they call 'knelt at her feet.' She's handsome. Don't cry out.
+      She's dashing, and as near being a devil as any woman I ever met. Do you
+      know why we broke? I'll tell you. Plainly, because I refused to believe
+      that one of her men had insulted her. You understand what that means. I
+      declined to be a chief party in a scandal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Declined to fight the fellow?&rdquo; interposed Algernon. &ldquo;More shame to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you're a year younger than I am, Algy. You have the privilege of
+      speaking with that year's simplicity. Mrs. Lovell will play you as she
+      played me. I acknowledge her power, and I keep out of her way. I don't
+      bet; I don't care to waltz; I can't keep horses; so I don't lose much by
+      the privation to which I subject myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I bet, I waltz, and I ride. So,&rdquo; said Algernon, &ldquo;I should lose
+      tremendously.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will lose, mark my words.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the lecture of my year's senior concluded?&rdquo; said Algernon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I've done,&rdquo; Edward answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I'll put on my coat, Ned, and I'll smoke in it. That'll give you
+      assurance I'm not going near Mrs. Lovell, if anything will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That gives me assurance that Mrs. Lovell tolerates in you what she
+      detests,&rdquo; said Edward, relentless in his insight; &ldquo;and, consequently,
+      gives me assurance that she finds you of particular service to her at
+      present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon had a lighted match in his hand. He flung it into the fire. &ldquo;I'm
+      hanged if I don't think you have the confounded vanity to suppose she sets
+      me as a spy upon you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A smile ran along Edward's lips. &ldquo;I don't think you'd know it, if she
+      did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you're ten years older; you're twenty,&rdquo; bawled Algernon, in an
+      extremity of disgust. &ldquo;Don't I know what game you're following up? Isn't
+      it clear as day you've got another woman in your eye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's as clear as day, my good Algy, that you see a portrait hanging in my
+      chambers, and you have heard Mrs. Lovell's opinion of the fact. So much is
+      perfectly clear. There's my hand. I don't blame you. She's a clever woman,
+      and like many of the sort, shrewd at guessing the worst. Come, take my
+      hand. I tell you, I don't blame you. I've been little dog to her myself,
+      and fetched and carried, and wagged my tail. It's charming while it lasts.
+      Will you shake it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your tail, man?&rdquo; Algernon roared in pretended amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward eased him back to friendliness by laughing. &ldquo;No; my hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They shook hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Algernon. &ldquo;You mean well. It's very well for you to
+      preach virtue to a poor devil; you've got loose, or you're regularly in
+      love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Virtue! by heaven!&rdquo; Edward cried; &ldquo;I wish I were entitled to preach it to
+      any man on earth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His face flushed. &ldquo;There, good-bye, old fellow,&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to the city. I'll dine with you to-night, if you like; come and dine
+      with me at my Club. I shall be disengaged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon mumbled a flexible assent to an appointment at Edward's Club,
+      dressed himself with care, borrowed a sovereign, for which he nodded his
+      acceptance, and left him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward set his brain upon a book of law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may have been two hours after he had sat thus in his Cistercian
+      stillness, when a letter was delivered to him by one of the Inn porters.
+      Edward read the superscription, and asked the porter who it was that
+      brought it. Two young ladies, the porter said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were the contents:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not sure that you will ever forgive me. I cannot forgive myself when
+      I think of that one word I was obliged to speak to you in the cold street,
+      and nothing to explain why, and how much I love, you. Oh! how I love you!
+      I cry while I write. I cannot help it. I was a sop of tears all night
+      long, and oh! if you had seen my face in the morning. I am thankful you
+      did not. Mother's Bible brought me home. It must have been guidance, for
+      in my bed there lay my sister, and I could not leave her, I love her so. I
+      could not have got down stairs again after seeing her there; and I had to
+      say that cold word and shut the window on you. May I call you Edward
+      still? Oh, dear Edward, do make allowance for me. Write kindly to me. Say
+      you forgive me. I feel like a ghost to-day. My life seems quite behind me
+      somewhere, and I hardly feel anything I touch. I declare to you, dearest
+      one, I had no idea my sister was here. I was surprised when I heard her
+      name mentioned by my landlady, and looked on the bed; suddenly my strength
+      was gone, and it changed all that I was thinking. I never knew before that
+      women were so weak, but now I see they are, and I only know I am at my
+      Edward's mercy, and am stupid! Oh, so wretched and stupid. I shall not
+      touch food till I hear from you. Oh, if, you are angry, write so; but do
+      write. My suspense would make you pity me. I know I deserve your anger. It
+      was not that I do not trust you, Edward. My mother in heaven sees my heart
+      and that I trust, I trust my heart and everything I am and have to you. I
+      would almost wish and wait to see you to-day in the Gardens, but my crying
+      has made me such a streaked thing to look at. If I had rubbed my face with
+      a scrubbing-brush, I could not look worse, and I cannot risk your seeing
+      me. It would excuse you for hating me. Do you? Does he hate her? She loves
+      you. She would die for you, dear Edward. Oh! I feel that if I was told
+      to-day that I should die for you to-morrow, it would be happiness. I am
+      dying&mdash;yes, I am dying till I hear from you.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+             &ldquo;Believe me,
+
+          &ldquo;Your tender, loving, broken-hearted,
+
+                  &ldquo;Dahlia.&rdquo;
+
+   There was a postscript:&mdash;
+
+   &ldquo;May I still go to lessons?&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Edward finished the letter with a calmly perusing eye. He had winced
+      triflingly at one or two expressions contained in it; forcible, perhaps,
+      but not such as Mrs. Lovell smiling from the wall yonder would have used.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The poor child threatens to eat no dinner, if I don't write to her,&rdquo; he
+      said; and replied in a kind and magnanimous spirit, concluding&mdash;&ldquo;Go
+      to lessons, by all means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having accomplished this, he stood up, and by hazard fell to comparing the
+      rival portraits; a melancholy and a comic thing to do, as you will find if
+      you put two painted heads side by side, and set their merits contesting,
+      and reflect on the contest, and to what advantages, personal, or of the
+      artist's, the winner owes the victory. Dahlia had been admirably dealt
+      with by the artist; the charm of pure ingenuousness without rusticity was
+      visible in her face and figure. Hanging there on the wall, she was a match
+      for Mrs. Lovell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda returned home the heavier for a secret that she bore with her. All
+      through the first night of her sleeping in London, Dahlia's sobs, and
+      tender hugs, and self-reproaches, had penetrated her dreams, and when the
+      morning came she had scarcely to learn that Dahlia loved some one. The
+      confession was made; but his name was reserved. Dahlia spoke of him with
+      such sacredness of respect that she seemed lost in him, and like a
+      creature kissing his feet. With tears rolling down her cheeks, and with
+      moans of anguish, she spoke of the deliciousness of loving: of knowing one
+      to whom she abandoned her will and her destiny, until, seeing how
+      beautiful a bloom love threw upon the tearful worn face of her sister,
+      Rhoda was impressed by a mystical veneration for this man, and readily
+      believed him to be above all other men, if not superhuman: for she was of
+      an age and an imagination to conceive a spiritual pre-eminence over the
+      weakness of mortality. She thought that one who could so transform her
+      sister, touch her with awe, and give her gracefulness and humility, must
+      be what Dahlia said he was. She asked shyly for his Christian name; but
+      even so little Dahlia withheld. It was his wish that Dahlia should keep
+      silence concerning him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you sworn an oath?&rdquo; said Rhoda, wonderingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, dear love,&rdquo; Dahlia replied; &ldquo;he only mentioned what he desired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda was ashamed of herself for thinking it strange, and she surrendered
+      her judgement to be stamped by the one who knew him well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As regarded her uncle, Dahlia admitted that she had behaved forgetfully
+      and unkindly, and promised amendment. She talked of the Farm as of an old
+      ruin, with nothing but a thin shade of memory threading its walls, and
+      appeared to marvel vaguely that it stood yet. &ldquo;Father shall not always
+      want money,&rdquo; she said. She was particular in prescribing books for Rhoda
+      to read; good authors, she emphasized, and named books of history, and
+      poets, and quoted their verses. &ldquo;For my darling will some day have a dear
+      husband, and he must not look down on her.&rdquo; Rhoda shook her head, full
+      sure that she could never be brought to utter such musical words
+      naturally. &ldquo;Yes, dearest, when you know what love is,&rdquo; said Dahlia, in an
+      underbreath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Could Robert inspire her with the power? Rhoda looked upon that poor
+      homely young man half-curiously when she returned, and quite dismissed the
+      notion. Besides she had no feeling for herself. Her passion was fixed upon
+      her sister, whose record of emotions in the letters from London placed her
+      beyond dull days and nights. The letters struck many chords. A less
+      subservient reader would have set them down as variations of the language
+      of infatuation; but Rhoda was responsive to every word and change of mood,
+      from the, &ldquo;I am unworthy, degraded, wretched,&rdquo; to &ldquo;I am blest above the
+      angels.&rdquo; If one letter said, &ldquo;We met yesterday,&rdquo; Rhoda's heart beat on to
+      the question, &ldquo;Shall I see him again to-morrow?&rdquo; And will she see him?&mdash;has
+      she seen him?&mdash;agitated her and absorbed her thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So humbly did she follow her sister, without daring to forecast a prospect
+      for her, or dream of an issue, that when on a summer morning a letter was
+      brought in at the breakfast-table, marked &ldquo;urgent and private,&rdquo; she opened
+      it, and the first line dazzled her eyes&mdash;the surprise was a shock to
+      her brain. She rose from her unfinished meal, and walked out into the wide
+      air, feeling as if she walked on thunder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter ran thus:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Own Innocent!&mdash;I am married. We leave England to-day. I must not
+      love you too much, for I have all my love to give to my Edward, my own
+      now, and I am his trustingly for ever. But he will let me give you some of
+      it&mdash;and Rhoda is never jealous. She shall have a great deal. Only I
+      am frightened when I think how immense my love is for him, so that
+      anything&mdash;everything he thinks right is right to me. I am not afraid
+      to think so. If I were to try, a cloud would come over me&mdash;it does,
+      if only I fancy for half a moment I am rash, and a straw. I cannot exist
+      except through him. So I must belong to him, and his will is my law. My
+      prayer at my bedside every night is that I may die for him. We used to
+      think the idea of death so terrible! Do you remember how we used to
+      shudder together at night when we thought of people lying in the grave?
+      And now, when I think that perhaps I may some day die for him, I feel like
+      a crying in my heart with joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have left a letter&mdash;sent it, I mean&mdash;enclosed to uncle for
+      father. He will see Edward by-and-by. Oh! may heaven spare him from any
+      grief. Rhoda will comfort him. Tell him how devoted I am. I am like
+      drowned to everybody but one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are looking on the sea. In half an hour I shall have forgotten the
+      tread of English earth. I do not know that I breathe. All I know is a fear
+      that I am flying, and my strength will not continue. That is when I am not
+      touching his hand. There is France opposite. I shut my eyes and see the
+      whole country, but it is like what I feel for Edward&mdash;all in dark
+      moonlight. Oh! I trust him so! I bleed for him. I could make all my veins
+      bleed out at a sad thought about him. And from France to Switzerland and
+      Italy. The sea sparkles just as if it said 'Come to the sun;' and I am
+      going. Edward calls. Shall I be punished for so much happiness? I am too
+      happy, I am too happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God bless my beloved at home! That is my chief prayer now. I shall think
+      of her when I am in the cathedrals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my Father in heaven! bless them all! bless Rhoda! forgive me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can hear the steam of the steamer at the pier. Here is Edward. He says
+      I may send his love to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Address:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Mrs. Edward Ayrton,
+        &ldquo;Poste Restante,
+          &ldquo;Lausanne,
+             &ldquo;Switzerland.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;P.S.&mdash;Lausanne is where&mdash;but another time, and I will always
+      tell you the history of the places to instruct you, poor heart in dull
+      England. Adieu! Good-bye and God bless my innocent at home, my dear
+      sister. I love her. I never can forget her. The day is so lovely. It seems
+      on purpose for us. Be sure you write on thin paper to Lausanne. It is on a
+      blue lake; you see snow mountains, and now there is a bell ringing&mdash;kisses
+      from me! we start. I must sign.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+             &ldquo;Dahlia.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      By the reading of this letter, Rhoda was caught vividly to the shore, and
+      saw her sister borne away in the boat to the strange countries; she
+      travelled with her, following her with gliding speed through a
+      multiplicity of shifting scenes, opal landscapes, full of fire and dreams,
+      and in all of them a great bell towered. &ldquo;Oh, my sweet! my own beauty!&rdquo;
+       she cried in Dahlia's language. Meeting Mrs. Sumfit, she called her
+      &ldquo;Mother Dumpling,&rdquo; as Dahlia did of old, affectionately, and kissed her,
+      and ran on to Master Gammon, who was tramping leisurely on to the oatfield
+      lying on toward the millholms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My sister sends you her love,&rdquo; she said brightly to the old man. Master
+      Gammon responded with no remarkable flash of his eyes, and merely opened
+      his mouth and shut it, as when a duck divides its bill, but fails to emit
+      the customary quack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to you, little pigs; and to you, Mulberry; and you, Dapple; and you,
+      and you, and you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda nodded round to all the citizens of the farmyard; and so eased her
+      heart of its laughing bubbles. After which, she fell to a meditative walk
+      of demurer joy, and had a regret. It was simply that Dahlia's hurry in
+      signing the letter, had robbed her of the delight of seeing &ldquo;Dahlia
+      Ayrton&rdquo; written proudly out, with its wonderful signification of the
+      change in her life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was a trifling matter; yet Rhoda felt the letter was not complete in
+      the absence of the bridal name. She fancied Dahlia to have meant, perhaps,
+      that she was Dahlia to her as of old, and not a stranger. &ldquo;Dahlia ever;
+      Dahlia nothing else for you,&rdquo; she heard her sister say. But how delicious
+      and mournful, how terrible and sweet with meaning would &ldquo;Dahlia Ayrton,&rdquo;
+       the new name in the dear handwriting, have looked! &ldquo;And I have a
+      brother-in-law,&rdquo; she thought, and her cheeks tingled. The banks of fern
+      and foxglove, and the green young oaks fringing the copse, grew rich in
+      colour, as she reflected that this beloved unknown husband of her sister
+      embraced her and her father as well; even the old bent beggarman on the
+      sandy ridge, though he had a starved frame and carried pitiless faggots,
+      stood illumined in a soft warmth. Rhoda could not go back to the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It chanced that the farmer that morning had been smitten with the virtue
+      of his wife's opinion of Robert, and her parting recommendation concerning
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you a mind to either one of my two girls?&rdquo; he put the question
+      bluntly, finding himself alone with Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert took a quick breath, and replied, &ldquo;I have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then make your choice,&rdquo; said the farmer, and tried to go about his
+      business, but hung near Robert in the fields till he had asked: &ldquo;Which one
+      is it, my boy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert turned a blade of wheat in his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I shall leave her to tell that,&rdquo; was his answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, don't ye know which one you prefer to choose, man?&rdquo; quoth Mr.
+      Fleming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mayn't know whether she prefers to choose me,&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You never can exactly reckon about them; that's true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was led to think: &ldquo;Dahlia's the lass;&rdquo; seeing that Robert had not had
+      many opportunities of speaking with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When my girls are wives, they'll do their work in the house,&rdquo; he pursued.
+      &ldquo;They may have a little bit o' property in land, ye know, and they may
+      have a share in&mdash;in gold. That's not to be reckoned on. We're an old
+      family, Robert, and I suppose we've our pride somewhere down. Anyhow, you
+      can't look on my girls and not own they're superior girls. I've no notion
+      of forcing them to clean, and dish up, and do dairying, if it's not to
+      their turn. They're handy with th' needle. They dress conformably, and do
+      the millinery themselves. And I know they say their prayers of a night.
+      That I know, if that's a comfort to ye, and it should be, Robert. For
+      pray, and you can't go far wrong; and it's particularly good for girls.
+      I'll say no more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the dinner-table, Rhoda was not present. Mr. Fleming fidgeted, blamed
+      her and excused her, but as Robert appeared indifferent about her absence,
+      he was confirmed in his idea that Dahlia attracted his fancy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had finished dinner, and Master Gammon had risen, when a voice
+      immediately recognized as the voice of Anthony Hackbut was heard in the
+      front part of the house. Mr. Fleming went round to him with a dismayed
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord!&rdquo; said Mrs. Sumfit, &ldquo;how I tremble!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert, too, looked grave, and got away from the house. The dread of evil
+      news of Dahlia was common to them all; yet none had mentioned it, Robert
+      conceiving that it would be impertinence on his part to do so; the farmer,
+      that the policy of permitting Dahlia's continued residence in London
+      concealed the peril; while Mrs. Sumfit flatly defied the threatening of a
+      mischance to one so sweet and fair, and her favourite. It is the
+      insincerity of persons of their class; but one need not lay stress on the
+      wilfulness of uneducated minds. Robert walked across the fields, walking
+      like a man with an object in view. As he dropped into one of the close
+      lanes which led up to Wrexby Hall, he saw Rhoda standing under an oak, her
+      white morning-dress covered with sun-spots. His impulse was to turn back,
+      the problem, how to speak to her, not being settled within him. But the
+      next moment his blood chilled; for he had perceived, though he had not
+      felt simultaneously, that two gentlemen were standing near her, addressing
+      her. And it was likewise manifest that she listened to them. These
+      presently raised their hats and disappeared. Rhoda came on toward Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have forgotten your dinner,&rdquo; he said, with a queer sense of shame at
+      dragging in the mention of that meal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been too happy to eat,&rdquo; Rhoda replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert glanced up the lane, but she gave no heed to this indication, and
+      asked: &ldquo;Has uncle come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you expect him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought he would come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has made you happy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will hear from uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I go and hear what those&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert checked himself, but it would have been better had he spoken out.
+      Rhoda's face, from a light of interrogation, lowered its look to contempt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not affect the feminine simplicity which can so prettily
+      misunderstand and put by an implied accusation of that nature. Doubtless
+      her sharp instinct served her by telling her that her contempt would hurt
+      him shrewdly now. The foolishness of a man having much to say to a woman,
+      and not knowing how or where the beginning of it might be, was perceptible
+      about him. A shout from her father at the open garden-gate, hurried on
+      Rhoda to meet him. Old Anthony was at Mr. Fleming's elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know it? You have her letter, father?&rdquo; said Rhoda, gaily, beneath the
+      shadow of his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a Queen of the Egyptians is what you might have been,&rdquo; said Anthony,
+      with a speculating eye upon Rhoda's dark bright face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda put out her hand to him, but kept her gaze on her father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William Fleeting relaxed the knot of his brows and lifted the letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen all! This is from a daughter to her father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he read, oddly accentuating the first syllables of the sentences:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   Dear Father,&mdash;
+
+   &ldquo;My husband will bring me to see you when I return to dear England.
+   I ought to have concealed nothing, I know. Try to forgive me. I
+   hope you will. I shall always think of you. God bless you!
+
+               &ldquo;I am,
+          &ldquo;Ever with respect,
+
+             &ldquo;Your dearly loving Daughter,
+
+                  &ldquo;Dahlia.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahlia Blank!&rdquo; said the farmer, turning his look from face to face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A deep fire of emotion was evidently agitating him, for the letter rustled
+      in his hand, and his voice was uneven. Of this, no sign was given by his
+      inexpressive features. The round brown eyes and the ruddy varnish on his
+      cheeks were a mask upon grief, if not also upon joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahlia&mdash;what? What's her name?&rdquo; he resumed. &ldquo;Here&mdash;'my husband
+      will bring me to see you'&mdash;who's her husband? Has he got a name? And
+      a blank envelope to her uncle here, who's kept her in comfort for so long!
+      And this is all she writes to me! Will any one spell out the meaning of
+      it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahlia was in great haste, father,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, ay, you!&mdash;you're the one, I know,&rdquo; returned the farmer. &ldquo;It's
+      sister and sister, with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she was very, very hurried, father. I have a letter from her, and I
+      have only 'Dahlia' written at the end&mdash;no other name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you suspect no harm of your sister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father, how can I imagine any kind of harm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That letter, my girl, sticks to my skull, as though it meant to say,
+      'You've not understood me yet.' I've read it a matter of twenty times, and
+      I'm no nearer to the truth of it. But, if she's lying, here in this
+      letter, what's she walking on? How long are we to wait for to hear? I give
+      you my word, Robert, I'm feeling for you as I am for myself. Or, wasn't it
+      that one? Is it this one?&rdquo; He levelled his finger at Rhoda. &ldquo;In any case,
+      Robert, you'll feel for me as a father. I'm shut in a dark room with the
+      candle blown out. I've heard of a sort of fear you have in that dilemmer,
+      lest you should lay your fingers on edges of sharp knives, and if I think
+      a step&mdash;if I go thinking a step, and feel my way, I do cut myself,
+      and I bleed, I do. Robert, just take and say, it wasn't that one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Such a statement would carry with it the confession that it was this one
+      for whom he cared this scornful one, this jilt, this brazen girl who could
+      make appointments with gentlemen, or suffer them to speak to her, and
+      subsequently look at him with innocence and with anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Believe me, Mr. Fleming, I feel for you as much as a man can,&rdquo; he said,
+      uneasily, swaying half round as he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you suspect anything bad?&rdquo; The farmer repeated the question, like one
+      who only wanted a confirmation of his own suspicions to see the fact built
+      up. &ldquo;Robert, does this look like the letter of a married woman? Is it
+      daughter-like&mdash;eh, man? Help another: I can't think for myself&mdash;she
+      ties my hands. Speak out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert set his eyes on Rhoda. He would have given much to have been able
+      to utter, &ldquo;I do.&rdquo; Her face was like an eager flower straining for light;
+      the very beauty of it swelled his jealous passion, and he flattered
+      himself with his incapacity to speak an abject lie to propitiate her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She says she is married. We're bound to accept what she says.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was his answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she married?&rdquo; thundered the farmer. &ldquo;Has she been and disgraced her
+      mother in her grave? What am I to think? She's my flesh and blood. Is she&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, hush, father!&rdquo; Rhoda laid her hand on his arm. &ldquo;What doubt can there
+      be of Dahlia? You have forgotten that she is always truthful. Come away.
+      It is shameful to stand here and listen to unmanly things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned a face of ashes upon Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come away, father. She is our own. She is my sister. A doubt of her is an
+      insult to us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Robert don't doubt her&mdash;eh?&rdquo; The farmer was already half
+      distracted from his suspicions. &ldquo;Have you any real doubt about the girl,
+      Robert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't trust myself to doubt anybody,&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't cast us off, my boy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm a labourer on the farm,&rdquo; said Robert, and walked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's got reason to feel this more 'n the rest of us, poor lad! It's a
+      blow to him.&rdquo; With which the farmer struck his hand on Rhoda's shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish he'd set his heart on a safer young woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda's shudder of revulsion was visible as she put her mouth up to kiss
+      her father's cheek.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      That is Wrexby Hall, upon the hill between Fenhurst and Wrexby: the white
+      square mansion, with the lower drawing-room windows one full bow of glass
+      against the sunlight, and great single trees spotting the distant green
+      slopes. From Queen Anne's Farm you could read the hour by the stretching
+      of their shadows. Squire Blancove, who lived there, was an irascible,
+      gouty man, out of humour with his time, and beginning, alas for him! to
+      lose all true faith in his Port, though, to do him justice, he wrestled
+      hard with this great heresy. His friends perceived the decay in his belief
+      sooner than he did himself. He was sour in the evening as in the morning.
+      There was no chirp in him when the bottle went round. He had never one
+      hour of a humane mood to be reckoned on now. The day, indeed, is sad when
+      we see the skeleton of the mistress by whom we suffer, but cannot abandon
+      her. The squire drank, knowing that the issue would be the terrific,
+      curse-begetting twinge in his foot; but, as he said, he was a man who
+      stuck to his habits. It was over his Port that he had quarrelled with his
+      rector on the subject of hopeful Algernon, and the system he adopted with
+      that young man. This incident has something to do with Rhoda's story, for
+      it was the reason why Mrs. Lovell went to Wrexby Church, the spirit of
+      that lady leading her to follow her own impulses, which were mostly in
+      opposition. So, when perchance she visited the Hall, she chose not to
+      accompany the squire and his subservient guests to Fenhurst, but made a
+      point of going down to the unoccupied Wrexby pew. She was a beauty, and
+      therefore powerful; otherwise her act of nonconformity would have produced
+      bad blood between her and the squire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was enough to have done so in any case; for now, instead of sitting at
+      home comfortably, and reading off the week's chronicle of sport while he
+      nursed his leg, the unfortunate gentleman had to be up and away to
+      Fenhurst every Sunday morning, or who would have known that the old cause
+      of his general abstention from Sabbath services lay in the detestable
+      doctrine of Wrexby's rector?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovell was now at the Hall, and it was Sunday morning after
+      breakfast. The lady stood like a rival head among the other guests,
+      listening, gloved and bonneted, to the bells of Wrexby, West of the hills,
+      and of Fenhurst, Northeast. The squire came in to them, groaning over his
+      boots, cross with his fragile wife, and in every mood for satire, except
+      to receive it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How difficult it is to be gouty and good!&rdquo; murmured Mrs. Lovell to the
+      person next her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the squire, singling out his enemy, &ldquo;you're going to that
+      fellow, I suppose, as usual&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not 'as usual,'&rdquo; replied Mrs. Lovell, sweetly; &ldquo;I wish it were!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wish it were, do you?&mdash;you find him so entertaining? Has he got to
+      talking of the fashions?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He talks properly; I don't ask for more.&rdquo; Mrs. Lovell assumed an air of
+      meekness under persecution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you were Low Church.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lowly of the Church, I trust you thought,&rdquo; she corrected him. &ldquo;But, for
+      that matter, any discourse, plainly delivered, will suit me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His elocution's perfect,&rdquo; said the squire; &ldquo;that is, before dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have only to do with him before dinner, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I've ordered a carriage out for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is very honourable and kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be kinder if I contrived to keep you away from the fellow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would it not be kinder to yourself,&rdquo; Mrs. Lovell swam forward to him in
+      all tenderness, taking his hands, and fixing the swimming blue of her soft
+      eyes upon him pathetically, &ldquo;if you took your paper and your slippers, and
+      awaited our return?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The squire felt the circulating smile about the room. He rebuked the
+      woman's audacity with a frown; &ldquo;Tis my duty to set an example,&rdquo; he said,
+      his gouty foot and irritable temper now meeting in a common fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since you are setting an example,&rdquo; rejoined the exquisite widow, &ldquo;I have
+      nothing more to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The squire looked what he dared not speak. A woman has half, a beauty has
+      all, the world with her when she is self-contained, and holds her place;
+      and it was evident that Mrs. Lovell was not one to abandon her advantages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He snapped round for a victim, trying his wife first. Then his eyes rested
+      upon Algernon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, here we are; which of us will you take?&rdquo; he asked Mrs. Lovell in
+      blank irony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have engaged my cavalier, who is waiting, and will be as devout as
+      possible.&rdquo; Mrs. Lovell gave Algernon a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought I hit upon the man,&rdquo; growled the squire. &ldquo;You're going in to
+      Wrexby, sir! Oh, go, by all means, and I shan't be astonished at what
+      comes of it. Like teacher, like pupil!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&rdquo; Mrs. Lovell gave Algernon another smile. &ldquo;You have to bear the
+      sins of your rector, as well as your own. Can you support it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The flimsy fine dialogue was a little above Algernon's level in the
+      society of ladies; but he muttered, bowing, that he would endeavour to
+      support it, with Mrs. Lovell's help, and this did well enough; after
+      which, the slight strain on the intellects of the assemblage relaxed, and
+      ordinary topics were discussed. The carriages came round to the door;
+      gloves, parasols, and scent-bottles were securely grasped; whereupon the
+      squire, standing bare-headed on the steps, insisted upon seeing the party
+      of the opposition off first, and waited to hand Mrs. Lovell into her
+      carriage, an ironic gallantry accepted by the lady with serenity befitting
+      the sacred hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! my pencil, to mark the text for you, squire,&rdquo; she said, taking her
+      seat; and Algernon turned back at her bidding, to get a pencil; and she,
+      presenting a most harmonious aspect in the lovely landscape, reclined in
+      the carriage as if, like the sweet summer air, she too were quieted by
+      those holy bells, while the squire stood, fuming, bareheaded, and with
+      boiling blood, just within the bounds of decorum on the steps. She was
+      more than his match.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was more than a match for most; and it was not a secret. Algernon knew
+      it as well as Edward, or any one. She was a terror to the soul of the
+      youth, and an attraction. Her smile was the richest flattery he could
+      feel; the richer, perhaps, from his feeling it to be a thing impossible to
+      fix. He had heard tales of her; he remembered Edward's warning; but he was
+      very humbly sitting with her now, and very happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm in for it,&rdquo; he said to his fair companion; &ldquo;no cheque for me next
+      quarter, and no chance of an increase. He'll tell me I've got a salary. A
+      salary! Good Lord! what a man comes to! I've done for myself with the
+      squire for a year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must think whether you have compensation,&rdquo; said the lady, and he
+      received it in a cousinly squeeze of his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was about to raise the lank white hand to his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;there would be no compensation to me, if that were seen;&rdquo;
+       and her dainty hand was withdrawn. &ldquo;Now, tell me,&rdquo; she changed her tone.
+      &ldquo;How do the loves prosper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon begged her not to call them 'loves.' She nodded and smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your artistic admirations,&rdquo; she observed. &ldquo;I am to see her in church, am
+      I not? Only, my dear Algy, don't go too far. Rustic beauties are as
+      dangerous as Court Princesses. Where was it you saw her first?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the Bank,&rdquo; said Algernon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really! at the Bank! So your time there is not absolutely wasted. What
+      brought her to London, I wonder?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, she has an old uncle, a queer old fellow, and he's a sort of porter&mdash;money
+      porter&mdash;in the Bank, awfully honest, or he might half break it some
+      fine day, if he chose to cut and run. She's got a sister, prettier than
+      this girl, the fellows say; I've never seen her. I expect I've seen a
+      portrait of her, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; Mrs. Lovell musically drew him on. &ldquo;Was she dark, too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, she's fair. At least, she is in her portrait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brown hair; hazel eyes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;oh! You guess, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess nothing, though it seems profitable. That Yankee betting man
+      'guesses,' and what heaps of money he makes by it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I did,&rdquo; Algernon sighed. &ldquo;All my guessing and reckoning goes
+      wrong. I'm safe for next Spring, that's one comfort. I shall make twenty
+      thousand next Spring.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On Templemore?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the horse. I've got a little on Tenpenny Nail as well. But I'm
+      quite safe on Templemore; unless the Evil Principle comes into the field.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he so sure to be against you, if he does appear?&rdquo; said Mrs. Lovell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certain!&rdquo; ejaculated Algernon, in honest indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Algy, I don't like to have him on my side. Perhaps I will take a
+      share in your luck, to make it&mdash;? to make it?&rdquo;&mdash;She played
+      prettily as a mistress teasing her lap-dog to jump for a morsel; adding:
+      &ldquo;Oh! Algy, you are not a Frenchman. To make it divine, sir! you have
+      missed your chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's one chance I shouldn't like to miss,&rdquo; said the youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, do not mention it,&rdquo; she counselled him. &ldquo;And, seriously, I will
+      take a part of your risk. I fear I am lucky, which is ruinous. We will
+      settle that, by-and-by. Do you know, Algy, the most expensive position in
+      the world is a widow's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn't be one very long,&rdquo; growled he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm so wretchedly fastidious, don't you see? And it's best not to sigh
+      when we're talking of business, if you'll take me for a guide. So, the old
+      man brought this pretty rustic Miss Rhoda to the Bank?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Once,&rdquo; said Algernon. &ldquo;Just as he did with her sister. He's proud of his
+      nieces; shows them and then hides them. The fellows at the Bank never saw
+      her again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her name is&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahlia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, yes!&mdash;Dahlia. Extremely pretty. There are brown dahlias&mdash;dahlias
+      of all colours. And the portrait of this fair creature hangs up in your
+      chambers in town?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't call them my chambers,&rdquo; Algernon protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your cousin's, if you like. Probably Edward happened to be at the Bank
+      when fair Dahlia paid her visit. Once seems to have been enough for both
+      of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon was unread in the hearts of women, and imagined that Edward's
+      defection from Mrs. Lovell's sway had deprived him of the lady's sympathy
+      and interest in his fortunes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor old Ned's in some scrape, I think,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is he?&rdquo; the lady asked, languidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paris? How very odd! And out of the season, in this hot weather. It's
+      enough to lead me to dream that he has gone over&mdash;one cannot realize
+      why.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon my honour!&rdquo; Algernon thumped on his knee; &ldquo;by jingo!&rdquo; he adopted a
+      less compromising interjection; &ldquo;Ned's fool enough. My idea is, he's gone
+      and got married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovell was lying back with the neglectful grace of incontestable
+      beauty; not a line to wrinkle her smooth soft features. For one sharp
+      instant her face was all edged and puckered, like the face of a fair
+      witch. She sat upright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Married! But how can that be when we none of us have heard a word of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I daresay you haven't,&rdquo; said Algernon; &ldquo;and not likely to. Ned's the
+      closest fellow of my acquaintance. He hasn't taken me into his confidence,
+      you maybe sure; he knows I'm too leaky. There's no bore like a secret!
+      I've come to my conclusion in this affair by putting together a lot of
+      little incidents and adding them up. First, I believe he was at the Bank
+      when that fair girl was seen there. Secondly, from the description the
+      fellows give of her, I should take her to be the original of the portrait.
+      Next, I know that Rhoda has a fair sister who has run for it. And last,
+      Rhoda has had a letter from her sister, to say she's away to the Continent
+      and is married. Ned's in Paris. Those are my facts, and I give you my
+      reckoning of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovell gazed at Algernon for one long meditative moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible,&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Edward has more brains than heart.&rdquo; And now
+      the lady's face was scarlet. &ldquo;How did this Rhoda, with her absurd name,
+      think of meeting you to tell you such stuff? Indeed, there's a simplicity
+      in some of these young women&mdash;&rdquo; She said the remainder to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's really very innocent and good,&rdquo; Algernon defended Rhoda, &ldquo;she is.
+      There isn't a particle of nonsense in her. I first met her in town, as I
+      stated, at the Bank; just on the steps, and we remembered I had called a
+      cab for her a little before; and I met her again by accident yesterday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are only a boy in their hands, my cousin Algy!&rdquo; said Mrs. Lovell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon nodded with a self-defensive knowingness. &ldquo;I fancy there's no
+      doubt her sister has written to her that she's married. It's certain she
+      has. She's a blunt sort of girl; not one to lie, not even for a sister or
+      a lover, unless she had previously made up her mind to it. In that case,
+      she wouldn't stick at much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, do you know,&rdquo; said Mrs. Lovell&mdash;&ldquo;do you know that Edward's
+      father would be worse than yours over such an act of folly? He would call
+      it an offence against common sense, and have no mercy for it. He would be
+      vindictive on principle. This story of yours cannot be true. Nothing
+      reconciles it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Sir Billy will be rusty; that stands to reason,&rdquo; Algernon assented.
+      &ldquo;It mayn't be true. I hope it isn't. But Ned has a madness for fair women.
+      He'd do anything on earth for them. He loses his head entirely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That he may have been imprudent&mdash;&rdquo; Mrs. Lovell thus blushingly
+      hinted at the lesser sin of his deceiving and ruining the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it needn't be true,&rdquo; said Algernon; and with meaning, &ldquo;Who's to blame
+      if it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovell again reddened. She touched Algernon's fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His friends mustn't forsake him, in any case.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By Jove! you are the right sort of woman,&rdquo; cried Algernon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was beyond his faculties to divine that her not forsaking of Edward
+      might haply come to mean something disastrous to him. The touch of Mrs.
+      Lovell's hand made him forget Rhoda in a twinkling. He detained it,
+      audaciously, even until she frowned with petulance and stamped her foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was over her bosom a large cameo-brooch, representing a tomb under a
+      palm-tree, and the figure of a veiled woman with her head bowed upon the
+      tomb. This brooch was falling, when Algernon caught it. The pin tore his
+      finger, and in the energy of pain he dashed the brooch to her feet, with
+      immediate outcries of violent disgust at himself and exclamations for
+      pardon. He picked up the brooch. It was open. A strange, discoloured,
+      folded substance lay on the floor of the carriage. Mrs. Lovell gazed down
+      at it, and then at him, ghastly pale. He lifted it by one corner, and the
+      diminutive folded squares came out, revealing a strip of red-stained
+      handkerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovell grasped it, and thrust it out of sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She spoke as they approached the church-door: &ldquo;Mention nothing of this to
+      a soul, or you forfeit my friendship for ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When they alighted, she was smiling in her old affable manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Some consideration for Robert, after all, as being the man who loved her,
+      sufficed to give him rank as a more elevated kind of criminal in Rhoda's
+      sight, and exquisite torture of the highest form was administered to him.
+      Her faith in her sister was so sure that she could half pardon him for the
+      momentary harm he had done to Dahlia with her father; but, judging him by
+      the lofty standard of one who craved to be her husband, she could not
+      pardon his unmanly hesitation and manner of speech. The old and deep
+      grievance in her heart as to what men thought of women, and as to the
+      harshness of men, was stirred constantly by the remembrance of his
+      irresolute looks, and his not having dared to speak nobly for Dahlia, even
+      though he might have had, the knavery to think evil. As the case stood,
+      there was still mischief to counteract. Her father had willingly swallowed
+      a drug, but his suspicions only slumbered, and she could not instil her
+      own vivid hopefulness and trust into him. Letters from Dahlia came
+      regularly. The first, from Lausanne, favoured Rhoda's conception of her as
+      of a happy spirit resting at celestial stages of her ascent upward through
+      spheres of ecstacy. Dahlia could see the snow-mountains in a flying
+      glimpse; and again, peacefully seated, she could see the snow-mountains
+      reflected in clear blue waters from her window, which, Rhoda thought, must
+      be like heaven. On these inspired occasions, Robert presented the form of
+      a malignant serpent in her ideas. Then Dahlia made excursions upon
+      glaciers with her beloved, her helpmate, and had slippings and tumblings&mdash;little
+      earthly casualties which gave a charming sense of reality to her otherwise
+      miraculous flight. The Alps were crossed: Italy was beheld. A profusion of
+      &ldquo;Oh's!&rdquo; described Dahlia's impressions of Italy; and &ldquo;Oh! the heat!&rdquo;
+       showed her to be mortal, notwithstanding the sublime exclamations. Como
+      received the blissful couple. Dahlia wrote from Como:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Tell father that gentlemen in my Edward's position cannot always
+   immediately proclaim their marriage to the world. There are
+   reasons. I hope he has been very angry with me: then it will be
+   soon over, and we shall be&mdash;but I cannot look back. I shall not
+   look back till we reach Venice. At Venice, I know I shall see you
+   all as clear as day; but I cannot even remember the features of my
+   darling here.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Her Christian name was still her only signature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thin blue-and-pink paper, and the foreign postmarks&mdash;testifications
+      to Dahlia's journey not being a fictitious event, had a singular
+      deliciousness for the solitary girl at the Farm. At times, as she turned
+      them over, she was startled by the intoxication of her sentiments, for the
+      wild thought would come, that many, many whose passionate hearts she could
+      feel as her own, were ready to abandon principle and the bondage to the
+      hereafter, for such a long delicious gulp of divine life. Rhoda found
+      herself more than once brooding on the possible case that Dahlia had done
+      this thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fit of languor came on her unawares, probing at her weakness, and
+      blinding her to the laws and duties of earth, until her conscious
+      womanhood checked it, and she sprang from the vision in a spasm of terror,
+      not knowing how far she had fallen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After such personal experiences, she suffered great longings to be with
+      her sister, that the touch of her hand, the gaze of her eyes, the tone of
+      Dahlia's voice, might make her sure of her sister's safety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda's devotions in church were frequently distracted by the occupants of
+      the Blancove pew. Mrs. Lovell had the habit of looking at her with an
+      extraordinary directness, an expressionless dissecting scrutiny, that was
+      bewildering and confusing to the country damsel. Algernon likewise
+      bestowed marked attention on her. Some curious hints had been thrown out
+      to her by this young gentleman on the day when he ventured to speak to her
+      in the lane, which led her to fancy distantly that he had some
+      acquaintance with Dahlia's husband, or that he had heard of Dahlia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was clear to Rhoda that Algernon sought another interview. He appeared
+      in the neighbourhood of the farm on Saturdays, and on Sundays he was
+      present in the church, sometimes with Mrs. Lovell, and sometimes without a
+      companion. His appearance sent her quick wits travelling through many
+      scales of possible conduct: and they struck one ringing note:&mdash;she
+      thought that by the aid of this gentleman a lesson might be given to
+      Robert's mean nature. It was part of Robert's punishment to see that she
+      was not unconscious of Algernon's admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first letter from Venice consisted of a series of interjections in
+      praise of the poetry of gondolas, varied by allusions to the sad smell of
+      the low tide water, and the amazing quality of the heat; and then Dahlia
+      wrote more composedly:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Titian the painter lived here, and painted ladies, who sat to him without
+      a bit of garment on, and indeed, my darling, I often think it was more
+      comfortable for the model than for the artist. Even modesty seems too hot
+      a covering for human creatures here. The sun strikes me down. I am ceasing
+      to have a complexion. It is pleasant to know that my Edward is still proud
+      of me. He has made acquaintance with some of the officers here, and seems
+      pleased at the compliments they pay me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have nice manners, and white uniforms that fit them like a kid
+      glove. I am Edward's 'resplendent wife.' A colonel of one of the regiments
+      invited him to dinner (speaking English), 'with your resplendent wife.'
+      Edward has no mercy for errors of language, and he would not take me. Ah!
+      who knows how strange men are! Never think of being happy unless you can
+      always be blind. I see you all at home&mdash;Mother Dumpling and all&mdash;as
+      I thought I should when I was to come to Venice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Persuade&mdash;do persuade father that everything will be well. Some
+      persons are to be trusted. Make him feel it. I know that I am life itself
+      to Edward. He has lived as men do, and he can judge, and he knows that
+      there never was a wife who brought a heart to her husband like mine to
+      him. He wants to think, or he wants to smoke, and he leaves me; but, oh!
+      when he returns, he can scarcely believe that he has me, his joy is so
+      great. He looks like a glad thankful child, and he has the manliest of
+      faces. It is generally thoughtful; you might think it hard, at first
+      sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you must be beautiful to please some men. You will laugh&mdash;I have
+      really got the habit of talking to my face and all myself in the glass.
+      Rhoda would think me cracked. And it is really true that I was never so
+      humble about my good looks. You used to spoil me at home&mdash;you and
+      that wicked old Mother Dumpling, and our own dear mother, Rhoda&mdash;oh!
+      mother, mother! I wish I had always thought of you looking down on me! You
+      made me so vain&mdash;much more vain than I let you see I was. There were
+      times when it is quite true I thought myself a princess. I am not
+      worse-looking now, but I suppose I desire to be so beautiful that nothing
+      satisfies me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A spot on my neck gives me a dreadful fright. If my hair comes out much
+      when I comb it, it sets my heart beating; and it is a daily misery to me
+      that my hands are larger than they should be, belonging to Edward's
+      'resplendent wife.' I thank heaven that you and I always saw the necessity
+      of being careful of our fingernails. My feet are of moderate size, though
+      they are not French feet, as Edward says. No: I shall never dance. He sent
+      me to the dancing-master in London, but it was too late. But I have been
+      complimented on my walking, and that seems to please Edward. He does not
+      dance (or mind dancing) himself, only he does not like me to miss one
+      perfection. It is his love. Oh! if I have seemed to let you suppose he
+      does not love me as ever, do not think it. He is most tender and true to
+      me. Addio! I am signora, you are signorina.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have such pretty manners to us over here. Edward says they think
+      less of women: I say they think more. But I feel he must be right. Oh, my
+      dear, cold, loving, innocent sister! put out your arms; I shall feel them
+      round me, and kiss you, kiss you for ever!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Onward from city to city, like a radiation of light from the old
+      farm-house, where so little of it was, Dahlia continued her journey; and
+      then, without a warning, with only a word to say that she neared Rome, the
+      letters ceased. A chord snapped in Rhoda's bosom. While she was hearing
+      from her sister almost weekly, her confidence was buoyed on a summer sea.
+      In the silence it fell upon a dread. She had no answer in her mind for her
+      father's unspoken dissatisfaction, and she had to conceal her cruel
+      anxiety. There was an interval of two months: a blank fell charged with
+      apprehension that was like the humming of a toneless wind before storm;
+      worse than the storm, for any human thing to bear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda was unaware that Robert, who rarely looked at her, and never sought
+      to speak a word to her when by chance they met and were alone, studied
+      each change in her face, and read its signs. He was left to his own
+      interpretation of them, but the signs he knew accurately. He knew that her
+      pride had sunk, and that her heart was desolate. He believed that she had
+      discovered her sister's misery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day a letter arrived that gave her no joyful colouring, though it sent
+      colour to her cheeks. She opened it, evidently not knowing the
+      handwriting; her eyes ran down the lines hurriedly. After a time she went
+      upstairs for her bonnet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the stile leading into that lane where Robert had previously seen her,
+      she was stopped by him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No farther,&rdquo; was all that he said, and he was one who could have
+      interdicted men from advancing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why may I not go by you?&rdquo; said Rhoda, with a woman's affected humbleness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert joined his hands. &ldquo;You go no farther, Miss Rhoda, unless you take
+      me with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not do that, Mr. Robert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you had better return home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you let me know what reasons you have for behaving in this manner to
+      me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll let you know by-and-by,&rdquo; said Robert. &ldquo;At present, You'll let the
+      stronger of the two have his way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had always been so meek and gentle and inoffensive, that her contempt
+      had enjoyed free play, and had never risen to anger; but violent anger now
+      surged against him, and she cried, &ldquo;Do you dare to touch me?&rdquo; trying to
+      force her passage by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert caught her softly by the wrist. There stood at the same time a
+      full-statured strength of will in his eyes, under which her own fainted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go back,&rdquo; he said; and she turned that he might not see her tears of
+      irritation and shame. He was treating her as a child; but it was to
+      herself alone that she could defend herself. She marvelled that when she
+      thought of an outspoken complaint against him, her conscience gave her no
+      support.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there no freedom for a woman at all in this world?&rdquo; Rhoda framed the
+      bitter question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda went back as she had come. Algernon Blancove did the same. Between
+      them stood Robert, thinking, &ldquo;Now I have made that girl hate me for life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in November that a letter, dated from London, reached the farm,
+      quickening Rhoda's blood anew. &ldquo;I am alive,&rdquo; said Dahlia; and she said
+      little more, except that she was waiting to see her sister, and bade her
+      urgently to travel up alone. Her father consented to her doing so. After a
+      consultation with Robert, however, he determined to accompany her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She can't object to see me too,&rdquo; said the farmer; and Rhoda answered
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo; But her face was bronze to Robert when they took their departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Old Anthony was expecting them in London. It was now winter, and the
+      season for theatres; so, to show his brother-in-law the fun of a theatre
+      was one part of his projected hospitality, if Mr. Fleming should haply
+      take the hint that he must pay for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony had laid out money to welcome the farmer, and was shy and fidgety
+      as a girl who anticipates the visit of a promising youth, over his fat
+      goose for next day's dinner, and his shrimps for this day's tea, and his
+      red slice of strong cheese, called of Cheshire by the reckless butter-man,
+      for supper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew that both Dahlia and Rhoda must have told the farmer that he was
+      not high up in Boyne's Bank, and it fretted him to think that the
+      mysterious respect entertained for his wealth by the farmer, which
+      delighted him with a novel emotion, might be dashed by what the farmer
+      would behold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During his last visit to the farm, Anthony had talked of the Funds more
+      suggestively than usual. He had alluded to his own dealings in them, and
+      to what he would do and would not do under certain contingencies; thus
+      shadowing out, dimly luminous and immense, what he could do, if his
+      sagacity prompted the adventure. The farmer had listened through the
+      buzzing of his uncertain grief, only sighing for answer. &ldquo;If ever you come
+      up to London, brother William John,&rdquo; said Anthony, &ldquo;you mind you go about
+      arm-in-arm with me, or you'll be judging by appearances, and says you,
+      'Lor', what a thousander fellow this is!' and 'What a millioner fellow
+      that is!' You'll be giving your millions and your thousands to the wrong
+      people, when they haven't got a penny. All London 'll be topsy-turvy to
+      you, unless you've got a guide, and he'll show you a shabby-coated,
+      head-in-the-gutter old man 'll buy up the lot. Everybody that doesn't know
+      him says&mdash;look at him! but they that knows him&mdash;hats off, I can
+      tell you. And talk about lords! We don't mind their coming into the city,
+      but they know the scent of cash. I've had a lord take off his hat to me.
+      It's a fact, I have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of the caution Anthony had impressed upon his country relative,
+      that he should not judge by appearances, he was nevertheless under an
+      apprehension that the farmer's opinion of him, and the luxurious, almost
+      voluptuous, enjoyment he had of it, were in peril. When he had purchased
+      the well-probed fat goose, the shrimps, and the cheese, he was only
+      half-satisfied. His ideas shot boldly at a bottle of wine, and he employed
+      a summer-lighted evening in going a round of wine-merchants' placards, and
+      looking out for the cheapest bottle he could buy. And he would have bought
+      one&mdash;he had sealing-wax of his own and could have stamped it with the
+      office-stamp of Boyne's Bank for that matter, to make it as dignified and
+      costly as the vaunted red seals and green seals of the placards&mdash;he
+      would have bought one, had he not, by one of his lucky mental
+      illuminations, recollected that it was within his power to procure an
+      order to taste wine at the Docks, where you may get as much wine as you
+      like out of big sixpenny glasses, and try cask after cask, walking down
+      gas-lit paths between the huge bellies of wine which groan to be tapped
+      and tried, that men may know them. The idea of paying two shillings and
+      sixpence for one miserable bottle vanished at the richly-coloured
+      prospect. &ldquo;That'll show him something of what London is,&rdquo; thought Anthony;
+      and a companion thought told him in addition that the farmer, with a
+      skinful of wine, would emerge into the open air imagining no small things
+      of the man who could gain admittance into those marvellous caverns. &ldquo;By
+      George! it's like a boy's story-book,&rdquo; cried Anthony, in his soul, and he
+      chuckled over the vision of the farmer's amazement&mdash;acted it with his
+      arms extended, and his hat unseated, and plunged into wheezy fits of
+      laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He met his guests at the station. Mr. Fleming was soberly attired in what,
+      to Anthony's London eye, was a curiosity costume; but the broad brim of
+      the hat, the square cut of the brown coat, and the leggings, struck him as
+      being very respectable, and worthy of a presentation at any Bank in
+      London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You stick to a leather purse, brother William John?&rdquo; he inquired, with an
+      artistic sentiment for things in keeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do,&rdquo; said the farmer, feeling seriously at the button over it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right; I shan't ask ye to show it in the street,&rdquo; Anthony rejoined,
+      and smote Rhoda's hand as it hung.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Glad to see your old uncle&mdash;are ye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda replied quietly that she was, but had come with the principal object
+      of seeing her sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&rdquo; cried Anthony, &ldquo;you never get a compliment out of this gal. She
+      gives ye the nut, and you're to crack it, and there maybe, or there mayn't
+      be, a kernel inside&mdash;she don't care.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there ain't much in it!&rdquo; the farmer ejaculated, withdrawing his
+      fingers from the button they had been teasing for security since Anthony's
+      question about the purse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not much&mdash;eh! brother William John?&rdquo; Anthony threw up a puzzled
+      look. &ldquo;Not much baggage&mdash;I see that&mdash;&rdquo; he exclaimed; &ldquo;and, Lord
+      be thanked! no trunks. Aha, my dear&rdquo;&mdash;he turned to Rhoda&mdash;&ldquo;you
+      remember your lesson, do ye? Now, mark me&mdash;I'll remember you for it.
+      Do you know, my dear,&rdquo; he said to Rhoda confidentially, &ldquo;that sixpenn'orth
+      of chaff which I made the cabman pay for&mdash;there was the cream of it!&mdash;that
+      was better than Peruvian bark to my constitution. It was as good to me as
+      a sniff of sea-breeze and no excursion expenses. I'd like another, just to
+      feel young again, when I'd have backed myself to beat&mdash;cabmen? Ah!
+      I've stood up, when I was a young 'un, and shut up a Cheap Jack at a fair.
+      Circulation's the soul o' chaff. That's why I don't mind tackling cabmen&mdash;they
+      sit all day, and all they've got to say is 'rat-tat,' and they've done.
+      But I let the boys roar. I know what I was when a boy myself. I've got
+      devil in me&mdash;never you fear&mdash;but it's all on the side of the
+      law. Now, let's off, for the gentlemen are starin' at you, which won't
+      hurt ye, ye know, but makes me jealous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the party moved away from the platform, a sharp tussle took place
+      between Anthony and the farmer as to the porterage of the bulky bag; but
+      it being only half-earnest, the farmer did not put out his strength, and
+      Anthony had his way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I rather astonished you, brother William John,&rdquo; he said, when they were
+      in the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer admitted that he was stronger than he looked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you judge by appearances, that's all,&rdquo; Anthony remarked, setting
+      down the bag to lay his finger on one side of his nose for impressiveness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, there we leave London Bridge to the right, and we should away to the
+      left, and quiet parts.&rdquo; He seized the bag anew. &ldquo;Just listen. That's the
+      roaring of cataracts of gold you hear, brother William John. It's a good
+      notion, ain't it? Hark!&mdash;I got that notion from one of your penny
+      papers. You can buy any amount for a penny, now-a-days&mdash;poetry up in
+      a corner, stories, tales o' temptation&mdash;one fellow cut his lucky with
+      his master's cash, dashed away to Australia, made millions, fit to be a
+      lord, and there he was! liable to the law! and everybody bowing their hats
+      and their heads off to him, and his knees knocking at the sight of a
+      policeman&mdash;a man of a red complexion, full habit of body, enjoyed his
+      dinner and his wine, and on account of his turning white so often, they
+      called him&mdash;'sealing-wax and Parchment' was one name; 'Carrots and
+      turnips' was another; 'Blumonge and something,' and so on. Fancy his
+      having to pay half his income in pensions to chaps who could have had him
+      out of his town or country mansion and popped into gaol in a jiffy. And
+      found out at last! Them tales set you thinking. Once I was an idle young
+      scaramouch. But you can buy every idea that's useful to you for a penny. I
+      tried the halfpenny journals. Cheapness ain't always profitable. The moral
+      is, Make your money, and you may buy all the rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Discoursing thus by the way, and resisting the farmer's occasional efforts
+      to relieve him of the bag, with the observation that appearances were
+      deceiving, and that he intended, please his Maker, to live and turn over a
+      little more interest yet, Anthony brought them to Mrs. Wicklow's house.
+      Mrs. Wicklow promised to put them into the track of the omnibuses running
+      toward Dahlia's abode in the Southwest, and Mary Ann Wicklow, who had a
+      burning desire in her bosom to behold even the outside shell of her
+      friend's new grandeur, undertook very disinterestedly to accompany them.
+      Anthony's strict injunction held them due at a lamp-post outside Boyne's
+      Bank, at half-past three o'clock in the afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My love to Dahly,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;She was always a head and shoulders over my
+      size. Tell her, when she rolls by in her carriage, not to mind me. I got
+      my own notions of value. And if that Mr. Ayrton of hers 'll bank at
+      Boyne's, I'll behave to him like a customer. This here's the girl for my
+      money.&rdquo; He touched Rhoda's arm, and so disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer chided her for her cold manner to her uncle, murmuring aside to
+      her: &ldquo;You heard what he said.&rdquo; Rhoda was frozen with her heart's
+      expectation, and insensible to hints or reproof. The people who entered
+      the omnibus seemed to her stale phantoms bearing a likeness to every one
+      she had known, save to her beloved whom she was about to meet, after long
+      separation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She marvelled pityingly at the sort of madness which kept the streets so
+      lively for no reasonable purpose. When she was on her feet again, she felt
+      for the first time, that she was nearing the sister for whom she hungered,
+      and the sensation beset her that she had landed in a foreign country. Mary
+      Ann Wicklow chattered all the while to the general ear. It was her pride
+      to be the discoverer of Dahlia's terrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not for worlds would she enter the house,&rdquo; she said, in a general tone;
+      she knowing better than to present herself where downright entreaty did
+      not invite her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda left her to count the numbers along the terrace-walk, and stood out
+      in the road that her heart might select Dahlia's habitation from the other
+      hueless residences. She fixed upon one, but she was wrong, and her heart
+      sank. The fair Mary Ann fought her and beat her by means of a careful
+      reckoning, as she remarked,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I keep my eyes open; Number 15 is the corner house, the bow-window, to a
+      certainty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gardens were in front of the houses; or, to speak more correctly, strips
+      of garden walks. A cab was drawn up close by the shrub-covered iron gate
+      leading up to No. 15. Mary Ann hurried them on, declaring that they might
+      be too late even now at a couple of dozen paces distant, seeing that
+      London cabs, crawlers as they usually were, could, when required, and paid
+      for it, do their business like lightning. Her observation was illustrated
+      the moment after they had left her in the rear; for a gentleman suddenly
+      sprang across the pavement, jumped into a cab, and was whirled away, with
+      as much apparent magic to provincial eyes, as if a pantomimic trick had
+      been performed. Rhoda pressed forward a step in advance of her father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may have been her husband,&rdquo; she thought, and trembled. The curtains up
+      in the drawing-room were moved as by a hand; but where was Dahlia's face?
+      Dahlia knew that they were coming, and she was not on the look-out for
+      them!&mdash;a strange conflict of facts, over which Rhoda knitted her
+      black brows, so that she looked menacing to the maid opening the door,
+      whose &ldquo;Oh, if you please, Miss,&rdquo; came in contact with &ldquo;My sister&mdash;Mrs.&mdash;,
+      she expects me. I mean, Mrs.&mdash;&rdquo; but no other name than &ldquo;Dahlia&rdquo; would
+      fit itself to Rhoda's mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ayrton,&rdquo; said the maid, and recommenced, &ldquo;Oh, if you please, Miss, and
+      you are the young lady, Mrs. Ayrton is very sorry, and have left word,
+      would you call again to-morrow, as she have made a pressing appointment,
+      and was sure you would excuse her, but her husband was very anxious for
+      her to go, and could not put it off, and was very sorry, but would you
+      call again to-morrow at twelve o'clock? and punctually she would be here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid smiled as one who had fairly accomplished the recital of her
+      lesson. Rhoda was stunned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Mrs. Ayrton at home?&mdash;Not at home?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No: don't ye hear?&rdquo; quoth the farmer, sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She had my letter&mdash;do you know?&rdquo; Rhoda appealed to the maid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, Miss. A letter from the country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This morning?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Miss; this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she has gone out? What time did she go out? When will she be in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her father plucked at her dress. &ldquo;Best not go making the young woman
+      repeat herself. She says, nobody's at home to ask us in. There's no more,
+      then, to trouble her for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At twelve o'clock to-morrow?&rdquo; Rhoda faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you, if you please, call again at twelve o'clock to-morrow, and
+      punctually she would be here,&rdquo; said the maid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer hung his head and turned. Rhoda followed him from the garden.
+      She was immediately plied with queries and interjections of wonderment by
+      Miss Wicklow, and it was not until she said: &ldquo;You saw him go out, didn't
+      you?&mdash;into the cab?&rdquo; that Rhoda awakened to a meaning in her gabble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was it Dahlia's husband whom they had seen? And if so, why was Dahlia away
+      from her husband? She questioned in her heart, but not for an answer, for
+      she allowed no suspicions to live. The farmer led on with his plodding
+      country step, burdened shoulders, and ruddy-fowled, serious face, not
+      speaking to Rhoda, who had no desire to hear a word from him, and let him
+      be. Mary Ann steered him and called from behind the turnings he was to
+      take, while she speculated aloud to Rhoda upon the nature of the business
+      that had torn Dahlia from the house so inopportunely. At last she
+      announced that she knew what it was, but Rhoda failed to express
+      curiosity. Mary Ann was driven to whisper something about strange things
+      in the way of purchases. At that moment the farmer threw up his umbrella,
+      shouting for a cab, and Rhoda ran up to him,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, father, why do we want to ride?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I tell ye!&rdquo; said the farmer, chafing against his coat-collar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is an expense, when we can walk, father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do I care for th' expense? I shall ride.&rdquo; He roared again for a cab,
+      and one came that took them in; after which, the farmer, not being spoken
+      to, became gravely placid as before. They were put down at Boyne's Bank.
+      Anthony was on the look-out, and signalled them to stand away some paces
+      from the door. They were kept about a quarter of an hour waiting between
+      two tides of wayfarers, which hustled them one way and another, when out,
+      at last, came the old, broad, bent figure, with little finicking steps,
+      and hurried past them head foremost, his arms narrowed across a bulgy
+      breast. He stopped to make sure that they were following, beckoned with
+      his chin, and proceeded at a mighty rate. Marvellous was his rounding of
+      corners, his threading of obstructions, his skilful diplomacy with
+      passengers. Presently they lost sight of him, and stood bewildered; but
+      while they were deliberating they heard his voice. He was above them,
+      having issued from two swinging bright doors; and he laughed and nodded,
+      as he ran down the steps, and made signs, by which they were to understand
+      that he was relieved of a weight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've done that twenty year of my life, brother William John,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;Eh? Perhaps you didn't guess I was worth some thousands when I got away
+      from you just now? Let any chap try to stop me! They may just as well try
+      to stop a railway train. Steam's up, and I'm off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed and wiped his forehead. Slightly vexed at the small amount of
+      discoverable astonishment on the farmer's face, he continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't think much of it. Why, there ain't another man but myself
+      Boyne's Bank would trust. They've trusted me thirty year:&mdash;why
+      shouldn't they go on trusting me another thirty year? A good character,
+      brother William John, goes on compound-interesting, just like good coin.
+      Didn't you feel a sort of heat as I brushed by you&mdash;eh? That was a
+      matter of one-two-three-four&rdquo; Anthony watched the farmer as his voice
+      swelled up on the heightening numbers: &ldquo;five-six-six thousand pounds,
+      brother William John. People must think something of a man to trust him
+      with that sum pretty near every day of their lives, Sundays excepted&mdash;eh?
+      don't you think so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He dwelt upon the immense confidence reposed in him, and the terrible
+      temptation it would be to some men, and how they ought to thank their
+      stars that they were never thrown in the way of such a temptation, of
+      which he really thought nothing at all&mdash;nothing! until the farmer's
+      countenance was lightened of its air of oppression, for a puzzle was
+      dissolved in his brain. It was now manifest to him that Anthony was
+      trusted in this extraordinary manner because the heads and managers of
+      Boyne's Bank knew the old man to be possessed of a certain very
+      respectable sum: in all probability they held it in their coffers for
+      safety and credited him with the amount. Nay, more; it was fair to imagine
+      that the guileless old fellow, who conceived himself to be so deep, had
+      let them get it all into their hands without any suspicion of their
+      prominent object in doing so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Fleming said, &ldquo;Ah, yes, surely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He almost looked shrewd as he smiled over Anthony's hat. The healthy
+      exercise of his wits relieved his apprehensive paternal heart; and when he
+      mentioned that Dahlia had not been at home when he called, he at the same
+      time sounded his hearer for excuses to be raised on her behalf, himself
+      clumsily suggesting one or two, as to show that he was willing to swallow
+      a very little for comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, of course!&rdquo; said Anthony, jeeringly. &ldquo;Out? If you catch her in, these
+      next three or four days, you'll be lucky. Ah, brother William John!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer, half frightened by Anthony's dolorous shake of his head,
+      exclaimed: &ldquo;What's the matter, man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How proud I should be if only you was in a way to bank at Boyne's!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; went the farmer in his turn, and he plunged his chin deep in his
+      neckerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps some of your family will, some day, brother William John.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Happen, some of my family do, brother Anthony!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will is what I said, brother William John; if good gals, and civil, and
+      marry decently&mdash;eh?&rdquo; and he faced about to Rhoda who was walking with
+      Miss Wicklow. &ldquo;What does she look so down about, my dear? Never be down. I
+      don't mind you telling your young man, whoever he is; and I'd like him to
+      be a strapping young six-footer I've got in my eye, who farms. What does
+      he farm with to make farming answer now-a-days? Why, he farms with brains.
+      You'll find that in my last week's Journal, brother William John, and
+      thinks I, as I conned it&mdash;the farmer ought to read that! You may tell
+      any young man you like, my dear, that your old uncle's fond of ye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On their arrival home, Mrs. Wicklow met them with a letter in her hand. It
+      was for Rhoda from Dahlia, saying that Dahlia was grieved to the heart to
+      have missed her dear father and her darling sister. But her husband had
+      insisted upon her going out to make particular purchases, and do a dozen
+      things; and he was extremely sorry to have been obliged to take her away,
+      but she hoped to see her dear sister and her father very, very soon. She
+      wished she were her own mistress that she might run to them, but men when
+      they are husbands require so much waiting on that she could never call
+      five minutes her own. She would entreat them to call tomorrow, only she
+      would then be moving to her new lodgings. &ldquo;But, oh! my dear, my blessed
+      Rhoda!&rdquo; the letter concluded, &ldquo;do keep fast in your heart that I do love
+      you so, and pray that we may meet soon, as I pray it every night and all
+      day long. Beg father to stop till we meet. Things will soon be arranged.
+      They must. Oh! oh, my Rhoda, love! how handsome you have grown. It is very
+      well to be fair for a time, but the brunettes have the happiest lot. They
+      last, and when we blonde ones cry or grow thin, oh! what objects we
+      become!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There were some final affectionate words, but no further explanations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wrinkles again settled on the farmer's mild, uncomplaining forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda said: &ldquo;Let us wait, father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When alone, she locked the letter against her heart, as to suck the secret
+      meaning out of it. Thinking over it was useless; except for this one
+      thought: how did her sister know she had grown very handsome? Perhaps the
+      housemaid had prattled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia, the perplexity to her sister's heart, lay stretched at full length
+      upon the sofa of a pleasantly furnished London drawing-room, sobbing to
+      herself, with her handkerchief across her eyes. She had cried passion out,
+      and sobbed now for comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She lay in her rich silken dress like the wreck of a joyful creature,
+      while the large red Winter sun rounded to evening, and threw deep-coloured
+      beams against the wall above her head. They touched the nut-brown hair to
+      vivid threads of fire: but she lay faceless. Utter languor and the dread
+      of looking at her eyelids in the glass kept her prostrate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, the darkness closed her about; the sickly gas-lamps of the street
+      showing her as a shrouded body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A girl came in to spread the cloth for dinner, and went through her duties
+      with the stolidity of the London lodging-house maidservant, poking a
+      clogged fire to perdition, and repressing a songful spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia knew well what was being done; she would have given much to have
+      saved her nostrils from the smell of dinner; it was a great immediate evil
+      to her sickened senses; but she had no energy to call out, nor will of any
+      kind. The odours floated to her, and passively she combated them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first she was nearly vanquished; the meat smelt so acrid, the potatoes
+      so sour; each afflicting vegetable asserted itself peculiarly; and the
+      bread, the salt even, on the wings of her morbid fancy, came steaming
+      about her, subtle, penetrating, thick, and hateful, like the pressure of a
+      cloud out of which disease is shot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such it seemed to her, till she could have shrieked; but only a few fresh
+      tears started down her cheeks, and she lay enduring it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dead silence and stillness hung over the dinner-service, when the outer
+      door below was opened, and a light foot sprang up the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There entered a young gentleman in evening dress, with a loose black
+      wrapper drooping from his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked on the table, and then glancing at the sofa, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, there she is!&rdquo; and went to the window and whistled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a minute of great patience, he turned his face back to the room
+      again, and commenced tapping his foot on the carpet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he said, finding these indications of exemplary self-command
+      unheeded. His voice was equally powerless to provoke a sign of animation.
+      He now displaced his hat, and said, &ldquo;Dahlia!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not move.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am here to very little purpose, then,&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A guttering fall of her bosom was perceptible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For heaven's sake, take away that handkerchief, my good child! Why have
+      you let your dinner get cold? Here,&rdquo; he lifted a cover; &ldquo;here's
+      roast-beef. You like it&mdash;why don't you eat it? That's only a small
+      piece of the general inconsistency, I know. And why haven't they put
+      champagne on the table for you? You lose your spirits without it. If you
+      took it when these moody fits came on&mdash;but there's no advising a
+      woman to do anything for her own good. Dahlia, will you do me the favour
+      to speak two or three words with me before I go? I would have dined here,
+      but I have a man to meet me at the Club. Of what mortal service is it
+      shamming the insensible? You've produced the required effect, I am as
+      uncomfortable as I need be. Absolutely!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; seeing that words were of no avail, he summed up expostulation and
+      reproach in this sigh of resigned philosophy: &ldquo;I am going. Let me see&mdash;I
+      have my Temple keys?&mdash;yes! I am afraid that even when you are
+      inclined to be gracious and look at me, I shall not, be visible to you for
+      some days. I start for Lord Elling's to-morrow morning at five. I meet my
+      father there by appointment. I'm afraid we shall have to stay over
+      Christmas. Good-bye.&rdquo; He paused. &ldquo;Good-bye, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two or three steps nearer the door, he said, &ldquo;By the way, do you want
+      anything? Money?&mdash;do you happen to want any money? I will send a
+      blank cheque tomorrow. I have sufficient for both of us. I shall tell the
+      landlady to order your Christmas dinner. How about wine? There is
+      champagne, I know, and bottled ale. Sherry? I'll drop a letter to my
+      wine-merchant; I think the sherry's running dry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her sense of hearing was now afflicted in as gross a manner as had been
+      her sense of smell. She could not have spoken, though her vitality had
+      pressed for speech. It would have astonished him to hear that his
+      solicitude concerning provender for her during his absence was not
+      esteemed a kindness; for surely it is a kindly thing to think of it; and
+      for whom but for one for whom he cared would he be counting the bottles to
+      be left at her disposal, insomuch that the paucity of the bottles of
+      sherry in the establishment distressed his mental faculties?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, good-bye,&rdquo; he said, finally. The door closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had Dahlia's misery been in any degree simulated, her eyes now, as well as
+      her ears, would have taken positive assurance of his departure. But with
+      the removal of her handkerchief, the loathsome sight of the dinner-table
+      would have saluted her, and it had already caused her suffering enough.
+      She chose to remain as she was, saying to herself, &ldquo;I am dead;&rdquo; and softly
+      revelling in that corpse-like sentiment. She scarcely knew that the door
+      had opened again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahlia!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She heard her name pronounced, and more entreatingly, and closer to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahlia, my poor girl!&rdquo; Her hand was pressed. It gave her no shudders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am dead,&rdquo; she mentally repeated, for the touch did not run up to her
+      heart and stir it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahlia, do be reasonable! I can't leave you like this. We shall be
+      separated for some time. And what a miserable fire you've got here! You
+      have agreed with me that we are acting for the best. It's very hard on me
+      I try what I can to make you comf&mdash;happy; and really, to see you
+      leaving your dinner to get cold! Your hands are like ice. The meat won't
+      be eatable. You know I'm not my own master. Come, Dahly, my darling!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He gently put his hand to her chin, and then drew away the handkerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia moaned at the exposure of her tear-stained face, she turned it
+      languidly to the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you ill, my dear?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Men are so considerately practical! He begged urgently to be allowed to
+      send for a doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But women, when they choose to be unhappy, will not accept of practical
+      consolations! She moaned a refusal to see the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then what can I do for her? he naturally thought, and he naturally uttered
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say good-bye to me,&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;And my pretty one will write to me. I
+      shall reply so punctually! I don't like to leave her at Christmas; and she
+      will give me a line of Italian, and a little French&mdash;mind her
+      accents, though!&mdash;and she needn't attempt any of the nasty German&mdash;kshrra-kouzzra-kratz!&mdash;which
+      her pretty lips can't do, and won't do; but only French and Italian. Why,
+      she learnt to speak Italian! 'La dolcezza ancor dentro me suona.' Don't
+      you remember, and made such fun of it at first? 'Amo zoo;' 'no amo me?' my
+      sweet!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a specimen of the baby-lover talk, which is charming in its
+      season, and maybe pleasantly cajoling to a loving woman at all times, save
+      when she is in Dahlia's condition. It will serve even then, or she will
+      pass it forgivingly, as not the food she for a moment requires; but it
+      must be purely simple in its utterance, otherwise she detects the poor
+      chicanery, and resents the meanness of it. She resents it with unutterable
+      sickness of soul, for it is the language of what were to her the holiest
+      hours of her existence, which is thus hypocritically used to blind and
+      rock her in a cradle of deception. If corrupt, she maybe brought to answer
+      to it all the same, and she will do her part of the play, and babble
+      words, and fret and pout deliciously; and the old days will seem to be
+      revived, when both know they are dead; and she will thereby gain any
+      advantage she is seeking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Dahlia's sorrow was deep: her heart was sound. She did not even
+      perceive the opportunity offered to her for a wily performance. She felt
+      the hollowness of his speech, and no more; and she said, &ldquo;Good-bye,
+      Edward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been on one knee. Springing cheerfully to his feet, &ldquo;Good-bye,
+      darling,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But I must see her sit to table first. Such a wretched
+      dinner for her!&rdquo; and he mumbled, &ldquo;By Jove, I suppose I shan't get any at
+      all myself!&rdquo; His watch confirmed it to him that any dinner which had been
+      provided for him at the Club would be spoilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo; he said aloud, and examined the roast-beef ruefully,
+      thinking that, doubtless, it being more than an hour behind the appointed
+      dinner-time at the Club, his guest must now be gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a minute or so he gazed at the mournful spectacle. The potatoes looked
+      as if they had committed suicide in their own steam. There were mashed
+      turnips, with a glazed surface, like the bright bottom of a tin pan. One
+      block of bread was by the lonely plate. Neither hot nor cold, the whole
+      aspect of the dinner-table resisted and repelled the gaze, and made no
+      pretensions to allure it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thought of partaking of this repast endowed him with a critical
+      appreciation of its character, and a gush of charitable emotion for the
+      poor girl who had such miserable dishes awaiting her, arrested the
+      philosophic reproof which he could have administered to one that knew so
+      little how a dinner of any sort should be treated. He strode to the
+      windows, pulled down the blind he had previously raised, rang the bell,
+      and said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahlia, there&mdash;I'm going to dine with you, my love. I've rung the
+      bell for more candles. The room shivers. That girl will see you, if you
+      don't take care. Where is the key of the cupboard? We must have some wine
+      out. The champagne, at all events, won't be flat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He commenced humming the song of complacent resignation. Dahlia was still
+      inanimate, but as the door was about to open, she rose quickly and sat in
+      a tremble on the sofa, concealing her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An order was given for additional candles, coals, and wood. When the maid
+      had disappeared Dahlia got on her feet, and steadied herself by the wall,
+      tottering away to her chamber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, poor thing!&rdquo; ejaculated the young man, not without an idea that the
+      demonstration was unnecessary. For what is decidedly disagreeable is, in a
+      young man's calculation concerning women, not necessary at all,&mdash;quite
+      the reverse. Are not women the flowers which decorate sublunary life? It
+      is really irritating to discover them to be pieces of machinery, that for
+      want of proper oiling, creak, stick, threaten convulsions, and are tragic
+      and stir us the wrong way. However, champagne does them good: an admirable
+      wine&mdash;a sure specific for the sex!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He searched around for the keys to get at a bottle and uncork it
+      forthwith. The keys were on the mantelpiece a bad comment on Dahlia's
+      housekeeping qualities; but in the hurry of action let it pass. He
+      welcomed the candles gladly, and soon had all the cupboards in the room
+      royally open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bustle is instinctively adopted by the human race as the substitute of
+      comfort. He called for more lights, more plates, more knives and forks. He
+      sent for ice the maid observed that it was not to be had save at a distant
+      street: &ldquo;Jump into a cab&mdash;champagne's nothing without ice, even in
+      Winter,&rdquo; he said, and rang for her as she was leaving the house, to name a
+      famous fishmonger who was sure to supply the ice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The establishment soon understood that Mr. Ayrton intended dining within
+      those walls. Fresh potatoes were put on to boil. The landlady came up
+      herself to arouse the fire. The maid was for a quarter of an hour hovering
+      between the order to get ice and the execution of immediate commands. One
+      was that she should take a glass of champagne to Mrs. Ayrton in her room.
+      He drank off one himself. Mrs. Ayrton's glass being brought back
+      untouched, he drank that off likewise, and as he became more exhilarated,
+      was more considerate for her, to such a degree, that when she appeared he
+      seized her hands and only jestingly scolded her for her contempt of sound
+      medicine, declaring, in spite of her protestations, that she was looking
+      lovely, and so they sat down to their dinner, she with an anguished glance
+      at the looking-glass as she sank in her chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not bad, after all,&rdquo; said he, drenching his tasteless mouthful of
+      half-cold meat with champagne. &ldquo;The truth is, that Clubs spoil us. This is
+      Spartan fare. Come, drink with me, my dearest. One sip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was coaxed by degrees to empty a glass. She had a gentle heart, and
+      could not hold out long against a visible lively kindliness. It pleased
+      him that she should bow to him over fresh bubbles; and they went formally
+      through the ceremony, and she smiled. He joked and laughed and talked, and
+      she eyed him a faint sweetness. He perceived now that she required nothing
+      more than the restoration of her personal pride, and setting bright eyes
+      on her, hazarded a bold compliment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia drooped like a yacht with idle sails struck by a sudden blast, that
+      dips them in the salt; but she raised her face with the full bloom of a
+      blush: and all was plain sailing afterward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has my darling seen her sister?&rdquo; he asked softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia answered, &ldquo;No,&rdquo; in the same tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both looked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She won't leave town without seeing you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope&mdash;I don't know. She&mdash;she has called at our last lodgings
+      twice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I think so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia kept her head down, replying; and his observation of her wavered
+      uneasily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not write to her, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She will bring father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sob thickened in her throat; but, alas for him who had at first, while
+      she was on the sofa, affected to try all measures to revive her, that I
+      must declare him to know well how certain was his mastery over her, when
+      his manner was thoroughly kind. He had not much fear of her relapsing at
+      present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't see your father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, do. It's best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not&mdash;&rdquo; she hesitated, and clasped her hands in her lap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes; I know,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;but still! You could surely see him. You
+      rouse suspicions that need not exist. Try another glass, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well; as I was saying, you force him to think&mdash;and there is no
+      necessity for it. He maybe as hard on this point as you say; but now and
+      then a little innocent deception maybe practised. We only require to gain
+      time. You place me in a very hard position. I have a father too. He has
+      his own idea of things. He's a proud man, as I've told you; tremendously
+      ambitious, and he wants to push me, not only at the bar, but in the money
+      market matrimonial. All these notions I have to contend against. Things
+      can't be done at once. If I give him a shock&mdash;well, we'll drop any
+      consideration of the consequences. Write to your sister to tell her to
+      bring your father. If they make particular inquiries&mdash;very unlikely I
+      think&mdash;but, if they do, put them at their ease.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why was my poor darling so upset, when I came in?&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a difficulty in her speaking. He waited with much patient
+      twiddling of bread crumbs; and at last she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My sister called twice at my&mdash;our old lodgings. The second time, she
+      burst into tears. The girl told me so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But women cry so often, and for almost anything, Dahlia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rhoda cries with her hands closed hard, and her eyelids too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that maybe her way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have only seen her cry once, and that was when mother was dying, and
+      asked her to fetch a rose from the garden. I met her on the stairs. She
+      was like wood. She hates crying. She loves me so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sympathetic tears rolled down Dahlia's cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, you quite refuse to see your father?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; he repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the touch of scorn in his voice, she exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Edward! not yet, I cannot. I know I am weak. I can't meet him now. If
+      my Rhoda had come alone, as I hoped&mdash;! but he is with her. Don't
+      blame me, Edward. I can't explain. I only know that I really have not the
+      power to see him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward nodded. &ldquo;The sentiment some women put into things is inexplicable,&rdquo;
+       he said. &ldquo;Your sister and father will return home. They will have formed
+      their ideas. You know how unjust they will be. Since, however, the taste
+      is for being a victim&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      London lodging-house rooms in Winter when the blinds are down, and a
+      cheerless fire is in the grate, or when blinds are up and street-lamps
+      salute the inhabitants with uncordial rays, are not entertaining places of
+      residence for restless spirits. Edward paced about the room. He lit a
+      cigar and puffed at it fretfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you come and try one of the theatres for an hour?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose submissively, afraid to say that she thought she should look ill
+      in the staring lights; but he, with great quickness of perception,
+      rendered her task easier by naming the dress she was to wear, the jewels,
+      and the colour of the opera cloak. Thus prompted, Dahlia went to her
+      chamber, and passively attired herself, thankful to have been spared the
+      pathetic troubles of a selection of garments from her wardrobe. When she
+      came forth, Edward thought her marvellously beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pity that she had no strength of character whatever, nor any pointed
+      liveliness of mind to match and wrestle with his own, and cheer the
+      domestic hearth! But she was certainly beautiful. Edward kissed her hand
+      in commendation. Though it was practically annoying that she should be
+      sad, the hue and spirit of sadness came home to her aspect. Sorrow visited
+      her tenderly falling eyelids like a sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Edward's engagement at his Club had been with his unfortunate cousin
+      Algernon; who not only wanted a dinner but 'five pounds or so' (the hazy
+      margin which may extend illimitably, or miserably contract, at the
+      lender's pleasure, and the necessity for which shows the borrower to be
+      dancing on Fortune's tight-rope above the old abyss).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Over claret,&rdquo; was to have been the time for the asking; and Algernon
+      waited dinnerless until the healthy-going minutes distended and swelled
+      monstrous and horrible as viper-bitten bodies, and the venerable Signior,
+      Time, became of unhealthy hue. For this was the first dinner which, during
+      the whole course of the young man's career, had ever been failing to him.
+      Reflect upon the mournful gap! He could scarcely believe in his ill-luck.
+      He suggested it to himself with an inane grin, as one of the far-away
+      freaks of circumstances that had struck him&mdash;and was it not comical?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He waited from the hour of six till the hour of seven. He compared clocks
+      in the hall and the room. He changed the posture of his legs fifty times.
+      For a while he wrestled right gallantly with the apparent menace of the
+      Fates that he was to get no dinner at all that day; it seemed incredibly
+      derisive, for, as I must repeat, it had never happened to him by any
+      accident before. &ldquo;You are born&mdash;you dine.&rdquo; Such appeared to him to be
+      the positive regulation of affairs, and a most proper one,&mdash;of the
+      matters of course following the birth of a young being.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By what frightful mischance, then, does he miss his dinner? By placing the
+      smallest confidence in the gentlemanly feeling of another man! Algernon
+      deduced this reply accurately from his own experience, and whether it can
+      be said by other &ldquo;undined&rdquo; mortals, does not matter in the least. But we
+      have nothing to do with the constitutionally luckless: the calamitous
+      history of a simple empty stomach is enough. Here the tragedy is palpable.
+      Indeed, too sadly so, and I dare apply but a flash of the microscope to
+      the rageing dilemmas of this animalcule. Five and twenty minutes had
+      signalled their departure from the hour of seven, when Algernon pronounced
+      his final verdict upon Edward's conduct by leaving the Club. He returned
+      to it a quarter of an hour later, and lingered on in desperate mood till
+      eight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had neither watch in his pocket, nor ring on his finger, nor disposable
+      stud in his shirt. The sum of twenty-one pence was in his possession, and,
+      I ask you, as he asked himself, how is a gentleman to dine upon that? He
+      laughed at the notion. The irony of Providence sent him by a cook's shop,
+      where the mingled steam of meats and puddings rushed out upon the wayfarer
+      like ambushed bandits, and seized him and dragged him in, or sent him
+      qualmish and humbled on his way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two little boys had flattened their noses to the whiteness of winkles
+      against the jealously misty windows. Algernon knew himself to be accounted
+      a generous fellow, and remembering his reputation, he, as to hint at what
+      Fortune might do in his case, tossed some coppers to the urchins, who
+      ducked to the pavement and slid before the counter, in a flash, with never
+      a &ldquo;thank ye&rdquo; or the thought of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon was incapable of appreciating this childish faith in the
+      beneficence of the unseen Powers who feed us, which, I must say for him,
+      he had shared in a very similar manner only two hours ago. He laughed
+      scornfully: &ldquo;The little beggars!&rdquo; considering in his soul that of such is
+      humanity composed: as many a dinnerless man has said before, and will
+      again, to point the speech of fools. He continued strolling on, comparing
+      the cramped misty London aspect of things with his visionary free dream of
+      the glorious prairies, where his other life was: the forests, the
+      mountains, the endless expanses; the horses, the flocks, the slipshod ease
+      of language and attire; and the grog-shops. Aha! There could be no mistake
+      about him as a gentleman and a scholar out there! Nor would Nature shut up
+      her pocket and demand innumerable things of him, as civilization did. This
+      he thought in the vengefulness of his outraged mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not only had Algernon never failed to dine every day of his life: he had
+      no recollection of having ever dined without drinking wine. His conception
+      did not embrace the idea of a dinner lacking wine. Possibly he had some
+      embodied understanding that wine did not fall to the lot of every fellow
+      upon earth: he had heard of gullets unrefreshed even by beer: but at any
+      rate he himself was accustomed to better things, and he did not choose to
+      excavate facts from the mass of his knowledge in order to reconcile
+      himself to the miserable chop he saw for his dinner in the distance&mdash;a
+      spot of meat in the arctic circle of a plate, not shone upon by any
+      rosy-warming sun of a decanter!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But metaphorical language, though nothing other will convey the extremity
+      of his misery, or the form of his thoughts, must be put aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Egad, and every friend I have is out of town!&rdquo; he exclaimed, quite
+      willing to think it part of the plot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stuck his hands in his pockets, and felt vagabond-like and reckless.
+      The streets were revelling in their winter muck. The carriages rolling by
+      insulted him with their display of wealth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had democratic sentiments regarding them. Oh for a horse upon the
+      boundless plains! he sighed to his heart. He remembered bitterly how he
+      had that day ridden his stool at the bank, dreaming of his wilds, where
+      bailiff never ran, nor duns obscured the firmament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then there were theatres here&mdash;huge extravagant places! Algernon
+      went over to an entrance of one, to amuse his mind, cynically criticizing
+      the bill. A play was going forward within, that enjoyed great popular
+      esteem, &ldquo;The Holly Berries.&rdquo; Seeing that the pit was crammed, Algernon
+      made application to learn the state of the boxes, but hearing that one box
+      was empty, he lost his interest in the performance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he was strolling forth, his attention was taken by a noise at the
+      pit-doors, which swung open, and out tumbled a tough little old man with a
+      younger one grasping his coat-collar, who proclaimed that he would sicken
+      him of pushing past him at the end of every act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're precious fond of plays,&rdquo; sneered the junior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm fond of everything I pay for, young fellow,&rdquo; replied the shaken
+      senior; &ldquo;and that's a bit of enjoyment you've got to learn&mdash;ain't
+      it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, don't you knock by me again, that's all,&rdquo; cried the choleric youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't think I'm likely to stop in your company, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose expense have you been drinking at?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My country's, young fellow; and mind you don't soon feed at the table.
+      Let me go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon's hunger was appeased by the prospect of some excitement, and
+      seeing a vicious shake administered to the old man by the young one, he
+      cried, &ldquo;Hands off!&rdquo; and undertook policeman's duty; but as he was not in
+      blue, his authoritative mandate obtained no respect until he had
+      interposed his fist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had done so, he recognized the porter at Boyne's Bank, whose enemy
+      retired upon the threat that there should be no more pushing past him to
+      get back to seats for the next act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I paid,&rdquo; said Anthony; &ldquo;and you're a ticketer, and you ticketers sha' n't
+      stop me. I'm worth a thousand of you. Holloa, sir,&rdquo; he cried to Algernon;
+      &ldquo;I didn't know you. I'm much obliged. These chaps get tickets given 'm,
+      and grow as cocky in a theatre as men who pay. He never had such wine in
+      him as I've got. That I'd swear. Ha! ha! I come out for an airing after
+      every act, and there's a whole pitfall of ticketers yelling and tearing,
+      and I chaff my way through and back clean as a red-hot poker.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony laughed, and rolled somewhat as he laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come along, sir, into the street,&rdquo; he said, boring on to the pavement.
+      &ldquo;It's after office hours. And, ha! ha! what do you think? There's old
+      farmer in there, afraid to move off his seat, and the girl with him,
+      sticking to him tight, and a good girl too. She thinks we've had too much.
+      We been to the Docks, wine-tasting: Port&mdash;Sherry: Sherry&mdash;Port!
+      and, ha! ha! 'what a lot of wine!' says farmer, never thinking how much
+      he's taking on board. 'I guessed it was night,' says farmer, as we got
+      into the air, and to see him go on blinking, and stumbling, and saying to
+      me, 'You stand wine, brother Tony!' I'm blest if I ain't bottled laughter.
+      So, says I, 'come and see &ldquo;The Holly Berries,&rdquo; brother William John; it's
+      the best play in London, and a suitable winter piece.' 'Is there a rascal
+      hanged in the piece?' says he. 'Oh, yes!' I let him fancy there was, and
+      he&mdash;ha! ha! old farmer's sticking to his seat, solemn as a judge,
+      waiting for the gallows to come on the stage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A thought quickened Algernon's spirit. It was a notorious secret among the
+      young gentlemen who assisted in maintaining the prosperity of Boyne's
+      Bank, that the old porter&mdash;the &ldquo;Old Ant,&rdquo; as he was called&mdash;possessed
+      money, and had no objection to put out small sums for a certain interest.
+      Algernon mentioned casually that he had left his purse at home; and &ldquo;by
+      the way,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;have you got a few sovereigns in your pocket?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! and come through that crush, sir?&rdquo; Anthony negatived the question
+      decisively with a reference to his general knowingness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon pressed him; saying at last, &ldquo;Well, have you got one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think I've been such a fool,&rdquo; said Anthony, feeling slowly about
+      his person, and muttering as to the changes that might possibly have been
+      produced in him by the Docks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confound it, I haven't dined!&rdquo; exclaimed Algernon, to hasten his
+      proceedings; but at this, Anthony eyed him queerly. &ldquo;What have you been
+      about then, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you see I'm in evening dress? I had an appointment to dine with a
+      friend. He didn't keep it. I find I've left my purse in my other clothes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a bad habit, sir,&rdquo; was Anthony's comment. &ldquo;You don't care much for
+      your purse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Much for my purse, be hanged!&rdquo; interjected Algernon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd have felt it, or you'd have heard it, if there 'd been any weight
+      in it,&rdquo; Anthony remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can you hear paper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, paper's another thing. You keep paper in your mind, don't you&mdash;eh?
+      Forget pound notes? Leave pound notes in a purse? And you Sir William's
+      nephew, sir, who'd let you bank with him and put down everything in a
+      book, so that you couldn't forget, or if you did, he'd remember for you;
+      and you might change your clothes as often as not, and no fear of your
+      losing a penny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon shrugged disgustedly, and was giving the old man up as a bad
+      business, when Anthony altered his manner. &ldquo;Oh! well, sir, I don't mind
+      letting you have what I've got. I'm out for fun. Bother affairs!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sum of twenty shillings was handed to Algernon, after he had submitted
+      to the indignity of going into a public-house, and writing his I.O.U. for
+      twenty-three to Anthony Hackbut, which included interest. Algernon
+      remonstrated against so needless a formality; but Anthony put the
+      startling supposition to him, that he might die that night. He signed the
+      document, and was soon feeding and drinking his wine. This being
+      accomplished, he took some hasty puffs of tobacco, and returned to the
+      theatre, in the hope that the dark girl Rhoda was to be seen there; for
+      now that he had dined, Anthony's communication with regard to the farmer
+      and his daughter became his uppermost thought, and a young man's uppermost
+      thought is usually the propelling engine to his actions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By good chance, and the aid of a fee, he obtained a front seat, commanding
+      an excellent side-view of the pit, which sat wrapt in contemplation of a
+      Christmas scene snow, ice, bare twigs, a desolate house, and a woman
+      shivering&mdash;one of man's victims.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a good public, that of Britain, and will bear anything, so long as
+      villany is punished, of which there was ripe promise in the oracular
+      utterances of a rolling, stout, stage-sailor, whose nose, to say nothing
+      of his frankness on the subject, proclaimed him his own worst enemy, and
+      whose joke, by dint of repetition, had almost become the joke of the
+      audience too; for whenever he appeared, there was agitation in pit and
+      gallery, which subsided only on his jovial thundering of the familiar
+      sentence; whereupon laughter ensued, and a quieting hum of satisfaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a play that had been favoured with a great run. Critics had once
+      objected to it, that it was made to subsist on scenery, a song, and a
+      stupid piece of cockneyism pretending to be a jest, that was really no
+      more than a form of slapping the public on the back. But the public likes
+      to have its back slapped, and critics, frozen by the Medusa-head of
+      Success, were soon taught manners. The office of critic is now, in fact,
+      virtually extinct; the taste for tickling and slapping is universal and
+      imperative; classic appeals to the intellect, and passions not purely
+      domestic, have grown obsolete. There are captains of the legions, but no
+      critics. The mass is lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And behold our friend the sailor of the boards, whose walk is even as two
+      meeting billows, appears upon the lonely moor, and salts that uninhabited
+      region with nautical interjections. Loose are his hose in one part, tight
+      in another, and he smacks them. It is cold; so let that be his excuse for
+      showing the bottom of his bottle to the glittering spheres. He takes
+      perhaps a sturdier pull at the liquor than becomes a manifest instrument
+      of Providence, whose services may be immediately required; but he informs
+      us that his ship was never known not to right itself when called upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He is alone in the world, he tells us likewise. If his one friend, the
+      uplifted flask, is his enemy, why then he feels bound to treat his enemy
+      as his friend. This, with a pathetic allusion to his interior economy,
+      which was applauded, and the remark &ldquo;Ain't that Christian?&rdquo; which was just
+      a trifle risky; so he secured pit and gallery at a stroke by a
+      surpassingly shrewd blow at the bishops of our Church, who are, it can
+      barely be contested, in foul esteem with the multitude&mdash;none can say
+      exactly, for what reason&mdash;and must submit to be occasionally offered
+      up as propitiatory sacrifices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This good sailor was not always alone in the world. A sweet girl, whom he
+      describes as reaching to his kneecap, and pathetically believes still to
+      be of the same height, once called him brother Jack. To hear that name
+      again from her lips, and a particular song!&mdash;he attempts it
+      ludicrously, yet touchingly withal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hark! Is it an echo from a spirit in the frigid air?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The song trembled with a silver ring to the remotest corners of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment the breathless hush of the audience was flurried by hearing
+      &ldquo;Dahlia&rdquo; called from the pit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon had been spying among the close-packed faces for a sight of
+      Rhoda. Rhoda was now standing up amid gathering hisses and outcries. Her
+      eyes were bent on a particular box, across which a curtain was hastily
+      being drawn. &ldquo;My sister!&rdquo; she sent out a voice of anguish, and remained
+      with clasped hands and twisted eyebrows, looking toward that one spot, as
+      if she would have flown to it. She was wedged in the mass, and could not
+      move.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The exclamation heard had belonged to brother Jack, on the stage, whose
+      burst of fraternal surprise and rapture fell flat after it, to the disgust
+      of numbers keenly awakened for the sentiment of this scene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Roaring accusations that she was drunk; that she had just escaped from
+      Bedlam for an evening; that she should be gagged and turned headlong out,
+      surrounded her; but she stood like a sculptured figure, vital in her eyes
+      alone. The farmer put his arm about his girl's waist. The instant,
+      however, that Anthony's head uprose on the other side of her, the evil
+      reputation he had been gaining for himself all through the evening
+      produced a general clamour, over which the gallery played, miauling, and
+      yelping like dogs that are never to be divorced from a noise. Algernon
+      feared mischief. He quitted his seat, and ran out into the lobby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half-a-dozen steps, and he came in contact with some one, and they were
+      mutually drenched with water by the shock. It was his cousin Edward,
+      bearing a glass in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon's wrath at the sight of this offender was stimulated by the cold
+      bath; but Edward cut him short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go in there;&rdquo; he pointed to a box-door. &ldquo;A lady has fainted. Hold her up
+      till I come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No time was allowed for explanation. Algernon passed into the box, and was
+      alone with an inanimate shape in blue bournous. The uproar in the theatre
+      raged; the whole pit was on its legs and shouting. He lifted the pallid
+      head over one arm, miserably helpless and perplexed, but his anxiety
+      concerning Rhoda's personal safety in that sea of strife prompted him to
+      draw back the curtain a little, and he stood exposed. Rhoda perceived him.
+      She motioned with both her hands in dumb supplication. In a moment the
+      curtain closed between them. Edward's sharp white face cursed him mutely
+      for his folly, while he turned and put the water to Dahlia's lips, and
+      touched her forehead with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter?&rdquo; whispered Algernon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must get her out as quick as we can. This is the way with women! Come!
+      she's recovering.&rdquo; Edward nursed her sternly as he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If she doesn't, pretty soon, we shall have the pit in upon us,&rdquo; said
+      Algernon. &ldquo;Is she that girl's sister?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't ask damned questions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia opened her eyes, staring placidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you can stand up, my dear. Dahlia! all's well. Try,&rdquo; said Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sighed, murmuring, &ldquo;What is the time?&rdquo; and again, &ldquo;What noise is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward coughed in a vexed attempt at tenderness, using all his force to be
+      gentle with her as he brought her to her feet. The task was difficult amid
+      the threatening storm in the theatre, and cries of &ldquo;Show the young woman
+      her sister!&rdquo; for Rhoda had won a party in the humane public.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahlia, in God's name give me your help!&rdquo; Edward called in her ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fair girl's eyelids blinked wretchedly in protestation of her
+      weakness. She had no will either way, and suffered herself to be led out
+      of the box, supported by the two young men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Run for a cab,&rdquo; said Edward; and Algernon went ahead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had one waiting for them as they came out. They placed Dahlia on a seat
+      with care, and Edward, jumping in, drew an arm tightly about her. &ldquo;I can't
+      cry,&rdquo; she moaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cab was driving off as a crowd of people burst from the pit-doors, and
+      Algernon heard the voice of Farmer Fleming, very hoarse. He had discretion
+      enough to retire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Robert was to drive to the station to meet Rhoda and her father returning
+      from London, on a specified day. He was eager to be asking cheerful
+      questions of Dahlia's health and happiness, so that he might dispel the
+      absurd general belief that he had ever loved the girl, and was now
+      regretting her absence; but one look at Rhoda's face when she stepped from
+      the railway carriage kept him from uttering a word on that subject, and
+      the farmer's heavier droop and acceptance of a helping hand into the cart,
+      were signs of bad import.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Fleming made no show of grief, like one who nursed it. He took it to
+      all appearance as patiently as an old worn horse would do, although such
+      an outward submissiveness will not always indicate a placid spirit in men.
+      He talked at stale intervals of the weather and the state of the ground
+      along the line of rail down home, and pointed in contempt or approval to a
+      field here and there; but it was as one who no longer had any professional
+      interest in the tilling of the land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doubtless he was trained to have no understanding of a good to be derived
+      by his communicating what he felt and getting sympathy. Once, when he was
+      uncertain, and a secret pride in Dahlia's beauty and accomplishments had
+      whispered to him that her flight was possibly the opening of her road to a
+      higher fortune, he made a noise for comfort, believing in his heart that
+      she was still to be forgiven. He knew better now. By holding his peace he
+      locked out the sense of shame which speech would have stirred within him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Got on pretty smooth with old Mas' Gammon?&rdquo; he expressed his hope; and
+      Robert said, &ldquo;Capitally. We shall make something out of the old man yet,
+      never fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Master Gammon was condemned to serve at the ready-set tea-table as a butt
+      for banter; otherwise it was apprehended well that Mrs. Sumfit would have
+      scorched the ears of all present, save the happy veteran of the furrows,
+      with repetitions of Dahlia's name, and wailings about her darling, of whom
+      no one spoke. They suffered from her in spite of every precaution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, if I'm not to hear anything dooring meals&mdash;as if I'd
+      swallow it and take it into my stomach!&mdash;I'll wait again for what
+      ye've got to tell,&rdquo; she said, and finished her cup at a gulp, smoothing
+      her apron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer then lifted his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother, if you've done, you'll oblige me by going to bed,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We
+      want the kitchen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A-bed?&rdquo; cried Mrs. Sumfit, with instantly ruffled lap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upstairs, mother; when you've done&mdash;not before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then bad's the noos! Something have happened, William. You 'm not going
+      to push me out? And my place is by the tea-pot, which I cling to,
+      rememberin' how I seen her curly head grow by inches up above the table
+      and the cups. Mas' Gammon,&rdquo; she appealed to the sturdy feeder, &ldquo;five cups
+      is your number?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her hope was reduced to the prolonging of the service of tea, with Master
+      Gammon's kind assistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Four, marm,&rdquo; said her inveterate antagonist, as he finished that amount,
+      and consequently put the spoon in his cup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Sumfit rolled in her chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Lord, Mas' Gammon! Five, I say; and never a cup less so long as here
+      you've been.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Four, marm. I don't know,&rdquo; said Master Gammon, with a slow nod of his
+      head, &ldquo;that ever I took five cups of tea at a stretch. Not runnin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do know, Mas' Gammon. And ought to: for don't I pour out to ye? It's
+      five you take, and please, your cup, if you'll hand it over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Four's my number, marm,&rdquo; Master Gammon reiterated resolutely. He sat like
+      a rock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If they was dumplins,&rdquo; moaned Mrs. Sumfit, &ldquo;not four, no, nor five, 'd do
+      till enough you'd had, and here we might stick to our chairs, but you'd go
+      on and on; you know you would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's eatin', marm;&rdquo; Master Gammon condescended to explain the nature of
+      his habits. &ldquo;I'm reg'lar in my drinkin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Sumfit smote her hands together. &ldquo;O Lord, Mas' Gammon, the
+      wearisomest old man I ever come across is you. More tea's in the pot, and
+      it ain't watery, and you won't be comfortable. May you get forgiveness
+      from above! is all I say, and I say no more. Mr. Robert, perhaps you'll be
+      so good as let me help you, sir? It's good tea; and my Dody,&rdquo; she added,
+      cajolingly, &ldquo;my home girl 'll tell us what she saw. I'm pinched and
+      starved to hear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By-and-by, mother,&rdquo; interposed the farmer; &ldquo;tomorrow.&rdquo; He spoke gently,
+      but frowned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both Rhoda and Robert perceived that they were peculiarly implicated in
+      the business which was to be discussed without Mrs. Sumfit's assistance.
+      Her father's manner forbade Rhoda from making any proposal for the relief
+      of the forlorn old woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And me not to hear to-night about your play-going!&rdquo; sighed Mrs. Sumfit.
+      &ldquo;Oh, it's hard on me. I do call it cruel. And how my sweet was dressed&mdash;like
+      as for a Ball.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She saw the farmer move his foot impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, if nobody drinks this remaining cup, I will,&rdquo; she pursued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No voice save her own was heard till the cup was emptied, upon which
+      Master Gammon, according to his wont, departed for bed to avoid the
+      seduction of suppers, which he shunned as apoplectic, and Mrs. Sumfit
+      prepared, in a desolate way, to wash the tea-things, but the farmer,
+      saying that it could be done in the morning, went to the door and opened
+      it for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She fetched a great sigh and folded her hands resignedly. As she was
+      passing him to make her miserable enforced exit, the heavy severity of his
+      face afflicted her with a deep alarm; she fell on her knees, crying,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, William! it ain't for sake of hearin' talk; but you, that went to see
+      our Dahly, the blossom, 've come back streaky under the eyes, and you make
+      the house feel as if we neighboured Judgement Day. Down to tea you set the
+      first moment, and me alone with none of you, and my love for my girl known
+      well to you. And now to be marched off! How can I go a-bed and sleep, and
+      my heart jumps so? It ain't Christian to ask me to. I got a heart, dear, I
+      have. Do give a bit of comfort to it. Only a word of my Dahly to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer replied: &ldquo;Mother, let's have no woman's nonsense. What we've
+      got to bear, let us bear. And you go on your knees to the Lord, and don't
+      be a heathen woman, I say. Get up. There's a Bible in your bedroom. Find
+      you out comfort in that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, William, no!&rdquo; she sobbed, still kneeling: &ldquo;there ain't a dose o'
+      comfort there when poor souls is in the dark, and haven't got patience for
+      passages. And me and my Bible!&mdash;how can I read it, and not know my
+      ailing, and a'stract one good word, William? It'll seem only the devil's
+      shootin' black lightnings across the page, as poor blessed granny used to
+      say, and she believed witches could do it to you in her time, when they
+      was evil-minded. No! To-night I look on the binding of the Holy Book, and
+      I don't, and I won't, I sha' n't open it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This violent end to her petition was wrought by the farmer grasping her
+      arm to bring her to her feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to bed, mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shan't open it,&rdquo; she repeated, defiantly. &ldquo;And it ain't,&rdquo; she gathered
+      up her comfortable fat person to assist the words &ldquo;it ain't good&mdash;no,
+      not the best pious ones&mdash;I shall, and will say it! as is al'ays ready
+      to smack your face with the Bible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, don't ye be angry,&rdquo; said the farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She softened instantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;William, dear, I got fifty-seven pounds sterling, and odd shillings, in a
+      Savings-bank, and that I meant to go to Dahly, and not to yond' dark thing
+      sitting there so sullen, and me in my misery; I'd give it to you now for
+      news of my darlin'. Yes, William; and my poor husband's cottage, in Sussex&mdash;seventeen
+      pound per annum. That, if you'll be goodness itself, and let me hear a
+      word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take her upstairs,&rdquo; said the farmer to Rhoda, and Rhoda went by her and
+      took her hands, and by dint of pushing from behind and dragging in front,
+      Mrs. Sumfit, as near on a shriek as one so fat and sleek could be, was
+      ejected. The farmer and Robert heard her struggles and exclamations along
+      the passage, but her resistance subsided very suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's power in that girl,&rdquo; said the farmer, standing by the shut door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert thought so, too. It affected his imagination, and his heart began
+      to beat sickeningly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps she promised to speak&mdash;what has happened, whatever that may
+      be,&rdquo; he suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not she; not she. She respects my wishes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert did not ask what had happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Fleming remained by the door, and shut his mouth from a further word
+      till he heard Rhoda's returning footstep. He closed the door again behind
+      her, and went up to the square deal table, leaned his body forward on the
+      knuckles of his trembling fist, and said, &ldquo;We're pretty well broken up, as
+      it is. I've lost my taste for life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There he paused. Save by the shining of a wet forehead, his face betrayed
+      nothing of the anguish he suffered. He looked at neither of them, but sent
+      his gaze straight away under labouring brows to an arm of the fireside
+      chair, while his shoulders drooped on the wavering support of his
+      hard-shut hands. Rhoda's eyes, ox-like, as were her father's, smote full
+      upon Robert's, as in a pang of apprehension of what was about to be
+      uttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a quick blaze of light, wherein he saw that the girl's spirit was
+      not with him. He would have stopped the farmer at once, but he had not the
+      heart to do it, even had he felt in himself strength to attract an
+      intelligent response from that strange, grave, bovine fixity of look, over
+      which the human misery sat as a thing not yet taken into the dull brain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My taste for life,&rdquo; the old man resumed, &ldquo;that's gone. I didn't bargain
+      at set-out to go on fighting agen the world. It's too much for a man o' my
+      years. Here's the farm. Shall 't go to pieces?&mdash;I'm a farmer of
+      thirty year back&mdash;thirty year back, and more: I'm about no better'n a
+      farm labourer in our time, which is to-day. I don't cost much. I ask to be
+      fed, and to work for it, and to see my poor bit o' property safe, as
+      handed to me by my father. Not for myself, 't ain't; though perhaps
+      there's a bottom of pride there too, as in most things. Say it's for the
+      name. My father seems to demand of me out loud, 'What ha' ye done with
+      Queen Anne's Farm, William?' and there's a holler echo in my ears. Well;
+      God wasn't merciful to give me a son. He give me daughters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Fleming bowed his head as to the very weapon of chastisement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Daughters!&rdquo; He bent lower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His hearers might have imagined his headless address to them to be also
+      without a distinct termination, for he seemed to have ended as abruptly as
+      he had begun; so long was the pause before, with a wearied lifting of his
+      body, he pursued, in a sterner voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't let none interrupt me.&rdquo; His hand was raised as toward where Rhoda
+      stood, but he sent no look with it; the direction was wide of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The aspect of the blank blind hand motioning to the wall away from her,
+      smote an awe through her soul that kept her dumb, though his next words
+      were like thrusts of a dagger in her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My first girl&mdash;she's brought disgrace on this house. She's got a
+      mother in heaven, and that mother's got to blush for her. My first girl's
+      gone to harlotry in London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Scriptural severity of speech. Robert glanced quick with intense
+      commiseration at Rhoda. He saw her hands travel upward till they fixed in
+      at her temples with crossed fingers, making the pressure of an iron band
+      for her head, while her lips parted, and her teeth, and cheeks, and
+      eyeballs were all of one whiteness. Her tragic, even, in and out
+      breathing, where there was no fall of the breast, but the air was taken
+      and given, as it were the square blade of a sharp-edged sword, was
+      dreadful to see. She had the look of a risen corpse, recalling some one of
+      the bloody ends of life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer went on,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bury her! Now you here know the worst. There's my second girl. She's got
+      no stain on her; if people 'll take her for what she is herself. She's
+      idle. But I believe the flesh on her bones she'd wear away for any one
+      that touched her heart. She's a temper. But she's clean both in body and
+      in spirit, as I believe, and say before my God. I&mdash;what I'd pray for
+      is, to see this girl safe. All I have shall go to her. That is, to the man
+      who will&mdash;won't be ashamed&mdash;marry her, I mean!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The tide of his harshness failed him here, and he began to pick his words,
+      now feeble, now emphatic, but alike wanting in natural expression, for he
+      had reached a point of emotion upon the limits of his nature, and he was
+      now wilfully forcing for misery and humiliation right and left, in part to
+      show what a black star Providence had been over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She'll be grateful. I shall be gone. What disgrace I bring to their
+      union, as father of the other one also, will, I'm bound to hope, be buried
+      with me in my grave; so that this girl's husband shan't have to complain
+      that her character and her working for him ain't enough to cover any harm
+      he's like to think o' the connexion. And he won't be troubled by
+      relationships after that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I used to think Pride a bad thing. I thank God we've all got it in our
+      blood&mdash;the Flemings. I thank God for that now, I do. We don't face
+      again them as we offend. Not, that is, with the hand out. We go. We're
+      seen no more. And she'll be seen no more. On that, rely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want my girl here not to keep me in the fear of death. For I fear death
+      while she's not safe in somebody's hands&mdash;kind, if I can get him for
+      her. Somebody&mdash;young or old!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer lifted his head for the first time, and stared vacantly at
+      Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd marry her,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if I was knowing myself dying now or to-morrow
+      morning, I'd marry her, rather than leave her alone&mdash;I'd marry her to
+      that old man, old Gammon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer pointed to the ceiling. His sombre seriousness cloaked and
+      carried even that suggestive indication to the possible bridegroom's age
+      and habits, and all things associated with him, through the gates of
+      ridicule; and there was no laughter, and no thought of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It stands to reason for me to prefer a young man for her husband. He'll
+      farm the estate, and won't sell it; so that it goes to our blood, if not
+      to a Fleming. If, I mean, he's content to farm soberly, and not play Jack
+      o' Lantern tricks across his own acres. Right in one thing's right, I
+      grant; but don't argue right in all. It's right only in one thing. Young
+      men, when they've made a true hit or so, they're ready to think it's
+      themselves that's right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was of course a reminder of the old feud with Robert, and
+      sufficiently showed whom the farmer had in view for a husband to Rhoda, if
+      any doubt existed previously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having raised his eyes, his unwonted power of speech abandoned him, and he
+      concluded, wavering in look and in tone,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd half forgotten her uncle. I've reckoned his riches when I cared for
+      riches. I can't say th' amount; but, all&mdash;I've had his word for it&mdash;all
+      goes to this&mdash;God knows how much!&mdash;girl. And he don't hesitate
+      to say she's worth a young man's fancying. May be so. It depends upon
+      ideas mainly, that does. All goes to her. And this farm.&mdash;I wish ye
+      good-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He gave them no other sign, but walked in his oppressed way quietly to the
+      inner door, and forth, leaving the rest to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The two were together, and all preliminary difficulties had been cleared
+      for Robert to say what he had to say, in a manner to make the saying of it
+      well-nigh impossible. And yet silence might be misinterpreted by her. He
+      would have drawn her to his heart at one sign of tenderness. There came
+      none. The girl was frightfully torn with a great wound of shame. She was
+      the first to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you believe what father says of my sister?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That she&mdash;?&rdquo; Robert swallowed the words. &ldquo;No!&rdquo; and he made a thunder
+      with his fist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; She drank up the word. &ldquo;You do not? No! You know that Dahlia is
+      innocent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda was trembling with a look for the asseveration; her pale face eager
+      as a cry for life; but the answer did not come at once hotly as her
+      passion for it demanded. She grew rigid, murmuring faintly: &ldquo;speak! Do
+      speak!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes fell away from hers. Sweet love would have wrought in him to
+      think as she thought, but she kept her heart closed from him, and he stood
+      sadly judicial, with a conscience of his own, that would not permit him to
+      declare Dahlia innocent, for he had long been imagining the reverse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda pressed her hands convulsively, moaning, &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; down a short deep
+      breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me what has happened?&rdquo; said Robert, made mad by that reproachful
+      agony of her voice. &ldquo;I'm in the dark. I'm not equal to you all. If
+      Dahlia's sister wants one to stand up for her, and defend her, whatever
+      she has done or not done, ask me. Ask me, and I'll revenge her. Here am I,
+      and I know nothing, and you despise me because&mdash;don't think me rude
+      or unkind. This hand is yours, if you will. Come, Rhoda. Or, let me hear
+      the case, and I'll satisfy you as best I can. Feel for her? I feel for her
+      as you do. You don't want me to stand a liar to your question? How can I
+      speak?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A woman's instinct at red heat pierces the partial disingenuousness which
+      Robert could only have avoided by declaring the doubts he entertained.
+      Rhoda desired simply to be supported by his conviction of her sister's
+      innocence, and she had scorn of one who would not chivalrously advance
+      upon the risks of right and wrong, and rank himself prime champion of a
+      woman belied, absent, and so helpless. Besides, there was but one virtue
+      possible in Rhoda's ideas, as regarded Dahlia: to oppose facts, if
+      necessary, and have her innocent perforce, and fight to the death them
+      that dared cast slander on the beloved head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her keen instinct served her so far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His was alive when she refused to tell him what had taken place during
+      their visit to London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt that a man would judge evil of the circumstances. Her father and
+      her uncle had done so: she felt that Robert would. Love for him would have
+      prompted her to confide in him absolutely. She was not softened by love;
+      there was no fire on her side to melt and make them run in one stream, and
+      they could not meet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, if you will not tell me,&rdquo; said Robert, &ldquo;say what you think of your
+      father's proposal? He meant that I may ask you to be my wife. He used to
+      fancy I cared for your sister. That's false. I care for her&mdash;yes; as
+      my sister too; and here is my hand to do my utmost for her, but I love
+      you, and I've loved you for some time. I'd be proud to marry you and help
+      on with the old farm. You don't love me yet&mdash;which is a pretty hard
+      thing for me to see to be certain of. But I love you, and I trust you. I
+      like the stuff you're made of&mdash;and nice stuff I'm talking to a young
+      woman,&rdquo; he added, wiping his forehead at the idea of the fair and
+      flattering addresses young women expect when they are being wooed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As it was, Rhoda listened with savage contempt of his idle talk. Her brain
+      was beating at the mystery and misery wherein Dahlia lay engulfed. She had
+      no understanding for Robert's sentimentality, or her father's requisition.
+      Some answer had to be given, and she said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not likely to marry a man who supposes he has anything to pardon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't suppose it,&rdquo; cried Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You heard what father said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard what he said, but I don't think the same. What has Dahlia to do
+      with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was proceeding to rectify this unlucky sentence. All her covert
+      hostility burst out on it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My sister?&mdash;what has my sister to do with me?&mdash;you mean!&mdash;you
+      mean&mdash;you can only mean that we are to be separated and thought of as
+      two people; and we are one, and will be till we die. I feel my sister's
+      hand in mine, though she's away and lost. She is my darling for ever and
+      ever. We're one!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A spasm of anguish checked the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean,&rdquo; Robert resumed steadily, &ldquo;that her conduct, good or bad, doesn't
+      touch you. If it did, it'd be the same to me. I ask you to take me for
+      your husband. Just reflect on what your father said, Rhoda.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The horrible utterance her father's lips had been guilty of flashed
+      through her, filling her with mastering vindictiveness, now that she had a
+      victim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes! I'm to take a husband to remind me of what he said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert eyed her sharpened mouth admiringly; her defence of her sister had
+      excited his esteem, wilfully though she rebutted his straightforward
+      earnestness and he had a feeling also for the easy turns of her neck, and
+      the confident poise of her figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! well!&rdquo; he interjected, with his eyebrows queerly raised, so that she
+      could make nothing of his look. It seemed half maniacal, it was so ridged
+      with bright eagerness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By heaven! the task of taming you&mdash;that's the blessing I'd beg for
+      in my prayers! Though you were as wild as a cat of the woods, by heaven!
+      I'd rather have the taming of you than go about with a leash of quiet&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      checked himself&mdash;&ldquo;companions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the sudden roll of his tongue, that she was lost in the
+      astounding lead he had taken, and stared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're the beauty to my taste, and devil is what I want in a woman! I can
+      make something out of a girl with a temper like yours. You don't know me,
+      Miss Rhoda. I'm what you reckon a good young man. Isn't that it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert drew up with a very hard smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would to God I were! Mind, I feel for you about your sister. I like you
+      the better for holding to her through thick and thin. But my sheepishness
+      has gone, and I tell you I'll have you whether you will or no. I can help
+      you and you can help me. I've lived here as if I had no more fire in me
+      than old Gammon snoring on his pillow up aloft; and who kept me to it? Did
+      you see I never touched liquor? What did you guess from that?&mdash;that I
+      was a mild sort of fellow? So I am: but I haven't got that reputation in
+      other parts. Your father 'd like me to marry you, and I'm ready. Who kept
+      me to work, so that I might learn to farm, and be a man, and be able to
+      take a wife? I came here&mdash;I'll tell you how. I was a useless dog. I
+      ran from home and served as a trooper. An old aunt of mine left me a
+      little money, which just woke me up and gave me a lift of what conscience
+      I had, and I bought myself out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I chanced to see your father's advertisement&mdash;came, looked at you
+      all, and liked you&mdash;brought my traps and settled among you, and lived
+      like a good young man. I like peace and orderliness, I find. I always
+      thought I did, when I was dancing like mad to hell. I know I do now, and
+      you're the girl to keep me to it. I've learnt that much by degrees. With
+      any other, I should have been playing the fool, and going my old ways,
+      long ago. I should have wrecked her, and drunk to forget. You're my match.
+      By-and-by you'll know, me yours! You never gave me, or anybody else that
+      I've seen, sly sidelooks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come! I'll speak out now I'm at work. I thought you at some girl's games
+      in the Summer. You went out one day to meet a young gentleman. Offence or
+      no offence, I speak and you listen. You did go out. I was in love with you
+      then, too. I saw London had been doing its mischief. I was down about it.
+      I felt that he would make nothing of you, but I chose to take the care of
+      you, and you've hated me ever since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That Mr. Algernon Blancove's a rascal. Stop! You'll say as much as you
+      like presently. I give you a warning&mdash;the man's a rascal. I didn't
+      play spy on your acts, but your looks. I can read a face like yours, and
+      it's my home, my home!&mdash;by heaven, it is. Now, Rhoda, you know a
+      little more of me. Perhaps I'm more of a man than you thought. Marry
+      another, if you will; but I'm the man for you, and I know it, and you'll
+      go wrong if you don't too. Come! let your father sleep well. Give me your
+      hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All through this surprising speech of Robert's, which was a revelation of
+      one who had been previously dark to her, she had steeled her spirit as she
+      felt herself being borne upon unexpected rapids, and she marvelled when
+      she found her hand in his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dismayed, as if caught in a trap, she said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know I've no love for you at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None&mdash;no doubt,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fit of verbal energy was expended, and he had become listless, though
+      he looked frankly at her and assumed the cheerfulness which was failing
+      within him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to remain as I am,&rdquo; she faltered, surprised again by the equally
+      astonishing recurrence of humility, and more spiritually subdued by it.
+      &ldquo;I've no heart for a change. Father will understand. I am safe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She ended with a cry: &ldquo;Oh! my dear, my own sister! I wish you were safe.
+      Get her here to me and I'll do what I can, if you're not hard on her.
+      She's so beautiful, she can't do wrong. My Dahlia's in some trouble. Mr.
+      Robert, you might really be her friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drop the Mister,&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father will listen to you,&rdquo; she pleaded. &ldquo;You won't leave us? Tell him
+      you know I am safe. But I haven't a feeling of any kind while my sister's
+      away. I will call you Robert, if you like.&rdquo; She reached her hand forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's right,&rdquo; he said, taking it with a show of heartiness: &ldquo;that's a
+      beginning, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shrank a little in his sensitive touch, and he added: &ldquo;Oh never fear.
+      I've spoken out, and don't do the thing too often. Now you know me, that's
+      enough. I trust you, so trust me. I'll talk to your father. I've got a dad
+      of my own, who isn't so easily managed. You and I, Rhoda&mdash;we're about
+      the right size for a couple. There&mdash;don't be frightened! I was only
+      thinking&mdash;I'll let go your hand in a minute. If Dahlia's to be found,
+      I'll find her. Thank you for that squeeze. You'd wake a dead man to life,
+      if you wanted to. To-morrow I set about the business. That's settled. Now
+      your hand's loose. Are you going to say good night? You must give me your
+      hand again for that. What a rough fellow I must seem to you! Different
+      from the man you thought I was? I'm just what you choose to make me,
+      Rhoda; remember that. By heaven! go at once, for you're an armful&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took a candle and started for the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aha! you can look fearful as a doe. Out! make haste!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In her hurry at his speeding gestures, the candle dropped; she was going
+      to pick it up, but as he approached, she stood away frightened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One kiss, my girl,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Don't keep me jealous as fire. One! and I'm
+      a plighted man. One!&mdash;or I shall swear you know what kisses are. Why
+      did you go out to meet that fellow? Do you think there's no danger in it?
+      Doesn't he go about boasting of it now, and saying&mdash;that girl! But
+      kiss me and I'll forget it; I'll forgive you. Kiss me only once, and I
+      shall be certain you don't care for him. That's the thought maddens me
+      outright. I can't bear it now I've seen you look soft. I'm stronger than
+      you, mind.&rdquo; He caught her by the waist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Rhoda gasped, &ldquo;you are. You are only a brute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A brute's a lucky dog, then, for I've got you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you touch me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're in my power.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a miserable thing, Robert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you struggle, my girl? I shall kiss you in a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're never my friend again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not a gentleman, I suppose!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never! after this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't done. And first you're like a white rose, and next you're like a
+      red. Will you submit?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! shame!&rdquo; Rhoda uttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I'm not a gentleman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, if I could make you a lady&mdash;eh? the lips 'd be ready in a trice.
+      You think of being made a lady&mdash;a lady!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His arm relaxed in the clutch of her figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She got herself free, and said: &ldquo;We saw Mr. Blancove at the theatre with
+      Dahlia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was her way of meeting his accusation that she had cherished an
+      ambitious feminine dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He, to hide a confusion that had come upon him, was righting the fallen
+      candle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now I know you can be relied on; you can defend yourself,&rdquo; he said, and
+      handed it to her, lighted. &ldquo;You keep your kisses for this or that young
+      gentleman. Quite right. You really can defend yourself. That's all I was
+      up to. So let us hear that you forgive me. The door's open. You won't be
+      bothered by me any more; and don't hate me overmuch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might have learned to trust me without insulting me, Robert,&rdquo; she
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you fancy I'd take such a world of trouble for a kiss of your lips,
+      sweet as they are?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His blusterous beginning ended in a speculating glance at her mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She saw it would be wise to accept him in his present mood, and go; and
+      with a gentle &ldquo;Good night,&rdquo; that might sound like pardon, she passed
+      through the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Next day, while Squire Blancove was superintending the laying down of
+      lines for a new carriage drive in his park, as he walked slowly up the
+      green slope he perceived Farmer Fleming, supported by a tall young man;
+      and when the pair were nearer, he had the gratification of noting likewise
+      that the worthy yeoman was very much bent, as with an acute attack of his
+      well-known chronic malady of a want of money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The squire greatly coveted the freehold of Queen Anne's Farm. He had made
+      offers to purchase it till he was tired, and had gained for himself the
+      credit of being at the bottom of numerous hypothetical cabals to injure
+      and oust the farmer from his possession. But if Naboth came with his
+      vineyard in his hand, not even Wrexby's rector (his quarrel with whom
+      haunted every turn in his life) could quote Scripture against him for
+      taking it at a proper valuation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The squire had employed his leisure time during service in church to
+      discover a text that might be used against him in the event of the
+      farmer's reduction to a state of distress, and his, the squire's, making
+      the most of it. On the contrary, according to his heathenish reading of
+      some of the patriarchal doings, there was more to be said in his favour
+      than not, if he increased his territorial property: nor could he,
+      throughout the Old Testament, hit on one sentence that looked like a
+      personal foe to his projects, likely to fit into the mouth of the rector
+      of Wrexby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, farmer,&rdquo; he said, with cheerful familiarity, &ldquo;winter crops looking
+      well? There's a good show of green in the fields from my windows, as good
+      as that land of yours will allow in heavy seasons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To this the farmer replied, &ldquo;I've not heart or will to be round about,
+      squire. If you'll listen to me&mdash;here, or where you give command.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has it anything to do with pen and paper, Fleming? In that case you'd
+      better be in my study,&rdquo; said the squire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know that it have. I don't know that it have.&rdquo; The farmer sought
+      Robert's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Best where there's no chance of interruption,&rdquo; Robert counselled, and
+      lifted his hat to the squire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? Well, you see I'm busy.&rdquo; The latter affected a particular
+      indifference, that in such cases, when well acted (as lords of money can
+      do&mdash;squires equally with usurers), may be valued at hundreds of
+      pounds in the pocket. &ldquo;Can't you put it off? Come again to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow's a day too late,&rdquo; said the farmer, gravely. Whereto replying,
+      &ldquo;Oh! well, come along in, then,&rdquo; the squire led the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're two to one, if it's a transaction,&rdquo; he said, nodding to Robert to
+      close the library door. &ldquo;Take seats. Now then, what is it? And if I make a
+      face, just oblige me by thinking nothing about it, for my gout's beginning
+      to settle in the leg again, and shoots like an electric telegraph from
+      purgatory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He wheezed and lowered himself into his arm-chair; but the farmer and
+      Robert remained standing, and the farmer spoke:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My words are going to be few, squire. I've got a fact to bring to your
+      knowledge, and a question to ask.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Surprise, exaggerated on his face by a pain he had anticipated, made the
+      squire glare hideously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confound it, that's what they say to a prisoner in the box. Here's a
+      murder committed:&mdash;Are you the guilty person? Fact and question!
+      Well, out with 'em, both together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A father ain't responsible for the sins of his children,&rdquo; said the
+      farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that's a fact,&rdquo; the squire emphasized. &ldquo;I've always maintained it;
+      but, if you go to your church, farmer&mdash;small blame to you if you
+      don't; that fellow who preaches there&mdash;I forget his name&mdash;stands
+      out for just the other way. You are responsible, he swears. Pay your son's
+      debts, and don't groan over it:&mdash;He spent the money, and you're the
+      chief debtor; that's his teaching. Well: go on. What's your question?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A father's not to be held responsible for the sins of his children,
+      squire. My daughter's left me. She's away. I saw my daughter at the
+      theatre in London. She saw me, and saw her sister with me. She
+      disappeared. It's a hard thing for a man to be saying of his own flesh and
+      blood. She disappeared. She went, knowing her father's arms open to her.
+      She was in company with your son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The squire was thrumming on the arm of his chair. He looked up vaguely, as
+      if waiting for the question to follow, but meeting the farmer's settled
+      eyes, he cried, irritably, &ldquo;Well, what's that to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's that to you, squire?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going to make me out responsible for my son's conduct? My son's a
+      rascal&mdash;everybody knows that. I paid his debts once, and I've
+      finished with him. Don't come to me about the fellow. If there's a greater
+      curse than the gout, it's a son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My girl,&rdquo; said the farmer, &ldquo;she's my flesh and blood, and I must find
+      her, and I'm here to ask you to make your son tell me where she's to be
+      found. Leave me to deal with that young man&mdash;leave you me! but I want
+      my girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I can't give her to you,&rdquo; roared the squire, afflicted by his two
+      great curses at once. &ldquo;Why do you come to me? I'm not responsible for the
+      doings of the dog. I'm sorry for you, if that's what you want to know. Do
+      you mean to say that my son took her away from your house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't do so, Mr. Blancove. I'm seeking for my daughter, and I see her
+      in company with your son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, very well,&rdquo; said the squire; &ldquo;that shows his habits; I can't
+      say more. But what has it got to do with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer looked helplessly at Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; the squire sung out, &ldquo;no interlopers, no interpreting here. I
+      listen to you. My son&mdash;your daughter. I understand that, so far. It's
+      between us two. You've got a daughter who's gone wrong somehow: I'm sorry
+      to hear it. I've got a son who never went right; and it's no comfort to
+      me, upon my word. If you were to see the bills and the letters I receive!
+      but I don't carry my grievances to my neighbours. I should think, Fleming,
+      you'd do best, if it's advice you're seeking, to keep it quiet. Don't make
+      a noise about it. Neighbours' gossip I find pretty well the worst thing a
+      man has to bear, who's unfortunate enough to own children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer bowed his head with that bitter humbleness which characterized
+      his reception of the dealings of Providence toward him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My neighbours 'll soon be none at all,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Let 'em talk. I'm not
+      abusing you, Mr. Blancove. I'm a broken man: but I want my poor lost girl,
+      and, by God, responsible for your son or not, you must help me to find
+      her. She may be married, as she says. She mayn't be. But I must find her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The squire hastily seized a scrap of paper on the table and wrote on it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&rdquo; he handed the paper to the farmer; &ldquo;that's my son's address,
+      'Boyne's Bank, City, London.' Go to him there, and you'll find him perched
+      on a stool, and a good drubbing won't hurt him. You've my hearty
+      permission, I can assure you: you may say so. 'Boyne's Bank.' Anybody will
+      show you the place. He's a rascally clerk in the office, and precious
+      useful, I dare swear. Thrash him, if you think fit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said the farmer, &ldquo;Boyne's Bank. I've been there already. He's absent
+      from work, on a visit down into Hampshire, one of the young gentlemen
+      informed me; Fairly Park was the name of the place: but I came to you, Mr.
+      Blancove; for you're his father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well now, my good Fleming, I hope you think I'm properly punished for
+      that fact.&rdquo; The squire stood up with horrid contortions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert stepped in advance of the farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me, sir,&rdquo; he said, though the squire met his voice with a
+      prodigious frown; &ldquo;this would be an ugly business to talk about, as you
+      observe. It would hurt Mr. Fleming in these parts of the country, and he
+      would leave it, if he thought fit; but you can't separate your name from
+      your son's&mdash;begging you to excuse the liberty I take in mentioning it&mdash;not
+      in public: and your son has the misfortune to be well known in one or two
+      places where he was quartered when in the cavalry. That matter of the
+      jeweller&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hulloa,&rdquo; the squire exclaimed, in a perturbation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, sir, I know all about it, because I was a trooper in the regiment
+      your son, Mr. Algernon Blancove, quitted: and his name, if I may take
+      leave to remark so, won't bear printing. How far he's guilty before Mr.
+      Fleming we can't tell as yet; but if Mr. Fleming holds him guilty of an
+      offence, your son 'll bear the consequences, and what's done will be done
+      thoroughly. Proper counsel will be taken, as needn't be said. Mr. Fleming
+      applied to you first, partly for your sake as well as his own. He can find
+      friends, both to advise and to aid him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean, sir,&rdquo; thundered the squire, &ldquo;that he can find enemies of mine,
+      like that infernal fellow who goes by the title of Reverend, down below
+      there. That'll do, that will do; there's some extortion at the bottom of
+      this. You're putting on a screw.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're putting on a screw, sir,&rdquo; said Robert, coolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a penny will you get by it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert flushed with heat of blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't wish you were a young man half so much as I do just now,&rdquo; he
+      remarked, and immediately they were in collision, for the squire made a
+      rush to the bell-rope, and Robert stopped him. &ldquo;We're going,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;we
+      don't want man-servants to show us the way out. Now mark me, Mr. Blancove,
+      you've insulted an old man in his misery: you shall suffer for it, and so
+      shall your son, whom I know to be a rascal worthy of transportation. You
+      think Mr. Fleming came to you for money. Look at this old man, whose only
+      fault is that he's too full of kindness; he came to you just for help to
+      find his daughter, with whom your rascal of a son was last seen, and you
+      swear he's come to rob you of money. Don't you know yourself a fattened
+      cur, squire though you be, and called gentleman? England's a good place,
+      but you make England a hell to men of spirit. Sit in your chair, and don't
+      ever you, or any of you cross my path; and speak a word to your servants
+      before we're out of the house, and I stand in the hall and give 'em your
+      son's history, and make Wrexby stink in your nostril, till you're glad
+      enough to fly out of it. Now, Mr. Fleming, there's no more to be done
+      here; the game lies elsewhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert took the farmer by the arm, and was marching out of the enemy's
+      territory in good order, when the squire, who had presented many changeing
+      aspects of astonishment and rage, arrested them with a call. He began to
+      say that he spoke to Mr. Fleming, and not to the young ruffian of a bully
+      whom the farmer had brought there: and then asked in a very reasonable
+      manner what he could do&mdash;what measures he could adopt to aid the
+      farmer in finding his child. Robert hung modestly in the background while
+      the farmer laboured on with a few sentences to explain the case, and
+      finally the squire said, that his foot permitting (it was an almost
+      pathetic reference to the weakness of flesh), he would go down to Fairly
+      on the day following and have a personal interview with his son, and set
+      things right, as far as it lay in his power, though he was by no means
+      answerable for a young man's follies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a little frightened by the farmer's having said that Dahlia,
+      according to her own declaration was married, and therefore himself the
+      more anxious to see Mr. Algernon, and hear the truth from his estimable
+      offspring, whom he again stigmatized as a curse terrible to him as his
+      gouty foot, but nevertheless just as little to be left to his own devices.
+      The farmer bowed to these observations; as also when the squire counselled
+      him, for his own sake, not to talk of his misfortune all over the parish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not a likely man for that, squire; but there's no telling where
+      gossips get their crumbs. It's about. It's about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About my son?&rdquo; cried the squire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My daughter!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, well, good-day,&rdquo; the squire resumed more cheerfully. &ldquo;I'll go down to
+      Fairly, and you can't ask more than that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the farmer was out of the house and out of hearing, he rebuked Robert
+      for the inconsiderate rashness of his behaviour, and pointed out how he,
+      the farmer, by being patient and peaceful, had attained to the object of
+      his visit. Robert laughed without defending himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shouldn't ha' known ye,&rdquo; the farmer repeated frequently; &ldquo;I shouldn't
+      ha' known ye, Robert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I'm a trifle changed, may be,&rdquo; Robert agreed. &ldquo;I'm going to claim a
+      holiday of you. I've told Rhoda that if Dahlia's to be found, I'll find
+      her, and I can't do it by sticking here. Give me three weeks. The land's
+      asleep. Old Gammon can hardly turn a furrow the wrong way. There's nothing
+      to do, which is his busiest occupation, when he's not interrupted at it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mas' Gammon's a rare old man,&rdquo; said the farmer, emphatically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I say. Else, how would you see so many farms flourishing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Robert: you hit th' old man hard; you should learn to forgive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I do, and a telling blow's a man's best road to charity. I'd forgive
+      the squire and many another, if I had them within two feet of my fist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you forgive my girl Rhoda for putting of you off?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert screwed in his cheek.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, yes, I do,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Only it makes me feel thirsty, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer remembered this when they had entered the farm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our beer's so poor, Robert,&rdquo; he made apology; &ldquo;but Rhoda shall get you
+      some for you to try, if you like. Rhoda, Robert's solemn thirsty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I?&rdquo; said Rhoda, and she stood awaiting his bidding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not a thirsty subject,&rdquo; replied Robert. &ldquo;You know I've avoided drink
+      of any kind since I set foot on this floor. But when I drink,&rdquo; he pitched
+      his voice to a hard, sparkling heartiness, &ldquo;I drink a lot, and the stuff
+      must be strong. I'm very much obliged to you, Miss Rhoda, for what you're
+      so kind as to offer to satisfy my thirst, and you can't give better, and
+      don't suppose that I'm complaining; but your father's right, it is rather
+      weak, and wouldn't break the tooth of my thirst if I drank at it till
+      Gammon left off thinking about his dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that he announced his approaching departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer dropped into his fireside chair, dumb and spiritless. A shadow
+      was over the house, and the inhabitants moved about their domestic
+      occupations silent as things that feel the thunder-cloud. Before sunset
+      Robert was gone on his long walk to the station, and Rhoda felt a woman's
+      great envy of the liberty of a man, who has not, if it pleases him not, to
+      sit and eat grief among familiar images, in a home that furnishes its
+      altar-flame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Fairly, Lord Elling's seat in Hampshire, lay over the Warbeach river; a
+      white mansion among great oaks, in view of the summer sails and winter
+      masts of the yachting squadron. The house was ruled, during the
+      congregation of the Christmas guests, by charming Mrs. Lovell, who
+      relieved the invalid Lady of the house of the many serious cares attending
+      the reception of visitors, and did it all with ease. Under her sovereignty
+      the place was delightful, and if it was by repute pleasanter to young men
+      than to any other class, it will be admitted that she satisfied those who
+      are loudest in giving tongue to praise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward and Algernon journeyed down to Fairly together, after the
+      confidence which the astute young lawyer had been compelled to repose in
+      his cousin. Sir William Blancove was to be at Fairly, and it was at his
+      father's pointed request that Edward had accepted Mrs. Lovell's
+      invitation. Half in doubt as to the lady's disposition toward him, Edward
+      eased his heart with sneers at the soft, sanguinary graciousness they were
+      to expect, and racked mythology for spiteful comparisons; while Algernon
+      vehemently defended her with a battering fire of British adjectives in
+      superlative. He as much as hinted, under instigation, that he was entitled
+      to defend her; and his claim being by-and-by yawningly allowed by Edward,
+      and presuming that he now had Edward in his power and need not fear him,
+      he exhibited his weakness in the guise of a costly gem, that he intended
+      to present to Mrs. Lovell&mdash;an opal set in a cross pendant from a
+      necklace; a really fine opal, coquetting with the lights of every gem that
+      is known: it shot succinct red flashes, and green, and yellow; the
+      emerald, the amethyst, the topaz lived in it, and a remote ruby; it was
+      veined with lightning hues, and at times it slept in a milky cloud,
+      innocent of fire, quite maidenlike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will suit her,&rdquo; was Edward's remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't want to get anything common,&rdquo; said Algernon, making the gem play
+      before his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A pretty stone,&rdquo; said Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very pretty indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harlequin pattern.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be presented to Columbine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Harlequin pattern is of the best sort, you know. Perhaps you like the
+      watery ones best? This is fresh from Russia. There's a set I've my eye on.
+      I shall complete it in time. I want Peggy Lovell to wear the jolliest
+      opals in the world. It's rather nice, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a splendid opal,&rdquo; said Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She likes opals,&rdquo; said Algernon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She'll take your meaning at once,&rdquo; said Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How? I'll be hanged if I know what my meaning is, Ned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you know the signification of your gift?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! you'll be Oriental when you present it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The deuce I shall!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It means, 'You're the prettiest widow in the world.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So she is. I'll be right there, old boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And, 'You're a rank, right-down widow, and no mistake; you're everything
+      to everybody; not half so innocent as you look: you're green as jealousy,
+      red as murder, yellow as jaundice, and put on the whiteness of a virgin
+      when you ought to be blushing like a penitent.' In short, 'You have no
+      heart of your own, and you pretend to possess half a dozen: you're devoid
+      of one steady beam, and play tricks with every scale of colour: you're an
+      arrant widow, and that's what you are.' An eloquent gift, Algy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gad, if it means all that, it'll be rather creditable to me,&rdquo; said
+      Algernon. &ldquo;Do opals mean widows?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; was the answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, she is a widow, and I suppose she's going to remain one, for she's
+      had lots of offers. If I marry a girl I shall never like her half as much
+      as Peggy Lovell. She's done me up for every other woman living. She never
+      lets me feel a fool with her; and she has a way, by Jove, of looking at
+      me, and letting me know she's up to my thoughts and isn't angry. What's
+      the use of my thinking of her at all? She'd never go to the Colonies, and
+      live in a log but and make cheeses, while I tore about on horseback
+      gathering cattle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think she would,&rdquo; observed Edward, emphatically; &ldquo;I don't think
+      she would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I shall never have money. Confound stingy parents! It's a question
+      whether I shall get Wrexby: there's no entail. I'm heir to the governor's
+      temper and his gout, I dare say. He'll do as he likes with the estate. I
+      call it beastly unfair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward asked how much the opal had cost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, nothing,&rdquo; said Algernon; &ldquo;that is, I never pay for jewellery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward was curious to know how he managed to obtain it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you see,&rdquo; Algernon explained, &ldquo;they, the jewellers&mdash;I've got
+      two or three in hand&mdash;the fellows are acquainted with my position,
+      and they speculate on my expectations. There is no harm in that if they
+      like it. I look at their trinkets, and say, 'I've no money;' and they say,
+      'Never mind;' and I don't mind much. The understanding is, that I pay them
+      when I inherit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In gout and bad temper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gad, if I inherit nothing else, they'll have lots of that for
+      indemnification. It's a good system, Ned; it enables a young fellow like
+      me to get through the best years of his life&mdash;which I take to be his
+      youth&mdash;without that squalid poverty bothering him. You can make
+      presents, and wear a pin or a ring, if it takes your eye. You look well,
+      and you make yourself agreeable; and I see nothing to complain of in
+      that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The jewellers, then, have established an institution to correct one of
+      the errors of Providence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! put it in your long-winded way, if you like,&rdquo; said Algernon; &ldquo;all I
+      know is, that I should often have wanted a five-pound note, if&mdash;that
+      is, if I hadn't happened to be dressed like a gentleman. With your
+      prospects, Ned, I should propose to charming Peggy tomorrow morning early.
+      We mustn't let her go out of the family. If I can't have her, I'd rather
+      you would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You forget the incumbrances on one side,&rdquo; said Edward, his face
+      darkening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! that's all to be managed,&rdquo; Algernon rallied him. &ldquo;Why, Ned, you'll
+      have twenty thousand a-year, if you have a penny; and you'll go into
+      Parliament, and give dinners, and a woman like Peggy Lovell 'd intrigue
+      for you like the deuce.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A great deal too like,&rdquo; Edward muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As for that pretty girl,&rdquo; continued Algernon; but Edward peremptorily
+      stopped all speech regarding Dahlia. His desire was, while he made
+      holiday, to shut the past behind a brazen gate; which being communicated
+      sympathetically to his cousin, the latter chimed to it in boisterous
+      shouts of anticipated careless jollity at Fairly Park, crying out how they
+      would hunt and snap fingers at Jews, and all mortal sorrows, and have a
+      fortnight, or three weeks, perhaps a full month, of the finest life
+      possible to man, with good horses, good dinners, good wines, good society,
+      at command, and a queen of a woman to rule and order everything. Edward
+      affected a disdainful smile at the prospect; but was in reality the weaker
+      of the two in his thirst for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They arrived at Fairly in time to dress for dinner, and in the
+      drawing-room Mrs. Lovell sat to receive them. She looked up to Edward's
+      face an imperceptible half-second longer than the ordinary form of welcome
+      accords&mdash;one of the looks which are nothing at all when there is no
+      spiritual apprehension between young people, and are so much when there
+      is. To Algernon, who was gazing opals on her, she simply gave her fingers.
+      At her right hand, was Sir John Capes, her antique devotee; a pure
+      milky-white old gentleman, with sparkling fingers, who played Apollo to
+      his Daphne, and was out of breath. Lord Suckling, a boy with a boisterous
+      constitution, and a guardsman, had his place near her left hand, as if
+      ready to seize it at the first whisper of encouragement or opportunity. A
+      very little lady of seventeen, Miss Adeline Gosling, trembling with
+      shyness under a cover of demureness, fell to Edward's lot to conduct down
+      to dinner, where he neglected her disgracefully. His father, Sir William,
+      was present at the table, and Lord Elling, with whom he was in repute as a
+      talker and a wit. Quickened with his host's renowned good wine (and the
+      bare renown of a wine is inspiriting), Edward pressed to be brilliant. He
+      had an epigrammatic turn, and though his mind was prosaic when it ran
+      alone, he could appear inventive and fanciful with the rub of other minds.
+      Now, at a table where good talking is cared for, the triumphs of the
+      excelling tongue are not for a moment to be despised, even by the huge
+      appetite of the monster Vanity. For a year, Edward had abjured this feast.
+      Before the birds appeared and the champagne had ceased to make its circle,
+      he felt that he was now at home again, and that the term of his wandering
+      away from society was one of folly. He felt the joy and vigour of a
+      creature returned to his element. Why had he ever quitted it? Already he
+      looked back upon Dahlia from a prodigious distance. He knew that there was
+      something to be smoothed over; something written in the book of facts
+      which had to be smeared out, and he seemed to do it, while he drank the
+      babbling wine and heard himself talk. Not one man at that table, as he
+      reflected, would consider the bond which held him in any serious degree
+      binding. A lady is one thing, and a girl of the class Dahlia had sprung
+      from altogether another. He could not help imagining the sort of
+      appearance she would make there; and the thought even was a momentary clog
+      upon his tongue. How he used to despise these people! Especially he had
+      despised the young men as brainless cowards in regard to their views of
+      women and conduct toward them. All that was changed. He fancied now that
+      they, on the contrary, would despise him, if only they could be aware of
+      the lingering sense he entertained of his being in bondage under a sacred
+      obligation to a farmer's daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he had one thing to discover, and that was, why Sir William had made
+      it a peculiar request that he should come to meet him here. Could the
+      desire possibly be to reconcile him with Mrs. Lovell? His common sense
+      rejected the idea at once: Sir William boasted of her wit and tact, and
+      admired her beauty, but Edward remembered his having responded tacitly to
+      his estimate of her character, and Sir William was not the man to court
+      the alliance of his son with a woman like Mrs. Lovell. He perceived that
+      his father and the fair widow frequently took counsel together. Edward
+      laughed at the notion that the grave senior had himself become fascinated,
+      but without utterly scouting it, until he found that the little lady whom
+      he had led to dinner the first day, was an heiress; and from that, and
+      other indications, he exactly divined the nature of his father's provident
+      wishes. But this revelation rendered Mrs. Lovell's behaviour yet more
+      extraordinary. Could it be credited that she was abetting Sir William's
+      schemes with all her woman's craft? &ldquo;Has she,&rdquo; thought Edward, &ldquo;become so
+      indifferent to me as to care for my welfare?&rdquo; He determined to put her to
+      the test. He made love to Adeline Gosling. Nothing that he did disturbed
+      the impenetrable complacency of Mrs. Lovell. She threw them together as
+      she shuffled the guests. She really seemed to him quite indifferent enough
+      to care for his welfare. It was a point in the mysterious ways of women,
+      or of widows, that Edward's experience had not yet come across. All the
+      parties immediately concerned were apparently so desperately acquiescing
+      in his suit, that he soon grew uneasy. Mrs. Lovell not only shuffled him
+      into places with the raw heiress, but with the child's mother; of whom he
+      spoke to Algernon as of one too strongly breathing of matrimony to appease
+      the cravings of an eclectic mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Make the path clear for me, then,&rdquo; said Algernon, &ldquo;if you don't like the
+      girl. Pitch her tales about me. Say, I've got a lot in me, though I don't
+      let it out. The game's up between you and Peggy Lovell, that's clear. She
+      don't forgive you, my boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ass!&rdquo; muttered Edward, seeing by the light of his perception, that he was
+      too thoroughly forgiven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A principal charm of the life at Fairly to him was that there was no one
+      complaining. No one looked reproach at him. If a lady was pale and
+      reserved, she did not seem to accuse him, and to require coaxing. All
+      faces here were as light as the flying moment, and did not carry the
+      shadowy weariness of years, like that burdensome fair face in the London
+      lodging-house, to which the Fates had terribly attached themselves. So, he
+      was gay. He closed, as it were, a black volume, and opened a new and a
+      bright one. Young men easily fancy that they may do this, and that when
+      the black volume is shut the tide is stopped. Saying, &ldquo;I was a fool,&rdquo; they
+      believe they have put an end to the foolishness. What father teaches them
+      that a human act once set in motion flows on for ever to the great
+      account? Our deathlessness is in what we do, not in what we are.
+      Comfortable Youth thinks otherwise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The days at a well-ordered country-house, where a divining lady rules,
+      speed to the measure of a waltz, in harmonious circles, dropping like
+      crystals into the gulfs of Time, and appearing to write nothing in his
+      book. Not a single hinge of existence is heard to creak. There is no
+      after-dinner bill. You are waited on, without being elbowed by the
+      humanity of your attendants. It is a civilized Arcadia. Only, do not
+      desire, that you may not envy. Accept humbly what rights of citizenship
+      are accorded to you upon entering. Discard the passions when you cross the
+      threshold. To breathe and to swallow merely, are the duties which should
+      prescribe your conduct; or, such is the swollen condition of the animal in
+      this enchanted region, that the spirit of man becomes dangerously beset.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward breathed and swallowed, and never went beyond the prescription,
+      save by talking. No other junior could enter the library, without
+      encountering the scorn of his elders; so he enjoyed the privilege of
+      hearing all the scandal, and his natural cynicism was plentifully fed. It
+      was more of a school to him than he knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These veterans, in their arm-chairs, stripped the bloom from life, and
+      showed it to be bare bones: They took their wisdom for an experience of
+      the past: they were but giving their sensations in the present. Not to
+      perceive this, is Youth's, error when it hears old gentlemen talking at
+      their ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the third morning of their stay at Fairly, Algernon came into Edward's
+      room with a letter in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! read that!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It isn't ill-luck; it's infernal
+      persecution! What, on earth!&mdash;why, I took a close cab to the station.
+      You saw me get out of it. I'll swear no creditor of mine knew I was
+      leaving London. My belief is that the fellows who give credit have spies
+      about at every railway terminus in the kingdom. They won't give me three
+      days' peace. It's enough to disgust any man with civilized life; on my
+      soul, it is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward glanced at the superscription of the letter. &ldquo;Not posted,&rdquo; he
+      remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; delivered by some confounded bailiff, who's been hounding me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bailiffs don't generally deal in warnings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you read it!&rdquo; Algernon shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter ran thus:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Mr. Algernon Blancove,&mdash;
+
+   &ldquo;The writer of this intends taking the first opportunity of meeting
+   you, and gives you warning, you will have to answer his question
+   with a Yes or a No; and speak from your conscience. The
+   respectfulness of his behaviour to you as a gentleman will depend
+   upon that.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Algernon followed his cousin's eye down to the last letter in the page.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think of it?&rdquo; he asked eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward's broad thin-lined brows were drawn down in gloom. Mastering some
+      black meditation in his brain, he answered Algernon's yells for an
+      opinion,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think&mdash;well, I think bailiffs have improved in their manners, and
+      show you they are determined to belong to the social march in an age of
+      universal progress. Nothing can be more comforting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, suppose this fellow comes across me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't know him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose he insists on knowing me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't know yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but hang it! if he catches hold of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shake him off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose he won't let go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cut him with your horsewhip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think it's about a debt, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Intimidation, evidently.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall announce to him that the great Edward Blancove is not to be
+      intimidated. You'll let me borrow your name, old Ned. I've stood by you in
+      my time. As for leaving Fairly, I tell you I can't. It's too delightful to
+      be near Peggy Lovell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward smiled with a peculiar friendliness, and Algernon went off, very
+      well contented with his cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Within a mile of Fairly Park lay the farm of another yeoman; but he was of
+      another character. The Hampshireman was a farmer of renown in his
+      profession; fifth of a family that had cultivated a small domain of one
+      hundred and seventy acres with sterling profit, and in a style to make
+      Sutton the model of a perfect farm throughout the country. Royal eyes had
+      inspected his pigs approvingly; Royal wits had taken hints from Jonathan
+      Eccles in matters agricultural; and it was his comforting joke that he had
+      taught his Prince good breeding. In return for the service, his Prince had
+      transformed a lusty Radical into a devoted Royalist. Framed on the walls
+      of his parlours were letters from his Prince, thanking him for specimen
+      seeds and worthy counsel: veritable autograph letters of the highest
+      value. The Prince had steamed up the salt river, upon which the Sutton
+      harvests were mirrored, and landed on a spot marked in honour of the event
+      by a broad grey stone; and from that day Jonathan Eccles stood on a
+      pinnacle of pride, enabling him to see horizons of despondency hitherto
+      unknown to him. For he had a son, and the son was a riotous devil, a most
+      wild young fellow, who had no taste for a farmer's life, and openly
+      declared his determination not to perpetuate the Sutton farm in the hands
+      of the Eccleses, by running off one day and entering the ranks of the
+      British army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those framed letters became melancholy objects for contemplation, when
+      Jonathan thought that no posterity of his would point them out gloryingly
+      in emulation. Man's aim is to culminate; but it is the saddest thing in
+      the world to feel that we have accomplished it. Mr. Eccles shrugged with
+      all the philosophy he could summon, and transferred his private
+      disappointment to his country, whose agricultural day was, he said,
+      doomed. &ldquo;We shall be beaten by those Yankees.&rdquo; He gave Old England twenty
+      years of continued pre-eminence (due to the impetus of the present
+      generation of Englishmen), and then, said he, the Yankees will flood the
+      market. No more green pastures in Great Britain; no pretty clean-footed
+      animals; no yellow harvests; but huge chimney pots everywhere; black earth
+      under black vapour, and smoke-begrimed faces. In twenty years' time, sooty
+      England was to be a gigantic manufactory, until the Yankees beat us out of
+      that field as well; beyond which Jonathan Eccles did not care to spread
+      any distinct border of prophecy; merely thanking the Lord that he should
+      then be under grass. The decay of our glory was to be edged with blood;
+      Jonathan admitted that there would be stuff in the fallen race to deliver
+      a sturdy fight before they went to their doom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For this prodigious curse, England had to thank young Robert, the erratic
+      son of Jonathan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was now two years since Robert had inherited a small legacy of money
+      from an aunt, and spent it in waste, as the farmer bitterly supposed. He
+      was looking at some immense seed-melons in his garden, lying about in
+      morning sunshine&mdash;a new feed for sheep, of his own invention,&mdash;when
+      the call of the wanderer saluted his ears, and he beheld his son Robert at
+      the gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here I am, sir,&rdquo; Robert sang out from the exterior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay there, then,&rdquo; was his welcome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were alike in their build and in their manner of speech. The accost
+      and the reply sounded like reports from the same pistol. The old man was
+      tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular&mdash;a grey edition of the son, upon
+      whose disorderly attire he cast a glance, while speaking, with settled
+      disgust. Robert's necktie streamed loose; his hair was uncombed; a
+      handkerchief dangled from his pocket. He had the look of the prodigal,
+      returned with impudence for his portion instead of repentance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't see how you are, sir, from this distance,&rdquo; said Robert, boldly
+      assuming his privilege to enter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you drunk?&rdquo; Jonathan asked, as Robert marched up to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me your hand, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me an answer first. Are you drunk?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert tried to force the complacent aspect of a mind unabashed, but felt
+      that he made a stupid show before that clear-headed, virtuously-living
+      old, man of iron nerves. The alternative to flying into a passion, was the
+      looking like a fool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, father,&rdquo; he said, with a miserable snigger, like a yokel's smile;
+      &ldquo;here I am at last. I don't say, kill the fatted calf, and take a lesson
+      from Scripture, but give me your hand. I've done no man harm but myself&mdash;damned
+      if I've done a mean thing anywhere! and there's no shame to you in shaking
+      your son's hand after a long absence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jonathan Eccles kept both hands firmly in his pockets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you drunk?&rdquo; he repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert controlled himself to answer, &ldquo;I'm not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, just tell me when you were drunk last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is a pleasant fatherly greeting!&rdquo; Robert interjected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You get no good by fighting shy of a simple question, Mr. Bob,&rdquo; said
+      Jonathan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert cried querulously, &ldquo;I don't want to fight shy of a simple
+      question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then; when were you drunk last? answer me that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Last night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jonathan drew his hand from his pocket to thump his leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd have sworn it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All Robert's assurance had vanished in a minute, and he stood like a
+      convicted culprit before his father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, sir, I don't tell lies. I was drunk last night. I couldn't help
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more could the little boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was drunk last night. Say, I'm a beast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shan't!&rdquo; exclaimed Jonathan, making his voice sound as a defence to
+      this vile charge against the brutish character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, I'm worse than a beast, then,&rdquo; cried Robert, in exasperation. &ldquo;Take
+      my word that it hasn't happened to me to be in that state for a year and
+      more. Last night I was mad. I can't give you any reasons. I thought I was
+      cured but I've trouble in my mind, and a tide swims you over the shallows&mdash;so
+      I felt. Come, sir&mdash;father, don't make me mad again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did you get the liquor?&rdquo; inquired Jonathan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I drank at 'The Pilot.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! there's talk there of 'that damned old Eccles' for a month to come&mdash;'the
+      unnatural parent.' How long have you been down here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eight and twenty hours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eight and twenty hours. When are you going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want lodging for a night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The loan of a horse that'll take a fence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And twenty pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Jonathan. &ldquo;If farming came as easy to you as face, you'd be a
+      prime agriculturalist. Just what I thought! What's become of that money
+      your aunt Jane was fool enough to bequeath to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've spent it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a Deserter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment Robert stood as if listening, and then white grew his face,
+      and he swayed and struck his hands together. His recent intoxication had
+      unmanned him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go in&mdash;go in,&rdquo; said his father in some concern, though wrath was
+      predominant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, make your mind quiet about me.&rdquo; Robert dropped his arms. &ldquo;I'm
+      weakened somehow&mdash;damned weak, I am&mdash;I feel like a woman when my
+      father asks me if I've been guilty of villany. Desert? I wouldn't desert
+      from the hulks. Hear the worst, and this is the worst: I've got no money&mdash;I
+      don't owe a penny, but I haven't got one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I won't give you one,&rdquo; Jonathan appended; and they stood facing one
+      another in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A squeaky voice was heard from the other side of the garden hedge of
+      clipped yew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hi! farmer, is that the missing young man?&rdquo; and presently a neighbour, by
+      name John Sedgett, came trotting through the gate, and up the garden path.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;here's a rumpus. Here's a bobbery up at Fairly. Oh!
+      Bob Eccles! Bob Eccles! At it again!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Sedgett shook his wallet of gossip with an enjoying chuckle. He was a
+      thin-faced creature, rheumy of eye, and drawing his breath as from a well;
+      the ferret of the village for all underlying scandal and tattle, whose
+      sole humanity was what he called pitifully 'a peakin' at his chest, and
+      who had retired from his business of grocer in the village upon the
+      fortune brought to him in the energy and capacity of a third wife to
+      conduct affairs, while he wandered up and down and knitted people together&mdash;an
+      estimable office in a land where your house is so grievously your castle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the devil have you got in you now?&rdquo; Jonathan cried out to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Sedgett was seized by his complaint and demanded commiseration, but,
+      recovering, he chuckled again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Bob Eccles! Don't you never grow older? And the first day down among
+      us again, too. Why, Bob, as a military man, you ought to acknowledge your
+      superiors. Why, Stephen Bilton, the huntsman, says, Bob, you pulled the
+      young gentleman off his horse&mdash;you on foot, and him mounted. I'd ha'
+      given pounds to be there. And ladies present! Lord help us! I'm glad
+      you're returned, though. These melons of the farmer's, they're a wonderful
+      invention; people are speaking of 'em right and left, and says, says they,
+      Farmer Eccles, he's best farmer going&mdash;Hampshire ought to be proud of
+      him&mdash;he's worth two of any others: that they are fine ones! And
+      you're come back to keep 'em up, eh, Bob? Are ye, though, my man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, here I am, Mr. Sedgett,&rdquo; said Robert, &ldquo;and talking to my father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! I wouldn't be here to interrupt ye for the world.&rdquo; Mr. Sedgett made a
+      show of retiring, but Jonathan insisted upon his disburdening himself of
+      his tale, saying: &ldquo;Damn your raw beginnings, Sedgett! What's been up?
+      Nobody can hurt me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That they can't, neighbour; nor Bob neither, as far as stand up man to
+      man go. I give him three to one&mdash;Bob Eccles! He took 'em when a boy.
+      He may, you know, he may have the law agin him, and by George! if he do&mdash;why,
+      a man's no match for the law. No use bein' a hero to the law. The law
+      masters every man alive; and there's law in everything, neighbour Eccles;
+      eh, sir? Your friend, the Prince, owns to it, as much as you or me. But,
+      of course, you know what Bob's been doing. What I dropped in to ask was,
+      why did ye do it, Bob? Why pull the young gentleman off his horse? I'd ha'
+      given pounds to be there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pounds o' tallow candles don't amount to much,&rdquo; quoth Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's awful bad brandy at 'The Pilot,'&rdquo; said Mr. Sedgett, venomously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were you drunk when you committed this assault?&rdquo; Jonathan asked his son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I drank afterwards,&rdquo; Robert replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Pilot' brandy's poor consolation,&rdquo; remarked Mr. Sedgett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jonathan had half a mind to turn his son out of the gate, but the presence
+      of Sedgett advised him that his doings were naked to the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You kicked up a shindy in the hunting-field&mdash;what about? Who mounted
+      ye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert remarked that he had been on foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On foot&mdash;eh? on foot!&rdquo; Jonathan speculated, unable to realize the
+      image of his son as a foot-man in the hunting-field, or to comprehend the
+      insolence of a pedestrian who should dare to attack a mounted huntsman.
+      &ldquo;You were on foot? The devil you were on foot! Foot? And caught a man out
+      of his saddle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jonathan gave up the puzzle. He laid out his fore finger decisively,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it's an assault, mind, you stand damages. My land gives and my land
+      takes my money, and no drunken dog lives on the produce. A row in the
+      hunting-field's un-English, I call it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it is, sir,&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it be, neighbour,&rdquo; said Mr. Sedgett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereupon Robert took his arm, and holding the scraggy wretch forward,
+      commanded him to out with what he knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don't know no more than what I've told you.&rdquo; Mr. Sedgett twisted a
+      feeble remonstrance of his bones, that were chiefly his being, at the
+      gripe; &ldquo;except that you got hold the horse by the bridle, and wouldn't let
+      him go, because the young gentleman wouldn't speak as a gentleman, and&mdash;oh!
+      don't squeeze so hard&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out with it!&rdquo; cried Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you said, Steeve Bilton said, you said, 'Where is she?' you said, and
+      he swore, and you swore, and a lady rode up, and you pulled, and she sang
+      out, and off went the gentleman, and Steeve said she said, 'For shame.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it was the truest word spoken that day!&rdquo; Robert released him. &ldquo;You
+      don't know much, Mr. Sedgett; but it's enough to make me explain the cause
+      to my father, and, with your leave, I'll do so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Sedgett remarked: &ldquo;By all means, do;&rdquo; and rather preferred that his
+      wits should be accused of want of brightness, than that he should miss a
+      chance of hearing the rich history of the scandal and its origin.
+      Something stronger than a hint sent him off at a trot, hugging in his
+      elbows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The postman won't do his business quicker than Sedgett 'll tap this tale
+      upon every door in the parish,&rdquo; said Jonathan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can only say I'm sorry, for your sake;&rdquo; Robert was expressing his
+      contrition, when his father caught him up,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who can hurt me?&mdash;my sake? Have I got the habits of a sot?&mdash;what
+      you'd call 'a beast!' but I know the ways o' beasts, and if you did too,
+      you wouldn't bring them in to bear your beastly sins. Who can hurt me?&mdash;You've
+      been quarrelling with this young gentleman about a woman&mdash;did you
+      damage him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If knuckles could do it, I should have brained him, sir,&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You struck him, and you got the best of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He got the worst of it any way, and will again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the devil take you for a fool! why did you go and drink I could
+      understand it if you got licked. Drown your memory, then, if that filthy
+      soaking's to your taste; but why, when you get the prize, we'll say, you
+      go off headlong into a manure pond?&mdash;There! except that you're a
+      damned idiot!&rdquo; Jonathan struck the air, as to observe that it beat him,
+      but for the foregoing elucidation: thundering afresh, &ldquo;Why did you go and
+      drink?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I went, sir, I went&mdash;why did I go?&rdquo; Robert slapped his hand
+      despairingly to his forehead. &ldquo;What on earth did I go for?&mdash;because
+      I'm at sea, I suppose. Nobody cares for me. I'm at sea, and no rudder to
+      steer me. I suppose that's it. So, I drank. I thought it best to take
+      spirits on board. No; this was the reason&mdash;I remember: that lady,
+      whoever she was, said something that stung me. I held the fellow under her
+      eyes, and shook him, though she was begging me to let him off. Says she&mdash;but
+      I've drunk it clean out of my mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, go in and look at yourself in the glass,&rdquo; said Jonathan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me your hand first,&rdquo;&mdash;Robert put his own out humbly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be hanged if I do,&rdquo; said Jonathan firmly. &ldquo;Bed and board you shall
+      have while I'm alive, and a glass to look at yourself in; but my hand's
+      for decent beasts. Move one way or t' other: take your choice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing Robert hesitate, he added, &ldquo;I shall have a damned deal more respect
+      for you if you toddle.&rdquo; He waved his hand away from the premises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry you've taken so to swearing of late, sir,&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two flints strike fire, my lad. When you keep distant, I'm quiet enough
+      in my talk to satisfy your aunt Anne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, sir; I want to make use of you, so I'll go in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you do,&rdquo; returned Jonathan, not a whit displeased by his son's
+      bluntness; &ldquo;what else is a father good for? I let you know the limit, and
+      that's a brick wall; jump it, if you can. Don't fancy it's your aunt Jane
+      you're going in to meet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert had never been a favourite with his aunt Anne, who was Jonathan's
+      housekeeper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, poor old soul! and may God bless her in heaven!&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For leaving you what you turned into a thundering lot of liquor to
+      consume&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For doing all in her power to make a man of me; and she was close on it&mdash;kind,
+      good old darling, that she was! She got me with that money of hers to the
+      best footing I've been on yet&mdash;bless her heart, or her memory, or
+      whatever a poor devil on earth may bless an angel for! But here I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The fever in Robert blazed out under a pressure of extinguishing tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, go along in,&rdquo; said Jonathan, who considered drunkenness to be the
+      main source of water in a man's eyes. &ldquo;It's my belief you've been at it
+      already this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert passed into the house in advance of his father, whom he quite
+      understood and appreciated. There was plenty of paternal love for him, and
+      a hearty smack of the hand, and the inheritance of the farm, when he
+      turned into the right way. Meantime Jonathan was ready to fulfil his
+      parental responsibility, by sheltering, feeding, and not publicly abusing
+      his offspring, of whose spirit he would have had a higher opinion if
+      Robert had preferred, since he must go to the deuce, to go without
+      troubling any of his relatives; as it was, Jonathan submitted to the
+      infliction gravely. Neither in speech nor in tone did he solicit from the
+      severe maiden, known as Aunt Anne, that snub for the wanderer whom he
+      introduced, which, when two are agreed upon the infamous character of a
+      third, through whom they are suffering, it is always agreeable to hear. He
+      said, &ldquo;Here, Anne; here's Robert. He hasn't breakfasted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He likes his cold bath beforehand,&rdquo; said Robert, presenting his cheek to
+      the fleshless, semi-transparent woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aunt Anne divided her lips to pronounce a crisp, subdued &ldquo;Ow!&rdquo; to Jonathan
+      after inspecting Robert; and she shuddered at sight of Robert, and said
+      &ldquo;Ow!&rdquo; repeatedly, by way of an interjectory token of comprehension, to all
+      that was uttered; but it was a horrified &ldquo;No!&rdquo; when Robert's cheek pushed
+      nearer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, see to getting some breakfast for him,&rdquo; said Jonathan. &ldquo;You're not
+      anyway bound to kiss a drunken&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dog's the word, sir,&rdquo; Robert helped him. &ldquo;Dogs can afford it. I never saw
+      one in that state; so they don't lose character.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke lightly, but dejection was in his attitude. When his aunt Anne
+      had left the room, he exclaimed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By jingo! women make you feel it, by some way that they have. She's a
+      religious creature. She smells the devil in me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More like, the brandy,&rdquo; his father responded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well! I'm on the road, I'm on the road!&rdquo; Robert fetched a sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't make the road,&rdquo; said his father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir; you didn't. Work hard: sleep sound that's happiness. I've known
+      it for a year. You're the man I'd imitate, if I could. The devil came
+      first the brandy's secondary. I was quiet so long. I thought myself a safe
+      man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat down and sent his hair distraught with an effort at smoothing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Women brought the devil into the world first. It's women who raise the
+      devil in us, and why they&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He thumped the table just as his aunt Anne was preparing to spread the
+      cloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be frightened, woman,&rdquo; said Jonathan, seeing her start fearfully
+      back. &ldquo;You take too many cups of tea, morning and night&mdash;hang the
+      stuff!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never, never till now have you abused me, Jonathan,&rdquo; she whimpered,
+      severely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't tell you to love him; but wait on him. That's all. And I'll about
+      my business. Land and beasts&mdash;they answer to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Land and beasts! They sound like blessed things. When next I go to
+      church, I shall know what old Adam felt. Go along, sir. I shall break
+      nothing in the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won't go, Jonathan?&rdquo; begged the trembling spinster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give him some of your tea, and strong, and as much of it as he can take&mdash;he
+      wants bringing down,&rdquo; was Jonathan's answer; and casting a glance at one
+      of the framed letters, he strode through the doorway, and Aunt Anne was
+      alone with the flushed face and hurried eyes of her nephew, who was to her
+      little better than a demon in the flesh. But there was a Bible in the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later, Robert was mounted and riding to the meet of hounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A single night at the Pilot Inn had given life and vigour to Robert's old
+      reputation in Warbeach village, as the stoutest of drinkers and dear
+      rascals throughout a sailor-breeding district, where Dibdin was still
+      thundered in the ale-house, and manhood in a great degree measured by the
+      capacity to take liquor on board, as a ship takes ballast. There was a
+      profound affectation of deploring the sad fact that he drank as hard as
+      ever, among the men, and genuine pity expressed for him by the women of
+      Warbeach; but his fame was fresh again. As the Spring brings back its
+      flowers, Robert's presence revived his youthful deeds. There had not been
+      a boxer in the neighbourhood like Robert Eccles, nor such a champion in
+      all games, nor, when he set himself to it, such an invincible drinker. It
+      was he who thrashed the brute, Nic Sedgett, for stabbing with his
+      clasp-knife Harry Boulby, son of the landlady of the Pilot Inn; thrashed
+      him publicly, to the comfort of all Warbeach. He had rescued old Dame
+      Garble from her burning cottage, and made his father house the old
+      creature, and worked at farming, though he hated it, to pay for her
+      subsistence. He vindicated the honour of Warbeach by drinking a match
+      against a Yorkshire skipper till four o'clock in the morning, when it was
+      a gallant sight, my boys, to see Hampshire steadying the defeated
+      North-countryman on his astonished zigzag to his flattish-bottomed
+      billyboy, all in the cheery sunrise on the river&mdash;yo-ho! ahoy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Glorious Robert had tried, first the sea, and then soldiering. Now let us
+      hope he'll settle to farming, and follow his rare old father's ways, and
+      be back among his own people for good. So chimed the younger ones, and
+      many of the elder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Danish blood had settled round Warbeach. To be a really popular hero
+      anywhere in Britain, a lad must still, I fear, have something of a
+      Scandinavian gullet; and if, in addition to his being a powerful drinker,
+      he is pleasant in his cups, and can sing, and forgive, be freehanded, and
+      roll out the grand risky phrases of a fired brain, he stamps himself, in
+      the apprehension of his associates, a king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Much of the stuff was required to deal King Robert of Warbeach the capital
+      stroke, and commonly he could hold on till a puff of cold air from the
+      outer door, like an admonitory messenger, reminded him that he was, in the
+      greatness of his soul, a king of swine; after which his way of walking
+      off, without a word to anybody, hoisting his whole stature, while others
+      were staggering, or roaring foul rhymes, or feeling consciously mortal in
+      their sensation of feverishness, became a theme for admiration; ay, and he
+      was fresh as an orchard apple in the morning! there lay his commandership
+      convincingly. What was proved overnight was confirmed at dawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Robert had his contrast in Sedgett's son, Nicodemus Sedgett, whose
+      unlucky Christian name had assisted the wits of Warbeach in bestowing on
+      him a darkly-luminous relationship. Young Nic loved also to steep his
+      spirit in the bowl; but, in addition to his never paying for his luxury,
+      he drank as if in emulation of the colour of his reputed patron, and
+      neighbourhood to Nic Sedgett was not liked when that young man became
+      thoughtful over his glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The episode of his stabbing the landlady's son Harry clung to him fatally.
+      The wound was in the thigh, and nothing serious. Harry was up and off to
+      sea before Nic had ceased to show the marks of Robert's vengeance upon
+      him; but blood-shedding, even on a small scale, is so detested by
+      Englishmen, that Nic never got back to his right hue in the eyes of
+      Warbeach. None felt to him as to a countryman, and it may be supposed that
+      his face was seen no more in the house of gathering, the Pilot Inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rented one of the Fairly farms, known as the Three-Tree Farm,
+      subsisting there, men fancied, by the aid of his housekeeper's money. For
+      he was of those evil fellows who disconcert all righteous prophecy, and it
+      was vain for Mrs. Boulby and Warbeach village to declare that no good
+      could come to him, when Fortune manifestly kept him going.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He possessed the rogue's most serviceable art: in spite of a countenance
+      that was not attractive, this fellow could, as was proved by evidence,
+      make himself pleasing to women. &ldquo;The truth of it is,&rdquo; said Mrs. Boulby, at
+      a loss for any other explanation, and with a woman's love of sharp
+      generalization, &ldquo;it's because my sex is fools.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had one day no money to pay his rent, and forthwith (using for the
+      purpose his last five shillings, it was said) advertized for a
+      housekeeper; and before Warbeach had done chuckling over his folly, an
+      agreeable woman of about thirty-five was making purchases in his name; she
+      made tea, and the evening brew for such friends as he could collect, and
+      apparently paid his rent for him, after a time; the distress was not in
+      the house three days. It seemed to Warbeach an erratic proceeding on the
+      part of Providence, that Nic should ever be helped to swim; but our modern
+      prophets have small patience, and summon Destiny to strike without a
+      preparation of her weapons or a warning to the victim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More than Robert's old occasional vice was at the bottom of his
+      popularity, as I need not say. Let those who generalize upon ethnology
+      determine whether the ancient opposition of Saxon and Norman be at an end;
+      but it is certain, to my thinking, that when a hero of the people can be
+      got from the common popular stock, he is doubly dear. A gentleman, however
+      gallant and familiar, will hardly ever be as much beloved, until he dies
+      to inform a legend or a ballad: seeing that death only can remove the
+      peculiar distinctions and distances which the people feel to exist between
+      themselves and the gentleman-class, and which, not to credit them with
+      preternatural discernment, they are carefully taught to feel. Dead Britons
+      are all Britons, but live Britons are not quite brothers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was as the son of a yeoman, showing comprehensible accomplishments,
+      that Robert took his lead. He was a very brave, a sweet-hearted, and a
+      handsome young man, and he had very chivalrous views of life, that were
+      understood by a sufficient number under the influence of ale or brandy,
+      and by a few in default of that material aid; and they had a family pride
+      in him. The pride was mixed with fear, which threw over it a tender light,
+      like a mother's dream of her child. The people, I have said, are not so
+      lost in self-contempt as to undervalue their best men, but it must be
+      admitted that they rarely produce young fellows wearing the undeniable
+      chieftain's stamp, and the rarity of one like Robert lent a hue of sadness
+      to him in their thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortune, moreover, the favourer of Nic Sedgett, blew foul whichever the
+      way Robert set his sails. He would not look to his own advantage; and the
+      belief that man should set his little traps for the liberal hand of his
+      God, if he wishes to prosper, rather than strive to be merely honourable
+      in his Maker's eye, is almost as general among poor people as it is with
+      the moneyed classes, who survey them from their height.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When jolly Butcher Billing, who was one of the limited company which had
+      sat with Robert at the Pilot last night, reported that he had quitted the
+      army, he was hearkened to dolefully, and the feeling was universal that
+      glorious Robert had cut himself off from his pension and his hospital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when gossip Sedgett went his rounds, telling that Robert was down
+      among them again upon the darkest expedition their minds could conceive,
+      and rode out every morning for the purpose of encountering one of the
+      gentlemen up at Fairly, and had already pulled him off his horse and laid
+      him in the mud, calling him scoundrel and challenging him either to yield
+      his secret or to fight; and that he followed him, and was out after him
+      publicly, and matched himself against that gentleman, who had all the
+      other gentlemen, and the earl, and the law to back him, the little place
+      buzzed with wonder and alarm. Faint hearts declared that Robert was now
+      done for. All felt that he had gone miles beyond the mark. Those were the
+      misty days when fogs rolled up the salt river from the winter sea, and the
+      sun lived but an hour in the clotted sky, extinguished near the noon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert was seen riding out, and the tramp of his horse was heard as he
+      returned homeward. He called no more at the Pilot. Darkness and mystery
+      enveloped him. There were nightly meetings under Mrs. Boulby's roof, in
+      the belief that he could not withstand her temptations; nor did she
+      imprudently discourage them; but the woman at last overcame the landlady
+      within her, and she wailed: &ldquo;He won't come because of the drink. Oh! why
+      was I made to sell liquor, which he says sends him to the devil, poor
+      blessed boy? and I can't help begging him to take one little drop. I did,
+      the first night he was down, forgetting his ways; he looked so desperate,
+      he did, and it went on and went on, till he was primed, and me proud to
+      see him get out of his misery. And now he hates the thought of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In her despair she encouraged Sedgett to visit her bar and parlour, and he
+      became everywhere a most important man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Farmer Eccles's habits of seclusion (his pride, some said), and more
+      especially the dreaded austere Aunt Anne, who ruled that household, kept
+      people distant from the Warbeach farm-house, all excepting Sedgett, who
+      related that every night on his return, she read a chapter from the Bible
+      to Robert, sitting up for him patiently to fulfil her duty; and that the
+      farmer's words to his son had been: &ldquo;Rest here; eat and drink, and ride my
+      horse; but not a penny of my money do you have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By the help of Steeve Bilton, the Fairly huntsman, Sedgett was enabled to
+      relate that there was a combination of the gentlemen against Robert, whose
+      behaviour none could absolutely approve, save the landlady and jolly
+      Butcher Billing, who stuck to him with a hearty blind faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he ever,&rdquo; asked the latter, &ldquo;did Bob Eccles ever conduct himself
+      disrespectful to his superiors? Wasn't he always found out at his wildest
+      for to be right&mdash;to a sensible man's way of thinking?&mdash;though
+      not, I grant ye, to his own interests&mdash;there's another tale.&rdquo; And Mr.
+      Billing's staunch adherence to the hero of the village was cried out to
+      his credit when Sedgett stated, on Stephen Bilton's authority, that
+      Robert's errand was the defence of a girl who had been wronged, and whose
+      whereabout, that she might be restored to her parents, was all he wanted
+      to know. This story passed from mouth to mouth, receiving much ornament in
+      the passage. The girl in question became a lady; for it is required of a
+      mere common girl that she should display remarkable character before she
+      can be accepted as the fitting companion of a popular hero. She became a
+      young lady of fortune, in love with Robert, and concealed by the artifice
+      of the offending gentleman whom Robert had challenged. Sedgett told this
+      for truth, being instigated to boldness of invention by pertinacious
+      inquiries, and the dignified sense which the whole story hung upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Boulby, who, as a towering woman, despised Sedgett's weak frame, had
+      been willing to listen till she perceived him to be but a man of fiction,
+      and then she gave him a flat contradiction, having no esteem for his
+      custom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh! but, Missis, I can tell you his name&mdash;the gentleman's name,&rdquo;
+       said Sedgett, placably. &ldquo;He's a Mr. Algernon Blancove, and a cousin by
+      marriage, or something, of Mrs. Lovell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reckon you're right about that, goodman,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Boulby, with
+      intuitive discernment of the true from the false, mingled with a desire to
+      show that she was under no obligation for the news. &ldquo;All t' other's a tale
+      of your own, and you know it, and no more true than your rigmaroles about
+      my brandy, which is French; it is, as sure as my blood's British.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! Missis,&rdquo; quoth Sedgett, maliciously, &ldquo;as to tales, you've got
+      witnesses enough it crassed chann'l. Aha! Don't bring 'em into the box.
+      Don't you bring 'em into ne'er a box.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean to say, Mr. Sedgett, they won't swear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Missis; they'll swear, fast and safe, if you teach 'em. Dashed if
+      they won't run the Pilot on a rock with their swearin'. It ain't a good
+      habit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Mr. Sedgett, the next time you drink my brandy and find the
+      consequences bad, you let me hear of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what'll you do, Missis, may be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Listeners were by, and Mrs. Boulby cruelly retorted; &ldquo;I won't send you
+      home to your wife;&rdquo; which created a roar against this hen-pecked man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As to consequences, Missis, it's for your sake I'm looking at them,&rdquo;
+       Sedgett said, when he had recovered from the blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say that to the Excise, Mr. Sedgett; it, belike, 'll make 'em sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brandy's your weak point, it appears, Missis.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little in you would stiffen your back, Mr. Sedgett.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Bob Eccles didn't want no stiffening when he come down first,&rdquo;
+       Sedgett interjected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At which, flushing enraged, Mrs. Boulby cried: &ldquo;Mention him, indeed! And
+      him and you, and that son of your'n&mdash;the shame of your cheeks if
+      people say he's like his father. Is it your son, Nic Sedgett, thinks to
+      inform against me, as once he swore to, and to get his wage that he may
+      step out of a second bankruptcy? and he a farmer! You let him know that he
+      isn't feared by me, Sedgett, and there's one here to give him a second
+      dose, without waiting for him to use clasp-knives on harmless innocents.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pacify yourself, ma'am, pacify yourself,&rdquo; remarked Sedgett, hardened
+      against words abroad by his endurance of blows at home. &ldquo;Bob Eccles, he's
+      got his hands full, and he, maybe, 'll reach the hulks before my Nic do,
+      yet. And how 'm I answerable for Nic, I ask you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More luck to you not to be, I say; and either, Sedgett, you does woman's
+      work, gossipin' about like a cracked bell-clapper, or men's the biggest
+      gossips of all, which I believe; for there's no beating you at your work,
+      and one can't wish ill to you, knowing what you catch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a friendly way, Missis,&rdquo;&mdash;Sedgett fixed on the compliment to his
+      power of propagating news&mdash;&ldquo;in a friendly way. You can't accuse me of
+      leavin' out the 'l' in your name, now, can you? I make that observation,&rdquo;&mdash;the
+      venomous tattler screwed himself up to the widow insinuatingly, as if her
+      understanding could only be seized at close quarters, &ldquo;I make that
+      observation, because poor Dick Boulby, your lamented husband&mdash;eh!
+      poor Dick! You see, Missis, it ain't the tough ones last longest: he'd
+      sing, 'I'm a Sea Booby,' to the song, 'I'm a green Mermaid:' poor Dick!
+      'a-shinin' upon the sea-deeps.' He kept the liquor from his head, but
+      didn't mean it to stop down in his leg.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you done, Mr. Sedgett?&rdquo; said the widow, blandly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ain't angry, Missis?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit, Mr. Sedgett; and if I knock you over with the flat o' my hand,
+      don't you think so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedgett threw up the wizened skin of his forehead, and retreated from the
+      bar. At a safe distance, he called: &ldquo;Bad news that about Bob Eccles
+      swallowing a blow yesterday!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Boulby faced him complacently till he retired, and then observed to
+      those of his sex surrounding her, &ldquo;Don't 'woman-and-dog-and-walnut-tree'
+      me! Some of you men 'd be the better for a drubbing every day of your
+      lives. Sedgett yond' 'd be as big a villain as his son, only for what he
+      gets at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was her way of replying to the Parthian arrow; but the barb was
+      poisoned. The village was at fever heat concerning Robert, and this
+      assertion that he had swallowed a blow, produced almost as great a
+      consternation as if a fleet of the enemy had been reported off Sandy
+      Point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Boulby went into her parlour and wrote a letter to Robert, which she
+      despatched by one of the loungers about the bar, who brought back news
+      that three of the gentlemen of Fairly were on horseback, talking to Farmer
+      Eccles at his garden gate. Affairs were waxing hot. The gentlemen had only
+      to threaten Farmer Eccles, to make him side with his son, right or wrong.
+      In the evening, Stephen Bilton, the huntsman, presented himself at the
+      door of the long parlour of the Pilot, and loud cheers were his greeting
+      from a full company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen all,&rdquo; said Stephen, with dapper modesty; and acted as if no
+      excitement were current, and he had nothing to tell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Steeve?&rdquo; said one, to encourage him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How about Bob, to-day?&rdquo; said another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Stephen had spoken, it was clear to the apprehension of the whole
+      room that he did not share the popular view of Robert. He declined to
+      understand who was meant by &ldquo;Bob.&rdquo; He played the questions off; and then
+      shrugged, with, &ldquo;Oh, let's have a quiet evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It ended in his saying, &ldquo;About Bob Eccles? There, that's summed up pretty
+      quick&mdash;he's mad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mad!&rdquo; shouted Warbeach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a lie,&rdquo; said Mrs. Boulby, from the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, mum, I let a lady have her own opinion.&rdquo; Stephen nodded to her.
+      &ldquo;There ain't a doubt as t' what the doctors 'd bring him in I ain't
+      speaking my ideas alone. It's written like the capital letters in a
+      newspaper. Lunatic's the word! And I'll take a glass of something warm,
+      Mrs. Boulby. We had a stiff run to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did ye kill, Steeve?&rdquo; asked a dispirited voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We didn't kill at all: he was one of those 'longshore dog-foxes,' and got
+      away home on the cliff.&rdquo; Stephen thumped his knee. &ldquo;It's my belief the
+      smell o' sea gives 'em extra cunning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The beggar seems to have put ye out rether&mdash;eh, Steeve?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So it was generally presumed: and yet the charge of madness was very
+      staggering; madness being, in the first place, indefensible, and
+      everybody's enemy when at large; and Robert's behaviour looked extremely
+      like it. It had already been as a black shadow haunting enthusiastic minds
+      in the village, and there fell a short silence, during which Stephen made
+      his preparations for filling and lighting a pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come; how do you make out he's mad?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jolly Butcher Billing spoke; but with none of the irony of confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; Stephen merely clapped both elbows against his sides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several pairs of eyes were studying him. He glanced over them in turn, and
+      commenced leisurely the puff contemplative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't happen to have a grudge of e'er a kind against old Bob, Steeve?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not I!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Boulby herself brought his glass to Stephen, and, retreating, left
+      the parlour-door open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What causes you for to think him mad, Steeve?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A second &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; as from the heights dominating argument, sounded from
+      Stephen's throat, half like a grunt. This time he condescended to add,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know when a dog's gone mad? Well, Robert Eccles, he's gone in
+      like manner. If you don't judge a man by his actions, you've got no means
+      of reckoning. He comes and attacks gentlemen, and swears he'll go on doing
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, and what does that prove?&rdquo; said jolly Butcher Billing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. William Moody, boatbuilder, a liver-complexioned citizen, undertook to
+      reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does that prove? What does that prove when the midshipmite was found
+      with his head in the mixedpickle jar? It proved that his head was lean,
+      and t' other part was rounder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The illustration appeared forcible, but not direct, and nothing more was
+      understood from it than that Moody, and two or three others who had been
+      struck by the image of the infatuated young naval officer, were going over
+      to the enemy. The stamp of madness upon Robert's acts certainly saved
+      perplexity, and was the easiest side of the argument. By this time Stephen
+      had finished his glass, and the effect was seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hang it!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;I don't agree he deserves shooting. And he may
+      have had harm done to him. In that case, let him fight. And I say, too,
+      let the gentleman give him satisfaction.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hear! hear!&rdquo; cried several.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if the gentleman refuse to give him satisfaction in a fair stand-up
+      fight, I say he ain't a gentleman, and deserves to be treated as such. My
+      objection's personal. I don't like any man who spoils sport, and ne'er a
+      rascally vulpeci' spoils sport as he do, since he's been down in our parts
+      again. I'll take another brimmer, Mrs. Boulby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure you will, Stephen,&rdquo; said Mrs. Boulby, bending as in a curtsey
+      to the glass; and so soft with him that foolish fellows thought her cowed
+      by the accusation thrown at her favourite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's two questions about they valpecies, Master Stephen,&rdquo; said Farmer
+      Wainsby, a farmer with a grievance, fixing his elbow on his knee for
+      serious utterance. &ldquo;There's to ask, and t' ask again. Sport, I grant ye.
+      All in doo season. But,&rdquo; he performed a circle with his pipe stem, and
+      darted it as from the centre thereof toward Stephen's breast, with the
+      poser, &ldquo;do we s'pport thieves at public expense for them to keep thievin'&mdash;black,
+      white, or brown&mdash;no matter, eh? Well, then, if the public wunt bear
+      it, dang me if I can see why individles shud bear it. It ent no manner o'
+      reason, net as I can see; let gentlemen have their opinion, or let 'em
+      not. Foxes be hanged!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Much slow winking was interchanged. In a general sense, Farmer Wainsby's
+      remarks were held to be un-English, though he was pardoned for them as one
+      having peculiar interests at stake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, ay! we know all about that,&rdquo; said Stephen, taking succour from the
+      eyes surrounding him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so, may be, do we,&rdquo; said Wainsby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fox-hunting 'll go on when your great-grandfather's your youngest son,
+      farmer; or t' other way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reckon it'll be a stuffed fox your chil'ern 'll hunt, Mr. Steeve; more
+      straw in 'em than bow'ls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If the country,&rdquo; Stephen thumped the table, &ldquo;were what you'd make of it,
+      hang me if my name 'd long be Englishman!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hear, hear, Steeve!&rdquo; was shouted in support of the Conservative principle
+      enunciated by him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I say is, flesh and blood afore foxes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus did Farmer Wainsby likewise attempt a rallying-cry; but Stephen's
+      retort, &ldquo;Ain't foxes flesh and blood?&rdquo; convicted him of clumsiness, and,
+      buoyed on the uproar of cheers, Stephen pursued, &ldquo;They are; to kill 'em in
+      cold blood's beast-murder, so it is. What do we do? We give 'em a fair
+      field&mdash;a fair field and no favour! We let 'em trust to the instincts
+      Nature, she's given 'em; and don't the old woman know best? If they cap,
+      get away, they win the day. All's open, and honest, and aboveboard. Kill
+      your rats and kill your rabbits, but leave foxes to your betters. Foxes
+      are gentlemen. You don't understand? Be hanged if they ain't! I like the
+      old fox, and I don't like to see him murdered and exterminated, but die
+      the death of a gentleman, at the hands of gentlemen&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And ladies,&rdquo; sneered the farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the room was with Stephen, and would have backed him uproariously, had
+      he not reached his sounding period without knowing it, and thus allowed
+      his opponent to slip in that abominable addition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, and ladies,&rdquo; cried the huntsman, keen at recovery. &ldquo;Why shouldn't
+      they? I hate a field without a woman in it; don't you? and you? and you?
+      And you, too, Mrs. Boulby? There you are, and the room looks better for
+      you&mdash;don't it, lads? Hurrah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cheering was now aroused, and Stephen had his glass filled again in
+      triumph, while the farmer meditated thickly over the ruin of his argument
+      from that fatal effort at fortifying it by throwing a hint to the
+      discredit of the sex, as many another man has meditated before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh! poor old Bob!&rdquo; Stephen sighed and sipped. &ldquo;I can cry that with any of
+      you. It's worse for me to see than for you to hear of him. Wasn't I always
+      a friend of his, and said he was worthy to be a gentleman, many a time?
+      He's got the manners of a gentleman now; offs with his hat, if there's a
+      lady present, and such a neat way of speaking. But there, acting's the
+      thing, and his behaviour's beastly bad! You can't call it no other.
+      There's two Mr. Blancoves up at Fairly, relations of Mrs. Lovell's&mdash;whom
+      I'll take the liberty of calling My Beauty, and no offence meant: and it's
+      before her that Bob only yesterday rode up&mdash;one of the gentlemen
+      being Mr. Algernon, free of hand and a good seat in the saddle, t' other's
+      Mr. Edward; but Mr. Algernon, he's Robert Eccles's man&mdash;up rides Bob,
+      just as we was tying Mr. Reenard's brush to the pommel of the lady's
+      saddle, down in Ditley Marsh; and he bows to the lady. Says he&mdash;but
+      he's mad, stark mad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Stephen resumed his pipe amid a din of disappointment that made the walls
+      ring and the glasses leap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little more sugar, Stephen?&rdquo; said Mrs. Boulby, moving in lightly from
+      the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank ye, mum; you're the best hostess that ever breathed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So she be; but how about Bob?&rdquo; cried her guests&mdash;some asking whether
+      he carried a pistol or flourished a stick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ne'er a blessed twig, to save his soul; and there's the madness written
+      on him;&rdquo; Stephen roared as loud as any of them. &ldquo;And me to see him riding
+      in the ring there, and knowing what the gentleman had sworn to do if he
+      came across the hunt; and feeling that he was in the wrong! I haven't got
+      a oath to swear how mad I was. Fancy yourselves in my place. I love old
+      Bob. I've drunk with him; I owe him obligations from since I was a boy
+      up'ard; I don't know a better than Bob in all England. And there he was:
+      and says to Mr. Algernon, 'You know what I'm come for.' I never did behold
+      a gentleman so pale&mdash;shot all over his cheeks as he was, and pinkish
+      under the eyes; if you've ever noticed a chap laid hands on by detectives
+      in plain clothes. Smack at Bob went Mr. Edward's whip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Algernon's,&rdquo; Stephen was corrected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Edward's, I tell ye&mdash;the cousin. And right across the face. My
+      Lord! it made my blood tingle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A sound like the swish of a whip expressed the sentiments of that
+      assemblage at the Pilot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bob swallowed it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What else could he do, the fool? He had nothing to help him but his hand.
+      Says he, 'That's a poor way of trying to stop me. My business is with this
+      gentleman;' and Bob set his horse at Mr. Algernon, and Mrs. Lovell rode
+      across him with her hand raised; and just at that moment up jogged the old
+      gentleman, Squire Blancove, of Wrexby: and Robert Eccles says to him, 'You
+      might have saved your son something by keeping your word.' It appears
+      according to Bob, that the squire had promised to see his son, and settle
+      matters. All Mrs. Lovell could do was hardly enough to hold back Mr.
+      Edward from laying out at Bob. He was like a white devil, and speaking
+      calm and polite all the time. Says Bob, 'I'm willing to take one when I've
+      done with the other;' and the squire began talking to his son, Mrs. Lovell
+      to Mr. Edward, and the rest of the gentlemen all round poor dear old Bob,
+      rather bullying&mdash;like for my blood; till Bob couldn't help being
+      nettled, and cried out, 'Gentlemen, I hold him in my power, and I'm silent
+      so long as there's a chance of my getting him to behave like a man with
+      human feelings.' If they'd gone at him then, I don't think I could have
+      let him stand alone: an opinion's one thing, but blood's another, and I'm
+      distantly related to Bob; and a man who's always thinking of the value of
+      his place, he ain't worth it. But Mrs. Lovell, she settled the case&mdash;a
+      lady, Farmer Wainsby, with your leave. There's the good of having a lady
+      present on the field. That's due to a lady!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Happen she was at the bottom of it,&rdquo; the farmer returned Stephen's nod
+      grumpily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did it end, Stephen, my lad?&rdquo; said Butcher Billing, indicating a
+      &ldquo;never mind him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It ended, my boy, it ended like my glass here&mdash;hot and strong stuff,
+      with sugar at the bottom. And I don't see this, so glad as I saw that, my
+      word of honour on it! Boys all!&rdquo; Stephen drank the dregs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Boulby was still in attendance. The talk over the circumstances was
+      sweeter than the bare facts, and the replenished glass enabled Stephen to
+      add the picturesque bits of the affray, unspurred by a surrounding
+      eagerness of his listeners&mdash;too exciting for imaginative effort. In
+      particular, he dwelt on Robert's dropping the reins and riding with his
+      heels at Algernon, when Mrs. Lovell put her horse in his way, and the pair
+      of horses rose like waves at sea, and both riders showed their
+      horsemanship, and Robert an adroit courtesy, for which the lady thanked
+      him with a bow of her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got among the hounds, pretending to pacify them, and call 'em
+      together,&rdquo; said Stephen, &ldquo;and I heard her say&mdash;just before all was
+      over, and he turned off&mdash;I heard her say: 'Trust this to me: I will
+      meet you.' I'll swear to them exact words, though there was more, and a
+      'where' in the bargain, and that I didn't hear. Aha! by George! thinks I,
+      old Bob, you're a lucky beggar, and be hanged if I wouldn't go mad too for
+      a minute or so of short, sweet, private talk with a lovely young widow
+      lady as ever the sun did shine upon so boldly&mdash;oho!
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     You've seen a yacht upon the sea,
+     She dances and she dances, O!
+     As fair is my wild maid to me...
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Something about 'prances, O!' on her horse, you know, or you're a hem'd
+      fool if you don't. I never could sing; wish I could! It's the joy of life!
+      It's utterance! Hey for harmony!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh! brayvo! now you're a man, Steeve! and welcomer and welcomest; yi&mdash;yi,
+      O!&rdquo; jolly Butcher Billing sang out sharp. &ldquo;Life wants watering. Here's a
+      health to Robert Eccles, wheresoever and whatsoever! and ne'er a man shall
+      say of me I didn't stick by a friend like Bob. Cheers, my lads!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert's health was drunk in a thunder, and praises of the purity of the
+      brandy followed the grand roar. Mrs. Boulby received her compliments on
+      that head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Pends upon the tide, Missis, don't it?&rdquo; one remarked with a grin broad
+      enough to make the slyness written on it easy reading.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! first a flow and then a ebb,&rdquo; said another.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;It's many a keg I plant i' the mud,
+     Coastguardsman, come! and I'll have your blood!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Instigation cried, &ldquo;Cut along;&rdquo; but the defiant smuggler was deficient in
+      memory, and like Steeve Bilton, was reduced to scatter his concluding
+      rhymes in prose, as &ldquo;something about;&rdquo; whereat jolly Butcher Billing, a
+      reader of song-books from a literary delight in their contents, scraped
+      his head, and then, as if he had touched a spring, carolled,&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;In spite of all you Gov'ment pack,
+     I'll land my kegs of the good Cognyac&rdquo;&mdash;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;though,&rdquo; he took occasion to observe when the chorus and a sort of
+      cracker of irrelevant rhymes had ceased to explode; &ldquo;I'm for none of them
+      games. Honesty!&mdash;there's the sugar o' my grog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, but you like to be cock-sure of the stuff you drink, if e'er a man
+      did,&rdquo; said the boatbuilder, whose eye blazed yellow in this frothing
+      season of song and fun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right so, Will Moody!&rdquo; returned the jolly butcher: &ldquo;which means&mdash;not
+      wrong this time!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, what's understood by your sticking prongs into your hostess here
+      concerning of her brandy? Here it is&mdash;which is enough, except for
+      discontented fellows.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh, Missus?&rdquo; the jolly butcher appealed to her, and pointed at Moody's
+      complexion for proof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was quite a fiction that kegs of the good cognac were sown at low
+      water, and reaped at high, near the river-gate of the old Pilot Inn
+      garden; but it was greatly to Mrs. Boulby's interest to encourage the
+      delusion which imaged her brandy thus arising straight from the very
+      source, without villanous contact with excisemen and corrupting dealers;
+      and as, perhaps, in her husband's time, the thing had happened, and still
+      did, at rare intervals, she complacently gathered the profitable fame of
+      her brandy being the best in the district.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sure I hope you're satisfied, Mr. Billing,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The jolly butcher asked whether Will Moody was satisfied, and Mr. William
+      Moody declaring himself thoroughly satisfied, &ldquo;then I'm satisfied too!&rdquo;
+       said the jolly butcher; upon which the boatbuilder heightened the laugh by
+      saying he was not satisfied at all; and to escape from the execrations of
+      the majority, pleaded that it was because his glass was empty: thus making
+      his peace with them. Every glass in the room was filled again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young fellows now loosened tongue; and Dick Curtis, the promising
+      cricketer of Hampshire, cried, &ldquo;Mr. Moody, my hearty! that's your fourth
+      glass, so don't quarrel with me, now!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; Moody fired up in a bilious frenzy, and called him a this and that
+      and t' other young vagabond; for which the company, feeling the ominous
+      truth contained in Dick Curtis's remark more than its impertinence, fined
+      Mr. Moody in a song. He gave the&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;So many young Captains have walked o'er my pate,
+     It's no wonder you see me quite bald, sir,&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      with emphatic bitterness, and the company thanked him. Seeing him stand up
+      as to depart, however, a storm of contempt was hurled at him; some said he
+      was like old Sedgett, and was afraid of his wife; and some, that he was
+      like Nic Sedgett, and drank blue.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;You're a bag of blue devils, oh dear! oh dear!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      sang Dick to the tune of &ldquo;The Campbells are coming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ask e'er a man present,&rdquo; Mr. Moody put out his fist, &ldquo;is that to be
+      borne? Didn't you,&rdquo; he addressed Dick Curtis,&mdash;&ldquo;didn't you sing into
+      my chorus&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     'It's no wonder to hear how you squall'd, sir?'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't he,&rdquo;&mdash;Dick addressed the company, &ldquo;make Mrs. Boulby's brandy
+      look ashamed of itself in his face? I ask e'er a gentleman present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Accusation and retort were interchanged, in the course of which, Dick
+      called Mr. Moody Nic Sedgett's friend; and a sort of criminal inquiry was
+      held. It was proved that Moody had been seen with Nic Sedgett; and then
+      three or four began to say that Nic Sedgett was thick with some of the
+      gentlemen up at Fairly;&mdash;just like his luck! Stephen let it be known
+      that he could confirm this fact; he having seen Mr. Algernon Blancove stop
+      Nic on the road and talk to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case,&rdquo; said Butcher Billing, &ldquo;there's mischief in a state of
+      fermentation. Did ever anybody see Nic and the devil together?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw Nic and Mr. Moody together,&rdquo; said Dick Curtis. &ldquo;Well, I'm only
+      stating a fact,&rdquo; he exclaimed, as Moody rose, apparently to commence an
+      engagement, for which the company quietly prepared, by putting chairs out
+      of his way: but the recreant took his advantage from the error, and got
+      away to the door, pursued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's an example of what we lose in having no President,&rdquo; sighed the
+      jolly butcher. &ldquo;There never was a man built for the chair like Bob Eccles
+      I say! Our evening's broke up, and I, for one, 'd ha' made it morning.
+      Hark, outside; By Gearge! they're snowballing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An adjournment to the front door brought them in view of a white and
+      silent earth under keen stars, and Dick Curtis and the bilious
+      boatbuilder, foot to foot, snowball in hand. A bout of the smart exercise
+      made Mr. Moody laugh again, and all parted merrily, delivering final shots
+      as they went their several ways.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks be to heaven for snowing,&rdquo; said Mrs. Boulby; &ldquo;or when I should
+      have got to my bed, Goodness only can tell!&rdquo; With which, she closed the
+      door upon the empty inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The night was warm with the new-fallen snow, though the stars sparkled
+      coldly. A fleet of South-westerly rainclouds had been met in mid-sky by a
+      sharp puff from due North, and the moisture had descended like a woven
+      shroud, covering all the land, the house-tops, and the trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Harry Boulby was at sea, and this still weather was just what a
+      mother's heart wished for him. The widow looked through her bed-room
+      window and listened, as if the absolute stillness must beget a sudden cry.
+      The thought of her boy made her heart revert to Robert. She was thinking
+      of Robert when the muffled sound of a horse at speed caused her to look up
+      the street, and she saw one coming&mdash;a horse without a rider. The next
+      minute he was out of sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Boulby stood terrified. The silence of the night hanging everywhere
+      seemed to call on her for proof that she had beheld a real earthly
+      spectacle, and the dead thump of the hooves on the snow-floor in passing
+      struck a chill through her as being phantom-like. But she had seen a
+      saddle on the horse, and the stirrups flying, and the horse looked
+      affrighted. The scene was too earthly in its suggestion of a tale of
+      blood. What if the horse were Robert's? She tried to laugh at her womanly
+      fearfulness, and had almost to suppress a scream in doing so. There was no
+      help for it but to believe her brandy as good and efficacious as her
+      guests did, so she went downstairs and took a fortifying draught; after
+      which her blood travelled faster, and the event galloped swiftly into the
+      recesses of time, and she slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the morning was still black, and the streets without a sign of life,
+      she was aroused by a dream of some one knocking at her grave-stone. &ldquo;Ah,
+      that brandy!&rdquo; she sighed. &ldquo;This is what a poor woman has to pay for
+      custom!&rdquo; Which we may interpret as the remorseful morning confession of a
+      guilt she had been the victim of over night. She knew that good brandy did
+      not give bad dreams, and was self-convicted. Strange were her sensations
+      when the knocking continued; and presently she heard a voice in the naked
+      street below call in a moan, &ldquo;Mother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My darling!&rdquo; she answered, divided in her guess at its being Harry or
+      Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A glance from the open window showed Robert leaning in the quaint old
+      porch, with his head bound by a handkerchief; but he had no strength to
+      reply to a question at that distance, and when she let him in he made two
+      steps and dropped forward on the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lying there, he plucked at her skirts. She was shouting for help, but with
+      her ready apprehension of the pride in his character, she knew what was
+      meant by his broken whisper before she put her ear to his lips, and she
+      was silent, miserable sight as was his feeble efforts to rise on an elbow
+      that would not straighten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His head was streaming with blood, and the stain was on his neck and
+      chest. He had one helpless arm; his clothes were torn as from a fierce
+      struggle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm quite sensible,&rdquo; he kept repeating, lest she should relapse into
+      screams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord love you for your spirit!&rdquo; exclaimed the widow, and there they
+      remained, he like a winged eagle, striving to raise himself from time to
+      time, and fighting with his desperate weakness. His face was to the
+      ground; after a while he was still. In alarm the widow stooped over him:
+      she feared that he had given up his last breath; but the candle-light
+      showed him shaken by a sob, as it seemed to her, though she could scarce
+      believe it of this manly fellow. Yet it proved true; she saw the very
+      tears. He was crying at his helplessness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my darling boy!&rdquo; she burst out; &ldquo;what have they done to ye? the
+      cowards they are! but do now have pity on a woman, and let me get some
+      creature to lift you to a bed, dear. And don't flap at me with your hand
+      like a bird that's shot. You're quite, quite sensible, I know; quite
+      sensible, dear; but for my sake, Robert, my Harry's good friend, only for
+      my sake, let yourself be a carried to a clean, nice bed, till I get Dr.
+      Bean to you. Do, do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her entreaties brought on a succession of the efforts to rise, and at
+      last, getting round on his back, and being assisted by the widow, he sat
+      up against the wall. The change of posture stupified him with a dizziness.
+      He tried to utter the old phrase, that he was sensible, but his hand beat
+      at his forehead before the words could be shaped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What pride is when it's a man!&rdquo; the widow thought, as he recommenced the
+      grievous struggle to rise on his feet; now feeling them up to the knee
+      with a questioning hand, and pausing as if in a reflective wonder, and
+      then planting them for a spring that failed wretchedly; groaning and
+      leaning backward, lost in a fit of despair, and again beginning, patient
+      as an insect imprisoned in a circle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The widow bore with his man's pride, until her nerves became afflicted by
+      the character of his movements, which, as her sensations conceived them,
+      were like those of a dry door jarring loose. She caught him in her arms:
+      &ldquo;It's let my back break, but you shan't fret to death there, under my
+      eyes, proud or humble, poor dear,&rdquo; she said, and with a great pull she got
+      him upright. He fell across her shoulder with so stiff a groan that for a
+      moment she thought she had done him mortal injury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good old mother,&rdquo; he said boyishly, to reassure her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; and you'll behave to me like a son,&rdquo; she coaxed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They talked as by slow degrees the stairs were ascended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A crack o' the head, mother&mdash;a crack o' the head,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it the horse, my dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A crack o' the head, mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have they done to my boy Robert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They've,&rdquo;&mdash;he swung about humorously, weak as he was and throbbing
+      with pain&mdash;&ldquo;they've let out some of your brandy, mother...got into my
+      head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who've done it, my dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They've done it, mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, take care o' that nail at your foot; and oh, that beam to your poor
+      poll&mdash;poor soul! he's been and hurt himself again. And did they do it
+      to him? and what was it for?&rdquo; she resumed in soft cajolery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They did it, because&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, my dear; the reason for it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because, mother, they had a turn that way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks be to Above for leaving your cunning in you, my dear,&rdquo; said the
+      baffled woman, with sincere admiration. &ldquo;And Lord be thanked, if you're
+      not hurt bad, that they haven't spoilt his handsome face,&rdquo; she added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the bedroom, he let her partially undress him, refusing all doctor's
+      aid, and commanding her to make no noise about him and then he lay down
+      and shut his eyes, for the pain was terrible&mdash;galloped him and threw
+      him with a shock&mdash;and galloped him and threw him again, whenever his
+      thoughts got free for a moment from the dizzy aching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;I'm going to get a little brandy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hastened away upon this mission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was in the same posture when she returned with bottle and glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She poured out some, and made much of it as a specific, and of the great
+      things brandy would do; but he motioned his hand from it feebly, till she
+      reproached him tenderly as perverse and unkind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, my dearest boy, for my sake&mdash;only for my sake. Will you? Yes,
+      you will, my Robert!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No brandy, mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only one small thimbleful?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more brandy for me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See, dear, how seriously you take it, and all because you want the
+      comfort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No brandy,&rdquo; was all he could say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at the label on the bottle. Alas! she knew whence it came, and
+      what its quality. She could cheat herself about it when herself only was
+      concerned&mdash;but she wavered at the thought of forcing it upon Robert
+      as trusty medicine, though it had a pleasant taste, and was really, as she
+      conceived, good enough for customers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She tried him faintly with arguments in its favour; but his resolution was
+      manifested by a deaf ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a perfect faith in it she would, and she was conscious that she
+      could, have raised his head and poured it down his throat. The crucial
+      test of her love for Robert forbade the attempt. She burst into an
+      uncontrollable fit of crying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Halloa! mother,&rdquo; said Robert, opening his eyes to the sad candlelight
+      surrounding them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My darling boy! whom I do love so; and not to be able to help you! What
+      shall I do&mdash;what shall I do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a start, he cried, &ldquo;Where's the horse!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The horse?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The old dad 'll be asking for the horse to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw a horse, my dear, afore I turned to my prayers at my bedside,
+      coming down the street without his rider. He came like a rumble of
+      deafness in my ears. Oh, my boy, I thought, Is it Robert's horse?&mdash;knowing
+      you've got enemies, as there's no brave man has not got 'em&mdash;which is
+      our only hope in the God of heaven!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother, punch my ribs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stretched himself flat for the operation, and shut his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hard, mother!&mdash;and quick!&mdash;I can't hold out long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! Robert,&rdquo; moaned the petrified woman &ldquo;strike you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Straight in the ribs. Shut your fist and do it&mdash;quick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear!&mdash;my boy!&mdash;I haven't the heart to do it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; Robert's chest dropped in; but tightening his muscles again, he
+      said, &ldquo;now do it&mdash;do it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! a poke at a poor fire puts it out, dear. And make a murderess of me,
+      you call mother! Oh! as I love the name, I'll obey you, Robert. But!&mdash;there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harder, mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&mdash;goodness forgive me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hard as you can&mdash;all's right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&mdash;and there!&mdash;oh!&mdash;mercy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Press in at my stomach.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nerved herself to do his bidding, and, following his orders, took his
+      head in her hands, and felt about it. The anguish of the touch wrung a
+      stifled scream from him, at which she screamed responsive. He laughed,
+      while twisting with the pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cruel boy, to laugh at your mother,&rdquo; she said, delighted by the sound
+      of safety in that sweet human laughter. &ldquo;Hey! don't ye shake your brain;
+      it ought to lie quiet. And here's the spot of the wicked blow&mdash;and
+      him in love&mdash;as I know he is! What would she say if she saw him now?
+      But an old woman's the best nurse&mdash;ne'er a doubt of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt him heavy on her arm, and knew that he had fainted. Quelling her
+      first impulse to scream, she dropped him gently on the pillow, and rapped
+      to rouse up her maid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two soon produced a fire and hot water, bandages, vinegar in a basin,
+      and every crude appliance that could be thought of, the maid followed her
+      mistress's directions with a consoling awe, for Mrs. Boulby had told her
+      no more than that a man was hurt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do hope, if it's anybody, it's that ther' Moody,&rdquo; said the maid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A pretty sort of a Christian you think yourself, I dare say,&rdquo; Mrs. Boulby
+      replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Christian or not, one can't help longin' for a choice, mum. We ain't all
+      hands and knees.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better for you if you was,&rdquo; said the widow. &ldquo;It's tongues, you're to
+      remember, you're not to be. Now come you up after me&mdash;and you'll not
+      utter a word. You'll stand behind the door to do what I tell you. You're a
+      soldier's daughter, Susan, and haven't a claim to be excitable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother was given to faints,&rdquo; Susan protested on behalf of her possible
+      weakness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may peep.&rdquo; Thus Mrs. Boulby tossed a sop to her frail woman's nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But for her having been appeased by the sagacious accordance of this
+      privilege, the maid would never have endured to hear Robert's voice in
+      agony, and to think that it was really Robert, the beloved of Warbeach,
+      who had come to harm. Her apprehensions not being so lively as her
+      mistress's, by reason of her love being smaller, she was more terrified
+      than comforted by Robert's jokes during the process of washing off the
+      blood, cutting the hair from the wound, bandaging and binding up the head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His levity seemed ghastly; and his refusal upon any persuasion to see a
+      doctor quite heathenish, and a sign of one foredoomed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She believed that his arm was broken, and smarted with wrath at her
+      mistress for so easily taking his word to the contrary. More than all, his
+      abjuration of brandy now when it would do him good to take it, struck her
+      as an instance of that masculine insanity in the comprehension of which
+      all women must learn to fortify themselves. There was much whispering in
+      the room, inarticulate to her, before Mrs. Boulby came out; enjoining a
+      rigorous silence, and stating that the patient would drink nothing but
+      tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He begged,&rdquo; she said half to herself, &ldquo;to have the window blinds up in
+      the morning, if the sun wasn't strong, for him to look on our river
+      opening down to the ships.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That looks as if he meant to live,&rdquo; Susan remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He!&rdquo; cried the widow, &ldquo;it's Robert Eccles. He'd stand on his last inch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would he, now!&rdquo; ejaculated Susan, marvelling at him, with no question as
+      to what footing that might be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leastways,&rdquo; the widow hastened to add, &ldquo;if he thought it was only devils
+      against him. I've heard him say, 'It's a fool that holds out against God,
+      and a coward as gives in to the devil;' and there's my Robert painted by
+      his own hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But don't that bring him to this so often, Mum?&rdquo; Susan ruefully inquired,
+      joining teapot and kettle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do believe he's protected,&rdquo; said the widow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the first morning light Mrs. Boulby was down at Warbeach Farm, and
+      being directed to Farmer Eccles in the stables, she found the sturdy
+      yeoman himself engaged in grooming Robert's horse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Missis,&rdquo; he said, nodding to her; &ldquo;you win, you see. I thought you
+      would; I'd have sworn you would. Brandy's stronger than blood, with some
+      of our young fellows.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you please, Mr. Eccles,&rdquo; she replied, &ldquo;Robert's sending of me was to
+      know if the horse was unhurt and safe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won't his legs carry him yet, Missis?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His legs have been graciously spared, Mr. Eccles; it's his head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's where the liquor flies, I'm told.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray, Mr. Eccles, believe me when I declare he hasn't touched a drop of
+      anything but tea in my house this past night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry for that; I'd rather have him go to you. If he takes it, let
+      him take it good; and I'm given to understand that you've a reputation
+      that way. Just tell him from me, he's at liberty to play the devil with
+      himself, but not with my beasts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer continued his labour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, you ain't a hard man, surely,&rdquo; cried the widow. &ldquo;Not when I say he
+      was sober, Mr. Eccles; and was thrown, and made insensible?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never knew such a thing to happen to him, Missis, and, what's more, I
+      don't believe it. Mayhap you're come for his things: his Aunt Anne's
+      indoors, and she'll give 'em up, and gladly. And my compliments to Robert,
+      and the next time he fancies visiting Warbeach, he'd best forward a letter
+      to that effect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Boulby curtseyed humbly. &ldquo;You think bad of me, sir, for keeping a
+      public; but I love your son as my own, and if I might presume to say so,
+      Mr. Eccles, you will be proud of him too before you die. I know no more
+      than you how he fell yesterday, but I do know he'd not been drinking, and
+      have got bitter bad enemies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that's not astonishing, Missis.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Mr. Eccles; and a man who's brave besides being good soon learns
+      that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well spoken, Missis.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Robert to hear he's denied his father's house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never said that, Mrs. Boulby. Here's my principle&mdash;My house is
+      open to my blood, so long as he don't bring downright disgrace on it, and
+      then any one may claim him that likes I won't give him money, because I
+      know of a better use for it; and he shan't ride my beasts, because he
+      don't know how to treat 'em. That's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so you keep within the line of your duty, sir,&rdquo; the widow summed his
+      speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I hope to,&rdquo; said the farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's comfort in that,&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As much as there's needed,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The widow curtseyed again. &ldquo;It's not to trouble you, sir, I called. Robert&mdash;thanks
+      be to Above!&mdash;is not hurt serious, though severe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's he hurt?&rdquo; the farmer asked rather hurriedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the head, it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have you come for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First, his best hat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless my soul!&rdquo; exclaimed the farmer. &ldquo;Well, if that 'll mend his head
+      it's at his service, I'm sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sick at his heartlessness, the widow scattered emphasis over her
+      concluding remarks. &ldquo;First, his best hat, he wants; and his coat and clean
+      shirt; and they mend the looks of a man, Mr. Eccles; and it's to look well
+      is his object: for he's not one to make a moan of himself, and doctors may
+      starve before he'd go to any of them. And my begging prayer to you is,
+      that when you see your son, you'll not tell him I let you know his head or
+      any part of him was hurt. I wish you good morning, Mr. Eccles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning to you, Mrs. Boulby. You're a respectable woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to be soaped,&rdquo; she murmured to herself in a heat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The apparently medicinal articles of attire were obtained from Aunt Anne,
+      without a word of speech on the part of that pale spinster. The
+      deferential hostility between the two women acknowledged an intervening
+      chasm. Aunt Anne produced a bundle, and placed the hat on it, upon which
+      she had neatly pinned a tract, &ldquo;The Drunkard's Awakening!&rdquo; Mrs. Boulby
+      glanced her eye in wrath across this superscription, thinking to herself,
+      &ldquo;Oh, you good people! how you make us long in our hearts for trouble with
+      you.&rdquo; She controlled the impulse, and mollified her spirit on her way home
+      by distributing stray leaves of the tract to the outlying heaps of
+      rubbish, and to one inquisitive pig, who was looking up from a
+      badly-smelling sty for what the heavens might send him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She found Robert with his arm doubled over a basin, and Susan sponging
+      cold water on it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No bones broken, mother!&rdquo; he sang out. &ldquo;I'm sound; all right again. Six
+      hours have done it this time. Is it a thaw? You needn't tell me what the
+      old dad has been saying. I shall be ready to breakfast in half an hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord, what a big arm it is!&rdquo; exclaimed the widow. &ldquo;And no wonder, or how
+      would you be a terror to men? You naughty boy, to think of stirring! Here
+      you'll lie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, will I?&rdquo; said Robert: and he gave a spring, and sat upright in the
+      bed, rather white with the effort, which seemed to affect his mind, for he
+      asked dubiously, &ldquo;What do I look like, mother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She brought him the looking-glass, and Susan being dismissed, he examined
+      his features.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear!&rdquo; said the widow, sitting down on the bed; &ldquo;it ain't much for me to
+      guess you've got an appointment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At twelve o'clock, mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With her?&rdquo; she uttered softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's with a lady, mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so many enemies prowling about, Robert, my dear! Don't tell me they
+      didn't fall upon you last night. I said nothing, but I'd swear it on the
+      Book. Do you think you can go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, mother, I go by my feelings, and there's no need to think at all, or
+      God knows what I should think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The widow shook her head. &ldquo;Nothing 'll stop you, I suppose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing inside of me will, mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doesn't she but never mind. I've no right to ask, Robert; and if I have
+      curiosity, it's about last night, and why you should let villains escape.
+      But there's no accounting for a man's notions; only, this I say, and I do
+      say it, Nic Sedgett, he's at the bottom of any mischief brewed against you
+      down here. And last night Stephen Bilton, or somebody, declared that Nic
+      Sedgett had been seen up at Fairly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Selling eggs, mother. Why shouldn't he? We mustn't complain of his
+      getting an honest livelihood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's black-blooded, Robert; and I never can understand why the Lord did
+      not make him a beast in face. I'm told that creature's found pleasing by
+      the girls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ugh, mother, I'm not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She won't have you, Robert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed. &ldquo;We shall see to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You deceiving boy!&rdquo; cried the widow; &ldquo;and me not know it's Mrs. Lovell
+      you're going to meet! and would to heaven she'd see the worth of ye, for
+      it's a born lady you ought to marry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just feel in my pockets, mother, and you won't be so ready with your talk
+      of my marrying. And now I'll get up. I feel as if my legs had to learn
+      over again how to bear me. The old dad, bless his heart! gave me sound
+      wind and limb to begin upon, so I'm not easily stumped, you see, though
+      I've been near on it once or twice in my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Boulby murmured, &ldquo;Ah! are you still going to be at war with those
+      gentlemen, Robert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her steadily, while a shrewd smile wrought over his face, and
+      then taking her hand, he said, &ldquo;I'll tell you a little; you deserve it,
+      and won't tattle. My curse is, I'm ashamed to talk about my feelings; but
+      there's no shame in being fond of a girl, even if she refuses to have
+      anything to say to you, is there? No, there isn't. I went with my dear old
+      aunt's money to a farmer in Kent, and learnt farming; clear of the army
+      first, by&mdash;But I must stop that burst of swearing. Half the time I've
+      been away, I was there. The farmer's a good, sober, downhearted man&mdash;a
+      sort of beaten Englishman, who don't know it, tough, and always backing.
+      He has two daughters: one went to London, and came to harm, of a kind. The
+      other I'd prick this vein for and bleed to death, singing; and she hates
+      me! I wish she did. She thought me such a good young man! I never drank;
+      went to bed early, was up at work with the birds. Mr. Robert Armstrong!
+      That changeing of my name was like a lead cap on my head. I was never
+      myself with it, felt hang-dog&mdash;it was impossible a girl could care
+      for such a fellow as I was. Mother, just listen: she's dark as a gipsy.
+      She's the faithfullest, stoutest-hearted creature in the world. She has
+      black hair, large brown eyes; see her once! She's my mate. I could say to
+      her, 'Stand there; take guard of a thing;' and I could be dead certain of
+      her&mdash;she'd perish at her post. Is the door locked? Lock the door; I
+      won't be seen when I speak of her. Well, never mind whether she's handsome
+      or not. She isn't a lady; but she's my lady; she's the woman I could be
+      proud of. She sends me to the devil! I believe a woman 'd fall in love
+      with her cheeks, they are so round and soft and kindly coloured. Think me
+      a fool; I am. And here am I, away from her, and I feel that any day harm
+      may come to her, and she 'll melt, and be as if the devils of hell were
+      mocking me. Who's to keep harm from her when I'm away? What can I do but
+      drink and forget? Only now, when I wake up from it, I'm a crawling wretch
+      at her feet. If I had her feet to kiss! I've never kissed her&mdash;never!
+      And no man has kissed her. Damn my head! here's the ache coming on. That's
+      my last oath, mother. I wish there was a Bible handy, but I'll try and
+      stick to it without. My God! when I think of her, I fancy everything on
+      earth hangs still and doubts what's to happen. I'm like a wheel, and go on
+      spinning. Feel my pulse now. Why is it I can't stop it? But there she is,
+      and I could crack up this old world to know what's coming. I was mild as
+      milk all those days I was near her. My comfort is, she don't know me. And
+      that's my curse too! If she did, she'd know as clear as day I'm her mate,
+      her match, the man for her. I am, by heaven!&mdash;that's an oath
+      permitted. To see the very soul I want, and to miss her! I'm down here,
+      mother; she loves her sister, and I must learn where her sister's to be
+      found. One of those gentlemen up at Fairly's the guilty man. I don't say
+      which; perhaps I don't know. But oh, what a lot of lightnings I see in the
+      back of my head!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert fell back on the pillow. Mrs. Boulby wiped her eyes. Her feelings
+      were overwhelmed with mournful devotion to the passionate young man; and
+      she expressed them practically: &ldquo;A rump-steak would never digest in his
+      poor stomach!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed to be of that opinion too, for when, after lying till eleven, he
+      rose and appeared at the breakfast-table, he ate nothing but crumbs of dry
+      bread. It was curious to see his precise attention to the neatness of his
+      hat and coat, and the nervous eye he cast upon the clock, while brushing
+      and accurately fixing these garments. The hat would not sit as he was
+      accustomed to have it, owing to the bruise on his head, and he stood like
+      a woman petulant with her milliner before the glass; now pressing the hat
+      down till the pain was insufferable, and again trying whether it presented
+      him acceptably in the enforced style of his wearing it. He persisted in
+      this, till Mrs. Boulby's exclamation of wonder admonished him of the ideas
+      received by other eyes than his own. When we appear most incongruous, we
+      are often exposing the key to our characters; and how much his vanity,
+      wounded by Rhoda, had to do with his proceedings down at Warbeach, it were
+      unfair to measure just yet, lest his finer qualities be cast into shade,
+      but to what degree it affected him will be seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Boulby's persuasions induced him to take a stout silver-topped
+      walking-stick of her husband's, a relic shaped from the wood of the Royal
+      George; leaning upon which rather more like a Naval pensioner than he
+      would have cared to know, he went forth to his appointment with the lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The park-sward of Fairly, white with snow, rolled down in long sweeps to
+      the salt water: and under the last sloping oak of the park there was a
+      gorse-bushed lane, green in Summer, but now bearing cumbrous blossom&mdash;like
+      burdens of the crisp snow-fall. Mrs. Lovell sat on horseback here, and
+      alone, with her gauntleted hand at her waist, charmingly habited in tone
+      with the landscape. She expected a cavalier, and did not perceive the
+      approach of a pedestrian, but bowed quietly when Robert lifted his hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say you are mad. You see, I trust myself to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I could thank you for your kindness, madam.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you ill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had a fall last night, madam.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady patted her horse's neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't time to inquire about it. You understand that I cannot give you
+      more than a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She glanced at her watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us say five exactly. To begin: I can't affect to be ignorant of the
+      business which brings you down here. I won't pretend to lecture you about
+      the course you have taken; but, let me distinctly assure you, that the
+      gentleman you have chosen to attack in this extraordinary manner, has done
+      no wrong to you or to any one. It is, therefore, disgracefully unjust to
+      single him out. You know he cannot possibly fight you. I speak plainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, madam,&rdquo; said Robert. &ldquo;I'll answer plainly. He can't fight a man like
+      me. I know it. I bear him no ill-will. I believe he's innocent enough in
+      this matter, as far as acts go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That makes your behaviour to him worse!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert looked up into her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a lady. You won't be shocked at what I tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; said Mrs. Lovell, hastily: &ldquo;I have learnt&mdash;I am aware of
+      the tale. Some one has been injured or, you think so. I don't accuse you
+      of madness, but, good heavens! what means have you been pursuing! Indeed,
+      sir, let your feelings be as deeply engaged as possible, you have gone
+      altogether the wrong way to work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not if I have got your help by it, madam.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gallantly spoken.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled with a simple grace. The next moment she consulted her watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Time has gone faster than I anticipated. I must leave you. Let this be
+      our stipulation:&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She lowered her voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall have the address you require. I will undertake to see her
+      myself, when next I am in London. It will be soon. In return, sir, favour
+      me with your word of honour not to molest this gentleman any further. Will
+      you do that? You may trust me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do, madam, with all my soul!&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's sufficient. I ask no more. Good morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her parting bow remained with him like a vision. Her voice was like the
+      tinkling of harp-strings about his ears. The colour of her riding-habit
+      this day, harmonious with the snow-faced earth, as well as the gentle
+      mission she had taken upon herself, strengthened his vivid fancy in
+      blessing her as something quite divine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thought for the first time in his life bitterly of the great fortune
+      which fell to gentlemen in meeting and holding equal converse with so
+      adorable a creature; and he thought of Rhoda as being harshly earthly;
+      repulsive in her coldness as that black belt of water contrasted against
+      the snow on the shores.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked some paces in the track of Mrs. Lovell's horse, till his doing
+      so seemed too presumptuous, though to turn the other way and retrace his
+      steps was downright hateful: and he stood apparently in profound
+      contemplation of a ship of war and the trees of the forest behind the
+      masts. Either the fatigue of standing, or emotion, caused his head to
+      throb, so that he heard nothing, not even men's laughter; but looking up
+      suddenly, he beheld, as in a picture, Mrs. Lovell with some gentlemen
+      walking their horses toward him. The lady gazed softly over his head,
+      letting her eyes drop a quiet recognition in passing; one or two of the
+      younger gentlemen stared mockingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward Blancove was by Mrs. Lovell's side. His eyes fixed upon Robert with
+      steady scrutiny, and Robert gave him a similar inspection, though not
+      knowing why. It was like a child's open look, and he was feeling childish,
+      as if his brain had ceased to act. One of the older gentlemen, with a
+      military aspect, squared his shoulders, and touching an end of his
+      moustache, said, half challengingly,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are dismounted to-day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have only one horse,&rdquo; Robert simply replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon Blancove came last. He neither spoke nor looked at his enemy, but
+      warily clutched his whip. All went by, riding into line some paces
+      distant; and again they laughed as they bent forward to the lady,
+      shouting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odd, to have out the horses on a day like this,&rdquo; Robert thought, and
+      resumed his musing as before. The lady's track now led him homeward, for
+      he had no will of his own. Rounding the lane, he was surprised to see Mrs.
+      Boulby by the hedge. She bobbed like a beggar woman, with a rueful face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; she said, in apology for her presence, &ldquo;I shouldn't ha'
+      interfered, if there was fair play. I'm Englishwoman enough for that. I'd
+      have stood by, as if you was a stranger. Gentlemen always give fair play
+      before a woman. That's why I come, lest this appointment should ha' proved
+      a pitfall to you. Now you'll come home, won't you; and forgive me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll come to the old Pilot now, mother,&rdquo; said Robert, pressing her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's right; and ain't angry with me for following of you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Follow your own game, mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did, Robert; and nice and vexed I am, if I'm correct in what I heard
+      say, as that lady and her folk passed, never heeding an old woman's ears.
+      They made a bet of you, dear, they did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope the lady won,&rdquo; said Robert, scarce hearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it was she who won, dear. She was to get you to meet her, and give
+      up, and be beaten like, as far as I could understand their chatter;
+      gentlefolks laugh so when they talk; and they can afford to laugh, for
+      they has the best of it. But I'm vexed; just as if I'd felt big and had
+      burst. I want you to be peaceful, of course I do; but I don't like my boy
+      made a bet of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, tush, mother,&rdquo; said Robert impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard 'em, my dear; and complimenting the lady they was, as they passed
+      me. If it vexes you my thinking it, I won't, dear; I reelly won't. I see
+      it lowers you, for there you are at your hat again. It is lowering, to be
+      made a bet of. I've that spirit, that if you was well and sound, I'd
+      rather have you fighting 'em. She's a pleasant enough lady to look at, not
+      a doubt; small-boned, and slim, and fair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert asked which way they had gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back to the stables, my dear; I heard 'em say so, because one gentleman
+      said that the spectacle was over, and the lady had gained the day; and the
+      snow was balling in the horses' feet; and go they'd better, before my lord
+      saw them out. And another said, you were a wild man she'd tamed; and they
+      said, you ought to wear a collar, with Mrs. Lovell's, her name, graved on
+      it. But don't you be vexed; you may guess they're not my Robert's friends.
+      And, I do assure you, Robert, your hat's neat, if you'd only let it be
+      comfortable: such fidgeting worries the brim. You're best in appearance&mdash;and
+      I always said it&mdash;when stripped for boxing. Hats are gentlemen's
+      things, and becomes them like as if a title to their heads; though you'd
+      bear being Sir Robert, that you would; and for that matter, your hat is
+      agreeable to behold, and not like the run of our Sunday hats; only you
+      don't seem easy in it. Oh, oh! my tongue's a yard too long. It's the poor
+      head aching, and me to forget it. It's because you never will act
+      invalidy; and I remember how handsome you were one day in the field behind
+      our house, when you boxed a wager with Simon Billet, the waterman; and you
+      was made a bet of then, for my husband betted on you; and that's what made
+      me think of comparisons of you out of your hat and you in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus did Mrs. Boulby chatter along the way. There was an eminence a little
+      out of the road, overlooking the Fairly stables. Robert left her and went
+      to this point, from whence he beheld the horsemen with the grooms at the
+      horses' heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank God, I've only been a fool for five minutes!&rdquo; he summed up his
+      sensations at the sight. He shut his eyes, praying with all his might
+      never to meet Mrs. Lovell more. It was impossible for him to combat the
+      suggestion that she had befooled him; yet his chivalrous faith in women
+      led him to believe, that as she knew Dahlia's history, she would certainly
+      do her best for the poor girl, and keep her word to him. The throbbing of
+      his head stopped all further thought. It had become violent. He tried to
+      gather his ideas, but the effort was like that of a light dreamer to catch
+      the sequence of a dream, when blackness follows close up, devouring all
+      that is said and done. In despair, he thought with kindness of Mrs.
+      Boulby's brandy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother,&rdquo; he said, rejoining her, &ldquo;I've got a notion brandy can't hurt a
+      man when he's in bed. I'll go to bed, and you shall brew me some; and
+      you'll let no one come nigh me; and if I talk light-headed, it's blank
+      paper and scribble, mind that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The widow promised devoutly to obey all his directions; but he had begun
+      to talk light-headed before he was undressed. He called on the name of a
+      Major Waring, of whom Mrs. Boulby had heard him speak tenderly as a
+      gentleman not ashamed to be his friend; first reproaching him for not
+      being by, and then by the name of Percy, calling to him endearingly, and
+      reproaching himself for not having written to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two to one, and in the dark!&rdquo; he kept moaning &ldquo;and I one to twenty,
+      Percy, all in broad day. Was it fair, I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert's outcries became anything but &ldquo;blank paper and scribble&rdquo; to the
+      widow, when he mentioned Nic Sedgett's name, and said: &ldquo;Look over his
+      right temple he's got my mark a second time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hanging by his bedside, Mrs. Boulby strung together, bit by bit, the
+      history of that base midnight attack, which had sent her glorious boy
+      bleeding to her. Nic Sedgett; she could understand, was the accomplice of
+      one of the Fairly gentlemen; but of which one, she could not discover, and
+      consequently set him down as Mr. Algernon Blancove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By diligent inquiry, she heard that Algernon had been seen in company with
+      the infamous Nic, and likewise that the countenance of Nicodemus was
+      reduced to accept the consolation of a poultice, which was confirmation
+      sufficient. By nightfall Robert was in the doctor's hands, unconscious of
+      Mrs. Boulby's breach of agreement. His father and his aunt were informed
+      of his condition, and prepared, both of them, to bow their heads to the
+      close of an ungodly career. It was known over Warbeach, that Robert lay in
+      danger, and believed that he was dying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Boulby's ears had not deceived her; it had been a bet: and the day
+      would have gone disastrously with Robert, if Mrs. Lovell had not won her
+      bet. What was heroism to Warbeach, appeared very outrageous blackguardism
+      up at Fairly. It was there believed by the gentlemen, though rather
+      against evidence, that the man was a sturdy ruffian, and an infuriated
+      sot. The first suggestion was to drag him before the magistrates; but
+      against this Algernon protested, declaring his readiness to defend
+      himself, with so vehement a magnanimity, that it was clearly seen the man
+      had a claim on him. Lord Elling, however, when he was told of these
+      systematic assaults upon one of his guests, announced his resolve to bring
+      the law into operation. Algernon heard it as the knell to his visit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was too happy, to go away willingly; and the great Jew City of London
+      was exceedingly hot for him at that period; but to stay and risk an
+      exposure of his extinct military career, was not possible. In his despair,
+      he took Mrs. Lovell entirely into his confidence; in doing which, he only
+      filled up the outlines of what she already knew concerning Edward. He was
+      too useful to the lady for her to afford to let him go. No other youth
+      called her &ldquo;angel&rdquo; for listening complacently to strange stories of men
+      and their dilemmas; no one fetched and carried for her like Algernon; and
+      she was a woman who cherished dog-like adoration, and could not part with
+      it. She had also the will to reward it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At her intercession, Robert was spared an introduction to the magistrates.
+      She made light of his misdemeanours, assuring everybody that so splendid a
+      horseman deserved to be dealt with differently from other offenders. The
+      gentlemen who waited upon Farmer Eccles went in obedience to her orders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then came the scene on Ditley Marsh, described to that assembly at the
+      Pilot, by Stephen Bilton, when she perceived that Robert was manageable in
+      silken trammels, and made a bet that she would show him tamed. She won her
+      bet, and saved the gentlemen from soiling their hands, for which they had
+      conceived a pressing necessity, and they thanked her, and paid their money
+      over to Algernon, whom she constituted her treasurer. She was called &ldquo;the
+      man-tamer,&rdquo; gracefully acknowledging the compliment. Colonel Barclay, the
+      moustachioed horseman, who had spoken the few words to Robert in passing,
+      now remarked that there was an end of the military profession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I surrender my sword,&rdquo; he said gallantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another declared that ladies would now act in lieu of causing an appeal to
+      arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Similia similibus, &amp;c.,&rdquo; said Edward. &ldquo;They can, apparently, cure
+      what they originate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, the poor sex!&rdquo; Mrs. Lovell sighed. &ldquo;When we bring the millennium to
+      you, I believe you will still have a word against Eve.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole parade back to the stables was marked by pretty speeches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By Jove! but he ought to have gone down on his knees, like a horse when
+      you've tamed him,&rdquo; said Lord Suckling, the young guardsman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would mark a distinction between a horse and a brave man, Lord
+      Suckling,&rdquo; said the lady; and such was Mrs. Lovell's dignity when an
+      allusion to Robert was forced on her, and her wit and ease were so
+      admirable, that none of those who rode with her thought of sitting in
+      judgement on her conduct. Women can make for themselves new spheres, new
+      laws, if they will assume their right to be eccentric as an unquestionable
+      thing, and always reserve a season for showing forth like the conventional
+      women of society.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The evening was Mrs. Lovell's time for this important re-establishment of
+      her position; and many a silly youth who had sailed pleasantly with her
+      all the day, was wrecked when he tried to carry on the topics where she
+      reigned the lady of the drawing-room. Moreover, not being eccentric from
+      vanity, but simply to accommodate what had once been her tastes, and were
+      now her necessities, she avoided slang, and all the insignia of
+      eccentricity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus she mastered the secret of keeping the young men respectfully
+      enthusiastic; so that their irrepressible praises did not (as is usual
+      when these are in acclamation) drag her to their level; and the female
+      world, with which she was perfectly feminine, and as silkenly insipid
+      every evening of her life as was needed to restore her reputation,
+      admitted that she belonged to it, which is everything to an adventurous
+      spirit of that sex: indeed, the sole secure basis of operations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are aware that men's faith in a woman whom her sisters discountenance,
+      and partially repudiate, is uneasy, however deeply they may be charmed. On
+      the other hand, she maybe guilty of prodigious oddities without much
+      disturbing their reverence, while she is in the feminine circle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what fatal breath was it coming from Mrs. Lovell that was always
+      inflaming men to mutual animosity? What encouragement had she given to
+      Algernon, that Lord Suckling should be jealous of him? And what to Lord
+      Suckling, that Algernon should loathe the sight of the young lord? And why
+      was each desirous of showing his manhood in combat before an eminent
+      peacemaker?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward laughed&mdash;&ldquo;Ah-ha!&rdquo; and rubbed his hands as at a special
+      confirmation of his prophecy, when Algernon came into his room and said,
+      &ldquo;I shall fight that fellow Suckling. Hang me if I can stand his impudence!
+      I want to have a shot at a man of my own set, just to let Peggy Lovell
+      see! I know what she thinks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just to let Mrs. Lovell see!&rdquo; Edward echoed. &ldquo;She has seen it lots of
+      times, my dear Algy. Come; this looks lively. I was sure she would soon be
+      sick of the water-gruel of peace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you she's got nothing to do with it, Ned. Don't be confoundedly
+      unjust. She didn't tell me to go and seek him. How can she help his
+      whispering to her? And then she looks over at me, and I swear I'm not
+      going to be defended by a woman. She must fancy I haven't got the pluck of
+      a flea. I know what her idea of young fellows is. Why, she said to me,
+      when Suckling went off from her, the other day, 'These are our Guards.' I
+      shall fight him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do,&rdquo; said Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you take a challenge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm a lawyer, Mr. Mars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won't take a challenge for a friend, when he's insulted?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reply again, I am a lawyer. But this is what I'll do, if you like. I'll
+      go to Mrs. Lovely and inform her that it is your desire to gain her esteem
+      by fighting with pistols. That will accomplish the purpose you seek. It
+      will possibly disappoint her, for she will have to stop the affair; but
+      women are born to be disappointed&mdash;they want so much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll fight him some way or other,&rdquo; said Algernon, glowering; and then his
+      face became bright: &ldquo;I say, didn't she manage that business beautifully
+      this morning? Not another woman in the world could have done it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Una and the Lion! Mrs. Valentine and Orson! Did you bet with the
+      rest?&rdquo; his cousin asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I lost my tenner; but what's that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There will be an additional five to hand over to the man Sedgett. What's
+      that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, hang it!&rdquo; Algernon shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've paid your ten for the shadow cheerfully. Pay your five for the
+      substance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to say that Sedgett&mdash;&rdquo; Algernon stared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miracles, if you come to examine them, Algy, have generally had a pathway
+      prepared for them; and the miracle of the power of female persuasion
+      exhibited this morning was not quite independent of the preliminary agency
+      of a scoundrel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that's why you didn't bet.&rdquo; Algernon signified the opening of his
+      intelligence with his eyelids, pronouncing &ldquo;by jingos&rdquo; and &ldquo;by Joves,&rdquo; to
+      ease the sudden rush of ideas within him. &ldquo;You might have let me into the
+      secret, Ned. I'd lose any number of tens to Peggy Lovell, but a fellow
+      don't like to be in the dark.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except, Algy, that when you carry light, you're a general illuminator.
+      Let the matter drop. Sedgett has saved you from annoyance. Take him his
+      five pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Annoyance be hanged, my good Ned!&rdquo; Algernon was aroused to reply. &ldquo;I
+      don't complain, and I've done my best to stand in front of you; and as
+      you've settled the fellow, I say nothing; but, between us two, who's the
+      guilty party, and who's the victim?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn't he tell you he had you in his power?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't remember that he did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I heard him. The sturdy cur refused to be bribed, so there was only
+      one way of quieting him; and you see what a thrashing does for that sort
+      of beast. I, Algy, never abandon a friend; mark that. Take the five pounds
+      to Sedgett.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon strode about the room. &ldquo;First of all, you stick me up in a
+      theatre, so that I'm seen with a girl; and then you get behind me, and let
+      me be pelted,&rdquo; he began grumbling. &ldquo;And ask a fellow for money, who hasn't
+      a farthing! I shan't literally have a farthing till that horse
+      'Templemore' runs; and then, by George! I'll pay my debts. Jews are awful
+      things!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much do you require at present?&rdquo; said Edward, provoking his appetite
+      for a loan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, fifty&mdash;that is, just now. More like a thousand when I get to
+      town. And where it's to come from! but never mind. 'Pon my soul, I pity
+      the fox I run down here. I feel I'm exactly in his case in London.
+      However, if I can do you any service, Ned&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward laughed. &ldquo;You might have done me the service of not excusing
+      yourself to the squire when he came here, in such a way as to implicate
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I was so tremendously badgered, Ned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had a sort of gratification in letting the squire crow over his
+      brother. And he did crow for a time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On my honour, Ned, as to crowing! he went away cursing at me. Peggy
+      Lovell managed it somehow for you. I was really awfully badgered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but you know what a man my father is. He hasn't the squire's
+      philosophy in those affairs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Pon my soul, Mr. Ned, I never guessed it before; but I rather fancy you
+      got clear with Sir Billy the banker by washing in my basin&mdash;eh, did
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward looked straight at his cousin, saying, &ldquo;You deserved worse than
+      that. You were treacherous. You proved you were not to be trusted; and
+      yet, you see, I trust you. Call it my folly. Of course (and I don't mind
+      telling you) I used my wits to turn the point of the attack. I may be what
+      they call unscrupulous when I'm surprised. I have to look to money as well
+      as you; and if my father thought it went in a&mdash;what he considers&mdash;wrong
+      direction, the source would be choked by paternal morality. You betrayed
+      me. Listen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you, Ned, I merely said to my governor&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen to me. You betrayed me. I defended myself; that is, I've managed
+      so that I may still be of service to you. It was a near shave; but you now
+      see the value of having a character with one's father. Just open my
+      writing-desk there, and toss out the cheque-book. I confess I can't see
+      why you should have objected&mdash;but let that pass. How much do you
+      want? Fifty? Say forty-five, and five I'll give you to pay to Sedgett&mdash;making
+      fifty. Eighty before, and fifty&mdash;one hundred and thirty. Write that
+      you owe me that sum, on a piece of paper. I can't see why you should wish
+      to appear so uncommonly virtuous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon scribbled the written acknowledgment, which he despised himself
+      for giving, and the receiver for taking, but was always ready to give for
+      the money, and said, as he put the cheque in his purse: &ldquo;It was this
+      infernal fellow completely upset me. If you were worried by a bull-dog, by
+      Jove, Ned, you'd lose your coolness. He bothered my head off. Ask me now,
+      and I'll do anything on earth for you. My back's broad. Sir Billy can't
+      think worse of me than he does. Do you want to break positively with that
+      pretty rival to Peggy L.? I've got a scheme to relieve you, my poor old
+      Ned, and make everybody happy. I'll lay the foundations of a fresh and
+      brilliant reputation for myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon took a chair. Edward was fathoms deep in his book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The former continued: &ldquo;I'd touch on the money-question last, with any
+      other fellow than you; but you always know that money's the hinge, and
+      nothing else lifts a man out of a scrape. It costs a stiff pull on your
+      banker, and that reminds me, you couldn't go to Sir Billy for it; you'd
+      have to draw in advance, by degrees anyhow, look here:&mdash;There are
+      lots of young farmers who want to emigrate and want wives and money. I
+      know one. It's no use going into particulars, but it's worth thinking
+      over. Life is made up of mutual help, Ned. You can help another fellow
+      better than yourself. As for me, when I'm in a hobble, I give you my word
+      of honour, I'm just like a baby, and haven't an idea at my own disposal.
+      The same with others. You can't manage without somebody's assistance. What
+      do you say, old boy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward raised his head from his book. &ldquo;Some views of life deduced from
+      your private experience?&rdquo; he observed; and Algernon cursed at book-worms,
+      who would never take hints, and left him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when he was by himself, Edward pitched his book upon the floor and sat
+      reflecting. The sweat started on his forehead. He was compelled to look
+      into his black volume and study it. His desire was to act humanely and
+      generously; but the question inevitably recurred: &ldquo;How can I utterly dash
+      my prospects in the world?&rdquo; It would be impossible to bring Dahlia to
+      great houses; and he liked great houses and the charm of mixing among
+      delicately-bred women. On the other hand, lawyers have married beneath
+      them&mdash;married cooks, housemaids, governesses, and so forth. And what
+      has a lawyer to do with a dainty lady, who will constantly distract him
+      with finicking civilities and speculations in unprofitable regions? What
+      he does want is a woman amiable as a surface of parchment, serviceable as
+      his inkstand; one who will be like the wig in which he closes his forensic
+      term, disreputable from overwear, but suited to the purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! if I meant to be nothing but a lawyer!&rdquo; Edward stopped the flow of
+      this current in Dahlia's favour. His passion for her was silent. Was it
+      dead? It was certainly silent. Since Robert had come down to play his wild
+      game of persecution at Fairly, the simple idea of Dahlia had been Edward's
+      fever. He detested brute force, with a finely-witted man's full loathing;
+      and Dahlia's obnoxious champion had grown to be associated in his mind
+      with Dahlia. He swept them both from his recollection abhorrently, for in
+      his recollection he could not divorce them. He pretended to suppose that
+      Dahlia, whose only reproach to him was her suffering, participated in the
+      scheme to worry him. He could even forget her beauty&mdash;forget all,
+      save the unholy fetters binding him. She seemed to imprison him in bare
+      walls. He meditated on her character. She had no strength. She was timid,
+      comfort-loving, fond of luxury, credulous, preposterously conventional;
+      that is, desirous more than the ordinary run of women of being hedged
+      about and guarded by ceremonies&mdash;&ldquo;mere ceremonies,&rdquo; said Edward,
+      forgetting the notion he entertained of women not so protected. But it may
+      be, that in playing the part of fool and coward, we cease to be mindful of
+      the absolute necessity for sheltering the weak from that monstrous allied
+      army, the cowards and the fools. He admitted even to himself that he had
+      deceived her, at the same time denouncing her unheard-of capacity of
+      belief, which had placed him in a miserable hobble, and that was the
+      truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, men confessing themselves in a miserable hobble, and knowing they are
+      guilty of the state of things lamented by them, intend to drown that part
+      of their nature which disturbs them by its outcry. The submission to a
+      tangle that could be cut through instantaneously by any exertion of a
+      noble will, convicts them. They had better not confide, even to their
+      secret hearts, that they are afflicted by their conscience and the
+      generosity of their sentiments, for it will be only to say that these high
+      qualities are on the failing side. Their inclination, under the
+      circumstances, is generally base, and no less a counsellor than
+      uncorrupted common sense, when they are in such a hobble, will sometimes
+      advise them to be base. But, in admitting the plea which common sense puts
+      forward on their behalf, we may fairly ask them to be masculine in their
+      baseness. Or, in other words, since they must be selfish, let them be so
+      without the poltroonery of selfishness. Edward's wish was to be perfectly
+      just, as far as he could be now&mdash;just to himself as well; for how was
+      he to prove of worth and aid to any one depending on him, if he stood
+      crippled? Just, also, to his family; to his possible posterity; and just
+      to Dahlia. His task was to reconcile the variety of justness due upon all
+      sides. The struggle, we will assume, was severe, for he thought so; he
+      thought of going to Dahlia and speaking the word of separation; of going
+      to her family and stating his offence, without personal exculpation; thus
+      masculine in baseness, he was in idea; but poltroonery triumphed, the
+      picture of himself facing his sin and its victims dismayed him, and his
+      struggle ended in his considering as to the fit employment of one thousand
+      pounds in his possession, the remainder of a small legacy, hitherto much
+      cherished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A day later, Mrs. Lovell said to him: &ldquo;Have you heard of that unfortunate
+      young man? I am told that he lies in great danger from a blow on the back
+      of his head. He looked ill when I saw him, and however mad he may be, I'm
+      sorry harm should have come to one who is really brave. Gentle means are
+      surely best. It is so with horses, it must be so with men. As to women, I
+      don't pretend to unriddle them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentle means are decidedly best,&rdquo; said Edward, perceiving that her little
+      dog Algy had carried news to her, and that she was setting herself to
+      fathom him. &ldquo;You gave an eminent example of it yesterday. I was so sure of
+      the result that I didn't bet against you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not have backed me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The hard young legal face withstood the attack of her soft blue eyes, out
+      of which a thousand needles flew, seeking a weak point in the mask.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The compliment was, to incite you to a superhuman effort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why not pay the compliment?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never pay compliments to transparent merit; I do not hold candles to
+      lamps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And as gentle means are so admirable, it would be as well to stop
+      incision and imbruing between those two boys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which?&rdquo; she asked innocently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suckling and Algy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it possible? They are such boys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly of the kind to do it. Don't you know?&rdquo; and Edward explained
+      elaborately and cruelly the character of the boys who rushed into
+      conflicts. Colour deep as evening red confused her cheeks, and she said,
+      &ldquo;We must stop them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas!&rdquo; he shook his head; &ldquo;if it's not too late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It never is too late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps not, when the embodiment of gentle means is so determined.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come; I believe they are in the billiard room now, and you shall see,&rdquo;
+       she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pair were found in the billiard room, even as a pair of terriers that
+      remember a bone. Mrs. Lovell proposed a game, and offered herself for
+      partner to Lord Suckling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Till total defeat do us part,&rdquo; the young nobleman acquiesced; and total
+      defeat befell them. During the play of the balls, Mrs. Lovell threw a
+      jealous intentness of observation upon all the strokes made by Algernon;
+      saying nothing, but just looking at him when he did a successful thing.
+      She winked at some quiet stately betting that went on between him and Lord
+      Suckling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were at first preternaturally polite and formal toward one another;
+      by degrees, the influence at work upon them was manifested in a thaw of
+      their stiff demeanour, and they fell into curt dialogues, which Mrs.
+      Lovell gave herself no concern to encourage too early.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward saw, and was astonished himself to feel that she had ceased to
+      breathe that fatal inciting breath, which made men vindictively emulous of
+      her favour, and mad to match themselves for a claim to the chief smile. No
+      perceptible change was displayed. She was Mrs. Lovell still; vivacious and
+      soft; flame-coloured, with the arrowy eyelashes; a pleasant companion, who
+      did not play the woman obtrusively among men, and show a thirst for
+      homage. All the difference appeared to be, that there was an absence as of
+      some evil spiritual emanation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here a thought crossed him&mdash;one of the memorable little
+      evanescent thoughts which sway us by our chance weakness; &ldquo;Does she think
+      me wanting in physical courage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, though the difference between them had been owing to a scornful
+      remark that she had permitted herself to utter, on his refusal to accept a
+      quarrel with one of her numerous satellites, his knowledge of her worship
+      of brains, and his pride in his possession of the burdensome weight, had
+      quite precluded his guessing that she might haply suppose him to be
+      deficient in personal bravery. He was astounded by the reflection that she
+      had thus misjudged him. It was distracting; sober-thoughted as he was by
+      nature. He watched the fair simplicity of her new manner with a jealous
+      eye. Her management of the two youths was exquisite; but to him, Edward,
+      she had never condescended to show herself thus mediating and amiable.
+      Why? Clearly, because she conceived that he had no virile fire in his
+      composition. Did the detestable little devil think silly duelling a
+      display of valour? Did the fair seraph think him anything less than a man?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How beautifully hung the yellow loop of her hair as she leaned over the
+      board! How gracious she was and like a Goddess with these boys, as he
+      called them! She rallied her partner, not letting him forget that he had
+      the honour of being her partner; while she appeared envious of Algernon's
+      skill, and talked to both and got them upon common topics, and laughed,
+      and was like a fair English flower of womanhood; nothing deadly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, Algy; you have beaten us. I don't think I'll have Lord Suckling
+      for my partner any more,&rdquo; she said, putting up her wand, and pouting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't bear malice?&rdquo; said Algernon, revived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is my hand. Now you must play a game alone with Lord Suckling, and
+      beat him; mind you beat him, or it will redound to my discredit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With which, she and Edward left them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Algy was a little crestfallen, and no wonder,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He is soon set
+      up again. They will be good friends now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't it odd, that they should be ready to risk their lives for trifles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus Edward tempted her to discuss the subject which he had in his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt intuitively the trap in his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, yes,&rdquo; she replied; &ldquo;it must be because they know their lives are not
+      precious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So utterly at her mercy had he fallen, that her pronunciation of that word
+      &ldquo;precious&rdquo; carried a severe sting to him, and it was not spoken with
+      peculiar emphasis; on the contrary, she wished to indicate that she was of
+      his way of thinking, as regarded this decayed method of settling disputes.
+      He turned to leave her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You go to your Adeline, I presume,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! that reminds me. I have never thanked you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my good services? such as they are. Sir William will be very happy,
+      and it was for him, a little more than for you, that I went out of my way
+      to be a matchmaker.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was her character, of course, that struck you as being so eminently
+      suited to mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can I tell what is the character of a girl? She is mild and shy, and
+      extremely gentle. In all probability she has a passion for battles and
+      bloodshed. I judged from your father's point of view. She has money, and
+      you are to have money; and the union of money and money is supposed to be
+      a good thing. And besides, you are variable, and off to-morrow what you
+      are on to-day; is it not so? and heiresses are never jilted. Colonel
+      Barclay is only awaiting your retirement. Le roi est mort; vive le roi!
+      Heiresses may cry it like kingdoms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought,&rdquo; said Edward, meaningly, &ldquo;the colonel had better taste.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you not know that my friends are my friends because they are not
+      allowed to dream they will do anything else? If they are taken poorly, I
+      commend them to a sea-voyage&mdash;Africa, the North-West Passage, the
+      source of the Nile. Men with their vanity wounded may discover wonders!
+      They return friendly as before, whether they have done the Geographical
+      Society a service or not. That is, they generally do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I begin to fancy I must try those latitudes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! you are my relative.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He scarcely knew that he had uttered &ldquo;Margaret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She replied to it frankly, &ldquo;Yes, Cousin Ned. You have made the voyage, you
+      see, and have come back friends with me. The variability of opals! Ah! Sir
+      John, you join us in season. We were talking of opals. Is the opal a gem
+      that stands to represent women?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir John Capes smoothed his knuckles with silken palms, and with courteous
+      antique grin, responded, &ldquo;It is a gem I would never dare to offer to a
+      lady's acceptance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is by repute unlucky; so you never can have done so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exquisite!&rdquo; exclaimed the veteran in smiles, &ldquo;if what you deign to imply
+      were only true!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They entered the drawing-room among the ladies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward whispered in Mrs. Lovell's ear, &ldquo;He is in need of the voyage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is very near it,&rdquo; she answered in the same key, and swam into general
+      conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her cold wit, Satanic as the gleam of it struck through his mind, gave him
+      a throb of desire to gain possession of her, and crush her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The writing of a letter to Dahlia had previously been attempted and
+      abandoned as a sickening task. Like an idle boy with his holiday
+      imposition, Edward shelved it among the nightmares, saying, &ldquo;How can I sit
+      down and lie to her!&rdquo; and thinking that silence would prepare her bosom
+      for the coming truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silence is commonly the slow poison used by those who mean to murder love.
+      There is nothing violent about it; no shock is given; Hope is not abruptly
+      strangled, but merely dreams of evil, and fights with gradually stifling
+      shadows. When the last convulsions come they are not terrific; the frame
+      has been weakened for dissolution; love dies like natural decay. It seems
+      the kindest way of doing a cruel thing. But Dahlia wrote, crying out her
+      agony at the torture. Possibly your nervously organized natures require a
+      modification of the method.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward now found himself able to conduct a correspondence. He despatched
+      the following:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;My Dear Dahlia,&mdash;Of course I cannot expect you to be aware of the
+   bewildering occupations of a country house, where a man has
+   literally not five minutes' time to call his own; so I pass by your
+   reproaches. My father has gone at last. He has manifested an
+   extraordinary liking for my society, and I am to join him elsewhere
+   &mdash;perhaps run over to Paris (your city)&mdash;but at present for a few
+   days I am my own master, and the first thing I do is to attend to
+   your demands: not to write 'two lines,' but to give you a good long
+   letter.
+
+   &ldquo;What on earth makes you fancy me unwell? You know I am never
+   unwell. And as to your nursing me&mdash;when has there ever been any
+   need for it?
+
+   &ldquo;You must positively learn patience. I have been absent a week or
+   so, and you talk of coming down here and haunting the house! Such
+   ghosts as you meet with strange treatment when they go about
+   unprotected, let me give you warning. You have my full permission
+   to walk out in the Parks for exercise. I think you are bound to do
+   it, for your health's sake.
+
+   &ldquo;Pray discontinue that talk about the alteration in your looks. You
+   must learn that you are no longer a child. Cease to write like a
+   child. If people stare at you, as you say, you are very well aware
+   it is not because you are becoming plain. You do not mean it, I
+   know; but there is a disingenuousness in remarks of this sort that
+   is to me exceedingly distasteful. Avoid the shadow of hypocrisy.
+   Women are subject to it&mdash;and it is quite innocent, no doubt. I
+   won't lecture you.
+
+   &ldquo;My cousin Algernon is here with me. He has not spoken of your
+   sister. Your fears in that direction are quite unnecessary. He is
+   attached to a female cousin of ours, a very handsome person, witty,
+   and highly sensible, who dresses as well as the lady you talk about
+   having seen one day in Wrexby Church. Her lady's-maid is a
+   Frenchwoman, which accounts for it. You have not forgotten the
+   boulevards?
+
+   &ldquo;I wish you to go on with your lessons in French. Educate yourself,
+   and you will rise superior to these distressing complaints. I
+   recommend you to read the newspapers daily. Buy nice picture-books,
+   if the papers are too matter-of-fact for you. By looking eternally
+   inward, you teach yourself to fret, and the consequence is, or will
+   be, that you wither. No constitution can stand it. All the ladies
+   here take an interest in Parliamentary affairs. They can talk to
+   men upon men's themes. It is impossible to explain to you how
+   wearisome an everlasting nursery prattle becomes. The idea that men
+   ought never to tire of it is founded on some queer belief that they
+   are not mortal.
+
+   &ldquo;Parliament opens in February. My father wishes me to stand for
+   Selborough. If he or some one will do the talking to the tradesmen,
+   and provide the beer and the bribes, I have no objection. In that
+   case my Law goes to the winds. I'm bound to make a show of
+   obedience, for he has scarcely got over my summer's trip. He holds
+   me a prisoner to him for heaven knows how long&mdash;it may be months.
+
+   &ldquo;As for the heiress whom he has here to make a match for me, he and
+   I must have a pitched battle about her by and by. At present my
+   purse insists upon my not offending him. When will old men
+   understand young ones? I burn your letters, and beg you to follow
+   the example. Old letters are the dreariest ghosts in the world, and
+   you cannot keep more treacherous rubbish in your possession. A
+   discovery would exactly ruin me.
+
+   &ldquo;Your purchase of a black-velvet bonnet with pink ribands, was very
+   suitable. Or did you write 'blue' ribands? But your complexion can
+   bear anything.
+
+   &ldquo;You talk of being annoyed when you walk out. Remember, that no
+   woman who knows at all how to conduct herself need for one moment
+   suffer annoyance.
+
+   &ldquo;What is the 'feeling' you speak of? I cannot conceive any
+   'feeling' that should make you helpless when you consider that you
+   are insulted. There are women who have natural dignity, and women
+   who have none.
+
+   &ldquo;You ask the names of the gentlemen here:&mdash;Lord Carey, Lord Wippern
+   (both leave to-morrow), Sir John Capes, Colonel Barclay, Lord
+   Suckling. The ladies:&mdash;Mrs. Gosling, Miss Gosling, Lady Carey.
+   Mrs. Anybody&mdash;to any extent.
+
+   &ldquo;They pluck hen's feathers all day and half the night. I see them
+   out, and make my bow to the next batch of visitors, and then I don't
+   know where I am.
+
+   &ldquo;Read poetry, if it makes up for my absence, as you say. Repeat it
+   aloud, minding the pulsation of feet. Go to the theatre now and
+   then, and take your landlady with you. If she's a cat, fit one of
+   your dresses on the servant-girl, and take her. You only want a
+   companion&mdash;a dummy will do. Take a box and sit behind the curtain,
+   back to the audience.
+
+   &ldquo;I wrote to my wine-merchant to send Champagne and Sherry. I hope
+   he did: the Champagne in pints and half-pints; if not, return them
+   instantly. I know how Economy, sitting solitary, poor thing, would
+   not dare to let the froth of a whole pint bottle fly out.
+
+   &ldquo;Be an obedient girl and please me.
+
+          &ldquo;Your stern tutor,
+
+             &ldquo;Edward the First.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      He read this epistle twice over to satisfy himself that it was a warm
+      effusion, and not too tender; and it satisfied him. By a stretch of
+      imagination, he could feel that it represented him to her as in a higher
+      atmosphere, considerate for her, and not so intimate that she could deem
+      her spirit to be sharing it. Another dose of silence succeeded this
+      discreet administration of speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia replied with letter upon letter; blindly impassioned, and again
+      singularly cold; but with no reproaches. She was studying, she said. Her
+      head ached a little; only a little. She walked; she read poetry; she
+      begged him to pardon her for not drinking wine. She was glad that he burnt
+      her letters, which were so foolish that if she could have the courage to
+      look at them after they were written, they would never be sent. He was
+      slightly revolted by one exclamation: &ldquo;How ambitious you are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I cannot sit down for life in a London lodging-house!&rdquo; he
+      thought, and eyed her distantly as a poor good creature who had already
+      accepted her distinctive residence in another sphere than his. From such a
+      perception of her humanity, it was natural that his livelier sense of it
+      should diminish. He felt that he had awakened; and he shook her off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now he set to work to subdue Mrs. Lovell. His own subjugation was the
+      first fruit of his effort. It was quite unacknowledged by him: but when
+      two are at this game, the question arises&mdash;&ldquo;Which can live without
+      the other?&rdquo; and horrid pangs smote him to hear her telling musically of
+      the places she was journeying to, the men she would see, and the chances
+      of their meeting again before he was married to the heiress Adeline.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have yet to learn that I am engaged to her,&rdquo; he said. Mrs. Lovell gave
+      him a fixed look,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has a half-brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stepped away in a fury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Devil!&rdquo; he muttered, absolutely muttered it, knowing that he fooled and
+      frowned like a stage-hero in stagey heroics. &ldquo;You think to hound me into
+      this brutal stupidity of fighting, do you? Upon my honour,&rdquo; he added in
+      his natural manner, &ldquo;I believe she does, though!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the look became his companion. It touched and called up great vanity
+      in his breast, and not till then could he placably confront the look. He
+      tried a course of reading. Every morning he was down in the library,
+      looking old in an arm-chair over his book; an intent abstracted figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovell would enter and eye him carelessly; utter little commonplaces
+      and go forth. The silly words struck on his brain. The book seemed hollow;
+      sounded hollow as he shut it. This woman breathed of active striving life.
+      She was a spur to black energies; a plumed glory; impulsive to chivalry.
+      Everything she said and did held men in scales, and approved or rejected
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Intoxication followed this new conception of her. He lost altogether his
+      right judgement; even the cooler after-thoughts were lost. What sort of
+      man had Harry been, her first husband? A dashing soldier, a quarrelsome
+      duellist, a dull dog. But, dull to her? She, at least, was reverential to
+      the memory of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She lisped now and then of &ldquo;my husband,&rdquo; very prettily, and with intense
+      provocation; and yet she worshipped brains. Evidently she thirsted for
+      that rare union of brains and bravery in a man, and would never surrender
+      till she had discovered it. Perhaps she fancied it did not exist. It might
+      be that she took Edward as the type of brains, and Harry of bravery, and
+      supposed that the two qualities were not to be had actually in
+      conjunction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her admiration of his (Edward's) wit, therefore, only strengthened the
+      idea she entertained of his deficiency in that other companion manly
+      virtue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward must have been possessed, for he ground his teeth villanously in
+      supposing himself the victim of this outrageous suspicion. And how to
+      prove it false? How to prove it false in a civilized age, among
+      sober-living men and women, with whom the violent assertion of bravery
+      would certainly imperil his claim to brains? His head was like a stew-pan
+      over the fire, bubbling endlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He railed at her to Algernon, and astonished the youth, who thought them
+      in a fair way to make an alliance. &ldquo;Milk and capsicums,&rdquo; he called her,
+      and compared her to bloody mustard-haired Saxon Queens of history, and was
+      childishly spiteful. And Mrs. Lovell had it all reported to her, as he
+      was-quite aware.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The woman seeking for an anomaly wants a master.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With this pompous aphorism, he finished his reading of the fair Enigma.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Words big in the mouth serve their turn when there is no way of satisfying
+      the intelligence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To be her master, however, one must not begin by writhing as her slave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The attempt to read an inscrutable woman allows her to dominate us too
+      commandingly. So the lordly mind takes her in a hard grasp, cracks the
+      shell, and drawing forth the kernel, says, &ldquo;This was all the puzzle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Doubtless it is the fate which women like Mrs. Lovell provoke. The truth
+      was, that she could read a character when it was under her eyes; but its
+      yesterday and to-morrow were a blank. She had no imaginative hold on
+      anything. For which reason she was always requiring tangible signs of
+      virtues that she esteemed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thirst for the shows of valour and wit was insane with her; but she
+      asked for nothing that she herself did not give in abundance, and with
+      beauty super-added. Her propensity to bet sprang of her passion for
+      combat; she was not greedy of money, or reckless in using it; but a
+      difference of opinion arising, her instinct forcibly prompted her to back
+      her own. If the stake was the risk of a lover's life, she was ready to put
+      down the stake, and would have marvelled contemptuously at the lover
+      complaining. &ldquo;Sheep! sheep!&rdquo; she thought of those who dared not fight, and
+      had a wavering tendency to affix the epithet to those who simply did not
+      fight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Withal, Mrs. Lovell was a sensible person; clearheaded and shrewd;
+      logical, too, more than the run of her sex: I may say, profoundly
+      practical. So much so, that she systematically reserved the after-years
+      for enlightenment upon two or three doubts of herself, which struck her in
+      the calm of her spirit, from time to time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;France,&rdquo; Edward called her, in one of their colloquies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was an illuminating title. She liked the French (though no one was
+      keener for the honour of her own country in opposition to them), she liked
+      their splendid boyishness, their unequalled devotion, their merciless
+      intellects; the oneness of the nation when the sword is bare and pointing
+      to chivalrous enterprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She liked their fine varnish of sentiment, which appears so much on the
+      surface that Englishmen suppose it to have nowhere any depth; as if the
+      outer coating must necessarily exhaust the stock, or as if what is at the
+      source of our being can never be made visible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had her imagination of them as of a streaming banner in the jaws of
+      storm, with snows among the cloud-rents and lightning in the chasms:&mdash;which
+      image may be accounted for by the fact that when a girl she had in
+      adoration kissed the feet of Napoleon, the giant of the later ghosts of
+      history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a princely compliment. She received it curtseying, and disarmed the
+      intended irony. In reply, she called him &ldquo;Great Britain.&rdquo; I regret to say
+      that he stood less proudly for his nation. Indeed, he flushed. He
+      remembered articles girding at the policy of peace at any price, and half
+      felt that Mrs. Lovell had meant to crown him with a Quaker's hat. His
+      title fell speedily into disuse; but, &ldquo;Yes, France,&rdquo; and &ldquo;No, France,&rdquo;
+       continued, his effort being to fix the epithet to frivolous allusions,
+      from which her ingenuity rescued it honourably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had she ever been in love? He asked her the question. She stabbed him with
+      so straightforward an affirmative that he could not conceal the wound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I not been married?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He began to experience the fretful craving to see the antecedents of the
+      torturing woman spread out before him. He conceived a passion for her
+      girlhood. He begged for portraits of her as a girl. She showed him the
+      portrait of Harry Lovell in a locket. He held the locket between his
+      fingers. Dead Harry was kept very warm. Could brains ever touch her
+      emotions as bravery had done?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are the brains I boast of?&rdquo; he groaned, in the midst of these
+      sensational extravagances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lull of action was soon to be disturbed. A letter was brought to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He opened it and read&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Mr. Edward Blancove,&mdash;When you rode by me under Fairly Park, I did
+   not know you. I can give you a medical certificate that since then
+   I have been in the doctor's hands. I know you now. I call upon you
+   to meet me, with what weapons you like best, to prove that you are
+   not a midnight assassin. The place shall be where you choose to
+   appoint. If you decline I will make you publicly acknowledge what
+   you have done. If you answer, that I am not a gentleman and you are
+   one, I say that you have attacked me in the dark, when I was on
+   horseback, and you are now my equal, if I like to think so. You
+   will not talk about the law after that night. The man you employed
+   I may punish or I may leave, though he struck the blow. But I will
+   meet you. To-morrow, a friend of mine, who is a major in the army,
+   will be down here, and will call on you from me; or on any friend of
+   yours you are pleased to name. I will not let you escape. Whether
+   I shall face a guilty man in you, God knows; but I know I have a
+   right to call upon you to face me.
+
+          &ldquo;I am, Sir,
+
+             &ldquo;Yours truly,
+
+               &ldquo;Robert Eccles.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Edward's face grew signally white over the contents of this unprecedented
+      challenge. The letter had been brought in to him at the breakfast table.
+      &ldquo;Read it, read it,&rdquo; said Mrs. Lovell, seeing him put it by; and he had
+      read it with her eyes on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man seemed to him a man of claws, who clutched like a demon. Would
+      nothing quiet him? Edward thought of bribes for the sake of peace; but a
+      second glance at the letter assured his sagacious mind that bribes were
+      powerless in this man's case; neither bribes nor sticks were of service.
+      Departure from Fairly would avail as little: the tenacious devil would
+      follow him to London; and what was worse, as a hound from Dahlia's family
+      he was now on the right scent, and appeared to know that he was. How was a
+      scandal to be avoided? By leaving Fairly instantly for any place on earth,
+      he could not avoid leaving the man behind; and if the man saw Mrs. Lovell
+      again, her instincts as a woman of her class were not to be trusted. As
+      likely as not she would side with the ruffian; that is, she would think he
+      had been wronged&mdash;perhaps think that he ought to have been met. There
+      is the democratic virus secret in every woman; it was predominant in Mrs.
+      Lovell, according to Edward's observation of the lady. The rights of
+      individual manhood were, as he angrily perceived, likely to be recognized
+      by her spirit, if only they were stoutly asserted; and that in defiance of
+      station, of reason, of all the ideas inculcated by education and society.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe she'll expect me to fight him,&rdquo; he exclaimed. At least, he knew
+      she would despise him if he avoided the brutal challenge without some show
+      of dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On rising from the table, he drew Algernon aside. It was an insufferable
+      thought that he was compelled to take his brainless cousin into his
+      confidence, even to the extent of soliciting his counsel, but there was no
+      help for it. In vain Edward asked himself why he had been such an idiot as
+      to stain his hands with the affair at all. He attributed it to his regard
+      for Algernon. Having commonly the sway of his passions, he was in the
+      habit of forgetting that he ever lost control of them; and the fierce
+      black mood, engendered by Robert's audacious persecution, had passed from
+      his memory, though it was now recalled in full force.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See what a mess you drag a man into,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon read a line of the letter. &ldquo;Oh, confound this infernal fellow!&rdquo;
+       he shouted, in sickly wonderment; and snapped sharp, &ldquo;drag you into the
+      mess? Upon my honour, your coolness, Ned, is the biggest part about you,
+      if it isn't the best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward's grip fixed on him, for they were only just out of earshot of Mrs.
+      Lovell. They went upstairs, and Algernon read the letter through.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Midnight assassin,'&rdquo; he repeated; &ldquo;by Jove! how beastly that sounds.
+      It's a lie that you attacked him in the dark, Ned&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not attack him at all,&rdquo; said Edward. &ldquo;He behaved like a ruffian to
+      you, and deserved shooting like a mad dog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you, though,&rdquo; Algernon persisted in questioning, despite his cousin's
+      manifest shyness of the subject &ldquo;did you really go out with that man
+      Sedgett, and stop this fellow on horseback? He speaks of a blow. You
+      didn't strike him, did you, Ned? I mean, not a hit, except in
+      self-defence?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward bit his lip, and shot a level reflective side-look, peculiar to him
+      when meditating. He wished his cousin to propose that Mrs. Lovell should
+      see the letter. He felt that by consulting with her, he could bring her to
+      apprehend the common sense of the position, and be so far responsible for
+      what he might do, that she would not dare to let her heart be rebellious
+      toward him subsequently. If he himself went to her it would look too much
+      like pleading for her intercession. The subtle directness of the woman's
+      spirit had to be guarded against at every point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He replied to Algernon,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I did was on your behalf. Oblige me by not interrogating me. I give
+      you my positive assurance that I encouraged no unmanly assault on him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That'll do, that'll do,&rdquo; said Algernon, eager not to hear more, lest
+      there should come an explanation of what he had heard. &ldquo;Of course, then,
+      this fellow has no right&mdash;the devil's in him! If we could only make
+      him murder Sedgett and get hanged for it! He's got a friend who's a major
+      in the army? Oh, come, I say; this is pitching it too stiff. I shall
+      insist upon seeing his commission. Really, Ned, I can't advise. I'll stand
+      by you, that you may be sure of&mdash;stand by you; but what the deuce to
+      say to help you! Go before the magistrate.... Get Lord Elling to issue a
+      warrant to prevent a breach of the peace. No; that won't do. This quack of
+      a major in the army's to call to-morrow. I don't mind, if he shows his
+      credentials all clear, amusing him in any manner he likes. I can't see the
+      best scheme. Hang it, Ned, it's very hard upon me to ask me to do the
+      thinking. I always go to Peggy Lovell when I'm bothered. There&mdash;Mrs.
+      Lovell! Mistress Lovell! Madame! my Princess Lovell, if you want me to
+      pronounce respectable titles to her name. You're too proud to ask a woman
+      to help you, ain't you, Ned?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Edward, mildly. &ldquo;In some cases their wits are keen enough. One
+      doesn't like to drag her into such a business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hm,&rdquo; went Algernon. &ldquo;I don't think she's so innocent of it as you fancy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's very clever,&rdquo; said Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's awfully clever!&rdquo; cried Algernon. He paused to give room for more
+      praises of her, and then pursued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's so kind. That's what you don't credit her for. I'll go and consult
+      her, if positively you don't mind. Trust her for keeping it quiet. Come,
+      Ned, she's sure to hit upon the right thing. May I go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's your affair, more than mine,&rdquo; said Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have it so, if you like,&rdquo; returned the good-natured fellow. &ldquo;It's worth
+      while consulting her, just to see how neatly she'll take it. Bless your
+      heart, she won't know a bit more than you want her to know. I'm off to her
+      now.&rdquo; He carried away the letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward's own practical judgement would have advised his instantly sending
+      a short reply to Robert, explaining that he was simply in conversation
+      with the man Sedgett, when Robert, the old enemy of the latter, rode by,
+      and, that while regretting Sedgett's proceedings, he could not be held
+      accountable for them. But it was useless to think of acting in accordance
+      with his reason. Mrs. Lovell was queen, and sat in reason's place. It was
+      absolutely necessary to conciliate her approbation of his conduct in this
+      dilemma, by submitting to the decided unpleasantness of talking with her
+      on a subject that fevered him, and of allowing her to suppose he required
+      the help of her sagacity. Such was the humiliation imposed upon him.
+      Further than this he had nothing to fear, for no woman could fail to be
+      overborne by the masculine force of his brain in an argument. The
+      humiliation was bad enough, and half tempted him to think that his old
+      dream of working as a hard student, with fair and gentle Dahlia
+      ministering to his comforts, and too happy to call herself his, was best.
+      Was it not, after one particular step had been taken, the manliest life he
+      could have shaped out? Or did he imagine it so at this moment, because he
+      was a coward, and because pride, and vanity, and ferocity alternately had
+      to screw him up to meet the consequences of his acts, instead of the great
+      heart?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If a coward, Dahlia was his home, his refuge, his sanctuary. Mrs. Lovell
+      was perdition and its scorching fires to a man with a taint of cowardice
+      in him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever he was, Edward's vanity would not permit him to acknowledge
+      himself that. Still, he did not call on his heart to play inspiriting
+      music. His ideas turned to subterfuge. His aim was to keep the good
+      opinion of Mrs. Lovell while he quieted Robert; and he entered straightway
+      upon that very perilous course, the attempt, for the sake of winning her,
+      to bewilder and deceive a woman's instincts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Over a fire in one of the upper sitting-rooms of the Pilot Inn, Robert sat
+      with his friend, the beloved friend of whom he used to speak to Dahlia and
+      Rhoda, too proudly not to seem betraying the weaker point of pride. This
+      friend had accepted the title from a private soldier of his regiment; to
+      be capable of doing which, a man must be both officer and gentleman in a
+      sterner and less liberal sense than is expressed by that everlasting
+      phrase in the mouth of the military parrot. Major Percy Waring, the son of
+      a clergyman, was a working soldier, a slayer, if you will, from pure love
+      of the profession of arms, and all the while the sweetest and gentlest of
+      men. I call him a working soldier in opposition to the parading soldier,
+      the coxcomb in uniform, the hero by accident, and the martial boys of
+      wealth and station, who are of the army of England. He studied war when
+      the trumpet slumbered, and had no place but in the field when it sounded.
+      To him the honour of England was as a babe in his arms: he hugged it like
+      a mother. He knew the military history of every regiment in the service.
+      Disasters even of old date brought groans from him. This enthusiastic face
+      was singularly soft when the large dark eyes were set musing. The cast of
+      it being such, sometimes in speaking of a happy play of artillery upon
+      congregated masses, an odd effect was produced. Ordinarily, the clear
+      features were reflective almost to sadness, in the absence of animation;
+      but an exulting energy for action would now and then light them up.
+      Hilarity of spirit did not belong to him. He was, nevertheless, a cheerful
+      talker, as could be seen in the glad ear given to him by Robert. Between
+      them it was &ldquo;Robert&rdquo; and &ldquo;Percy.&rdquo; Robert had rescued him from drowning on
+      the East Anglian shore, and the friendship which ensued was one chief
+      reason for Robert's quitting the post of trooper and buying himself out.
+      It was against Percy's advice, who wanted to purchase a commission for
+      him; but the humbler man had the sturdy scruples of his rank regarding
+      money, and his romantic illusions being dispersed by an experience of the
+      absolute class-distinctions in the service, Robert; that he might prevent
+      his friend from violating them, made use of his aunt's legacy to obtain
+      release. Since that date they had not met; but their friendship was fast.
+      Percy had recently paid a visit to Queen Anne's Farm, where he had seen
+      Rhoda and heard of Robert's departure. Knowing Robert's birthplace, he had
+      come on to Warbeach, and had seen Jonathan Eccles, who referred him to
+      Mrs. Boulby, licenced seller of brandy, if he wished to enjoy an interview
+      with Robert Eccles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The old man sent up regularly every day to inquire how his son was faring
+      on the road to the next world,&rdquo; said Robert, laughing. &ldquo;He's tough old
+      English oak. I'm just to him what I appear at the time. It's better having
+      him like that than one of your jerky fathers, who seem to belong to the
+      stage of a theatre. Everybody respects my old dad, and I can laugh at what
+      he thinks of me. I've only to let him know I've served an apprenticeship
+      in farming, and can make use of some of his ideas&mdash;sound! every one
+      of 'em; every one of 'em sound! And that I say of my own father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you tell him?&rdquo; Percy asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to forget all about Kent and drown the county,&rdquo; said Robert. &ldquo;And
+      I'm going to, as far as my memory's concerned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Percy waited for some seconds. He comprehended perfectly this state of
+      wilfulness in an uneducated sensitive man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has a steadfast look in her face, Robert. She doesn't look as if she
+      trifled. I've really never seen a finer, franker girl in my life, if faces
+      are to be trusted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's t' other way. There's no trifling in her case. She's frank. She
+      fires at you point blank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You never mentioned her in your letters to me, Robert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I had a suspicion from the first I was going to be a fool about the
+      girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Percy struck his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn't do quite right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you say that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert silenced him with this question, for there was a woman in Percy's
+      antecedent history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The subject being dismissed, they talked more freely. Robert related the
+      tale of Dahlia, and of his doings at Fairly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! we agree,&rdquo; he said, noting a curious smile that Percy could not
+      smooth out of sight. &ldquo;I know it was odd conduct. I do respect my
+      superiors; but, believe me or not, Percy, injury done to a girl makes me
+      mad, and I can't hold back; and she's the sister of the girl you saw. By
+      heaven! if it weren't for my head getting blind now when my blood boils,
+      I've the mind to walk straight up to the house and screw the secret out of
+      one of them. What I say is&mdash;Is there a God up aloft? Then, he sees
+      all, and society is vapour, and while I feel the spirit in me to do it, I
+      go straight at my aim.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If, at the same time, there's no brandy in you,&rdquo; said Percy, &ldquo;which would
+      stop your seeing clear or going straight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The suggestion was a cruel shock. Robert nodded. &ldquo;That's true. I suppose
+      it's my bad education that won't let me keep cool. I'm ashamed of myself
+      after it. I shout and thunder, and the end of it is, I go away and think
+      about the same of Robert Eccles that I've frightened other people into
+      thinking. Perhaps you'll think me to blame in this case? One of those Mr.
+      Blancoves&mdash;not the one you've heard of&mdash;struck me on the field
+      before a lady. I bore it. It was part of what I'd gone out to meet. I was
+      riding home late at night, and he stood at the corner of the lane, with an
+      old enemy of mine, and a sad cur that is! Sedgett's his name&mdash;Nic,
+      the Christian part of it. There'd just come a sharp snowfall from the
+      north, and the moonlight shot over the flying edge of the rear-cloud; and
+      I saw Sedgett with a stick in his hand; but the gentleman had no stick.
+      I'll give Mr. Edward Blancove credit for not meaning to be active in a
+      dastardly assault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why was he in consultation with my enemy? And he let my enemy&mdash;by
+      the way, Percy, you dislike that sort of talk of 'my enemy,' I know. You
+      like it put plain and simple: but down in these old parts again, I catch
+      at old habits; and I'm always a worse man when I haven't seen you for a
+      time. Sedgett, say. Sedgett, as I passed, made a sweep at my horse's
+      knees, and took them a little over the fetlock. The beast reared. While I
+      was holding on he swung a blow at me, and took me here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert touched his head. &ldquo;I dropped like a horse-chestnut from the tree.
+      When I recovered, I was lying in the lane. I think I was there flat, face
+      to the ground, for half an hour, quite sensible, looking at the pretty
+      colour of my blood on the snow. The horse was gone. I just managed to reel
+      along to this place, where there's always a home for me. Now, will you
+      believe it possible? I went out next day: I saw Mr. Edward Blancove, and I
+      might have seen a baby and felt the same to it. I didn't know him a bit.
+      Yesterday morning your letter was sent up from Sutton farm. Somehow, the
+      moment I'd read it, I remembered his face. I sent him word there was a
+      matter to be settled between us. You think I was wrong?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Waring had set a deliberately calculating eye on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to hear more,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think I have no claim to challenge a man in his position?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Answer me first, Robert. You think this Mr. Blancove helped, or
+      instigated this man Sedgett in his attack upon you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't a doubt that he did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not plain evidence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's good circumstantial evidence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At any rate, you are perhaps justified in thinking him capable of this:
+      though the rule is, to believe nothing against a gentleman until it is
+      flatly proved&mdash;when we drum him out of the ranks. But, if you can
+      fancy it true, would you put yourself upon an equal footing with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would,&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you accept his code of morals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's too shrewd for me: but men who preach against duelling, or any
+      kind of man-to-man in hot earnest, always fence in that way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I detest duelling,&rdquo; Major Waring remarked. &ldquo;I don't like a system that
+      permits knaves and fools to exercise a claim to imperil the lives of
+      useful men. Let me observe, that I am not a preacher against it. I think
+      you know my opinions; and they are not quite those of the English
+      magistrate, and other mild persons who are wrathful at the practice upon
+      any pretence. Keep to the other discussion. You challenge a man&mdash;you
+      admit him your equal. But why do I argue with you? I know your mind as
+      well as my own. You have some other idea in the background.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feel that he's the guilty man,&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You feel called upon to punish him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. Wait: he will not fight; but I have him and I'll hold him. I feel
+      he's the man who has injured this girl, by every witness of facts that I
+      can bring together; and as for the other young fellow I led such a dog's
+      life down here, I could beg his pardon. This one's eye met mine. I saw it
+      wouldn't have stopped short of murder&mdash;opportunity given. Why?
+      Because I pressed on the right spring. I'm like a woman in seeing some
+      things. He shall repent. By&mdash;! Slap me on the face, Percy. I've taken
+      to brandy and to swearing. Damn the girl who made me forget good lessons!
+      Bless her heart, I mean. She saw you, did she? Did she colour when she
+      heard your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very much,&rdquo; said Major Waring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was dressed in&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Black, with a crimson ribbon round the collar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert waved the image from his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not going to dream of her. Peace, and babies, and farming, and pride
+      in myself with a woman by my side&mdash;there! You've seen her&mdash;all
+      that's gone. I might as well ask the East wind to blow West. Her face is
+      set the other way. Of course, the nature and value of a man is shown by
+      how he takes this sort of pain; and hark at me! I'm yelling. I thought I
+      was cured. I looked up into the eyes of a lady ten times sweeter&mdash;when?&mdash;somewhen!
+      I've lost dates. But here's the girl at me again. She cuddles into me&mdash;slips
+      her hand into my breast and tugs at strings there. I can't help talking to
+      you about her, now we've got over the first step. I'll soon give it up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She wore a red ribbon? If it had been Spring, you'd have seen roses. Oh!
+      what a stanch heart that girl has. Where she sets it, mind! Her life where
+      that creature sets her heart! But, for me, not a penny of comfort! Now for
+      a whole week of her, day and night, in that black dress with the coloured
+      ribbon. On she goes: walking to church; sitting at table; looking out of
+      the window!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you believe I thought those thick eyebrows of hers ugly once&mdash;a
+      tremendous long time ago. Yes; but what eyes she has under them! And if
+      she looks tender, one corner of her mouth goes quivering; and the eyes are
+      steady, so that it looks like some wonderful bit of mercy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think of that true-hearted creature praying and longing for her sister,
+      and fearing there's shame&mdash;that's why she hates me. I wouldn't say I
+      was certain her sister had not fallen into a pit. I couldn't. I was an
+      idiot. I thought I wouldn't be a hypocrite. I might have said I believed
+      as she did. There she stood ready to be taken&mdash;ready to have given
+      herself to me, if I had only spoken a word! It was a moment of heaven, and
+      God the Father could not give it to me twice The chance has gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! what a miserable mad dog I am to gabble on in this way.&mdash;Come
+      in! come in, mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Boulby entered, with soft footsteps, bearing a letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From the Park,&rdquo; she said, and commenced chiding Robert gently, to
+      establish her right to do it with solemnity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will talk, sir. He's one o' them that either they talk or they hang
+      silent, and no middle way will they take; and the doctor's their foe, and
+      health they despise; and since this cruel blow, obstinacy do seem to have
+      been knocked like a nail into his head so fast, persuasion have not a atom
+      o' power over him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There must be talking when friends meet, ma'am,&rdquo; said Major Waring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; returned the widow, &ldquo;if it wouldn't be all on one side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've done now, mother,&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Boulby retired, and Robert opened the letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It ran thus:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Sir, I am glad you have done me the favour of addressing me
+   temperately, so that I am permitted to clear myself of an unjust and
+   most unpleasant imputation. I will, if you please, see you, or your
+   friend; to whom perhaps I shall better be able to certify how
+   unfounded is the charge you bring against me. I will call upon you
+   at the Pilot Inn, where I hear that you are staying; or, if you
+   prefer it, I will attend to any appointment you may choose to direct
+   elsewhere. But it must be immediate, as the term of my residence in
+   this neighbourhood is limited.
+
+               &ldquo;I am,
+
+                  &ldquo;Sir,
+
+               &ldquo;Yours obediently,
+
+                    &ldquo;Edward Blancove.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Major Waning read the lines with a critical attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems fair and open,&rdquo; was his remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here,&rdquo; Robert struck his breast, &ldquo;here's what answers him. What shall I
+      do? Shall I tell him to come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Write to say that your friend will meet him at a stated place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert saw his prey escaping. &ldquo;I'm not to see him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. The decent is the right way in such cases. You must leave it to me.
+      This will be the proper method between gentlemen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It appears to my idea,&rdquo; said Robert, &ldquo;that gentlemen are always, somehow,
+      stopped from taking the straight-ahead measure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You,&rdquo; Percy rejoined, &ldquo;are like a civilian before a fortress. Either he
+      finds it so easy that he can walk into it, or he gives it up in despair as
+      unassailable. You have followed your own devices, and what have you
+      accomplished?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will lie to you smoothly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Smoothly or not, if I discover that he has spoken falsely, he is
+      answerable to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To me, Percy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; to me. He can elude you; and will be acquitted by the general
+      verdict. But when he becomes answerable to me, his honour, in the
+      conventional, which is here the practical, sense, is at stake, and I have
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see that. Yes; he can refuse to fight me,&rdquo; Robert sighed. &ldquo;Hey, Lord!
+      it's a heavy world when we come to methods. But will you, Percy, will you
+      put it to him at the end of your fist&mdash;'Did you deceive the girl, and
+      do you know where the girl now is?' Why, great heaven! we only ask to know
+      where she is. She may have been murdered. She's hidden from her family.
+      Let him confess, and let him go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Waring shook his head. &ldquo;You see like a woman perhaps, Robert. You
+      certainly talk like a woman. I will state your suspicions. When I have
+      done so, I am bound to accept his reply. If we discover it to have been
+      false, I have my remedy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won't you perceive, that it isn't my object to punish him by and by, but
+      to tear the secret out of him on the spot&mdash;now&mdash;instantly,&rdquo;
+       Robert cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I perceive your object, and you have experienced some of the results of
+      your system. It's the primitive action of an appeal to the god of combats,
+      that is exploded in these days. You have no course but to take his word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She said&rdquo;&mdash;Robert struck his knee&mdash;&ldquo;she said I should have the
+      girl's address. She said she would see her. She pledged that to me. I'm
+      speaking of the lady up at Fairly. Come! things get clearer. If she knows
+      where Dahlia is, who told her? This Mr. Algernon&mdash;not Edward Blancove&mdash;was
+      seen with Dahlia in a box at the Playhouse. He was there with Dahlia, yet
+      I don't think him the guilty man. There's a finger of light upon that
+      other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is this lady?&rdquo; Major Waring asked, with lifted eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Lovell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the name, Major Waring sat stricken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lovell!&rdquo; he repeated, under his breath. &ldquo;Lovell! Was she ever in India?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know, indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she a widow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay; that I've heard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Describe her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert entered upon the task with a dozen headlong exclamations, and very
+      justly concluded by saying that he could give no idea of her; but his
+      friend apparently had gleaned sufficient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Waring's face was touched by a strange pallor, and his smile had
+      vanished. He ran his fingers through his hair, clutching it in a knot, as
+      he sat eyeing the red chasm in the fire, where the light of old days and
+      wild memories hangs as in a crumbling world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert was aware of there being a sadness in Percy's life, and that he had
+      loved a woman and awakened from his passion. Her name was unknown to him.
+      In that matter, his natural delicacy and his deference to Percy had always
+      checked him from sounding the subject closely. He might be, as he had
+      said, keen as a woman where his own instincts were in action; but they
+      were ineffective in guessing at the cause for Percy's sudden depression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She said&mdash;this lady, Mrs. Lovell, whoever she may be&mdash;she said
+      you should have the girl's address:&mdash;gave you that pledge of her
+      word?&rdquo; Percy spoke, half meditating. &ldquo;How did this happen? When did you
+      see her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert related the incident of his meeting with her, and her effort to be
+      a peacemaker, but made no allusion to Mrs. Boulby's tale of the bet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A peacemaker!&rdquo; Percy interjected. &ldquo;She rides well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Best horsewoman I ever saw in my life,&rdquo; was Robert's ready answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Waring brushed at his forehead, as in impatience of thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must write two letters: one to this Mrs. Lovell. Say, you are about
+      to leave the place, and remind her of her promise. It's incomprehensible;
+      but never mind. Write that first. Then to the man. Say that your friend&mdash;by
+      the way, this Mrs. Lovell has small hands, has she? I mean, peculiarly
+      small? Did you notice, or not? I may know her. Never mind. Write to the
+      man. Say&mdash;don't write down my name&mdash;say that I will meet him.&rdquo;
+       Percy spoke on as in a dream. &ldquo;Appoint any place and hour. To-morrow at
+      ten, down by the river&mdash;the bridge. Write briefly. Thank him for his
+      offer to afford you explanations. Don't argue it with me any more. Write
+      both the letters straight off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His back was to Robert as he uttered the injunction. Robert took pen and
+      paper, and did as he was bidden, with all the punctilious obedience of a
+      man who consents perforce to see a better scheme abandoned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One effect of the equality existing between these two of diverse rank in
+      life and perfect delicacy of heart, was, that the moment Percy assumed the
+      lead, Robert never disputed it. Muttering simply that he was incapable of
+      writing except when he was in a passion, he managed to produce what, in
+      Percy's eyes, were satisfactory epistles, though Robert had horrible
+      misgivings in regard to his letter to Mrs. Lovell&mdash;the wording of it,
+      the cast of the sentences, even down to the character of the handwriting.
+      These missives were despatched immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are sure she said that?&rdquo; Major Waring inquired more than once during
+      the afternoon, and Robert assured him that Mrs. Lovell had given him her
+      word. He grew very positive, and put it on his honour that she had said
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may have heard incorrectly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've got the words burning inside me,&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked together, before dark, to Sutton Farm, but Jonathan Eccles was
+      abroad in his fields, and their welcome was from Mistress Anne, whom Major
+      Waring had not power to melt; the moment he began speaking praise of
+      Robert, she closed her mouth tight and crossed her wrists meekly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Major Waring, as they left the farm, &ldquo;your aunt is of the
+      godly who have no forgiveness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid so,&rdquo; cried Robert. &ldquo;Cold blood never will come to an
+      understanding with hot blood, and the old lady's is like frozen milk.
+      She's right in her way, I dare say. I don't blame her. Her piety's right
+      enough, take it as you find it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Boulby had a sagacious notion that gentlemen always dined well every
+      day of their lives, and claimed that much from Providence as their due.
+      She had exerted herself to spread a neat little repast for Major Waring,
+      and waited on the friends herself; grieving considerably to observe that
+      the major failed in his duty as a gentleman, as far as the relish of
+      eating was concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; she said below at her bar, &ldquo;he smokes the beautifullest&mdash;smelling
+      cigars, and drinks coffee made in his own way. He's very particular.&rdquo;
+       Which was reckoned to be in Major Waring's favour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hour was near midnight when she came into the room, bearing another
+      letter from the Park. She thumped it on the table, ruffling and making
+      that pretence at the controlling of her bosom which precedes a feminine
+      storm. Her indignation was caused by a communication delivered by Dick
+      Curtis, in the parlour underneath, to the effect that Nicodemus Sedgett
+      was not to be heard of in the neighbourhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert laughed at her, and called her Hebrew woman&mdash;eye-for-eye and
+      tooth-for-tooth woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave real rascals to the Lord above, mother. He's safe to punish them.
+      They've stepped outside the chances. That's my idea. I wouldn't go out of
+      my way to kick them&mdash;not I! It's the half-and-half villains we've got
+      to dispose of. They're the mischief, old lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Percy, however, asked some questions about Sedgett, and seemed to think
+      his disappearance singular. He had been examining the handwriting of the
+      superscription to the letter. His face was flushed as he tossed it for
+      Robert to open. Mrs. Boulby dropped her departing curtsey, and Robert read
+      out, with odd pauses and puzzled emphasis:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Mrs. Lovell has received the letter which Mr. Robert Eccles has
+   addressed to her, and regrets that a misconception should have
+   arisen from anything that was uttered during their interview. The
+   allusions are obscure, and Mrs. Lovell can only remark, that she is
+   pained if she at all misled Mr. Eccles in what she either spoke or
+   promised. She is not aware that she can be of any service to him.
+   Should such an occasion present itself, Mr. Eccles may rest assured
+   that she will not fail to avail herself of it, and do her utmost to
+   redeem a pledge to which he has apparently attached a meaning she
+   can in no way account for or comprehend.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      When Robert had finished, &ldquo;It's like a female lawyer,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That
+      woman speaking, and that woman writing, they're two different creatures&mdash;upon
+      my soul, they are! Quick, sharp, to the point, when she speaks; and read
+      this! Can I venture to say of a lady, she's a liar?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you had better not,&rdquo; said Major Waring, who took the letter in
+      his hand and seemed to study it. After which he transferred it to his
+      pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow? To-morrow's Sunday,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;We will go to church
+      to-morrow.&rdquo; His eyes glittered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I'm hardly in the mood,&rdquo; Robert protested. &ldquo;I haven't had the habit
+      latterly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep up the habit,&rdquo; said Percy. &ldquo;It's a good thing for men like you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what sort of a fellow am I to be showing myself there among all the
+      people who've been talking about me&mdash;and the people up at Fairly!&rdquo;
+       Robert burst out in horror of the prospect. &ldquo;I shall be a sight among the
+      people. Percy, upon my honour, I don't think I well can. I'll read the
+      Bible at home if you like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; you'll do penance,&rdquo; said Major Waring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you meaning it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The penance will be ten times greater on my part, believe me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert fancied him to be referring to some idea of mocking the
+      interposition of religion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we'll go to Upton Church,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I don't mind it at Upton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I intend to go to the church attended by 'The Family,' as we say in our
+      parts; and you must come with me to Warbeach.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Clasping one hand across his forehead, Robert cried, &ldquo;You couldn't ask me
+      to do a thing I hate so much. Go, and sit, and look sheepish, and sing
+      hymns with the people I've been badgering; and everybody seeing me! How
+      can it be anything to you like what it is to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have only to take my word for it that it is, and far more,&rdquo; said
+      Major Waring, sinking his voice. &ldquo;Come; it won't do you any harm to make
+      an appointment to meet your conscience now and then. You will never be
+      ruled by reason, and your feelings have to teach you what you learn. At
+      any rate, it's my request.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This terminated the colloquy upon that topic. Robert looked forward to a
+      penitential Sabbath-day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a widow still,&rdquo; thought Major Waring, as he stood alone in his
+      bed-room, and, drawing aside the curtains of his window, looked up at the
+      white moon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When the sun takes to shining in winter, and the Southwest to blowing, the
+      corners of the earth cannot hide from him&mdash;the mornings are like
+      halls full of light. Robert had spent his hopes upon a wet day that would
+      have kept the congregation sparse and the guests at Fairly absent from
+      public devotions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He perceived at once that he was doomed to be under everybody's eyes when
+      he walked down the aisle, for everybody would attend the service on such a
+      morning as this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Already he had met his conscience, in so far as that he shunned asking
+      Percy again what was the reason for their going to church, and he had not
+      the courage to petition to go in the afternoon instead of the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The question, &ldquo;Are you ashamed of yourself, then?&rdquo; sang in his ears as a
+      retort ready made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no help for it; so he set about assisting his ingenuity to make
+      the best appearance possible&mdash;brushing his hat and coat with
+      extraordinary care.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Percy got him to point out the spot designated for the meeting, and
+      telling him to wait in the Warbeach churchyard, or within sight of it,
+      strolled off in the direction of the river. His simple neatness and quiet
+      gentlemanly air abashed Robert, and lured him from his intense conception
+      of abstract right and wrong, which had hitherto encouraged and incited
+      him, so that he became more than ever crestfallen at the prospect of
+      meeting the eyes of the church people, and with the trembling
+      sensitiveness of a woman who weighs the merits of a lover when passion is
+      having one of its fatal pauses, he looked at himself, and compared himself
+      with the class of persons he had outraged, and tried to think better of
+      himself, and to justify himself, and sturdily reject comparisons. They
+      would not be beaten back. His enemies had never suggested them, but they
+      were forced on him by the aspect of his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Any man who takes the law into his own hands, and chooses to stand against
+      what is conventionally deemed fitting:&mdash;against the world, as we say,
+      is open to these moods of degrading humility. Robert waited for the sound
+      of the bells with the emotions of a common culprit. Could he have been
+      driven to the church and deposited suddenly in his pew, his mind would
+      have been easier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the walking there, the walking down the aisle, the sense of his
+      being the fellow who had matched himself against those well-attired
+      gentlemen, which entirely confused him. And not exactly for his own sake&mdash;for
+      Percy's partly. He sickened at the thought of being seen by Major Waring's
+      side. His best suit and his hat were good enough, as far as they went,
+      only he did not feel that he wore them&mdash;he could not divine how it
+      was&mdash;with a proper air, an air of signal comfort. In fact, the
+      graceful negligence of an English gentleman's manner had been unexpectedly
+      revealed to him; and it was strange, he reflected, that Percy never
+      appeared to observe how deficient he was, and could still treat him as an
+      equal, call him by his Christian name, and not object to be seen with him
+      in public.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert did not think at the same time that illness had impoverished his
+      blood. Your sensational beings must keep a strong and a good flow of blood
+      in their veins to be always on a level with the occasion which they
+      provoke. He remembered wonderingly that he had used to be easy in gait and
+      ready of wit when walking from Queen Anne's Farm to Wrexby village church.
+      Why was he a different creature now? He could not answer the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two or three of his Warbeach acquaintances passed him in the lanes. They
+      gave him good day, and spoke kindly, and with pleasant friendly looks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their impression when they left him was that he was growing proud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The jolly butcher of Warbeach, who had a hearty affection for him,
+      insisted upon clapping his hand, and showing him to Mrs. Billing, and
+      showing their two young ones to Robert. With a kiss to the children, and a
+      nod, Robert let them pass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here and there, he was hailed by young fellows who wore their hats on one
+      side, and jaunty-fashioned coats&mdash;Sunday being their own bright day
+      of exhibition. He took no notice of the greetings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tried to feel an interest in the robins and twittering wrens, and
+      called to mind verses about little birds, and kept repeating them, behind
+      a face that chilled every friendly man who knew him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moody the boat-builder asked him, with a stare, if he was going to church,
+      and on Robert's replying that perhaps he was, said &ldquo;I'm dashed!&rdquo; and it
+      was especially discouraging to one in Robert's condition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Further to inspirit him, he met Jonathan Eccles, who put the same question
+      to him, and getting the same answer, turned sharp round and walked
+      homeward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert had a great feeling of relief when the bells were silent, and
+      sauntered with a superior composure round the holly and laurel bushes
+      concealing the church. Not once did he ponder on the meeting between Major
+      Waring and Mr. Edward Blancove, until he beheld the former standing alone
+      by the churchyard gate, and then he thought more of the empty churchyard
+      and the absence of carriages, proclaiming the dreadful admonition that he
+      must immediately consider as to the best way of comporting himself before
+      an observant and censorious congregation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Waring remarked, &ldquo;You are late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I kept you waiting?&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not long. They are reading the lessons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it full inside?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare say it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have seen him, I suppose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes; I have seen him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Percy was short in his speech, and pale as Robert had never seen him
+      before. He requested hastily to be told the situation of Lord Elling's
+      pew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you think of going into the gallery?&rdquo; said Robert, but received no
+      answer, and with an inward moan of &ldquo;Good God! they'll think I've come here
+      in a sort of repentance,&rdquo; he found himself walking down the aisle; and
+      presently, to his amazement, settled in front of the Fairly pew, and with
+      his eyes on Mrs. Lovell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was the matter with her? Was she ill? Robert forgot his own
+      tribulation in an instant. Her face was like marble, and as she stood with
+      the prayer-book in her hand, her head swayed over it: her lips made a
+      faint effort at smiling, and she sat quietly down, and was concealed.
+      Algernon and Sir John Capes were in the pew beside her, as well as Lady
+      Elling, who, with a backward-turned hand and disregarding countenance,
+      reached out her smelling-bottle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is this because she fancies I know of her having made a bet of me?&rdquo;
+       thought Robert, and it was not his vanity prompted the supposition, though
+      his vanity was awakened by it. &ldquo;Or is she ashamed of her falsehood?&rdquo; he
+      thought again, and forgave her at the sight of her sweet pale face. The
+      singing of the hymns made her evident suffering seem holy as a martyr's.
+      He scarce had the power to conduct himself reverently, so intense was his
+      longing to show her his sympathy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is Mrs. Lovell&mdash;did you see her just now?&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah?&rdquo; said Major Waring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid she has fainted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Possibly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Mrs. Lovell had not fainted. She rose when the time for rising came
+      again, and fixing her eyes with a grave devotional collectedness upon the
+      vicar at his reading-desk, looked quite mistress of herself&mdash;but
+      mistress of herself only when she kept them so fixed. When they moved, it
+      was as if they had relinquished some pillar of support, and they wavered;
+      livid shades chased her face, like the rain-clouds on a grey lake-water.
+      Some one fronting her weighed on her eyelids. This was evident. Robert
+      thought her a miracle of beauty. She was in colour like days he had noted
+      thoughtfully: days with purple storm, and with golden horizon edges. She
+      had on a bonnet of black velvet, with a delicate array of white lace, that
+      was not suffered to disturb the contrast to her warm yellow hair. Her
+      little gloved hands were both holding the book; at times she perused it,
+      or, the oppression becoming unendurable, turned her gaze toward the corner
+      of the chancel, and thence once more to her book. Robert rejected all idea
+      of his being in any way the cause of her strange perturbation. He cast a
+      glance at his friend. He had begun to nourish a slight suspicion; but it
+      was too slight to bear up against Percy's self-possession; for, as he
+      understood the story, Percy had been the sufferer, and the lady had
+      escaped without a wound. How, then, if such were the case, would she be
+      showing emotion thus deep, while he stood before her with perfect
+      self-command?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert believed that if he might look upon that adorable face for many
+      days together, he could thrust Rhoda's from his memory. The sermon was not
+      long enough for him; and he was angry with Percy for rising before there
+      was any movement for departure in the Fairly pew. In the doorway of the
+      church Percy took his arm, and asked him to point out the family
+      tombstone. They stood by it, when Lady Elling and Mrs. Lovell came forth
+      and walked to the carriage, receiving respectful salutes from the people
+      of Warbeach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How lovely she is!&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think her handsome?&rdquo; said Major Waring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't understand such a creature dying.&rdquo; Robert stepped over an open
+      grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The expression of Percy's eyes was bitter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should imagine she thinks it just as impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Warbeach villagers waited for Lady Elling's carriage to roll away, and
+      with a last glance at Robert, they too went off in gossiping groups.
+      Robert's penance was over, and he could not refrain from asking what good
+      his coming to church had done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't assist you,&rdquo; said Percy. &ldquo;By the way, Mr. Blancove denies
+      everything. He thinks you mad. He promises, now that you have adopted
+      reasonable measures, to speak to his cousin, and help, as far as he can,
+      to discover the address you are in search of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all?&rdquo; cried Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then where am I a bit farther than when I began?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are only at the head of another road, and a better one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, why do I ever give up trusting to my right hand&mdash;&rdquo; Robert
+      muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the evening brought a note to him from Algernon Blancove. It contained
+      a dignified condemnation of Robert's previous insane behaviour, and closed
+      by giving Dahlia's address in London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How on earth was this brought about?&rdquo; Robert now questioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's singular, is it not?&rdquo; said Major blaring; &ldquo;but if you want a dog to
+      follow you, you don't pull it by the collar; and if you want a potato from
+      the earth, you plant the potato before you begin digging. You are a
+      soldier by instinct, my good Robert: your first appeal is to force. I, you
+      see, am a civilian: I invariably try the milder methods. Do you start for
+      London tonight? I remain. I wish to look at the neighbourhood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert postponed his journey to the morrow, partly in dread of his
+      approaching interview with Dahlia, but chiefly to continue a little longer
+      by the side of him whose gracious friendship gladdened his life. They paid
+      a second visit to Sutton Farm. Robert doggedly refused to let a word be
+      said to his father about his having taken to farming, and Jonathan
+      listened to all Major Waring said of his son like a man deferential to the
+      accomplishment of speaking, but too far off to hear more than a chance
+      word. He talked, in reply, quite cheerfully of the weather and the state
+      of the ground; observed that the soil was a perpetual study, but he knew
+      something of horses and dogs, and Yorkshiremen were like Jews in the
+      trouble they took to over-reach in a bargain. &ldquo;Walloping men is poor work,
+      if you come to compare it with walloping Nature,&rdquo; he said, and explained
+      that, according to his opinion, &ldquo;to best a man at buying and selling was
+      as wholesome an occupation as frowzlin' along the gutters for parings and
+      strays.&rdquo; He himself preferred to go to the heart of things: &ldquo;Nature makes
+      you rich, if your object is to do the same for her. Yorkshire fellows
+      never think except of making theirselves rich by fattening on your blood,
+      like sheep-ticks.&rdquo; In fine, Jonathan spoke sensibly, and abused Yorkshire,
+      without hesitating to confess that a certain Yorkshireman, against whom he
+      had matched his wits in a purchase of horseflesh, had given him a lively
+      recollection of the encounter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Percy asked him what he thought of his country. &ldquo;I'll tell you,&rdquo; said
+      Jonathan; &ldquo;Englishmen's business is to go to war with the elements, and so
+      long as we fight them, we're in the right academy for learnin' how the
+      game goes. Our vulnerability commences when we think we'll sit down and
+      eat the fruits, and if I don't see signs o' that, set me mole-tunnelling.
+      Self-indulgence is the ruin of our time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the closest remark he made to his relations with Robert, who
+      informed him that he was going to London on the following day. Jonathan
+      shook his hand heartily, without troubling himself about any inquiries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's so much of that old man in me,&rdquo; said Robert, when Percy praised
+      him, on their return, &ldquo;that I daren't call him a Prince of an old boy: and
+      never a spot of rancour in his soul. Have a claim on him&mdash;and there's
+      your seat at his table: take and offend him&mdash;there's your seat still.
+      Eat and drink, but you don't get near his heart. I'll surprise him some
+      day. He fancies he's past surprises.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Percy, &ldquo;you're younger than I am, and may think the future
+      belongs to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Early next morning they parted. Robert was in town by noon. He lost no
+      time in hurrying to the Western suburb. As he neared the house where he
+      was to believe Dahlia to be residing, he saw a man pass through the
+      leafless black shrubs by the iron gate; and when he came to the gate
+      himself the man was at the door. The door opened and closed on this man.
+      It was Nicodemus Sedgett, or Robert's eyes did him traitorous service. He
+      knocked at the door violently, and had to knock a second and a third time.
+      Dahlia was denied to him. He was told that Mrs. Ayrton had lived there,
+      but had left, and her present address was unknown. He asked to be allowed
+      to speak a word to the man who had just entered the house. No one had
+      entered for the last two hours, was the reply. Robert had an impulse to
+      rush by the stolid little female liar, but Percy's recent lesson to him
+      acted as a restraint; though, had it been a brawny woman or a lacquey in
+      his path, he would certainly have followed his natural counsel. He turned
+      away, lingering outside till it was dusk and the bruise on his head gave
+      great throbs, and then he footed desolately farther and farther from the
+      house. To combat with evil in his own country village had seemed a simple
+      thing enough, but it appeared a superhuman task in giant London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It requires, happily, many years of an ordinary man's life to teach him to
+      believe in the exceeding variety and quantity of things money can buy:
+      yet, when ingenuous minds have fully comprehended the potent character of
+      the metal, they are likely enough to suppose that it will buy everything:
+      after which comes the groaning anxiety to possess it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This stage of experience is a sublime development in the great souls of
+      misers. It is their awakening moment, and it is their first real sense of
+      a harvest being in their hands. They have begun under the influence of the
+      passion for hoarding, which is but a blind passion of the finger-ends. The
+      idea that they have got together, bit by bit, a power, travels slowly up
+      to their heavy brains. Once let it be grasped, however, and they clutch a
+      god. They feed on everybody's hunger for it. And, let us confess, they
+      have in that a mighty feast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony Hackbut was not a miser. He was merely a saving old man. His
+      vanity was, to be thought a miser, envied as a miser. He lived in daily
+      hearing of the sweet chink of gold, and loved the sound, but with a
+      poetical love, rather than with the sordid desire to amass gold pieces.
+      Though a saving old man, he had his comforts; and if they haunted him and
+      reproached him subsequently, for indulging wayward appetites for herrings
+      and whelks and other sea-dainties that render up no account to you when
+      they have disappeared, he put by copper and silver continually, weekly and
+      monthly, and was master of a sum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew the breadth of this sum with accuracy, and what it would expand to
+      this day come a year, and probably this day come five years. He knew it
+      only too well. The sum took no grand leaps. It increased, but did not seem
+      to multiply. And he was breathing in the heart of the place, of all places
+      in the world, where money did multiply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was the possessor of twelve hundred pounds, solid, and in haven; that
+      is, the greater part in the Bank of England, and a portion in Boyne's
+      Bank. He had besides a few skirmishing securities, and some such bits of
+      paper as Algernon had given him in the public-house on that remarkable
+      night of his visit to the theatre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These, when the borrowers were defaulters in their payments and pleaded
+      for an extension of time, inspired him with sentiments of grandeur that
+      the solid property could not impart. Nevertheless, the anti-poetical
+      tendency within him which warred with the poetical, and set him reducing
+      whatsoever he claimed to plain figures, made it but a fitful hour of
+      satisfaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had only to fix his mind upon Farmer Fleming's conception of his
+      wealth, to feel the miserable smallness of what seemed legitimately his
+      own; and he felt it with so poignant an emotion that at times his fears of
+      death were excited by the knowledge of a dead man's impotence to suggest
+      hazy margins in the final exposure of his property. There it would lie,
+      dead as himself! contracted, coffined, contemptible!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What would the farmer think when he came to hear that his brother Tony's
+      estate was not able to buy up Queen Anne's Farm?&mdash;when, in point of
+      fact, he found that he had all along been the richer man of the two!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony's comfort was in the unfaltering strength of his constitution. He
+      permitted his estimate of it to hint at the probability of his outlasting
+      his brother William John, to whom he wished no earthly ill, but only that
+      he should not live with a mitigated veneration for him. He was really
+      nourished by the farmer's gluttonous delight in his supposed piles of
+      wealth. Sometimes, for weeks, he had the gift of thinking himself one of
+      the Bank with which he had been so long connected; and afterward a
+      wretched reaction set in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was then that his touch upon Bank money began to intoxicate him
+      strangely. He had at times thousands hugged against his bosom, and his
+      heart swelled to the money-bags immense. He was a dispirited, but a
+      grateful creature, after he had delivered them up. The delirium came by
+      fits, as if a devil lurked to surprise him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With this money,&rdquo; said the demon, &ldquo;you might speculate, and in two days
+      make ten times the amount.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To which Anthony answered: &ldquo;My character's worth fifty times the amount.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was his reply, but he did not think it. He was honest, and his
+      honesty had become a habit; but the money was the only thing which acted
+      on his imagination; his character had attained to no sacred halo, and was
+      just worth his annual income and the respect of the law for his person.
+      The money fired his brain!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! if it was mine!&rdquo; he sighed. &ldquo;If I could call it mine for just forty
+      or fifty hours! But it ain't, and I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He fought dogged battles with the tempter, and beat him off again and
+      again. One day he made a truce with him by saying that if ever the farmer
+      should be in town of an afternoon he would steal ten minutes or so, and
+      make an appointment with him somewhere and show him the money-bags without
+      a word: let him weigh and eye them: and then the plan was for Anthony to
+      talk of politics, while the farmer's mind was in a ferment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this arrangement the infernal Power appeared to be content, and
+      Anthony was temporarily relieved of his trouble. In other words, the
+      intermittent fever of a sort of harmless rascality was afflicting this old
+      creature. He never entertained the notion of running clear away with the
+      money entrusted to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whither could an aged man fly? He thought of foreign places as of spots
+      that gave him a shivering sense of its being necessary for him to be born
+      again in nakedness and helplessness, if ever he was to see them and set
+      foot on them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      London was his home, and clothed him about warmly and honourably, and so
+      he said to the demon in their next colloquy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony had become guilty of the imprudence of admitting him to
+      conferences and arguing with him upon equal terms. They tell us, that this
+      is the imprudence of women under temptation; and perhaps Anthony was
+      pushed to the verge of the abyss from causes somewhat similar to those
+      which imperil them, and employed the same kind of efforts in his
+      resistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In consequence of this compromise, the demon by degrees took seat at his
+      breakfast-table, when Mrs. Wicklow, his landlady, could hear Anthony
+      talking in the tone of voice of one who was pushed to his sturdiest
+      arguments. She conceived that the old man's head was softening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was making one of his hurried rushes with the porterage of money on an
+      afternoon in Spring, when a young female plucked at his coat, and his
+      wrath at offenders against the law kindled in a minute into fury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hands off, minx!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;You shall be given in charge. Where's a
+      policeman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle!&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You precious swindler in petticoats!&rdquo; Anthony fumed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he had a queer recollection of her face, and when she repeated
+      piteously: &ldquo;Uncle!&rdquo; he peered at her features, saying,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; in wonderment, several times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her hair was cut like a boy's. She was in common garments, with a
+      close-shaped skull-cap and a black straw bonnet on her head; not gloved,
+      of ill complexion, and with deep dark lines slanting down from the corners
+      of her eyes. Yet the inspection convinced him that he beheld Dahlia, his
+      remembering the niece. He was amazed; but speedily priceless trust in his
+      arms, and the wickedness of the streets, he bade her follow him. She did
+      so with some difficulty, for he ran, and dodged, and treated the world as
+      his enemy, suddenly vanished, and appeared again breathing freely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, my girl?&rdquo; he said: &ldquo;Why, Dahl&mdash;Mrs. What's-your-name? Why,
+      who'd have known you? Is that&rdquo;&mdash;he got his eyes close to her hair;
+      &ldquo;is that the ladies' fashion now? 'Cause, if it is, our young street
+      scamps has only got to buy bonnets, and&mdash;I say, you don't look the
+      Pomp. Not as you used to, Miss Ma'am, I mean&mdash;no, that you don't.
+      Well, what's the news? How's your husband?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle,&rdquo; said Dahlia; &ldquo;will you, please, let me speak to you somewhere?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't we standing together?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! pray, out of the crowd!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come home with me, if my lodgings ain't too poor for you,&rdquo; said Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle, I can't. I have been unwell. I cannot walk far. Will you take me
+      to some quiet place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you treat me to a cab?&rdquo; Anthony sneered vehemently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have left off riding, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! Hulloa!&rdquo; Anthony sang out. &ldquo;Cash is down in the mouth at home, is
+      it? Tell me that, now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia dropped her eyelids, and then entreated him once more to conduct
+      her to a quiet place where they might sit together, away from noise. She
+      was very earnest and very sad, not seeming to have much strength.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mind taking my arm?&rdquo; said Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She leaned her hand on his arm, and he dived across the road with her,
+      among omnibuses and cabs, shouting to them through the roar,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're the Independence on two legs, warranted sound, and no competition;&rdquo;
+       and saying to Dahlia: &ldquo;Lor' bless you! there's no retort in 'em, or I'd
+      say something worth hearing. It's like poking lions in cages with raw
+      meat, afore you get a chaffing-match out o' them. Some of 'em know me.
+      They'd be good at it, those fellows. I've heard of good things said by
+      'em. But there they sit, and they've got no circulation&mdash;ain't ready,
+      except at old women, or when they catch you in a mess, and getting the
+      worst of it. Let me tell you; you'll never get manly chaff out of big
+      bundles o' fellows with ne'er an atom o' circulation. The river's the
+      place for that. I've heard uncommon good things on the river&mdash;not of
+      'em, but heard 'em. T' other's most part invention. And, they tell me,
+      horseback's a prime thing for chaff. Circulation, again. Sharp and lively,
+      I mean; not bawl, and answer over your back&mdash;most part impudence, and
+      nothing else&mdash;and then out of hearing. That sort o' chaff's cowardly.
+      Boys are stiff young parties&mdash;circulation&mdash;and I don't tackle
+      them pretty often, 'xcept when I'm going like a ball among nine-pins. It's
+      all a matter o' circulation. I say, my dear,&rdquo; Anthony addressed her
+      seriously, &ldquo;you should never lay hold o' my arm when you see me going my
+      pace of an afternoon. I took you for a thief, and worse&mdash;I did. That
+      I did. Had you been waiting to see me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little,&rdquo; Dahlia replied, breathless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have been ill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've written to the farm? O' course you have!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! uncle, wait,&rdquo; moaned Dahlia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, ha' you been sick, and not written home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait; please, wait,&rdquo; she entreated him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll wait,&rdquo; said Anthony; &ldquo;but that's no improvement to queerness; and
+      'queer''s your motto. Now we cross London Bridge. There's the Tower that
+      lived in times when no man was safe of keeping his own money, 'cause of
+      grasping kings&mdash;all claws and crown. I'm Republican as far as 'none
+      o' them'&mdash;goes. There's the ships. The sun rises behind 'em, and sets
+      afore 'em, and you may fancy, if you like, there's always gold in their
+      rigging. Gals o' your sort think I say, come! tell me, if you are a lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, uncle, no!&rdquo; Dahlia cried, and then drawing in her breath, added: &ldquo;not
+      to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Last time I crossed this bridge with a young woman hanging on my arm, it
+      was your sister; they say she called on you, and you wouldn't see her; and
+      a gal so good and a gal so true ain't to be got for a sister every day in
+      the year! What are you pulling me for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia said nothing, but clung to him with a drooping head, and so they
+      hurried along, until Anthony stopped in front of a shop displaying cups
+      and muffins at the window, and leprous-looking strips of bacon, and
+      sausages that had angled for appetites till they had become pallid sodden
+      things, like washed-out bait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Into this shop he led her, and they took possession of a compartment, and
+      ordered tea and muffins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shop was empty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's one of the expenses of relationship,&rdquo; Anthony sighed, after probing
+      Dahlia unsatisfactorily to see whether she intended to pay for both, or at
+      least for herself; and finding that she had no pride at all. &ldquo;My sister
+      marries your father, and, in consequence&mdash;well! a muffin now and then
+      ain't so very much. We'll forget it, though it is a breach, mind, in
+      counting up afterwards, and two-pences every day's equal to a good big
+      cannonball in the castle-wall at the end of the year. Have you written
+      home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia's face showed the bright anguish of unshed tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle-oh! speak low. I have been near death. I have been ill for so long
+      a time. I have come to you to hear about them&mdash;my father and Rhoda.
+      Tell me what they are doing, and do they sleep and eat well, and are not
+      in trouble? I could not write. I was helpless. I could not hold a pen. Be
+      kind, dear uncle, and do not reproach me. Please, tell me that they have
+      not been sorrowful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A keenness shot from Anthony's eyes. &ldquo;Then, where's your husband?&rdquo; he
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She made a sad attempt at smiling. &ldquo;He is abroad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How about his relations? Ain't there one among 'em to write for you when
+      you're ill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He... Yes, he has relatives. I could not ask them. Oh! I am not strong,
+      uncle; if you will only leave following me so with questions; but tell me,
+      tell me what I want to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, you tell me where your husband banks,&rdquo; returned Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, I cannot say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you,&rdquo; Anthony stretched out alternative fingers, &ldquo;do you get money
+      from him to make payments in gold, or, do you get it in paper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stared as in terror of a pit-fall. &ldquo;Paper,&rdquo; she said at a venture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, name your Bank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no cunning in her eye as she answered: &ldquo;I don't know any bank,
+      except the Bank of England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why the deuce didn't you say so at once&mdash;eh?&rdquo; cried Anthony. &ldquo;He
+      gives you bank-notes. Nothing better in the world. And he a'n't been
+      givin' you many lately&mdash;is that it? What's his profession, or
+      business?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is...he is no profession.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, what is he? Is he a gentleman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she breathed plaintively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your husband's a gentleman. Eh?&mdash;and lost his money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did he lose it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor victim of this pertinacious interrogatory now beat about within
+      herself for succour. &ldquo;I must not say,&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're going to try to keep a secret, are ye?&rdquo; said Anthony; and she, in
+      her relief at the pause to her torment, said: &ldquo;I am,&rdquo; with a little
+      infantile, withering half-smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you've been and kept yourself pretty secret,&rdquo; the old man pursued.
+      &ldquo;I suppose your husband's proud? He's proud, ain't he? He's of a family,
+      I'll be bound. Is he of a family? How did he like your dressing up like a
+      mill'ner gal to come down in the City and see me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia's guile was not ready. &ldquo;He didn't mind,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He didn't mind, didn't he? He don't mind your cutting of your hair so?&mdash;didn't
+      mind that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head. &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony was down upon her like a hawk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, he's abroad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I mean, he did not see me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With which, in a minute, she was out of his grasp; but her heart beat
+      thick, her lips were dry, and her thoughts were in disorder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, he don't know you've been and got shaved, and a poll like a
+      turnip-head of a thief? That's something for him to learn, is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The picture of her beauty gone, seared her eyes like heated brass. She
+      caught Anthony's arm with one firm hand to hold him silent, and with the
+      other hand covered her sight and let the fit of weeping pass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the tears had spent themselves, she relinquished her hold of the
+      astonished old man, who leaned over the table to her, and dominated by the
+      spirit of her touch, whispered, like one who had accepted a bond of
+      secresy: &ldquo;Th' old farmer's well. So's Rhoda&mdash;my darkie lass. They've
+      taken on a bit. And then they took to religion for comfort. Th' old farmer
+      attends Methody meetin's, and quotes Scriptur' as if he was fixed like a
+      pump to the Book, and couldn't fetch a breath without quotin'. Rhoda's
+      oftenest along with your rector's wife down there, and does works o'
+      charity, sicknussin', readin'&mdash;old farmer does the preachin'. Old
+      mother Sumfit's fat as ever, and says her money's for you. Old Gammon goes
+      on eatin' of the dumplins. Hey! what a queer old ancient he is. He seems
+      to me to belong to a time afore ever money was. That Mr. Robert's
+      off...never been down there since he left, 'cause my darkie lass thought
+      herself too good for him. So she is!&mdash;too good for anybody. They're
+      going to leave the farm; sell, and come to London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no!&rdquo; exclaimed Dahlia; &ldquo;not going to leave the dear old farm, and our
+      lane, and the old oaks, leading up to the heath. Are they? Father will
+      miss it. Rhoda will mourn so. No place will ever be like that to them. I
+      love it better than any place on earth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's queer,&rdquo; said Anthony. &ldquo;Why do you refuse to go, or won't let your
+      husband take you down there; if you like the place that raving-like? But
+      'queer''s your motto. The truth is this&mdash;you just listen. Hear me&mdash;hush!
+      I won't speak in a bawl. You're a reasonable being, and you don't&mdash;that's
+      to say, you do understand, the old farmer feels it uncomfortable&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I never helped him when I was there,&rdquo; said Dahlia, suddenly shrinking
+      in a perceptible tremble of acute divination. &ldquo;I was no use. I never
+      helped him&mdash;not at all. I was no&mdash;no use!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony blinked his eyes, not knowing how it was that he had thus been
+      thrown out of his direct road. He began again, in his circumlocutory
+      delicacy: &ldquo;Never mind; help or no help, what th' old farmer feels is&mdash;and
+      quite nat'ral. There's sensations as a father, and sensations as a man;
+      and what th' old farmer feels is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Rhoda has always been more to father than I have,&rdquo; Dahlia cried, now
+      stretching forward with desperate courage to confront her uncle, distract
+      his speech, and avert the saying of the horrible thing she dreaded. &ldquo;Rhoda
+      was everything to him. Mother perhaps took to me&mdash;my mother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The line of her long underlie drawn sharp to check her tears, stopped her
+      speaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All very well about Rhoda,&rdquo; said Anthony. &ldquo;She's everything to me, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every&mdash;everybody loves her!&rdquo; Dahlia took him up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let 'em, so long as they don't do no harm to her,&rdquo; was Anthony's remark.
+      There was an idea in this that he had said, and the light of it led off
+      his fancy. It was some time before he returned to the attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neighbours gossip a good deal. O' course you know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never listen to them,&rdquo; said Dahlia, who now felt bare at any instant
+      for the stab she saw coming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not in London; but country's different, and a man hearing of his
+      child 'it's very odd!' and 'keepin' away like that!' and 'what's become of
+      her?' and that sort of thing, he gets upset.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia swallowed in her throat, as in perfect quietude of spirit, and
+      pretended to see no meaning for herself in Anthony's words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she said, inadvertently, &ldquo;Dear father!&rdquo; and it gave Anthony his
+      opening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There it is. No doubt you're fond of him. You're fond o' th' old farmer,
+      who's your father. Then, why not make a entry into the village, and show
+      'em? I loves my father, says you. I can or I can't bring my husband, you
+      seems to say; but I'm come to see my old father. Will you go down
+      to-morrow wi' me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; Dahlia recoiled and abandoned all defence in a moan: &ldquo;I can't&mdash;I
+      can't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There,&rdquo; said Anthony, &ldquo;you can't. You confess you can't; and there's
+      reason for what's in your father's mind. And he hearin' neighbours'
+      gossip, and it comes to him by a sort of extractin'&mdash;'Where's her
+      husband?' bein' the question; and 'She ain't got one,' the answer&mdash;it's
+      nat'ral for him to leave the place. I never can tell him how you went off,
+      or who's the man, lucky or not. You went off sudden, on a morning, after
+      kissin' me at breakfast; and no more Dahly visible. And he suspects&mdash;he
+      more'n suspects. Farm's up for sale. Th' old farmer thinks it's
+      unbrotherly of me not to go and buy, and I can't make him see I don't
+      understand land: it's about like changeing sovereigns for lumps o' clay,
+      in my notions; and that ain't my taste. Long and the short is&mdash;people
+      down there at Wrexby and all round say you ain't married. He ain't got a
+      answer for 'em; it's cruel to hear, and crueller to think: he's got no
+      answer, poor old farmer! and he's obliged to go inter exile. Farm's up for
+      sale.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony thumped with his foot conclusively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say I'm not married!&rdquo; said Dahlia, and a bad colour flushed her
+      countenance. &ldquo;They say&mdash;I'm not married. I am&mdash;I am. It's false.
+      It's cruel of father to listen to them&mdash;wicked people! base&mdash;base
+      people! I am married, uncle. Tell father so, and don't let him sell the
+      farm. Tell him, I said I was married. I am. I'm respected. I have only a
+      little trouble, and I'm sure others have too. We all have. Tell father not
+      to leave. It breaks my heart. Oh! uncle, tell him that from me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia gathered her shawl close, and set an irresolute hand upon her
+      bonnet strings, that moved as if it had forgotten its purpose. She could
+      say no more. She could only watch her uncle's face, to mark the effect of
+      what she had said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony nodded at vacancy. His eyebrows were up, and did not descend from
+      their elevation. &ldquo;You see, your father wants assurances; he wants facts.
+      They're easy to give, if give 'em you can. Ah, there's a weddin' ring on
+      your finger, sure enough. Plain gold&mdash;and, Lord! how bony your
+      fingers ha' got, Dahly. If you are a sinner, you're a bony one now, and
+      that don't seem so bad to me. I don't accuse you, my dear. Perhaps I'd
+      like to see your husband's banker's book. But what your father hears, is&mdash;You've
+      gone wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia smiled in a consummate simulation of scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your father thinks that's true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled with an equal simulation of saddest pity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he says this: 'Proof,' he says, 'proof's what I want, that she's an
+      honest woman.' He asks for you to clear yourself. He says, 'It's hard for
+      an old man'&mdash;these are his words 'it's hard for an old man to hear
+      his daughter called...'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony smacked his hand tight on his open mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was guiltless of any intended cruelty, and Dahlia's first impulse when
+      she had got her breath, was to soothe him. She took his hand. &ldquo;Dear
+      father! poor father! Dear, dear father!&rdquo; she kept saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rhoda don't think it,&rdquo; Anthony assured her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No?&rdquo; and Dahlia's bosom exulted up to higher pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rhoda declares you are married. To hear that gal fight for you&mdash;there's
+      ne'er a one in Wrexby dares so much as hint a word within a mile of her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Rhoda! my sister!&rdquo; Dahlia gasped, and the tears came pouring down her
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In vain Anthony lifted her tea-cup and the muffin-plate to her for
+      consolation. His hushings and soothings were louder than her weeping.
+      Incapable of resisting such a protest of innocence, he said, &ldquo;And I don't
+      think it, neither.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pressed his fingers, and begged him to pay the people of the shop: at
+      which sign of her being probably moneyless, Anthony could not help
+      mumbling, &ldquo;Though I can't make out about your husband, and why he lets ye
+      be cropped&mdash;that he can't help, may be&mdash;but lets ye go about
+      dressed like a mill'ner gal, and not afford cabs. Is he very poor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She bowed her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is very poor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he, or ain't he, a gentleman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia seemed torn by a new anguish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Anthony. &ldquo;He goes and persuades you he is, and you've been
+      and found out he's nothin' o' the sort&mdash;eh? That'd be a way of
+      accounting for your queerness, more or less. Was it that fellow that
+      Wicklow gal saw ye with?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia signified vehemently, &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, I've guessed right; he turns out not to be a gentleman&mdash;eh,
+      Dahly? Go on noddin', if ye like. Never mind the shop people; we're
+      well-conducted, and that's all they care for. I say, Dahly, he ain't a
+      gentleman? You speak out or nod your head. You thought you'd caught a
+      gentleman and 'taint the case. Gentlemen ain't caught so easy. They all of
+      'em goes to school, and that makes 'em knowin'. Come; he ain't a
+      gentleman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia's voice issued, from a terrible inward conflict, like a voice of
+      the tombs. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, will you show him to me? Let me have a look at him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Pushed from misery to misery, she struggled within herself again, and
+      again in the same hollow manner said, &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seein's believin'. If you'll show him to me, or me to him...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! don't talk of it.&rdquo; Dahlia struck her fingers in a tight lock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I only want to set eye on him, my gal. Whereabouts does he live?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Down&mdash;down a great&mdash;very great way in the West.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony stared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She replied to the look: &ldquo;In the West of London&mdash;a long way down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's where he is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought&mdash;hum!&rdquo; went the old man suspiciously. &ldquo;When am I to see
+      him? Some day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; some day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn't I say, Sunday?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Next Sunday?&rdquo;&mdash;Dahlia gave a muffled cry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, next Sunday. Day after to-morrow. And I'll write off to-morrow, and
+      ease th' old farmer's heart, and Rhoda 'll be proud for you. She don't
+      care about gentleman&mdash;or no gentleman. More do th' old farmer. It's
+      let us, live and die respectable, and not disgrace father nor mother.
+      Old-fashioned's best-fashioned about them things, I think. Come, you bring
+      him&mdash;your husband&mdash;to me on Sunday, if you object to my callin'
+      on you. Make up your mind to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not next Sunday&mdash;the Sunday after,&rdquo; Dahlia pleaded. &ldquo;He is not here
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is he?&rdquo; Anthony asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's in the country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony pounced on her, as he had done previously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said to me he was abroad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the country&mdash;abroad. Not&mdash;not in the great cities. I could
+      not make known your wishes to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave this cool explanation with her eyelids fluttering timorously, and
+      rose as she uttered it, but with faint and ill-supporting limbs, for
+      during the past hour she had gone through the sharpest trial of her life,
+      and had decided for the course of her life. Anthony was witless thereof,
+      and was mystified by his incapability of perceiving where and how he had
+      been deluded; but he had eaten all the muffin on the plate, and her rising
+      proclaimed that she had no intention of making him call for another; which
+      was satisfactory. He drank off her cup of tea at a gulp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The waitress named the sum he was to pay, and receiving a meditative look
+      in return for her air of expectancy after the amount had been laid on the
+      table, at once accelerated their passage from the shop by opening the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If ever I did give pennies, I'd give 'em to you,&rdquo; said Anthony, when he
+      was out of her hearing. &ldquo;Women beat men in guessing at a man by his face.
+      Says she&mdash;you're honourable&mdash;you're legal&mdash;but prodigal
+      ain't your portion. That's what she says, without the words, unless she's
+      a reader. Now, then, Dahly, my lass, you take my arm. Buckle to. We'll to
+      the West. Don't th' old farmer pronounce like 'toe' the West? We'll 'toe'
+      the West. I can afford to laugh at them big houses up there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's the foundation, if one of them's sound? Why, in the City.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll take you by our governor's house. You know&mdash;you know&mdash;don't
+      ye, Dahly, know we been suspecting his nephew? 'cause we saw him with you
+      at the theatre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't suspect. I knew he found you there by chance, somehow. And I
+      noticed your dress there. No wonder your husband's poor. He wanted to make
+      you cut a figure as one of the handsomes, and that's as ruinous as cabs&mdash;ha!
+      ha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony laughed, but did not reveal what had struck him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir William Blancove's house is a first-rater. I've been in it. He lives
+      in the library. All the other rooms&mdash;enter 'em, and if 'taint like a
+      sort of, a social sepulchre! Dashed if he can get his son to live with
+      him; though they're friends, and his son'll get all the money, and go into
+      Parliament, and cut a shine, never fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the way, I've seen Robert, too. He called on me at the Bank. Asked
+      after you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Seen her?' says he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'No,' I says.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Ever see Mr. Edward Blancove here?' he says.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told him, I'd heard say, Mr. Edward was Continentalling. And then
+      Robert goes off. His opinion is you ain't in England; 'cause a policeman
+      he spoke to can't find you nowhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Come,&rdquo; says I, 'let's keep our detectives to catch thieves, and not go
+      distracting of 'em about a parcel o' women.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's awfully down about Rhoda. She might do worse than take him. I don't
+      think he's got a ounce of a chance now Religion's set in, though he's the
+      mildest big 'un I ever come across. I forgot to haul him over about what
+      he 'd got to say about Mr. Edward. I did remark, I thought&mdash;ain't I
+      right?&mdash;Mr. Algernon's not the man?&mdash;eh? How come you in the
+      theatre with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia spoke huskily. &ldquo;He saw me. He had seen me at home. It was an
+      accident.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly how I put it to Robert. And he agreed with me. There's sense in
+      that young man. Your husband wouldn't let you come to us there&mdash;eh?
+      because he...why was that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia had it on her lips to say it &ldquo;Because he was poorer than I
+      thought;&rdquo; but in the intensity of her torment, the wretchedness of this
+      lie, revolted her. &ldquo;Oh! for God's sake, uncle, give me peace about that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man murmured: &ldquo;Ay, ay;&rdquo; and thought it natural that she should
+      shun an allusion to the circumstance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They crossed one of the bridges, and Dahlia stopped and said: &ldquo;Kiss me,
+      uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ain't ashamed,&rdquo; said Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This being over, she insisted on his not accompanying her farther.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony made her pledge her word of honour as a married woman, to bring
+      her husband to the identical spot where they stood at three o'clock in the
+      afternoon of Sunday week. She promised it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll write home to th' old farmer&mdash;a penny,&rdquo; said Anthony, showing
+      that he had considered the outlay and was prepared for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And uncle,&rdquo; she stipulated in turn, &ldquo;they are not to see me yet. Very
+      soon; but not yet. Be true to me, and come alone, or it will be your fault&mdash;I
+      shall not appear. Now, mind. And beg them not to leave the farm. It will
+      kill father. Can you not,&rdquo; she said, in the faded sweetness of her speech,
+      &ldquo;could you not buy it, and let father be your tenant, uncle? He would pay
+      you regularly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony turned a rough shoulder on her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, Dahly. You be a good girl, and all 'll go right. Old farmer
+      talks about praying. If he didn't make it look so dark to a chap, I'd be
+      ready to fancy something in that. You try it. You try, Dahly. Say a bit of
+      a prayer to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I pray every night,&rdquo; Dahlia answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her look of meek despair was hauntingly sad with Anthony on his way home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tracked her sorrowfulness to the want of money; and another of his
+      terrific vague struggles with the money-demon set in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Sir William Blancove did business at his Bank till the hour of three in
+      the afternoon, when his carriage conveyed him to a mews near the park of
+      Fashion, where he mounted horse and obeyed the bidding of his doctor for a
+      space, by cantering in a pleasant, portly, cock-horsey style, up and down
+      the Row.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the day of the great race on Epsom Downs, and elderly gentlemen
+      pricked by the doctors were in the ascendant in all London congregations
+      on horseback.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like Achilles (if the bilious Shade will permit the impudent comparison),
+      they dragged their enemy, Gout, at their horses' heels for a term, and
+      vengeance being accomplished went to their dinners and revived him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir William was disturbed by his son's absence from England. A youth to
+      whom a baronetcy and wealth are to be bequeathed is an important organism;
+      and Sir William, though his faith reposed in his son, was averse to his
+      inexplicably prolonged residence in the French metropolis, which, a school
+      for many things, is not a school for the study of our Parliamentary
+      system, and still less for that connubial career Sir William wished him to
+      commence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward's delightful cynical wit&mdash;the worldly man's profundity&mdash;and
+      his apt quotations of the wit of others, would have continued to exercise
+      their charm, if Sir William had not wanted to have him on the spot that he
+      might answer certain questions pertinaciously put by Mama Gosling on
+      behalf of her daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no engagement,&rdquo; Edward wrote; &ldquo;let the maiden wait and discern
+      her choice: let her ripen;&rdquo; and he quoted Horace up to a point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor could his father help smiling and completing the lines. He laughed,
+      too, as he read the jog of a verse: &ldquo;Were I to marry the Gosling, pray,
+      which would be the goose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed, but with a shade of disappointment in the fancy that he
+      perceived a wearing away of the robust mental energy which had
+      characterized his son: and Sir William knew the danger of wit, and how the
+      sharp blade cuts the shoots of the sapling. He had thought that Edward was
+      veritable tough oak, and had hitherto encouraged his light play with the
+      weapon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It became a question with him now, whether Wit and Ambition may dwell
+      together harmoniously in a young man: whether they will not give such
+      manifestation of their social habits as two robins shut in a cage will do:
+      of which pretty birds one will presently be discovered with a slightly
+      ruffled bosom amid the feathers of his defunct associate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus painfully revolving matters of fact and feeling, Sir William
+      cantered, and, like a cropped billow blown against by the wind, drew up in
+      front of Mrs. Lovell, and entered into conversation with that lady, for
+      the fine needles of whose brain he had the perfect deference of an
+      experienced senior. She, however, did not give him comfort. She informed
+      him that something was wrong with Edward; she could not tell what. She
+      spoke of him languidly, as if his letters contained wearisome trifling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He strains to be Frenchy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It may be a good compliment for
+      them to receive: it's a bad one for him to pay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alcibiades is not the best of models,&rdquo; murmured Sir William. &ldquo;He doesn't
+      mention Miss Gosling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear, yes. I have a French acrostic on her name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An acrostic!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A more contemptible form of mental exercise was not to be found, according
+      to Sir William's judgement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An acrostic!&rdquo; he made it guttural. &ldquo;Well!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He writes word that he hears Moliere every other night. That can't harm
+      him. His reading is principally Memoirs, which I think I have heard you
+      call 'The backstairs of history.' We are dull here, and I should not
+      imagine it to be a healthy place to dwell in, if the absence of friends
+      and the presence of sunshine conspire to dullness. Algy, of course, is
+      deep in accounts to-day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir William remarked that he had not seen the young man at the office, and
+      had not looked for him; but the mention of Algernon brought something to
+      his mind, and he said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hear he is continually sending messengers from the office to you during
+      the day. You rule him with a rod of iron. Make him discontinue that
+      practice. I hear that he despatched our old porter to you yesterday with a
+      letter marked 'urgent.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovell laughed pleadingly for Algernon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; he shall not do it again. It occurred yesterday, and on no other
+      occasion that I am aware of. He presumes that I am as excited as he is
+      himself about the race&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady bowed to a passing cavalier; a smarting blush dyed her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He bets, does he!&rdquo; said Sir William. &ldquo;A young man, whose income, at the
+      extreme limit, is two hundred pounds a year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May not the smallness of the amount in some degree account for the
+      betting?&rdquo; she asked whimsically. &ldquo;You know, I bet a little&mdash;just a
+      little. If I have but a small sum, I already regard it as a stake; I am
+      tempted to bid it fly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In his case, such conduct puts him on the high road to rascality,&rdquo; said
+      Sir William severely. &ldquo;He is doing no good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the squire is answerable for such conduct, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You presume to say that he is so because he allows his son very little
+      money to squander? How many young men have to contain their expenses
+      within two hundred pounds a year!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not sons of squires and nephews of baronets,&rdquo; said Mrs. Lovell. &ldquo;Adieu! I
+      think I see a carrier-pigeon flying overhead, and, as you may suppose, I
+      am all anxiety.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir William nodded to her. He disliked certain of her ways; but they were
+      transparent bits of audacity and restlessness pertaining to a youthful
+      widow, full of natural dash; and she was so sweetly mistress of herself in
+      all she did, that he never supposed her to be needing caution against
+      excesses. Old gentlemen have their pets, and Mrs. Lovell was a pet of Sir
+      William's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was on the present occasion quite mistress of herself, though the
+      stake was large. She was mistress of herself when Lord Suckling, who had
+      driven from the Downs and brushed all save a spot of white dust out of his
+      baby moustache to make himself presentable, rode up to her to say that the
+      horse Templemore was beaten, and that his sagacity in always betting
+      against favourites would, in this last instance, transfer a &ldquo;pot of money&rdquo;
+       from alien pockets to his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Algy Blancove's in for five hundred to me,&rdquo; he said; adding with energy,
+      &ldquo;I hope you haven't lost? No, don't go and dash my jolly feeling by saying
+      you have. It was a fine heat; neck-and-neck past the Stand. Have you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little,&rdquo; she confessed. &ldquo;It's a failing of mine to like favourites. I'm
+      sorry for Algy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid he's awfully hit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What makes you think so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He took it so awfully cool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That may mean the reverse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It don't with him. But, Mrs. Lovell, do tell me you haven't lost. Not
+      much, is it? Because, I know there's no guessing, when you are concerned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady trifled with her bridle-rein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I really can't tell you yet. I may have lost. I haven't won. I'm not
+      cool-blooded enough to bet against favourites. Addio, son of Fortune! I'm
+      at the Opera to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she turned her horse from Lord Suckling, the cavalier who had saluted
+      her when she was with Sir William passed again. She made a signal to her
+      groom, and sent the man flying in pursuit of him, while she turned and
+      cantered. She was soon overtaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, you have done me the honour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to know why it is your pleasure to avoid me, Major Waring?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In this place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wherever we may chance to meet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must protest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not. The thing is evident.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They rode together silently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her face was toward the sunset. The light smote her yellow hair, and
+      struck out her grave and offended look, as in a picture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be condemned without a hearing!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;The most dastardly
+      criminal gets that. Is it imagined that I have no common feelings? Is it
+      manly to follow me with studied insult? I can bear the hatred of fools.
+      Contempt I have not deserved. Dead! I should be dead, if my conscience had
+      once reproached me. I am a mark for slander, and brave men should beware
+      of herding with despicable slanderers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She spoke, gazing frontward all the while. The pace she maintained in no
+      degree impeded the concentrated passion of her utterance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was a more difficult task for him, going at that pace, to make
+      explanations, and she was exquisitely fair to behold! The falling beams
+      touched her with a mellow sweetness that kindled bleeding memories.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I defend myself?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. All I ask is that you should Accuse me. Let me know what I have done&mdash;done,
+      that I have not been bitterly punished for? What is it? what is it? Why do
+      you inflict a torture on me whenever you see me? Not by word, not by look.
+      You are too subtle in your cruelty to give me anything I can grasp. You
+      know how you wound me. And I am alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is supposed to account for my behaviour?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned her face to him. &ldquo;Oh, Major blaring! say nothing unworthy of
+      yourself. That would be a new pain to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He bowed. In spite of a prepossessing anger, some little softness crept
+      through his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may conceive that I have dropped my pride,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;That is the
+      case, or my pride is of a better sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, I fully hope and trust,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And believe,&rdquo; she added, twisting his words to the ironic tongue. &ldquo;You
+      certainly must believe that my pride has sunk low. Did I ever speak to you
+      in this manner before?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in this manner, I can attest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did I speak at all, when I was hurt?&rdquo; She betrayed that he had planted a
+      fresh sting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If my recollection serves me,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;your self-command was
+      remarkable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovell slackened her pace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your recollection serves you too well, Major Waring. I was a girl. You
+      judged the acts of a woman. I was a girl, and you chose to put your own
+      interpretation on whatever I did. You scourged me before the whole army.
+      Was not that enough? I mean, enough for you? For me, perhaps not, for I
+      have suffered since, and may have been set apart to suffer. I saw you in
+      that little church at Warbeach; I met you in the lanes; I met you on the
+      steamer; on the railway platform; at the review. Everywhere you kept up
+      the look of my judge. You! and I have been 'Margaret' to you. Major
+      Waring, how many a woman in my place would attribute your relentless
+      condemnation of her to injured vanity or vengeance? In those days I
+      trifled with everybody. I played with fire. I was ignorant of life. I was
+      true to my husband; and because I was true, and because I was ignorant, I
+      was plunged into tragedies I never suspected. This is to be what you call
+      a coquette. Stamping a name saves thinking. Could I read my husband's
+      temper? Would not a coquette have played her cards differently? There
+      never was need for me to push my husband to a contest. I never had the
+      power to restrain him. Now I am wiser; and now is too late; and now you
+      sit in judgement on me. Why? It is not fair; it is unkind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tears were in her voice, though not in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Waring tried to study her with the coolness of a man who has learnt
+      to doubt the truth of women; but he had once yearned in a young man's
+      frenzy of love to take that delicate shape in his arms, and he was not
+      proof against the sedate sweet face and keen sad ring of the voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke earnestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You honour me by caring for my opinion. The past is buried. I have some
+      forgiveness to ask. Much, when I think of it&mdash;very much. I did you a
+      public wrong. From a man to a woman it was unpardonable. It is a blot on
+      my career. I beg you humbly to believe that I repent it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun was flaming with great wings red among the vapours; and in the
+      recollection of the two, as they rode onward facing it, arose that day of
+      the forlorn charge of English horse in the Indian jungle, the thunder and
+      the dust, the fire and the dense knot of the struggle. And like a ghost
+      sweeping across her eyeballs, Mrs. Lovell beheld, part in his English
+      freshness, part ensanguined, the image of the gallant boy who had ridden
+      to perish at the spur of her mad whim. She forgot all present
+      surroundings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Percy!&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Percy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, what an undying day, Percy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she was speechless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Park had been empty, but the opera-house was full; and in the
+      brilliance of the lights and divine soaring of the music, the genius of
+      Champagne luncheons discussed the fate of the horse Templemore; some, as a
+      matter of remote history; some, as another delusion in horse-flesh the
+      greater number, however, with a determination to stand by the beaten
+      favourite, though he had fallen, and proclaim him the best of racers and
+      an animal foully mishandled on the course. There were whispers, and hints,
+      and assertions; now implicating the jockey, now the owner of Templemore.
+      The Manchester party, and the Yorkshire party, and their diverse villanous
+      tricks, came under review. Several offered to back Templemore at double
+      the money they had lost, against the winner. A favourite on whom money has
+      been staked, not only has friends, but in adversity he is still believed
+      in; nor could it well be otherwise, for the money, no doubt, stands for
+      faith, or it would never have been put up to the risks of a forfeit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Foremost and wildest among the excited young men who animated the stalls,
+      and rushed about the lobby, was Algernon. He was the genius of Champagne
+      luncheon incarnate. On him devolves, for a time, the movement of this
+      story, and we shall do well to contemplate him, though he may seem
+      possibly to be worthless. What is worthless, if it be well looked at? Nay,
+      the most worthless creatures are most serviceable for examination, when
+      the microscope is applied to them, as a simple study of human mechanism.
+      This youth is one of great Nature's tom-fools: an elegant young gentleman
+      outwardly, of the very large class who are simply the engines of their
+      appetites, and, to the philosophic eye, still run wild in woods, as did
+      the primitive nobleman that made a noise in the earlier world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon had this day lost ten times more than he could hope to be in a
+      position to pay within ten years, at the least, if his father continued to
+      argue the matter against Providence, and live. He had lost, and might
+      speedily expect to be posted in all good betting circles as something not
+      pleasantly odoriferous for circles where there is no betting.
+      Nevertheless, the youth was surcharged with gaiety. The soul of mingled
+      chicken and wine illumined his cheeks and eyes. He laughed and joked about
+      the horse&mdash;his horse, as he called Templemore&mdash;and meeting Lord
+      Suckling, won five sovereigns of him by betting that the colours of one of
+      the beaten horses, Benloo, were distinguished by a chocolate bar. The bet
+      was referred to a dignified umpire, who, a Frenchman, drew his right hand
+      down an imperial tuft of hair dependent from his chin, and gave a decision
+      in Algernon's favour. Lord Suckling paid the money on the spot, and
+      Algernon pocketed it exulting. He had the idea that it was the first start
+      in his making head against the flood. The next instant he could have
+      pitched himself upon the floor and bellowed. For, a soul of chicken and
+      wine, lightly elated, is easily dashed; and if he had but said to Lord
+      Suckling that, it might as well be deferred, the thing would have become a
+      precedent, and his own debt might have been held back. He went on saying,
+      as he rushed forward alone: &ldquo;Never mind, Suckling. Oh, hang it! put it in
+      your pocket;&rdquo; and the imperative necessity for talking, and fancying what
+      was adverse to fact, enabled him to feel for a time as if he had really
+      acted according to the prompting of his wisdom. It amazed him to see
+      people sitting and listening. The more he tried it, the more unendurable
+      it became. Those sitters and loungers appeared like absurd petrifactions
+      to him. If he abstained from activity for ever so short a term, he was
+      tormented by a sense of emptiness; and, as he said to himself, a man who
+      has eaten a chicken, and part of a game-pie, and drunk thereto Champagne
+      all day, until the popping of the corks has become as familiar as
+      minute-guns, he can hardly be empty. It was peculiar. He stood, just for
+      the sake of investigating the circumstance&mdash;it was so extraordinary.
+      The music rose in a triumphant swell. And now he was sure that he was not
+      to be blamed for thinking this form of entertainment detestable. How could
+      people pretend to like it? &ldquo;Upon my honour!&rdquo; he said aloud. The
+      hypocritical nonsense of pretending to like opera-music disgusted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is it, Algy?&rdquo; a friend of his and Suckling's asked, with a languid
+      laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your honour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My honour? Do you doubt my honour?&rdquo; Algernon stared defiantly at the
+      inoffensive little fellow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in the slightest. Very sorry to, seeing that I have you down in my
+      book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Latters? Ah, yes,&rdquo; said Algernon, musically, and letting his under-lip
+      hang that he might restrain the impulse to bite it. &ldquo;Fifty, or a hundred,
+      is it? I lost my book on the Downs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fifty; but wait till settling-day, my good fellow, and don't fiddle at
+      your pockets as if I'd been touching you up for the money. Come and sup
+      with me to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon muttered a queer reply in a good-tempered tone, and escaped him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was sobered by that naming of settling-day. He could now listen to the
+      music with attention, if not with satisfaction. As he did so, the head of
+      drowned memory rose slowly up through the wine-bubbles in his brain, and
+      he flung out a far thought for relief: &ldquo;How, if I were to leave England
+      with that dark girl Rhoda at Wrexby, marry her like a man, and live a wild
+      ramping life in the colonies?&rdquo; A curtain closed on the prospect, but if
+      memory was resolved that it would not be drowned, he had at any rate dosed
+      it with something fresh to occupy its digestion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His opera-glass had been scouring the house for a sight of Mrs. Lovell,
+      and at last she appeared in Lord Elling's box.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can give you two minutes, Algy,&rdquo; she said, as he entered and found her
+      opportunely alone. &ldquo;We have lost, I hear. No interjection, pray. Let it
+      be, fors l'honneur, with us. Come to me to-morrow. You have tossed
+      trinkets into my lap. They were marks of esteem, my cousin. Take them in
+      the same light back from me. Turn them into money, and pay what is most
+      pressing. Then go to Lord Suckling. He is a good boy, and won't distress
+      you; but you must speak openly to him at once. Perhaps he will help you. I
+      will do my best, though whether I can, I have yet to learn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Mrs. Lovell!&rdquo; Algernon burst out, and the corners of his mouth
+      played nervously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He liked her kindness, and he was wroth at the projected return of his
+      gifts. A man's gifts are an exhibition of the royalty of his soul, and
+      they are the last things which should be mentioned to him as matters to be
+      blotted out when he is struggling against ruin. The lady had blunt insight
+      just then. She attributed his emotion to gratitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The door may be opened at any minute,&rdquo; she warned him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not about myself,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;it's you. I believe I tempted you to
+      back the beastly horse. And he would have won&mdash;a fair race, and he
+      would have won easy. He was winning. He passed the stand a head ahead. He
+      did win. It's a scandal to the Turf. There's an end of racing in England.
+      It's up. They've done for themselves to-day. There's a gang. It's in the
+      hands of confederates.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think so, if it consoles you,&rdquo; said Mrs. Lovell, &ldquo;don't mention your
+      thoughts, that is all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do think so. Why should we submit to a robbery? It's a sold affair.
+      That Frenchman, Baron Vistocq, says we can't lift our heads after it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He conducts himself with decency, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, he's won!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Imitate him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovell scanned the stalls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Always imitate the behaviour of the winners when you lose,&rdquo; she resumed.
+      &ldquo;To speak of other things: I have had no letter of late from Edward. He
+      should be anxious to return. I went this morning to see that unhappy girl.
+      She consents.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor creature,&rdquo; murmured Algernon; and added &ldquo;Everybody wants money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She decides wisely; for it is the best she can do. She deserves pity, for
+      she has been basely used.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor old Ned didn't mean,&rdquo; Algernon began pleading on his cousin's
+      behalf, when Mrs. Lovell's scornful eye checked the feeble attempt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am a woman, and, in certain cases, I side with my sex.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn't it for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That he betrayed her? If that were so, I should be sitting in ashes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon's look plainly declared that he thought her a mystery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The simplicity of his bewilderment made her smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think your colonies are the right place for you, Algy, if you can get
+      an appointment; which must be managed by-and-by. Call on me to-morrow, as
+      I said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon signified positively that he would not, and doggedly refused to
+      explain why.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I will call on you,&rdquo; said Mrs. Lovell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was going to say something angrily, when Mrs. Lovell checked him:
+      &ldquo;Hush! she is singing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon listened to the prima donna in loathing; he had so much to
+      inquire about, and so much to relate: such a desire to torment and be
+      comforted!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he could utter a word further, the door opened, and Major Waring
+      appeared, and he beheld Mrs. Lovell blush strangely. Soon after, Lord
+      Elling came in, and spoke the ordinary sentence or two concerning the
+      day's topic&mdash;the horse Templemore. Algernon quitted the box. His ears
+      were surcharged with sound entirely foreign to his emotions, and he
+      strolled out of the house and off to his dingy chambers, now tenanted by
+      himself alone, and there faced the sealed letters addressed to Edward,
+      which had, by order, not been forwarded. No less than six were in Dahlia's
+      handwriting. He had imagination sufficient to conceive the lamentations
+      they contained, and the reproach they were to his own subserviency in not
+      sending them. He looked at the postmarks. The last one was dated two
+      months back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can she have cared a hang for Ned, if she's ready to go and marry a
+      yokel, for the sake of a home and respectability?&rdquo; he thought, rather in
+      scorn; and, having established this contemptuous opinion of one of the
+      sex, he felt justified in despising all. &ldquo;Just like women! They&mdash;no!
+      Peggy Lovell isn't. She's a trump card, and she's a coquette&mdash;can't
+      help being one. It's in the blood. I never saw her look so confoundedly
+      lovely as when that fellow came into the box. One up, one down. Ned's
+      away, and it's this fellow's turn. Why the deuce does she always think I'm
+      a boy? or else, she pretends to. But I must give my mind to business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew forth the betting-book which his lively fancy had lost on the
+      Downs. Prompted by an afterthought, he went to the letter-box, saying,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who knows? Wait till the day's ended before you curse your luck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a foreign letter in it from Edward, addressed to him, and
+      another addressed to &ldquo;Mr. Blancuv,&rdquo; that he tore open and read with
+      disgusted laughter. It was signed &ldquo;N. Sedgett.&rdquo; Algernon read it twice
+      over, for the enjoyment of his critical detection of the vile grammar,
+      with many &ldquo;Oh! by Joves!&rdquo; and a concluding, &ldquo;This is a curiosity!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a countryman's letter, ill-spelt, involved, and of a character to
+      give Algernon a fine scholarly sense of superiority altogether novel.
+      Everybody abused Algernon for his abuse of common Queen's English in his
+      epistles: but here was a letter in comparison with which his own were
+      doctorial, and accordingly he fell upon it with an acrimonious rapture of
+      pedantry known to dull wits that have by extraordinary hazard pounced on a
+      duller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're 'willing to forgeit and forgeive,' are you, you dog!&rdquo; he
+      exclaimed, half dancing. &ldquo;You'd forge anything, you rascal, if you could
+      disguise your hand&mdash;that, I don't doubt. You 'expeck the thousand
+      pound to be paid down the day of my marriage,' do you, you impudent
+      ruffian! 'acording to agremint.' What a mercenary vagabond this is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon reflected a minute. The money was to pass through his hands. He
+      compressed a desire to dispute with Sedgett that latter point about the
+      agreement, and opened Edward's letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It contained an order on a firm of attorneys to sell out so much Bank
+      Stock and pay over one thousand pounds to Mr. A. Blancove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The beautiful concision of style in this document gave Algernon a feeling
+      of profound deference toward the law and its officers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, that's the way to Write!&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Accompanying this pleasant, pregnant bit of paper, possessed of such
+      admirable literary excellence, were the following flimsy lines from
+      Edward's self, to Algernon incomprehensible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As there is a man to be seen behind these lines in the dull unconscious
+      process of transformation from something very like a villain to something
+      by a few degrees more estimable, we may as well look at the letter in
+      full.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It begins with a neat display of consideration for the person addressed,
+      common to letters that are dictated by overpowering egoism:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Dear Algy,&mdash;I hope you are working and attending regularly to
+   office business. Look to that and to your health at present.
+   Depend upon it, there is nothing like work. Fix your teeth in it.
+   Work is medicine. A truism! Truisms, whether they lie in the
+   depths of thought, or on the surface, are at any rate the pearls of
+   experience.
+
+   &ldquo;I am coming home. Let me know the instant this affair is over. I
+   can't tell why I wait here. I fall into lethargies. I write to no
+   one but to you. Your supposition that I am one of the hangers-on of
+   the coquette of her time, and that it is for her I am seeking to get
+   free, is conceived with your usual discrimination. For Margaret
+   Lovell? Do you imagine that I desire to be all my life kicking the
+   beam, weighed in capricious scales, appraised to the direct nicety,
+   petulantly taken up, probed for my weakest point, and then flung
+   into the grate like a child's toy? That's the fate of the several
+   asses who put on the long-eared Lovell-livery.
+
+   &ldquo;All women are the same. Know one, know all. Aware of this, and
+   too wise to let us study them successfully, Nature pretty language
+   this is for you, Algy! I can do nothing but write nonsense. I am
+   sick of life. I feel choked. After a month, Paris is sweet
+   biscuit.
+
+   &ldquo;I have sent you the order for the money. If it were two, or
+   twenty, thousand pounds, it would be the same to me.
+
+   &ldquo;I swear to heaven that my lowest cynical ideas of women, and the
+   loathing with which their simply animal vagaries inspires a
+   thoughtful man, are distanced and made to seem a benevolent
+   criticism, by the actualities of my experience. I say that you
+   cannot put faith in a woman. Even now, I do not&mdash;it's against
+   reason&mdash;I do not believe that she&mdash;this Dahlia&mdash;means to go through
+   with it. She is trying me. I have told her that she was my wife.
+   Her self-respect&mdash;everything that keeps a woman's head up&mdash;must have
+   induced her to think so. Why, she is not a fool! How can she mean
+   to give herself to an ignorant country donkey? She does not: mark
+   me. For her, who is a really&mdash;I may say, the most refined nature I
+   have ever met, to affect this, and think of deceiving me, does not
+   do credit to her wits&mdash;and she is not without her share.
+
+   &ldquo;I did once mean that she should be honourably allied to me. It's
+   comforting that the act is not the wife of the intention, or I
+   should now be yoked to a mere thing of the seasons and the hours&mdash;a
+   creature whose 'No' to-day is the 'Yes' of to-morrow. Women of this
+   cast are sure to end comfortably for themselves, they are so
+   obedient to the whips of Providence.
+
+   &ldquo;But I tell you candidly, Algy, I believe she's pushing me, that she
+   may see how far I will let her go. I do not permit her to play at
+   this game with me.&rdquo; The difficulty is in teaching women that we are
+   not constituted as they are, and that we are wilfully earnest, while
+   they, who never can be so save under compulsion, carry it on with
+   us, expecting that at a certain crisis a curtain will drop, and we
+   shall take a deep breath, join hands, and exclaim, 'What an exciting
+   play!'&mdash;weeping luxuriously. The actualities of life must be
+   branded on their backs&mdash;you can't get their brains to apprehend
+   them.
+
+   &ldquo;Poor things! they need pity. I am ready to confess I did not keep
+   my promise to her. I am very sorry she has been ill. Of course,
+   having no brains&mdash;nothing but sensations wherewith to combat every
+   new revolution of fortune, she can't but fall ill. But I think of
+   her; and I wish to God I did not. She is going to enter her own
+   sphere&mdash;though, mark me, it will turn out as I say, that, when it
+   comes to the crisis, there will be shrieks and astonishment that the
+   curtain doesn't fall and the whole resolve itself to what they call
+   a dream in our language, a farce.
+
+   &ldquo;I am astonished that there should be no letters for me. I can
+   understand her not writing at first; but apparently she cherishes
+   rancour. It is not like her. I can't help thinking there must be
+   one letter from her, and that you keep it back. I remember that I
+   told you when I left England I desired to have no letter forwarded
+   to me, but I have repeatedly asked you since if there was a letter,
+   and it appears to me that you have shuffled in your answer. I
+   merely wish to know if there is a letter; because I am at present
+   out in my study of her character. It seems monstrous that she
+   should never have written! Don't you view it in that light? To be
+   ready to break with me, without one good-bye!&mdash;it's gratifying, but
+   I am astonished; for so gentle and tender a creature, such as I knew
+   her, never existed to compare with her. Ce qui est bien la preuve
+   que je ne la connaissais pas! I thought I did, which was my error.
+   I have a fatal habit of trusting to my observation less than to my
+   divining wit; and La Rochefoucauld is right: 'on est quelquefois un
+   sot avec de l'esprit; mais on ne Pest jamais avec du jugement.'
+   Well! better be deceived in a character than doubt it.
+
+   &ldquo;This will soon be over. Then back to the dear old dusky chambers,
+   with the pick and the axe in the mine of law, till I strike a gold
+   vein, and follow it to the woolsack. I want peace. I begin to hate
+   pleading. I hope to meet Death full-wigged. By my troth, I will
+   look as grimly at him as he at me. Meantime, during a vacation, I
+   will give you holiday (or better, in the February days, if I can
+   spare time and Equity is dispensed without my aid), dine you, and
+   put you in the whirl of Paris. You deserve a holiday. Nunc est
+   bibendum! You shall sing it. Tell me what you think of her
+   behaviour. You are a judge of women. I think I am developing
+   nerves. In fact, work is what I need&mdash;a file to bite. And send me
+   also the name of this man who has made the bargain&mdash;who is to be her
+   husband. Give me a description of him. It is my duty to see that
+   he has principle; at least we're bound to investigate his character,
+   if it's really to go on. I wonder whether you will ever perceive
+   the comedy of, life. I doubt whether a man is happier when he does
+   perceive it. Perhaps the fact is, that he has by that time lost his
+   power of laughter; except in the case of here and there a very
+   tremendous philosopher.
+
+   &ldquo;I believe that we comic creatures suffer more than your tragic
+   personages. We, do you see, are always looking to be happy and
+   comfortable; but in a tragedy, the doomed wretches are
+   liver-complexioned from the opening act. Their laughter is the owl:
+   their broadest smile is twilight. All the menacing horrors of an
+   eclipse are ours, for we have a sun over us; but they are born in
+   shades, with the tuck of a curtain showing light, and little can be
+   taken from them; so that they find scarce any terrors in the
+   inevitable final stroke. No; the comedy is painfullest. You and I,
+   Algy, old bachelors, will earn the right just to chuckle. We will
+   take the point of view of science, be the stage carpenters, and let
+   the actors move on and off. By this, we shall learn to take a
+   certain pride in the machinery. To become stage carpenter, is to
+   attain to the highest rank within the reach of intellectual man.
+   But your own machinery must be sound, or you can't look after that
+   of the theatre. Don't over-tax thy stomach, O youth!
+
+   &ldquo;And now, farewell, my worthy ass! You have been thinking me one
+   through a fair half of this my letter, so I hasten to be in advance
+   of you, by calling you one. You are one: I likewise am one. We are
+   all one. The universal language is hee-haw, done in a grievous
+   yawn.
+
+                  &ldquo;Yours,
+
+                    &ldquo;Edward B.
+
+   &ldquo;P.S.&mdash;Don't fail to send a letter by the next post; then, go and
+   see her; write again exactly what she says, and let me know the
+   man's name. You will not lose a minute. Also, don't waste ink in
+   putting Mrs. Lovell's name to paper: I desire not to hear anything
+   of the woman.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Algernon read this letter in a profound mystification, marvelling how it
+      could possibly be that Edward and Mrs. Lovell had quarrelled once more,
+      and without meeting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had parted, he knew or supposed that he knew, under an engagement to
+      arrange the preliminaries of an alliance, when Edward should return from
+      France; in other words, when Edward had thrown grave-dust on a naughty
+      portion of his past; severing an unwise connection. Such had certainly
+      been Edward's view of the matter. But Mrs. Lovell had never spoken to
+      Algernon on that subject. She had spoken willingly and in deep sympathy of
+      Dahlia. She had visited her, pitied her, comforted her; and Algernon
+      remembered that she had looked very keen and pinched about the mouth in
+      alluding to Dahlia; but how she and Edward had managed to arrive at
+      another misunderstanding was a prodigious puzzle to him; and why, if their
+      engagement had snapped, each consented to let Dahlia's marriage (which was
+      evidently distasteful to both) go on to the conclusion of the ceremony, he
+      could not comprehend. There were, however, so many things in the world
+      that he could not comprehend, and he had grown so accustomed, after an
+      effort to master a difficulty, to lean his head back upon downy ignorance,
+      that he treated this significant letter of Edward's like a tough lesson,
+      and quietly put it by, together with every recommendation it contained.
+      For all that was practical in it, it might just as well not have been
+      written.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The value of the letter lies in the exhibition it presents of a rather
+      mark-worthy young man, who has passed through the hands of a&mdash;(what I
+      must call her; and in doing so, I ask pardon of all the Jack Cades of
+      Letters, who, in the absence of a grammatical king and a government, sit
+      as lords upon the English tongue) a crucible woman. She may be inexcusable
+      herself; but you for you to be base, for you to be cowardly, even to
+      betray a weakness, though it be on her behalf,&mdash;though you can plead
+      that all you have done is for her, yea, was partly instigated by her,&mdash;it
+      will cause her to dismiss you with the inexorable contempt of Nature, when
+      she has tried one of her creatures and found him wanting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret Lovell was of this description: a woman fashioned to do both harm
+      and good, and more of harm than of good; but never to sanction a scheme of
+      evil or blink at it in alliance with another: a woman, in contact with
+      whom you were soon resolved to your component elements. Separated from a
+      certain fascination that there was for her in Edward's acerb wit, she saw
+      that he was doing a dastardly thing in cold blood. We need not examine
+      their correspondence. In a few weeks she had contrived to put a chasm
+      between them as lovers. Had he remained in England, boldly facing his own
+      evil actions, she would have been subjugated, for however keenly she might
+      pierce to the true character of a man, the show of an unflinching courage
+      dominated her; but his departure, leaving all the brutality to be done for
+      him behind his back, filled this woman with a cutting spleen. It is
+      sufficient for some men to know that they are seen through, in order to
+      turn away in loathing from her whom they have desired; and when they do
+      thus turn away, they not uncommonly turn with a rush of old affection to
+      those who have generously trusted them in the days past, and blindly
+      thought them estimable beings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon was by no means gifted to perceive whether this was the case with
+      his cousin in Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      So long as the fool has his being in the world, he will be a part of every
+      history, nor can I keep him from his place in a narrative that is made to
+      revolve more or less upon its own wheels. Algernon went to bed, completely
+      forgetting Edward and his own misfortunes, under the influence of the
+      opiate of the order for one thousand pounds, to be delivered to him upon
+      application. The morning found him calmly cheerful, until a little parcel
+      was brought to his door, together with a note from Mrs. Lovell, explaining
+      that the parcel contained those jewels, his precious gifts of what she had
+      insultingly chosen to call &ldquo;esteem&rdquo; for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon took it in his hand, and thought of flinging it through the
+      window; but as the window happened to be open, he checked the impulse, and
+      sent it with great force into a corner of the room: a perfectly fool-like
+      proceeding, for the fool is, after his fashion, prudent, and will never,
+      if he can help it, do himself thorough damage, that he may learn by it and
+      be wiser.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never stand insult,&rdquo; he uttered, self-approvingly, and felt manlier.
+      &ldquo;No; not even from you, ma'am,&rdquo; he apostrophized Mrs. Lovell's portrait,
+      that had no rival now upon the wall, and that gave him a sharp fight for
+      the preservation of his anger, so bewitching she was to see. Her not
+      sending up word that she wished him to come to her rendered his battle
+      easier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It looks rather like a break between us,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If so, you won't find
+      me so obedient to your caprices, Mrs. Margaret L.; though you are a pretty
+      woman, and know it. Smile away. I prefer a staunch, true sort of a woman,
+      after all. And the colonies it must be, I begin to suspect.&rdquo; This set him
+      conjuring before his eyes the image of Rhoda, until he cried, &ldquo;I'll be
+      hanged if the girl doesn't haunt me!&rdquo; and considered the matter with some
+      curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was quickly away, and across the square of Lincoln's Inn Fields to the
+      attorney's firm, where apparently his coming was expected, and he was told
+      that the money would be placed in his hands on the following day. He then
+      communicated with Edward, in the brief Caesarian tongue of the telegraph:
+      &ldquo;All right. Stay. Ceremony arranged.&rdquo; After which, he hailed a skimming
+      cab, and pronouncing the word &ldquo;Epsom,&rdquo; sank back in it, and felt in his
+      breast-pocket for his cigar-case, without casting one glance of interest
+      at the deep fit of cogitation the cabman had been thrown into by the
+      suddenness of the order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dash'd if it ain't the very thing I went and gone and dreamed last
+      night,&rdquo; said the cabman, as he made his dispositions to commence the
+      journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Certain boys advised him to whip it away as hard as he could, and he would
+      come in the winner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where shall I grub, sir?&rdquo; the cabman asked through the little door above,
+      to get some knowledge of the quality of his fare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eat your 'grub' on the course,&rdquo; said Algernon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ne'er a hamper to take up nowheres, is there, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you like the sight of one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it ain't what I object to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then go fast, my man, and you will soon see plenty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you took to chaffin' a bit later in the day, it'd impart more
+      confidence to my bosom,&rdquo; said the cabman; but this he said to that bosom
+      alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't no particular colours you'd like me to wear, is there? I'll get a
+      rosette, if you like, sir, and enter in triumph. Gives ye something to
+      stand by. That's always my remark, founded on observation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to the deuce! Drive on,&rdquo; Algernon sang out. &ldquo;Red, yellow, and green.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lobster, ale, and salad!&rdquo; said the cabman, flicking his whip; &ldquo;and good
+      colours too. Tenpenny Nail's the horse. He's the colours I stick to.&rdquo; And
+      off he drove, envied of London urchins, as mortals would have envied a
+      charioteer driving visibly for Olympus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon crossed his arms, with the frown of one looking all inward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At school this youth had hated sums. All arithmetical difficulties had
+      confused and sickened him. But now he worked with indefatigable industry
+      on an imaginary slate; put his postulate, counted probabilities, allowed
+      for chances, added, deducted, multiplied, and unknowingly performed
+      algebraic feats, till his brows were stiff with frowning, and his brain
+      craved for stimulant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This necessity sent his hand to his purse, for the calling of the cab had
+      not been a premeditated matter. He discovered therein some half-crowns and
+      a sixpence, the latter of which he tossed in contempt at some boys who
+      were cheering the vehicles on their gallant career.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something desperately amusing to him in the thought that he had
+      not even money enough to pay the cabman, or provide for a repast. He
+      rollicked in his present poverty. Yesterday he had run down with a party
+      of young guardsmen in a very royal manner; and yesterday he had lost.
+      To-day he journeyed to the course poorer than many of the beggars he would
+      find there; and by a natural deduction, to-day he was to win.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He whistled mad waltzes to the measure of the wheels. He believed that he
+      had a star. He pitched his half-crowns to the turnpike-men, and sought to
+      propitiate Fortune by displaying a signal indifference to small change; in
+      which method of courting her he was perfectly serious. He absolutely
+      rejected coppers. They &ldquo;crossed his luck.&rdquo; Nor can we say that he is not
+      an authority on this point: the Goddess certainly does not deal in
+      coppers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anxious efforts at recollection perplexed him. He could not remember
+      whether he had &ldquo;turned his money&rdquo; on looking at the last new moon. When
+      had he seen the last new moon, and where? A cloud obscured it; he had
+      forgotten. He consoled himself by cursing superstition. Tenpenny Nail was
+      to gain the day in spite of fortune. Algernon said this, and entrenched
+      his fluttering spirit behind common sense, but he found it a cold corner.
+      The longing for Champagne stimulant increased in fervour. Arithmetic
+      languished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he was going up the hill, the wheels were still for a moment, and
+      hearing &ldquo;Tenpenny Nail&rdquo; shouted, he put forth his head, and asked what the
+      cry was, concerning that horse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gone lame,&rdquo; was the answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It hit the centre of his nerves, without reaching his comprehension, and
+      all Englishmen being equal on Epsom Downs, his stare at the man who had
+      spoken, and his sickly colour, exposed him to pungent remarks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hullos! here's another Ninepenny&mdash;a penny short!&rdquo; and similar
+      specimens of Epsom wit, encouraged by the winks and retorts of his driver,
+      surrounded him; but it was empty clamour outside. A rage of emotions
+      drowned every idea in his head, and when he got one clear from the mass,
+      it took the form of a bitter sneer at Providence, for cutting off his last
+      chance of reforming his conduct and becoming good. What would he not have
+      accomplished, that was brilliant, and beautiful, and soothing, but for
+      this dead set against him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was clear that Providence cared &ldquo;not a rap,&rdquo; whether he won or lost&mdash;was
+      good or bad. One might just as well be a heathen; why not?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He jumped out of the cab (tearing his coat in the acts minor evil, but
+      &ldquo;all of a piece,&rdquo; as he said), and made his way to the Ring. The bee-swarm
+      was thick as ever on the golden bough. Algernon heard no curses, and began
+      to nourish hope again, as he advanced. He began to hope wildly that this
+      rumour about the horse was a falsity, for there was no commotion, no one
+      declaiming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He pushed to enter the roaring circle, which the demand for an
+      entrance-fee warned him was a privilege, and he stammered, and forgot the
+      gentlemanly coolness commonly distinguishing him, under one of the acuter
+      twinges of his veteran complaint of impecuniosity. And then the cabman
+      made himself heard: a civil cabman, but without directions, and uncertain
+      of his dinner and his pay, tolerably hot, also, from threading a crowd
+      after a deaf gentleman. His half-injured look restored to Algernon his
+      self-possession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! there you are:&mdash;scurry away and fetch my purse out of the bottom
+      of the cab. I've dropped it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On this errand, the confiding cabman retired. Holding to a gentleman's
+      purse is even securer than holding to a gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Algernon was working his forefinger in his waistcoat-pocket
+      reflectively, a man at his elbow said, with a show of familiar deference,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it's any convenience to you, sir,&rdquo; and showed the rim of a gold piece
+      'twixt finger and thumb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; Algernon replied readily, and felt that he was known, but
+      tried to keep his eyes from looking at the man's face; which was a vain
+      effort. He took the money, nodded curtly, and passed in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once through the barrier, he had no time to be ashamed. He was in the
+      atmosphere of challenges. He heard voices, and saw men whom not to
+      challenge, or try a result with, was to acknowledge oneself mean, and to
+      abandon the manliness of life. Algernon's betting-book was soon out and in
+      operation. While thus engaged, he beheld faces passing and repassing that
+      were the promise of luncheon and a loan; and so comfortable was the
+      assurance thereof to him, that he laid the thought of it aside, quite in
+      the background, and went on betting with an easy mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Small, senseless bets, they merely occupied him; and winning them was
+      really less satisfactory than losing, which, at all events, had the merit
+      of adding to the bulk of his accusation against the ruling Powers unseen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon was too savage for betting when the great race was run. He
+      refused both at taunts and cajoleries; but Lord Suckling coming by, said
+      &ldquo;Name your horse,&rdquo; and, caught unawares, Algernon named Little John, one
+      of the ruck, at a hazard. Lord Suckling gave him fair odds, asking: &ldquo;In
+      tens?&mdash;fifties?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silver,&rdquo; shrugged Algernon, implacable toward Fortune; and the kindly
+      young nobleman nodded, and made allowance for his ill-temper and want of
+      spirit, knowing the stake he had laid on the favourite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little John startled the field by coming in first at a canter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men have committed suicide for less than this&rdquo; said Algernon within his
+      lips, and a modest expression of submission to fate settled on his
+      countenance. He stuck to the Ring till he was haggard with fatigue. His
+      whole nature cried out for Champagne, and now he burst away from that
+      devilish circle, looking about for Lord Suckling and a hamper. Food and a
+      frothing drink were all that he asked from Fortune. It seemed to him that
+      the concourse on the downs shifted in a restless way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's doing, I wonder?&rdquo; he thought aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, sir, the last race ain't generally fashionable,&rdquo; said his cabman,
+      appearing from behind his shoulder. &ldquo;Don't you happen to be peckish, sir?&mdash;'cause,
+      luck or no luck, that's my case. I couldn't see, your purse, nowheres.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confound you! how you hang about me! What do you want?&rdquo; Algernon cried;
+      and answered his own question, by speeding the cabman to a booth with what
+      money remained to him, and appointing a place of meeting for the return.
+      After which he glanced round furtively to make sure that he was not in
+      view of the man who had lent him the sovereign. It became evident that the
+      Downs were flowing back to London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hurried along the lines of carriages, all getting into motion. The
+      ghastly conviction overtook him that he was left friendless, to starve.
+      Wherever he turned, he saw strangers and empty hampers, bottles, straw,
+      waste paper&mdash;the ruins of the feast: Fate's irony meantime besetting
+      him with beggars, who swallowed his imprecations as the earnest of coming
+      charity in such places.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, he was brought almost to sigh that he might see the man who had
+      lent him the sovereign, and his wish was hardly formed, when Nicodemus
+      Sedgett approached, waving a hat encircled by preposterous wooden figures,
+      a trifle less lightly attired than the ladies of the ballet, and as bold
+      in the matter of leg as the female fashion of the period.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon eyed the lumpy-headed, heavy-browed rascal with what disgust he
+      had left in him, for one who came as an instrument of the Fates to help
+      him to some poor refreshment. Sedgett informed him that he had never had
+      such fun in his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just 'fore matrimony,&rdquo; he communicated in a dull whisper, &ldquo;a fellow ought
+      to see a bit o' the world, I says&mdash;don't you, sir? and this has been
+      rare sport, that it has! Did ye find your purse, sir? Never mind 'bout
+      that ther' pound. I'll lend you another, if ye like. How sh'll it be? Say
+      the word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon was meditating, apparently on a remote subject. He nodded
+      sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Call at my chambers to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another sovereign was transferred to him: but Sedgett would not be shaken
+      off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I just wanted t' have a bit of a talk with you,&rdquo; he spoke low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hang it! I haven't eaten all day,&rdquo; snapped the irritable young gentleman,
+      fearful now of being seen in the rascal's company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You come along to the jolliest booth&mdash;I'll show it to you,&rdquo; said
+      Sedgett, and lifted one leg in dancing attitude. &ldquo;Come along, sir: the
+      jolliest booth I ever was in, dang me if it ain't! Ale and music&mdash;them's
+      my darlings!&rdquo; the wretch vented his slang. &ldquo;And I must have a talk with
+      you. I'll stick to you. I'm social when I'm jolly, that I be: and I don't
+      know a chap on these here downs. Here's the pint: Is all square? Am I t'
+      have the cash in cash counted down, I asks? And is it to be before, or is
+      it to be after, the ceremony? There! bang out! say, yes or no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon sent him to perdition with infinite heartiness, but he was dry,
+      dispirited, and weak, and he walked on, Sedgett accompanying him. He
+      entered a booth, and partook of ale and ham, feeling that he was in the
+      dregs of calamity. Though the ale did some service in reviving, it did not
+      cheer him, and he had a fit of moral objection to Sedgett's discourse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedgett took his bluntness as a matter to be endured for the honour of
+      hob-a-nobbing with a gentleman. Several times he recurred to the theme
+      which he wanted, as he said, to have a talk upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He related how he had courted the young woman, &ldquo;bashful-like,&rdquo; and had
+      been so; for she was a splendid young woman; not so handsome now, as she
+      used to be when he had seen her in the winter: but her illness had pulled
+      her down and made her humble: they had cut her hair during the fever,
+      which had taken her pride clean out of her; and when he had put the
+      question to her on the evening of last Sunday, she had gone into a sort of
+      faint, and he walked away with her affirmative locked up in his
+      breast-pocket, and was resolved always to treat her well&mdash;which he
+      swore to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Married, and got the money, and the lease o' my farm disposed of, I'm off
+      to Australia and leave old England behind me, and thank ye, mother, thank
+      ye! and we shan't meet again in a hurry. And what sort o' song I'm to sing
+      for 'England is my nation, ain't come across me yet. Australia's such a
+      precious big world; but that'll come easy in time. And there'll I farm,
+      and damn all you gentlemen, if you come anigh me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The eyes of the fellow were fierce as he uttered this; they were rendered
+      fierce by a peculiar blackish flush that came on his brows and
+      cheek-bones; otherwise, the yellow about the little brown dot in the
+      centre of the eyeball had not changed; but the look was unmistakably
+      savage, animal, and bad. He closed the lids on them, and gave a sort of
+      churlish smile immediately afterward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harmony's the game. You act fair, I act fair. I've kept to the condition.
+      She don't know anything of my whereabouts&mdash;res'dence, I mean; and
+      thinks I met you in her room for the first time. That's the truth, Mr.
+      Blancove. And thinks me a sheepish chap, and I'm that, when I'm along wi'
+      her. She can't make out how I come to call at her house and know her
+      first. Gives up guessing, I suppose, for she's quiet about it; and I pitch
+      her tales about Australia, and life out there. I've got her to smile, once
+      or twice. She'll turn her hand to making cheeses, never you fear. Only,
+      this I say. I must have the money. It's a thousand and a bargain. No
+      thousand, and no wife for me. Not that I don't stand by the agreement. I'm
+      solid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon had no power of encountering a human eye steadily, or he would
+      have shown the man with a look how repulsive he was to a gentleman. His
+      sensations grew remorseful, as if he were guilty of handing a victim to
+      the wretch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the woman followed her own inclination, did she not? There was no
+      compulsion: she accepted this man. And if she could do that, pity was
+      wasted on her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So thought he: and so the world would think of the poor forlorn soul
+      striving to expiate her fault, that her father and sister might be at
+      peace, without shame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon signified to Sedgett that the agreement was fixed and irrevocable
+      on his part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedgett gulped some ale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hands on it,&rdquo; he said, and laid his huge hand open across the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was too much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My word must satisfy you,&rdquo; said Algernon, rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it shall. So it do,&rdquo; returned Sedgett, rising with him. &ldquo;Will you give
+      it in writing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's blunt. Will you come and have a look at a sparring-match in yond'
+      brown booth, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going back to London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;London and the theayter that's the fun, now, ain't it!&rdquo; Sedgett laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon discerned his cabman and the conveyance ready, and beckoned him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps, sir,&rdquo; said Sedgett, &ldquo;if I might make so bold&mdash;I don't want
+      to speak o' them sovereigns&mdash;but I've got to get back too, and cash
+      is run low. D' ye mind, sir? Are you kind-hearted?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A constitutional habit of servility to his creditor when present before
+      him signalized Algernon. He detested the man, but his feebleness was
+      seized by the latter question, and he fancied he might, on the road to
+      London, convey to Sedgett's mind that it would be well to split that
+      thousand, as he had previously devised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jump in,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Sedgett was seated, Algernon would have been glad to walk the
+      distance to London to escape from the unwholesome proximity. He took the
+      vacant place, in horror of it. The man had hitherto appeared respectful;
+      and in Dahlia's presence he had seemed a gentle big fellow with a
+      reverent, affectionate heart. Sedgett rallied him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've had bad luck&mdash;that's wrote on your hatband. Now, if you was a
+      woman, I'd say, tak' and go and have a peroose o' your Bible. That's what
+      my young woman does; and by George! it's just like medicine to her&mdash;that
+      'tis! I've read out to her till I could ha' swallowed two quart o' beer at
+      a gulp&mdash;I was that mortal thirsty. It don't somehow seem to improve
+      men. It didn't do me no good. There was I, cursin' at the bother, down in
+      my boots, like, and she with her hands in a knot, staring the fire out o'
+      count'nance. They're weak, poor sort o' things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The intolerable talk of the ruffian prompted Algernon to cry out, for
+      relief,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A scoundrel like you must be past any good to be got from reading his
+      Bible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedgett turned his dull brown eyes on him, the thick and hateful flush of
+      evil blood informing them with detestable malignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come; you be civil, if you're going to be my companion,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I
+      don't like bad words; they don't go down my windpipe. 'Scoundrel 's a name
+      I've got a retort for, and if it hadn't been you, and you a gentleman,
+      you'd have had it spanking hot from the end o' my fist. Perhaps you don't
+      know what sort of a arm I've got? Just you feel that ther' muscle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He doubled his arm, the knuckles of the fist toward Algernon's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Down with it, you dog!&rdquo; cried Algernon, crushing his hat as he started
+      up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'll come on your nose, if I downs with it, my lord,&rdquo; said Sedgett.
+      &ldquo;You've what they Londoners calls 'bonneted yourself.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He pulled Algernon by the coat-tail into his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; Algernon shouted to the cabman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drive ahead!&rdquo; roared Sedgett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This signal of a dissension was heard along the main street of Epsom, and
+      re-awakened the flagging hilarity of the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon shrieked his commands; Sedgett thundered his. They tussled, and
+      each having inflicted an unpleasant squeeze on the other, they came apart
+      by mutual consent, and exchanged half-length blows. Overhead, the cabman&mdash;not
+      merely a cabman, but an individual&mdash;flicked the flanks of his horse,
+      and cocked his eye and head in answer to gesticulations from shop-doors
+      and pavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let 'em fight it out, I'm impartial,&rdquo; he remarked; and having lifted his
+      little observing door, and given one glance, parrot-wise, below, he shut
+      away the troubled prospect of those mortals, and drove along benignly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Epsom permitted it; but Ewell contained a sturdy citizen, who, smoking his
+      pipe under his eaves, contemplative of passers-by, saw strife rushing on
+      like a meteor. He raised the waxed end of his pipe, and with an
+      authoritative motion of his head at the same time, pointed out the case to
+      a man in a donkey-cart, who looked behind, saw pugnacity upon wheels, and
+      manoeuvred a docile and wonderfully pretty-stepping little donkey in such
+      a manner that the cabman was fain to pull up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The combatants jumped into the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's right, gentlemen; I don't want to spile sport,&rdquo; said the donkey's
+      man. &ldquo;O' course you ends your Epsom-day with spirit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's sunset on their faces,&rdquo; said the cabman. &ldquo;Would you try a
+      by-lane, gentlemen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But now the donkey's man had inspected the figures of the antagonistic
+      couple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Taint fair play,&rdquo; he said to Sedgett. &ldquo;You leave that gentleman alone,
+      you, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man with the pipe came up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No fighting,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;We ain't going to have our roads disgraced.
+      It shan't be said Englishmen don't know how to enjoy themselves without
+      getting drunk and disorderly. You drop your fists.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The separation had to be accomplished by violence, for Algernon's blood
+      was up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A crowd was not long in collecting, which caused a stoppage of vehicles of
+      every description.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A gentleman leaned from an open carriage to look at the fray critically,
+      and his companion stretching his neck to do likewise, &ldquo;Sedgett!&rdquo; burst
+      from his lips involuntarily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pair of original disputants (for there were many by this time) turned
+      their heads simultaneously toward the carriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you come on?&rdquo; Sedgett roared, but whether to Algernon, or to one of
+      the gentlemen, or one of the crowd, was indefinite. None responding, he
+      shook with ox-like wrath, pushed among shoulders, and plunged back to his
+      seat, making the cabman above bound and sway, and the cab-horse to start
+      and antic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Greatly to the amazement of the spectators, the manifest gentleman (by
+      comparison) who had recently been at a pummelling match with him, and bore
+      the stains of it, hung his head, stepped on the cab, and suffered himself
+      to be driven away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sort of a 'man-and-wife' quarrel,&rdquo; was the donkey's man's comment.
+      &ldquo;There's something as corks 'em up, and something uncorks 'em; but what
+      that something is, I ain't, nor you ain't, man enough to inform the
+      company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He rubbed his little donkey's nose affectionately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any gentleman open to a bet I don't overtake that ere Hansom within three
+      miles o' Ewell?&rdquo; he asked, as he took the rein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But his little donkey's quality was famous in the neighbourhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come on, then,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;and show what you can do, without emilation,
+      Master Tom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Away the little donkey trotted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Those two in the open carriage, one of whom had called out Sedgett's name,
+      were Robert and Major Waring. When the cab had flown by, they fell back
+      into their seats, and smoked; the original stipulation for the day having
+      been that no harassing matter should be spoken of till nightfall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      True to this, Robert tried to think hard on the scene of his recent
+      enjoyment. Horses were to him what music is to a poet, and the glory of
+      the Races he had witnessed was still quick in heart, and partly
+      counteracted his astonishment at the sight of his old village enemy in
+      company with Algernon Blancove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not astonishing at all to him that they should have quarrelled and
+      come to blows; for he knew Sedgett well, and the imperative necessity for
+      fighting him, if only to preserve a man's self-respect and the fair
+      division of peace, when once he had been allowed to get upon terms
+      sufficiently close to assert his black nature; but how had it come about?
+      How was it that a gentleman could consent to appear publicly with such a
+      fellow? He decided that it meant something, and something ominous&mdash;but
+      what? Whom could it affect? Was Algernon Blancove such a poor creature
+      that, feeling himself bound by certain dark dealings with Sedgett to keep
+      him quiet, he permitted the bullying dog to hang to his coat-tail? It
+      seemed improbable that any young gentleman should be so weak, but it might
+      be the case; and &ldquo;if so,&rdquo; thought Robert, &ldquo;and I let him know I bear him
+      no ill-will for setting Sedgett upon me, I may be doing him a service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He remembered with pain Algernon's glance of savage humiliation upward,
+      just before he turned to follow Sedgett into the cab; and considered that
+      he ought in kindness to see him and make him comfortable by apologizing,
+      as if he himself had no complaint to make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He resolved to do it when the opportunity should come. Meantime, what on
+      earth brought them together?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How white the hedges are!&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a good deal of dust,&rdquo; Major Waring replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wasn't aware that cabs came to the races.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They do, you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert perceived that Percy meant to fool him if he attempted a breach of
+      the bond; but he longed so much for Percy's opinion of the strange
+      alliance between Sedgett and Algernon Blancove, that at any cost he was
+      compelled to say, &ldquo;I can't get to the bottom of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That squabble in the road?&rdquo; said Percy. &ldquo;We shall see two or three more
+      before we reach home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. What's the meaning of a gentleman consorting with a blackguard?&rdquo;
+       Robert persisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One or the other has discovered an assimilation, I suppose,&rdquo; Percy gave
+      answer. &ldquo;That's an odd remark on returning from Epsom. Those who jump into
+      the same pond generally come out the same colour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert spoke low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has it anything to do with the poor girl, do you think?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you I declined to think till we were home again. Confound it, man,
+      have you no idea of a holiday?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert puffed his tobacco-smoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's talk of Mrs. Lovell,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's not a holiday for me,&rdquo; Percy murmured but Robert's mind was too
+      preoccupied to observe the tone, and he asked,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she to be trusted to keep her word faithfully this time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; said Percy, &ldquo;we haven't betted to-day. I'll bet you she will, if
+      you like. Will you bet against it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't. I can't nibble at anything. Betting's like drinking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you can take a glass of wine. This sort of bet is much the same.
+      However, don't; for you would lose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There,&rdquo; said Robert; &ldquo;I've heard of being angry with women for
+      fickleness, changeableness, and all sorts of other things. She's a lady I
+      couldn't understand being downright angry with, and here's the reason&mdash;it
+      ain't a matter of reason at all&mdash;she fascinates me. I do, I declare,
+      clean forget Rhoda; I forget the girl, if only I see Mrs. Lovell at a
+      distance. How's that? I'm not a fool, with nonsensical fancies of any
+      kind. I know what loving a woman is; and a man in my position might be ass
+      enough to&mdash;all sorts of things. It isn't that; it's fascination. I'm
+      afraid of her. If she talks to me, I feel something like having gulped a
+      bottle of wine. Some women you have a respect for; some you like or you
+      love; some you despise: with her, I just feel I'm intoxicated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Waring eyed him steadily. He said: &ldquo;I'll unriddle it, if I can, to
+      your comprehension. She admires you for what you are, and she lets you see
+      it; I dare say she's not unwilling that you should see it. She has a
+      worship for bravery: it's a deadly passion with her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert put up a protesting blush of modesty, as became him. &ldquo;Then why, if
+      she does me the honour to think anything of me, does she turn against me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! now you go deeper. She is giving you what assistance she can; at
+      present: be thankful, if you can be satisfied with her present doings.
+      Perhaps I'll answer the other question by-and-by. Now we enter London, and
+      our day is over. How did you like it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert's imagination rushed back to the downs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The race was glorious. I wish we could go at that pace in life; I should
+      have a certainty of winning. How miserably dull the streets look; and the
+      people creep along&mdash;they creep, and seem to like it. Horseback's my
+      element.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They drove up to Robert's lodgings, where, since the Winter, he had been
+      living austerely and recklessly; exiled by his sensitiveness from his two
+      homes, Warbeach and Wrexby; and seeking over London for Dahlia&mdash;a
+      pensioner on his friend's bounty; and therein had lain the degrading
+      misery to a man of his composition. Often had he thought of enlisting
+      again, and getting drafted to a foreign station. Nothing but the
+      consciousness that he was subsisting on money not his own would have kept
+      him from his vice. As it was, he had lived through the months between
+      Winter and Spring, like one threading his way through the tortuous lengths
+      of a cavern; never coming to the light, but coming upon absurd mishaps in
+      his effort to reach it. His adventures in London partook somewhat of the
+      character of those in Warbeach, minus the victim; for whom two or three
+      gentlemen in public thoroughfares had been taken. These misdemeanours, in
+      the face of civil society, Robert made no mention of in his letters to
+      Percy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there was light now, though at first it gave but a faint glimmer, in a
+      lady's coloured envelope, lying on the sitting-room table. Robert opened
+      it hurriedly, and read it; seized Dahlia's address, with a brain on fire,
+      and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's signed 'Margaret Lovell.' This time she calls me 'Dear Sir.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She could hardly do less,&rdquo; Percy remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know: but there is a change in her. There's a summer in her writing
+      now. She has kept her word, Percy. She's the dearest lady in the world. I
+      don't ask why she didn't help me before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You acknowledge the policy of mild measures,&rdquo; said Major Waring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's the dearest lady in the world,&rdquo; Robert repeated. He checked his
+      enthusiasm. &ldquo;Lord in heaven! what an evening I shall have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The thought of his approaching interview with Dahlia kept him dumb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they were parting in the street, Major Waring said, &ldquo;I will be here at
+      twelve. Let me tell you this, Robert: she is going to be married; say
+      nothing to dissuade her; it's the best she can do; take a manly view of
+      it. Good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert was but slightly affected by the intelligence. His thoughts were on
+      Dahlia as he had first seen her, when in her bloom, and the sister of his
+      darling; now miserable; a thing trampled to earth! With him, pity for a
+      victim soon became lost in rage at the author of the wrong, and as he
+      walked along he reflected contemptuously on his feeble efforts to avenge
+      her at Warbeach. She lived in a poor row of cottages, striking off from
+      one of the main South-western suburb roads, not very distant from his own
+      lodgings, at which he marvelled, as at a cruel irony. He could not discern
+      the numbers, and had to turn up several of the dusky little strips of
+      garden to read the numbers on the doors. A faint smell of lilac recalled
+      the country and old days, and some church bells began ringing. The number
+      of the house where he was to find Dahlia was seven. He was at the door of
+      the house next to it, when he heard voices in the garden beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man said, &ldquo;Then I have your answer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A woman said, &ldquo;Yes; yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will not trust to my pledged honour?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me; not that. I will not live in disgrace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I promise, on my soul, that the moment I am free I will set you
+      right before the world?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! pardon me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; no! I cannot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You choose to give yourself to an obscure dog, who'll ill-treat you, and
+      for whom you don't care a pin's-head; and why? that you may be fenced from
+      gossip, and nothing more. I thought you were a woman above that kind of
+      meanness. And this is a common countryman. How will you endure that kind
+      of life? You were made for elegance and happiness: you shall have it. I
+      met you before your illness, when you would not listen to me: I met you
+      after. I knew you at once. Am I changed? I swear to you I have dreamed of
+      you ever since, and love you. Be as faded as you like; be hideous, if you
+      like; but come with me. You know my name, and what I am. Twice I have
+      followed you, and found your name and address; twice I have written to
+      you, and made the same proposal. And you won't trust to my honour? When I
+      tell you I love you tenderly? When I give you my solemn assurance that you
+      shall not regret it? You have been deceived by one man: why punish me? I
+      know&mdash;I feel you are innocent and good. This is the third time that
+      you have permitted me to speak to you: let it be final. Say you will trust
+      yourself to me&mdash;trust in my honour. Say it shall be to-morrow. Yes;
+      say the word. To-morrow. My sweet creature&mdash;do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man spoke earnestly, but a third person and extraneous hearer could
+      hardly avoid being struck by the bathetic conclusion. At least, in tone it
+      bordered on a fall; but the woman did not feel it so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She replied: &ldquo;You mean kindly to me, sir. I thank you indeed, for I am
+      very friendless. Oh! pardon me: I am quite&mdash;quite determined. Go&mdash;pray,
+      forget me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was Dahlia's voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert was unconscious of having previously suspected it. Heartily ashamed
+      of letting his ears be filled with secret talk, he went from the garden
+      and crossed the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew this to be one of the temptations of young women in London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shortly after, the man came through the iron gateway of the garden. He
+      passed under lamplight, and Robert perceived him to be a gentleman in
+      garb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A light appeared in the windows of the house. Now that he had heard her
+      voice, the terrors of his interview were dispersed, and he had only plain
+      sadness to encounter. He knocked at the door quietly. There was a long
+      delay after he had sent in his name; but finally admission was given.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I had loved her!&rdquo; groaned Robert, before he looked on her; but when he
+      did look on her, affectionate pity washed the selfish man out of him. All
+      these false sensations, peculiar to men, concerning the soiled purity of
+      woman, the lost innocence; the brand of shame upon her, which are commonly
+      the foul sentimentalism of such as can be too eager in the chase of
+      corruption when occasion suits, and are another side of pruriency, not
+      absolutely foreign to the best of us in our youth&mdash;all passed away
+      from him in Dahlia's presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man who can look on them we call fallen women with a noble eye,
+      is to my mind he that is most nobly begotten of the race, and likeliest to
+      be the sire of a noble line. Robert was less than he; but Dahlia's aspect
+      helped him to his rightful manliness. He saw that her worth survived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The creature's soul had put no gloss upon her sin. She had sinned, and her
+      suffering was manifest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had chosen to stand up and take the scourge of God; after which the
+      stones cast by men are not painful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this I mean that she had voluntarily stripped her spirit bare of
+      evasion, and seen herself for what she was; pleading no excuse. His
+      scourge is the Truth, and she had faced it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Innumerable fanciful thoughts, few of them definite, beset the mind at
+      interviews such as these; but Robert was distinctly impressed by her look.
+      It was as that of one upon the yonder shore. Though they stood close
+      together, he had the thought of their being separate&mdash;a gulf between.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The colourlessness of her features helped to it, and the odd little
+      close-fitting white linen cap which she wore to conceal the
+      stubborn-twisting clipped curls of her shorn head, made her unlike women
+      of our world. She was dressed in black up to the throat. Her eyes were
+      still luminously blue, and she let them dwell on Robert one gentle
+      instant, giving him her hand humbly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahlia!&mdash;my dear sister, I wish I could say; but the luck's against
+      me,&rdquo; Robert began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat, with her fingers locked together in her lap, gazing forward on
+      the floor, her head a little sideways bent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe,&rdquo; he went on&mdash;&ldquo;I haven't heard, but I believe Rhoda is
+      well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She and father are well, I know,&rdquo; said Dahlia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert started: &ldquo;Are you in communication with them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head. &ldquo;At the end of some days I shall see them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And then perhaps you'll plead my cause, and make me thankful to you for
+      life, Dahlia?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rhoda does not love you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the fact, if a young woman's to be trusted to know her own mind,
+      in the first place, and to speak it, in the second.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia, closed her lips. The long-lined underlip was no more very red. Her
+      heart knew that it was not to speak of himself that he had come; but she
+      was poor-witted, through weakness of her blood, and out of her own
+      immediate line of thought could think neither far nor deep. He entertained
+      her with talk of his notions of Rhoda, finishing:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But at the end of a week you will see her, and I dare say she'll give you
+      her notions of me. Dahlia! how happy this'll make them. I do say thank
+      God! from my soul, for this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pressed her hands in her lap, trembling. &ldquo;If you will, please, not
+      speak of it, Mr. Robert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say only you do mean it, Dahlia. You mean to let them see you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shivered out a &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's right. Because, a father and a sister&mdash;haven't they a claim?
+      Think a while. They've had a terrible time. And it's true that you've
+      consented to a husband, Dahlia? I'm glad, if it is; and he's good and
+      kind. Right soul-glad I am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While he was speaking, her eyelids lifted and her eyes became fixed on him
+      in a stony light of terror, like a creature in anguish before her
+      executioner. Then again her eyelids dropped. She had not moved from her
+      still posture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You love him?&rdquo; he asked, in some wonderment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you care for him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because, Dahlia, if you do not I know I have no right to fancy you do
+      not. How is it? Tell me. Marriage is an awful thing, where there's no
+      love. And this man, whoever he is&mdash;is he in good circumstances? I
+      wouldn't speak of him; but, you see, I must, as your friend&mdash;and I'm
+      that. Come: he loves you? Of course he does. He has said so. I believe it.
+      And he's a man you can honour and esteem? You wouldn't consent without,
+      I'm sure. What makes me anxious&mdash;I look on you as my sister, whether
+      Rhoda will have it so or not; I'm anxious because&mdash;I'm anxious it
+      should be over, for then Rhoda will be proud of the faith she had in you,
+      and it will lighten the old man's heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more the inexplicable frozen look struck over him from her opened
+      eyes, as if one of the minutes of Time had yawned to show him its deep,
+      mute, tragic abyss, and was extinguished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When does it take place, Dahlia?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her long underlip, white almost as the row of teeth it revealed, hung
+      loose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When?&rdquo; he asked, leaning forward to hear, and the word was &ldquo;Saturday,&rdquo;
+       uttered with a feeble harshness, not like the gentle voice of Dahlia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This coming Saturday?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saturday week?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She fell into a visible trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You named the day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He pushed for an indication of cheerful consent to the act she was about
+      to commit, or of reluctance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Possibly she saw this, for now she answered, &ldquo;I did.&rdquo; The sound was deep
+      in her throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saturday week,&rdquo; said Robert. &ldquo;I feel to the man as a brother, already. Do
+      you live&mdash;you'll live in the country?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Abroad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in Old England? I'm sorry for that. But&mdash;well! Things must be as
+      they're ordered. Heigho! I've got to learn it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia smiled kindly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rhoda will love you. She is firm when she loves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When she loves. Where's the consolation to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think she loves me as much&mdash;as much&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As much as ever? She loves her sister with all her heart&mdash;all, for I
+      haven't a bit of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is because,&rdquo; said Dahlia slowly, &ldquo;it is because she thinks I am&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the poor creature's bosom heaved piteously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has she said of me? I wish her to have blamed me&mdash;it is less
+      pain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; said Robert. &ldquo;She does not, and couldn't blame you, for it's a
+      sort of religion with her to believe no wrong of you. And the reason why
+      she hates me is, that I, knowing something more of the world, suspected,
+      and chose to let her know it&mdash;I said it, in fact&mdash;that you had
+      been deceived by a&mdash;But this isn't the time to abuse others. She
+      would have had me, if I had thought proper to think as she thinks, or play
+      hypocrite, and pretend to. I'll tell you openly, Dahlia; your father
+      thinks the worst. Ah! you look the ghost again. It's hard for you to hear,
+      but you give me a notion of having got strength to hear it. It's your
+      father's way to think the worst. Now, when you can show him your husband,
+      my dear, he'll lift his head. He's old English. He won't dream of asking
+      questions. He'll see a brave and honest young man who must love you, or&mdash;he
+      does love you, that's settled. Your father'll shake his hand, and as for
+      Rhoda, she'll triumph. The only person to speak out to, is the man who
+      marries you, and that you've done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert looked the interrogation he did not utter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have,&rdquo; said Dahlia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good: if I may call him brother, some day, all the better for me. Now,
+      you won't leave England the day you're married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Soon. I pray that it may be soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; well, on that morning, I'll have your father and Rhoda at my
+      lodgings, not wide from here: if I'd only known it earlier!&mdash;and you
+      and your husband shall come there and join us. It'll be a happy meeting at
+      last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia stopped her breathing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you see Rhoda?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go to her to-morrow, if you like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I might see her, just as I am leaving England! not before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's not generous,&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't it?&rdquo; she asked like a child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fancy!&mdash;to see you she's been longing for, and the ship that takes
+      you off, perhaps everlastingly, as far as this world's concerned!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Robert, I do not wish to deceive my sister. Father need not be
+      distressed. Rhoda shall know. I will not be guilty of falsehoods any more&mdash;no
+      more! Will you go to her? Tell her&mdash;tell Rhoda what I am. Say I have
+      been ill. It will save her from a great shock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She covered her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said in all my letters that my husband was a gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was her first openly penitential utterance in his presence, and her
+      cheeks were faintly reddened. It may have been this motion of her blood
+      which aroused the sunken humanity within her; her heart leaped, and she
+      cried &ldquo;I can see her as I am, I can. I thought it impossible. Oh! I can.
+      Will she come to me? My sister is a Christian and forgives. Oh! let me see
+      her. And go to her, dear Mr. Robert, and ask her&mdash;tell her all, and
+      ask her if I may be spared, and may work at something&mdash;anything, for
+      my livelihood near my sister. It is difficult for women to earn money, but
+      I think I can. I have done so since my illness. I have been in the
+      hospital with brain fever. He was lodging in the house with me before. He
+      found me at the hospital. When I came out, he walked with me to support
+      me: I was very weak. He read to me, and then asked me to marry him. He
+      asked again. I lay in bed one night, and with my eyes open, I saw the
+      dangers of women, and the trouble of my father and sister; and pits of
+      wickedness. I saw like places full of snakes. I had such a yearning for
+      protection. I gave him my word I would be his wife, if he was not ashamed
+      of a wife like me. I wished to look once in father's face. I had fancied
+      that Rhoda would spurn me, when she discovered my falsehood. She&mdash;sweet
+      dear! would she ever? Go to her. Say, I do not love any man. I am
+      heart-dead. I have no heart except for her. I cannot love a husband. He is
+      good, and it is kind: but, oh! let me be spared. His face!&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pressed her hands tight into the hollow of her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; it can't be meant. Am I very ungrateful? This does not seem to be
+      what God orders. Only if this must be! only if it must be! If my sister
+      cannot look on me without! He is good, and it is unselfish to take a
+      moneyless, disgraced creature: but, my misery!&mdash;If my sister will see
+      me, without my doing this!&mdash;Go to her, Mr. Robert. Say, Dahlia was
+      false, and repents, and has worked with her needle to subsist, and can,
+      and will, for her soul strives to be clean. Try to make her understand. If
+      Rhoda could love you, she would know. She is locked up&mdash;she is only
+      ideas. My sweet is so proud. I love her for her pride, if she will only
+      let me creep to her feet, kiss her feet. Dear Mr. Robert, help me! help
+      me! I will do anything she says. If she says I am to marry him, I will.
+      Don't mind my tears&mdash;they mean nothing now. Tell my dear, I will obey
+      her. I will not be false any more to her. I wish to be quite stripped. And
+      Rhoda may know me, and forgive me, if she can. And&mdash;Oh! if she
+      thinks, for father's sake, I ought, I will submit and speak the words; I
+      will; I am ready. I pray for mercy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert sat with his fist at his temples, in a frowning meditation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had she declared her reluctance to take the step, in the first moments of
+      their interview, he might have been ready to support her: but a project
+      fairly launched becomes a reality in the brain&mdash;a thing once spoken
+      of attracts like a living creature, and does not die voluntarily. Robert
+      now beheld all that was in its favour, and saw nothing but flighty flimsy
+      objections to it. He was hardly moved by her unexpected outburst.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides, there was his own position in the case. Rhoda would smile on him,
+      if he brought Dahlia to her, and brought her happy in the world's eye. It
+      will act as a sort of signal for general happiness. But if he had to go
+      and explain matters base and mournful to her, there would be no smile on
+      her face, and not much gratitude in her breast. There would be none for a
+      time, certainly. Proximity to her faded sister made him conceive her
+      attainable, and thrice precious by contrast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He fixed his gaze on Dahlia, and the perfect refinement of her simplicity
+      caused him to think that she might be aware of an inappropriateness in the
+      contemplated union.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he a clumsy fellow? I mean, do you read straight off that he has no
+      pretension to any manners of a gentleman&mdash;nothing near it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To this question, put with hesitation by Robert, Dahlia made answer, &ldquo;I
+      respect him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She would not strengthen her prayer by drawing the man's portrait.
+      Speedily she forgot how the doing so would in any way have strengthened
+      her prayer. The excitement had left her brain dull. She did little more
+      than stare mildly, and absently bend her head, while Robert said that he
+      would go to Rhoda on the morrow, and speak seriously with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I think I can reckon her ideas will side with mine, that it is to
+      your interest, my dear, to make your feelings come round warm to a man you
+      can respect, and who offers you a clear path,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereat Dahlia quietly blinked her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he stood up, she rose likewise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I to take a kiss to Rhoda?&rdquo; he said, and seeing her answer, bent his
+      forehead, to which she put her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now I must think all night long about the method of transferring it.
+      Good-bye, Dahlia. You shall hear from your sister the morning after
+      to-morrow. Good-bye!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He pressed her hand, and went to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's nothing I can do for you, Dahlia?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God bless you, my dear!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert breathed with the pleasant sense of breathing, when he was again in
+      the street. Amazement, that what he had dreaded so much should be so
+      easily over, set him thinking, in his fashion, on the marvels of life, and
+      the naturalness in the aspect of all earthly things when you look at them
+      with your eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in the depths of his heart there was disquiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the best she can do; she can do no better,&rdquo; he said; and said it
+      more frequently than it needed by a mind established in the conviction.
+      Gradually he began to feel that certain things seen with the eyes, natural
+      as they may then appear and little terrible, leave distinct, solid, and
+      grave impressions. Something of what our human tragedy may show before
+      high heaven possessed him. He saw it bare of any sentiment, in the person
+      of the girl Dahlia. He could neither put a halo of imagination about her,
+      nor could he conceive one degraded thought of the creature. She stood a
+      naked sorrow, haunting his brain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And still he continued saying, &ldquo;It's the best she can do: it's best for
+      all. She can do nothing better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He said it, unaware that he said it in self-defence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pale nun-like ghostly face hung before him, stronger in outline the
+      farther time widened between him and that suffering flesh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The thousand pounds were in Algernon's hands at last. He had made his
+      escape from Boyne's Bank early in the afternoon, that he might obtain the
+      cheque and feel the money in his pocket before that day's sun was
+      extinguished. There was a note for five hundred; four notes for a hundred
+      severally; and two fifties. And all had come to him through the mere
+      writing down of his name as a recipient of the sum!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was enough to make one in love with civilization. Money, when it is
+      once in your pocket, seems to have come there easily, even if you have
+      worked for it; but if you have done no labour whatever, and still find it
+      there, your sensations (supposing you to be a butterfly youth&mdash;the
+      typical child of a wealthy country) exult marvellously, and soar above the
+      conditions of earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew the very features of the notes. That gallant old Five Hundred, who
+      might have been a Thousand, but that he had nobly split himself into
+      centurions and skirmishers, stood in his imaginative contemplation like a
+      grand white-headed warrior, clean from the slaughter and in court-ruffles&mdash;say,
+      Blucher at the court of the Waterloo Regent. The Hundreds were his
+      Generals; the Fifties his captains; and each one was possessed of
+      unlimited power of splitting himself into serviceable regiments, at the
+      call of his lord, Algernon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He scarcely liked to make the secret confession that it was the largest
+      sum he had ever as yet carried about; but, as it heightened his pleasure,
+      he did confess it for half an instant. Five Hundred in the bulk he had
+      never attained to. He felt it as a fortification against every mishap in
+      life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To a young man commonly in difficulties with regard to the paying of his
+      cabman, and latterly the getting of his dinner, the sense of elevation
+      imparted by the sum was intoxicating. But, thinking too much of the Five
+      Hundred waxed dangerous for the fifties; it dwarfed them to such
+      insignificance that it made them lose their self-respect. So, Algernon,
+      pursuing excellent tactics, set his mind upon some stray shillings that he
+      had a remainder of five pounds borrowed from old Anthony, when he
+      endeavoured to obtain repayment of the one pound and interest dating from
+      the night at the theatre. Algernon had stopped his mouth on that point, as
+      well as concerning his acquaintance with Dahlia, by immediately attempting
+      to borrow further, whenever Anthony led the way for a word in private. A
+      one-pound creditor had no particular terrors for him, and he manoeuvred
+      the old man neatly, saying, as previously, &ldquo;Really, I don't know the young
+      person you allude to: I happened to meet her, or some one like her,
+      casually,&rdquo; and dropping his voice, &ldquo;I'm rather short&mdash;what do you
+      think? Could you?&mdash;a trifling accommodation?&rdquo; from which Anthony
+      fled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on the day closing the Epsom week he beckoned Anthony secretly to
+      follow him out of the office, and volunteered to give news that he had
+      just heard of Dahlia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Anthony, &ldquo;I've seen her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't,&rdquo; said Algernon, &ldquo;upon my honour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I've seen her, sir, and sorry to hear her husband's fallen a bit
+      low.&rdquo; Anthony touched his pocket. &ldquo;What they calls 'nip' tides, ain't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon sprang a compliment under him, which sent the vain old fellow up,
+      whether he would or not, to the effect that Anthony's tides were not
+      subject to lunar influence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Mr. Blancove, you must change them notions o' me. I don't say I
+      shouldn't be richer if I'd got what's owing to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd have to be protected; you'd be Bullion on two legs,&rdquo; said Algernon,
+      always shrewd in detecting a weakness. &ldquo;You'd have to go about with
+      sentries on each side, and sleep in an iron safe!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The end of the interview was a visit to the public-house, and the
+      transferring of another legal instrument from Algernon to Anthony. The
+      latter departed moaning over his five pounds ten shillings in paper; the
+      former rejoicing at his five pounds in gold. That day was Saturday. On
+      Monday, only a few shillings of the five pounds remained; but they were
+      sufficient to command a cab, and, if modesty in dining was among the
+      prescriptions for the day, a dinner. Algernon was driven to the West.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He remembered when he had plunged in the midst of the fashionable
+      whirlpool, having felt reckless there formerly, but he had become
+      remarkably sedate when he stepped along the walks. A certain equipage, or
+      horse, was to his taste, and once he would have said: &ldquo;That's the thing
+      for me;&rdquo; being penniless. Now, on the contrary, he reckoned the possible
+      cost, grudgingly, saying &ldquo;Eh?&rdquo; to himself, and responding &ldquo;No,&rdquo; faintly,
+      and then more positively, &ldquo;Won't do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was by no means acting as one on a footing of equality with the people
+      he beholds. A man who is ready to wager a thousand pounds that no other
+      man present has that amount in his pocket, can hardly feel unequal to his
+      company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charming ladies on horseback cantered past. &ldquo;Let them go,&rdquo; he thought.
+      Yesterday, the sight of one would have set him dreaming on grand
+      alliances. When you can afford to be a bachelor, the case is otherwise.
+      Presently, who should ride by but Mrs. Lovell! She was talking more
+      earnestly than was becoming, to that easy-mannered dark-eyed fellow; the
+      man who had made him savage by entering the opera-box.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor old Ned!&rdquo; said Algernon; &ldquo;I must put him on his guard.&rdquo; But, even
+      the lifting of a finger&mdash;a hint on paper&mdash;would bring Edward
+      over from Paris, as he knew; and that was not in his scheme; so he only
+      determined to write to his cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A flood of evening gold lay over the Western park.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The glory of this place,&rdquo; Algernon said to himself, &ldquo;is, that you're sure
+      of meeting none but gentlemen here;&rdquo; and he contrasted it with Epsom
+      Downs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A superstitious horror seized him when, casting his eyes ahead, he
+      perceived Sedgett among the tasteful groups&mdash;as discordant a figure
+      as could well be seen, and clumsily aware of it, for he could neither step
+      nor look like a man at ease. Algernon swung round and retraced his way;
+      but Sedgett had long sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd heard of London&rdquo;&mdash;Algernon soon had the hated voice in his ears,&mdash;&ldquo;and
+      I've bin up to London b'fore; I came here to have a wink at the
+      fash'nables&mdash;hang me, if ever I see such a scrumptious lot. It's
+      worth a walk up and down for a hour or more. D' you come heer often, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? Who are you? Oh!&rdquo; said Algernon, half mad with rage. &ldquo;Excuse me;&rdquo; and
+      he walked faster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fifty times over,&rdquo; Sedgett responded cheerfully. &ldquo;I'd pace you for a
+      match up and down this place if you liked. Ain't the horses a spectacle?
+      I'd rather be heer than there at they Races. As for the ladies, I'll tell
+      you what: ladies or no ladies, give my young woman time for her hair to
+      grow; and her colour to come, by George! if she wouldn't shine against
+      e'er a one&mdash;smite me stone blind, if she wouldn't! So she shall!
+      Australia'll see. I owe you my thanks for interdoocin' me, and never fear
+      my not remembering.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Where there was a crowd, Algernon could elude his persecutor by threading
+      his way rapidly; but the open spaces condemned him to merciless exposure,
+      and he flew before eyes that his imagination exaggerated to a stretch of
+      supernatural astonishment. The tips of his fingers, the roots of his hair,
+      pricked with vexation, and still, manoeuvre as he might, Sedgett followed
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call at my chambers,&rdquo; he said sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're never at home, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call to-morrow morning, at ten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And see a great big black door, and kick at it till my toe comes through
+      my boot. Thank ye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you, I won't have you annoying me in public; once for all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, sir; I thought we parted friends, last time. Didn't you shake my
+      hand, now, didn't you shake my hand, sir? I ask you, whether you shook my
+      hand, or whether you didn't? A plain answer. We had a bit of a scrimmage,
+      coming home. I admit we had; but shaking hands, means 'friends again we
+      are.' I know you're a gentleman, and a man like me shouldn't be so bold as
+      fur to strike his betters. Only, don't you see, sir, Full-o'-Beer's a
+      hasty chap, and up in a minute; and he's sorry for it after.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon conceived a brilliant notion. Drawing five shillings from his
+      pocket, he held them over to Sedgett, and told him to drive down to his
+      chambers, and await his coming. Sedgett took the money; but it was five
+      shillings lost. He made no exhibition of receiving orders, and it was
+      impossible to address him imperiously without provoking observations of an
+      animated kind from the elegant groups parading and sitting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Harry Latters caught Algernon's eye; never was youth more joyfully
+      greeted. Harry spoke of the Friday's race, and the defection of the horse
+      Tenpenny Nail. A man passed with a nod and &ldquo;How d' ye do?&rdquo; for which he
+      received in reply a cool stare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's that?&rdquo; Algernon asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The son of a high dignitary,&rdquo; said Harry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cut him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can do the thing, you see, when it's a public duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Merely a black-leg, a grec, a cheat, swindler, or whatever name you
+      like,&rdquo; said Harry. &ldquo;We none of us nod to the professionals in this line;
+      and I won't exchange salutes with an amateur. I'm peculiar. He chose to be
+      absent on the right day last year; so from that date; I consider him
+      absent in toto; 'none of your rrrrr&mdash;m reckonings, let's have the
+      rrrrr&mdash;m toto;'&mdash;you remember Suckling's story of the Yankee
+      fellow? Bye-bye; shall see you the day after to-morrow. You dine with me
+      and Suckling at the club.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Latters was hailed by other friends. Algernon was forced to let him go. He
+      dipped under the iron rail, and crossed the row at a run; an indecorous
+      proceeding; he could not help it. The hope was that Sedgett would not have
+      the like audacity, or might be stopped, and Algernon's reward for so just
+      a calculation was, that on looking round, he found himself free. He
+      slipped with all haste out of the Park. Sedgett's presence had the
+      deadening power of the torpedo on the thousand pounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the last quarter of an hour, Algernon had not felt a motion of it. A
+      cab, to make his escape certain, was suggested to his mind; and he would
+      have called a cab, had not the novel apparition of economy, which now
+      haunted him, suggested that he had recently tossed five shillings into the
+      gutter. A man might dine on four shillings and sixpence, enjoying a modest
+      half-pint of wine, and he possessed that sum. To pinch himself and deserve
+      well of Providence, he resolved not to drink wine, but beer, that day. He
+      named the beverage; a pint-bottle of ale; and laughed, as a royal
+      economist may, who punishes himself to please himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mighty jolly, ain't it, sir?&rdquo; said Sedgett, at his elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon faced about, and swore an oath from his boots upward; so vehement
+      was his disgust, and all-pervading his amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll wallop you at that game,&rdquo; said Sedgett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You infernal scoundrel!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you begin swearing,&rdquo; Sedgett warned him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you, sir. I don't want to go to ne'er a cock-fight, nor betting
+      hole.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, come up this street,&rdquo; said Algernon, leading the way into a dusky
+      defile from a main parade of fashion. &ldquo;Now, what's your business, confound
+      you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, sir, I ain't goin' to be confounded: that, I'll&mdash;I'll swear
+      to. The long and the short is, I must have some money 'fore the week's
+      out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won't have a penny from me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's blunt, though it ain't in my pocket,&rdquo; said Sedgett, grinning. &ldquo;I
+      say, sir, respectful as you like, I must. I've got to pay for passengerin'
+      over the sea, self and wife; and quick it must be. There's things to buy
+      on both sides. A small advance and you won't be bothered. Say, fifty.
+      Fifty, and you don't see me till Saturday, when, accordin' to agreement,
+      you hand to me the cash, outside the church door; and then we parts to
+      meet no more. Oh! let us be joyful&mdash;I'll sing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon's loathing of the coarseness and profanity of villany increased
+      almost to the depth of a sentiment as he listened to Sedgett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do nothing of the sort,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You shall not have a farthing. Be
+      off. If you follow me, I give you into custody of a policeman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You durst n't.&rdquo; Sedgett eyed him warily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could spy a physical weakness, by affinity of cowardice, as quickly as
+      Algernon a moral weakness, by the same sort of relationship to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't dare,&rdquo; Sedgett pursued. &ldquo;And why should you, sir? there's ne'er
+      a reason why. I'm civil. I asks for my own: no more 'n my own, it ain't. I
+      call the bargain good: why sh'd I want fur to break it? I want the money
+      bad. I'm sick o' this country. I'd like to be off in the first ship that
+      sails. Can't you let me have ten till to-morrow? then t' other forty. I've
+      got a mortal need for it, that I have. Come, it's no use your walking at
+      that rate; my legs are's good as yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon had turned back to the great thoroughfare. He was afraid that ten
+      pounds must be forfeited to this worrying demon in the flesh, and sought
+      the countenance of his well-dressed fellows to encourage him in resisting.
+      He could think of no subterfuge; menace was clearly useless: and yet the
+      idea of changeing one of the notes and for so infamous a creature, caused
+      pangs that helped him further to endure his dogging feet and filthy
+      tongue. This continued until he saw a woman's hand waving from a cab.
+      Presuming that such a signal, objectionable as it was, must be addressed
+      to himself, he considered whether he should lift his hat, or simply smile
+      as a favoured, but not too deeply flattered, man. The cab drew up, and the
+      woman said, &ldquo;Sedgett.&rdquo; She was a well-looking woman, strongly coloured,
+      brown-eyed, and hearty in appearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a brute you are, Sedgett, not to be at home when you brought me up
+      to London with all the boxes and bedding&mdash;my goodness! It's a
+      Providence I caught you in my eye, or I should have been driving down to
+      the docks, and seeing about the ship. You are a brute. Come in, at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you're up to calling names, I've got one or two for you,&rdquo; Sedgett
+      growled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon had heard enough. Sure that he had left Sedgett in hands not
+      likely to relinquish him, he passed on with elastic step. Wine was greatly
+      desired, after his torments. Where was credit to be had? True, he looked
+      contemptuously on the blooming land of credit now, but an entry to it by
+      one of the back doors would have been convenient, so that he might be
+      nourished and restored by a benevolent dinner, while he kept his Thousand
+      intact. However, he dismissed the contemplation of credit and its
+      transient charms. &ldquo;I won't dine at all,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A beggar woman stretched out her hand&mdash;he dropped a shilling in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hang me, if I shall be able to,&rdquo; was his next reflection; and with the
+      remaining three and sixpence, he crossed the threshold of a tobacconist's
+      shop and bought cigars, to save himself from excesses in charity. After
+      gravely reproaching the tobacconist for the growing costliness of cigars,
+      he came into the air, feeling extraordinarily empty. Of this he soon
+      understood the cause, and it amused him. Accustomed to the smell of
+      tobacco always when he came from his dinner, it seemed, as the fumes of
+      the shop took his nostril, that demands were being made within him by an
+      inquisitive spirit, and dissatisfaction expressed at the vacancy there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the use? I can't dine,&rdquo; he uttered argumentatively. &ldquo;I'm not going
+      to change a note, and I won't dine. I've no Club. There's not a fellow I
+      can see who'll ask me to dine. I'll lounge along home. There is some
+      Sherry there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Algernon bore vividly in mind that he did not approve of that Sherry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've heard of fellows frying sausages at home, and living on something
+      like two shillings a day,&rdquo; he remarked in meditation; and then it struck
+      him that Mrs. Lovell's parcel of returned jewels lay in one of his drawers
+      at home&mdash;that is, if the laundress had left the parcel untouched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In an agony of alarm, he called a cab, and drove hotly to the Temple.
+      Finding the packet safe, he put a couple of rings and the necklace with
+      the opal in his waistcoat pocket. The cabman must be paid, of course; so a
+      jewel must be pawned. Which shall it be? diamond or opal? Change a dozen
+      times and let it be the trinket in the right hand&mdash;the opal; let it
+      be the opal. How much would the opal fetch? The pawnbroker can best inform
+      us upon that point. So he drove to the pawnbroker; one whom he knew. The
+      pawnbroker offered him five-and-twenty pounds on the security of the opal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What on earth is it that people think disgraceful in your entering a
+      pawnbroker's shop?&rdquo; Algernon asked himself when, taking his ticket and the
+      five-and-twenty pounds, he repelled the stare of a man behind a
+      neighbouring partition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are not many of that sort in the kingdom,&rdquo; he said to the
+      pawnbroker, who was loftily fondling the unlucky opal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well&mdash;h'm; perhaps there's not;&rdquo; the pawnbroker was ready to admit
+      it, now that the arrangement had been settled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shan't be able to let you keep it long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As quick back as you like, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon noticed as he turned away that the man behind the partition, who
+      had more the look of a dapper young shopman than of a needy petitioner for
+      loans or securities, stretched over the counter to look at the opal; and
+      he certainly heard his name pronounced. It enraged him; but policy
+      counselled a quiet behaviour in this place, and no quarrelling with his
+      pawnbroker. Besides, his whole nature cried out for dinner. He dined and
+      had his wine; as good, he ventured to assert, as any man could get for the
+      money; for he knew the hotels with the venerable cellars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should have made a first-rate courier to a millionaire,&rdquo; he said, with
+      scornful candour, but without abusing the disposition of things which had
+      ordered his being a gentleman. Subsequently, from his having sat so long
+      over his wine without moving a leg, he indulged in the belief that he had
+      reflected profoundly; out of which depths he started, very much like a man
+      who has dozed, and felt a discomfort in his limbs and head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must forget myself,&rdquo; he said. Nor was any grave mentor by, to assure
+      him that his tragic state was the issue of an evil digestion of his dinner
+      and wine. &ldquo;I must forget myself. I'm under some doom. I see it now. Nobody
+      cares for me. I don't know what happiness is. I was born under a bad star.
+      My fate's written.&rdquo; Following his youthful wisdom, this wounded hart
+      dragged his slow limbs toward the halls of brandy and song.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One learns to have compassion for fools, by studying them: and the fool,
+      though Nature is wise, is next door to Nature. He is naked in his
+      simplicity; he can tell us much, and suggest more. My excuse for dwelling
+      upon him is, that he holds the link of my story. Where fools are numerous,
+      one of them must be prominent now and then in a veracious narration. There
+      comes an hour when the veil drops on him, he not being always clean to the
+      discreeter touch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon was late at the Bank next day, and not cheerful, though he
+      received his customary reprimand with submission. This day was after the
+      pattern of the day preceding, except that he did not visit the Park; the
+      night likewise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Wednesday morning, he arose with the conviction that England was no
+      place for him to dwell in. What if Rhoda were to accompany him to one of
+      the colonies? The idea had been gradually taking shape in his mind from
+      the moment that he had possessed the Thousand. Could she not make butter
+      and cheeses capitally, while he rode on horseback through space? She was a
+      strong girl, a loyal girl, and would be a grateful wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll marry her,&rdquo; he said; and hesitated. &ldquo;Yes, I'll marry her.&rdquo; But it
+      must be done immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He resolved to run down to Wrexby, rejoice her with a declaration of love,
+      astound her with a proposal of marriage, bewilder her little brain with
+      hurrying adjectives, whisk her up to London, and in little more than a
+      week be sailing on the high seas, new born; nothing of civilization about
+      him, save a few last very first-rate cigars which he projected to smoke on
+      the poop of the vessel, and so dream of the world he left behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went down to the Bank in better spirits, and there wrote off a
+      straightforward demand of an interview, to Rhoda, hinting at the purpose
+      of it. While at his work, he thought of Harry Latters and Lord Suckling,
+      and the folly of his dining with men in his present position.
+      Settling-day, it or yesterday might be, but a colonist is not supposed to
+      know anything of those arrangements. One of his fellow-clerks reminded him
+      of a loan he had contracted, and showed him his name written under
+      obligatory initials. He paid it, ostentatiously drawing out one of his
+      fifties. Up came another, with a similar strip of paper. &ldquo;You don't want
+      me to change this, do you?&rdquo; said Algernon; and heard a tale of domestic
+      needs&mdash;and a grappling landlady. He groaned inwardly: &ldquo;Odd that I
+      must pay for his landlady being a vixen!&rdquo; The note was changed; the debt
+      liquidated. On the door-step, as he was going to lunch, old Anthony
+      waylaid him, and was almost noisily persistent in demanding his one pound
+      three and his five pound ten. Algernon paid the sums, ready to believe
+      that there was a suspicion abroad of his intention to become a colonist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He employed the luncheon hour in a visit to a colonial shipping office,
+      and nearly ran straight upon Sedgett at the office-door. The woman who had
+      hailed him from the cab, was in Sedgett's company, but Sedgett saw no one.
+      His head hung and his sullen brows were drawn moodily. Algernon escaped
+      from observation. His first inquiry at the office was as to the business
+      of the preceding couple, and he was satisfied by hearing that Sedgett
+      wanted berths for himself and wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's the woman, I wonder!&rdquo; Algernon thought, and forgot her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He obtained some particular information, and returning to the Bank, was
+      called before his uncle, who curtly reckoned up his merits in a
+      contemptuous rebuke, and confirmed him in his resolution to incur this
+      sort of thing no longer. In consequence, he promised Sir William that he
+      would amend his ways, and these were the first hopeful words that Sir
+      William had ever heard from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon's design was to dress, that evening, in the uniform of society,
+      so that, in the event of his meeting Harry Latters, he might assure him he
+      was coming to his Club, and had been compelled to dine elsewhere with his
+      uncle, or anybody. When he reached the door of his chambers, a man was
+      standing there, who said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Algernon Blancove?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Algernon prolonged an affirmative, to diminish the confidence it
+      might inspire, if possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I speak with you, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon told him to follow in. The man was tall and large-featured, with
+      an immense blank expression of face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've come from Mr. Samuels, sir,&rdquo; he said, deferentially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Samuels was Algernon's chief jeweller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; Algernon remarked. &ldquo;Well, I don't want anything; and let me say, I
+      don't approve of this touting for custom. I thought Mr. Samuels was above
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man bowed. &ldquo;My business is not that, sir. Ahem! I dare say you
+      remember an opal you had from our house. It was set in a necklace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right; I remember it, perfectly,&rdquo; said Algernon; cool, but not of the
+      collected colour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The cost of it was fifty-five pounds, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it? Well, I've forgotten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We find that it has been pawned for five-and-twenty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little less than half,&rdquo; said Algernon. &ldquo;Pawnbrokers are simply cheats.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They mayn't be worse than others,&rdquo; the man observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon was exactly in the position where righteous anger is the proper
+      weapon, if not the sole resource. He flushed, but was not sure of his
+      opportunity for the explosion. The man read the flush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I ask you, did you pawn it, sir? I'm obliged to ask the question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I?&mdash;I really don't&mdash;I don't choose to answer impudent
+      questions. What do you mean by coming here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may as well be open with you, sir, to prevent misunderstandings. One of
+      the young men was present when you pawned it. He saw the thing done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose he did?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would be a witness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Against me? I've dealt with Samuels for three-four years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir; but you have never yet paid any account; and I believe I am
+      right in saying that this opal is not the first thing coming from our
+      house that has been pledged&mdash;I can't say you did it on the other
+      occasions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had better not,&rdquo; rejoined Algernon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He broke an unpleasant silence by asking, &ldquo;What further?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My master has sent you his bill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon glanced at the prodigious figures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five hun&mdash;!&rdquo; he gasped, recoiling; and added, &ldquo;Well, I can't pay it
+      on the spot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me tell you, you're liable to proceedings you'd better avoid, sir,
+      for the sake of your relations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You dare to threaten to expose me to my relatives?&rdquo; Algernon said
+      haughtily, and immediately perceived that indignation at this point was a
+      clever stroke; for the man, while deprecating the idea of doing so, showed
+      his more established belief in the possible virtue of such a threat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all, sir; but you know that pledging things not paid for is
+      illegal, and subject to penalties. No tradesman likes it; they can't allow
+      it. I may as well let you know that Mr. Samuels&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, stop!&rdquo; cried Algernon, laughing, as he thought, heartily. &ldquo;Mr.
+      Samuels is a very tolerable Jew; but he doesn't seem to understand dealing
+      with gentlemen. Pressure comes;&rdquo; he waved his hand swimmingly; &ldquo;one wants
+      money, and gets it how one can. Mr. Samuels shall not go to bed thinking
+      he has been defrauded. I will teach Mr. Samuels to think better of us
+      Gentiles. Write me a receipt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For what amount, sir?&rdquo; said the man, briskly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the value of the opal&mdash;that is to say, for the value put upon it
+      by Mr. Samuels. Con! hang! never mind. Write the receipt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He cast a fluttering fifty and a fluttering five on the table, and pushed
+      paper to the man for a receipt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man reflected, and refused to take them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that less than two-thirds of the bill will
+      make Mr. Samuels easy. You see, this opal was in a necklace. It wasn't
+      like a ring you might have taken off your finger. It's a lady's ornament;
+      and soon after you obtain it from us; you make use of it by turning it
+      into cash. It's a case for a criminal prosecution, which, for the sake of
+      your relations, Mr. Samuels wouldn't willingly bring on. The criminal box
+      is no place for you, sir; but Mr. Samuels must have his own. His mind is
+      not easy. I shouldn't like, sir, to call a policeman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey!&rdquo; shouted Algernon; &ldquo;you'd have to get a warrant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's out, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Though inclined toward small villanies, he had not studied law, and
+      judging from his own affrighted sensations, and the man's impassive face,
+      Algernon supposed that warrants were as lightly granted as writs of
+      summons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tightened his muscles. In his time he had talked glibly of Perdition;
+      but this was hot experience. He and the man measured the force of their
+      eyes. Algernon let his chest fall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean?&rdquo; he murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, sir, it's no use doing things by halves. When a tradesman says he
+      must have his money, he takes his precautions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you in Mr. Samuels' shop?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're a detective?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been in the service, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! now I understand.&rdquo; Algernon raised his head with a strain at
+      haughtiness. &ldquo;If Mr. Samuels had accompanied you, I would have discharged
+      the debt: It's only fair that I should insist upon having a receipt from
+      him personally, and for the whole amount.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With this, he drew forth his purse and displayed the notable Five hundred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His glow of victory was short. The impassive man likewise had something to
+      exhibit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I assure you, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Mr. Samuels does know how to deal with
+      gentlemen. If you will do me the honour, sir, to run up with me to Mr.
+      Samuels' shop? Or, very well, sir; to save you that annoyance here is his
+      receipt to the bill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon mechanically crumpled up his note.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Samuels?&rdquo; ejaculated the unhappy fellow. &ldquo;Why, my mother dealt with
+      Samuels. My aunt dealt with Samuels. All my family have dealt with him for
+      years; and he talks of proceeding against me, because&mdash;upon my soul,
+      it's too absurd! Sending a policeman, too! I'll tell you what&mdash;the
+      exposure would damage Mister Samuels most materially. Of course, my father
+      would have to settle the matter; but Mister&mdash;Mister Samuels would not
+      recover so easily. He'd be glad to refund the five hundred&mdash;what is
+      it?&mdash;and twenty-five&mdash;why not, 'and sixpence three farthings?' I
+      tell you, I shall let my father pay. Mr. Samuels had better serve me with
+      a common writ. I tell you, I'm not going to denude myself of money
+      altogether. I haven't examined the bill. Leave it here. You can tear off
+      the receipt. Leave it here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man indulged in a slight demonstration of dissent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir, that won't do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Half the bill,&rdquo; roared Algernon; &ldquo;half the bill, I wouldn't mind paying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About two-thirds, sir, is what Mr. Samuels asked for, and he'll stop, and
+      go on as before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'll stop and he'll go on, will he? Mr. Samuels is amazingly like one of
+      his own watches,&rdquo; Algernon sneered vehemently. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he pursued, in
+      fancied security, &ldquo;I'll pay two-thirds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three hundred, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, three hundred. Tell him to send a receipt for the three hundred, and
+      he shall have it. As to my entering his shop again, that I shall have to
+      think over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's what gentlemen in Mr. Samuels' position have to run risk of, sir,&rdquo;
+       said the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon, more in astonishment than trepidation, observed him feeling at
+      his breast-pocket. The action resulted in an exhibition of a second bill,
+      with a legal receipt attached to it, for three hundred pounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Samuels is anxious to accommodate you in every way, sir. It isn't the
+      full sum he wants; it's a portion. He thought you might prefer to
+      discharge a portion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After this exhibition of foresight on the part of the jeweller, there was
+      no more fight in Algernon beyond a strenuous &ldquo;Faugh!&rdquo; of uttermost
+      disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He examined the bill and receipt in the man's hand with great apparent
+      scrupulousness; not, in reality, seeing a clear syllable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take it and change it,&rdquo; he threw his Five hundred down, but recovered it
+      from the enemy's grasp; and with a &ldquo;one, two, three,&rdquo; banged his hundreds
+      on the table: for which he had the loathsome receipt handed to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How,&rdquo; he asked, chokingly, &ldquo;did Mr. Samuels know I could&mdash;I had
+      money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, sir, you see,&rdquo; the man, as one who throws off a mask, smiled
+      cordially, after buttoning up the notes; &ldquo;credit 'd soon give up the
+      ghost, if it hadn't its own dodges,' as I may say. This is only a feeler
+      on Mr. Samuels' part. He heard of his things going to pledge. Halloa! he
+      sings out. And tradesmen are human, sir. Between us, I side with
+      gentlemen, in most cases. Hows'-ever, I'm, so to speak, in Mr. Samuels'
+      pay. A young gentleman in debt, give him a good fright, out comes his
+      money, if he's got any. Sending of a bill receipted's a good trying touch.
+      It's a compliment to him to suppose he can pay. Mr. Samuels, sir, wouldn't
+      go issuing a warrant: if he could, he wouldn't. You named a warrant; that
+      set me up to it. I shouldn't have dreamed of a gentleman supposing it
+      otherwise. Didn't you notice me show a wall of a face? I shouldn't ha'
+      dared to have tried that on an old hand&mdash;begging your pardon; I mean
+      a real&mdash;a scoundrel. The regular ones must see features: we mustn't
+      be too cunning with them, else they grow suspicious: they're keen as
+      animals; they are. Good afternoon to you, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon heard the door shut. He reeled into a chair, and muffling his
+      head in his two arms on the table, sobbed desperately; seeing himself very
+      distinctly reflected in one of the many facets of folly. Daylight became
+      undesireable to him. He went to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man who can, in such extremities of despair, go premeditatingly to his
+      pillow, obeys an animal instinct in pursuit of oblivion, that will
+      befriend his nerves. Algernon awoke in deep darkness, with a delicious
+      sensation of hunger. He jumped up. Six hundred and fifty pounds of the
+      money remained intact; and he was joyful. He struck a light to look at his
+      watch: the watch had stopped;&mdash;that was a bad sign. He could not
+      forget it. Why had his watch stopped? A chilling thought as to whether
+      predestination did not govern the world, allayed all tumult in his mind.
+      He dressed carefully, and soon heard a great City bell, with horrid gulfs
+      between the strokes, tell him that the hour was eleven toward midnight.
+      &ldquo;Not late,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who'd have thought it?&rdquo; cried a voice on the landing of the stairs, as he
+      went forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Sedgett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon had one inclination to strangle, and another to mollify the
+      wretch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, sir, I've been lurking heer for your return from your larks. Never
+      guessed you was in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's no use,&rdquo; Algernon began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay; but it is, though,&rdquo; said Sedgett, and forced his way into the room.
+      &ldquo;Now, just listen. I've got a young woman I want to pack out o' the
+      country. I must do it, while I'm a&mdash;a bachelor boy. She must go, or
+      we shall be having shindies. You saw how she caught me out of a cab. She's
+      sure to be in the place where she ain't wanted. She goes to America. I've
+      got to pay her passage, and mine too. Here's the truth: she thinks I'm off
+      with her. She knows I'm bankrup' at home. So I am. All the more reason for
+      her thinking me her companion. I get her away by train to the vessel, and
+      on board, and there I give her the slip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ship's steaming away by this time t'morrow night. I've paid for her&mdash;and
+      myself too, she thinks. Leave it to me. I'll manage all that neatly
+      enough. But heer's the truth: I'm stumped. I must, and I will have fifty;
+      I don't want to utter ne'er a threat. I want the money, and if you don't
+      give it, I break off; and you mind this, Mr. Blancove: you don't come off
+      s' easy, if I do break off, mind. I know all about your relations, and by&mdash;!
+      I'll let 'em know all about you. Why, you're as quiet heer, sir, as if you
+      was miles away, in a wood cottage, and ne'er a dog near.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So Algernon was thinking; and without a light, save the gas lamp in the
+      square, moreover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They wrangled for an hour. When Algernon went forth a second time, he was
+      by fifty pounds poorer. He consoled himself by thinking that the money had
+      only anticipated its destination as arranged, and it became a partial
+      gratification to him to reflect that he had, at any rate, paid so much of
+      the sum, according to his bond in assuming possession of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And what were to be his proceedings? They were so manifestly in the hands
+      of fate, that he declined to be troubled on that head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next morning came the usual short impatient scrawl on thin blue paper from
+      Edward, scarce worthy of a passing thought. In a postscript, he asked:
+      &ldquo;Are there, on your oath, no letters for me? If there are, send them
+      immediately&mdash;every one, bills as well. Don't fail. I must have them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon was at last persuaded to pack up Dahlia's letters, saying: &ldquo;I
+      suppose they can't do any harm now.&rdquo; The expense of the postage afflicted
+      him; but &ldquo;women always cost a dozen to our one,&rdquo; he remarked. On his way
+      to the City, he had to decide whether he would go to the Bank, or take the
+      train leading to Wrexby. He chose the latter course, until, feeling that
+      he was about to embark in a serious undertaking, he said to himself, &ldquo;No!
+      duty first;&rdquo; and postponed the expedition for the day following.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Squire Blancove, having business in town, called on his brother at the
+      Bank, asking whether Sir William was at home, with sarcastic emphasis on
+      the title, which smelt to him of commerce. Sir William invited him to dine
+      and sleep at his house that night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will meet Mrs. Lovell, and a Major Waring, a friend of hers, who knew
+      her and her husband in India,&rdquo; said the baronet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The deuce I shall,&rdquo; said the squire, and accepted maliciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where the squire dined, he drank, defying ladies and the new-fangled
+      subserviency to those flustering teabodies. This was understood; so, when
+      the Claret and Port had made a few rounds, Major Waring was permitted to
+      follow Mrs. Lovell, and the squire and his brother settled to
+      conversation; beginning upon gout. Sir William had recently had a touch of
+      the family complaint, and spoke of it in terms which gave the squire some
+      fraternal sentiment. From that, they fell to talking politics, and
+      differed. The breach was healed by a divergence to their sons. The squire
+      knew his own to be a scamp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll never do anything with him,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think I shall,&rdquo; Sir William admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn't I tell you so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did. But, the point is, what will you do with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send him to Jericho to ride wild jackasses. That's all he's fit for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The superior complacency of Sir William's smile caught the squire's
+      attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean to do with Ned?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope,&rdquo; was the answer, &ldquo;to have him married before the year is out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To the widow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The widow?&rdquo; Sir William raised his eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Lovell, I mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What gives you that idea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Ned has made her an offer. Don't you know that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know nothing of the sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And don't believe it? He has. He's only waiting now, over there in Paris,
+      to get comfortably out of a scrape&mdash;you remember what I told you at
+      Fairly&mdash;and then Mrs. Lovell's going to have him&mdash;as he thinks;
+      but, by George, it strikes me this major you've got here, knows how to
+      follow petticoats and get in his harvest in the enemy's absence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you're quite under a delusion, in both respects,&rdquo; observed Sir
+      William.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What makes you think that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have Edward's word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He lies as naturally as an infant sucks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me; this is my son you are speaking of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this is your Port I'm drinking; so I'll say no more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The squire emptied his glass, and Sir William thrummed on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, my dog has got his name,&rdquo; the squire resumed. &ldquo;I'm not ambitious
+      about him. You are, about yours; and you ought to know him. He spends or
+      he don't spend. It's not the question whether he gets into debt, but
+      whether he does mischief with what he spends. If Algy's a bad fish, Ned's
+      a bit of a serpent; damned clever, no doubt. I suppose, you wouldn't let
+      him marry old Fleming's daughter, now, if he wanted to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is Fleming?&rdquo; Sir William thundered out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fleming's the father of the girl. I'm sorry for him. He sells his
+      farm-land which I've been looking at for years; so I profit by it; but I
+      don't like to see a man like that broken up. Algy, I said before, 's a bad
+      fish. Hang me, if I think he'd have behaved like Ned. If he had, I'd have
+      compelled him to marry her, and shipped them both off, clean out of the
+      country, to try their luck elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're proud; I'm practical. I don't expect you to do the same. I'm up in
+      London now to raise money to buy the farm&mdash;Queen's Anne's Farm; it's
+      advertized for sale, I see. Fleeting won't sell it to me privately,
+      because my name's Blancove, and I'm the father of my son, and he fancies
+      Algy's the man. Why? he saw Algy at the theatre in London with this girl
+      of his;&mdash;we were all young fellows once!&mdash;and the rascal took
+      Ned's burden on his shoulders. So, I shall have to compete with other
+      buyers, and pay, I dare say, a couple of hundred extra for the property.
+      Do you believe what I tell you now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a word of it,&rdquo; said Sir William blandly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The squire seized the decanter and drank in a fury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had it from Algy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That would all the less induce me to believe it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H'm!&rdquo; the squire frowned. &ldquo;Let me tell you&mdash;he's a dog&mdash;but
+      it's a damned hard thing to hear one's own flesh and blood abused. Look
+      here: there's a couple. One of them has made a fool of a girl. It can't be
+      my rascal&mdash;stop a minute&mdash;he isn't the man, because she'd have
+      been sure to have made a fool of him, that's certain. He's a soft-hearted
+      dog. He'd aim at a cock-sparrow, and be glad if he missed. There you have
+      him. He was one of your good boys. I used to tell his poor mother, 'When
+      you leave off thinking for him, he'll go to the first handy villain&mdash;and
+      that's the devil.' And he's done it. But, here's the difference. He goes
+      himself; he don't send another. I'll tell you what: if you don't know
+      about Mr. Ned's tricks, you ought. And you ought to make him marry the
+      girl, and be off to New Zealand, or any of the upside-down places, where
+      he might begin by farming, and soon, with his abilities, be cock o' the
+      walk. He would, perhaps, be sending us a letter to say that he preferred
+      to break away from the mother country and establish a republic. He's got
+      the same political opinions as you. Oh! he'll do well enough over here; of
+      course he will. He's the very fellow to do well. Knock at him, he's hard
+      as nails, and 'll stick anywhere. You wouldn't listen to me, when I told
+      you about this at Fairly, where some old sweetheart of the girl mistook
+      that poor devil of a scapegoat, Algy, for him, and went pegging at him
+      like a madman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Sir William; &ldquo;No, I would not. Nor do I now. At least,&rdquo; he
+      struck out his right hand deprecatingly, &ldquo;I listen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you tell me what he was doing when he went to Italy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He went partly at my suggestion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Turns you round his little finger! He went off with this girl: wanted to
+      educate her, or some nonsense of the sort. That was Mr. Ned's business.
+      Upon my soul, I'm sorry for old Fleming. I'm told he takes it to heart.
+      It's done him up. Now, if it should turn out to be Ned, would you let him
+      right the girl by marrying her? You wouldn't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The principle of examining your hypothesis before you proceed to decide
+      by it, is probably unknown to you,&rdquo; Sir William observed, after bestowing
+      a considerate smile on his brother, who muffled himself up from the
+      chilling sententiousness, and drank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir William, in the pride of superior intellect, had heard as good as
+      nothing of the charge against his son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the squire, &ldquo;think as you like, act as you like; all's one to
+      me. You're satisfied; that's clear; and I'm some hundred of pounds out of
+      pocket. This major's paying court to the widow, is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't say that he is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be a good thing for her to get married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should be glad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A good thing for her, I say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A good thing for him, let us hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he can pay her debts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir William was silent, and sipped his wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if he can keep a tight hand on the reins. That's wanted,&rdquo; said the
+      squire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gentleman whose road to happiness was thus prescribed stood by Mrs.
+      Lovell's chair, in the drawing-room. He held a letter in his hand, for
+      which her own was pleadingly extended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know you to be the soul of truth, Percy,&rdquo; she was saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The question is not that; but whether you can bear the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can I not? Who would live without it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me; there's more. You say, you admire this friend of mine; no
+      doubt you do. Mind, I am going to give you the letter. I wish you simply
+      to ask yourself now, whether you are satisfied at my making a confidant of
+      a man in Robert Eccles's position, and think it natural and just&mdash;you
+      do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite just,&rdquo; said Mrs. Lovell; &ldquo;and natural? Yes, natural; though not
+      common. Eccentric; which only means, hors du commun; and can be natural.
+      It is natural. I was convinced he was a noble fellow, before I knew that
+      you had made a friend of him. I am sure of it now. And did he not save
+      your life, Percy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have warned you that you are partly the subject of the letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you forget that I am a woman, and want it all the more impatiently?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Waring suffered the letter to be snatched from his hand, and stood
+      like one who is submitting to a test, or watching the effect of a potent
+      drug.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is his second letter to you,&rdquo; Mrs. Lovell murmured. &ldquo;I see; it is a
+      reply to yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She read a few lines, and glanced up, blushing. &ldquo;Am I not made to bear
+      more than I deserve?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can do such mischief, without meaning any, to a man who is in love
+      with another woman&mdash;,&rdquo; said Percy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she nodded, &ldquo;I perceive the deduction; but inferences are like
+      shadows on the wall&mdash;they are thrown from an object, and are
+      monstrous distortions of it. That is why you misjudge women. You infer one
+      thing from another, and are ruled by the inference.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He simply bowed. Edward would have answered her in a bright strain, and
+      led her on to say brilliant things, and then have shown her, as by a
+      sudden light, that she had lost herself, and reduced her to feel the
+      strength and safety of his hard intellect. That was the idea in her brain.
+      The next moment her heart ejected it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Petty, when I asked permission to look at this letter, I was not aware
+      how great a compliment it would be to me if I was permitted to see it. It
+      betrays your friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It betrays something more,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovell cast down her eyes and read, without further comment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were the contents:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;My Dear Percy,&mdash;Now that I see her every day again, I am worse than
+   ever; and I remember thinking once or twice that Mrs. L. had cured
+   me. I am a sort of man who would jump to reach the top of a
+   mountain. I understand how superior Mrs. L. is to every woman in
+   the world I have seen; but Rhoda cures me on that head. Mrs. Lovell
+   makes men mad and happy, and Rhoda makes them sensible and
+   miserable. I have had the talk with Rhoda. It is all over. I have
+   felt like being in a big room with one candle alight ever since.
+   She has not looked at me, and does nothing but get by her father
+   whenever she can, and takes his hand and holds it. I see where the
+   blow has struck her: it has killed her pride; and Rhoda is almost
+   all pride. I suppose she thinks our plan is the best. She has not
+   said she does, and does not mention her sister. She is going to
+   die, or she turns nun, or marries a gentleman. I shall never get
+   her. She will not forgive me for bringing this news to her. I told
+   you how she coloured, the first day I came; which has all gone now.
+   She just opens her lips to me. You remember Corporal Thwaites&mdash;you
+   caught his horse, when he had his foot near wrenched off, going
+   through the gate&mdash;and his way of breathing through the under-row of
+   his teeth&mdash;the poor creature was in such pain&mdash;that's just how she
+   takes her breath. It makes her look sometimes like that woman's
+   head with the snakes for her hair. This bothers me&mdash;how is it you
+   and Mrs. Lovell manage to talk together of such things? Why, two
+   men rather hang their heads a bit. My notion is, that women&mdash;
+   ladies, in especial, ought never to hear of sad things of this sort.
+   Of course, I mean, if they do, it cannot harm them. It only upsets
+   me. Why are ladies less particular than girls in Rhoda's place?&rdquo;
+
+   (&ldquo;Shame being a virtue,&rdquo; was Mrs. Lovell's running comment.)
+
+   &ldquo;She comes up to town with her father to-morrow. The farm is
+   ruined. The poor old man had to ask me for a loan to pay the
+   journey. Luckily, Rhoda has saved enough with her pennies and
+   two-pences. Ever since I left the farm, it has been in the hands
+   of an old donkey here, who has worked it his own way. What is in
+   the ground will stop there, and may as well.
+
+   &ldquo;I leave off writing, I write such stuff; and if I go on
+   writing to you, I shall be putting these things '&mdash;!&mdash;!&mdash;!' The way
+   you write about Mrs. Lovell, convinces me you are not in my scrape,
+   or else gentlemen are just as different from their inferiors as
+   ladies are from theirs. That's the question. What is the meaning
+   of your 'not being able to leave her for a day, for fear she should
+   fall under other influences'? Then, I copy your words, you say,
+   'She is all things to everybody, and cannot help it.' In that case,
+   I would seize my opportunity and her waist, and tell her she was
+   locked up from anybody else. Friendship with men&mdash;but I cannot
+   understand friendship with women, and watching them to keep them
+   right, which must mean that you do not think much of them.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovell, at this point, raised her eyes abruptly from the letter and
+      returned it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You discuss me very freely with your friend,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Percy drooped to her. &ldquo;I warned you when you wished to read it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, you see, you have bewildered him. It was scarcely wise to write
+      other than plain facts. Men of that class.&rdquo; She stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of that class?&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men of any class, then: you yourself: if any one wrote to you such
+      things, what would you think? It is very unfair. I have the honour of
+      seeing you daily, because you cannot trust me out of your sight? What is
+      there inexplicable about me? Do you wonder that I talk openly of women who
+      are betrayed, and do my best to help them?&rdquo;.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary; you command my esteem,&rdquo; said Percy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you think me a puppet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fond of them, perhaps?&rdquo; his tone of voice queried in a manner that made
+      her smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hate them,&rdquo; she said, and her face expressed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you make them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How? You torment me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can I explain the magic? Are you not making one of me now, where I
+      stand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, sit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or kneel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Percy! do nothing ridiculous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inveterate insight was a characteristic of Major Waring; but he was not
+      the less in Mrs. Lovell's net. He knew it to be a charm that she exercised
+      almost unknowingly. She was simply a sweet instrument for those who could
+      play on it, and therein lay her mighty fascination. Robert's blunt advice
+      that he should seize the chance, take her and make her his own, was
+      powerful with him. He checked the particular appropriating action
+      suggested by Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I owe you an explanation,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Margaret, my friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can think of me as a friend, Percy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I can call you my friend, what would I not call you besides? I did you
+      a great and shameful wrong when you were younger. Hush! you did not
+      deserve that. Judge of yourself as you will; but I know now what my
+      feelings were then. The sublime executioner was no more than a spiteful
+      man. You give me your pardon, do you not? Your hand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had reached her hand to him, but withdrew it quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not your hand, Margaret? But, you must give it to some one. You will be
+      ruined, if you do not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him with full eyes. &ldquo;You know it then?&rdquo; she said slowly; but
+      the gaze diminished as he went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, by what I know of you, that you of all women should owe a direct
+      allegiance. Come; I will assume privileges. Are you free?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you talk to me so, if you thought otherwise?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I would,&rdquo; said Percy. &ldquo;A little depends upon the person. Are you
+      pledged at all to Mr. Edward Blancove?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you suppose me one to pledge myself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is doing a base thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, Percy, let an assurance of my knowledge of that be my answer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not love the man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Despise him, say!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he aware of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If clear writing can make him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have told him as much?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To his apprehension, certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Further, Margaret, I must speak:&mdash;did he act with your concurrence,
+      or knowledge of it at all, in acting as he has done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens! Percy, you question me like a husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is what I mean to be, if I may.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The frame of the fair lady quivered as from a blow, and then her eyes rose
+      tenderly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you knew me. This is not possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will not be mine? Why is it not possible?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I could say, because I respect you too much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because you find you have not the courage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To confess that you were under bad influence, and were not the Margaret I
+      can make of you. Put that aside. If you remain as you are, think of the
+      snares. If you marry one you despise, look at the pit. Yes; you will be
+      mine! Half my love of my country and my profession is love of you.
+      Margaret is fire in my blood. I used to pray for opportunities, that
+      Margaret might hear of me. I knew that gallant actions touched her; I
+      would have fallen gladly; I was sure her heart would leap when she heard
+      of me. Let it beat against mine. Speak!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will,&rdquo; said Mrs. Lovell, and she suppressed the throbs of her bosom.
+      Her voice was harsh and her face bloodless. &ldquo;How much money have you,
+      Percy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This sudden sluicing of cold water on his heat of passion petrified him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Money,&rdquo; he said, with a strange frigid scrutiny of her features. As in
+      the flash of a mirror, he beheld her bony, worn, sordid, unacceptable. But
+      he was fain to admit it to be an eminently proper demand for
+      enlightenment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He said deliberately, &ldquo;I possess an income of five hundred a year,
+      extraneous, and in addition to my pay as major in Her Majesty's service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he paused, and the silence was like a growing chasm between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She broke it by saying, &ldquo;Have you any expectations?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was crueller still, though no longer astonishing. He complained in
+      his heart merely that her voice had become so unpleasant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With emotionless precision, he replied, &ldquo;At my mother's death&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interposed a soft exclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At my mother's death there will come to me by reversion, five or six
+      thousand pounds. When my father dies, he may possibly bequeath his
+      property to me. On that I cannot count.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Veritable tears were in her eyes. Was she affecting to weep
+      sympathetically in view of these remote contingencies?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will not pretend that you know me now, Percy,&rdquo; she said, trying to
+      smile; and she had recovered the natural feminine key of her voice. &ldquo;I am
+      mercenary, you see; not a mercenary friend. So, keep me as a friend&mdash;say
+      you will be my friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, you had a right to know,&rdquo; he protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was disgraceful&mdash;horrible; but it was necessary for me to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now that you do know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now that I know, I have only to say&mdash;be as merciful in your idea of
+      me as you can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She dropped her hand in his, and it was with a thrill of dismay that he
+      felt the rush of passion reanimating his frozen veins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be mercenary, but be mine! I will give you something better to live for
+      than this absurd life of fashion. You reckon on what our expenditure will
+      be by that standard. It's comparative poverty; but&mdash;but you can have
+      some luxuries. You can have a carriage, a horse to ride. Active service
+      may come: I may rise. Give yourself to me, and you must love me, and
+      regret nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing! I should regret nothing. I don't want carriages, or horses, or
+      luxuries. I could live with you on a subaltern's pay. I can't marry you,
+      Percy, and for the very reason which would make me wish to marry you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charade?&rdquo; said he; and the contempt of the utterance brought her head
+      close under his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dearest friend, you have not to learn how to punish me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The little reproach, added to the wound to his pride, required a healing
+      medicament; she put her lips to his fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Assuredly the comedy would not have ended there, but it was stopped by an
+      intrusion of the squire, followed by Sir William, who, while the squire&mdash;full
+      of wine and vindictive humours&mdash;went on humming, &ldquo;Ah! h'm&mdash;m&mdash;m!
+      Soh!&rdquo; said in the doorway to some one behind him: &ldquo;And if you have lost
+      your key, and Algernon is away, of what use is it to drive down to the
+      Temple for a bed? I make it an especial request that you sleep here
+      tonight. I wish it. I have to speak with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovell was informed that the baronet had been addressing his son, who
+      was fresh from Paris, and not, in his own modest opinion, presentable
+      before a lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Once more Farmer Fleming and Rhoda prepared for their melancholy journey
+      up to London. A light cart was at the gateway, near which Robert stood
+      with the farmer, who, in his stiff brown overcoat, that reached to his
+      ankles, and broad country-hat, kept his posture of dumb expectation like a
+      stalled ox, and nodded to Robert's remarks on the care which the garden
+      had been receiving latterly, the many roses clean in bud, and the trim
+      blue and white and red garden beds. Every word was a blow to him; but he
+      took it, as well as Rhoda's apparent dilatoriness, among the things to be
+      submitted to by a man cut away by the roots from the home of his labour
+      and old associations. Above his bowed head there was a board proclaiming
+      that Queen Anne's Farm, and all belonging thereunto, was for sale. His
+      prospect in the vague wilderness of the future, was to seek for acceptance
+      as a common labourer on some kind gentleman's property. The phrase &ldquo;kind
+      gentleman&rdquo; was adopted by his deliberate irony of the fate which cast him
+      out. Robert was stamping fretfully for Rhoda to come. At times, Mrs.
+      Sumfit showed her head from the window of her bed-room, crying,
+      &ldquo;D'rectly!&rdquo; and disappearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The still aspect of the house on the shining May afternoon was otherwise
+      undisturbed. Besides Rhoda, Master Gammon was being waited for; on whom
+      would devolve the driving of the cart back from the station. Robert heaped
+      his vexed exclamations upon this old man. The farmer restrained his voice
+      in Master Gammon's defence, thinking of the comparison he could make
+      between him and Robert: for Master Gammon had never run away from the farm
+      and kept absent, leaving it to take care of itself. Gammon, slow as he
+      might be, was faithful, and it was not he who had made it necessary for
+      the farm to be sold. Gammon was obstinate, but it was not he who, after
+      taking a lead, and making the farm dependent on his lead, had absconded
+      with the brains and energy of the establishment. Such reflections passed
+      through the farmer's mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda and Mrs. Sumfit came together down the trim pathway; and Robert now
+      had a clear charge against Master Gammon. He recommended an immediate
+      departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The horse 'll bring himself home quite as well and as fast as Gammon
+      will,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But for the shakin' and the joltin', which tells o' sovereigns and
+      silver,&rdquo; Mrs. Sumfit was observing to Rhoda, &ldquo;you might carry the box&mdash;and
+      who would have guessed how stout it was, and me to hit it with a poker and
+      not break it, I couldn't, nor get a single one through the slit;&mdash;the
+      sight I was, with a poker in my hand! I do declare I felt azactly like a
+      housebreaker;&mdash;and no soul to notice what you carries. Where you hear
+      the gold, my dear, go so&rdquo;&mdash;Mrs. Sumfit performed a methodical &ldquo;Ahem!&rdquo;
+       and noised the sole of her shoe on the gravel &ldquo;so, and folks 'll think
+      it's a mistake they made.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's that?&rdquo;&mdash;the farmer pointed at a projection under Rhoda's
+      shawl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a present, father, for my sister,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; the farmer questioned again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Sumfit fawned before him penitently&mdash;&ldquo;Ah! William, she's poor,
+      and she do want a little to spend, or she will be so nipped and like a
+      frost-bitten body, she will. And, perhaps, dear, haven't money in her
+      sight for next day's dinner, which is&mdash;oh, such a panic for a young
+      wife! for it ain't her hunger, dear William&mdash;her husband, she thinks
+      of. And her cookery at a stand-still! Thinks she, 'he will charge it on
+      the kitchen;' so unreasonable's men. Yes,&rdquo; she added, in answer to the
+      rigid dejection of his look, &ldquo;I said true to you. I know I said, 'Not a
+      penny can I get, William,' when you asked me for loans; and how could I
+      get it? I can't get it now. See here, dear!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took the box from under Rhoda's shawl, and rattled it with a down turn
+      and an up turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn't ask me, dear William, whether I had a money-box. I'd ha' told
+      you so at once, had ye but asked me. And had you said, 'Gi' me your
+      money-box,' it was yours, only for your asking. You do see, you can't get
+      any of it out. So, when you asked for money I was right to say, I'd got
+      none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer bore with her dreary rattling of the box in demonstration of
+      its retentive capacities. The mere force of the show stopped him from
+      retorting; but when, to excuse Master Gammon for his tardiness, she
+      related that he also had a money-box, and was in search of it, the farmer
+      threw up his head with the vigour of a young man, and thundered for Master
+      Gammon, by name, vehemently wrathful at the combined hypocrisy of the
+      pair. He called twice, and his face was purple and red as he turned toward
+      the cart, saying,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll go without the old man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Sumfit then intertwisted her fingers, and related how that she and
+      Master Gammon had one day, six years distant, talked on a lonely evening
+      over the mischances which befel poor people when they grew infirm, or met
+      with accident, and what &ldquo;useless clays&rdquo; they were; and yet they had their
+      feelings. It was a long and confidential talk on a summer evening; and, at
+      the end of it, Master Gammon walked into Wrexby, and paid a visit to Mr.
+      Hammond, the carpenter, who produced two strong saving-boxes excellently
+      manufactured by his own hand, without a lid to them, or lock and key: so
+      that there would be no getting at the contents until the boxes were full,
+      or a pressing occasion counselled the destruction of the boxes. A constant
+      subject of jest between Mrs. Sumfit and Master Gammon was, as to which
+      first of them would be overpowered by curiosity to know the amount of
+      their respective savings; and their confessions of mutual weakness and
+      futile endeavours to extract one piece of gold from the hoard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, think it or not,&rdquo; said Mrs. Sumfit, &ldquo;I got that power over him,
+      from doctorin' him, and cookin' for him, I persuaded him to help my poor
+      Dahly in my blessed's need. I'd like him to do it by halves, but he
+      can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Master Gammon appeared round a corner of the house, his box, draped by his
+      handkerchief, under his arm. The farmer and Robert knew, when he was in
+      sight, that gestures and shouts expressing extremities of the need for
+      haste, would fail to accelerate his steps, so they allowed him to come on
+      at his own equal pace, steady as Time, with the peculiar lopping bend of
+      knees which jerked the moveless trunk regularly upward, and the ancient
+      round eyes fixed contemplatively forward. There was an affectingness in
+      this view of the mechanical old man bearing his poor hoard to bestow it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert said out, unawares, &ldquo;He mustn't be let to part with h'old pennies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No;&rdquo; the farmer took him up; &ldquo;nor I won't let him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, father!&rdquo; Rhoda intercepted his address to Master Gammon. &ldquo;Yes,
+      father!&rdquo; she hardened her accent. &ldquo;It is for my sister. He does a good
+      thing. Let him do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mas' Gammon, what ha' ye got there?&rdquo; the farmer sung out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Master Gammon knew that he was about his own business. He was a
+      difficult old man when he served the farmer; he was quite unmanageable in
+      his private affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without replying, he said to Mrs. Sumfit,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd gummed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The side of the box showed that it had been made adhesive, for the sake of
+      security, to another substance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's what's caused ye to be so long, Mas' Gammon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The veteran of the fields responded with a grin, designed to show a lively
+      cunning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Deary me, Mas' Gammon, I'd give a fortnight's work to know how much you'm
+      saved, now, I would. And, there! Your comfort's in your heart. And it
+      shall be paid to you. I do pray heaven in mercy to forgive me,&rdquo; she
+      whimpered, &ldquo;if ever knowin'ly I hasted you at a meal, or did deceive you
+      when you looked for the pickings of fresh-killed pig. But if you only knew
+      how&mdash;to cookit spoils the temper of a woman! I'd a aunt was cook in a
+      gentleman's fam'ly, and daily he dirtied his thirteen plates&mdash;never
+      more nor never less; and one day&mdash;was ever a woman punished so! her
+      best black silk dress she greased from the top to the bottom, and he sent
+      down nine clean plates, and no word vouchsafed of explanation. For
+      gentlefolks, they won't teach themselves how it do hang together with
+      cooks in a kitchen&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jump up, Mas' Gammon,&rdquo; cried the farmer, wrathful at having been deceived
+      by two members of his household, who had sworn to him, both, that they had
+      no money, and had disregarded his necessity. Such being human nature!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Sumfit confided the termination of her story to Rhoda; or suggested
+      rather, at what distant point it might end; and then, giving Master
+      Gammon's box to her custody, with directions for Dahlia to take the boxes
+      to a carpenter's shop&mdash;not attempting the power of pokers upon them&mdash;and
+      count and make a mental note of the amount of the rival hoards, she sent
+      Dahlia all her messages of smirking reproof, and delighted love, and hoped
+      that they would soon meet and know happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda, as usual, had no emotion to spare. She took possession of the
+      second box, and thus laden, suffered Robert to lift her into the cart.
+      They drove across the green, past the mill and its flashing waters, and
+      into the road, where the waving of Mrs. Sumfit's desolate handkerchief was
+      latest seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A horseman rode by, whom Rhoda recognized, and she blushed and had a
+      boding shiver. Robert marked him, and the blush as well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Algernon, upon a livery-stable hack. His countenance expressed a
+      mighty disappointment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer saw no one. The ingratitude and treachery of Robert, and of
+      Mrs. Sumfit and Master Gammon, kept him brooding in sombre disgust of
+      life. He remarked that the cart jolted a good deal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you goes in a cart, wi' company o' four, you expects to be jolted,&rdquo;
+       said Master Gammon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to like it,&rdquo; Robert observed to the latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It don't disturb my in'ards,&rdquo; quoth the serenest of mankind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gammon,&rdquo; the farmer addressed him from the front seat, without turning
+      his head: &ldquo;you'll take and look about for a new place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Master Gammon digested the recommendation in silence. On its being
+      repeated, with, &ldquo;D' ye hear?&rdquo; he replied that he heard well enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, look about ye sharp, or maybe, you'll be out in the cold,&rdquo;
+       said the farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Na,&rdquo; returned Master Gammon, &ldquo;ah never frets till I'm pinched.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've given ye notice,&rdquo; said the farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, you ha'n't,&rdquo; said Master Gammon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I give ye notice now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, you don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How d' ye mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cause I don't take ne'er a notice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you'll be kicked out, old man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey! there y' have me,&rdquo; said Master Gammon. &ldquo;I growed at the farm, and
+      you don't go and tell ne'er a tree t' walk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda laid her fingers in the veteran's palm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're a long-lived family, aren't you, Master Gammon?&rdquo; said Robert,
+      eyeing Rhoda's action enviously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Master Gammon bade him go to a certain churchyard in Sussex, and inspect a
+      particular tombstone, upon which the ages of his ancestry were written.
+      They were more like the ages of oaks than of men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the heart kills,&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's damned misfortune,&rdquo; murmured the farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the wickedness in the world,&rdquo; thought Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a poor stomach, I reckon,&rdquo; Master Gammon ruminated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They took leave of him at the station, from which eminence it was a
+      notable thing to see him in the road beneath, making preparations for his
+      return, like a conqueror of the hours. Others might run, and stew, if they
+      liked: Master Gammon had chosen his pace, and was not of a mind to change
+      it for anybody or anything. It was his boast that he had never ridden by
+      railway: &ldquo;nor ever means to, if I can help it,&rdquo; he would say. He was very
+      much in harmony with universal nature, if to be that is the secret of
+      human life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime, Algernon retraced his way to the station in profound chagrin:
+      arriving there just as the train was visible. He caught sight of the cart
+      with Master Gammon in it, and asked him whether all his people were going
+      up to London; but the reply was evidently a mile distant, and had not
+      started; so putting a sovereign in Master Gammon's hand, together with the
+      reins of his horse, Algernon bade the old man conduct the animal to the
+      White Bear Inn, and thus violently pushing him off the tramways of his
+      intelligence, left him stranded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had taken a first-class return-ticket, of course, being a gentleman. In
+      the desperate hope that he might jump into a carriage with Rhoda, he
+      entered one of the second-class compartments; a fact not only foreign to
+      his tastes and his habits, but somewhat disgraceful, as he thought. His
+      trust was, that the ignoble of this earth alone had beheld him: at any
+      rate, his ticket was first class, as the guard would instantly and
+      respectfully perceive, and if he had the discomforts, he had also some of
+      the consolations of virtue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once on his way, the hard seat and the contemptible society surrounding
+      him, assured his reflective spirit that he loved: otherwise, was it in
+      reason that he should endure these hardships? &ldquo;I really love the girl,&rdquo; he
+      said, fidgeting for cushions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was hot, and wanted the window up, to which his fellow-travellers
+      assented. Then, the atmosphere becoming loaded with offence to his morbid
+      sense of smell, he wanted the windows down; and again they assented. &ldquo;By
+      Jove! I must love the girl,&rdquo; ejaculated Algernon inwardly, as cramp, cold,
+      and afflicted nostrils combined to astonish his physical sensations. Nor
+      was it displeasing to him to evince that he was unaccustomed to bare
+      boards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're a rich country,&rdquo; said a man to his neighbour; &ldquo;but, if you don't
+      pay for it, you must take your luck, and they'll make you as uncomfortable
+      as they can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;I've travelled on the Continent. The second-class
+      carriages there are fit for anybody to travel in. This is what comes of
+      the worship of money&mdash;the individual is not respected. Pounds alone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These,&rdquo; thought Algernon, &ldquo;are beastly democrats.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Their remarks had been sympathetic with his manifestations, which had
+      probably suggested them. He glowered out of the window in an exceedingly
+      foreign manner. A plainly dressed woman requested that the window should
+      be closed. One of the men immediately proceeded to close it. Algernon
+      stopped him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me, sir,&rdquo; said the man; &ldquo;it's a lady wants it done;&rdquo; and he did
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A lady! Algernon determined that these were the sort of people he should
+      hate for life. &ldquo;Go among them and then see what they are,&rdquo; he addressed an
+      imaginary assembly of anti-democrats, as from a senatorial chair set in
+      the after days. Cramp, cold, ill-ordered smells, and eternal hatred of his
+      fellow-passengers, convinced him, in their aggregation, that he surmounted
+      not a little for love of Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The train arrived in London at dusk. Algernon saw Rhoda step from a
+      carriage near the engine, assisted by Robert; and old Anthony was on the
+      platform to welcome her; and Anthony seized her bag, and the troop of
+      passengers moved away. It may be supposed that Algernon had angry
+      sensations at sight of Robert; and to a certain extent this was the case;
+      but he was a mercurial youth, and one who had satisfactorily proved
+      superior strength enjoyed a portion of his respect. Besides, if Robert
+      perchance should be courting Rhoda, he and Robert would enter into another
+      field of controversy; and Robert might be taught a lesson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He followed the party on foot until they reached Anthony's dwelling-place,
+      noted the house, and sped to the Temple. There, he found a telegraphic
+      message from Edward, that had been awaiting him since the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop It,&rdquo; were the sole words of the communication brief, and if one
+      preferred to think so, enigmatic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What on earth does he mean?&rdquo; cried Algernon, and affected again and again
+      to see what Edward meant, without success. &ldquo;Stop it?&mdash;stop what?&mdash;Stop
+      the train? Stop my watch? Stop the universe? Oh! this is rank humbug.&rdquo; He
+      flung the paper down, and fell to counting the money in his possession.
+      The more it dwindled, the more imperative it became that he should depart
+      from his country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind the figures, he calculated that, in all probability, Rhoda would
+      visit her sister this night. &ldquo;I can't stop that,&rdquo; he said: and hearing a
+      clock strike, &ldquo;nor that&rdquo; a knock sounded on the door; &ldquo;nor that.&rdquo; The
+      reflection inspired him with fatalistic views.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedgett appeared, and was welcome. Algernon had to check the impulse of
+      his hand to stretch out to the fellow, so welcome was he: Sedgett stated
+      that everything stood ready for the morrow. He had accomplished all that
+      had to be done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it's more than many'd reckon,&rdquo; he said, and rubbed his hands, and
+      laughed. &ldquo;I was aboard ship in Liverpool this morning, that I was. That
+      ere young woman's woke up from her dream&rdquo;, (he lengthened the word
+      inexpressibly) &ldquo;by this time, that she is. I had to pay for my passage,
+      though;&rdquo; at which recollection he swore. &ldquo;That's money gone. Never mind:
+      there's worse gone with it. Ain't it nasty&mdash;don't you think, sir&mdash;to
+      get tired of a young woman you've been keepin' company with, and have to
+      be her companion, whether you will, or whether you won't? She's sick
+      enough now. We travelled all night. I got her on board; got her to go to
+      her bed; and, says I, I'll arrange about the luggage. I packs myself down
+      into a boat, and saw the ship steam away a good'n. Hanged if I didn't
+      catch myself singin'. And haven't touched a drop o' drink, nor will, till
+      tomorrow's over. Don't you think 'Daehli's' a very pretty name, sir? I run
+      back to her as hard as rail 'd carry me. She's had a letter from her
+      sister, recommending o' her to marry me: 'a noble man,' she calls me&mdash;ha,
+      ha! that's good. 'And what do you think, my dear?' says I; and, bother me,
+      if I can screw either a compliment or a kiss out of her. She's got fine
+      lady airs of her own. But I'm fond of her, that I am. Well, sir, at the
+      church door, after the ceremony, you settle our business, honour bright&mdash;that's
+      it, en't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon nodded. Sedgett's talk always produced discomfort in his
+      ingenuous bosom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the way, what politics are you?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedgett replied, staring, that he was a Tory, and Algernon nodded again,
+      but with brows perturbed at the thought of this ruffian being of the same
+      political persuasion as himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh?&rdquo; cried Sedgett; &ldquo;I don't want any of your hustings pledges, though.
+      You'll be at the door tomorrow, or I'll have a row&mdash;mind that. A
+      bargain's a bargain. I like the young woman, but I must have the money.
+      Why not hand it over now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not till the deed's done,&rdquo; said Algernon, very reasonably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedgett studied his features, and as a result remarked: &ldquo;You put me up to
+      this: I'll do it, and trust you so far, but if I'm played on, I throw the
+      young woman over and expose you out and out. But you mean honourable?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do,&rdquo; Algernon said of his meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another knock sounded on the door. It proved to be a footman in Sir
+      William's livery, bearing a letter from Edward; an amplification of the
+      telegram:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Dear Algy, Stop it. I'm back, and have to see
+   my father. I may be down about two, or three, or four,
+   in the morning. No key; so, keep in. I want to see
+   you. My whole life is changed. I must see her. Did
+   you get my telegram? Answer, by messenger; I shall
+   come to you the moment my father has finished his
+   lecture.
+               &ldquo;Yours,
+                  &ldquo;E.B.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Algernon told Sedgett to wait while he dressed in evening uniform, and
+      gave him a cigar to smoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrote:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Dear Ned, Stop what? Of course, I suppose there's only one thing,
+   and how can I stop it? What for? You ridiculous old boy! What a
+   changeable old fellow you are!&mdash;Off, to see what I can do. After
+   eleven o'clock to-morrow, you'll feel comfortable.&mdash;If the Governor
+   is sweet, speak a word for the Old Brown; and bring two dozen in a
+   cab, if you can. There's no encouragement to keep at home in this
+   place. Put that to him. I, in your place, could do it. Tell him
+   it's a matter of markets. If I get better wine at hotels, I go to
+   hotels, and I spend twice&mdash;ten times the money. And say, we intend
+   to make the laundress cook our dinners in chambers, as a rule. Old
+   B. an inducement.
+
+                    &ldquo;Yours aff.
+                       &ldquo;A.B.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      This epistle he dispatched by the footman, and groaned to think that if,
+      perchance, the Old Brown Sherry should come, he would, in all probability,
+      barely drink more than half-a-dozen bottles of that prime vintage. He and
+      Sedgett, soon after, were driving down to Dahlia's poor lodgings in the
+      West. On the way, an idea struck him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Would not Sedgett be a noisier claimant for the thousand than Edward? If
+      he obeyed Edward's direction and stopped the marriage, he could hand back
+      a goodly number of hundreds, and leave it to be supposed that he had
+      advanced the remainder to Sedgett. How to do it? Sedgett happened to say:
+      &ldquo;If you won't hand the money now, I must have it when I've married her.
+      Swear you'll be in the vestry when we're signing. I know all about
+      marriages. You swear, or I tell you, if I find I'm cheated, I will throw
+      the young woman over slap.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon nodded: &ldquo;I shall be there,&rdquo; he said, and thought that he
+      certainly would not. The thought cleared an oppression in his head, though
+      it obscured the pretty prospect of a colonial but and horse, with Rhoda
+      cooking for him, far from cares. He did his best to resolve that he would
+      stop the business, if he could. But, if it is permitted to the fool to
+      create entanglements and set calamity in motion, to arrest its course is
+      the last thing the Gods allow of his doing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the shadowy library light, when there was dawn out of doors, Edward sat
+      with his father, and both were silent, for Edward had opened his heart,
+      and his father had breathed some of the dry stock of wisdom on it. Many
+      times Edward rose to go; and Sir William signalled with his finger that he
+      should stay: an impassive motion, not succeeded by speech. And, in truth,
+      the baronet was revolving such a problem as a long career of profitable
+      banking refreshed by classical exercitations does not help us to solve.
+      There sat the son of his trust and his pride, whose sound and equal
+      temperament, whose precocious worldly wit, whose precise and broad
+      intelligence, had been the visionary comfort of his paternal days to come;
+      and his son had told him, reiterating it in language special and exact as
+      that of a Chancery barrister unfolding his case to the presiding judge,
+      that he had deceived and wronged an under-bred girl of the humbler
+      classes; and that, after a term of absence from her, he had discovered her
+      to be a part of his existence, and designed &ldquo;You would marry her?&rdquo; Sir
+      William asked, though less forcibly than if he could have put on a moral
+      amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is my intention, sir, with your permission,&rdquo; Edward replied firmly,
+      and his father understood that he had never known this young man, and
+      dealt virtually with a stranger in his son&mdash;as shrewd a blow as the
+      vanity which is in paternal nature may have to endure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not fashion the words, &ldquo;Cerritus fuit,&rdquo; though he thought the
+      thing in both tenses: Edward's wits had always been too clearly in order:
+      and of what avail was it to repeat great and honoured prudential maxims to
+      a hard-headed fellow, whose choice was to steer upon the rocks? He did
+      remark, in an undertone,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The 'misce stultitiam' seems to be a piece of advice you have adopted too
+      literally. I quote what you have observed of some one else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is possible, sir,&rdquo; said Edward. &ldquo;I was not particularly sparing when I
+      sat in the high seat. 'Non eadem est aetas, non mens.' I now think
+      differently.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must take your present conduct as the fruit of your premature sagacity,
+      I suppose. By the same rule, your cousin Algernon may prove to be some
+      comfort to his father, in the end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us hope he will, sir. His father will not have deserved it so well as
+      mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The time is morning,&rdquo; said Sir William, looking at his watch, and
+      bestowing, in the bitterness of his reflections, a hue of triumph on the
+      sleep of his brother upstairs. &ldquo;You are your own master, Edward. I will
+      detain you no more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward shook his limbs, rejoicing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You prepare for a life of hard work,&rdquo; Sir William resumed, not without
+      some instigation to sternness from this display of alacrity. &ldquo;I counsel
+      you to try the Colonial Bar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward read in the first sentence, that his income would be restricted;
+      and in the second, that his father's social sphere was no longer to be
+      his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly, sir; I have entertained that notion myself,&rdquo; he said; and his
+      breast narrowed and his features grew sharp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And, if I may suggest such matters to you, I would advise you to see very
+      little company for some years to come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, sir, you only anticipate my previously formed resolution. With a
+      knavery on my conscience, and a giddy-pated girl on my hands, and the
+      doors of the London world open to me, I should scarcely have been capable
+      of serious work. The precious metal, which is Knowledge, sir, is only to
+      be obtained by mining for it; and that excellent occupation necessarily
+      sends a man out of sight for a number of years. In the meantime, 'mea
+      virtute me involvo.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You need not stop short,&rdquo; said his father, with a sardonic look for the
+      concluding lines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The continuation is becoming in the mouth of a hero; but humbler persons
+      must content themselves not to boast the patent fact, I think.&rdquo; Edward
+      warmed as he spoke. &ldquo;I am ready to bear it. I dislike poverty; but, as I
+      say, I am ready to bear it. Come, sir; you did me the honour once to let
+      me talk to you as a friend, with the limits which I have never consciously
+      overstepped; let me explain myself plainly and simply.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir William signified, &ldquo;Pray speak,&rdquo; from the arms of his chair! and
+      Edward, standing, went on: &ldquo;After all, a woman's devotion is worth having,
+      when one is not asked for the small change every ten minutes. I am aware
+      of the philosophic truth, that we get nothing in life for which we don't
+      pay. The point is, to appreciate what we desire; and so we reach a level
+      that makes the payment less&mdash;&rdquo; He laughed. Sir William could hardly
+      keep back the lines of an ironical smile from his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This,&rdquo; pursued the orator, &ldquo;is not the language for the Colonial Bar. I
+      wish to show you that I shall understand the character of my vocation
+      there. No, sir; my deeper wish is that you may accept my view of the sole
+      course left to a man whose sense of honour is of accord with the
+      inclination of his heart, and not in hostility to his clearer judgement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Extremely forensic,&rdquo; said Sir William, not displeased by the promise of
+      the periods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, sir, I need not remark to you that rhetoric, though it should fail
+      to convey, does not extinguish, or imply the absence of emotion in the
+      speaker; but rather that his imagination is excited by his theme, and that
+      he addresses more presences than such as are visible. It is, like the
+      Roman mask, fashioned for large assemblages.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By a parity of reasoning, then,&rdquo;&mdash;Sir William was seduced into
+      colloquy,&mdash;&ldquo;an eternal broad grin is not, in the instance of a
+      dualogue, good comedy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may hide profound grief.&rdquo; Edward made his eyes flash. &ldquo;I find I can
+      laugh; it would be difficult for me to smile. Sir, I pray that you will
+      listen to me seriously, though my language is not of a kind to make you
+      think me absolutely earnest in what I say, unless you know me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which, I must protest, I certainly do not,&rdquo; interposed Sir William.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will do my best to instruct you, sir. Until recently, I have not known
+      myself. I met this girl. She trusted herself to me. You are aware that I
+      know a little of men and of women; and when I tell you that I respect her
+      now even more than I did at first&mdash;much more&mdash;so thoroughly,
+      that I would now put my honour in her hands, by the counsel of my
+      experience, as she, prompted by her instinct and her faith in me, confided
+      hers to mine,&mdash;perhaps, even if you persist in accusing me of
+      rashness, you will allow that she must be in the possession of singularly
+      feminine and estimable qualities. I deceived her. My object in doing so
+      was to spare you. Those consequences followed which can hardly fail to
+      ensue, when, of two living together, the woman is at a disadvantage, and
+      eats her heart without complaining. I could have borne a shrewish tongue
+      better, possibly because I could have answered it better. It is worse to
+      see a pale sad face with a smile of unalterable tenderness. The very
+      sweetness becomes repugnant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As little boys requiring much medicine have anticipated you by noting in
+      this world,&rdquo; observed Sir William.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you for the illustration.&rdquo; Edward bowed, but he smarted. &ldquo;A man
+      so situated lives with the ghost of his conscience.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A doubtful figure of speech,&rdquo; Sir William broke in. &ldquo;I think you should
+      establish the personality before you attempt to give a feature to the
+      essence. But, continue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward saw that by forfeiting simplicity, in order to catch his father's
+      peculiar cast of mind, he had left him cold and in doubt as to the
+      existence of the powerful impulse by which he was animated. It is a prime
+      error in the orator not to seize the emotions and subdue the humanity of
+      his hearers first. Edward perceived his mistake. He had, however, done
+      well in making a show of the unabated vigour of his wits. Contempt did not
+      dwell in the baronet's tone. On the contrary, they talked and fenced, and
+      tripped one another as of old; and, considering the breach he had been
+      compelled to explode between his father and himself, Edward understood
+      that this was a real gain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He resumed: &ldquo;All figures of speech must be inadequate&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, pardon me,&rdquo; said Sir William, pertinaciously; &ldquo;the figure I alluded
+      to was not inadequate. A soap-bubble is not inadequate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Plainly, sir, in God's name, hear me out,&rdquo; cried Edward. &ldquo;She&mdash;what
+      shall I call her? my mistress, my sweetheart, if you like&mdash;let the
+      name be anything 'wife' it should have been, and shall be&mdash;I left
+      her, and have left her and have not looked on her for many months. I
+      thought I was tired of her&mdash;I was under odd influences&mdash;witchcraft,
+      it seems. I could believe in witchcraft now. Brutal selfishness is the
+      phrase for my conduct. I have found out my villany. I have not done a
+      day's sensible work, or had a single clear thought, since I parted from
+      her. She has had brain-fever. She has been in the hospital. She is now
+      prostrate with misery. While she suffered, I&mdash;I can't look back on
+      myself. If I had to plead before you for more than manly consideration, I
+      could touch you. I am my own master, and am ready to subsist by my own
+      efforts; there is no necessity for me to do more than say I abide by the
+      choice I make, and my own actions. In deciding to marry her, I do a good
+      thing&mdash;I do a just thing. I will prove to you that I have done a wise
+      thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me call to your recollection what you did me the honour to remark of
+      my letters from Italy. Those were written with her by my side. Every other
+      woman vexed me. This one alone gives me peace, and nerve to work. If I did
+      not desire to work, should I venture to run the chances of an offence to
+      you? Your girls of society are tasteless to me. And they don't makes wives
+      to working barristers. No, nor to working Members.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are very ornamental and excellent, and, as I think you would call
+      them, accomplished. All England would leap to arms to defend their
+      incontestible superiority to their mothers and their duties. I have not
+      the wish to stand opposed to my countrymen on any question, although I go
+      to other shores, and may be called upon to make capital out of opposition.
+      They are admirable young persons, no doubt. I do not offer you a drab for
+      your daughter-in-law, sir. If I rise, she will be equal to my station. She
+      has the manners of a lady; a lady, I say; not of the modern young lady;
+      with whom, I am happy to think, she does not come into competition. She
+      has not been sedulously trained to pull her way, when she is to go into
+      harness with a yokefellow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I am laying myself open to the charge of feeling my position weak,
+      seeing that I abuse the contrary one. Think what you will of me, sir, you
+      will know that I have obeyed my best instinct and my soundest judgement in
+      this matter; I need not be taught, that if it is my destiny to leave
+      England I lose the association with him who must ever be my dearest
+      friend. And few young men can say as much of one standing in the relation
+      of father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With this, Edward finished; not entirely to his satisfaction; for he had
+      spoken with too distinct a sincerity to please his own critical taste,
+      which had been educated to delight in acute antithesis and culminating
+      sentences&mdash;the grand Biscayan billows of rhetorical utterance, in
+      comparison wherewith his talk was like the little chopping waves of a
+      wind-blown lake. But he had, as he could see, produced an impression. His
+      father stood up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall be always friends; I hope,&rdquo; Sir William said. &ldquo;As regards a
+      provision for you, suitable to your estate, that will be arranged. You
+      must have what comforts you have been taught to look to. At the same time,
+      I claim a personal freedom for my own actions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, sir,&rdquo; said Edward, not conceiving any new development in
+      these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have an esteem for Mrs. Lovell, have you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward flushed. &ldquo;I should have a very perfect esteem for her, if&mdash;&rdquo;
+       he laughed slightly&mdash;&ldquo;you will think I want everybody to be married
+      and in the traces now; she will never be manageable till she is married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am also of that opinion,&rdquo; said Sir William. &ldquo;I will detain you no
+      longer. It is a quarter to five in the morning. You will sleep here, of
+      course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I must go to the Temple. By the way, Algy prefers a petition for
+      Sherry. He is beginning to discern good wine from bad, which may be a
+      hopeful augury.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will order Holmes to send some down to him when he has done a week's
+      real duty at the Bank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sooner or later, then. Good morning, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning.&rdquo; Sir William shook his son's hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A minute after, Edward had quitted the house. &ldquo;That's over!&rdquo; he said,
+      sniffing the morning air gratefully, and eyeing certain tinted wisps of
+      cloud that were in a line of the fresh blue sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A shy and humble entreaty had been sent by Dahlia through Robert to Rhoda,
+      saying that she wished not to be seen until the ceremony was at an end;
+      but Rhoda had become mentally stern toward her sister, and as much to
+      uphold her in the cleansing step she was about to take, as in the desire
+      to have the dear lost head upon her bosom, she disregarded Dahlia's
+      foolish prayer, and found it was well that she had done so; for, to her
+      great amazement, Dahlia, worn, shorn, sickened, and reduced to be a mark
+      for the scorn of the cowardice which is in the world, through the
+      selfishness of a lying man, loved the man still, and wavered, or rather
+      shrank with a pitiful fleshly terror from the noble husband who would wipe
+      the spot of shame from her forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, after their long separation, the sisters met, Dahlia was mistress of
+      herself, and pronounced Rhoda's name softly, as she moved up to kiss her.
+      Rhoda could not speak. Oppressed by the strangeness of the white face
+      which had passed through fire, she gave a mute kiss and a single groan,
+      while Dahlia gently caressed her on the shoulder. The frail touch of her
+      hand was harder to bear than the dreary vision had been, and seemed not so
+      real as many a dream of it. Rhoda sat by her, overcome by the awfulness of
+      an actual sorrow, never imagined closely, though she had conjured up vague
+      pictures of Dahlia's face. She had imagined agony, tears, despair, but not
+      the spectral change, the burnt-out look. It was a face like a crystal lamp
+      in which the flame has died. The ghastly little skull-cap showed forth its
+      wanness rigidly. Rhoda wondered to hear her talk simply of home and the
+      old life. At each question, the then and the now struck her spirit with a
+      lightning flash of opposing scenes. But the talk deepened. Dahlia's
+      martyrdom was near, and their tongues were hurried into plain converse of
+      the hour, and then Dahlia faltered and huddled herself up like a creature
+      swept by the torrent; Rhoda learnt that, instead of hate or loathing of
+      the devilish man who had deceived her, love survived. Upon Dahlia's lips
+      it was compassion and forgiveness; but Rhoda, in her contempt for the
+      word, called it love. Dahlia submitted gladly to the torture of
+      interrogation; &ldquo;Do you, can you care for him still?&rdquo; and sighed in shame
+      and fear of her sister, not daring to say she thought her harsh, not
+      daring to plead for escape, as she had done with Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why is there no place for the unhappy, who do not wish to live, and
+      cannot die?&rdquo; she moaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Rhoda cruelly fixed her to the marriage, making it seem irrevocable,
+      and barring all the faint lights to the free outer world, by praise of her&mdash;passionate
+      praise of her&mdash;when she confessed, that half inanimate after her
+      recovery from the fever, and in the hope that she might thereby show
+      herself to her father, she had consented to devote her life to the only
+      creature who was then near her to be kind to her. Rhoda made her relate
+      how this man had seen her first, and how, by untiring diligence, he had
+      followed her up and found her. &ldquo;He&mdash;he must love you,&rdquo; said Rhoda;
+      and in proportion as she grew more conscious of her sister's weakness, and
+      with every access of tenderness toward her, she felt that Dahlia must be
+      thought for very much as if she were a child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia tried to float out some fretting words for mercy, on one or other
+      of her heavy breathings; but her brain was under lead. She had a thirst
+      for Rhoda's praise in her desolation; it was sweet, though the price of it
+      was her doing an abhorred thing. Abhorred? She did not realize the
+      consequences of the act, or strength would have come to her to wrestle
+      with the coil: a stir of her blood would have endued her with womanly
+      counsel and womanly frenzy; nor could Rhoda have opposed any real
+      vehemence of distaste to the union on Dahlia's part. But Dahlia's blood
+      was frozen, her brain was under lead. She clung to the poor delight in her
+      sister's praise, and shuddered and thirsted. She caught at the minutes,
+      and saw them slip from her. All the health of her thoughts went to
+      establish a sort of blind belief that God; having punished her enough,
+      would not permit a second great misery to befall her. She expected a
+      sudden intervention, even though at the altar. She argued to herself that
+      misery, which follows sin, cannot surely afflict us further when we are
+      penitent, and seek to do right: her thought being, that perchance if she
+      refrained from striving against the current, and if she suffered her body
+      to be borne along, God would be the more merciful. With the small cunning
+      of an enfeebled spirit, she put on a mute submissiveness, and deceived
+      herself by it sufficiently to let the minutes pass with a lessened horror
+      and alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was in the first quarter of the night. The dawn was wearing near.
+      Sedgett had been seen by Rhoda; a quiet interview; a few words on either
+      side, attention paid to them by neither. But the girl doated on his
+      ugliness; she took it for plain proof of his worthiness; proof too that
+      her sister must needs have seen the latter very distinctly, or else she
+      could not have submitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia looked at the window-blinds and at the candlelight. The little
+      which had been spoken between her and her sister in such a chasm of time,
+      gave a terrible swiftness to the hours. Half shrieking, she dropped her
+      head in Rhoda's lap. Rhoda, thinking that with this demonstration she
+      renounced the project finally, prepared to say what she had to say, and to
+      yield. But, as was natural after a paroxysm of weakness, Dahlia's frenzy
+      left no courage behind it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia said, as she swept her brows, &ldquo;I am still subject to nervous
+      attacks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will soon leave you,&rdquo; said Rhoda, nursing her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia contracted her lips. &ldquo;Is father very unforgiving to women?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor father!&rdquo; Rhoda interjected for answer, and Dahlia's frame was taken
+      with a convulsion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where shall I see him to-morrow?&rdquo; she asked; and, glancing from the
+      beamless candle to the window-blinds &ldquo;Oh! it's day. Why didn't I sleep!
+      It's day! where am I to see him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At Robert's lodgings. We all go there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We all go?&mdash;he goes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your husband will lead you there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My heaven! my heaven! I wish you had known what this is, a little&mdash;just
+      a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do know that it is a good and precious thing to do right,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you had only had an affection, dear! Oh I how ungrateful I am to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is only, darling, that I seem unkind to you,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think I must do this? Must? Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo; Rhoda pressed her fingers. &ldquo;Why, when you were ill, did you not
+      write to me, that I might have come to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was ashamed,&rdquo; said Dahlia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall not be ashamed any more, my sister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia seized the window-blind with her trembling finger-tips, and looked
+      out on the day. As if it had smitten her eyeballs, she covered her face,
+      giving dry sobs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! I wish&mdash;I wish you had known what this is. Must I do it? His
+      face! Dear, I am very sorry to distress you. Must I do it? The doctor says
+      I am so strong that nothing will break in me, and that I must live, if I
+      am not killed. But, if I might only be a servant in father's house&mdash;I
+      would give all my love to a little bed of flowers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father has no home now,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know&mdash;I know. I am ready. I will submit, and then father will not
+      be ashamed to remain at the Farm. I am ready. Dear, I am ready. Rhoda, I
+      am ready. It is not much.&rdquo; She blew the candle out. &ldquo;See. No one will do
+      that for me. We are not to live for ourselves. I have done wrong, and I am
+      going to be humble; yes, I am. I never was when I was happy, and that
+      proves I had no right to be happy. All I ask is for another night with
+      you. Why did we not lie down together and sleep? We can't sleep now&mdash;it's
+      day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and lie down with me for a few hours, my darling,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While she was speaking, Dahlia drew the window-blind aside, to look out
+      once more upon the vacant, inexplicable daylight, and looked, and then her
+      head bent like the first thrust forward of a hawk's sighting quarry; she
+      spun round, her raised arms making a cramped, clapping motion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      At once Rhoda perceived that it was time for her to act. The name of him
+      who stood in the street below was written on her sister's face. She
+      started to her side, got possession of her hands, murmuring,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come with me. You are to come with me. Don't speak. I know. I will go
+      down. Yes; you are to obey, and do what I tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia's mouth opened, but like a child when it is warned not to cry, she
+      uttered a faint inward wailing, lost her ideas, and was passive in a
+      shuddering fit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What am I to do?&rdquo; she said supplicatingly, as Rhoda led her to her
+      bedroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rest here. Be perfectly quiet. Trust everything to me. I am your sister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving her under the spell of coldly-spoken words, Rhoda locked the door
+      on her. She was herself in great agitation, but nerved by deeper anger
+      there was no faltering in her movements. She went to the glass a minute,
+      as she tied her bonnet-strings under her chin, and pinned her shawl. A
+      night's vigil had not chased the bloom from her cheek, or the swimming
+      lustre from her dark eyes. Content that her aspect should be seemly, she
+      ran down the stairs, unfastened the bolts, and without hesitation closed
+      the door behind her. At the same instant, a gentleman crossed the road. He
+      asked whether Mrs. Ayrton lived in that house? Rhoda's vision danced
+      across his features, but she knew him unerringly to be the cruel enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My sister, Dahlia Fleming, lives there,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, you are Rhoda?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Rhoda.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine&mdash;I fear it will not give you pleasure to hear it&mdash;is
+      Edward Blancove. I returned late last night from abroad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She walked to a distance, out of hearing and out of sight of the house,
+      and he silently followed. The streets were empty, save for the solitary
+      footing of an early workman going to his labour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped, and he said, &ldquo;I hope your sister is well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is quite well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank heaven for that! I heard of some illness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has quite recovered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did she&mdash;tell me the truth&mdash;did she get a letter that I sent
+      two days ago, to her? It was addressed to 'Miss Fleming, Wrexby, Kent,
+      England.' Did it reach her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not seen it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wrote,&rdquo; said Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His scrutiny of her features was not reassuring to him. But he had a
+      side-thought, prompted by admiration of her perfect build of figure, her
+      succinct expression of countenance, and her equable manner of speech: to
+      the effect, that the true English yeomanry can breed consummate women.
+      Perhaps&mdash;who knows? even resolute human nature is the stronger for an
+      added knot&mdash;it approved the resolution he had formed, or stamped with
+      a justification the series of wild impulses, the remorse, and the returned
+      tenderness and manliness which had brought him to that spot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know me, do you not?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she answered shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to see Dahlia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cannot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not immediately, of course. But when she has risen later in the morning.
+      If she has received my letter, she will, she must see me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not later; not at all,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all? Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda controlled the surging of her blood for a vehement reply; saying
+      simply, &ldquo;You will not see her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child, I must.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not a child, and I say what I mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why am I not to see her? Do you pretend that it is her wish not to
+      see me? You can't. I know her perfectly. She is gentleness itself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; you know that,&rdquo; said Rhoda, with a level flash of her eyes, and
+      confronting him in a way so rarely distinguishing girls of her class, that
+      he began to wonder and to ache with an apprehension.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has not changed? Rhoda&mdash;for we used to talk of you so often! You
+      will think better of me, by-and-by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally enough, you detest me at present. I have been a brute. I can't
+      explain it, and I don't excuse myself. I state the fact to you&mdash;her
+      sister. My desire is to make up for the past. Will you take a message to
+      her from me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are particularly positive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Remarks touching herself Rhoda passed by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why are you so decided?&rdquo; he said more urgently. &ldquo;I know I have deeply
+      offended and hurt you. I wish, and intend to repair the wrong to the
+      utmost of my power. Surely it's mere silly vindictiveness on your part to
+      seek to thwart me. Go to her; say I am here. At all events, let it be her
+      choice not to see me, if I am to be rejected at the door. She can't have
+      had my letter. Will you do that much?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She knows that you are here; she has seen you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has seen me?&rdquo; Edward drew in his breath sharply. &ldquo;Well? and she sends you
+      out to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda did not answer. She was strongly tempted to belie Dahlia's frame of
+      mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She does send you to speak to me,&rdquo; Edward insisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She knows that I have come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you will not take one message in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will take no message from you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You hate me, do you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again she controlled the violent shock of her heart to give him hard
+      speech. He went on:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whether you hate me or not is beside the matter. It lies between Dahlia
+      and me. I will see her. When I determine, I allow of no obstacles, not
+      even of wrong-headed girls. First, let me ask, is your father in London?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda threw a masculine meaning into her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not come before him, I advise you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If,&rdquo; said Edward, with almost womanly softness, &ldquo;you could know what I
+      have passed through in the last eight-and-forty hours, you would
+      understand that I am equal to any meeting; though, to speak truth, I would
+      rather not see him until I have done what I mean to do. Will you be
+      persuaded? Do you suppose that I have ceased to love your sister?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This, her execrated word, coming from his mouth, vanquished her
+      self-possession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you cold?&rdquo; he said, seeing the ripple of a trembling run over her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not cold. I cannot remain here.&rdquo; Rhoda tightened her intertwisting
+      fingers across under her bosom. &ldquo;Don't try to kill my sister outright.
+      She's the ghost of what she was. Be so good as to go. She will soon be out
+      of your reach. You will have to kill me first, if you get near her. Never!
+      you never shall. You have lied to her&mdash;brought disgrace on her poor
+      head. We poor people read our Bibles, and find nothing that excuses you.
+      You are not punished, because there is no young man in our family. Go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward gazed at her for some time. &ldquo;Well, I've deserved worse,&rdquo; he said,
+      not sorry, now that he saw an opponent in her, that she should waste her
+      concentrated antagonism in this fashion, and rejoiced by the testimony it
+      gave him that he was certainly not too late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, Rhoda, she loves me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If she does, let her pray to God on her knees.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My good creature, be reasonable. Why am I here? To harm her? You take me
+      for a kind of monster. You look at me very much, let me say, like a
+      bristling cat. Here are the streets getting full of people, and you ought
+      not to be seen. Go to Dahlia. Tell her I am here. Tell her I am come to
+      claim her for good, and that her troubles are over. This is a moment to
+      use your reason. Will you do what I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would cut my tongue out, if it did you a service,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Citoyenne Corday,&rdquo; thought Edward, and observed: &ldquo;Then I will dispense
+      with your assistance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He moved in the direction of the house. Rhoda swiftly outstripped him.
+      They reached the gates together. She threw herself in the gateway. He
+      attempted to parley, but she was dumb to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I allow nothing to stand between her and me,&rdquo; he said, and seized her
+      arm. She glanced hurriedly to right and left. At that moment Robert
+      appeared round a corner of the street. He made his voice heard, and,
+      coming up at double quick, caught Edward Blancove by the collar, swinging
+      him off. Rhoda, with a sign, tempered him to muteness, and the three eyed
+      one another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's you,&rdquo; said Robert, and, understanding immediately the tactics
+      desired by Rhoda, requested Edward to move a step or two away in his
+      company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward settled the disposition of his coat-collar, as a formula wherewith
+      to regain composure of mind, and passed along beside Robert, Rhoda
+      following.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does this mean?&rdquo; said Robert sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward's darker nature struggled for ascendancy within him. It was this
+      man's violence at Fairly which had sickened him, and irritated him against
+      Dahlia, and instigated him, as he remembered well, more than Mrs. Lovell's
+      witcheries, to the abhorrent scheme to be quit of her, and rid of all
+      botheration, at any cost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're in some conspiracy to do her mischief, all of you,&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you mean Dahlia Fleming,&rdquo; said Robert, &ldquo;it'd be a base creature that
+      would think of doing harm to her now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had a man's perception that Edward would hardly have been found in
+      Dahlia's neighbourhood with evil intentions at this moment, though it was
+      a thing impossible to guess. Generous himself, he leaned to the more
+      generous view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think your name is Eccles,&rdquo; said Edward. &ldquo;Mr. Eccles, my position here
+      is a very sad one. But first, let me acknowledge that I have done you
+      personally a wrong. I am ready to bear the burden of your reproaches, or
+      what you will. All that I beg is, that you will do me the favour to grant
+      me five minutes in private. It is imperative.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda burst in&mdash;&ldquo;No, Robert!&rdquo; But Robert said, &ldquo;It is a reasonable
+      request;&rdquo; and, in spite of her angry eyes, he waved her back, and walked
+      apart with Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stood watching them, striving to divine their speech by their
+      gestures, and letting her savage mood interpret the possible utterances.
+      It went ill with Robert in her heart that he did not suddenly grapple and
+      trample the man, and so break away from him. She was outraged to see
+      Robert's listening posture. &ldquo;Lies! lies!&rdquo; she said to herself, &ldquo;and he
+      doesn't know them to be lies.&rdquo; The window-blinds in Dahlia's sitting-room
+      continued undisturbed; but she feared the agency of the servant of the
+      house in helping to release her sister. Time was flowing to dangerous
+      strands. At last Robert turned back singly. Rhoda fortified her soul to
+      resist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has fooled you,&rdquo; she murmured, inaudibly, before he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps, Rhoda, we ought not to stand in his way. He wishes to do what a
+      man can do in his case. So he tells me, and I'm bound not to disbelieve
+      him. He says he repents&mdash;says the word; and gentlemen seem to mean it
+      when they use it. I respect the word, and them when they're up to that
+      word. He wrote to her that he could not marry her, and it did the
+      mischief, and may well be repented of; but he wishes to be forgiven and
+      make amends&mdash;well, such as he can. He's been abroad, and only
+      received Dahlia's letters within the last two or three days. He seems to
+      love her, and to be heartily wretched. Just hear me out; you'll decide;
+      but pray, pray don't be rash. He wishes to marry her; says he has spoken
+      to his father this very night; came straight over from France, after he
+      had read her letters. He says&mdash;and it seems fair&mdash;he only asks
+      to see Dahlia for two minutes. If she bids him go, he goes. He's not a
+      friend of mine, as I could prove to you; but I do think he ought to see
+      her. He says he looks on her as his wife; always meant her to be his wife,
+      but things were against him when he wrote that letter. Well, he says so;
+      and it's true that gentlemen are situated&mdash;they can't always, or
+      think they can't, behave quite like honest men. They've got a hundred
+      things to consider for our one. That's my experience, and I know something
+      of the best among 'em. The question is about this poor young fellow who's
+      to marry her to-day. Mr. Blancove talks of giving him a handsome sum&mdash;a
+      thousand pounds&mdash;and making him comfortable&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&rdquo; Rhoda exclaimed, with a lightning face. &ldquo;You don't see what he
+      is, after that? Oh!&mdash;&rdquo; She paused, revolted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you let me run off to the young man, wherever he's to be found, and
+      put the case to him&mdash;that is, from Dahlia? And you know she doesn't
+      like the marriage overmuch, Rhoda. Perhaps he may think differently when
+      he comes to hear of things. As to Mr. Blancove, men change and change when
+      they're young. I mean, gentlemen. We must learn to forgive. Either he's as
+      clever as the devil, or he's a man in earnest, and deserves pity. If you'd
+      heard him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My poor sister!&rdquo; sighed Rhoda. The mentioning of money to be paid had
+      sickened and weakened her, as with the very physical taste of degradation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hearing the sigh, Robert thought she had become subdued. Then Rhoda said:
+      &ldquo;We are bound to this young man who loves my sister&mdash;bound to him in
+      honour: and Dahlia must esteem him, to have consented. As for the
+      other...&rdquo; She waved the thought of his claim on her sister aside with a
+      quick shake of her head. &ldquo;I rely on you to do this:&mdash;I will speak to
+      Mr. Blancove myself. He shall not see her there.&rdquo; She indicated the house.
+      &ldquo;Go to my sister; and lose no time in taking her to your lodgings. Father
+      will not arrive till twelve. Wait and comfort her till I come, and answer
+      no questions. Robert,&rdquo; she gave him her hand gently, and, looking sweetly,
+      &ldquo;if you will do this!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I will!&rdquo; cried Robert, transported by the hopeful tenderness. The
+      servant girl of the house had just opened the front door, intent on
+      scrubbing, and he passed in. Rhoda walked on to Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A profound belief in the efficacy of his eloquence, when he chose to
+      expend it, was one of the principal supports of Edward's sense of mastery;
+      a secret sense belonging to certain men in every station of life, and
+      which is the staff of many an otherwise impressible and fluctuating
+      intellect. With this gift, if he trifled, or slid downward in any
+      direction, he could right himself easily, as he satisfactorily conceived.
+      It is a gift that may now and then be the ruin of promising youths, though
+      as a rule they find it helpful enough. Edward had exerted it upon his
+      father, and upon Robert. Seeing Rhoda's approach, he thought of it as a
+      victorious swordsman thinks of his weapon, and aimed his observation over
+      her possible weak and strong points, studying her curiously even when she
+      was close up to him. With Robert, the representative of force, to aid her,
+      she could no longer be regarded in the light of a despicable hindrance to
+      his wishes. Though inclined strongly to detest, he respected her. She had
+      decision, and a worthy bearing, and a marvellously blooming aspect, and a
+      brain that worked withal. When she spoke, desiring him to walk on by her
+      side, he was pleased by her voice, and recognition of the laws of
+      propriety, and thought it a thousand pities that she likewise should not
+      become the wife of a gentleman. By degrees, after tentative beginnings, he
+      put his spell upon her ears, for she was attentive, and walked with a
+      demure forward look upon the pavement; in reality taking small note of
+      what things he said, until he quoted, as against himself, sentences from
+      Dahlia's letters; and then she fixed her eyes on him, astonished that he
+      should thus heap condemnation on his own head. They were most pathetic
+      scraps quoted by him, showing the wrestle of love with a petrifying
+      conviction of its hopelessness, and with the stealing on of a malady of
+      the blood. They gave such a picture of Dahlia's reverent love for this
+      man, her long torture, her chastity of soul and simple innocence, and her
+      gathering delirium of anguish, as Rhoda had never taken at all distinctly
+      to her mind. She tried to look out on him from a mist of tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could you bear to read the letters?&rdquo; she sobbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Could any human being read them and not break his heart for her?&rdquo; said
+      he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could you bear to read them and leave her to perish!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice deepened to an impressive hollow: &ldquo;I read them for the first
+      time yesterday morning, in France, and I am here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was undeniably, in its effect on Rhoda, a fine piece of pleading
+      artifice. It partially excused or accounted for his behaviour, while it
+      filled her with emotions which she felt to be his likewise, and therefore
+      she could not remain as an unsympathetic stranger by his side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this, he flung all artifice away. He told her the whole story, saving
+      the one black episode of it&mdash;the one incomprehensible act of a
+      desperate baseness that, blindly to get free, he had deliberately
+      permitted, blinked at, and had so been guilty of. He made a mental pause
+      as he was speaking, to consider in amazement how and by what agency he had
+      been reduced to shame his manhood, and he left it a marvel. Otherwise, he
+      in no degree exonerated himself. He dwelt sharply on his vice of ambition,
+      and scorned it as a misleading light. &ldquo;Yet I have done little since I have
+      been without her!&rdquo; And then, with a persuasive sincerity, he assured her
+      that he could neither study nor live apart from Dahlia. &ldquo;She is the
+      dearest soul to me on earth; she is the purest woman. I have lived with
+      her, I have lived apart from her, and I cannot live without her. I love
+      her with a husband's love. Now, do you suppose I will consent to be
+      separated from her? I know that while her heart beats, it's mine. Try to
+      keep her from me&mdash;you kill her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did not die,&rdquo; said Rhoda. It confounded his menaces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This time she might,&rdquo; he could not refrain from murmuring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; Rhoda drew off from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I say,&rdquo; cried he, &ldquo;that I will see her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We say, that she shall do what is for her good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have a project? Let me hear it. You are mad, if you have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not our doing, Mr. Blancove. It was&mdash;it was by her own choice.
+      She will not always be ashamed to look her father in the face. She dare
+      not see him before she is made worthy to see him. I believe her to have
+      been directed right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what is her choice?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has chosen for herself to marry a good and worthy man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward called out, &ldquo;Have you seen him&mdash;the man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda, thinking he wished to have the certainty of the stated fact
+      established, replied, &ldquo;I have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A good and worthy man,&rdquo; muttered Edward. &ldquo;Illness, weakness, misery, have
+      bewildered her senses. She thinks him a good and worthy man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think him so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you have seen him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what monstrous delusion is this? It can't be! My good creature,
+      you're oddly deceived, I imagine. What is the man's name? I can understand
+      that she has lost her will and distinct sight; but you are clear-sighted,
+      and can estimate. What is the man's name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can tell you,&rdquo; said Rhoda; &ldquo;his name is Mr. Sedgett.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mister&mdash;!&rdquo; Edward gave one hollow stave of laughter. &ldquo;And you have
+      seen him, and think him&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know he is not a gentleman,&rdquo; said Rhoda. &ldquo;He has been deeply good to my
+      sister, and I thank him, and do respect him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Deeply!&rdquo; Edward echoed. He was prompted to betray and confess himself:
+      courage failed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They looked around simultaneously on hearing an advancing footstep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The very man appeared&mdash;in holiday attire, flushed, smiling, and with
+      a nosegay of roses in his hand. He studied the art of pleasing women. His
+      eye struck on Edward, and his smile vanished. Rhoda gave him no word of
+      recognition. As he passed on, he was led to speculate from his having seen
+      Mr. Edward instead of Mr. Algernon, and from the look of the former, that
+      changes were in the air, possibly chicanery, and the proclaiming of
+      himself as neatly diddled by the pair whom, with another, he heartily
+      hoped to dupe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After he had gone by, Edward and Rhoda changed looks. Both knew the
+      destination of that lovely nosegay. The common knowledge almost kindled an
+      illuminating spark in her brain; but she was left in the dark, and thought
+      him strangely divining, or only strange. For him, a horror cramped his
+      limbs. He felt that he had raised a devil in that abominable smirking
+      ruffian. It may not, perhaps, be said that he had distinctly known Sedgett
+      to be the man. He had certainly suspected the possibility of his being the
+      man. It is out of the power of most wilful and selfish natures to imagine,
+      so as to see accurately, the deeds they prompt or permit to be done. They
+      do not comprehend them until these black realities stand up before their
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ejaculating &ldquo;Great heaven!&rdquo; Edward strode some steps away, and returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's folly, Rhoda!&mdash;the uttermost madness ever conceived! I do not
+      believe&mdash;I know that Dahlia would never consent&mdash;first, to marry
+      any man but myself; secondly, to marry a man who is not a perfect
+      gentleman. Her delicacy distinguishes her among women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Blancove, my sister is nearly dead, only that she is so strong. The
+      disgrace has overwhelmed her, it has. When she is married, she will thank
+      and honour him, and see nothing but his love and kindness. I will leave
+      you now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to her,&rdquo; said Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's an end of talking. I trust no one will come in my path. Where am
+      I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked up at the name of the street, and shot away from her. Rhoda
+      departed in another direction, firm, since she had seen Sedgett pass, that
+      his nobleness should not meet with an ill reward. She endowed him with
+      fair moral qualities, which she contrasted against Edward Blancove's evil
+      ones; and it was with a democratic fervour of contempt that she dismissed
+      the superior outward attractions of the gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      This neighbourhood was unknown to Edward, and, after plunging about in one
+      direction and another, he found that he had missed his way. Down
+      innumerable dusky streets of dwarfed houses, showing soiled silent
+      window-blinds, he hurried and chafed; at one moment in sharp joy that he
+      had got a resolution, and the next dismayed by the singular petty
+      impediments which were tripping him. &ldquo;My dearest!&rdquo; his heart cried to
+      Dahlia, &ldquo;did I wrong you so? I will make all well. It was the work of a
+      fiend.&rdquo; Now he turned to right, now to left, and the minutes flew. They
+      flew; and in the gathering heat of his brain he magnified things until the
+      sacrifice of herself Dahlia was preparing for smote his imagination as
+      with a blaze of the upper light, and stood sublime before him in the
+      grandeur of old tragedy. &ldquo;She has blinded her eyes, stifled her senses,
+      eaten her heart. Oh! my beloved! my wife! my poor girl! and all to be free
+      from shame in her father's sight!&rdquo; Who could have believed that a girl of
+      Dahlia's class would at once have felt the shame so keenly, and risen to
+      such pure heights of heroism? The sacrifice flouted conception; it mocked
+      the steady morning. He refused to believe in it, but the short throbs of
+      his blood were wiser.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A whistling urchin became his guide. The little lad was carelessly giving
+      note to a popular opera tune, with happy disregard of concord. It chanced
+      that the tune was one which had taken Dahlia's ear, and, remembering it
+      and her pretty humming of it in the old days, Edward's wrestling unbelief
+      with the fatality of the hour sank, so entirely was he under the
+      sovereignty of his sensations. He gave the boy a big fee, desiring
+      superstitiously to feel that one human creature could bless the hour. The
+      house was in view. He knocked, and there came a strange murmur of some
+      denial. &ldquo;She is here,&rdquo; he said, menacingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was taken away, sir, ten minutes gone, by a gentleman,&rdquo; the servant
+      tied to assure him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The landlady of the house, coming up the kitchen stairs, confirmed the
+      statement. In pity for his torpid incredulity she begged him to examine
+      her house from top to bottom, and herself conducted him to Dahlia's room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That bed has not been slept in,&rdquo; said the lawyer, pointing his finger to
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir; poor thing! she didn't sleep last night. She's been wearying for
+      weeks; and last night her sister came, and they hadn't met for very long.
+      Two whole candles they burnt out, or near upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where?&mdash;&rdquo; Edward's articulation choked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where they're gone to, sir? That I do not know. Of course she will come
+      back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The landlady begged him to wait; but to sit and see the minutes&mdash;the
+      black emissaries of perdition&mdash;fly upon their business, was torture
+      as big as to endure the tearing off of his flesh till the skeleton stood
+      out. Up to this point he had blamed himself; now he accused the just
+      heavens. Yea! is not a sinner their lawful quarry? and do they not slip
+      the hounds with savage glee, and hunt him down from wrong to evil, from
+      evil to infamy, from infamy to death, from death to woe everlasting? And
+      is this their righteousness?&mdash;He caught at the rusty garden rails to
+      steady his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon was employed in the comfortable degustation of his breakfast,
+      meditating whether he should transfer a further slice of ham or of
+      Yorkshire pie to his plate, or else have done with feeding and light a
+      cigar, when Edward appeared before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know where that man lives?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon had a prompting to respond, &ldquo;Now, really! what man?&rdquo; But passion
+      stops the breath of fools. He answered, &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you the thousand in your pocket?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon nodded with a sickly grin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jump up! Go to him. Give it up to him! Say, that if he leaves London on
+      the instant, and lets you see him off&mdash;say, it shall be doubled.
+      Stay, I'll write the promise, and put my signature. Tell him he shall, on
+      my word of honour, have another&mdash;another thousand pounds&mdash;as
+      soon as I can possibly obtain it, if he holds his tongue, and goes with
+      you; and see that he goes. Don't talk to me on any other subject, or lose
+      one minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Algernon got his limbs slackly together, trying to think of the particular
+      pocket in which he had left his cigar-case. Edward wrote a line on a slip
+      of note-paper, and signed his name beneath. With this and an unsatisfied
+      longing for tobacco Algernon departed, agreeing to meet his cousin in the
+      street where Dahlia dwelt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By Jove! two thousand! It's an expensive thing not to know your own
+      mind,&rdquo; he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How am I to get out of this scrape? That girl Rhoda doesn't care a button
+      for me. No colonies for me. I should feel like a convict if I went alone.
+      What on earth am I to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed preposterous to him that he should take a cab, when he had not
+      settled upon a scheme. The sight of a tobacconist's shop charmed one of
+      his more immediate difficulties to sleep. He was soon enabled to puff
+      consoling smoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ned's mad,&rdquo; he pursued his soliloquy. &ldquo;He's a weather-cock. Do I ever act
+      as he does? And I'm the dog that gets the bad name. The idea of giving
+      this fellow two thousand&mdash;two thousand pounds! Why, he might live
+      like a gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And that when your friend proves himself to be distraught, the proper
+      friendly thing to do is to think for him, became eminently clear in
+      Algernon's mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, it's Ned's money. I'd give it if I had it, but I haven't; and
+      the fellow won't take a farthing less; I know him. However, it's my duty
+      to try.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He summoned a vehicle. It was a boast of his proud youth that never in his
+      life had he ridden in a close cab. Flinging his shoulders back, he
+      surveyed the world on foot. &ldquo;Odd faces one sees,&rdquo; he meditated. &ldquo;I suppose
+      they've got feelings, like the rest; but a fellow can't help asking&mdash;what's
+      the use of them? If I inherit all right, as I ought to&mdash;why shouldn't
+      I?&mdash;I'll squat down at old Wrexby, garden and farm, and drink my
+      Port. I hate London. The squire's not so far wrong, I fancy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It struck him that his chance of inheriting was not so very obscure, after
+      all. Why had he ever considered it obscure? It was decidedly next to
+      certain, he being an only son. And the squire's health was bad!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While speculating in this wise he saw advancing, arm-in-arm, Lord Suckling
+      and Harry Latters. They looked at him, and evidently spoke together, but
+      gave neither nod, nor smile, nor a word, in answer to his flying wave of
+      the hand. Furious, and aghast at this signal of exclusion from the world,
+      just at the moment when he was returning to it almost cheerfully in
+      spirit, he stopped the cab, jumped out, and ran after the pair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose I must say Mr. Latters,&rdquo; Algernon commenced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harry deliberated a quiet second or two. &ldquo;Well, according to our laws of
+      primogeniture, I don't come first, and therefore miss a better title,&rdquo; he
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How are you?&rdquo; Algernon nodded to Lord Suckling, who replied, &ldquo;Very well,
+      I thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Their legs were swinging forward concordantly. Algernon plucked out his
+      purse. &ldquo;I have to beg you to excuse me,&rdquo; he said, hurriedly; &ldquo;my cousin
+      Ned's in a mess, and I've been helping him as well as I can&mdash;bothered&mdash;not
+      an hour my own. Fifty, I think?&rdquo; That amount he tendered to Harry Latters,
+      who took it most coolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A thousand?&rdquo; he queried of Lord Suckling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Divided by two,&rdquo; replied the young nobleman, and the Blucher of
+      bank-notes was proffered to him. He smiled queerly, hesitating to take it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was looking for you at all the Clubs last night,&rdquo; said Algernon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Suckling and Latters had been at theirs, playing whist till past
+      midnight; yet is money, even when paid over in this egregious public
+      manner by a nervous hand, such testimony to the sincerity of a man, that
+      they shouted a simultaneous invitation for him to breakfast with them, in
+      an hour, at the Club, or dine with them there that evening. Algernon
+      affected the nod of haste and acquiescence, and ran, lest they should hear
+      him groan. He told the cabman to drive Northward, instead of to the
+      South-west. The question of the thousand pounds had been decided for him&mdash;&ldquo;by
+      fate,&rdquo; he chose to affirm. The consideration that one is pursued by fate,
+      will not fail to impart a sense of dignity even to the meanest. &ldquo;After
+      all, if I stop in England,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I can't afford to lose my position
+      in society; anything's better than that an unmitigated low scoundrel like
+      Sedgett should bag the game.&rdquo; Besides, is it not somewhat sceptical to
+      suppose that when Fate decides, she has not weighed the scales, and
+      decided for the best? Meantime, the whole energy of his intellect was set
+      reflecting on the sort of lie which Edward would, by nature and the
+      occasion, be disposed to swallow. He quitted the cab, and walked in the
+      Park, and au diable to him there! the fool has done his work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was now half-past ten. Robert, with a most heavy heart, had
+      accomplished Rhoda's commands upon him. He had taken Dahlia to his
+      lodgings, whither, when free from Edward, Rhoda proceeded in a mood of
+      extreme sternness. She neither thanked Robert, nor smiled upon her sister.
+      Dahlia sent one quivering look up at her, and cowered lower in her chair
+      near the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father comes at twelve?&rdquo; Rhoda said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert replied: &ldquo;He does.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After which a silence too irritating for masculine nerves filled the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will find, I hope, everything here that you may want,&rdquo; said Robert.
+      &ldquo;My landlady will attend to the bell. She is very civil.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you; we shall not want anything,&rdquo; said Rhoda. &ldquo;There is my sister's
+      Bible at her lodgings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert gladly offered to fetch it, and left them with a sense of relief
+      that was almost joy. He waited a minute in the doorway, to hear whether
+      Dahlia addressed him. He waited on the threshold of the house, that he
+      might be sure Dahlia did not call for his assistance. Her cry of appeal
+      would have fortified him to stand against Rhoda; but no cry was heard. He
+      kept expecting it, pausing for it, hoping it would come to solve his
+      intense perplexity. The prolonged stillness terrified him; for, away from
+      the sisters, he had power to read the anguish of Dahlia's heart, her
+      frozen incapacity, and the great and remorseless mastery which lay in
+      Rhoda's inexorable will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few doors down the street he met Major blaring, on his way to him.
+      &ldquo;Here's five minutes' work going to be done, which we may all of us regret
+      till the day of our deaths,&rdquo; Robert said, and related what had passed
+      during the morning hours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Percy approved Rhoda, saying, &ldquo;She must rescue her sister at all hazards.
+      The case is too serious for her to listen to feelings, and regrets, and
+      objections. The world against one poor woman is unfair odds, Robert. I
+      come to tell you I leave England in a day or two. Will you join me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do I know what I shall or can do?&rdquo; said Robert, mournfully: and they
+      parted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda's unflickering determination to carry out, and to an end, this
+      tragic struggle of duty against inclination; on her own sole
+      responsibility forcing it on; acting like a Fate, in contempt of mere
+      emotions,&mdash;seemed barely real to his mind: each moment that he
+      conceived it vividly, he became more certain that she must break down. Was
+      it in her power to drag Dahlia to the steps of the altar? And would not
+      her heart melt when at last Dahlia did get her voice? &ldquo;This marriage can
+      never take place!&rdquo; he said, and was convinced of its being impossible. He
+      forgot that while he was wasting energy at Fairly, Rhoda had sat hiving
+      bitter strength in the loneliness of the Farm; with one vile epithet
+      clapping on her ears, and nothing but unavailing wounded love for her
+      absent unhappy sister to make music of her pulses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He found his way to Dahlia's room; he put her Bible under his arm, and
+      looked about him sadly. Time stood at a few minutes past eleven. Flinging
+      himself into a chair, he thought of waiting in that place; but a crowd of
+      undefinable sensations immediately beset him. Seeing Edward Blancove in
+      the street below, he threw up the window compassionately, and Edward,
+      casting a glance to right and left, crossed the road. Robert went down to
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am waiting for my cousin.&rdquo; Edward had his watch in his hand. &ldquo;I think I
+      am fast. Can you tell me the time exactly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I'm rather slow,&rdquo; said Robert, comparing time with his own watch. &ldquo;I
+      make it four minutes past the hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am at fourteen,&rdquo; said Edward. &ldquo;I fancy I must be fast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About ten minutes past, is the time, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So much as that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may be a minute or so less.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like,&rdquo; said Edward, &ldquo;to ascertain positively.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's a clock down in the kitchen here, I suppose,&rdquo; said Robert.
+      &ldquo;Safer, there's a clock at the church, just in sight from here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you; I will go and look at that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert bethought himself suddenly that Edward had better not. &ldquo;I can tell
+      you the time to a second,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It's now twelve minutes past eleven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward held his watch balancing. &ldquo;Twelve,&rdquo; he repeated; and, behind this
+      mask of common-place dialogue, they watched one another&mdash;warily, and
+      still with pity, on Robert's side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't place any reliance on watches,&rdquo; said Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None, I believe,&rdquo; Robert remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you could see the sun every day in this climate!&rdquo; Edward looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, the sun's the best timepiece, when visible,&rdquo; Robert acquiesced.
+      &ldquo;Backwoodsmen in America don't need watches.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unless it is to astonish the Indians with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! yes!&rdquo; hummed Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twelve&mdash;fifteen&mdash;it must be a quarter past. Or, a three
+      quarters to the next hour, as the Germans say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odd!&rdquo; Robert ejaculated. &ldquo;Foreigners have the queerest ways in the world.
+      They mean no harm, but they make you laugh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They think the same of us, and perhaps do the laughing more loudly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! let them,&rdquo; said Robert, not without contemptuous indignation, though
+      his mind was far from the talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sweat was on Edward's forehead. &ldquo;In a few minutes it will be half-past&mdash;half-past
+      eleven! I expect a friend; that makes me impatient. Mr. Eccles&rdquo;&mdash;Edward
+      showed his singular, smallish, hard-cut and flashing features, clear as if
+      he had blown off a mist&mdash;&ldquo;you are too much of a man to bear malice.
+      Where is Dahlia? Tell me at once. Some one seems to be cruelly driving
+      her. Has she lost her senses? She has:&mdash;or else she is coerced in an
+      inexplicable and shameful manner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Blancove,&rdquo; said Robert, &ldquo;I bear you not a bit of malice&mdash;couldn't
+      if I would. I'm not sure I could have said guilty to the same sort of
+      things, in order to tell an enemy of mine I was sorry for what I had done,
+      and I respect you for your courage. Dahlia was taken from here by me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward nodded, as if briefly assenting, while his features sharpened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was her sister's wish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has she no will of her own?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very little, I'm afraid, just now, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A remarkable sister! Are they of Puritan origin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that I am aware of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Blancove, he is one of those sort&mdash;he can't lift up his head if
+      he so much as suspects a reproach to his children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward brooded. &ldquo;I desire&mdash;as I told you, as I told her sister, as I
+      told my father last night&mdash;I desire to make her my wife. What can I
+      do more? Are they mad with some absurd country pride? Half-past eleven!&mdash;it
+      will be murder if they force her to it! Where is she? To such a man as
+      that! Poor soul! I can hardly fear it, for I can't imagine it. Here&mdash;the
+      time is going. You know the man yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know the man?&rdquo; said Robert. &ldquo;I've never set eyes on him&mdash;I've
+      never set eyes on him, and never liked to ask much about him. I had a sort
+      of feeling. Her sister says he is a good, and kind, honourable young
+      fellow, and he must be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before it's too late,&rdquo; Edward muttered hurriedly&mdash;&ldquo;you know him&mdash;his
+      name is Sedgett.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert hung swaying over him with a big voiceless chest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That Sedgett?&rdquo; he breathed huskily, and his look was hard to meet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward frowned, unable to raise his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord in heaven! some one has something to answer for!&rdquo; cried Robert.
+      &ldquo;Come on; come to the church. That foul dog?&mdash;Or you, stay where you
+      are. I'll go. He to be Dahlia's husband! They've seen him, and can't see
+      what he is!&mdash;cunning with women as that? How did they meet? Do you
+      know?&mdash;can't you guess?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He flung a lightning at Edward and ran off. Bursting into the aisle, he
+      saw the minister closing the Book at the altar, and three persons moving
+      toward the vestry, of whom the last, and the one he discerned, was Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Late into the afternoon, Farmer Fleming was occupying a chair in Robert's
+      lodgings, where he had sat since the hour of twelve, without a movement of
+      his limbs or of his mind, and alone. He showed no sign that he expected
+      the approach of any one. As mute and unremonstrant as a fallen tree,
+      nearly as insensible, his eyes half closed, and his hands lying open, the
+      great figure of the old man kept this attitude as of stiff decay through
+      long sunny hours, and the noise of the London suburb. Although the wedding
+      people were strangely late, it was unnoticed by him. When the door opened
+      and Rhoda stepped into the room, he was unaware that he had been waiting,
+      and only knew that the hours had somehow accumulated to a heavy burden
+      upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is coming, father; Robert is bringing her up,&rdquo; Rhoda said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let her come,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert's hold was tight under Dahlia's arm as they passed the doorway, and
+      then the farmer stood. Robert closed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For some few painful moments the farmer could not speak, and his hand was
+      raised rejectingly. The return of human animation to his heart made him
+      look more sternly than he felt; but he had to rid himself of one terrible
+      question before he satisfied his gradual desire to take his daughter to
+      his breast. It came at last like a short roll of drums, the words were
+      heard,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she an honest woman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer was looking on Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert said it likewise in a murmur, but with steadfast look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bending his eyes now upon Dahlia, a mist of affection grew in them. He
+      threw up his head, and with a choking, infantine cry, uttered, &ldquo;Come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert placed her against her father's bosom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He moved to the window beside Rhoda, and whispered, and she answered, and
+      they knew not what they said. The joint moans of father and daughter&mdash;the
+      unutterable communion of such a meeting&mdash;filled their ears. Grief
+      held aloof as much as joy. Neither joy nor grief were in those two hearts
+      of parent and child; but the senseless contentment of hard, of infinite
+      hard human craving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man released her, and Rhoda undid her hands from him, and led the
+      pale Sacrifice to another room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's...?&rdquo; Mr. Fleming asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert understood him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her husband will not come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was interpreted by the farmer as her husband's pride. Or, may be, the
+      man who was her husband now had righted her at last, and then flung her
+      off in spite for what he had been made to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not being deceived, Robert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir; upon my soul!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've got that here,&rdquo; the farmer struck his ribs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda came back. &ldquo;Sister is tired,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Dahlia is going down home
+      with you, for...I hope, for a long stay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the better, while home we've got. We mayn't lose time, my girl.
+      Gammon's on 's way to the station now. He'll wait. He'll wait till
+      midnight. You may always reckon on a slow man like Gammon for waitin'.
+      Robert comes too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father, we have business to do. Robert gives me his rooms here for a
+      little time; his landlady is a kind woman, and will take care of me. You
+      will trust me to Robert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll bring Rhoda down on Monday evening,&rdquo; Robert said to the farmer. &ldquo;You
+      may trust me, Mr. Fleming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I know. That I'm sure of. That's a certainty,&rdquo; said the farmer. &ldquo;I'd
+      do it for good, if for good was in the girl's heart, Robert. There seems,&rdquo;
+       he hesitated; &ldquo;eh, Robert, there seems a something upon us all. There's a
+      something to be done, is there? But if I've got my flesh and blood, and
+      none can spit on her, why should I be asking 'whats' and 'whys'? I bow my
+      head; and God forgive me, if ever I complained. And you will bring Rhoda
+      to us on Monday?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; and try and help to make the farm look up again, if Gammon'll do the
+      ordering about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor old Mas' Gammon! He's a rare old man. Is he changed by adversity,
+      Robert? Though he's awful secret, that old man! Do you consider a bit
+      Gammon's faithfulness, Robert!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, he's above most men in that,&rdquo; Robert agreed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On with Dahlia's bonnet&mdash;sharp!&rdquo; the farmer gave command. He felt,
+      now that he was growing accustomed to the common observation of things,
+      that the faces and voices around him were different from such as the day
+      brings in its usual course. &ldquo;We're all as slow as Mas' Gammon, I reckon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father,&rdquo; said Rhoda, &ldquo;she is weak. She has been very unwell. Do not
+      trouble her with any questions. Do not let any questions be asked of her
+      at hone. Any talking fatigues; it may be dangerous to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer stared. &ldquo;Ay, and about her hair....I'm beginning to remember.
+      She wears a cap, and her hair's cut off like an oakum-picker's. That's
+      more gossip for neighbours!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mad people! will they listen to truth?&rdquo; Rhoda flamed out in her dark
+      fashion. &ldquo;We speak truth, nothing but truth. She has had a brain fever.
+      That makes her very weak, and every one must be silent at home. Father,
+      stop the sale of the farm, for Robert will work it into order. He has
+      promised to be our friend, and Dahlia will get her health there, and be
+      near mother's grave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer replied, as from a far thought, &ldquo;There's money in my pocket to
+      take down two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He continued: &ldquo;But there's not money there to feed our family a week on; I
+      leave it to the Lord. I sow; I dig, and I sow, and when bread fails to us
+      the land must go; and let it go, and no crying about it. I'm astonishing
+      easy at heart, though if I must sell, and do sell, I shan't help thinking
+      of my father, and his father, and the father before him&mdash;mayhap, and
+      in most likelihood, artfuller men 'n me&mdash;for what they was born to
+      they made to flourish. They'll cry in their graves. A man's heart sticks
+      to land, Robert; that you'll find, some day. I thought I cared none but
+      about land till that poor, weak, white thing put her arms on my neck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda had slipped away from them again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer stooped to Robert's ear. &ldquo;Had a bit of a disagreement with her
+      husband, is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert cleared his throat. &ldquo;Ay, that's it,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Serious, at all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One can't tell, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And not her fault&mdash;not my girl's fault, Robert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I can swear to that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's come to the right home, then. She'll be near her mother and me. Let
+      her pray at night, and she'll know she's always near her blessed mother.
+      Perhaps the women 'll want to take refreshment, if we may so far make free
+      with your hospitality; but it must be quick, Robert&mdash;or will they?
+      They can't eat, and I can't eat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon afterward Mr. Fleming took his daughter Dahlia from the house and out
+      of London. The deeply-afflicted creature was, as the doctors had said of
+      her, too strong for the ordinary modes of killing. She could walk and
+      still support herself, though the ordeal she had gone through this day was
+      such as few women could have traversed. The terror to follow the deed she
+      had done was yet unseen by her; and for the hour she tasted, if not peace,
+      the pause to suffering which is given by an act accomplished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert and Rhoda sat in different rooms till it was dusk. When she
+      appeared before him in the half light, the ravage of a past storm was
+      visible on her face. She sat down to make tea, and talked with singular
+      self command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Fleming mentioned the gossips down at Wrexby,&rdquo; said Robert: &ldquo;are they
+      very bad down there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not worse than in other villages,&rdquo; said Rhoda. &ldquo;They have not been
+      unkind. They have spoken about us, but not unkindly&mdash;I mean, not
+      spitefully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you forgive them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do: they cannot hurt us now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert was but striving to master some comprehension of her character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are we to resolve, Rhoda?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must get the money promised to this man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When he has flung off his wife at the church door?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He married my sister for the money. He said it. Oh! he said it. He shall
+      not say that we have deceived him. I told him he should have it. He
+      married her for money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should not have told him so, Rhoda.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did, and I will not let my word be broken.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me if I ask you where you will get the money? It's a large sum.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will get it,&rdquo; Rhoda said firmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the sale of the farm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not to hurt father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this man's a scoundrel. I know him. I've known him for years. My fear
+      is that he will be coming to claim his wife. How was it I never insisted
+      on seeing the man before&mdash;! I did think of asking, but fancied&mdash;a
+      lot of things; that you didn't wish it and he was shy. Ah, Lord! what
+      miseries happen from our not looking straight at facts! We can't deny
+      she's his wife now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not if we give him the money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda spoke of &ldquo;the money&rdquo; as if she had taken heated metal into her
+      mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the more likely,&rdquo; said Robert. &ldquo;Let him rest. Had you your eyes on
+      him when he saw me in the vestry? For years that man has considered me his
+      deadly enemy, because I punished him once. What a scene! I'd have given a
+      limb, I'd have given my life, to have saved you from that scene, Rhoda.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She replied: &ldquo;If my sister could have been spared! I ought to know what
+      wickedness there is in the world. It's ignorance that leads to the
+      unhappiness of girls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know that I'm a drunkard?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He called me something like it; and he said something like the truth.
+      There's the sting. Set me adrift, and I drink hard. He spoke a fact, and I
+      couldn't answer him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it's the truth that gives such pain,&rdquo; said Rhoda, shivering. &ldquo;How
+      can girls know what men are? I could not guess that you had any fault.
+      This man was so respectful; he sat modestly in the room when I saw him
+      last night&mdash;last night, was it? I thought, 'he has been brought up
+      with sisters and a mother.' And he has been kind to my dear&mdash;and all
+      we thought love for her, was&mdash;shameful! shameful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pressed her eyelids, continuing: &ldquo;He shall have the money&mdash;he
+      shall have it. We will not be in debt to such a man. He has saved my
+      sister from one as bad&mdash;who offered it to be rid of her. Oh, men!&mdash;you
+      heard that?&mdash;and now pretends to love her. I think I dream. How could
+      she ever have looked happily on that hateful face?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would be thought handsome,&rdquo; said Robert, marvelling how it was that
+      Rhoda could have looked on Sedgett for an instant without reading his
+      villanous nature. &ldquo;I don't wish you to regret anything you have done or
+      you may do, Rhoda. But this is what made me cry out when I looked on that
+      man, and knew it was he who had come to be Dahlia's husband. He'll be
+      torture to her. The man's temper, his habits&mdash;but you may well say
+      you are ignorant of us men. Keep so. What I do with all my soul entreat of
+      you is&mdash;to get a hiding-place for your sister. Never let him take her
+      off. There's such a thing as hell upon earth. If she goes away with him
+      she'll know it. His black temper won't last. He will come for her, and
+      claim her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He shall have money.&rdquo; Rhoda said no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On a side-table in the room stood a remarkable pile, under cover of a
+      shawl. Robert lifted the shawl, and beheld the wooden boxes, one upon the
+      other, containing Master Gammon's and Mrs. Sumfit's rival savings, which
+      they had presented to Dahlia, in the belief that her husband was under a
+      cloud of monetary misfortune that had kept her proud heart from her old
+      friends. The farmer had brought the boxes and left them there, forgetting
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fancy,&rdquo; said Robert, &ldquo;we might open these.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may be a little help,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very little,&rdquo; Robert thought; but, to relieve the oppression of the
+      subject they had been discussing, he forthwith set about procuring tools,
+      with which he split first the box which proved to be Mrs. Sumfit's, for it
+      contained, amid six gold sovereigns and much silver and pence, a slip of
+      paper, whereon was inscribed, in a handwriting identified by Rhoda as
+      peculiar to the loving woman,&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;And sweetest love to her ever dear.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Altogether the sum amounted to nine pounds, three shillings, and a
+      farthing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now for Master Gammon&mdash;he's heavy,&rdquo; said Robert; and he made the
+      savings of that unpretentious veteran bare. Master Gammon had likewise
+      written his word. It was discovered on the blank space of a bit of
+      newspaper, and looked much as if a fat lobworm had plunged himself into a
+      bowl of ink, and in his literary delirium had twisted uneasily to the
+      verge of the paper. With difficulty they deciphered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          &ldquo;Complemens.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Robert sang, &ldquo;Bravo, Gammon!&rdquo; and counted the hoard. All was in copper
+      coinage, Lycurgan and severe, and reached the sum of one pound, seventeen
+      shillings. There were a number of farthings of Queen Anne's reign, and
+      Robert supposed them to be of value. &ldquo;So that, as yet, we can't say who's
+      the winner,&rdquo; he observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda was in tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be kind to him, please, when you see him,&rdquo; she whispered. The smaller
+      gift had touched her heart more tenderly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kind to the old man!&rdquo; Robert laughed gently, and tied the two hoards in
+      separate papers, which he stowed into one box, and fixed under string.
+      &ldquo;This amount, put all in one, doesn't go far, Rhoda.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said she: &ldquo;I hope we may not need it.&rdquo; She broke out: &ldquo;Dear, good,
+      humble friends! The poor are God's own people. Christ has said so. This is
+      good, this is blessed money!&rdquo; Rhoda's cheeks flushed to their
+      orange-rounded swarthy red, and her dark eyes had the fervour of an
+      exalted earnestness. &ldquo;They are my friends for ever. They save me from
+      impiety. They help me, as if God had answered my prayer. Poor pennies! and
+      the old man not knowing where his days may end! He gives all&mdash;he must
+      have true faith in Providence. May it come back to him multiplied a
+      thousand fold! While I have strength to work, the bread I earn shall be
+      shared with him. Old man, old man, I love you&mdash;how I love you! You
+      drag me out of deep ditches. Oh, good and dear old man, if God takes me
+      first, may I have some power to intercede for you, if you have ever
+      sinned! Everybody in the world is not wicked. There are some who go the
+      ways directed by the Bible. I owe you more than I can ever pay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sobbed, but told Robert it was not for sorrow. He, longing to catch
+      her in his arms, and punctilious not to overstep the duties of his post of
+      guardian, could merely sit by listening, and reflecting on her as a
+      strange Biblical girl, with Hebrew hardness of resolution, and Hebrew
+      exaltation of soul; beautiful, too, as the dark women of the East. He
+      admitted to himself that he never could have taken it on his conscience to
+      subdue a human creature's struggling will, as Rhoda had not hesitated to
+      do with Dahlia, and to command her actions, and accept all imminent
+      responsibilities; not quailing with any outcry, or abandonment of
+      strength, when the shock of that revelation in the vestry came violently
+      on her. Rhoda, seeing there that it was a brute, and not a man, into whose
+      hand she had perilously forced her sister's, stood steadying her nerves to
+      act promptly with advantage; less like a woman, Robert thought, than a
+      creature born for battle. And she appeared to be still undaunted, full of
+      her scheme, and could cry without fear of floods. Something of the
+      chivalrous restraint he put upon the motions of his heart, sprang from the
+      shadowy awe which overhung that impressible organ. This feeling likewise
+      led him to place a blind reliance on her sagacity and sense of what was
+      just, and what should be performed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You promised this money to him,&rdquo; he said, half thinking it incredible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On Monday,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must get a promise from him in return.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She answered: &ldquo;Why? when he could break it the instant he cared to, and a
+      promise would tempt him to it. He does not love her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; he does not love her,&rdquo; said Robert, meditating whether he could
+      possibly convey an idea of the character of men to her innocent mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He flung her off. Thank heaven for it! I should have been punished too
+      much&mdash;too much. He has saved her from the perils of temptation. He
+      shall be paid for it. To see her taken away by such a man! Ah!&rdquo; She
+      shuddered as at sight of a hideous pit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Robert said: &ldquo;I know him, Rhoda. That was his temper. It'll last just
+      four-and-twenty hours, and then we shall need all our strength and
+      cunning. My dear, it would be the death of Dahlia. You've seen the man as
+      he is. Take it for a warning. She belongs to him. That's the law, human
+      and divine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not when he has flung her off, Robert?&rdquo; Rhoda cried piteously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us take advantage of that. He did fling her off, spat at us all, and
+      showed the blackest hellish plot I ever in my life heard of. He's not the
+      worst sinner, scoundrel as he is. Poor girl! poor soul! a hard lot for
+      women in this world! Rhoda, I suppose I may breakfast with you in the
+      morning? I hear Major Waring's knock below. I want a man to talk to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do come, Robert,&rdquo; Rhoda said, and gave him her hand. He strove to
+      comprehend why it was that her hand was merely a hand, and no more to him
+      just then; squeezed the cold fingers, and left her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      So long as we do not know that we are performing any remarkable feat, we
+      may walk upon the narrowest of planks between precipices with perfect
+      security; but when we suffer our minds to eye the chasm underneath, we
+      begin to be in danger, and we are in very great fear of losing our equal
+      balance the moment we admit the insidious reflection that other men,
+      placed as we are, would probably topple headlong over. Anthony Hackbut, of
+      Boyne's Bank, had been giving himself up latterly to this fatal
+      comparison. The hour when gold was entrusted to his charge found him
+      feverish and irritable. He asked himself whether he was a mere machine to
+      transfer money from spot to spot, and he spurned at the pittance bestowed
+      upon honesty in this life. Where could Boyne's Bank discover again such an
+      honest man as he? And because he was honest he was poor! The consideration
+      that we alone are capable of doing the unparalleled thing may sometimes
+      inspire us with fortitude; but this will depend largely upon the
+      antecedent moral trials of a man. It is a temptation when we look on what
+      we accomplish at all in that light. The temptation being inbred, is
+      commonly a proof of internal corruption. &ldquo;If I take a step, suppose now,
+      to the right, or to the left,&rdquo; Anthony had got into the habit of saying,
+      while he made his course, and after he had deposited his charge he would
+      wipe his moist forehead, in a state of wretched exultation over his
+      renowned trustworthiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had done the thing for years. And what did the people in the streets
+      know about him? Formerly, he had used to regard the people in the streets,
+      and their opinions, with a voluptuous contempt; but he was no longer
+      wrapped in sweet calculations of his savings, and his chances, and his
+      connection with a mighty Bank. The virtue had gone out of him. Yet he had
+      not the slightest appetite for other men's money; no hunger, nor any
+      definite notion of enjoyment to be derived from money not his own.
+      Imagination misled the old man. There have been spotless reputations
+      gained in the service of virtue before now; and chaste and beautiful
+      persons have walked the narrow plank, envied and admired; and they have
+      ultimately tottered and all but fallen; or they have quite fallen, from no
+      worse an incitement than curiosity. Cold curiosity, as the directors of
+      our human constitution tell us, is, in the colder condition of our blood,
+      a betraying vice, leading to sin at a period when the fruits of sin afford
+      the smallest satisfaction. It is, in fact, our last probation, and one of
+      our latest delusions. If that is passed successfully, we may really be
+      pronounced as of some worth. Anthony wished to give a light indulgence to
+      his curiosity; say, by running away and over London Bridge on one side,
+      and back on the other, hugging the money. For two weeks, he thought of
+      this absurd performance as a comical and agreeable diversion. How would he
+      feel when going in the direction of the Surrey hills? And how, when
+      returning, and when there was a prospect of the Bank, where the money was
+      to be paid in, being shut? Supposing that he was a minute behind his time,
+      would the Bank-doors remain open, in expectation of him? And if the money
+      was not paid in, what would be thought? What would be thought at Boyne's,
+      if, the next day, he was late in making his appearance?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holloa! Hackbut, how's this?&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;I'm a bit late, sir, morning.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Late!
+      you were late yesterday evening, weren't you?&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Why, sir, the way
+      the clerks at that Bank of Mortimer and Pennycuick's rush away from
+      business and close the doors after 'em, as if their day began at four
+      p.m., and business was botheration: it's a disgrace to the City o' London.
+      And I beg pardon for being late, but never sleeping a wink all night for
+      fear about this money, I am late this morning, I humbly confess. When I
+      got to the Bank, the doors were shut. Our clock's correct; that I know. My
+      belief, sir, is, the clerks at Mortimer and Pennycuick's put on the time.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Oh!
+      we must have this inquired into.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony dramatized the farcical scene which he imagined between himself
+      and Mr. Sequin, the head clerk at Boyne's, with immense relish; and
+      terminated it by establishing his reputation for honesty higher than ever
+      at the Bank, after which violent exercise of his fancy, the old man sank
+      into a dulness during several days. The farmer slept at his lodgings for
+      one night, and talked of money, and of selling his farm; and half hinted
+      that it would be a brotherly proceeding on Anthony's part to buy it, and
+      hold it, so as to keep it in the family. The farmer's deep belief in the
+      existence of his hoards always did Anthony peculiar mischief. Anthony grew
+      conscious of a giddiness, and all the next day he was scarcely fit for his
+      work. But the day following that he was calm and attentive. Two bags of
+      gold were placed in his hands, and he walked with caution down the steps
+      of the Bank, turned the corner, and went straight on to the West, never
+      once hesitating, or casting a thought behind upon Mortimer and
+      Pennycuick's. He had not, in truth, one that was loose to be cast. All his
+      thoughts were boiling in his head, obfuscating him with a prodigious
+      steam, through which he beheld the city surging, and the streets curving
+      like lines in water, and the people mixing and passing into and out of one
+      another in an astonishing manner&mdash;no face distinguishable; the whole
+      thick multitude appearing to be stirred like glue in a gallipot. The only
+      distinct thought which he had sprang from a fear that the dishonest
+      ruffians would try to steal his gold, and he hugged it, and groaned to see
+      that villany was abroad. Marvellous, too, that the clocks on the churches,
+      all the way along the Westward thoroughfare, stuck at the hour when Banks
+      are closed to business! It was some time, or a pretence at some time,
+      before the minute-hands surmounted that difficulty. Having done so, they
+      rushed ahead to the ensuing hour with the mad precipitation of pantomimic
+      machinery. The sight of them presently standing on the hour, like a
+      sentinel presenting arms, was startling&mdash;laughable. Anthony could not
+      have flipped with his fingers fifty times in the interval; he was sure of
+      it, &ldquo;or not much more,&rdquo; he said. So the City was shut to him behind iron
+      bars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up in the West there is not so much to be dreaded from the rapacity of
+      men. You do not hear of such alarming burglaries there every day; every
+      hand is not at another's throat there, or in another's pocket; at least,
+      not until after nightfall; and when the dark should come on, Anthony had
+      determined to make for his own quarter with all speed. Darkness is
+      horrible in foreign places, but foreign places are not so accusing to you
+      by daylight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Park was vastly pleasant to the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he sniffed, &ldquo;country air,&rdquo; and betook himself to a seat.
+      &ldquo;Extraordinary,&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;what little people they look on their horses
+      and in their carriages! That's the aristocracy, is it!&rdquo; The aristocracy
+      appeared oddly diminutive to him. He sneered at the aristocracy, but,
+      beholding a policeman, became stolid of aspect. The policeman was a
+      connecting link with his City life, the true lord of his fearful soul.
+      Though the moneybags were under his arm, beneath his buttoned coat, it
+      required a deep pause before he understood what he had done; and then the
+      Park began to dance and curve like the streets, and there was a singular
+      curtseying between the heavens and the earth. He had to hold his
+      money-bags tight, to keep them from plunging into monstrous gulfs. &ldquo;I
+      don't remember that I've taken a drink of any sort,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;since I and
+      the old farmer took our turn down in the Docks. How's this?&rdquo; He seemed to
+      rock. He was near upon indulging in a fit of terror; but the impolicy of
+      it withheld him from any demonstration, save an involuntary spasmodic
+      ague. When this had passed, his eyesight and sensations grew clearer, and
+      he sat in a mental doze, looking at things with quiet animal observation.
+      His recollection of the state, after a lapse of minutes, was pleasurable.
+      The necessity for motion, however, set him on his feet, and off he went,
+      still Westward, out of the Park, and into streets. He trotted at a good
+      pace. Suddenly came a call of his name in his ear, and he threw up one arm
+      in self-defence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Anthony, don't you know me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? I do; to be sure I do,&rdquo; he answered, peering dimly upon Rhoda: &ldquo;I'm
+      always meeting one of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been down in the City, trying to find you all day, uncle. I meet you&mdash;I
+      might have missed! It is direction from heaven, for I prayed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony muttered, &ldquo;I'm out for a holiday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This&rdquo;&mdash;Rhoda pointed to a house&mdash;&ldquo;is where I am lodging.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Anthony; &ldquo;and how's your family?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda perceived that he was rather distraught. After great persuasion, she
+      got him to go upstairs with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only for two seconds,&rdquo; he stipulated. &ldquo;I can't sit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will have a cup of tea with me, uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I don't think I'm equal to tea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not with Rhoda?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a name in Scripture,&rdquo; said Anthony, and he drew nearer to her.
+      &ldquo;You're comfortable and dark here, my dear. How did you come here? What's
+      happened? You won't surprise me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm only stopping for a day or two in London, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! a wicked place; that it is. No wickeder than other places, I'll be
+      bound. Well; I must be trotting. I can't sit, I tell you. You're as dark
+      here as a gaol.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me ring for candles, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I'm going.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She tried to touch him, to draw him to a chair. The agile old man bounded
+      away from her, and she had to pacify him submissively before he would
+      consent to be seated. The tea-service was brought, and Rhoda made tea, and
+      filled a cup for him. Anthony began to enjoy the repose of the room. But
+      it made the money-bags' alien to him, and serpents in his bosom. Fretting&mdash;on
+      his chair, he cried: &ldquo;Well! well! what's to talk about? We can't drink tea
+      and not talk!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda deliberated, and then said: &ldquo;Uncle, I think you have always loved
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to him a merit that he should have loved her. He caught at the
+      idea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I have, Rhoda, my dear; I have. I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do love me, dear uncle!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now I come to think of it, Rhoda&mdash;my Dody, I don't think ever I've
+      loved anybody else. Never loved e'er a young woman in my life. As a young
+      man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me, uncle; are you not very rich?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I ain't; not 'very'; not at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not tell untruths, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't,&rdquo; said Anthony; only, too doggedly to instil conviction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have always felt, uncle, that you love money too much. What is the
+      value of money, except to give comfort, and help you to be a blessing to
+      others in their trouble? Does not God lend it you for that purpose? It is
+      most true! And if you make a store of it, it will only be unhappiness to
+      yourself. Uncle, you love me. I am in great trouble for money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony made a long arm over the projection of his coat, and clasped it
+      securely; sullenly refusing to answer. &ldquo;Dear uncle; hear me out. I come to
+      you, because I know you are rich. I was on my way to your lodgings when we
+      met; we were thrown together. You have more money than you know what to do
+      with. I am a beggar to you for money. I have never asked before; I never
+      shall ask again. Now I pray for your help. My life, and the life dearer to
+      me than any other, depend on you. Will you help me, Uncle Anthony? Yes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; Anthony shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes! yes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, if I can. No, if I can't. And 'can't' it is. So, it's 'No.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda's bosom sank, but only as a wave in the sea-like energy of her
+      spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle, you must.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony was restrained from jumping up and running away forthwith by the
+      peace which was in the room, and the dread of being solitary after he had
+      tasted of companionship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have money, uncle. You are rich. You must help me. Don't you ever
+      think what it is to be an old man, and no one to love you and be grateful
+      to you? Why do you cross your arms so close?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony denied that he crossed his arms closely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda pointed to his arms in evidence; and he snarled out: &ldquo;There, now;
+      'cause I'm supposed to have saved a trifle, I ain't to sit as I like. It's
+      downright too bad! It's shocking!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But, seeing that he did not uncross his arms, and remained bunched up
+      defiantly, Rhoda silently observed him. She felt that money was in the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't let it be a curse to you,&rdquo; she said. And her voice was hoarse with
+      agitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; Anthony asked. &ldquo;What's a curse?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Did she know? Had she guessed? Her finger was laid in a line at the bags.
+      Had she smelt the gold?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be a curse to you, uncle. Death is coming. What's money then?
+      Uncle, uncross your arms. You are afraid; you dare not. You carry it
+      about; you have no confidence anywhere. It eats your heart. Look at me. I
+      have nothing to conceal. Can you imitate me, and throw your hands out&mdash;so?
+      Why, uncle, will you let me be ashamed of you? You have the money there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cannot deny it. Me crying to you for help! What have we talked
+      together?&mdash;that we would sit in a country house, and I was to look to
+      the flower-beds, and always have dishes of green peas for you-plenty, in
+      June; and you were to let the village boys know what a tongue you have, if
+      they made a clatter of their sticks along the garden-rails; and you were
+      to drink your tea, looking on a green and the sunset. Uncle! Poor old,
+      good old soul! You mean kindly. You must be kind. A day will make it too
+      late. You have the money there. You get older and older every minute with
+      trying to refuse me. You know that I can make you happy. I have the power,
+      and I have the will. Help me, I say, in my great trouble. That money is a
+      burden. You are forced to carry it about, for fear. You look guilty as you
+      go running in the streets, because you fear everybody. Do good with it.
+      Let it be money with a blessing on it! It will save us from horrid misery!
+      from death! from torture and death! Think, uncle! look, uncle! You with
+      the money&mdash;me wanting it. I pray to heaven, and I meet you, and you
+      have it. Will you say that you refuse to give it, when I see&mdash;when I
+      show you, you are led to meet me and help me? Open;&mdash;put down that
+      arm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Against this storm of mingled supplication and shadowy menace, Anthony
+      held out with all outward firmness until, when bidding him to put down his
+      arm, she touched the arm commandingly, and it fell paralyzed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda's eyes were not beautiful as they fixed on the object of her quest.
+      In this they were of the character of her mission. She was dealing with an
+      evil thing, and had chosen to act according to her light, and by the
+      counsel of her combative and forceful temper. At each step new
+      difficulties had to be encountered by fresh contrivances; and money now&mdash;money
+      alone had become the specific for present use. There was a limitation of
+      her spiritual vision to aught save to money; and the money being bared to
+      her eyes, a frightful gleam of eagerness shot from them. Her hands met
+      Anthony's in a common grasp of the money-bags.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not mine!&rdquo; Anthony cried, in desperation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose money is it?&rdquo; said Rhoda, and caught up her hands as from fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lord!&rdquo; Anthony moaned, &ldquo;if you don't speak like a Court o' Justice.
+      Hear yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the money yours, uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&mdash;is,&rdquo; and &ldquo;isn't&rdquo; hung in the balance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not?&rdquo; Rhoda dressed the question for him in the terror of
+      contemptuous horror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is. I&mdash;of course it is; how could it help being mine? My money?
+      Yes. What sort o' thing's that to ask&mdash;whether what I've got's mine
+      or yours, or somebody else's? Ha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you say you are not rich, uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A charming congratulatory smile was addressed to him, and a shake of the
+      head of tender reproach irresistible to his vanity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rich! with a lot o' calls on me; everybody wantin' to borrow&mdash;I'm
+      rich! And now you coming to me! You women can't bring a guess to bear upon
+      the right nature o' money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle, you will decide to help me, I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She said it with a staggering assurance of manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know?&rdquo; cried Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you carry so much money about with you in bags, uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hear it, my dear.&rdquo; He simulated miser's joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ain't that music? Talk of operas! Hear that; don't it talk? don't it
+      chink? don't it sing?&rdquo; He groaned &ldquo;Oh, Lord!&rdquo; and fell back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This transition from a state of intensest rapture to the depths of pain
+      alarmed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing; it's nothing.&rdquo; Anthony anticipated her inquiries. &ldquo;They bags is
+      so heavy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why do you carry them about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it's heart disease,&rdquo; said Anthony, and grinned, for he knew the
+      soundness of his health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very pale, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? you don't say that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are awfully white, dear uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll look in the glass,&rdquo; said Anthony. &ldquo;No, I won't.&rdquo; He sank back in his
+      chair. &ldquo;Rhoda, we're all sinners, ain't we? All&mdash;every man and woman
+      of us, and baby, too. That's a comfort; yes, it is a comfort. It's a
+      tremendous comfort&mdash;shuts mouths. I know what you're going to say&mdash;some
+      bigger sinners than others. If they're sorry for it, though, what then?
+      They can repent, can't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They must undo any harm they may have done. Sinners are not to repent
+      only in words, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been feeling lately,&rdquo; he murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda expected a miser's confession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've been feeling, the last two or three days,&rdquo; he resumed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sort of taste of a tremendous nice lemon in my mouth, my dear, and liked
+      it, till all of a sudden I swallowed it whole&mdash;such a gulp! I felt it
+      just now. I'm all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, uncle,&rdquo; said Rhoda: &ldquo;you are not all right: this money makes you
+      miserable. It does; I can see that it does. Now, put those bags in my
+      hands. For a minute, try; it will do you good. Attend to me; it will. Or,
+      let me have them. They are poison to you. You don't want them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't,&rdquo; cried Anthony. &ldquo;Upon my soul, I don't. I don't want 'em. I'd
+      give&mdash;it is true, my dear, I don't want 'em. They're poison.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're poison to you,&rdquo; said Rhoda; &ldquo;they're health, they're life to me.
+      I said, 'My uncle Anthony will help me. He is not&mdash;I know his heart&mdash;he
+      is not a miser.' Are you a miser, uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her hand was on one of his bags. It was strenuously withheld: but while
+      she continued speaking, reiterating the word &ldquo;miser,&rdquo; the hold relaxed.
+      She caught the heavy bag away, startled by its weight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He perceived the effect produced on her, and cried; &ldquo;Aha! and I've been
+      carrying two of 'em&mdash;two!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda panted in her excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, give it up,&rdquo; said he. She returned it. He got it against his breast
+      joylessly, and then bade her to try the weight of the two. She did try
+      them, and Anthony doated on the wonder of her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle, see what riches do! You fear everybody&mdash;you think there is no
+      secure place&mdash;you have more? Do you carry about all your money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he chuckled at her astonishment. &ldquo;I've...Yes. I've got more of my
+      own.&rdquo; Her widened eyes intoxicated him. &ldquo;More. I've saved. I've put by.
+      Say, I'm an old sinner. What'd th' old farmer say now? Do you love your
+      uncle Tony? 'Old Ant,' they call me down at&mdash;&rdquo; &ldquo;The Bank,&rdquo; he was on
+      the point of uttering; but the vision of the Bank lay terrific in his
+      recollection, and, summoned at last, would not be wiped away. The
+      unbearable picture swam blinking through accumulating clouds; remote and
+      minute as the chief scene of our infancy, but commanding him with the
+      present touch of a mighty arm thrown out. &ldquo;I'm honest,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I
+      always have been honest. I'm known to be honest. I want no man's money.
+      I've got money of my own. I hate sin. I hate sinners. I'm an honest man.
+      Ask them, down at&mdash;Rhoda, my dear! I say, don't you hear me? Rhoda,
+      you think I've a turn for misering. It's a beastly mistake: poor savings,
+      and such a trouble to keep honest when you're poor; and I've done it for
+      years, spite o' temptation 't 'd send lots o' men to the hulks. Safe into
+      my hand, safe out o' my hands! Slip once, and there ain't mercy in men.
+      And you say, 'I had a whirl of my head, and went round, and didn't know
+      where I was for a minute, and forgot the place I'd to go to, and come away
+      to think in a quiet part.'...&rdquo; He stopped abruptly in his ravings. &ldquo;You
+      give me the money, Rhoda!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She handed him the money-bags.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seized them, and dashed them to the ground with the force of madness.
+      Kneeling, he drew out his penknife, and slit the sides of the bags, and
+      held them aloft, and let the gold pour out in torrents, insufferable to
+      the sight; and uttering laughter that clamoured fierily in her ears for
+      long minutes afterwards, the old man brandished the empty bags, and sprang
+      out of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat dismayed in the centre of a heap of gold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the Monday evening, Master Gammon was at the station with the cart.
+      Robert and Rhoda were a train later, but the old man seemed to be unaware
+      of any delay, and mildly staring, received their apologies, and nodded.
+      They asked him more than once whether all was well at the Farm; to which
+      he replied that all was quite well, and that he was never otherwise. About
+      half-an-hour after, on the road, a gradual dumb chuckle overcame his lower
+      features. He flicked the horse dubitatively, and turned his head, first to
+      Robert, next to Rhoda; and then he chuckled aloud:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The last o' they mel'ns rotted yest'day afternoon!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did they?&rdquo; said Robert. &ldquo;You'll have to get fresh seed, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Master Gammon merely showed his spirit to be negative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've been playing the fool with the sheep,&rdquo; Robert accused him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It hit the old man in a very tender part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I play the fool wi' ne'er a sheep alive, Mr. Robert. Animals likes their
+      'customed food, and don't like no other. I never changes my food, nor'd
+      e'er a sheep, nor'd a cow, nor'd a bullock, if animals was masters. I'd as
+      lief give a sheep beer, as offer him, free-handed&mdash;of my own will,
+      that's to say&mdash;a mel'n. They rots.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert smiled, though he was angry. The delicious unvexed country-talk
+      soothed Rhoda, and she looked fondly on the old man, believing that he
+      could not talk on in his sedate way, if all were not well at home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hills of the beacon-ridge beyond her home, and the line of stunted
+      firs, which she had named &ldquo;the old bent beggarmen,&rdquo; were visible in the
+      twilight. Her eyes flew thoughtfully far over them, with the feeling that
+      they had long known what would come to her and to those dear to her, and
+      the intense hope that they knew no more, inasmuch as they bounded her
+      sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If the sheep thrive,&rdquo; she ventured to remark, so that the comforting old
+      themes might be kept up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the particular 'if!'&rdquo; said Robert, signifying something that had
+      to be leaped over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Master Gammon performed the feat with agility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sheep never was heartier,&rdquo; he pronounced emphatically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lots of applications for melon-seed, Gammon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To this the veteran's tardy answer was: &ldquo;More fools 'n one about, I
+      reckon&rdquo;; and Robert allowed him the victory implied by silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And there's no news in Wrexby? none at all?&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A direct question inevitably plunged Master Gammon so deep amid the
+      soundings of his reflectiveness, that it was the surest way of precluding
+      a response from him; but on this occasion his honest deliberation bore
+      fruit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Squire Blancove, he's dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The name caused Rhoda to shudder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Found dead in 's bed, Sat'day morning,&rdquo; Master Gammon added, and, warmed
+      upon the subject, went on: &ldquo;He's that stiff, folks say, that stiff he is,
+      he'll have to get into a rounded coffin: he's just like half a hoop. He
+      was all of a heap, like. Had a fight with 's bolster, and got th' wust of
+      it. But, be 't the seizure, or be 't gout in 's belly, he's gone clean
+      dead. And he wunt buy th' Farm, nether. Shutters is all shut up at the
+      Hall. He'll go burying about Wednesday. Men that drinks don't keep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda struck at her brain to think in what way this death could work and
+      show like a punishment of the heavens upon that one wrong-doer; but it was
+      not manifest as a flame of wrath, and she laid herself open to the peace
+      of the fields and the hedgeways stepping by. The farm-house came in sight,
+      and friendly old Adam and Eve turning from the moon. She heard the sound
+      of water. Every sign of peace was around the farm. The cows had been
+      milked long since; the geese were quiet. There was nothing but the white
+      board above the garden-gate to speak of the history lying in her heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They found the farmer sitting alone, shading his forehead. Rhoda kissed
+      his cheeks and whispered for tidings of Dahlia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go up to her,&rdquo; the farmer said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda grew very chill. She went upstairs with apprehensive feet, and
+      recognizing Mrs. Sumfit outside the door of Dahlia's room, embraced her,
+      and heard her say that Dahlia had turned the key, and had been crying from
+      mornings to nights. &ldquo;It can't last,&rdquo; Mrs. Sumfit sobbed: &ldquo;lonesome
+      hysterics, they's death to come. She's falling into the trance. I'll go,
+      for the sight o' me shocks her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda knocked, waited patiently till her persistent repetition of her name
+      gained her admission. She beheld her sister indeed, but not the broken
+      Dahlia from whom she had parted. Dahlia was hard to her caress, and
+      crying, &ldquo;Has he come?&rdquo; stood at bay, white-eyed, and looking like a thing
+      strung with wires.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, dearest; he will not trouble you. Have no fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you full of deceit?&rdquo; said Dahlia, stamping her foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope not, my sister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia let fall a long quivering breath. She went to her bed, upon which
+      her mother's Bible was lying, and taking it in her two hands, held it
+      under Rhoda's lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Swear upon that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What am I to swear to, dearest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Swear that he is not in the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not, my own sister; believe me. It is no deceit. He is not. He will
+      not trouble you. See; I kiss the Book, and swear to you, my beloved! I
+      speak truth. Come to me, dear.&rdquo; Rhoda put her arms up entreatingly, but
+      Dahlia stepped back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not deceitful? You are not cold? You are not inhuman? Inhuman!
+      You are not? You are not? Oh, my God! Look at her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The toneless voice was as bitter for Rhoda to hear as the accusations. She
+      replied, with a poor smile: &ldquo;I am only not deceitful. Come, and see. You
+      will not be disturbed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What am I tied to?&rdquo; Dahlia struggled feebly as against a weight of
+      chains. &ldquo;Oh! what am I tied to? It's on me, tight like teeth. I can't
+      escape. I can't breathe for it. I was like a stone when he asked me&mdash;marry
+      him!&mdash;loved me! Some one preached&mdash;my duty! I am lost, I am
+      lost! Why? you girl!&mdash;why?&mdash;What did you do? Why did you take my
+      hand when I was asleep and hurry me so fast? What have I done to you? Why
+      did you push me along?&mdash;I couldn't see where. I heard the Church
+      babble. For you&mdash;inhuman! inhuman! What have I done to you? What have
+      you to do with punishing sin? It's not sin. Let me be sinful, then. I am.
+      I am sinful. Hear me. I love him; I love my lover, and,&rdquo; she screamed out,
+      &ldquo;he loves me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda now thought her mad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked once at the rigid figure of her transformed sister, and sitting
+      down, covered her eyes and wept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Dahlia, the tears were at first an acrid joy; but being weak, she fell
+      to the bed, and leaned against it, forgetting her frenzy for a time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You deceived me,&rdquo; she murmured; and again, &ldquo;You deceived me.&rdquo; Rhoda did
+      not answer. In trying to understand why her sister should imagine it, she
+      began to know that she had in truth deceived Dahlia. The temptation to
+      drive a frail human creature to do the thing which was right, had led her
+      to speak falsely for a good purpose. Was it not righteously executed? Away
+      from the tragic figure in the room, she might have thought so, but the
+      horror in the eyes and voice of this awakened Sacrifice, struck away the
+      support of theoretic justification. Great pity for the poor enmeshed life,
+      helpless there, and in a woman's worst peril,&mdash;looking either to
+      madness, or to death, for an escape&mdash;drowned her reason in a heavy
+      cloud of tears. Long on toward the stroke of the hour, Dahlia heard her
+      weep, and she murmured on, &ldquo;You deceived me;&rdquo; but it was no more to
+      reproach; rather, it was an exculpation of her reproaches. &ldquo;You did
+      deceive me, Rhoda.&rdquo; Rhoda half lifted her head; the slight tone of a
+      change to tenderness swelled the gulfs of pity, and she wept aloud. Dahlia
+      untwisted her feet, and staggered up to her, fell upon her shoulder, and
+      called her, &ldquo;My love!&mdash;good sister!&rdquo; For a great mute space they
+      clung together. Their lips met and they kissed convulsively. But when
+      Dahlia had close view of Rhoda's face, she drew back, saying in an
+      under-breath,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't cry. I see my misery when you cry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda promised that she would check her tears, and they sat quietly, side
+      by side, hand in hand. Mrs. Sumfit, outside, had to be dismissed twice
+      with her fresh brews of supplicating tea and toast, and the cakes which,
+      when eaten warm with good country butter and a sprinkle of salt, reanimate
+      (as she did her utmost to assure the sisters through the closed door)
+      humanity's distressed spirit. At times their hands interchanged a fervent
+      pressure, their eyes were drawn to an equal gaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the middle of the night Dahlia said: &ldquo;I found a letter from Edward when
+      I came here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Written&mdash;Oh, base man that he is!&rdquo; Rhoda could not control the
+      impulse to cry it out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Written before,&rdquo; said Dahlia, divining her at once. &ldquo;I read it; did not
+      cry. I have no tears. Will you see it? It is very short-enough; it said
+      enough, and written before&mdash;&rdquo; She crumpled her fingers in Rhoda's;
+      Rhoda, to please her, saying &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she went to the pillow of the bed, and
+      drew the letter from underneath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know every word,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;I should die if I repeated it. 'My wife
+      before heaven,' it begins. So, I was his wife. I must have broken his
+      heart&mdash;broken my husband's.&rdquo; Dahlia cast a fearful eye about her; her
+      eyelids fluttered as from a savage sudden blow. Hardening her mouth to
+      utter defiant spite: &ldquo;My lover's,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;He is. If he loves me and I
+      love him, he is my lover, my lover, my lover! Nothing shall stop me from
+      saying it&mdash;lover! and there is none to claim me but he. Oh,
+      loathsome! What a serpent it is I've got round me! And you tell me God put
+      it. Do you? Answer that; for I want to know, and I don't know where I am.
+      I am lost! I am lost! I want to get to my lover. Tell me, Rhoda, you would
+      curse me if I did. And listen to me. Let him open his arms to me, I go; I
+      follow him as far as my feet will bear me. I would go if it lightened from
+      heaven. If I saw up there the warning, 'You shall not!' I would go. But,
+      look on me!&rdquo; she smote contempt upon her bosom. &ldquo;He would not call to such
+      a thing as me. Me, now? My skin is like a toad's to him. I've become like
+      something in the dust. I could hiss like adders. I am quite impenitent. I
+      pray by my bedside, my head on my Bible, but I only say, 'Yes, yes; that's
+      done; that's deserved, if there's no mercy.' Oh, if there is no mercy,
+      that's deserved! I say so now. But this is what I say, Rhoda (I see
+      nothing but blackness when I pray), and I say, 'Permit no worse!' I say,
+      'Permit no worse, or take the consequences.' He calls me his wife. I am
+      his wife. And if&mdash;&rdquo; Dahlia fell to speechless panting; her mouth was
+      open; she made motion with her hands; horror, as of a blasphemy struggling
+      to her lips, kept her dumb, but the prompting passion was indomitable....
+      &ldquo;Read it,&rdquo; said her struggling voice; and Rhoda bent over the letter,
+      reading and losing thought of each sentence as it passed. To Dahlia, the
+      vital words were visible like evanescent blue gravelights. She saw them
+      rolling through her sister's mind; and just upon the conclusion, she gave
+      out, as in a chaunt: &ldquo;And I who have sinned against my innocent darling,
+      will ask her to pray with me that our future may be one, so that may make
+      good to her what she has suffered, and to the God whom we worship, the
+      offence I have committed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda looked up at the pale penetrating eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Read. Have you read to the last?&rdquo; said Dahlia. &ldquo;Speak it. Let me hear
+      you. He writes it.... Yes? you will not? 'Husband,' he says,&rdquo; and then she
+      took up the sentences of the letter backwards to the beginning, pausing
+      upon each one with a short moan, and smiting her bosom. &ldquo;I found it here,
+      Rhoda. I found his letter here when I came.. I came a dead thing, and it
+      made me spring up alive. Oh, what bliss to be dead! I've felt
+      nothing...nothing, for months.&rdquo; She flung herself on the bed, thrusting
+      her handkerchief to her mouth to deaden the outcry. &ldquo;I'm punished. I'm
+      punished, because I did not trust to my darling. No, not for one year! Is
+      it that since we parted? I am an impatient creature, and he does not
+      reproach me. I tormented my own, my love, my dear, and he thought I&mdash;I
+      was tired of our life together. No; he does not accuse me,&rdquo; Dahlia replied
+      to her sister's unspoken feeling, with the shrewd divination which is
+      passion's breathing space. &ldquo;He accuses himself. He says it&mdash;utters it&mdash;speaks
+      it 'I sold my beloved.' There is no guile in him. Oh, be just to us,
+      Rhoda! Dearest,&rdquo; she came to Rhoda's side, &ldquo;you did deceive me, did you
+      not? You are a deceiver, my love?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda trembled, and raising her eyelids, answered, &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You saw him in the street that morning?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia smiled a glittering tenderness too evidently deceitful in part, but
+      quite subduing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You saw him, my Rhoda, and he said he was true to me, and sorrowful; and
+      you told him, dear one, that I had no heart for him, and wished to go to
+      hell&mdash;did you not, good Rhoda? Forgive me; I mean 'good;' my true,
+      good Rhoda. Yes, you hate sin; it is dreadful; but you should never speak
+      falsely to sinners, for that does not teach them to repent. Mind you never
+      lie again. Look at me. I am chained, and I have no repentance in me. See
+      me. I am nearer it...the other&mdash;sin, I mean. If that man comes...will
+      he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;no!&rdquo; Rhoda cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If that man comes&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will not come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He cast me off at the church door, and said he had been cheated. Money!
+      Oh, Edward!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia drooped her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will keep away. You are safe,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because, if no help comes, I am lost&mdash;I am lost for ever!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But help will come. I mean peace will come. We will read; we will work in
+      the garden. You have lifted poor father up, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! that old man!&rdquo; Dahlia sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is our father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, poor old man!&rdquo; and Dahlia whispered: &ldquo;I have no pity for him. If I
+      am dragged away, I'm afraid I shall curse him. He seems a stony old man. I
+      don't understand fathers. He would make me go away. He talks the
+      Scriptures when he is excited. I'm afraid he would shut my Bible for me.
+      Those old men know nothing of the hearts of women. Now, darling, go to
+      your room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda begged earnestly for permission to stay with her, but Dahlia said:
+      &ldquo;My nights are fevers. I can't have arms about me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They shook hands when they separated, not kissing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Three days passed quietly at the Farm, and each morning Dahlia came down
+      to breakfast, and sat with the family at their meals; pale, with the
+      mournful rim about her eyelids, but a patient figure. No questions were
+      asked. The house was guarded from visitors, and on the surface the home
+      was peaceful. On the Wednesday Squire Blancove was buried, when Master
+      Gammon, who seldom claimed a holiday or specified an enjoyment of which he
+      would desire to partake, asked leave to be spared for a couple of hours,
+      that he might attend the ceremonious interment of one to whom a sort of
+      vagrant human sentiment of clanship had made him look up, as to the chief
+      gentleman of the district, and therefore one having claims on his respect.
+      A burial had great interest for the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be home for dinner; it'll gi'e me an appetite,&rdquo; Master Gammon said
+      solemnly, and he marched away in his serious Sunday hat and careful coat,
+      blither than usual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After his departure, Mrs. Sumfit sat and discoursed on deaths and burials,
+      the certain end of all: at least, she corrected herself, the deaths were.
+      The burials were not so certain. Consequently, we might take the burials,
+      as they were a favour, to be a blessing, except in the event of persons
+      being buried alive. She tried to make her hearers understand that the idea
+      of this calamity had always seemed intolerable to her, and told of
+      numerous cases which, the coffin having been opened, showed by the
+      convulsed aspect of the corpse, or by spots of blood upon the shroud, that
+      the poor creature had wakened up forlorn, &ldquo;and not a kick allowed to him,
+      my dears.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It happens to women, too, does it not, mother?&rdquo; said Dahlia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're most subject to trances, my sweet. From always imitatin' they
+      imitates their deaths at last; and, oh!&rdquo; Mrs. Sumfit was taken with
+      nervous chokings of alarm at the thought. &ldquo;Alone&mdash;all dark! and hard
+      wood upon your chest, your elbows, your nose, your toes, and you under
+      heaps o' gravel! Not a breath for you, though you snap and catch for one&mdash;worse
+      than a fish on land.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's over very soon, mother,&rdquo; said Dahlia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The coldness of you young women! Yes; but it's the time&mdash;you
+      feeling, trying for air; it's the horrid 'Oh, dear me!' You set your mind
+      on it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do,&rdquo; said Dahlia. &ldquo;You see coffin-nails instead of stars. You'd give
+      the world to turn upon one side. You can't think. You can only hate those
+      who put you there. You see them taking tea, saying prayers, sleeping in
+      bed, putting on bonnets, walking to church, kneading dough, eating&mdash;all
+      at once, like the firing of a gun. They're in one world; you're in
+      another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, my goodness, one'd say she'd gone through it herself,&rdquo; ejaculated
+      Mrs. Sumfit, terrified.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia sent her eyes at Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must go and see that poor man covered.&rdquo; Mrs. Sumfit succumbed to a fit
+      of resolution much under the pretence that it had long been forming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, and mother,&rdquo; said Dahlia, checking her, &ldquo;promise me. Put a feather
+      on my mouth; put a glass to my face, before you let them carry me out.
+      Will you? Rhoda promises. I have asked her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! the ideas of this girl!&rdquo; Mrs. Sumfit burst out. &ldquo;And looking so, as
+      she says it. My love, you didn't mean to die?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia soothed her, and sent her off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am buried alive!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I feel it all&mdash;the stifling! the
+      hopeless cramp! Let us go and garden. Rhoda, have you got laudanum in the
+      house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda shook her head, too sick at heart to speak. They went into the
+      garden, which was Dahlia's healthfullest place. It seemed to her that her
+      dead mother talked to her there. That was not a figure of speech, when she
+      said she felt buried alive. She was in the state of sensational delusion.
+      There were times when she watched her own power of motion curiously:
+      curiously stretched out her hands, and touched things, and moved them. The
+      sight was convincing, but the shudder came again. In a frame less robust
+      the brain would have given way. It was the very soundness of the brain
+      which, when her blood was a simple tide of life in her veins, and no vital
+      force, had condemned her to see the wisdom and the righteousness of the
+      act of sacrifice committed by her, and had urged her even up to the altar.
+      Then the sudden throwing off of the mask by that man to whom she had bound
+      herself, and the reading of Edward's letter of penitence and love,
+      thwarted reason, but without blinding or unsettling it. Passion grew
+      dominant; yet against such deadly matters on all sides had passion to
+      strive, that, under a darkened sky, visibly chained, bound down, and
+      hopeless, she felt between-whiles veritably that she was a living body
+      buried. Her senses had become semi-lunatic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She talked reasonably; and Rhoda, hearing her question and answer at
+      meal-times like a sane woman, was in doubt whether her sister wilfully
+      simulated a partial insanity when they were alone together. Now, in the
+      garden, Dahlia said: &ldquo;All those flowers, my dear, have roots in mother and
+      me. She can't feel them, for her soul's in heaven. But mine is down there.
+      The pain is the trying to get your soul loose. It's the edge of a knife
+      that won't cut through. Do you know that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda said, as acquiescingly as she could, &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you?&rdquo; Dahlia whispered. &ldquo;It's what they call the 'agony.' Only, to go
+      through it in the dark, when you are all alone! boarded round! you will
+      never know that. And there's an angel brings me one of mother's roses, and
+      I smell it. I see fields of snow; and it's warm there, and no labour for
+      breath. I see great beds of flowers; I pass them like a breeze. I'm shot,
+      and knock on the ground, and they bury me for dead again. Indeed, dearest,
+      it's true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She meant, true as regarded her sensations. Rhoda could barely give a
+      smile for response; and Dahlia's intelligence being supernaturally active,
+      she read her sister's doubt, and cried out,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then let me talk of him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the fiery sequence to her foregone speech, signifying that if her
+      passion had liberty to express itself, she could clear understandings. But
+      even a moment's free wing to passion renewed the blinding terror within
+      her. Rhoda steadied her along the walks, praying for the time to come when
+      her friends, the rector and his wife, might help in the task of comforting
+      this poor sister. Detestation of the idea of love made her sympathy almost
+      deficient, and when there was no active work to do in aid, she was nearly
+      valueless, knowing that she also stood guilty of a wrong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day was very soft and still. The flowers gave light for light. They
+      heard through the noise of the mill-water the funeral bell sound. It sank
+      in Rhoda like the preaching of an end that was promise of a beginning, and
+      girdled a distancing land of trouble. The breeze that blew seemed mercy.
+      To live here in forgetfulness with Dahlia was the limit of her desires.
+      Perhaps, if Robert worked among them, she would gratefully give him her
+      hand. That is, if he said not a word of love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Master Gammon and Mrs. Sumfit were punctual in their return near the
+      dinnerhour; and the business of releasing the dumplings and potatoes, and
+      spreading out the cold meat and lettuces, restrained for some period the
+      narrative of proceedings at the funeral. Chief among the incidents was,
+      that Mrs. Sumfit had really seen, and only wanted, by corroboration of
+      Master Gammon, to be sure she had positively seen, Anthony Hackbut on the
+      skirts of the funeral procession. Master Gammon, however, was no supporter
+      of conjecture. What he had thought he had thought; but that was neither
+      here nor there. He would swear to nothing that he had not touched;&mdash;eyes
+      deceived;&mdash;he was never a guesser. He left Mrs. Sumfit to pledge
+      herself in perturbation of spirit to an oath that her eyes had seen
+      Anthony Hackbut; and more, which was, that after the close of the funeral
+      service, the young squire had caught sight of Anthony crouching in a
+      corner of the churchyard, and had sent a man to him, and they had
+      disappeared together. Mrs. Sumfit was heartily laughed at and rallied both
+      by Robert and the farmer. &ldquo;Tony at a funeral! and train expenses!&rdquo; the
+      farmer interjected. &ldquo;D'ye think, mother, Tony'd come to Wrexby churchyard
+      'fore he come Queen Anne's Farm? And where's he now, mayhap?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Sumfit appealed in despair to Master Gammon, with entreaties, and a
+      ready dumpling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, Mas' Gammon; and why you sh'd play at 'do believe' and at 'don't
+      believe,' after that awesome scene, the solem'est of life's, when you did
+      declare to me, sayin', it was a stride for boots out o' London this
+      morning. Your words, Mas' Gammon! and 'boots'-=it's true, if by that
+      alone! For, 'boots,' I says to myself&mdash;he thinks by 'boots,' there
+      being a cord'er in his family on the mother's side; which you yourself
+      told to me, as you did, Mas' Gammon, and now holds back, you did, like a
+      bad horse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey! does Gammon jib?&rdquo; said the farmer, with the ghost of old laughter
+      twinkling in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me this tale,&rdquo; Mrs. Sumfit continued, daring her irresponsive
+      enemy to contradict her, with a threatening gaze. &ldquo;He told me this tale,
+      he did; and my belief's, his game 's, he gets me into a corner&mdash;there
+      to be laughed at! Mas' Gammon, if you're not a sly old man, you said, you
+      did, he was drownded; your mother's brother's wife's brother; and he had a
+      brother, and what he was to you&mdash;that brother&mdash;&rdquo; Mrs. Sumfit
+      smote her hands&mdash;&ldquo;Oh, my goodness, my poor head! but you shan't slip
+      away, Mas' Gammon; no, try you ever so much. Drownded he was, and eight
+      days in the sea, which you told me over a warm mug of ale by the fire
+      years back. And I do believe them dumplings makes ye obstinate; for worse
+      you get, and that fond of 'em, I sh'll soon not have enough in our biggest
+      pot. Yes, you said he was eight days in the sea, and as for face, you
+      said, poor thing! he was like a rag of towel dipped in starch, was your
+      own words, and all his likeness wiped out; and Joe, the other brother, a
+      cord'er&mdash;bootmaker, you call 'em&mdash;looked down him, as he was
+      stretched out on the shore of the sea, all along, and didn't know him till
+      he come to the boots, and he says, 'It's Abner;' for there was his boots
+      to know him by. Now, will you deny, Mas' Gammon, you said, Mr. Hackbut's
+      boots, and a long stride it was for 'em from London? And I won't be
+      laughed at through arts of any sly old man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The circumstantial charge made no impression on Master Gammon, who was
+      heard to mumble, as from the inmost recesses of tight-packed dumpling; but
+      he left the vindication of his case to the farmer's laughter. The mention
+      of her uncle had started a growing agitation in Rhoda, to whom the
+      indication of his eccentric behaviour was a stronger confirmation of his
+      visit to the neighbourhood. And wherefore had he journeyed down? Had he
+      come to haunt her on account of the money he had poured into her lap?
+      Rhoda knew in a moment that she was near a great trial of her strength and
+      truth. She had more than once, I cannot tell you how distantly, conceived
+      that the money had been money upon which the mildest word for &ldquo;stolen&rdquo;
+       should be put to express the feeling she had got about it, after she had
+      parted with the bulk of it to the man Sedgett. Not &ldquo;stolen,&rdquo; not
+      &ldquo;appropriated,&rdquo; but money that had perhaps been entrusted, and of which
+      Anthony had forgotten the rightful ownership. This idea of hers had burned
+      with no intolerable fire; but, under a weight of all discountenancing
+      appearances, feeble though it was, it had distressed her. The dealing with
+      money, and the necessity for it, had given Rhoda a better comprehension of
+      its nature and value. She had taught herself to think that her suspicion
+      sprang from her uncle's wild demeanour, and the scene of the gold pieces
+      scattered on the floor, as if a heart had burst at her feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner did she hear that Anthony had been, by supposition, seen, than
+      the little light of secret dread flamed a panic through her veins. She
+      left the table before Master Gammon had finished, and went out of the
+      house to look about for her uncle. He was nowhere in the fields, nor in
+      the graveyard. She walked over the neighbourhood desolately, until her
+      quickened apprehension was extinguished, and she returned home relieved,
+      thinking it folly to have imagined her uncle was other than a man of
+      hoarded wealth, and that he was here. But, in the interval, she had
+      experienced emotions which warned her of a struggle to come. Who would be
+      friendly to her, and an arm of might? The thought of the storm she had
+      sown upon all sides made her tremble foolishly. When she placed her hand
+      in Robert's, she gave his fingers a confiding pressure, and all but
+      dropped her head upon his bosom, so sick she was with weakness. It would
+      have been a deceit toward him, and that restrained her; perhaps, yet more,
+      she was restrained by the gloomy prospect of having to reply to any words
+      of love, without an idea of what to say, and with a loathing of caresses.
+      She saw herself condemned to stand alone, and at a season when she was not
+      strengthened by pure self-support.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda had not surrendered the stern belief that she had done well by
+      forcing Dahlia's hand to the marriage, though it had resulted evilly. In
+      reflecting on it, she had still a feeling of the harsh joy peculiar to
+      those who have exercised command with a conscious righteousness upon
+      wilful, sinful, and erring spirits, and have thwarted the wrongdoer. She
+      could only admit that there was sadness in the issue; hitherto, at least,
+      nothing worse than sad disappointment. The man who was her sister's
+      husband could no longer complain that he had been the victim of an
+      imposition. She had bought his promise that he would leave the country,
+      and she had rescued the honour of the family by paying him. At what cost?
+      She asked herself that now, and then her self-support became uneven. Could
+      her uncle have parted with the great sum&mdash;have shed it upon her,
+      merely beneficently, and because he loved her? Was it possible that he had
+      the habit of carrying his own riches through the streets of London? She
+      had to silence all questions imperiously, recalling exactly her ideas of
+      him, and the value of money in the moment when money was an object of
+      hunger&mdash;when she had seized it like a wolf, and its value was quite
+      unknown, unguessed at.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda threw up her window before she slept, that she might breathe the
+      cool night air; and, as she leaned out, she heard steps moving away, and
+      knew them to be Robert's, in whom that pressure of her hand had cruelly
+      resuscitated his longing for her. She drew back, wondering at the idleness
+      of men&mdash;slaves while they want a woman's love, savages when they have
+      won it. She tried to pity him, but she had not an emotion to spare, save
+      perhaps one of dull exultation, that she, alone of women, was free from
+      that wretched mess called love; and upon it she slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was between the breakfast and dinner hours, at the farm, next day, when
+      the young squire, accompanied by Anthony Hackbut, met farmer Fleming in
+      the lane bordering one of the outermost fields of wheat. Anthony gave
+      little more than a blunt nod to his relative, and slouched on, leaving the
+      farmer in amazement, while the young squire stopped him to speak with him.
+      Anthony made his way on to the house. Shortly after, he was seen passing
+      through the gates of the garden, accompanied by Rhoda. At the dinner-hour,
+      Robert was taken aside by the farmer. Neither Rhoda nor Anthony presented
+      themselves. They did not appear till nightfall. When Anthony came into the
+      room, he took no greetings and gave none. He sat down on the first chair
+      by the door, shaking his head, with vacant eyes. Rhoda took off her
+      bonnet, and sat as strangely silent. In vain Mrs. Sumfit asked her; &ldquo;Shall
+      it be tea, dear, and a little cold meat?&rdquo; The two dumb figures were
+      separately interrogated, but they had no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come! brother Tony?&rdquo; the farmer tried to rally him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia was knitting some article of feminine gear. Robert stood by the
+      musk-pots at the window, looking at Rhoda fixedly. Of this gaze she became
+      conscious, and glanced from him to the clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's late,&rdquo; she said, rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you're empty, my dear. And to think o' going to bed without a dinner,
+      or your tea, and no supper! You'll never say prayers, if you do,&rdquo; said
+      Mrs. Sumfit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remark engendered a notion in the farmer's head, that Anthony promised
+      to be particularly prayerless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've been and spent a night at the young squire's, I hear, brother
+      Tony. All right and well. No complaints on my part, I do assure ye. If
+      you're mixed up with that family, I won't bring it in you're anyways mixed
+      up with this family; not so as to clash, do you see. Only, man, now you
+      are here, a word'd be civil, if you don't want a doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was right,&rdquo; murmured Mrs. Sumfit. &ldquo;At the funeral, he was; and Lord be
+      thanked! I thought my eyes was failin'. Mas' Gammon, you'd ha' lost no
+      character by sidin' wi' me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's Dahlia, too,&rdquo; said the farmer. &ldquo;Brother Tony, don't you see her?
+      She's beginning to be recognizable, if her hair'd grow a bit faster.
+      She's...well, there she is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A quavering, tiny voice, that came from Anthony, said: &ldquo;How d' ye do&mdash;how
+      d' ye do;&rdquo; sounding like the first effort of a fife. But Anthony did not
+      cast eye on Dahlia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you eat, man?&mdash;will you smoke a pipe?&mdash;won't you talk a
+      word?&mdash;will you go to bed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These several questions, coming between pauses, elicited nothing from the
+      staring oldman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there a matter wrong at the Bank?&rdquo; the farmer called out, and Anthony
+      jumped in a heap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh?&rdquo; persisted the farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda interposed: &ldquo;Uncle is tired; he is unwell. Tomorrow he will talk to
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but is there anything wrong up there, though?&rdquo; the farmer asked with
+      eager curiosity, and a fresh smile at the thought that those Banks and
+      city folk were mortal, and could upset, notwithstanding their crashing
+      wheels. &ldquo;Brother Tony, you speak out; has anybody been and broke? Never
+      mind a blow, so long, o' course, as they haven't swallowed your money. How
+      is it? Why, I never saw such a sight as you. You come down from London;
+      you play hide and seek about your relation's house; and here, when you do
+      condescend to step in&mdash;eh? how is it? You ain't, I hope, ruined,
+      Tony, are ye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda stood over her uncle to conceal him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He shall not speak till he has had some rest. And yes, mother, he shall
+      have some warm tea upstairs in bed. Boil some water. Now, uncle, come with
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anybody broke?&rdquo; Anthony rolled the words over, as Rhoda raised his arm.
+      &ldquo;I'm asked such a lot, my dear, I ain't equal to it. You said here 'd be a
+      quiet place. I don't know about money. Try my pockets. Yes, mum, if you
+      was forty policemen, I'm empty; you'd find it. And no objection to nod to
+      prayers; but never was taught one of my own. Where am I going, my dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upstairs with me, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda had succeeded in getting him on his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer tapped at his forehead, as a signification to the others that
+      Anthony had gone wrong in the head, which reminded him that he had
+      prophesied as much. He stiffened out his legs, and gave a manful spring,
+      crying, &ldquo;Hulloa, brother Tony! why, man, eh? Look here. What, goin' to
+      bed? What, you, Tony? I say&mdash;I say&mdash;dear me!&rdquo; And during these
+      exclamations intricate visions of tripping by means of gold wires danced
+      before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda hurried Anthony out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the door had shut, the farmer said: &ldquo;That comes of it; sooner or
+      later, there it is! You give your heart to money&mdash;you insure in a
+      ship, and as much as say, here's a ship, and, blow and lighten, I defy
+      you. Whereas we day-by-day people, if it do blow and if it do lighten, and
+      the waves are avilanches, we've nothing to lose. Poor old Tony&mdash;a
+      smash, to a certainty. There's been a smash, and he's gone under the
+      harrow. Any o' you here might ha' heard me say, things can't last for
+      ever. Ha'n't you, now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The persons present meekly acquiesced in his prophetic spirit to this
+      extent. Mrs. Sumfit dolorously said, &ldquo;Often, William dear,&rdquo; and accepted
+      the incontestable truth in deep humiliation of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Save,&rdquo; the farmer continued, &ldquo;save and store, only don't put your heart
+      in the box.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's true, William;&rdquo; Mrs. Sumfit acted clerk to the sermon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia took her softly by the neck, and kissed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it love for the old woman?&rdquo; Mrs. Sumfit murmured fondly; and Dahlia
+      kissed her again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer had by this time rounded to the thought of how he personally
+      might be affected by Anthony's ill-luck, supposing; perchance, that
+      Anthony was suffering from something more than a sentimental attachment to
+      the Bank of his predilection: and such a reflection instantly diverted his
+      tendency to moralize.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall hear to-morrow,&rdquo; he observed in conclusion; which, as it caused
+      a desire for the morrow to spring within his bosom, sent his eyes at
+      Master Gammon, who was half an hour behind his time for bed, and had
+      dropped asleep in his chair. This unusual display of public somnolence on
+      Master Gammon's part, together with the veteran's reputation for slowness,
+      made the farmer fret at him as being in some way an obstruction to the
+      lively progress of the hours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hoy, Gammon!&rdquo; he sang out, awakeningly to ordinary ears; but Master
+      Gammon was not one who took the ordinary plunge into the gulf of sleep,
+      and it was required to shake him and to bellow at him&mdash;to administer
+      at once earthquake and thunder&mdash;before his lizard eyelids would lift
+      over the great, old-world eyes; upon which, like a clayey monster refusing
+      to be informed with heavenly fire, he rolled to the right of his chair and
+      to the left, and pitched forward, and insisted upon being inanimate.
+      Brought at last to a condition of stale consciousness, he looked at his
+      master long, and uttered surprisingly &ldquo;Farmer, there's queer things going
+      on in this house,&rdquo; and then relapsed to a combat with Mrs. Sumfit,
+      regarding the candle; she saying that it was not to be entrusted to him,
+      and he sullenly contending that it was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, we'll all go to bed,&rdquo; said the farmer. &ldquo;What with one person queer,
+      and another person queer, I shall be in for a headache, if I take to
+      thinking. Gammon's a man sees in 's sleep what he misses awake. Did you
+      ever know,&rdquo; he addressed anybody, &ldquo;such a thing as Tony Hackbut coming
+      into a relation's house, and sitting there, and not a word for any of us?
+      It's, I call it, dumbfoundering. And that's me: why didn't I go up and
+      shake his hand, you ask. Well, why not? If he don't know he's welcome,
+      without ceremony, he's no good. Why, I've got matters t' occupy my mind,
+      too, haven't I? Every man has, and some more'n others, let alone crosses.
+      There's something wrong with my brother-in-law, Tony, that's settled. Odd
+      that we country people, who bide, and take the Lord's gifts&mdash;&rdquo; The
+      farmer did not follow out this reflection, but raising his arms,
+      shepherd-wise, he puffed as if blowing the two women before him to their
+      beds, and then gave a shy look at Robert, and nodded good-night to him.
+      Robert nodded in reply. He knew the cause of the farmer's uncommon
+      blitheness. Algernon Blancove, the young squire, had proposed for Rhoda's
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0043" id="link2HCH0043">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Anthony had robbed the Bank. The young squire was aware of the fact, and
+      had offered to interpose for him, and to make good the money to the Bank,
+      upon one condition. So much, Rhoda had gathered from her uncle's babbling
+      interjections throughout the day. The farmer knew only of the young
+      squire's proposal, which had been made direct to him; and he had left it
+      to Robert to state the case to Rhoda, and plead for himself. She believed
+      fully, when she came downstairs into the room where Robert was awaiting
+      her, that she had but to speak and a mine would be sprung; and shrinking
+      from it, hoping for it, she entered, and tried to fasten her eyes upon
+      Robert distinctly, telling him the tale. Robert listened with a
+      calculating seriousness of manner that quieted her physical dread of his
+      passion. She finished; and he said &ldquo;It will, perhaps, save your uncle: I'm
+      sure it will please your father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat down, feeling that a warmth had gone, and that she was very bare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must I consent, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Both being spirits formed for action, a perplexity found them weak as
+      babes. He, moreover, was stung to see her debating at all upon such a
+      question; and he was in despair before complicated events which gave
+      nothing for his hands and heart to do. Stiff endurance seemed to him to be
+      his lesson; and he made a show of having learnt it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were you going out, Robert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I usually make the rounds of the house, to be sure all's safe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His walking about the garden at night was not, then, for the purpose of
+      looking at her window. Rhoda coloured in all her dark crimson with shame
+      for thinking that it had been so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must decide to-morrow morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say, the pillow's the best counsellor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A reply that presumed she would sleep appeared to her as bitterly
+      unfriendly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did father wish it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not by what he spoke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You suppose he does wish it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's the father who wouldn't? Of course, he wishes it. He's kind
+      enough, but you may be certain he wishes it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! Dahlia, Dahlia!&rdquo; Rhoda moaned, under a rush of new sensations,
+      unfilial, akin to those which her sister had distressed her by speaking
+      shamelessly out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! poor soul!&rdquo; added Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My darling must be brave: she must have great courage. Dahlia cannot be a
+      coward. I begin to see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda threw up her face, and sat awhile as one who was reading old matters
+      by a fresh light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't think,&rdquo; she said, with a start. &ldquo;Have I been dreadfully cruel?
+      Was I unsisterly? I have such a horror of some things&mdash;disgrace. And
+      men are so hard on women; and father&mdash;I felt for him. And I hated
+      that base man. It's his cousin and his name! I could almost fancy this
+      trial is brought round to me for punishment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An ironic devil prompted Robert to say, &ldquo;You can't let harm come to your
+      uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The thing implied was the farthest in his idea of any woman's possible
+      duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you of that opinion?&rdquo; Rhoda questioned with her eyes, but uttered
+      nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, he had spoken almost in the ironical tone. She should have noted
+      that. And how could a true-hearted girl suppose him capable of giving such
+      counsel to her whom he loved? It smote him with horror and anger; but he
+      was much too manly to betray these actual sentiments, and continued to
+      dissemble. You see, he had not forgiven her for her indifference to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are no longer your own mistress,&rdquo; he said, meaning exactly the
+      reverse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This&mdash;that she was bound in generosity to sacrifice herself&mdash;was
+      what Rhoda feared. There was no forceful passion in her bosom to burst
+      through the crowd of weak reasonings and vanities, to bid her be a woman,
+      not a puppet; and the passion in him, for which she craved, that she might
+      be taken up by it and whirled into forgetfulness, with a seal of betrothal
+      upon her lips, was absent so that she thought herself loved no more by
+      Robert. She was weary of thinking and acting on her own responsibility,
+      and would gladly have abandoned her will; yet her judgement, if she was
+      still to exercise it, told her that the step she was bidden to take was
+      one, the direct consequence and the fruit of her other resolute steps.
+      Pride whispered, &ldquo;You could compel your sister to do that which she
+      abhorred;&rdquo; and Pity pleaded for her poor old uncle Anthony. She looked
+      back in imagination at that scene with him in London, amazed at her frenzy
+      of power, and again, from that contemplation, amazed at her present
+      nervelessness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not fit to be my own mistress,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, the sooner you decide the better,&rdquo; observed Robert, and the room
+      became hot and narrow to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very little time is given me,&rdquo; she murmured. The sound was like a
+      whimper; exasperating to one who had witnessed her remorseless energy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare say you won't find the hardship so great,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because,&rdquo; she looked up quickly, &ldquo;I went out one day to meet him? Do you
+      mean that, Robert? I went to hear news of my sister. I had received no
+      letters from her. And he wrote to say that he could tell me about her. My
+      uncle took me once to the Bank. I saw him there first. He spoke of Wrexby,
+      and of my sister. It is pleasant to inexperienced girls to hear themselves
+      praised. Since the day when you told me to turn back I have always
+      respected you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyelids lowered softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Could she have humbled herself more? But she had, at the same time,
+      touched his old wound: and his rival then was the wooer now, rich, and a
+      gentleman. And this room, Robert thought as he looked about it, was the
+      room in which she had refused him, when he first asked her to be his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I've never begged your pardon for the last occasion
+      of our being alone here together. I've had my arm round you. Don't be
+      frightened. That's my marriage, and there was my wife. And there's an end
+      of my likings and my misconduct. Forgive me for calling it to mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, Robert,&rdquo; Rhoda lifted her hands, and, startled by the impulse,
+      dropped them, saying: &ldquo;What forgiveness? Was I ever angry with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A look of tenderness accompanied the words, and grew into a dusky crimson
+      rose under his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you went into the wood, I saw you going: I knew it was for some good
+      object,&rdquo; he said, and flushed equally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, by the recurrence to that scene, he had checked her sensitive
+      developing emotion. She hung a moment in languor, and that oriental warmth
+      of colour ebbed away from her cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very kind,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he perceived in dimmest fashion that possibly a chance had come to
+      ripeness, withered, and fallen, within the late scoffing seconds of time.
+      Enraged at his blindness, and careful, lest he had wrongly guessed, not to
+      expose his regret (the man was a lover), he remarked, both truthfully and
+      hypocritically: &ldquo;I've always thought you were born to be a lady.&rdquo; (You had
+      that ambition, young madam.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She answered: &ldquo;That's what I don't understand.&rdquo; (Your saying it, O my
+      friend!)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will soon take to your new duties.&rdquo; (You have small objection to them
+      even now.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, or my life won't be worth much.&rdquo; (Know, that you are driving me to
+      it.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I wish you happiness, Rhoda.&rdquo; (You are madly imperilling the prospect
+      thereof.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To each of them the second meaning stood shadowy behind the utterances.
+      And further,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Robert.&rdquo; (I shall have to thank you for the issue.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now it's time to part.&rdquo; (Do you not see that there's a danger for me in
+      remaining?)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night.&rdquo; (Behold, I am submissive.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night, Rhoda.&rdquo; (You were the first to give the signal of parting.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night.&rdquo; (I am simply submissive.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not my name? Are you hurt with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda choked. The indirectness of speech had been a shelter to her,
+      permitting her to hint at more than she dared clothe in words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the delicious dusky rose glowed beneath his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he had put his hand out to her, and she had not taken it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have I done to offend you? I really don't know, Rhoda.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing.&rdquo; The flower had closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He determined to believe that she was gladdened at heart by the prospect
+      of a fine marriage, and now began to discourse of Anthony's delinquency,
+      saying,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not money taken for money's sake: any one can see that. It was
+      half clear to me, when you told me about it, that the money was not his to
+      give, but I've got the habit of trusting you to be always correct.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I never am,&rdquo; said Rhoda, vexed at him and at herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Women can't judge so well about money matters. Has your uncle no account
+      of his own at the Bank? He was thought to be a bit of a miser.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What he is, or what he was, I can't guess. He has not been near the Bank
+      since that day; nor to his home. He has wandered down on his way here,
+      sleeping in cottages. His heart seems broken. I have still a great deal of
+      the money. I kept it, thinking it might be a protection for Dahlia. Oh! my
+      thoughts and what I have done! Of course, I imagined him to be rich. A
+      thousand pounds seemed a great deal to me, and very little for one who was
+      rich. If I had reflected at all, I must have seen that Uncle Anthony would
+      never have carried so much through the streets. I was like a fiend for
+      money. I must have been acting wrongly. Such a craving as that is a sign
+      of evil.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What evil there is, you're going to mend, Rhoda.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sell myself, then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hardly so bad as that. The money will come from you instead of from your
+      uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda bent forward in her chair, with her elbows on her knees, like a man
+      brooding. Perhaps, it was right that the money should come from her. And
+      how could she have hoped to get the money by any other means? Here at
+      least was a positive escape from perplexity. It came at the right moment;
+      was it a help divine? What cowardice had been prompting her to evade it?
+      After all, could it be a dreadful step that she was required to take?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyes met Robert's, and he said startlingly: &ldquo;Just like a woman!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo; but she had caught the significance, and blushed with spite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was the first to praise you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are brutal to me, Robert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name at last! You accused me of that sort of thing before, in this
+      room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda stood up. &ldquo;I will wish you good night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now you take my hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night,&rdquo; they uttered simultaneously; but Robert did not give up the
+      hand he had got in his own. His eyes grew sharp, and he squeezed the
+      fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm bound,&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Once!&rdquo; Robert drew her nearer to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Once!&rdquo; he reiterated. &ldquo;Rhoda, as I've never kissed you&mdash;once!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No: don't anger me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one has ever kissed you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, I&mdash;&rdquo; His force was compelling the straightened figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had he said, &ldquo;Be mine!&rdquo; she might have softened to his embrace; but there
+      was no fire of divining love in her bosom to perceive her lover's meaning.
+      She read all his words as a placard on a board, and revolted from the
+      outrage of submitting her lips to one who was not to be her husband. His
+      jealousy demanded that gratification foremost. The &ldquo;Be mine!&rdquo; was ready
+      enough to follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me go, Robert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was released. The cause for it was the opening of the door. Anthony
+      stood there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A more astounding resemblance to the phantasm of a dream was never
+      presented. He was clad in a manner to show forth the condition of his
+      wits, in partial night and day attire: one of the farmer's nightcaps was
+      on his head, surmounted by his hat. A confused recollection of the
+      necessity for trousers, had made him draw on those garments sufficiently
+      to permit of the movement of his short legs, at which point their
+      subserviency to the uses ended. Wrinkled with incongruous clothing from
+      head to foot, and dazed by the light, he peered on them, like a mouse
+      magnified and petrified.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dearest uncle!&rdquo; Rhoda went to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony nodded, pointing to the door leading out of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I just want to go off&mdash;go off. Never you mind me. I'm only going
+      off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must go to your bed, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Lord! no. I'm going off, my dear. I've had sleep enough for forty. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+       he turned his mouth to Rhoda's ear, &ldquo;I don't want t' see th' old farmer.&rdquo;
+       And, as if he had given a conclusive reason for his departure, he bored
+      towards the door, repeating it, and bawling additionally, &ldquo;in the
+      morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have seen him, uncle. You have seen him. It's over,&rdquo; said Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony whispered: &ldquo;I don't want t' see th' old farmer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, you have seen him, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the morning, my dear. Not in the morning. He'll be looking and asking,
+      'Where away, brother Tony?' 'Where's your banker's book, brother Tony?'
+      'How's money-market, brother Tony?' I can't see th' old farmer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was impossible to avoid smiling: his imitation of the farmer's country
+      style was exact.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She took his hands, and used every persuasion she could think of to induce
+      him to return to his bed; nor was he insensible to argument, or superior
+      to explanation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Th' old farmer thinks I've got millions, my dear. You can't satisfy him.
+      He... I don't want t' see him in the morning. He thinks I've got millions.
+      His mouth'll go down. I don't want... You don't want him to look... And I
+      can't count now; I can't count a bit. And every post I see 's a policeman.
+      I ain't hiding. Let 'em take the old man. And he was a faithful servant,
+      till one day he got up on a regular whirly-go-round, and ever since...such
+      a little boy! I'm frightened o' you, Rhoda.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will do everything for you,&rdquo; said Rhoda, crying wretchedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because, the young squire says,&rdquo; Anthony made his voice mysterious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; Rhoda stopped him; &ldquo;and I consent:&rdquo; she gave a hurried
+      half-glance behind her. &ldquo;Come, uncle. Oh! pity! don't let me think your
+      reason's gone. I can get you the money, but if you go foolish, I cannot
+      help you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her energy had returned to her with the sense of sacrifice. Anthony eyed
+      her tears. &ldquo;We've sat on a bank and cried together, haven't we?&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;And counted ants, we have. Shall we sit in the sun together to-morrow?
+      Say, we shall. Shall we? A good long day in the sun and nobody looking at
+      me 's my pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda gave him the assurance, and he turned and went upstairs with her,
+      docile at the prospect of hours to be passed in the sunlight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, when morning came, he had disappeared. Robert also was absent from
+      the breakfast-table. The farmer made no remarks, save that he reckoned
+      Master Gammon was right&mdash;in allusion to the veteran's somnolent
+      observation overnight; and strange things were acted before his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There came by the morning delivery of letters one addressed to &ldquo;Miss
+      Fleming.&rdquo; He beheld his daughters rise, put their hands out, and claim it,
+      in a breath; and they gazed upon one another like the two women demanding
+      the babe from the justice of the Wise King. The letter was placed in
+      Rhoda's hand; Dahlia laid hers on it. Their mouths were shut; any one not
+      looking at them would have been unaware that a supreme conflict was going
+      on in the room. It was a strenuous wrestle of their eyeballs, like the
+      &ldquo;give way&rdquo; of athletes pausing. But the delirious beat down the
+      constitutional strength. A hard bright smile ridged the hollow of Dahlia's
+      cheeks. Rhoda's dark eyes shut; she let go her hold, and Dahlia thrust the
+      letter in against her bosom, snatched it out again, and dipped her face to
+      roses in a jug, and kissing Mrs. Sumfit, ran from the room for a single
+      minute; after which she came back smiling with gravely joyful eyes and
+      showing a sedate readiness to eat and conclude the morning meal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What did this mean? The farmer could have made allowance for Rhoda's
+      behaving so, seeing that she notoriously possessed intellect; and he had
+      the habit of charging all freaks and vagaries of manner upon intellect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Dahlia was a soft creature, without this apology for extravagance, and
+      what right had she to letters addressed to &ldquo;Miss Fleming?&rdquo; The farmer
+      prepared to ask a question, and was further instigated to it by seeing
+      Mrs. Sumfit's eyes roll sympathetic under a burden of overpowering
+      curiosity and bewilderment. On the point of speaking, he remembered that
+      he had pledged his word to ask no questions; he feared to&mdash;that was
+      the secret; he had put his trust in Rhoda's assurance, and shrank from a
+      spoken suspicion. So, checking himself, he broke out upon Mrs. Sumfit:
+      &ldquo;Now, then, mother!&rdquo; which caused her to fluster guiltily, she having
+      likewise given her oath to be totally unquestioning, even as was Master
+      Gammon, whom she watched with a deep envy. Mrs. Sumfit excused the anxious
+      expression of her face by saying that she was thinking of her dairy,
+      whither, followed by the veteran, she retired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda stood eyeing Dahlia, nerved to battle against the contents of that
+      letter, though in the first conflict she had been beaten. &ldquo;Oh, this curse
+      of love!&rdquo; she thought in her heart; and as Dahlia left the room, flushed,
+      stupefied, and conscienceless, Rhoda the more readily told her father the
+      determination which was the result of her interview with Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had she done so, than a strange fluttering desire to look on
+      Robert awoke within her bosom. She left the house, believing that she went
+      abroad to seek her uncle, and walked up a small grass-knoll, a little
+      beyond the farm-yard, from which she could see green corn-tracts and the
+      pastures by the river, the river flowing oily under summer light, and the
+      slow-footed cows, with their heads bent to the herbage; far-away sheep,
+      and white hawthorn bushes, and deep hedge-ways bursting out of the
+      trimness of the earlier season; and a nightingale sang among the hazels
+      near by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This scene of unthrobbing peacefulness was beheld by Rhoda with her first
+      conscious delight in it. She gazed round on the farm, under a quick new
+      impulse of affection for her old home. And whose hand was it that could
+      alone sustain the working of the farm, and had done so, without reward?
+      Her eyes travelled up to Wrexby Hall, perfectly barren of any feeling that
+      she was to enter the place, aware only that it was full of pain for her.
+      She accused herself, but could not accept the charge of her having ever
+      hoped for transforming events that should twist and throw the dear old
+      farm-life long back into the fields of memory. Nor could she understand
+      the reason of her continued coolness to Robert. Enough of accurate
+      reflection was given her to perceive that discontent with her station was
+      the original cause of her discontent now. What she had sown she was
+      reaping:&mdash;and wretchedly colourless are these harvests of our dream!
+      The sun has not shone on them. They may have a tragic blood-hue, as with
+      Dahlia's; but they will never have any warm, and fresh, and nourishing
+      sweetness&mdash;the juice which is in a single blade of grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A longing came upon Rhoda to go and handle butter. She wished to smell it
+      as Mrs. Sumfit drubbed and patted and flattened and rounded it in the
+      dairy; and she ran down the slope, meeting her father at the gate. He was
+      dressed in his brushed suit, going she knew whither, and when he asked if
+      she had seen her uncle, she gave for answer a plain negative, and longed
+      more keenly to be at work with her hands, and to smell the homely creamy
+      air under the dairy-shed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0044" id="link2HCH0044">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      She watched her father as he went across the field and into the lane. Her
+      breathing was suppressed till he appeared in view at different points,
+      more and more distant, and then she sighed heavily, stopped her breathing,
+      and hoped her unshaped hope again. The last time he was in sight, she
+      found herself calling to him with a voice like that of a burdened sleeper:
+      her thought being, &ldquo;How can you act so cruelly to Robert!&rdquo; He passed up
+      Wrexby Heath, and over the black burnt patch where the fire had caught the
+      furzes on a dry Maynight, and sank on the side of the Hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we have looked upon a picture of still green life with a troubled
+      soul, and the blow falls on us, we accuse Nature of our own treachery to
+      her. Rhoda hurried from the dairy-door to shut herself up in her room and
+      darken the light surrounding her. She had turned the lock, and was about
+      systematically to pull down the blind, when the marvel of beholding Dahlia
+      stepping out of the garden made her for a moment less the creature of her
+      sickened senses. Dahlia was dressed for a walk, and she went very fast.
+      The same paralysis of motion afflicted Rhoda as when she was gazing after
+      her father; but her hand stretched out instinctively for her bonnet when
+      Dahlia had crossed the green and the mill-bridge, and was no more visible.
+      Rhoda drew her bonnet on, and caught her black silk mantle in her hand,
+      and without strength to throw it across her shoulders, dropped before her
+      bed, and uttered a strange prayer. &ldquo;Let her die rather than go back to
+      disgrace, my God! my God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She tried to rise, and failed in the effort, and superstitiously renewed
+      her prayer. &ldquo;Send death to her rather!&rdquo;&mdash;and Rhoda's vision under her
+      shut eyes conjured up clouds and lightnings, and spheres in conflagration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is nothing so indicative of fevered or of bad blood as the tendency
+      to counsel the Almighty how he shall deal with his creatures. The strain
+      of a long uncertainty, and the late feverish weeks had distempered the
+      fine blood of the girl, and her acts and words were becoming remoter
+      exponents of her character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She bent her head in a blind doze that gave her strength to rise. As
+      swiftly as she could she went in the track of her sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That morning, Robert had likewise received a letter. It was from Major
+      Waring, and contained a bank-note, and a summons to London, as also an
+      enclosure from Mrs. Boulby of Warbeach; the nature of which was an
+      advertisement cut out of the county paper, notifying to one Robert Eccles
+      that his aunt Anne had died, and that there was a legacy for him, to be
+      paid over upon application. Robert crossed the fields, laughing madly at
+      the ironical fate which favoured him a little and a little, and never
+      enough, save just to keep him swimming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter from Major Waring said:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must see you immediately. Be quick and come. I begin to be of your
+      opinion&mdash;there are some things which we must take into our own hands
+      and deal summarily with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay!&mdash;ay!&rdquo; Robert gave tongue in the clear morning air, scenting
+      excitement and eager for it as a hound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More was written, which he read subsequently
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;I wrong,&rdquo; Percy's letter continued, &ldquo;the best of women. She was
+   driven to my door. There is, it seems, some hope that Dahlia will
+   find herself free. At any rate, keep guard over her, and don't
+   leave her. Mrs. Lovell has herself been moving to make discoveries
+   down at Warbeach. Mr. Blancove has nearly quitted this sphere. She
+   nursed him&mdash;I was jealous!&mdash;the word's out. Truth, courage, and
+   suffering touch Margaret's heart.
+
+                  &ldquo;Yours,
+
+                       &ldquo;Percy.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Jumping over a bank, Robert came upon Anthony, who was unsteadily gazing
+      at a donkey that cropped the grass by a gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here you are,&rdquo; said Robert, and took his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony struggled, though he knew the grasp was friendly; but he was led
+      along: nor did Robert stop until they reached Greatham, five miles beyond
+      Wrexby, where he entered the principal inn and called for wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You want spirit: you want life,&rdquo; said Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony knew that he wanted no wine, whatever his needs might be. Yet the
+      tender ecstacy of being paid for was irresistible, and he drank, saying,
+      &ldquo;Just one glass, then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert pledged him. They were in a private room, of which, having ordered
+      up three bottles of sherry, Robert locked the door. The devil was in him.
+      He compelled Anthony to drink an equal portion with himself, alternately
+      frightening and cajoling the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drink, I tell you. You've robbed me, and you shall drink!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't, I haven't,&rdquo; Anthony whined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drink, and be silent. You've robbed me, and you shall drink! and by
+      heaven! if you resist, I'll hand you over to bluer imps than you've ever
+      dreamed of, old gentleman! You've robbed me, Mr. Hackbut. Drink! I tell
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anthony wept into his glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a trick I could never do,&rdquo; said Robert, eyeing the drip of the
+      trembling old tear pitilessly. &ldquo;Your health, Mr. Hackbut. You've robbed me
+      of my sweetheart. Never mind. Life's but the pop of a gun. Some of us
+      flash in the pan, and they're the only ones that do no mischief. You're
+      not one of them, sir; so you must drink, and let me see you cheerful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By degrees, the wine stirred Anthony's blood, and he chirped feebly, as
+      one who half remembered that he ought to be miserable. Robert listened to
+      his maundering account of his adventure with the Bank money, sternly
+      replenishing his glass. His attention was taken by the sight of Dahlia
+      stepping forth from a chemist's shop in the street nearly opposite to the
+      inn. &ldquo;This is my medicine,&rdquo; said Robert; &ldquo;and yours too,&rdquo; he addressed
+      Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun had passed its meridian when they went into the streets again.
+      Robert's head was high as a cock's, and Anthony leaned on his arm;
+      performing short half-circles headlong to the front, until the mighty arm
+      checked and uplifted him. They were soon in the fields leading to Wrexby.
+      Robert saw two female figures far ahead. A man was hastening to join them.
+      The women started and turned suddenly: one threw up her hands, and
+      darkened her face. It was in the pathway of a broad meadow, deep with
+      grass, wherein the red sorrel topped the yellow buttercup, like rust upon
+      the season's gold. Robert hastened on. He scarce at the moment knew the
+      man whose shoulder he seized, but he had recognised Dahlia and Rhoda, and
+      he found himself face to face with Sedgett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you'll keep your hands off; before you make sure, another time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert said: &ldquo;I really beg your pardon. Step aside with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not while I've a ha'p'orth o' brains in my noddle,&rdquo; replied Sedgett,
+      drawling an imitation of his enemy's courteous tone. &ldquo;I've come for my
+      wife. I'm just down by train, and a bit out of my way, I reckon. I'm come,
+      and I'm in a hurry. She shall get home, and have on her things&mdash;boxes
+      packed, and we go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert waved Dahlia and Rhoda to speed homeward. Anthony had fallen
+      against the roots of a banking elm, and surveyed the scene with
+      philosophic abstractedness. Rhoda moved, taking Dahlia's hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop,&rdquo; cried Sedgett. &ldquo;Do you people here think me a fool? Eccles, you
+      know me better 'n that. That young woman's my wife. I've come for her, I
+      tell ye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've no claim on her,&rdquo; Rhoda burst forth weakly, and quivered, and
+      turned her eyes supplicatingly on Robert. Dahlia was a statue of icy
+      fright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've thrown her off, man, and sold what rights you had,&rdquo; said Robert,
+      spying for the point of his person where he might grasp the wretch and
+      keep him off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That don't hold in law,&rdquo; Sedgett nodded. &ldquo;A man may get in a passion,
+      when he finds he's been cheated, mayn't he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have your word of honour,&rdquo; said Rhoda; muttering, &ldquo;Oh! devil come to
+      wrong us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, you shouldn't ha' run ferreting down in my part o' the country.
+      You, or Eccles&mdash;I don't care who 'tis&mdash;you've been at my
+      servants to get at my secrets. Some of you have. You've declared war.
+      You've been trying to undermine me. That's a breach, I call it. Anyhow,
+      I've come for my wife. I'll have her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None of us, none of us; no one has been to your house,&rdquo; said Rhoda,
+      vehemently. &ldquo;You live in Hampshire, sir, I think; I don't know any more. I
+      don't know where. I have not asked my sister. Oh! spare us, and go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one has been down into your part of the country,&rdquo; said Robert, with
+      perfect mildness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To which Sedgett answered bluffly, &ldquo;There ye lie, Bob Eccles;&rdquo; and he was
+      immediately felled by a tremendous blow. Robert strode over him, and
+      taking Dahlia by the elbow, walked three paces on, as to set her in
+      motion. &ldquo;Off!&rdquo; he cried to Rhoda, whose eyelids cowered under the blaze of
+      his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was best that her sister should be away, and she turned and walked
+      swiftly, hurrying Dahlia, and touching her. &ldquo;Oh! don't touch my arm,&rdquo;
+       Dahlia said, quailing in the fall of her breath. They footed together,
+      speechless; taking the woman's quickest gliding step. At the last stile of
+      the fields, Rhoda saw that they were not followed. She stopped, panting:
+      her heart and eyes were so full of that flaming creature who was her
+      lover. Dahlia took from her bosom the letter she had won in the morning,
+      and held it open in both hands to read it. The pause was short. Dahlia
+      struck the letter into her bosom again, and her starved features had some
+      of the bloom of life. She kept her right hand in her pocket, and Rhoda
+      presently asked,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have you there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are my enemy, dear, in some things,&rdquo; Dahlia replied, a muscular
+      shiver passing over her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Rhoda, &ldquo;I could get a little money to send you away. Will
+      you go? I am full of grief for what I have done. God forgive me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray, don't speak so; don't let us talk,&rdquo; said Dahlia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scorched as she felt both in soul and body, a touch or a word was a wound
+      to her. Yet she was the first to resume: &ldquo;I think I shall be saved. I
+      can't quite feel I am lost. I have not been so wicked as that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda gave a loving answer, and again Dahlia shrank from the miserable
+      comfort of words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they came upon the green fronting the iron gateway, Rhoda perceived
+      that the board proclaiming the sale of Queen Anne's Farm had been removed,
+      and now she understood her father's readiness to go up to Wrexby Hall. &ldquo;He
+      would sell me to save the farm.&rdquo; She reproached herself for the thought,
+      but she could not be just; she had the image of her father plodding
+      relentlessly over the burnt heath to the Hall, as conceived by her
+      agonized sensations in the morning, too vividly to be just, though still
+      she knew that her own indecision was to blame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Master Gammon met them in the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pointing aloft, over the gateway, &ldquo;That's down,&rdquo; he remarked, and the
+      three green front teeth of his quiet grin were stamped on the
+      impressionable vision of the girls in such a way that they looked at one
+      another with a bare bitter smile. Once it would have been mirth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell father,&rdquo; Dahlia said, when they were at the back doorway, and her
+      eyes sparkled piteously, and she bit on her underlip. Rhoda tried to
+      detain her; but Dahlia repeated, &ldquo;Tell father,&rdquo; and in strength and in
+      will had become more than a match for her sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0045" id="link2HCH0045">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda spoke to her father from the doorway, with her hand upon the lock of
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first he paid little attention to her, and, when he did so, began by
+      saying that he hoped she knew that she was bound to have the young squire,
+      and did not intend to be prankish and wilful; because the young squire was
+      eager to settle affairs, that he might be settled himself. &ldquo;I don't deny
+      it's honour to us, and it's a comfort,&rdquo; said the farmer. &ldquo;This is the
+      first morning I've thought easily in my chair for years. I'm sorry about
+      Robert, who's a twice unlucky 'un; but you aimed at something higher, I
+      suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda was prompted to say a word in self-defence, but refrained, and again
+      she told Dahlia's story, wondering that her father showed no excitement of
+      any kind. On the contrary, there was the dimple of one of his voiceless
+      chuckles moving about the hollow of one cheek, indicating some slow
+      contemplative action that was not unpleasant within. He said: &ldquo;Ah! well,
+      it's very sad;&mdash;that is, if 'tis so,&rdquo; and no more, for a time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She discovered that he was referring to her uncle Anthony, concerning
+      whose fortunate position in the world, he was beginning to entertain some
+      doubts. &ldquo;Or else,&rdquo; said the farmer, with a tap on his forehead, &ldquo;he's
+      going here. It 'd be odd after all, if commercially, as he 'd call it, his
+      despised brother-in-law&mdash;and I say it in all kindness&mdash;should
+      turn out worth, not exactly millions, but worth a trifle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer nodded with an air of deprecating satisfaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda did not gain his ear until, as by an instinct, she perceived what
+      interest the story of her uncle and the money-bags would have for him. She
+      related it, and he was roused. Then, for the third time, she told him of
+      Dahlia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda saw her father's chest grow large, while his eyes quickened with
+      light. He looked on her with quite a strange face. Wrath, and a revived
+      apprehension, and a fixed will were expressed in it, and as he catechized
+      her for each particular of the truth which had been concealed from him,
+      she felt a respectfulness that was new in her personal sensations toward
+      her father, but it was at the expense of her love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had heard and comprehended all, he said, &ldquo;Send the girl down to
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Rhoda pleaded, &ldquo;She is too worn, she is tottering. She cannot endure a
+      word on this; not even of kindness and help.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, you,&rdquo; said the farmer, &ldquo;you tell her she's got a duty's her first
+      duty now. Obedience to her husband! Do you hear? Then, let her hear it.
+      Obedience to her husband! And welcome's the man when he calls on me. He's
+      welcome. My doors are open to him. I thank him. I honour him. I bless his
+      name. It's to him I owe&mdash;You go up to her and say, her father owes it
+      to the young man who's married her that he can lift up his head. Go aloft.
+      Ay! for years I've been suspecting something of this. I tell ye, girl, I
+      don't understand about church doors and castin' of her off&mdash;he's come
+      for her, hasn't he? Then, he shall have her. I tell ye, I don't understand
+      about money: he's married her. Well, then, she's his wife; and how can he
+      bargain not to see her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The base wretch!&rdquo; cried Rhoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hasn't he married her?&rdquo; the farmer retorted. &ldquo;Hasn't he given the poor
+      creature a name? I'm not for abusing her, but him I do thank, and I say,
+      when he calls, here's my hand for him. Here, it's out and waiting for
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father, if you let me see it&mdash;&rdquo; Rhoda checked the intemperate
+      outburst. &ldquo;Father, this is a bad&mdash;a bad man. He is a very wicked man.
+      We were all deceived by him. Robert knows him. He has known him for years,
+      and knows that he is very wicked. This man married our Dahlia to get&mdash;&rdquo;
+       Rhoda gasped, and could not speak it. &ldquo;He flung her off with horrible
+      words at the church door. After this, how can he claim her? I paid him all
+      he had to expect with uncle's money, for his promise by his sacred oath
+      never, never to disturb or come near my sister. After that he can't, can't
+      claim her. If he does&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's her husband,&rdquo; interrupted the farmer; &ldquo;when he comes here, he's
+      welcome. I say he's welcome. My hand's out to him:&mdash;If it's alone
+      that he's saved the name of Fleming from disgrace! I thank him, and my
+      daughter belongs to him. Where is he now? You talk of a scuffle with
+      Robert. I do hope Robert will not forget his proper behaviour. Go you up
+      to your sister, and say from me&mdash;All's forgotten and forgiven; say,
+      It's all underfoot; but she must learn to be a good girl from this day.
+      And, if she's at the gate to welcome her husband, so much the better 'll
+      her father be pleased;&mdash;say that. I want to see the man. It'll
+      gratify me to feel her husband's flesh and blood. His being out of sight
+      so long's been a sore at my heart; and when I see him I'll welcome him,
+      and so must all in my house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was how William Fleming received the confession of his daughter's
+      unhappy plight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda might have pleaded Dahlia's case better, but that she was too
+      shocked and outraged by the selfishness she saw in her father, and the
+      partial desire to scourge which she was too intuitively keen at the moment
+      not to perceive in the paternal forgiveness, and in the stipulation of the
+      forgiveness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went upstairs to Dahlia, simply stating that their father was aware of
+      all the circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia looked at her, but dared ask nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So the day passed. Neither Robert nor Anthony appeared. The night came:
+      all doors were locked. The sisters that night slept together, feeling the
+      very pulses of the hours; yet neither of them absolutely hopelessly,
+      although in a great anguish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda was dressed by daylight. The old familiar country about the house
+      lay still as if it knew no expectation. She observed Master Gammon
+      tramping forth afield, and presently heard her father's voice below. All
+      the machinery of the daily life got into motion; but it was evident that
+      Robert and Anthony continued to be absent. A thought struck her that
+      Robert had killed the man. It came with a flash of joy that was speedily
+      terror, and she fell to praying vehemently and vaguely. Dahlia lay
+      exhausted on the bed, but nigh the hour when letters were delivered, she
+      sat up, saying, &ldquo;There is one for me; get it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was in truth a letter for her below, and it was in her father's hand
+      and open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come out,&rdquo; said the farmer, as Rhoda entered to him. When they were in
+      the garden, he commanded her to read and tell him the meaning of it. The
+      letter was addressed to Dahlia Fleming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's for my sister,&rdquo; Rhoda murmured, in anger, but more in fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was sternly bidden to read, and she read,&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   Dahlia,&mdash;There is mercy for us. You are not lost to me.
+
+                  &ldquo;Edward.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      After this, was appended in a feminine hand:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;There is really hope. A few hours will tell us. But keep firm.
+   If he comes near you, keep from him. You are not his. Run, hide,
+   go anywhere, if you have reason to think he is near. I dare not
+   write what it is we expect. Yesterday I told you to hope; to-day I
+   can say, believe that you will be saved. You are not lost.
+   Everything depends on your firmness.
+
+                  &ldquo;Margaret L.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda lifted up her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer seized the letter, and laid his finger on the first signature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that the christian name of my girl's seducer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not wait for an answer, but turned and went into the
+      breakfast-table, when he ordered a tray with breakfast for Dahlia to
+      betaken up to her bed-room; and that done, he himself turned the key of
+      the door, and secured her. Mute woe was on Mrs. Sumfit's face at all these
+      strange doings, but none heeded her, and she smothered her lamentations.
+      The farmer spoke nothing either of Robert or of Anthony. He sat in his
+      chair till the dinner hour, without book or pipe, without occupation for
+      eyes or hands; silent, but acute in his hearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The afternoon brought relief to Rhoda's apprehensions. A messenger ran up
+      to the farm bearing a pencilled note to her from Robert, which said that
+      he, in company with her uncle, was holding Sedgett at a distance by force
+      of arm, and that there was no fear. Rhoda kissed the words, hurrying away
+      to the fields for a few minutes to thank and bless and dream of him who
+      had said that there was no fear. She knew that Dahlia was unconscious of
+      her imprisonment, and had less compunction in counting the minutes of her
+      absence. The sun spread in yellow and fell in red before she thought of
+      returning, so sweet it had become to her to let her mind dwell with
+      Robert; and she was half a stranger to the mournfulness of the house when
+      she set her steps homeward. But when she lifted the latch of the gate, a
+      sensation, prompted by some unwitting self-accusal, struck her with alarm.
+      She passed into the room, and beheld her father, and Mrs. Sumfit, who was
+      sitting rolling, with her apron over her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man Sedgett was between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0046" id="link2HCH0046">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had Rhoda appeared than her father held up the key of Dahlia's
+      bed-room, and said, &ldquo;Unlock your sister, and fetch her down to her
+      husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mechanically Rhoda took the key.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And leave our door open,&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went up to Dahlia, sick with a sudden fright lest evil had come to
+      Robert, seeing that his enemy was here; but that was swept from her by
+      Dahlia's aspect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is in the house,&rdquo; Dahlia said; and asked, &ldquo;Was there no letter&mdash;no
+      letter; none, this morning?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda clasped her in her arms, seeking to check the convulsions of her
+      trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No letter! no letter! none? not any? Oh! no letter for me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The strange varying tones of musical interjection and interrogation were
+      pitiful to hear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you look for a letter?&rdquo; said Rhoda, despising herself for so
+      speaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is in the house! Where is my letter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was it you hoped? what was it you expected, darling?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia moaned: &ldquo;I don't know. I'm blind. I was told to hope. Yesterday I
+      had my letter, and it told me to hope. He is in the house!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my dear, my love!&rdquo; cried Rhoda; &ldquo;come down a minute. See him. It is
+      father's wish. Come only for a minute. Come, to gain time, if there is
+      hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there was no letter for me this morning, Rhoda. I can't hope. I am
+      lost. He is in the house!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dearest, there was a letter,&rdquo; said Rhoda, doubting that she did well in
+      revealing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia put out her hands dumb for the letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father opened it, and read it, and keeps it,&rdquo; said Rhoda, clinging tight
+      to the stricken form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, he is against me? Oh, my letter!&rdquo; Dahlia wrung her hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were speaking, their father's voice was heard below calling for
+      Dahlia to descend. He came thrice to the foot of the stairs, and shouted
+      for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third time he uttered a threat that sprang an answer from her bosom in
+      shrieks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda went out on the landing and said softly, &ldquo;Come up to her, father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a little hesitation, he ascended the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, girl, I only ask you to come down and see your husband,&rdquo; he remarked
+      with an attempt at kindliness of tone. &ldquo;What's the harm, then? Come and
+      see him; that's all; come and see him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia was shrinking out of her father's sight as he stood in the doorway.
+      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; she communicated to Rhoda, &ldquo;say, I want my letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come!&rdquo; William Fleming grew impatient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let her have her letter, father,&rdquo; said Rhoda. &ldquo;You have no right to
+      withhold it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That letter, my girl&rdquo; (he touched Rhoda's shoulder as to satisfy her that
+      he was not angry), &ldquo;that letter's where it ought to be. I've puzzled out
+      the meaning of it. That letter's in her husband's possession.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia, with her ears stretching for all that might be uttered, heard
+      this. Passing round the door, she fronted her father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My letter gone to him!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Shameful old man! Can you look on me?
+      Father, could you give it? I'm a dead woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smote her bosom, stumbling backward upon Rhoda's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have been a wicked girl,&rdquo; the ordinarily unmoved old man retorted.
+      &ldquo;Your husband has come for you, and you go with him. Know that, and let me
+      hear no threats. He's a modest-minded, quiet young man, and a farmer like
+      myself, and needn't be better than he is. Come you down to him at once.
+      I'll tell you: he comes to take you away, and his cart's at the gate. To
+      the gate you go with him. When next I see you&mdash;you visiting me or I
+      visiting you&mdash;I shall see a respected creature, and not what you have
+      been and want to be. You have racked the household with fear and shame for
+      years. Now come, and carry out what you've begun in the contrary
+      direction. You've got my word o' command, dead woman or live woman. Rhoda,
+      take one elbow of your sister. Your aunt's coming up to pack her box. I
+      say I'm determined, and no one stops me when I say that. Come out, Dahlia,
+      and let our parting be like between parent and child. Here's the dark
+      falling, and your husband's anxious to be away. He has business, and 'll
+      hardly get you to the station for the last train to town. Hark at him
+      below! He's naturally astonished, he is, and you're trying his temper, as
+      you'd try any man's. He wants to be off. Come, and when next we meet I
+      shall see you a happy wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He might as well have spoken to a corpse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak to her still, father,&rdquo; said Rhoda, as she drew a chair upon which
+      she leaned her sister's body, and ran down full of the power of hate and
+      loathing to confront Sedgett; but great as was that power within her, it
+      was overmatched by his brutal resolution to take his wife away. No
+      argument, no irony, no appeals, can long withstand the iteration of a
+      dogged phrase. &ldquo;I've come for my wife,&rdquo; Sedgett said to all her instances.
+      His voice was waxing loud and insolent, and, as it sounded, Mrs. Sumfit
+      moaned and flapped her apron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, how could you have married him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They heard the farmer's roar of this unanswerable thing, aloft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;how! how!&rdquo; cried Rhoda below, utterly forgetting the part she
+      had played in the marriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's too late to hate a man when you've married him, my girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedgett went out to the foot of the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Fleming&mdash;she's my wife. I'll teach her about hating and loving.
+      I'll behave well to her, I swear. I'm in the midst of enemies; but I say I
+      do love my wife, and I've come for her, and have her I will. Now, in two
+      minutes' time. Mr. Fleming, my cart's at the gate, and I've got business,
+      and she's my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer called for Mrs. Sumfit to come up and pack Dahlia's box, and
+      the forlorn woman made her way to the bedroom. All the house was silent.
+      Rhoda closed her sight, and she thought: &ldquo;Does God totally abandon us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She let her father hear: &ldquo;Father, you know that you are killing your
+      child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hear ye, my lass,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She will die, father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hear ye, I hear ye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She will die, father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stamped furiously, exclaiming: &ldquo;Who's got the law of her better and
+      above a husband? Hear reason, and come and help and fetch down your
+      sister. She goes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father!&rdquo; Rhoda cried, looking at her open hands, as if she marvelled to
+      see them helpless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was for a time that silence which reigns in a sickchamber when the
+      man of medicine takes the patient's wrist. And in the silence came a
+      blessed sound&mdash;the lifting of a latch. Rhoda saw Robert's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So,&rdquo; said Robert, as she neared him, &ldquo;you needn't tell me what's
+      happened. Here's the man, I see. He dodged me cleverly. The hound wants
+      practice; the fox is born with his cunning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Few words were required to make him understand the position of things in
+      the house. Rhoda spoke out all without hesitation in Sedgett's hearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the farmer respected Robert enough to come down to him and explain his
+      views of his duty and his daughter's duty. By the kitchen firelight he and
+      Robert and Sedgett read one another's countenances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has a proper claim to take his wife, Robert,&rdquo; said the farmer. &ldquo;He's
+      righted her before the world, and I thank him; and if he asks for her of
+      me he must have her, and he shall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, sir,&rdquo; replied Robert, &ldquo;and I say too, shall, when I'm stiff as
+      log-wood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! Robert, Robert!&rdquo; Rhoda cried in great joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean that you step 'twixt me and my own?&rdquo; said Mr. Fleming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't let you nod at downright murder&mdash;that's all,&rdquo; said Robert.
+      &ldquo;She&mdash;Dahlia, take the hand of that creature!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did she marry me?&rdquo; thundered Sedgett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's one o' the wonders!&rdquo; Robert rejoined. &ldquo;Except that you're an
+      amazingly clever hypocrite with women; and she was just half dead and had
+      no will of her own; and some one set you to hunt her down. I tell you, Mr.
+      Fleming, you might as well send your daughter to the hangman as put her in
+      this fellow's hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's his wife, man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May be,&rdquo; Robert assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, Robert Eccles!&rdquo; said Sedgett hoarsely; &ldquo;I've come for my wife&mdash;do
+      you hear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have, I dare say,&rdquo; returned Robert. &ldquo;You dodged me cleverly, that you
+      did. I'd like to know how it was done. I see you've got a cart outside and
+      a boy at the horse's head. The horse steps well, does he? I'm about three
+      hours behind him, I reckon:&mdash;not too late, though!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He let fall a great breath of weariness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda went to the cupboard and drew forth a rarely touched bottle of
+      spirits, with which she filled a small glass, and handing the glass to
+      him, said, &ldquo;Drink.&rdquo; He smiled kindly and drank it off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The man's in your house, Mr. Fleming,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he's my guest, and my daughter's husband, remember that,&rdquo; said the
+      farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And mean to wait not half a minute longer till I've taken her off&mdash;mark
+      that,&rdquo; Sedgett struck in. &ldquo;Now, Mr. Fleming, you see you keep good your
+      word to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll do no less,&rdquo; said the farmer. He went into the passage shouting for
+      Mrs. Sumfit to bring down the box.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She begs,&rdquo; Mrs. Sumfit answered to him&mdash;&ldquo;She begs, William, on'y a
+      short five minutes to pray by herself, which you will grant unto her,
+      dear, you will. Lord! what's come upon us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quick, and down with the box, then, mother,&rdquo; he rejoined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The box was dragged out, and Dahlia's door was shut, that she might have
+      her last minutes alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda kissed her sister before leaving her alone: and so cold were
+      Dahlia's lips, so tight the clutch of her hands, that she said: &ldquo;Dearest,
+      think of God:&rdquo; and Dahlia replied: &ldquo;I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will not forsake you,&rdquo; Rhoda said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia nodded, with shut eyes, and Rhoda went forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, Robert, you and I'll see who's master on these premises,&rdquo; said
+      the farmer. &ldquo;Hear, all! I'm bounders under a sacred obligation to the
+      husband of my child, and the Lord's wrath on him who interferes and lifts
+      his hand against me when I perform my sacred duty as a father. Place
+      there! I'm going to open the door. Rhoda, see to your sister's bonnet and
+      things. Robert, stand out of my way. There's no refreshment of any sort
+      you'll accept of before starting, Mr. Sedgett? None at all! That's no
+      fault of my hospitality. Stand out of my way, Robert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was obeyed. Robert looked at Rhoda, but had no reply for her gaze of
+      despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer threw the door wide open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were people in the garden&mdash;strangers. His name was inquired for
+      out of the dusk. Then whisperings were heard passing among the
+      ill-discerned forms, and the farmer went out to them. Robert listened
+      keenly, but the touch of Rhoda's hand upon his own distracted his hearing.
+      &ldquo;Yet it must be!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Why does she come here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Both he and Rhoda followed the farmer's steps, drawn forth by the
+      ever-credulous eagerness which arises from an interruption to excited
+      wretchedness. Near and nearer to the group, they heard a quaint old woman
+      exclaim: &ldquo;Come here to you for a wife, when he has one of his own at home;
+      a poor thing he shipped off to America, thinking himself more cunning than
+      devils or angels: and she got put out at a port, owing to stress of
+      weather, to defeat the man's wickedness! Can't I prove it to you, sir,
+      he's a married man, which none of us in our village knew till the poor
+      tricked thing crawled back penniless to find him;&mdash;and there she is
+      now with such a story of his cunning to tell to anybody as will listen;
+      and why he kept it secret to get her pension paid him still on. It's all
+      such a tale for you to hear by-and-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert burst into a glorious laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, mother! Mrs. Boulby! haven't you got a word for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My blessedest Robert!&rdquo; the good woman cried, as she rushed up to kiss
+      him. &ldquo;Though it wasn't to see you I came exactly.&rdquo; She whispered: &ldquo;The
+      Major and the good gentleman&mdash;they're behind. I travelled down with
+      them. Dear,&mdash;you'd like to know:&mdash;Mrs. Lovell sent her little
+      cunning groom down to Warbeach just two weeks back to make inquiries about
+      that villain; and the groom left me her address, in case, my dear, when
+      the poor creature&mdash;his true wife&mdash;crawled home, and we knew of
+      her at Three-Tree Farm and knew her story. I wrote word at once, I did, to
+      Mrs. Lovell, and the sweet good lady sent down her groom to fetch me to
+      you to make things clear here. You shall understand them soon. It's
+      Providence at work. I do believe that now there's a chance o' punishing
+      the wicked ones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The figure of Rhoda with two lights in her hand was seen in the porch, and
+      by the shadowy rays she beheld old Anthony leaning against the house, and
+      Major Waring with a gentleman beside him close upon the gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same time a sound of wheels was heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert rushed back into the great parlour-kitchen, and finding it empty,
+      stamped with vexation. His prey had escaped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there was no relapse to give spare thoughts to that pollution of the
+      house. It had passed. Major Waring was talking earnestly to Mr. Fleming,
+      who held his head low, stupefied, and aware only of the fact that it was a
+      gentleman imparting to him strange matters. By degrees all were beneath
+      the farmer's roof&mdash;all, save one, who stood with bowed head by the
+      threshold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a sort of hero, and a sort of villain, to this story: they are
+      but instruments. Hero and villain are combined in the person of Edward,
+      who was now here to abase himself before the old man and the family he had
+      injured, and to kneel penitently at the feet of the woman who had just
+      reason to spurn him. He had sold her as a slave is sold; he had seen her
+      plunged into the blackest pit; yet was she miraculously kept pure for him,
+      and if she could give him her pardon, might still be his. The grief for
+      which he could ask no compassion had at least purified him to meet her
+      embrace. The great agony he had passed through of late had killed his
+      meaner pride. He stood there ready to come forward and ask forgiveness
+      from unfriendly faces, and beg that he might be in Dahlia's eyes once&mdash;that
+      he might see her once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had grown to love her with the fullest force of a selfish, though not a
+      common, nature. Or rather he had always loved her, and much of the
+      selfishness had fallen away from his love. It was not the highest form of
+      love, but the love was his highest development. He had heard that Dahlia,
+      lost to him, was free. Something like the mortal yearning to look upon the
+      dead risen to life, made it impossible for him to remain absent and in
+      doubt. He was ready to submit to every humiliation that he might see the
+      rescued features; he was willing to pay all his penalties. Believing, too,
+      that he was forgiven, he knew that Dahlia's heart would throb for him to
+      be near her, and he had come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The miraculous agencies which had brought him and Major Waring and Mrs.
+      Boulby to the farm, that exalted woman was relating to Mrs. Sumfit in
+      another part of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer, and Percy, and Robert were in the family sitting-room, when,
+      after an interval, William Fleming said aloud, &ldquo;Come in, sir,&rdquo; and Edward
+      stepped in among them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda was above, seeking admittance to her sisters door, and she heard her
+      father utter that welcome. It froze her limbs, for still she hated the
+      evil-doer. Her hatred of him was a passion. She crouched over the stairs,
+      listening to a low and long-toned voice monotonously telling what seemed
+      to be one sole thing over and over, without variation, in the room where
+      the men were. Words were indistinguishable. Thrice, after calling to
+      Dahlia and getting no response, she listened again, and awe took her soul
+      at last, for, abhorred as he was by her, his power was felt: she
+      comprehended something of that earnestness which made the offender speak
+      of his wrongful deeds, and his shame, and his remorse, before his
+      fellow-men, straight out and calmly, like one who has been plunged up to
+      the middle in the fires of the abyss, and is thereafter insensible to
+      meaner pains. The voice ended. She was then aware that it had put a charm
+      upon her ears. The other voices following it sounded dull.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has he&mdash;can he have confessed in words all his wicked baseness?&rdquo; she
+      thought, and in her soul the magnitude of his crime threw a gleam of
+      splendour on his courage, even at the bare thought that he might have done
+      this. Feeling that Dahlia was saved, and thenceforth at liberty to despise
+      him and torture him, Rhoda the more readily acknowledged that it might be
+      a true love for her sister animating him. From the height of a possible
+      vengeance it was perceptible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to her sister's door and knocked at it, calling to her, &ldquo;Safe,
+      safe!&rdquo; but there came no answer; and she was half glad, for she had a fear
+      that in the quick revulsion of her sister's feelings, mere earthly love
+      would act like heavenly charity, and Edward would find himself forgiven
+      only too instantly and heartily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the small musk-scented guest's parlour, Mrs. Boulby was giving Mrs.
+      Sumfit and poor old sleepy Anthony the account of the miraculous discovery
+      of Sedgett's wickedness, which had vindicated all one hoped for from
+      Above; as also the narration of the stabbing of her boy, and the heroism
+      and great-heartedness of Robert. Rhoda listened to her for a space, and
+      went to her sister's door again; but when she stood outside the kitchen
+      she found all voices silent within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was, in truth, not only very difficult for William Fleming to change
+      his view of the complexion of circumstances as rapidly as circumstances
+      themselves changed, but it was very bitter for him to look upon Edward,
+      and to see him in the place of Sedgett.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been struck dumb by the sudden revolution of affairs in his house;
+      and he had been deferentially convinced by Major Waring's tone that he
+      ought rightly to give his hearing to an unknown young gentleman against
+      whom anger was due. He had listened to Edward without one particle of
+      comprehension, except of the fact that his behaviour was extraordinary. He
+      understood that every admission made by Edward with such grave and strange
+      directness, would justly have condemned him to punishment which the
+      culprit's odd, and upright, and even-toned self-denunciation rendered it
+      impossible to think of inflicting. He knew likewise that a whole history
+      was being narrated to him, and that, although the other two listeners
+      manifestly did not approve it, they expected him to show some tolerance to
+      the speaker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He said once, &ldquo;Robert, do me the favour to look about outside for t'
+      other.&rdquo; Robert answered him, that the man was far away by this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer suggested that he might be waiting to say his word presently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you know you've been dealing with a villain, sir?&rdquo; cried Robert.
+      &ldquo;Throw ever so little light upon one of that breed, and they skulk in a
+      hurry. Mr. Fleming, for the sake of your honour, don't mention him again.
+      What you're asked to do now, is to bury the thoughts of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He righted my daughter when there was shame on her,&rdquo; the farmer replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was the idea printed simply on his understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For Edward to hear it was worse than a scourging with rods. He bore it,
+      telling the last vitality of his pride to sleep, and comforting himself
+      with the drowsy sensuous expectation that he was soon to press the hand of
+      his lost one, his beloved, who was in the house, breathing the same air
+      with him; was perhaps in the room above, perhaps sitting impatiently with
+      clasped fingers, waiting for the signal to unlock them and fling them
+      open. He could imagine the damp touch of very expectant fingers; the dying
+      look of life-drinking eyes; and, oh! the helplessness of her limbs as she
+      sat buoying a heart drowned in bliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was unknown to him that the peril of her uttermost misery had been so
+      imminent, and the picture conjured of her in his mind was that of a gentle
+      but troubled face&mdash;a soul afflicted, yet hoping because it had been
+      told to hope, and half conscious that a rescue, almost divine in its
+      suddenness and unexpectedness, and its perfect clearing away of all
+      shadows, approached.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Manifestly, by the pallid cast of his visage, he had tasted shrewd and
+      wasting grief of late. Robert's heart melted as he beheld the change in
+      Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe, Mr. Blancove, I'm a little to blame,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Perhaps when I
+      behaved so badly down at Fairly, you may have thought she sent me, and it
+      set your heart against her for a time. I can just understand how it
+      might.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward thought for a moment, and conscientiously accepted the suggestion;
+      for, standing under that roof, with her whom he loved near him, it was
+      absolutely out of his power for him to comprehend that his wish to break
+      from Dahlia, and the measures he had taken or consented to, had sprung
+      from his own unassisted temporary baseness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Robert spoke to the farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rhoda could hear Robert's words. Her fear was that Dahlia might hear them
+      too, his pleading for Edward was so hearty. &ldquo;Yet why should I always think
+      differently from Robert?&rdquo; she asked herself, and with that excuse for
+      changeing, partially thawed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was very anxious for her father's reply; and it was late in coming.
+      She felt that he was unconvinced. But suddenly the door opened, and the
+      farmer called into the darkness,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahlia down here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Previously emotionless, an emotion was started in Rhoda's bosom by the
+      command, and it was gladness. She ran up and knocked, and found herself
+      crying out: &ldquo;He is here&mdash;Edward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But there came no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Edward is here. Come, come and see him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still not one faint reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dahlia! Dahlia!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The call of Dahlia's name seemed to travel endlessly on. Rhoda knelt, and
+      putting her mouth to the door, said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My darling, I know you will reply to me. I know you do not doubt me now.
+      Listen. You are to come down to happiness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The silence grew heavier; and now a doubt came shrieking through her soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father!&rdquo; rang her outcry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The father came; and then the lover came, and neither to father nor to
+      lover was there any word from Dahlia's voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was found by the side of the bed, inanimate, and pale as a sister of
+      death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But you who may have cared for her through her many tribulations, have no
+      fear for this gentle heart. It was near the worst; yet not the worst.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0047" id="link2HCH0047">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Up to the black gates, but not beyond them. The dawn following such a
+      night will seem more like a daughter of the night than promise of day. It
+      is day that follows, notwithstanding: The sad fair girl survived, and her
+      flickering life was the sole light of the household; at times burying its
+      members in dusk, to shine on them again more like a prolonged farewell
+      than a gladsome restoration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was saved by what we call chance; for it had not been in her design to
+      save herself. The hand was firm to help her to the deadly draught. As far
+      as could be conjectured, she had drunk it between hurried readings from
+      her mother's Bible; the one true companion to which she had often clung,
+      always half-availingly. The Bible was found by her side, as if it had
+      fallen from the chair before which she knelt to read her last quickening
+      verses, and had fallen with her. One arm was about it; one grasped the
+      broken phial with its hideous label.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was uncomplainingly registered among the few facts very distinctly
+      legible in Master Gammon's memory, that for three entire weeks he had no
+      dumplings for dinner at the farm; and although, upon a computation,
+      articles of that description, amounting probably to sixty-three (if there
+      is any need for our being precise), were due to him, and would necessarily
+      be for evermore due to him, seeing that it is beyond all human and even
+      spiritual agency to make good unto man the dinner he has lost, Master
+      Gammon uttered no word to show that he was sensible of a slight, which was
+      the only indication given by him of his knowledge of a calamity having
+      changed the order of things at the farm. On the day when dumplings
+      reappeared, he remarked, with a glance at the ceiling: &ldquo;Goin' on better&mdash;eh,
+      marm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! Mas' Gammon,&rdquo; Mrs. Sumfit burst out; &ldquo;if I was only certain you said
+      your prayers faithful every night!&rdquo; The observation was apparently taken
+      by Master Gammon to express one of the mere emotions within her bosom, for
+      he did not reply to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She watched him feeding in his steady way, with the patient bent back, and
+      slowly chopping old grey jaws, and struck by a pathos in the sight,
+      exclaimed,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've all been searched so, Mas' Gammon! I feel I know everything that's
+      in me. I'd say, I couldn't ha' given you dumplin's and tears; but think of
+      our wickedness, when I confess to you I did feel spiteful at you to think
+      that you were wiltin' to eat the dumplin's while all of us mourned and
+      rocked as in a quake, expecting the worst to befall; and that made me
+      refuse them to you. It was cruel of me, and well may you shake your head.
+      If I was only sure you said your prayers!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The meaning in her aroused heart was, that if she could be sure Master
+      Gammon said his prayers, so as to be searched all through by them, as she
+      was herself, and to feel thereby, as she did, that he knew everything that
+      was within him, she would then, in admiration of his profound equanimity,
+      acknowledge him to be a superior Christian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Naturally enough, Master Gammon allowed the interjection to pass,
+      regarding it as simply a vagrant action of the engine of speech; while
+      Mrs. Sumfit, with an interjector's consciousness of prodigious things
+      implied which were not in any degree comprehended, left his presence in
+      kindness, and with a shade less of the sense that he was a superior
+      Christian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, the sight of Master Gammon was like a comforting medicine to
+      all who were in the house. He was Mrs. Sumfit's clock; he was balm and
+      blessedness in Rhoda's eyes; Anthony was jealous of him; the farmer held
+      to him as to a stake in the ground: even Robert, who rallied and
+      tormented, and was vexed by him, admitted that he stood some way between
+      an example and a warning, and was a study. The grand primaeval quality of
+      unchangeableness, as exhibited by this old man, affected them singularly
+      in their recovery from the storm and the wreck of the hours gone by; so
+      much so that they could not divest themselves of the idea that it was a
+      manifestation of power in Master Gammon to show forth undisturbed while
+      they were feeling their life shaken in them to the depths. I have never
+      had the opportunity of examining the idol-worshipping mind of a savage;
+      but it seems possible that the immutability of aspect of his little wooden
+      God may sometimes touch him with a similar astounded awe;&mdash;even when,
+      and indeed especially after, he has thrashed it. Had the old man betrayed
+      his mortality in a sign of curiosity to know why the hubbub of trouble had
+      arisen, and who was to blame, and what was the story, the effect on them
+      would have been diminished. He really seemed granite among the turbulent
+      waves. &ldquo;Give me Gammon's life!&rdquo; was Farmer Fleming's prayerful
+      interjection; seeing him come and go, sit at his meals, and sleep and wake
+      in season, all through those tragic hours of suspense, without a question
+      to anybody. Once or twice, when his eye fell upon the doctor, Master
+      Gammon appeared to meditate. He observed that the doctor had never been
+      called in to one of his family, and it was evident that he did not
+      understand the complication of things which rendered the doctor's visit
+      necessary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll never live so long as that old man,&rdquo; the farmer said to Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; but when he goes, all of him's gone,&rdquo; Robert answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Gammon's got the wisdom to keep himself safe, Robert; there's no one
+      to blame for his wrinkles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gammon's a sheepskin old Time writes his nothings on,&rdquo; said Robert. &ldquo;He's
+      safe&mdash;safe enough. An old hulk doesn't very easily manage to founder
+      in the mud, and Gammon's been lying on the mud all his life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let that be how 't will,&rdquo; returned the farmer; &ldquo;I've had days o' mortal
+      envy of that old man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it's whether you prefer being the fiddle or the fiddle-case,&rdquo; quoth
+      Robert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of Anthony the farmer no longer had any envy. In him, though he was as
+      passive as Master Gammon, the farmer beheld merely a stupefied old man,
+      and not a steady machine. He knew that some queer misfortune had befallen
+      Anthony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'll find I'm brotherly,&rdquo; said Mr. Fleming; but Anthony had darkened his
+      golden horizon for him, and was no longer an attractive object to his
+      vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon an Autumn afternoon; Dahlia, looking like a pale Spring flower, came
+      down among them. She told her sister that it was her wish to see Edward.
+      Rhoda had lost all power of will, even if she had desired to keep them
+      asunder. She mentioned Dahlia's wish to her father, who at once went for
+      his hat, and said: &ldquo;Dress yourself neat, my lass.&rdquo; She knew what was meant
+      by that remark. Messages daily had been coming down from the Hall, but the
+      rule of a discerning lady was then established there, and Rhoda had been
+      spared a visit from either Edward or Algernon, though she knew them to be
+      at hand. During Dahlia's convalescence, the farmer had not spoken to Rhoda
+      of her engagement to the young squire. The great misery intervening,
+      seemed in her mind to have cancelled all earthly engagements; and when he
+      said that she must use care in her attire he suddenly revived a dread
+      within her bosom, as if he had plucked her to the verge of a chasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Mrs. Lovell's delicacy was still manifest: Edward came alone, and he
+      and Dahlia were left apart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no need to ask for pardon from those gentle eyes. They joined
+      hands. She was wasted and very weak, but she did not tremble. Passion was
+      extinguished. He refrained from speaking of their union, feeling sure that
+      they were united. It required that he should see her to know fully the
+      sinner he had been. Wasted though she was, he was ready to make her his
+      own, if only for the sake of making amends to this dear fair soul, whose
+      picture of Saint was impressed on him, first as a response to the world
+      wondering at his sacrifice of himself, and next, by degrees, as an
+      absolute visible fleshly fact. She had come out of her martyrdom stamped
+      with the heavenly sign-mark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those are the old trees I used to speak of,&rdquo; she said, pointing to the
+      two pines in the miller's grounds. &ldquo;They always look like Adam and Eve
+      turning away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They do not make you unhappy to see them, Dahlia?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope to see them till I am gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward pressed her fingers. He thought that warmer hopes would soon flow
+      into her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The neighbours are kind?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very kind. They, inquire after me daily.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His cheeks reddened; he had spoken at random, and he wondered that Dahlia
+      should feel it pleasurable to be inquired after, she who was so sensitive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The clergyman sits with me every day, and knows my heart,&rdquo; she added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The clergyman is a comfort to women,&rdquo; said Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia looked at him gently. The round of her thin eyelids dwelt on him.
+      She wished. She dared not speak her wish to one whose remembered mastery
+      in words forbade her poor speechlessness. But God would hear her prayers
+      for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edward begged that he might come to her often, and she said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He misinterpreted the readiness of the invitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had left her, he reflected on the absence of all endearing
+      epithets in her speech, and missed them. Having himself suffered, he
+      required them. For what had she wrestled so sharply with death, if not to
+      fall upon his bosom and be his in a great outpouring of gladness? In fact
+      he craved the immediate reward for his public acknowledgement of his
+      misdeeds. He walked in this neighbourhood known by what he had done, and
+      his desire was to take his wife away, never more to be seen there.
+      Following so deep a darkness, he wanted at least a cheerful dawn: not one
+      of a penitential grey&mdash;not a hooded dawn, as if the paths of life
+      were to be under cloistral arches. And he wanted a rose of womanhood in
+      his hand like that he had parted with, and to recover which he had endured
+      every earthly mortification, even to absolute abasement. The frail bent
+      lily seemed a stranger to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Can a man go farther than his nature? Never, when he takes passion on
+      board. By other means his nature may be enlarged and nerved, but passion
+      will find his weakness, and, while urging him on, will constantly betray
+      him at that point. Edward had three interviews with Dahlia; he wrote to
+      her as many times. There was but one answer for him; and when he ceased to
+      charge her with unforgivingness, he came to the strange conclusion that
+      beyond our calling of a woman a Saint for rhetorical purposes, and
+      esteeming her as one for pictorial, it is indeed possible, as he had
+      slightly discerned in this woman's presence, both to think her saintly and
+      to have the sentiments inspired by the overearthly in her person. Her
+      voice, her simple words of writing, her gentle resolve, all issuing of a
+      capacity to suffer evil, and pardon it, conveyed that character to a mind
+      not soft for receiving such impressions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0048" id="link2HCH0048">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Major Waring came to Wrexby Hall at the close of the October month. He
+      came to plead his own cause with Mrs. Lovell; but she stopped him by
+      telling him that his friend Robert was in some danger of losing his love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a woman, Percy; I anticipate your observation. But, more than
+      that, she believes she is obliged to give her hand to my cousin, the
+      squire. It's an intricate story relating to money. She does not care for
+      Algy a bit, which is not a matter that greatly influences him. He has
+      served her in some mysterious way; by relieving an old uncle of hers. Algy
+      has got him the office of village postman for this district, I believe; if
+      it's that; but I think it should be more, to justify her. At all events,
+      she seems to consider that her hand is pledged. You know the kind of girl
+      your friend fancies. Besides, her father insists she is to marry 'the
+      squire,' which is certainly the most natural thing of all. So, don't you
+      think, dear Percy, you had better take your friend on the Continent for
+      some weeks? I never, I confess, exactly understood the intimacy existing
+      between you, but it must be sincere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you?&rdquo; said Percy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, perfectly; but always in a roundabout way. Why do you ask me in this
+      instance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because you could stop this silly business in a day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know I could.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, why do you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because of a wish to be sincere. Percy, I have been that throughout, if
+      you could read me. I tried to deliver my cousin Edward from what I thought
+      was a wretched entanglement. His selfish falseness offended me, and I let
+      him know that I despised him. When I found that he was a man who had
+      courage, and some heart, he gained my friendship once more, and I served
+      him as far as I could&mdash;happily, as it chanced. I tell you all this,
+      because I don't care to forfeit your esteem, and heaven knows, I may want
+      it in the days to come. I believe I am the best friend in the world&mdash;and
+      bad anything else. No one perfectly pleases me, not even you: you are too
+      studious of character, and, like myself, exacting of perfection in one or
+      two points. But now hear what I have done, and approve it if you think
+      fit. I have flirted&mdash;abominable word!&mdash;I am compelled to use the
+      language of the Misses&mdash;yes, I have flirted with my cousin Algy. I do
+      it too well, I know&mdash;by nature! and I hate it. He has this morning
+      sent a letter down to the farm saying, that, as he believes he has failed
+      in securing Rhoda's affections, he renounces all pretensions, etc.,
+      subject to her wishes, etc. The courting, I imagine, can scarcely have
+      been pleasant to him. My delightful manner with him during the last
+      fortnight has been infinitely pleasanter. So, your friend Robert may be
+      made happy by-and-by; that is to say, if his Rhoda is not too like her
+      sex.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're an enchantress,&rdquo; exclaimed Percy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop,&rdquo; said she, and drifted into seriousness. &ldquo;Before you praise me you
+      must know more. Percy, that duel in India&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He put out his hand to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I forgive,&rdquo; she resumed. &ldquo;You were cruel then. Remember that, and
+      try to be just now. The poor boy would go to his doom. I could have
+      arrested it. I partly caused it. I thought the honour of the army at
+      stake. I was to blame on that day, and I am to blame again, but I feel
+      that I am almost excuseable, if you are not too harsh a judge. No, I am
+      not; I am execrable; but forgive me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Percy's face lighted up in horrified amazement as Margaret Lovell
+      unfastened the brooch at her neck and took out the dull-red handkerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was the bond between us,&rdquo; she pursued, &ldquo;that I was to return this to
+      you when I no longer remained my own mistress. Count me a miserably
+      heartless woman. I do my best. You brought this handkerchief to me dipped
+      in the blood of the poor boy who was slain. I have worn it. It was a
+      safeguard. Did you mean it to serve as such? Oh, Percy! I felt continually
+      that blood was on my bosom. I felt it fighting with me. It has saved me
+      from much. And now I return it to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He could barely articulate &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear friend, by the reading of the bond you should know. I asked you when
+      I was leaving India, how long I was to keep it by me. You said, 'Till you
+      marry.' Do not be vehement, Percy. This is a thing that could not have
+      been averted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it possible,&rdquo; Percy cried, &ldquo;that you carried the play out so far as to
+      promise him to marry him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your forehead is thunder, Percy. I know that look.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret, I think I could bear to see our army suffer another defeat
+      rather than you should be contemptible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your chastisement is not given in half measures, Percy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak on,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;there is more to come. You are engaged to marry
+      him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I engaged that I would take the name of Blancove.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he would cease to persecute Rhoda Fleming!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The stipulation was exactly in those words.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean to carry it out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sincere? I do, Percy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean to marry Algernon Blancove?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should be contemptible indeed if I did, Percy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you are sincere? By all the powers of earth and heaven, there's no
+      madness like dealing with an animated enigma! What is it you do mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I said&mdash;to be sincere. But I was also bound to be of service to
+      your friend. It is easy to be sincere and passive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Percy struck his brows. &ldquo;Can you mean that Edward Blancove is the man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! no. Edward will never marry any one. I do him the justice to say that
+      his vice is not that of unfaithfulness. He had but one love, and her heart
+      is quite dead. There is no marriage for him&mdash;she refuses. You may not
+      understand the why of that, but women will. She would marry him if she
+      could bring herself to it;&mdash;the truth is, he killed her pride. Her
+      taste for life has gone. She is bent on her sister's marrying your friend.
+      She has no other thought of marriage, and never will have. I know the
+      state. It is not much unlike mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Waring fixed her eyes. &ldquo;There is a man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she answered bluntly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is somebody, then, whose banker's account is, I hope, satisfactory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Percy;&rdquo; she looked eagerly forward, as thanking him for releasing
+      her from a difficulty. &ldquo;You still can use the whip, but I do not feel the
+      sting. I marry a banker's account. Do you bear in mind the day I sent
+      after you in the park? I had just heard that I was ruined. You know my
+      mania for betting. I heard it, and knew when I let my heart warm to you
+      that I could never marry you. That is one reason, perhaps, why I have been
+      an enigma. I am sincere in telling Algy I shall take the name of Blancove.
+      I marry the banker. Now take this old gift of yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Percy grasped the handkerchief, and quitted her presence forthwith,
+      feeling that he had swallowed a dose of the sex to serve him for a
+      lifetime. Yet he lived to reflect on her having decided practically,
+      perhaps wisely for all parties. Her debts expunged, she became an old
+      gentleman's demure young wife, a sweet hostess, and, as ever, a true
+      friend: something of a miracle to one who had inclined to make a heroine
+      of her while imagining himself to accurately estimate her deficiencies.
+      Honourably by this marriage the lady paid for such wild oats as she had
+      sown in youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were joy-bells for Robert and Rhoda, but none for Dahlia and Edward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dahlia lived seven years her sister's housemate, nurse of the growing
+      swarm. She had gone through fire, as few women have done in like manner,
+      to leave their hearts among the ashes; but with that human heart she left
+      regrets behind her. The soul of this young creature filled its place. It
+      shone in her eyes and in her work, a lamp to her little neighbourhood; and
+      not less a lamp of cheerful beams for one day being as another to her. In
+      truth, she sat above the clouds. When she died she relinquished nothing.
+      Others knew the loss. Between her and Robert there was deeper community on
+      one subject than she let Rhoda share. Almost her last words to him, spoken
+      calmly, but with the quaver of breath resembling sobs, were: &ldquo;Help poor
+      girls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+  A fleet of South-westerly rainclouds had been met in mid-sky
+  All women are the same&mdash;Know one, know all
+  Ashamed of letting his ears be filled with secret talk
+  Borrower to be dancing on Fortune's tight-rope above the old abyss
+  But you must be beautiful to please some men
+  But the key to young men is the ambition, or, in the place of it.....
+  But great, powerful London&mdash;the new universe to her spirit
+  Can a man go farther than his nature?
+  Childish faith in the beneficence of the unseen Powers who feed us
+  Cold curiosity
+  Dahlia, the perplexity to her sister's heart, lay stretched....
+  Dead Britons are all Britons, but live Britons are not quite brothers
+  Developing stiff, solid, unobtrusive men, and very personable women
+  Exceeding variety and quantity of things money can buy
+  Found by the side of the bed, inanimate, and pale as a sister of death
+  Full-o'-Beer's a hasty chap
+  Gravely reproaching the tobacconist for the growing costliness of cigars
+  He had no recollection of having ever dined without drinking wine
+  He tried to gather his ideas, but the effort was like that of a light dreamer
+  He lies as naturally as an infant sucks
+  He will be a part of every history (the fool)
+  I haven't got the pluck of a flea
+  I never pay compliments to transparent merit
+  I would cut my tongue out, if it did you a service
+  Inferences are like shadows on the wall
+  It was her prayer to heaven that she might save a doctor's bill
+  Land and beasts! They sound like blessed things
+  Love dies like natural decay
+  Marriage is an awful thing, where there's no love
+  Mrs. Fleming, of Queen Anne's Farm, was the wife of a yeoman
+  My first girl&mdash;she's brought disgrace on this house
+  My plain story is of two Kentish damsels
+  One learns to have compassion for fools, by studying them
+  Pleasant companion, who did not play the woman obtrusively among men
+  Principle of examining your hypothesis before you proceed to decide by it
+  Rhoda will love you. She is firm when she loves
+  Silence is commonly the slow poison used by those who mean to murder love
+  Sinners are not to repent only in words
+  So long as we do not know that we are performing any remarkable feat
+  Sort of religion with her to believe no wrong of you
+  The unhappy, who do not wish to live, and cannot die
+  The kindest of men can be cruel
+  The idea of love upon the lips of ordinary men, provoked Dahlia's irony
+  The backstairs of history (Memoirs)
+  The woman seeking for an anomaly wants a master
+  Then, if you will not tell me
+  There were joy-bells for Robert and Rhoda, but none for Dahlia
+  To be a really popular hero anywhere in Britain (must be a drinker)
+  To be her master, however, one must not begin by writhing as her slave
+  Wait till the day's ended before you curse your luck
+  William John Fleming was simply a poor farmer
+  With this money, said the demon, you might speculate
+  Work is medicine
+  You who may have cared for her through her many tribulations, have no fear
+  You choose to give yourself to an obscure dog
+  You're a rank, right-down widow, and no mistake
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+  </body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rhoda Fleming, Complete, by George Meredith
+
+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: Rhoda Fleming, Complete
+
+Author: George Meredith
+
+Last Updated: March 6, 2009
+Release Date: October 13, 2006 [EBook #4426]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RHODA FLEMING, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+Produced by Pat Castevans and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+RHODA FLEMING, complete
+
+By George Meredith
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  BOOK 1.
+  I.        THE KENTISH FAMILY
+  II.       QUEEN ANNE'S FARM
+  III.      SUGGESTS THE MIGHT OF THE MONEY DEMON
+  IV.       THE TEXT FROM SCRIPTURE
+  V.        THE SISTERS MEET
+  VI.       EDWARD AND ALGERNON
+  VII.      GREAT NEWS FROM DAHLIA
+  VIII.     INTRODUCES MRS. LOVELL
+  IX.       ROBERT INTERVENES
+  X.        DAHLIA IS NOT VISIBLE
+  XI.       AN INDICATIVE DUET IN A MINOR KEY
+
+  BOOK 2.
+  XII.      AT THE THEATRE.
+  XIII.     THE FARMER SPEAKS
+  XIV.      BETWEEN RHODA AND ROBERT
+  XI.       A VISIT TO WREXBY HALL
+  XII.      AT FAIRLY PARK
+  XVII.     A YEOMAN OF THE OLD BREED
+  XVIII.    AN ASSEMBLY AT THE PILOT INN
+  XIX.      ROBERT SMITTEN LOW
+  XX.       MRS. LOVELL SHOWS A TAME BRUTE
+
+  BOOK 3.
+  XXI.      GIVES A GLIMPSE OF WHAT POOR VILLANIES THE STORY CONTAINS
+  XXII.     EDWARD TAKES HIS COURSE
+  XXIII.    MAJOR PERCY WARING
+  XXIV.     WARBEACH VILLAGE CHURCH
+  XXV.      OF THE FEARFUL TEMPTATION WHICH CAME UPON ANTHONY HACKBUT, AND
+            OF HIS MEETING WITH DAHLIA
+  XXVI.     IN THE PARK
+  XXVII.    CONTAINS A STUDY OF A FOOL IN TROUBLE
+  XXVIII.   EDWARD'S LETTER
+  XXIX.     FURTHERMORE OF THE FOOL
+
+  BOOK 4.
+  XXX.      THE EXPIATION
+  XXXI.     THE MELTING OF THE THOUSAND
+  XXXII.    LA QUESTION D'ARGENT
+  XXXIII.   EDWARD'S RETURN
+  XXXIV.    FATHER AND SON
+  XXXV.     THE NIGHT BEFORE
+  XXXVI.    EDWARD MEETS HIS MATCH
+  XXXVII.   EDWARD TRIES HIS ELOQUENCE
+  XXXVIII.  TOO LATE
+
+  BOOK 5.
+  XXXIX.    DAHLIA GOES HOME
+  XL.       A FREAK OF THE MONEY-DEMON, THAT MAY HAVE BEEN ANTICIPATED
+  XLI.      DAHLIA'S FRENZY
+  XLII.     ANTHONY IN A COLLAPSE
+  XLIII.    RHODA PLEDGES HER HAND
+  XLIV.     THE ENEMY APPEARS
+  XLV.      THE FARMER IS AWAKENED
+  XLVI.     WHEN THE NIGHT IS DARKEST
+  XLVII.    DAWN IS NEAR
+  XLVIII.   CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Remains of our good yeomanry blood will be found in Kent, developing
+stiff, solid, unobtrusive men, and very personable women. The
+distinction survives there between Kentish women and women of Kent, as
+a true South-eastern dame will let you know, if it is her fortune to
+belong to that favoured portion of the county where the great battle
+was fought, in which the gentler sex performed manful work, but on what
+luckless heads we hear not; and when garrulous tradition is discreet,
+the severe historic Muse declines to hazard a guess. Saxon, one would
+presume, since it is thought something to have broken them.
+
+My plain story is of two Kentish damsels, and runs from a home of
+flowers into regions where flowers are few and sickly, on to where the
+flowers which breathe sweet breath have been proved in mortal fire.
+
+Mrs. Fleming, of Queen Anne's Farm, was the wife of a yeoman-farmer of
+the county. Both were of sound Kentish extraction, albeit varieties of
+the breed. The farm had its name from a tradition, common to many other
+farmhouses within a circuit of the metropolis, that the ante-Hanoverian
+lady had used the place in her day as a nursery-hospital for the royal
+little ones. It was a square three-storied building of red brick, much
+beaten and stained by the weather, with an ivied side, up which the
+ivy grew stoutly, topping the roof in triumphant lumps. The house could
+hardly be termed picturesque. Its aspect had struck many eyes as being
+very much that of a red-coat sentinel grenadier, battered with service,
+and standing firmly enough, though not at ease. Surrounding it was a
+high wall, built partly of flint and partly of brick, and ringed all
+over with grey lichen and brown spots of bearded moss, that bore
+witness to the touch of many winds and rains. Tufts of pale grass,
+and gilliflowers, and travelling stone-crop, hung from the wall, and
+driblets of ivy ran broadening to the outer ground. The royal Arms were
+said to have surmounted the great iron gateway; but they had vanished,
+either with the family, or at the indications of an approaching rust.
+Rust defiled its bars; but, when you looked through them, the splendour
+of an unrivalled garden gave vivid signs of youth, and of the taste of
+an orderly, laborious, and cunning hand.
+
+The garden was under Mrs. Fleming's charge. The joy of her love for it
+was written on its lustrous beds, as poets write. She had the poetic
+passion for flowers. Perhaps her taste may now seem questionable. She
+cherished the old-fashioned delight in tulips; the house was reached on
+a gravel-path between rows of tulips, rich with one natural blush, or
+freaked by art. She liked a bulk of colour; and when the dahlia dawned
+upon our gardens, she gave her heart to dahlias. By good desert, the
+fervent woman gained a prize at a flower-show for one of her dahlias,
+and `Dahlia' was the name uttered at the christening of her eldest
+daughter, at which all Wrexby parish laughed as long as the joke could
+last. There was laughter also when Mrs. Fleming's second daughter
+received the name of 'Rhoda;' but it did not endure for so long a space,
+as it was known that she had taken more to the solitary and reflective
+reading of her Bible, and to thoughts upon flowers eternal. Country
+people are not inclined to tolerate the display of a passion for
+anything. They find it as intrusive and exasperating as is, in the
+midst of larger congregations, what we call genius. For some years, Mrs.
+Fleming's proceedings were simply a theme for gossips, and her vanity
+was openly pardoned, until that delusively prosperous appearance
+which her labour lent to the house, was worn through by the enforced
+confession of there being poverty in the household. The ragged elbow was
+then projected in the face of Wrexby in a manner to preclude it from a
+sober appreciation of the fairness of the face.
+
+Critically, moreover, her admission of great poppy-heads into her garden
+was objected to. She would squander her care on poppies, and she had
+been heard to say that, while she lived, her children should be fully
+fed. The encouragement of flaunting weeds in a decent garden was
+indicative of a moral twist that the expressed resolution to supply
+her table with plentiful nourishment, no matter whence it came, or how
+provided, sufficiently confirmed. The reason with which she was stated
+to have fortified her stern resolve was of the irritating order, right
+in the abstract, and utterly unprincipled in the application. She said,
+`Good bread, and good beef, and enough of both, make good blood; and
+my children shall be stout.' This is such a thing as maybe announced
+by foreign princesses and rulers over serfs; but English Wrexby,
+in cogitative mood, demanded an equivalent for its beef and divers
+economies consumed by the hungry children of the authoritative woman.
+Practically it was obedient, for it had got the habit of supplying her.
+Though payment was long in arrear, the arrears were not treated as lost
+ones by Mrs. Fleming, who, without knowing it, possessed one main
+secret for mastering the custodians of credit. She had a considerate
+remembrance and regard for the most distant of her debts, so that she
+seemed to be only always a little late, and exceptionally wrongheaded
+in theory. Wrexby, therefore, acquiesced in helping to build up her
+children to stoutness, and but for the blindness of all people, save
+artists, poets, novelists, to the grandeur of their own creations, the
+inhabitants of this Kentish village might have had an enjoyable pride
+in the beauty and robust grace of the young girls,--fair-haired,
+black-haired girls, a kindred contrast, like fire and smoke, to look
+upon. In stature, in bearing, and in expression, they were, if I may
+adopt the eloquent modern manner of eulogy, strikingly above their
+class. They carried erect shoulders, like creatures not ashamed of
+showing a merely animal pride, which is never quite apart from the pride
+of developed beauty. They were as upright as Oriental girls, whose heads
+are nobly poised from carrying the pitcher to the well. Dark Rhoda might
+have passed for Rachel, and Dahlia called her Rachel. They tossed one
+another their mutual compliments, drawn from the chief book of their
+reading. Queen of Sheba was Dahlia's title. No master of callisthenics
+could have set them up better than their mother's receipt for making
+good blood, combined with a certain harmony of their systems, had done;
+nor could a schoolmistress have taught them correcter speaking. The
+characteristic of girls having a disposition to rise, is to be cravingly
+mimetic; and they remembered, and crooned over, till by degrees they
+adopted the phrases and manner of speech of highly grammatical
+people, such as the rector and his lady, and of people in story-books,
+especially of the courtly French fairy-books, wherein the princes talk
+in periods as sweetly rounded as are their silken calves; nothing less
+than angelically, so as to be a model to ordinary men.
+
+The idea of love upon the lips of ordinary men, provoked Dahlia's irony;
+and the youths of Wrexby and Fenhurst had no chance against her secret
+Prince Florizels. Them she endowed with no pastoral qualities; on the
+contrary, she conceived that such pure young gentlemen were only to
+be seen, and perhaps met, in the great and mystic City of London.
+Naturally, the girls dreamed of London. To educate themselves, they
+copied out whole pages of a book called the `Field of Mars,' which was
+next to the family Bible in size among the volumes of the farmer's small
+library. The deeds of the heroes of this book, and the talk of the fairy
+princes, were assimilated in their minds; and as they looked around them
+upon millers', farmers', maltsters', and tradesmen's sons, the thought
+of what manner of youth would propose to marry them became a precocious
+tribulation. Rhoda, at the age of fifteen, was distracted by it, owing
+to her sister's habit of masking her own dismal internal forebodings
+on the subject, under the guise of a settled anxiety concerning her sad
+chance.
+
+In dress, the wife of the rector of Wrexby was their model. There came
+once to Squire Blancove's unoccupied pew a dazzling vision of a fair
+lady. They heard that she was a cousin of his third wife, and a widow,
+Mrs. Lovell by name. They looked at her all through the service, and
+the lady certainly looked at them in return; nor could they, with any
+distinctness, imagine why, but the look dwelt long in their hearts, and
+often afterward, when Dahlia, upon taking her seat in church, shut
+her eyes, according to custom, she strove to conjure up the image of
+herself, as she had appeared to the beautiful woman in the dress of
+grey-shot silk, with violet mantle and green bonnet, rose-trimmed; and
+the picture she conceived was the one she knew herself by, for many
+ensuing years.
+
+Mrs. Fleming fought her battle with a heart worthy of her countrywomen,
+and with as much success as the burden of a despondent husband would
+allow to her. William John Fleming was simply a poor farmer, for whom
+the wheels of the world went too fast:--a big man, appearing to be
+difficult to kill, though deeply smitten. His cheeks bloomed in spite
+of lines and stains, and his large, quietly dilated, brown ox-eyes, that
+never gave out a meaning, seldom showed as if they had taken one from
+what they saw. Until his wife was lost to him, he believed that he had a
+mighty grievance against her; but as he was not wordy, and was by nature
+kind, it was her comfort to die and not to know it. This grievance was
+rooted in the idea that she was ruinously extravagant. The sight of the
+plentiful table was sore to him; the hungry mouths, though he grudged
+to his offspring nothing that he could pay for, were an afflicting
+prospect. "Plump 'em up, and make 'em dainty," he advanced in
+contravention of his wife's talk of bread and beef.
+
+But he did not complain. If it came to an argument, the farmer sidled
+into a secure corner of prophecy, and bade his wife to see what would
+come of having dainty children. He could not deny that bread and beef
+made blood, and were cheaper than the port-wine which doctors were
+in the habit of ordering for this and that delicate person in
+the neighbourhood; so he was compelled to have recourse to secret
+discontent. The attention, the time, and the trifles of money shed upon
+the flower garden, were hardships easier to bear. He liked flowers,
+and he liked to hear the praise of his wife's horticultural skill. The
+garden was a distinguishing thing to the farm, and when on a Sunday he
+walked home from church among full June roses, he felt the odour of them
+to be so like his imagined sensations of prosperity, that the deception
+was worth its cost. Yet the garden in its bloom revived a cruel blow.
+His wife had once wounded his vanity. The massed vanity of a silent man,
+when it does take a wound, desires a giant's vengeance; but as one can
+scarcely seek to enjoy that monstrous gratification when one's wife is
+the offender, the farmer escaped from his dilemma by going apart into a
+turnip-field, and swearing, with his fist outstretched, never to forget
+it. His wife had asked him, seeing that the garden flourished and the
+farm decayed, to yield the labour of the farm to the garden; in fact, to
+turn nurseryman under his wife's direction. The woman could not see
+that her garden drained the farm already, distracted the farm, and most
+evidently impoverished him. She could not understand, that in permitting
+her, while he sweated fruitlessly, to give herself up to the occupation
+of a lady, he had followed the promptings of his native kindness, and
+certainly not of his native wisdom. That she should deem herself `best
+man' of the two, and suggest his stamping his name to such an opinion
+before the world, was an outrage.
+
+Mrs. Fleming was failing in health. On that plea, with the solemnity
+suited to the autumn of her allotted days, she persuaded her husband to
+advertise for an assistant, who would pay a small sum of money to learn
+sound farming, and hear arguments in favour of the Corn Laws. To please
+her, he threw seven shillings away upon an advertisement, and laughed
+when the advertisement was answered, remarking that he doubted much
+whether good would come of dealings with strangers. A young man, calling
+himself Robert Armstrong, underwent a presentation to the family. He
+paid the stipulated sum, and was soon enrolled as one of them. He was of
+a guardsman's height and a cricketer's suppleness, a drinker of water,
+and apparently the victim of a dislike of his species; for he spoke of
+the great night-lighted city with a horror that did not seem to be an
+estimable point in him, as judged by a pair of damsels for whom the
+mysterious metropolis flew with fiery fringes through dark space, in
+their dreams.
+
+In other respects, the stranger was well thought of, as being handsome
+and sedate. He talked fondly of one friend that he had, an officer in
+the army, which was considered pardonably vain. He did not reach to the
+ideal of his sex which had been formed by the sisters; but Mrs. Fleming,
+trusting to her divination of his sex's character, whispered a mother's
+word about him to her husband a little while before her death.
+
+It was her prayer to heaven that she might save a doctor's bill. She
+died, without lingering illness, in her own beloved month of June; the
+roses of her tending at the open window, and a soft breath floating up
+to her from the garden. On the foregoing May-day, she had sat on the
+green that fronted the iron gateway, when Dahlia and Rhoda dressed the
+children of the village in garlands, and crowned the fairest little one
+queen of May: a sight that revived in Mrs. Fleming's recollection the
+time of her own eldest and fairest taking homage, shy in her white smock
+and light thick curls. The gathering was large, and the day was of
+the old nature of May, before tyrannous Eastwinds had captured it and
+spoiled its consecration. The mill-stream of the neighbouring mill ran
+blue among the broad green pastures; the air smelt of cream-bowls
+and wheaten loaves; the firs on the beacon-ridge, far southward, over
+Fenhurst and Helm villages, were transported nearer to see the show,
+and stood like friends anxious to renew acquaintance. Dahlia and Rhoda
+taught the children to perceive how they resembled bent old beggar-men.
+The two stone-pines in the miller's grounds were likened by them to Adam
+and Eve turning away from the blaze of Paradise; and the saying of
+one receptive child, that they had nothing but hair on, made the
+illustration undying both to Dahlia and Rhoda.
+
+The magic of the weather brought numerous butterflies afield, and one
+fiddler, to whose tuning the little women danced; others closer upon
+womanhood would have danced likewise, if the sisters had taken partners;
+but Dahlia was restrained by the sudden consciousness that she was under
+the immediate observation of two manifestly London gentlemen, and she
+declined to be led forth by Robert Armstrong. The intruders were youths
+of good countenance, known to be the son and the nephew of Squire
+Blancove of Wrexby Hall. They remained for some time watching the scene,
+and destroyed Dahlia's single-mindedness. Like many days of gaiety, the
+Gods consenting, this one had its human shadow. There appeared on
+the borders of the festivity a young woman, the daughter of a Wrexby
+cottager, who had left her home and but lately returned to it, with a
+spotted name. No one addressed her, and she stood humbly apart. Dahlia,
+seeing that every one moved away from her, whispering with satisfied
+noddings, wished to draw her in among the groups. She mentioned the name
+of Mary Burt to her father, supposing that so kind a man would not fail
+to sanction her going up to the neglected young woman. To her surprise,
+her father became violently enraged, and uttered a stern prohibition,
+speaking a word that stained her cheeks. Rhoda was by her side, and she
+wilfully, without asking leave, went straight over to Mary, and stood
+with her under the shadow of the Adam and Eve, until the farmer sent a
+messenger to say that he was about to enter the house. Her punishment
+for the act of sinfulness was a week of severe silence; and the farmer
+would have kept her to it longer, but for her mother's ominously growing
+weakness. The sisters were strangely overclouded by this incident. They
+could not fathom the meaning of their father's unkindness, coarseness,
+and indignation. Why, and why? they asked one another, blankly. The
+Scriptures were harsh in one part, but was the teaching to continue so
+after the Atonement? By degrees they came to reflect, and not in a mild
+spirit, that the kindest of men can be cruel, and will forget their
+Christianity toward offending and repentant women.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Mrs. Fleming had a brother in London, who had run away from his Kentish
+home when a small boy, and found refuge at a Bank. The position of
+Anthony Hackbut in that celebrated establishment, and the degree of
+influence exercised by him there, were things unknown; but he had stuck
+to the Bank for a great number of years, and he had once confessed to
+his sister that he was not a beggar. Upon these joint facts the farmer
+speculated, deducing from them that a man in a London Bank, holding
+money of his own, must have learnt the ways of turning it over--farming
+golden ground, as it were; consequently, that amount must now have
+increased to a very considerable sum. You ask, What amount? But one who
+sits brooding upon a pair of facts for years, with the imperturbable
+gravity of creation upon chaos, will be as successful in evoking the
+concrete from the abstract. The farmer saw round figures among
+the possessions of the family, and he assisted mentally in this
+money-turning of Anthony's, counted his gains for him, disposed his
+risks, and eyed the pile of visionary gold with an interest so
+remote, that he was almost correct in calling it disinterested. The
+brothers-in-law had a mutual plea of expense that kept them separate.
+When Anthony refused, on petition, to advance one hundred pounds to the
+farmer, there was ill blood to divide them. Queen Anne's Farm missed the
+flourishing point by one hundred pounds exactly. With that addition to
+its exchequer, it would have made head against its old enemy, Taxation,
+and started rejuvenescent. But the Radicals were in power to legislate
+and crush agriculture, and "I've got a miser for my brother-in-law,"
+said the farmer. Alas! the hundred pounds to back him, he could have
+sowed what he pleased, and when it pleased him, partially defying the
+capricious clouds and their treasures, and playing tunefully upon his
+land, his own land. Instead of which, and while too keenly aware that
+the one hundred would have made excesses in any direction tributary to
+his pocket, the poor man groaned at continuous falls of moisture, and
+when rain was prayed for in church, he had to be down on his knees,
+praying heartily with the rest of the congregation. It was done, and
+bitter reproaches were cast upon Anthony for the enforced necessity to
+do it.
+
+On the occasion of his sister's death, Anthony informed his bereaved
+brother-in-law that he could not come down to follow the hearse as a
+mourner. "My place is one of great trust;" he said, "and I cannot be
+spared." He offered, however, voluntarily to pay half the expenses of
+the funeral, stating the limit of the cost. It is unfair to sound any
+man's springs of action critically while he is being tried by a sorrow;
+and the farmer's angry rejection of Anthony's offer of aid must pass. He
+remarked in his letter of reply, that his wife's funeral should cost no
+less than he chose to expend on it. He breathed indignant fumes against
+"interferences." He desired Anthony to know that he also was "not a
+beggar," and that he would not be treated as one. The letter showed a
+solid yeoman's fist. Farmer Fleming told his chums, and the shopkeeper
+of Wrexby, with whom he came into converse, that he would honour his
+dead wife up to his last penny. Some month or so afterward it was
+generally conjectured that he had kept his word.
+
+Anthony's rejoinder was characterized by a marked humility. He expressed
+contrition for the farmer's misunderstanding of his motives. His
+fathomless conscience had plainly been reached. He wrote again, without
+waiting for an answer, speaking of the Funds indeed, but only to
+pronounce them worldly things, and hoping that they all might meet in
+heaven, where brotherly love, as well as money, was ready made, and
+not always in the next street. A hint occurred that it would be a
+gratification to him to be invited down, whether he could come or no;
+for holidays were expensive, and journeys by rail had to be thought over
+before they were undertaken; and when you are away from your post, you
+never knew who maybe supplanting you. He did not promise that he could
+come, but frankly stated his susceptibility to the friendliness of an
+invitation. The feeling indulged by Farmer Fleming in refusing to
+notice Anthony's advance toward a reconciliation, was, on the whole,
+not creditable to him. Spite is more often fattened than propitiated by
+penitence. He may have thought besides (policy not being always a vacant
+space in revengeful acts) that Anthony was capable of something stronger
+and warmer, now that his humanity had been aroused. The speculation is
+commonly perilous; but Farmer Fleming had the desperation of a man who
+has run slightly into debt, and has heard the first din of dunning,
+which to the unaccustomed imagination is fearful as bankruptcy (shorn
+of the horror of the word). And, moreover, it was so wonderful to find
+Anthony displaying humanity at all, that anything might be expected of
+him. "Let's see what he will do," thought the farmer in an interval
+of his wrath; and the wrath is very new which has none of these cool
+intervals. The passions, do but watch them, are all more or less
+intermittent.
+
+As it chanced, he acted sagaciously, for Anthony at last wrote to say
+that his home in London was cheerless, and that he intended to move
+into fresh and airier lodgings, where the presence of a discreet young
+housekeeper, who might wish to see London, and make acquaintance with
+the world, would be agreeable to him. His project was that one of his
+nieces should fill this office, and he requested his brother-in-law to
+reflect on it, and to think of him as of a friend of the family, now
+and in the time to come. Anthony spoke of the seductions of London quite
+unctuously. Who could imagine this to be the letter of an old
+crabbed miser? "Tell her," he said, "there's fruit at stalls at
+every street-corner all the year through--oysters and whelks, if she
+likes--winkles, lots of pictures in shops--a sight of muslin and silks,
+and rides on omnibuses--bands of all sorts, and now and then we can take
+a walk to see the military on horseback, if she's for soldiers."
+Indeed, he joked quite comically in speaking of the famous
+horse-guards--warriors who sit on their horses to be looked at, and do
+not mind it, because they are trained so thoroughly. "Horse-guards blue,
+and horse-guards red," he wrote--"the blue only want boiling." There is
+reason to suppose that his disrespectful joke was not original in him,
+but it displayed his character in a fresh light. Of course, if either
+of the girls was to go, Dahlia was the person. The farmer commenced
+his usual process of sitting upon the idea. That it would be policy
+to attach one of the family to this chirping old miser, he thought
+incontestable. On the other hand, he had a dread of London, and Dahlia
+was surpassingly fair. He put the case to Robert, in remembrance of what
+his wife had spoken, hoping that Robert would amorously stop his painful
+efforts to think fast enough for the occasion. Robert, however, had
+nothing to say, and seemed willing to let Dahlia depart. The only
+opponents to the plan were Mrs. Sumfit, a kindly, humble relative of the
+farmer's, widowed out of Sussex, very loving and fat; the cook to the
+household, whose waist was dimly indicated by her apron-string; and, to
+aid her outcries, the silently-protesting Master Gammon, an old man with
+the cast of eye of an antediluvian lizard, the slowest old man of his
+time--a sort of foreman of the farm before Robert had come to take
+matters in hand, and thrust both him and his master into the background.
+Master Gammon remarked emphatically, once and for all, that "he never
+had much opinion of London." As he had never visited London, his opinion
+was considered the less weighty, but, as he advanced no further speech,
+the sins and backslidings of the metropolis were strongly brought to
+mind by his condemnatory utterance. Policy and Dahlia's entreaties at
+last prevailed with the farmer, and so the fair girl went up to the
+great city.
+
+After months of a division that was like the division of her living
+veins, and when the comfort of letters was getting cold, Rhoda, having
+previously pledged herself to secresy, though she could not guess why
+it was commanded, received a miniature portrait of Dahlia, so beautiful
+that her envy of London for holding her sister away from her, melted
+in gratitude. She had permission to keep the portrait a week; it was
+impossible to forbear from showing it to Mrs. Sumfit, who peeped in awe,
+and that emotion subsiding, shed tears abundantly. Why it was to be kept
+secret, they failed to inquire; the mystery was possibly not without
+its delights to them. Tears were shed again when the portrait had to
+be packed up and despatched. Rhoda lived on abashed by the adorable new
+refinement of Dahlia's features, and her heart yearned to her uncle for
+so caring to decorate the lovely face.
+
+One day Rhoda was at her bed-room window, on the point of descending to
+encounter the daily dumpling, which was the principal and the unvarying
+item of the midday meal of the house, when she beheld a stranger trying
+to turn the handle of the iron gate. Her heart thumped. She divined
+correctly that it was her uncle. Dahlia had now been absent for very
+many months, and Rhoda's growing fretfulness sprang the conviction in
+her mind that something closer than letters must soon be coming. She
+ran downstairs, and along the gravel-path. He was a little man,
+square-built, and looking as if he had worn to toughness; with an
+evident Sunday suit on: black, and black gloves, though the day was only
+antecedent to Sunday.
+
+"Let me help you, sir," she said, and her hands came in contact with
+his, and were squeezed.
+
+"How is my sister?" She had no longer any fear in asking.
+
+"Now, you let me through, first," he replied, imitating an arbitrary
+juvenile. "You're as tight locked in as if you was in dread of all
+the thieves of London. You ain't afraid o' me, miss? I'm not the party
+generally outside of a fortification; I ain't, I can assure you. I'm a
+defence party, and a reg'lar lion when I've got the law backing me."
+
+He spoke in a queer, wheezy voice, like a cracked flute, combined with
+the effect of an ill-resined fiddle-bow.
+
+"You are in the garden of Queen Anne's Farm," said Rhoda.
+
+"And you're my pretty little niece, are you? 'the darkie lass,' as your
+father says. 'Little,' says I; why, you needn't be ashamed to stand
+beside a grenadier. Trust the country for growing fine gals."
+
+"You are my uncle, then?" said Rhoda. "Tell me how my sister is. Is she
+well? Is she quite happy?"
+
+"Dahly?" returned old Anthony, slowly.
+
+"Yes, yes; my sister!" Rhoda looked at him with distressful eagerness.
+
+"Now, don't you be uneasy about your sister Dahly." Old Anthony, as he
+spoke, fixed his small brown eyes on the girl, and seemed immediately to
+have departed far away in speculation. A question recalled him.
+
+"Is her health good?"
+
+"Ay; stomach's good, head's good, lungs, brain, what not, all good.
+She's a bit giddy, that's all."
+
+"In her head?"
+
+"Ay; and on her pins. Never you mind. You look a steady one, my dear. I
+shall take to you, I think."
+
+"But my sister--" Rhoda was saying, when the farmer came out, and sent a
+greeting from the threshold,--
+
+"Brother Tony!"
+
+"Here he is, brother William John."
+
+"Surely, and so he is, at last." The farmer walked up to him with his
+hand out.
+
+"And it ain't too late, I hope. Eh?"
+
+"It's never too late--to mend," said the farmer.
+
+"Eh? not my manners, eh?" Anthony struggled to keep up the ball; and in
+this way they got over the confusion of the meeting after many years and
+some differences.
+
+"Made acquaintance with Rhoda, I see," said the farmer, as they turned
+to go in.
+
+"The 'darkie lass' you write of. She's like a coal nigh a candle. She
+looks, as you'd say, 't' other side of her sister.' Yes, we've had a
+talk."
+
+"Just in time for dinner, brother Tony. We ain't got much to offer, but
+what there is, is at your service. Step aside with me."
+
+The farmer got Anthony out of hearing a moment, questioned, and was
+answered: after which he looked less anxious, but a trifle perplexed,
+and nodded his head as Anthony occasionally lifted his, to enforce
+certain points in some halting explanation. You would have said that a
+debtor was humbly putting his case in his creditor's ear, and could only
+now and then summon courage to meet the censorious eyes. They went in to
+Mrs. Sumfit's shout that the dumplings were out of the pot: old Anthony
+bowed upon the announcement of his name, and all took seats. But it was
+not the same sort of dinner-hour as that which the inhabitants of the
+house were accustomed to; there was conversation.
+
+The farmer asked Anthony by what conveyance he had come. Anthony shyly,
+but not without evident self-approbation, related how, having come
+by the train, he got into conversation with the driver of a fly at a
+station, who advised him of a cart that would be passing near Wrexby.
+For threepennyworth of beer, he had got a friendly introduction to the
+carman, who took him within two miles of the farm for one shilling, a
+distance of fifteen miles. That was pretty good!
+
+"Home pork, brother Tony," said the farmer, approvingly.
+
+"And home-made bread, too, brother William John," said Anthony, becoming
+brisk.
+
+"Ay, and the beer, such as it is." The farmer drank and sighed.
+
+Anthony tried the beer, remarking, "That's good beer; it don't cost
+much."
+
+"It ain't adulterated. By what I read of your London beer, this stuff's
+not so bad, if you bear in mind it's pure. Pure's my motto. 'Pure,
+though poor!'"
+
+"Up there, you pay for rank poison," said Anthony. "So, what do I do? I
+drink water and thank 'em, that's wise."
+
+"Saves stomach and purse." The farmer put a little stress on 'purse.'
+
+"Yes, I calculate I save threepence a day in beer alone," said Anthony.
+
+"Three times seven's twenty-one, ain't it?"
+
+Mr. Fleming said this, and let out his elbow in a small perplexity, as
+Anthony took him up: "And fifty-two times twenty-one?"
+
+"Well, that's, that's--how much is that, Mas' Gammon?" the farmer asked
+in a bellow.
+
+Master Gammon was laboriously and steadily engaged in tightening himself
+with dumpling. He relaxed his exertions sufficiently to take this new
+burden on his brain, and immediately cast it off.
+
+"Ah never thinks when I feeds--Ah was al'ays a bad hand at 'counts.
+Gi'es it up."
+
+"Why, you're like a horse that never was rode! Try again, old man," said
+the farmer.
+
+"If I drags a cart," Master Gammon replied, "that ain't no reason why I
+should leap a gate."
+
+The farmer felt that he was worsted as regarded the illustration, and
+with a bit of the boy's fear of the pedagogue, he fought Anthony off by
+still pressing the arithmetical problem upon Master Gammon; until the
+old man, goaded to exasperation, rolled out thunderingly,--
+
+"If I works fer ye, that ain't no reason why I should think fer ye,"
+which caused him to be left in peace.
+
+"Eh, Robert?" the farmer transferred the question; "Come! what is it?"
+
+Robert begged a minute's delay, while Anthony watched him with hawk
+eyes.
+
+"I tell you what it is--it's pounds," said Robert.
+
+This tickled Anthony, who let him escape, crying: "Capital! Pounds it
+is in your pocket, sir, and you hit that neatly, I will say. Let it be
+five. You out with your five at interest, compound interest; soon comes
+another five; treat it the same: in ten years--eh? and then you get into
+figures; you swim in figures!"
+
+"I should think you did!" said the farmer, winking slyly.
+
+Anthony caught the smile, hesitated and looked shrewd, and then covered
+his confusion by holding his plate to Mrs. Sumfit for a help. The
+manifest evasion and mute declaration that dumpling said "mum" on that
+head, gave the farmer a quiet glow.
+
+"When you are ready to tell me all about my darlin', sir," Mrs. Sumfit
+suggested, coaxingly.
+
+"After dinner, mother--after dinner," said the farmer.
+
+"And we're waitin', are we, till them dumplings is finished?" she
+exclaimed, piteously, with a glance at Master Gammon's plate.
+
+"After dinner we'll have a talk, mother."
+
+Mrs. Sumfit feared from this delay that there was queer news to be told
+of Dahlia's temper; but she longed for the narrative no whit the less,
+and again cast a sad eye on the leisurely proceedings of Master Gammon.
+The veteran was still calmly tightening. His fork was on end, with a
+vast mouthful impaled on the prongs. Master Gammon, a thoughtful eater,
+was always last at the meal, and a latent, deep-lying irritation at
+Mrs. Sumfit for her fidgetiness, day after day, toward the finish of the
+dish, added a relish to his engulfing of the monstrous morsel. He looked
+at her steadily, like an ox of the fields, and consumed it, and then
+holding his plate out, in a remorseless way, said, "You make 'em so
+good, marm."
+
+Mrs. Sumfit, fretted as she was, was not impervious to the sound sense
+of the remark, as well as to the compliment.
+
+"I don't want to hurry you, Mas' Gammon," she said; "Lord knows, I like
+to see you and everybody eat his full and be thankful; but, all about my
+Dahly waitin',--I feel pricked wi' a pin all over, I do; and there's my
+blessed in London," she answered, "and we knowin' nothin' of her, and
+one close by to tell me! I never did feel what slow things dumplin's
+was, afore now!"
+
+The kettle simmered gently on the hob. Every other knife and fork was
+silent; so was every tongue. Master Gammon ate and the kettle hummed.
+Twice Mrs. Sumfit sounded a despairing, "Oh, deary me!" but it
+was useless. No human power had ever yet driven Master Gammon to a
+demonstration of haste or to any acceleration of the pace he had chosen
+for himself. At last, she was not to be restrained from crying out,
+almost tearfully,--
+
+"When do you think you'll have done, Mas' Gammon?"
+
+Thus pointedly addressed, Master Gammon laid down his knife and fork. He
+half raised his ponderous, curtaining eyelids, and replied,--
+
+"When I feels my buttons, marm."
+
+After which he deliberately fell to work again.
+
+Mrs. Sumfit dropped back in her chair as from a blow.
+
+But even dumplings, though they resist so doggedly for a space, do
+ultimately submit to the majestic march of Time, and move. Master Gammon
+cleared his plate. There stood in the dish still half a dumpling. The
+farmer and Rhoda, deeming that there had been a show of inhospitality,
+pressed him to make away with this forlorn remainder.
+
+The vindictive old man, who was as tight as dumpling and buttons could
+make him, refused it in a drooping tone, and went forth, looking at
+none. Mrs. Sumfit turned to all parties, and begged them to say what
+more, to please Master Gammon, she could have done? When Anthony was
+ready to speak of her Dahlia, she obtruded this question in utter
+dolefulness. Robert was kindly asked by the farmer to take a pipe among
+them. Rhoda put a chair for him, but he thanked them both, and said he
+could not neglect some work to be done in the fields. She thought that
+he feared pain from hearing Dahlia's name, and followed him with her
+eyes commiseratingly.
+
+"Does that young fellow attend to business?" said Anthony.
+
+The farmer praised Robert as a rare hand, but one affected with bees in
+his nightcap,--who had ideas of his own about farming, and was obstinate
+with them; "pays you due respect, but's got a notion as how his way
+of thinking's better 'n his seniors. It's the style now with all young
+folks. Makes a butt of old Mas' Gammon; laughs at the old man. It ain't
+respectful t' age, I say. Gammon don't understand nothing about new
+feeds for sheep, and dam nonsense about growing such things as melons,
+fiddle-faddle, for 'em. Robert's a beginner. What he knows, I taught
+the young fellow. Then, my question is, where's his ideas come from, if
+they're contrary to mine? If they're contrary to mine, they're contrary
+to my teaching. Well, then, what are they worth? He can't see that. He's
+a good one at work--I'll say so much for him."
+
+Old Anthony gave Rhoda a pat on the shoulder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+"Pipes in the middle of the day's regular revelry," ejaculated Anthony,
+whose way of holding the curved pipe-stem displayed a mind bent on
+reckless enjoyment, and said as much as a label issuing from his
+mouth, like a figure in a comic woodcut of the old style:--"that's," he
+pursued, "that's if you haven't got to look up at the clock every two
+minutes, as if the devil was after you. But, sitting here, you know, the
+afternoon's a long evening; nobody's your master. You can on wi' your
+slippers, up wi' your legs, talk, or go for'ard, counting, twicing, and
+three-timesing; by George! I should take to drinking beer if I had my
+afternoons to myself in the city, just for the sake of sitting and doing
+sums in a tap-room; if it's a big tap-room, with pew sort o' places, and
+dark red curtains, a fire, and a smell of sawdust; ale, and tobacco, and
+a boy going by outside whistling a tune of the day. Somebody comes in.
+'Ah, there's an idle old chap,' he says to himself, (meaning me), and
+where, I should like to ask him, 'd his head be if he sat there dividing
+two hundred and fifty thousand by forty-five and a half!"
+
+The farmer nodded encouragingly. He thought it not improbable that
+a short operation with these numbers would give the sum in Anthony's
+possession, the exact calculation of his secret hoard, and he set to
+work to stamp them on his brain, which rendered him absent in manner,
+while Mrs. Sumfit mixed liquor with hot water, and pushed at his
+knee, doubling in her enduring lips, and lengthening her eyes to aim a
+side-glance of reprehension at Anthony's wandering loquacity.
+
+Rhoda could bear it no more.
+
+"Now let me hear of my sister, uncle," she said.
+
+"I'll tell you what," Anthony responded, "she hasn't got such a pretty
+sort of a sweet blackbirdy voice as you've got."
+
+The girl blushed scarlet.
+
+"Oh, she can mount them colours, too," said Anthony.
+
+His way of speaking of Dahlia indicated that he and she had enough of
+one another; but of the peculiar object of his extraordinary visit not
+even the farmer had received a hint. Mrs. Sumfit ventured to think aloud
+that his grog was not stiff enough, but he took a gulp under her eyes,
+and smacked his lips after it in a most convincing manner.
+
+"Ah! that stuff wouldn't do for me in London, half-holiday or no
+half-holiday," said Anthony.
+
+"Why not?" the farmer asked.
+
+"I should be speculating--deep--couldn't hold myself in: Mexicans,
+Peroovians, Venzeshoolians, Spaniards, at 'em I should go. I see
+bonds in all sorts of colours, Spaniards in black and white,
+Peruvians--orange, Mexicans--red as the British army. Well, it's just my
+whim. If I like red, I go at red. I ain't a bit of reason. What's more,
+I never speculate."
+
+"Why, that's safest, brother Tony," said the farmer.
+
+"And safe's my game--always was, always will be! Do you think"--Anthony
+sucked his grog to the sugar-dregs, till the spoon settled on his
+nose--"do you think I should hold the position I do hold, be trusted as
+I am trusted? Ah! you don't know much about that. Should I have money
+placed in my hands, do you think--and it's thousands at a time,
+gold, and notes, and cheques--if I was a risky chap? I'm known to be
+thoroughly respectable. Five and forty years I've been in Boyne's Bank,
+and thank ye, ma'am, grog don't do no harm down here. And I will take
+another glass. 'When the heart of a man!'--but I'm no singer."
+
+Mrs. Sumfit simpered, "Hem; it's the heart of a woman, too: and she have
+one, and it's dying to hear of her darlin' blessed in town, and of who
+cuts her hair, and where she gets her gownds, and whose pills--"
+
+The farmer interrupted her irritably.
+
+"Divide a couple o' hundred thousand and more by forty-five and a half,"
+he said. "Do wait, mother; all in good time. Forty-five and a-half,
+brother Tony; that was your sum--ah!--you mentioned it some time
+back--half of what? Is that half a fraction, as they call it? I haven't
+forgot fractions, and logareems, and practice, and so on to algebrae,
+where it always seems to me to blow hard, for, whizz goes my head in a
+jiffy, as soon as I've mounted the ladder to look into that country.
+How 'bout that forty-five and a half, brother Tony, if you don't mind
+condescending to explain?"
+
+"Forty-five and a half?" muttered Anthony, mystified.
+
+"Oh, never mind, you know, if you don't like to say, brother Tony." The
+farmer touched him up with his pipe-stem.
+
+"Five and a half," Anthony speculated. "That's a fraction you got hold
+of, brother William John,--I remember the parson calling out those names
+at your wedding: 'I, William John, take thee, Susan;' yes, that's a
+fraction, but what's the good of it?"
+
+"What I mean is, it ain't forty-five and half of forty-five. Half of
+one, eh? That's identical with a fraction. One--a stroke--and two under
+it."
+
+"You've got it correct," Anthony assented.
+
+"How many thousand divide it by?"
+
+"Divide what by, brother William John? I'm beat."
+
+"Ah! out comes the keys: lockup everything; it's time!" the farmer
+laughed, rather proud of his brother-in-law's perfect wakefulness after
+two stiff tumblers. He saw that Anthony was determined with all due
+friendly feeling to let no one know the sum in his possession.
+
+"If it's four o'clock, it is time to lock up," said Anthony, "and bang
+to go the doors, and there's the money for thieves to dream of--they
+can't get a-nigh it, let them dream as they like. What's the hour,
+ma'am?"
+
+"Not three, it ain't," returned Mrs. Sumfit; "and do be good creatures,
+and begin about my Dahly, and where she got that Bumptious gownd, and
+the bonnet with blue flowers lyin' by on the table: now, do!"
+
+Rhoda coughed.
+
+"And she wears lavender gloves like a lady," Mrs. Sumfit was continuing.
+
+Rhoda stamped on her foot.
+
+"Oh! cruel!" the comfortable old woman snapped in pain, as she applied
+her hand to the inconsolable fat foot, and nursed it. "What's roused ye,
+you tiger girl? I shan't be able to get about, I shan't, and then who's
+to cook for ye all? For you're as ignorant as a raw kitchen wench, and
+knows nothing."
+
+"Come, Dody, you're careless," the farmer spoke chidingly through Mrs.
+Sumfit's lamentations.
+
+"She stops uncle Anthony when he's just ready, father," said Rhoda.
+
+"Do you want to know?" Anthony set his small eyes on her: "do you want
+to know, my dear?" He paused, fingering his glass, and went on: "I,
+Susan, take thee, William John, and you've come of it. Says I to myself,
+when I hung sheepish by your mother and by your father, my dear, says
+I to myself, I ain't a marrying man: and if these two, says I, if any
+progeny comes to 'em--to bless them, some people'd say, but I know what
+life is, and what young ones are--if--where was I? Liquor makes you
+talk, brother William John, but where's your ideas? Gone, like hard
+cash! What I meant was, I felt I might some day come for'ard and help
+the issue of your wife's weddin', and wasn't such a shady object among
+you, after all. My pipe's out."
+
+Rhoda stood up, and filled the pipe, and lit it in silence. She divined
+that the old man must be allowed to run on in his own way, and for a
+long time he rambled, gave a picture of the wedding, and of a robbery of
+Boyne's Bank: the firm of Boyne, Burt, Hamble, and Company. At last, he
+touched on Dahlia.
+
+"What she wants, I can't make out," he said; "and what that good lady
+there, or somebody, made mention of--how she manages to dress as she
+do! I can understand a little goin' a great way, if you're clever in
+any way; but I'm at my tea"--Anthony laid his hand out as to exhibit a
+picture. "I ain't a complaining man, and be young, if you can, I say,
+and walk about and look at shops; but, I'm at my tea: I come home rather
+tired there's the tea-things, sure enough, and tea's made, and, maybe,
+there's a shrimp or two; she attends to your creature comforts. When
+everything's locked up and tight and right, I'm gay, and ask for a bit
+of society: well, I'm at my tea: I hear her foot thumping up and down
+her bed-room overhead: I know the meaning of that: I'd rather hear
+nothing: down she runs: I'm at my tea, and in she bursts."--Here
+followed a dramatic account of Dahlia's manner of provocation, which was
+closed by the extinction of his pipe.
+
+The farmer, while his mind still hung about thousands of pounds and
+a certain incomprehensible division of them to produce a distinct
+intelligible total, and set before him the sum of Anthony's riches,
+could see that his elder daughter was behaving flightily and neglecting
+the true interests of the family, and he was chagrined. But Anthony,
+before he entered the house, had assured him that Dahlia was well, and
+that nothing was wrong with her. So he looked at Mrs. Sumfit, who
+now took upon herself to plead for Dahlia: a young thing, and such a
+handsome creature! and we were all young some time or other; and would
+heaven have mercy on us, if we were hard upon the young, do you think?
+The motto of a truly religious man said, try 'em again. And, maybe,
+people had been a little hard upon Dahlia, and the girl was apt to
+take offence. In conclusion, she appealed to Rhoda to speak up for her
+sister. Rhoda sat in quiet reserve.
+
+She was sure her sister must be justified in all she did but the picture
+of the old man coming from his work every night to take his tea quite
+alone made her sad. She found herself unable to speak, and as she did
+not, Mrs. Sumfit had an acute twinge from her recently trodden foot,
+and called her some bitter names; which was not an unusual case, for
+the kind old woman could be querulous, and belonged to the list of those
+whose hearts are as scales, so that they love not one person devotedly
+without a corresponding spirit of opposition to another. Rhoda merely
+smiled.
+
+By-and-by, the women left the two men alone.
+
+Anthony turned and struck the farmer's knee.
+
+"You've got a jewel in that gal, brother William John."
+
+"Eh! she's a good enough lass. Not much of a manager, brother Tony. Too
+much of a thinker, I reckon. She's got a temper of her own too. I'm a
+bit hurt, brother Tony, about that other girl. She must leave London, if
+she don't alter. It's flightiness; that's all. You mustn't think ill of
+poor Dahly. She was always the pretty one, and when they know it, they
+act up to it: she was her mother's favourite."
+
+"Ah! poor Susan! an upright woman before the Lord."
+
+"She was," said the farmer, bowing his head.
+
+"And a good wife," Anthony interjected.
+
+"None better--never a better; and I wish she was living to look after
+her girls."
+
+"I came through the churchyard, hard by," said Anthony; "and I read that
+writing on her tombstone. It went like a choke in my throat. The first
+person I saw next was her child, this young gal you call Rhoda; and,
+thinks I to myself, you might ask me, I'd do anything for ye--that I
+could, of course."
+
+The farmer's eye had lit up, but became overshadowed by the
+characteristic reservation.
+
+"Nobody'd ask you to do more than you could," he remarked, rather
+coldly.
+
+"It'll never be much," sighed Anthony.
+
+"Well, the world's nothing, if you come to look at it close," the farmer
+adopted a similar tone.
+
+"What's money!" said Anthony.
+
+The farmer immediately resumed his this-worldliness:
+
+"Well, it's fine to go about asking us poor devils to answer ye that,"
+he said, and chuckled, conceiving that he had nailed Anthony down to a
+partial confession of his ownership of some worldly goods.
+
+"What do you call having money?" observed the latter, clearly in the
+trap. "Fifty thousand?"
+
+"Whew!" went the farmer, as at a big draught of powerful stuff.
+
+"Ten thousand?"
+
+Mr. Fleming took this second gulp almost contemptuously, but still
+kindly.
+
+"Come," quoth Anthony, "ten thousand's not so mean, you know. You're a
+gentleman on ten thousand. So, on five. I'll tell ye, many a gentleman'd
+be glad to own it. Lor' bless you! But, you know nothing of the world,
+brother William John. Some of 'em haven't one--ain't so rich as you!"
+
+"Or you, brother Tony?" The farmer made a grasp at his will-o'-the-wisp.
+
+"Oh! me!" Anthony sniggered. "I'm a scraper of odds and ends. I pick up
+things in the gutter. Mind you, those Jews ain't such fools, though
+a curse is on 'em, to wander forth. They know the meaning of the
+multiplication table. They can turn fractions into whole numbers. No;
+I'm not to be compared to gentlemen. My property's my respectability. I
+said that at the beginning, and I say it now. But, I'll tell you what,
+brother William John, it's an emotion when you've got bags of thousands
+of pounds in your arms."
+
+Ordinarily, the farmer was a sensible man, as straight on the level of
+dull intelligence as other men; but so credulous was he in regard to the
+riches possessed by his wife's brother, that a very little tempted
+him to childish exaggeration of the probable amount. Now that Anthony
+himself furnished the incitement, he was quite lifted from the earth.
+He had, besides, taken more of the strong mixture than he was ever
+accustomed to take in the middle of the day; and as it seemed to him
+that Anthony was really about to be seduced into a particular statement
+of the extent of the property which formed his respectability (as
+Anthony had chosen to put it), he got up a little game in his head
+by guessing how much the amount might positively be, so that he could
+subsequently compare his shrewd reckoning with the avowed fact. He tamed
+his wild ideas as much as possible; thought over what his wife used to
+say of Anthony's saving ways from boyhood, thought of the dark hints of
+the Funds, of many bold strokes for money made by sagacious persons; of
+Anthony's close style of living, and of the lives of celebrated misers;
+this done, he resolved to make a sure guess, and therefore aimed below
+the mark.
+
+Money, when the imagination deals with it thus, has no substantial
+relation to mortal affairs. It is a tricksy thing, distending and
+contracting as it dances in the mind, like sunlight on the ceiling cast
+from a morning tea-cup, if a forced simile will aid the conception. The
+farmer struck on thirty thousand and some odd hundred pounds--outlying
+debts, or so, excluded--as what Anthony's will, in all likelihood, would
+be sworn under: say, thirty thousand, or, safer, say, twenty thousand.
+Bequeathed--how? To him and to his children. But to the children in
+reversion after his decease? Or how? In any case, they might make
+capital marriages; and the farm estate should go to whichever of the two
+young husbands he liked the best. Farmer Fleming asked not for any life
+of ease and splendour, though thirty thousand pounds was a fortune; or
+even twenty thousand. Noblemen have stooped to marry heiresses owning
+no more than that! The idea of their having done so actually shot
+across him, and his heart sent up a warm spring of tenderness toward the
+patient, good, grubbing old fellow, sitting beside him, who had lived
+and died to enrich and elevate the family. At the same time, he could
+not refrain from thinking that Anthony, broad-shouldered as he was,
+though bent, sound on his legs, and well-coloured for a Londoner,
+would be accepted by any Life Insurance office, at a moderate rate,
+considering his age. The farmer thought of his own health, and it was
+with a pang that he fancied himself being probed by the civil-speaking
+Life Insurance doctor (a gentleman who seems to issue upon us applicants
+from out the muffled folding doors of Hades; taps us on the chest, once,
+twice, and forthwith writes down our fateful dates). Probably, Anthony
+would not have to pay a higher rate of interest than he.
+
+"Are you insured, brother Tony?" the question escaped him.
+
+"No, I ain't, brother William John;" Anthony went on nodding like an
+automaton set in motion. "There's two sides to that. I'm a long-lived
+man. Long-lived men don't insure; that is, unless they're fools. That's
+how the Offices thrive."
+
+"Case of accident?" the farmer suggested.
+
+"Oh! nothing happens to me," replied Anthony.
+
+The farmer jumped on his legs, and yawned.
+
+"Shall we take a turn in the garden, brother Tony?"
+
+"With all my heart, brother William John."
+
+The farmer had conscience to be ashamed of the fit of irritable vexation
+which had seized on him; and it was not till Anthony being asked the
+date of his birth, had declared himself twelve years his senior, that
+the farmer felt his speculations to be justified. Anthony was nearly
+a generation ahead. They walked about, and were seen from the windows
+touching one another on the shoulder in a brotherly way. When they came
+back to the women, and tea, the farmer's mind was cooler, and all his
+reckonings had gone to mist. He was dejected over his tea.
+
+"What is the matter, father?" said Rhoda.
+
+"I'll tell you, my dear," Anthony replied for him. "He's envying me some
+one I want to ask me that question when I'm at my tea in London."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Mr. Fleming kept his forehead from his daughter's good-night kiss
+until the room was cleared, after supper, and then embracing her very
+heartily, he informed her that her uncle had offered to pay her expenses
+on a visit to London, by which he contrived to hint that a golden path
+had opened to his girl, and at the same time entreated her to think
+nothing of it; to dismiss all expectations and dreams of impossible sums
+from her mind, and simply to endeavour to please her uncle, who had a
+right to his own, and a right to do what he liked with his own, though
+it were forty, fifty times as much as he possessed--and what that might
+amount to no one knew. In fact, as is the way with many experienced
+persons, in his attempt to give advice to another, he was very
+impressive in lecturing himself, and warned that other not to succumb
+to a temptation principally by indicating the natural basis of the
+allurement. Happily for young and for old, the intense insight of the
+young has much to distract or soften it. Rhoda thanked her father, and
+chose to think that she had listened to good and wise things.
+
+"Your sister," he said--"but we won't speak of her. If I could part with
+you, my lass, I'd rather she was the one to come back."
+
+"Dahlia would be killed by our quiet life now," said Rhoda.
+
+"Ay," the farmer mused. "If she'd got to pay six men every Saturday
+night, she wouldn't complain o' the quiet. But, there--you neither of
+you ever took to farming or to housekeeping; but any gentleman might be
+proud to have one of you for a wife. I said so when you was girls. And
+if, you've been dull, my dear, what's the good o' society? Tea-cakes
+mayn't seem to cost money, nor a glass o' grog to neighbours; but once
+open the door to that sort o' thing and your reckoning goes. And what I
+said to your poor mother's true. I said: Our girls, they're mayhap not
+equals of the Hollands, the Nashaws, the Perrets, and the others about
+here--no; they're not equals, because the others are not equals o' them,
+maybe."
+
+The yeoman's pride struggled out in this obscure way to vindicate his
+unneighbourliness and the seclusion of his daughters from the society
+of girls of their age and condition; nor was it hard for Rhoda to assure
+him, as she earnestly did, that he had acted rightly.
+
+Rhoda, assisted by Mrs. Sumfit, was late in the night looking up what
+poor decorations she possessed wherewith to enter London, and be worthy
+of her sister's embrace, so that she might not shock the lady Dahlia had
+become.
+
+"Depend you on it, my dear," said Mrs. Sumfit, "my Dahly's grown above
+him. That's nettles to your uncle, my dear. He can't abide it. Don't
+you see he can't? Some men's like that. Others 'd see you dressed like a
+princess, and not be satisfied. They vary so, the teasin' creatures! But
+one and all, whether they likes it or not, owns a woman's the better for
+bein' dressed in the fashion. What do grieve me to my insidest heart, it
+is your bonnet. What a bonnet that was lying beside her dear round arm
+in the po'trait, and her finger up making a dimple in her cheek, as
+if she was thinking of us in a sorrowful way. That's the arts o' being
+lady-like--look sad-like. How could we get a bonnet for you?"
+
+"My own must do," said Rhoda.
+
+"Yes, and you to look like lady and servant-gal a-goin' out for an
+airin'; and she to feel it! Pretty, that'd be!"
+
+"She won't be ashamed of me," Rhoda faltered; and then hummed a little
+tune, and said firmly--"It's no use my trying to look like what I'm
+not."
+
+"No, truly;" Mrs. Sumfit assented. "But it's your bein' behind the
+fashions what hurt me. As well you might be an old thing like me,
+for any pleasant looks you'll git. Now, the country--you're like in a
+coalhole for the matter o' that. While London, my dear, its pavement
+and gutter, and omnibus traffic; and if you're not in the fashion,
+the little wicked boys of the streets themselves 'll let you know it;
+they've got such eyes for fashions, they have. And I don't want my
+Dahly's sister to be laughed at, and called 'coal-scuttle,' as happened
+to me, my dear, believe it or not--and shoved aside, and said to--'Who
+are you?' For she reely is nice-looking. Your uncle Anthony and Mr.
+Robert agreed upon that."
+
+Rhoda coloured, and said, after a time, "It would please me if people
+didn't speak about my looks."
+
+The looking-glass probably told her no more than that she was nice to
+the eye, but a young man who sees anything should not see like a mirror,
+and a girl's instinct whispers to her, that her image has not been taken
+to heart when she is accurately and impartially described by him.
+
+The key to Rhoda at this period was a desire to be made warm with praise
+of her person. She beheld her face at times, and shivered. The face was
+so strange with its dark thick eyebrows, and peculiarly straight-gazing
+brown eyes; the level long red under-lip and curved upper; and the chin
+and nose, so unlike Dahlia's, whose nose was, after a little dip from
+the forehead, one soft line to its extremity, and whose chin seemed
+shaped to a cup. Rhoda's outlines were harder. There was a suspicion of
+a heavenward turn to her nose, and of squareness to her chin. Her face,
+when studied, inspired in its owner's mind a doubt of her being even
+nice to the eye, though she knew that in exercise, and when smitten by
+a blush, brightness and colour aided her claims. She knew also that her
+head was easily poised on her neck; and that her figure was reasonably
+good; but all this was unconfirmed knowledge, quickly shadowed by
+the doubt. As the sun is wanted to glorify the right features of a
+landscape, this girl thirsted for a dose of golden flattery. She felt,
+without envy of her sister, that Dahlia eclipsed her: and all she
+prayed for was that she might not be quite so much in the background and
+obscure.
+
+But great, powerful London--the new universe to her spirit--was opening
+its arms to her. In her half sleep that night she heard the mighty
+thunder of the city, crashing, tumults of disordered harmonies, and the
+splendour of the lamp-lighted city appeared to hang up under a dark-blue
+heaven, removed from earth, like a fresh planet to which she was being
+beckoned.
+
+At breakfast on the Sunday morning, her departure was necessarily spoken
+of in public. Robert talked to her exactly as he had talked to Dahlia,
+on the like occasion. He mentioned, as she remembered in one or two
+instances, the names of the same streets, and professed a similar
+anxiety as regarded driving her to the station and catching the train.
+"That's a thing which makes a man feel his strength's nothing," he said.
+"You can't stop it. I fancy I could stop a four-in-hand at full gallop.
+Mind, I only fancy I could; but when you come to do with iron and steam,
+I feel like a baby. You can't stop trains."
+
+"You can trip 'em," said Anthony, a remark that called forth general
+laughter, and increased the impression that he was a man of resources.
+
+Rhoda was vexed by Robert's devotion to his strength. She was going, and
+wished to go, but she wished to be regretted as well; and she looked at
+him more. He, on the contrary, scarcely looked at her at all. He threw
+verbal turnips, oats, oxen, poultry, and every possible melancholy
+matter-of-fact thing, about the table, described the farm and his
+fondness for it and the neighbourhood; said a farmer's life was best,
+and gave Rhoda a week in which to be tired of London.
+
+She sneered in her soul, thinking "how little he knows of the constancy
+in the nature of women!" adding, "when they form attachments."
+
+Anthony was shown at church, in spite of a feeble intimation he
+expressed, that it would be agreeable to him to walk about in the March
+sunshine, and see the grounds and the wild flowers, which never gave
+trouble, nor cost a penny, and were always pretty, and worth twenty of
+your artificial contrivances.
+
+"Same as I say to Miss Dahly," he took occasion to remark; "but no!--no
+good. I don't believe women hear ye, when you talk sense of that kind.
+'Look,' says I, 'at a violet.' 'Look,' says she, 'at a rose.' Well, what
+can ye say after that? She swears the rose looks best. You swear the
+violet costs least. Then there you have a battle between what it costs
+and how it looks."
+
+Robert pronounced a conventional affirmative, when called on for it by a
+look from Anthony. Whereupon Rhoda cried out,--
+
+"Dahlia was right--she was right, uncle."
+
+"She was right, my dear, if she was a ten-thousander. She wasn't right
+as a farmer's daughter with poor expectations.--I'd say humble, if
+humble she were. As a farmer's daughter, she should choose the violet
+side. That's clear as day. One thing's good, I admit; she tells me she
+makes her own bonnets, and they're as good as milliners', and that's a
+proud matter to say of your own niece. And to buy dresses for herself, I
+suppose, she's sat down and she made dresses for fine ladies. I've found
+her at it. Save the money for the work, says I. What does she reply--she
+always has a reply: 'Uncle, I know the value of money better. 'You mean,
+you spend it,' I says to her. 'I buy more than it's worth,' says she.
+And I'll tell you what, Mr. Robert Armstrong, as I find your name to be,
+sir; if you beat women at talking, my lord! you're a clever chap."
+
+Robert laughed. "I give in at the first mile."
+
+"Don't think much of women--is that it, sir?"
+
+"I'm glad to say I don't think of them at all."
+
+"Do you think of one woman, now, Mr. Robert Armstrong?"
+
+"I'd much rather think of two."
+
+"And why, may I ask?"
+
+"It's safer."
+
+"Now, I don't exactly see that," said Anthony.
+
+"You set one to tear the other," Robert explained.
+
+"You're a Grand Turk Mogul in your reasonings of women, Mr. Robert
+Armstrong. I hope as your morals are sound, sir?"
+
+They were on the road to church, but Robert could not restrain a
+swinging outburst.
+
+He observed that he hoped likewise that his morals were sound.
+
+"Because," said Anthony, "do you see, sir, two wives--"
+
+"No, no; one wife," interposed Robert. "You said 'think about;' I'd
+'think about' any number of women, if I was idle. But the woman you mean
+to make your wife, you go to at once, and don't 'think about' her or the
+question either."
+
+"You make sure of her, do you, sir?"
+
+"No: I try my luck; that is all."
+
+"Suppose she won't have ye?"
+
+"Then I wait for her."
+
+"Suppose she gets married to somebody else?"
+
+"Well, you know, I shouldn't cast eye on a woman who was a fool."
+
+"Well, upon my--" Anthony checked his exclamation, returning to the
+charge with, "Just suppose, for the sake of supposing--supposing she was
+a fool, and gone and got married, and you thrown back'ard on one leg,
+starin' at the other, stupified-like?"
+
+"I don't mind supposing it," said Robert. "Say, she's a fool. Her being
+a fool argues that I was one in making a fool's choice. So, she jilts
+me, and I get a pistol, or I get a neat bit of rope, or I take a clean
+header with a cannon-ball at my heels, or I go to the chemist's and ask
+for stuff to poison rats,--anything a fool'd do under the circumstances,
+it don't matter what."
+
+Old Anthony waited for Rhoda to jump over a stile, and said to her,--
+
+"He laughs at the whole lot of ye."
+
+"Who?" she asked, with betraying cheeks.
+
+"This Mr. Robert Armstrong of yours."
+
+"Of mine, uncle!"
+
+"He don't seem to care a snap o' the finger for any of ye."
+
+"Then, none of us must care for him, uncle."
+
+"Now, just the contrary. That always shows a young fellow who's
+attending to his business. If he'd seen you boil potatoes, make
+dumplings, beds, tea, all that, you'd have had a chance. He'd have
+marched up to ye before you was off to London."
+
+"Saying, 'You are the woman.'" Rhoda was too desperately tickled by the
+idea to refrain from uttering it, though she was angry, and suffering
+internal discontent. "Or else, 'You are the cook,'" she muttered, and
+shut, with the word, steel bars across her heart, calling him, mentally,
+names not justified by anything he had said or done--such as mercenary,
+tyrannical, and such like.
+
+Robert was attentive to her in church. Once she caught him with his
+eyes on her face; but he betrayed no confusion, and looked away at the
+clergyman. When the text was given out, he found the place in his Bible,
+and handed it to her pointedly--"There shall be snares and traps unto
+you;" a line from Joshua. She received the act as a polite pawing
+civility; but when she was coming out of church, Robert saw that a blush
+swept over her face, and wondered what thoughts could be rising within
+her, unaware that girls catch certain meanings late, and suffer a fiery
+torture when these meanings are clear to them. Rhoda called up the
+pride of her womanhood that she might despise the man who had dared to
+distrust her. She kept her poppy colour throughout the day, so sensitive
+was this pride. But most she was angered, after reflection, by the
+doubts which Robert appeared to cast on Dahlia, in setting his finger
+upon that burning line of Scripture. It opened a whole black kingdom to
+her imagination, and first touched her visionary life with shade. She
+was sincere in her ignorance that the doubts were her own, but they lay
+deep in unawakened recesses of the soul; it was by a natural action of
+her reason that she transferred and forced them upon him who had chanced
+to make them visible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+When young minds are set upon a distant object, they scarcely live
+for anything about them. The drive to the station and the parting
+with Robert, the journey to London, which had latterly seemed to her
+secretly-distressed anticipation like a sunken city--a place of wonder
+with the waters over it--all passed by smoothly; and then it became
+necessary to call a cabman, for whom, as he did her the service to lift
+her box, Rhoda felt a gracious respect, until a quarrel ensued between
+him and her uncle concerning sixpence;--a poor sum, as she thought; but
+representing, as Anthony impressed upon her understanding during the
+conflict of hard words, a principle. Those who can persuade themselves
+that they are fighting for a principle, fight strenuously, and maybe
+reckoned upon to overmatch combatants on behalf of a miserable small
+coin; so the cabman went away discomfited. He used such bad language
+that Rhoda had no pity for him, and hearing her uncle style it "the
+London tongue," she thought dispiritedly of Dahlia's having had to
+listen to it through so long a season. Dahlia was not at home; but Mrs.
+Wicklow, Anthony's landlady, undertook to make Rhoda comfortable, which
+operation she began by praising dark young ladies over fair ones, at
+the same time shaking Rhoda's arm that she might not fail to see a
+compliment was intended. "This is our London way," she said. But Rhoda
+was most disconcerted when she heard Mrs. Wicklow relate that her
+daughter and Dahlia were out together, and say, that she had no doubt
+they had found some pleasant and attentive gentleman for a companion, if
+they had not gone purposely to meet one. Her thoughts of her sister were
+perplexed, and London seemed a gigantic net around them both.
+
+"Yes, that's the habit with the girls up here," said Anthony; "that's
+what fine bonnets mean."
+
+Rhoda dropped into a bitter depth of brooding. The savage nature of her
+virgin pride was such that it gave her great suffering even to
+suppose that a strange gentleman would dare to address her sister. She
+half-fashioned the words on her lips that she had dreamed of a false
+Zion, and was being righteously punished. By-and-by the landlady's
+daughter returned home alone, saying, with a dreadful laugh, that Dahlia
+had sent her for her Bible; but she would give no explanation of the
+singular mission which had been entrusted to her, and she showed no
+willingness to attempt to fulfil it, merely repeating, "Her Bible!" with
+a vulgar exhibition of simulated scorn that caused Rhoda to shrink from
+her, though she would gladly have poured out a multitude of questions in
+the ear of one who had last been with her beloved. After a while, Mrs.
+Wicklow looked at the clock, and instantly became overclouded with an
+extreme gravity.
+
+"Eleven! and she sent Mary Ann home for her Bible. This looks bad. I
+call it hypocritical, the idea of mentioning the Bible. Now, if she had
+said to Mary Ann, go and fetch any other book but a Bible!"
+
+"It was mother's Bible," interposed Rhoda.
+
+Mrs. Wicklow replied: "And I wish all young women to be as innocent as
+you, my dear. You'll get you to bed. You're a dear, mild, sweet, good
+young woman. I'm never deceived in character."
+
+Vaunting her penetration, she accompanied Rhoda to Dahlia's chamber,
+bidding her sleep speedily, or that when her sister came they would be
+talking till the cock crowed hoarse.
+
+"There's a poultry-yard close to us?" said Rhoda; feeling less at home
+when she heard that there was not.
+
+The night was quiet and clear. She leaned her head out of the window,
+and heard the mellow Sunday evening roar of the city as of a sea at ebb.
+And Dahlia was out on the sea. Rhoda thought of it as she looked at the
+row of lamps, and listened to the noise remote, until the sight of
+stars was pleasant as the faces of friends. "People are kind here,"
+she reflected, for her short experience of the landlady was good, and a
+young gentleman who had hailed a cab for her at the station, had a nice
+voice. He was fair. "I am dark," came a spontaneous reflection. She
+undressed, and half dozing over her beating heart in bed, heard the
+street door open, and leaped to think that her sister approached,
+jumping up in her bed to give ear to the door and the stairs, that
+were conducting her joy to her: but she quickly recomposed herself,
+and feigned sleep, for the delight of revelling in her sister's first
+wonderment. The door was flung wide, and Rhoda heard her name called
+by Dahlia's voice, and then there was a delicious silence, and she felt
+that Dahlia was coming up to her on tiptoe, and waited for her head to
+be stooped near, that she might fling out her arms, and draw the dear
+head to her bosom. But Dahlia came only to the bedside, without leaning
+over, and spoke of her looks, which held the girl quiet.
+
+"How she sleeps! It's a country sleep!" Dahlia murmured. "She's changed,
+but it's all for the better. She's quite a woman; she's a perfect
+brunette; and the nose I used to laugh at suits her face and those
+black, thick eyebrows of hers; my pet! Oh, why is she here? What's meant
+by it? I knew nothing of her coming. Is she sent on purpose?"
+
+Rhoda did not stir. The tone of Dahlia's speaking, low and almost awful
+to her, laid a flat hand on her, and kept her still.
+
+"I came for my Bible," she heard Dahlia say. "I promised mother--oh, my
+poor darling mother! And Dody lying in my bed! Who would have thought of
+such things? Perhaps heaven does look after us and interfere. What will
+become of me? Oh, you pretty innocent in your sleep! I lie for hours,
+and can't sleep. She binds her hair in a knot on the pillow, just as she
+used to in the old farm days!"
+
+Rhoda knew that her sister was bending over her now, but she was almost
+frigid, and could not move.
+
+Dahlia went to the looking-glass. "How flushed I am!" she murmured. "No;
+I'm pale, quite white. I've lost my strength. What can I do? How could
+I take mother's Bible, and run from my pretty one, who expects me, and
+dreams she'll wake with me beside her in the morning! I can't--I can't
+If you love me, Edward, you won't wish it."
+
+She fell into a chair, crying wildly, and muffling her sobs. Rhoda's
+eyelids grew moist, but wonder and the cold anguish of senseless
+sympathy held her still frost-bound. All at once she heard the window
+open. Some one spoke in the street below; some one uttered Dahlia's
+name. A deep bell swung a note of midnight.
+
+"Go!" cried Dahlia.
+
+The window was instantly shut.
+
+The vibration of Dahlia's voice went through Rhoda like the heavy
+shaking of the bell after it had struck, and the room seemed to spin and
+hum. It was to her but another minute before her sister slid softly into
+the bed, and they were locked together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Boyne's bank was of the order of those old and firmly fixed
+establishments which have taken root with the fortunes of the
+country--are honourable as England's name, solid as her prosperity, and
+even as the flourishing green tree to shareholders: a granite house.
+Boyne himself had been disembodied for more than a century: Burt and
+Hamble were still of the flesh; but a greater than Burt or Hamble
+was Blancove--the Sir William Blancove, Baronet, of city feasts and
+charities, who, besides being a wealthy merchant, possessed of a very
+acute head for banking, was a scholarly gentleman, worthy of riches.
+His brother was Squire Blancove, of Wrexby; but between these two close
+relatives there existed no stronger feeling than what was expressed by
+open contempt of a mind dedicated to business on the one side, and quiet
+contempt of a life devoted to indolence on the other. Nevertheless,
+Squire Blancove, though everybody knew how deeply he despised his junior
+for his city-gained title and commercial occupation, sent him his son
+Algernon, to get the youth into sound discipline, if possible. This
+was after the elastic Algernon had, on the paternal intimation of his
+colonel, relinquished his cornetcy and military service. Sir William
+received the hopeful young fellow much in the spirit with which he
+listened to the tales of his brother's comments on his own line of
+conduct; that is to say, as homage to his intellectual superiority. Mr.
+Algernon was installed in the Bank, and sat down for a long career of
+groaning at the desk, with more complacency than was expected from him.
+Sir William forwarded excellent accounts to his brother of the behaviour
+of the heir to his estates. It was his way of rebuking the squire, and
+in return for it the squire, though somewhat comforted, despised
+his clerkly son, and lived to learn how very unjustly he did so.
+Adolescents, who have the taste for running into excesses, enjoy the
+breath of change as another form of excitement: change is a sort of
+debauch to them. They will delight infinitely in a simple country round
+of existence, in propriety and church-going, in the sensation of feeling
+innocent. There is little that does not enrapture them, if you tie them
+down to nothing, and let them try all. Sir William was deceived by his
+nephew. He would have taken him into his town-house; but his own son,
+Edward, who was studying for the Law, had chambers in the Temple,
+and Algernon, receiving an invitation from Edward, declared a gentle
+preference for the abode of his cousin. His allowance from his father
+was properly contracted to keep him from excesses, as the genius of his
+senior devised, and Sir William saw no objection to the scheme, and made
+none. The two dined with him about twice in the month.
+
+Edward Blancove was three-and-twenty years old, a student by fits, and
+a young man given to be moody. He had powers of gaiety far eclipsing
+Algernon's, but he was not the same easy tripping sinner and flippant
+soul. He was in that yeasty condition of his years when action and
+reflection alternately usurp the mind; remorse succeeded dissipation,
+and indulgences offered the soporific to remorse. The friends of the
+two imagined that Algernon was, or would become, his evil genius. In
+reality, Edward was the perilous companion. He was composed of better
+stuff. Algernon was but an airy animal nature, the soul within him being
+an effervescence lightly let loose. Edward had a fatally serious spirit,
+and one of some strength. What he gave himself up to, he could believe
+to be correct, in the teeth of an opposing world, until he tired of
+it, when he sided as heartily with the world against his quondam self.
+Algernon might mislead, or point his cousin's passions for a time; yet
+if they continued their courses together, there was danger that Algernon
+would degenerate into a reckless subordinate--a minister, a valet, and
+be tempted unknowingly to do things in earnest, which is nothing less
+than perdition to this sort of creature.
+
+But the key to young men is the ambition, or, in the place of it,
+the romantic sentiment nourished by them. Edward aspired to become
+Attorney-General of these realms, not a judge, you observe; for a judge
+is to the imagination of youthful minds a stationary being, venerable,
+but not active; whereas, your Attorney-General is always in the fray,
+and fights commonly on the winning side,--a point that renders his
+position attractive to sagacious youth. Algernon had other views.
+Civilization had tried him, and found him wanting; so he condemned it.
+Moreover, sitting now all day at a desk, he was civilization's drudge.
+No wonder, then, that his dream was of prairies, and primeval forests,
+and Australian wilds. He believed in his heart that he would be a man
+new made over there, and always looked forward to savage life as to a
+bath that would cleanse him, so that it did not much matter his being
+unclean for the present.
+
+The young men had a fair cousin by marriage, a Mrs. Margaret Lovell, a
+widow. At seventeen she had gone with her husband to India, where Harry
+Lovell encountered the sword of a Sikh Sirdar, and tried the last of his
+much-vaunted swordsmanship, which, with his skill at the pistols, had
+served him better in two antecedent duels, for the vindication of his
+lovely and terrible young wife. He perished on the field, critically
+admiring the stroke to which he owed his death. A week after Harry's
+burial his widow was asked in marriage by his colonel. Captains, and a
+giddy subaltern likewise, disputed claims to possess her. She, however,
+decided to arrest further bloodshed by quitting the regiment. She always
+said that she left India to save her complexion; "and people don't know
+how very candid I am," she added, for the colonel above-mentioned was
+wealthy,--a man expectant of a title, and a good match, and she
+was laughed at when she thus assigned trivial reasons for momentous
+resolutions. It is a luxury to be candid; and perfect candour can do
+more for us than a dark disguise.
+
+Mrs. Lovell's complexion was worth saving from the ravages of an Indian
+climate, and the persecution of claimants to her hand. She was golden
+and white, like an autumnal birch-tree--yellow hair, with warm-toned
+streaks in it, shading a fabulously fair skin. Then, too, she was tall,
+of a nervous build, supple and proud in motion, a brilliant horsewoman,
+and a most distinguished sitter in an easy drawing-room chair, which
+is, let me impress upon you, no mean quality. After riding out for hours
+with a sweet comrade, who has thrown the mantle of dignity half-way off
+her shoulders, it is perplexing, and mixed strangely of humiliation and
+ecstasy, to come upon her clouded majesty where she reclines as upon
+rose-hued clouds, in a mystic circle of restriction (she who laughed at
+your jokes, and capped them, two hours ago) a queen.
+
+Between Margaret Lovell and Edward there was a misunderstanding, of
+which no one knew the nature, for they spoke in public very respectfully
+one of the other. It had been supposed that they were lovers once; but
+when lovers quarrel, they snarl, they bite, they worry; their eyes
+are indeed unveiled, and their mouths unmuzzled. Now Margaret said of
+Edward: "He is sure to rise; he has such good principles." Edward said
+of Margaret: "She only wants a husband who will keep her well in hand."
+These sentences scarcely carried actual compliments when you knew the
+speakers; but outraged lovers cannot talk in that style after they have
+broken apart. It is possible that Margaret and Edward conveyed to one
+another as sharp a sting as envenomed lovers attempt. Gossip had once
+betrothed them, but was now at fault. The lady had a small jointure, and
+lived partly with her uncle, Lord Elling, partly with Squire Blancove,
+her aunt's husband, and a little by herself, which was when she counted
+money in her purse, and chose to assert her independence. She had a name
+in the world. There is a fate attached to some women, from Helen of Troy
+downward, that blood is to be shed for them. One duel on behalf of a
+woman is a reputation to her for life; two are notoriety. If she is very
+young, can they be attributable to her? We charge them naturally to her
+overpowering beauty. It happened that Mrs. Lovell was beautiful. Under
+the light of the two duels her beauty shone as from an illumination of
+black flame. Boys adored Mrs. Lovell. These are moths. But more, the
+birds of air, nay, grave owls (who stand in this metaphor for whiskered
+experience) thronged, dashing at the apparition of terrible splendour.
+Was it her fault that she had a name in the world?
+
+Mrs. Margaret Lovell's portrait hung in Edward's room. It was a
+photograph exquisitely coloured, and was on the left of a dark Judith,
+dark with a serenity of sternness. On the right hung another coloured
+photograph of a young lady, also fair; and it was a point of taste to
+choose between them. Do you like the hollowed lily's cheeks, or the
+plump rose's? Do you like a thinnish fall of golden hair, or an abundant
+cluster of nut-brown? Do you like your blonde with limpid blue eyes, or
+prefer an endowment of sunny hazel? Finally, are you taken by an air of
+artistic innocence winding serpentine about your heart's fibres; or
+is blushing simplicity sweeter to you? Mrs. Lovell's eyebrows were the
+faintly-marked trace of a perfect arch. The other young person's were
+thickish, more level; a full brown colour. She looked as if she had not
+yet attained to any sense of her being a professed beauty: but the
+fair widow was clearly bent upon winning you, and had a shy, playful
+intentness of aspect. Her pure white skin was flat on the bone; the
+lips came forward in a soft curve, and, if they were not artistically
+stained, were triumphantly fresh. Here, in any case, she beat her rival,
+whose mouth had the plebeian beauty's fault of being too straight in a
+line, and was not trained, apparently, to tricks of dainty pouting.
+
+It was morning, and the cousins having sponged in pleasant cold water,
+arranged themselves for exercise, and came out simultaneously into the
+sitting-room, slippered, and in flannels. They nodded and went through
+certain curt greetings, and then Algernon stepped to a cupboard and
+tossed out the leather gloves. The room was large and they had a
+tolerable space for the work, when the breakfast-table had been drawn
+a little on one side. You saw at a glance which was the likelier man of
+the two, when they stood opposed. Algernon's rounded features, full lips
+and falling chin, were not a match, though he was quick on his feet, for
+the wary, prompt eyes, set mouth, and hardness of Edward. Both had stout
+muscle, but in Edward there was vigour of brain as well, which seemed
+to knit and inform his shape without which, in fact, a man is as a ship
+under no command. Both looked their best; as, when sparring, men always
+do look.
+
+"Now, then," said Algernon, squaring up to his cousin in good style,
+"now's the time for that unwholesome old boy underneath to commence
+groaning."
+
+"Step as light as you can," replied Edward, meeting him with the pretty
+motion of the gloves.
+
+"I'll step as light as a French dancing-master. Let's go to Paris and
+learn the savate, Ned. It must be a new sensation to stand on one leg
+and knock a fellow's hat off with the other."
+
+"Stick to your fists."
+
+"Hang it! I wish your fists wouldn't stick to me so."
+
+"You talk too much."
+
+"Gad, I don't get puffy half so soon as you."
+
+"I want country air."
+
+"You said you were going out, old Ned."
+
+"I changed my mind."
+
+Saying which, Edward shut his teeth, and talked for two or three hot
+minutes wholly with his fists. The room shook under Algernon's boundings
+to right and left till a blow sent him back on the breakfast-table,
+shattered a cup on the floor, and bespattered his close flannel shirt
+with a funereal coffee-tinge.
+
+"What the deuce I said to bring that on myself, I don't know," Algernon
+remarked as he rose. "Anything connected with the country disagreeable
+to you, Ned? Come! a bout of quiet scientific boxing, and none of these
+beastly rushes, as if you were singling me out of a crowd of magsmen.
+Did you go to church yesterday, Ned? Confound it, you're on me again,
+are you?"
+
+And Algernon went on spouting unintelligible talk under a torrent of
+blows. He lost his temper and fought out at them; but as it speedily
+became evident to him that the loss laid him open to punishment, he
+prudently recovered it, sparred, danced about, and contrived to
+shake the room in a manner that caused Edward to drop his arms, in
+consideration for the distracted occupant of the chambers below.
+Algernon accepted the truce, and made it peace by casting off one glove.
+
+"There! that's a pleasant morning breather," he said, and sauntered to
+the window to look at the river. "I always feel the want of it when
+I don't get it. I could take a thrashing rather than not on with the
+gloves to begin the day. Look at those boats! Fancy my having to go down
+to the city. It makes me feel like my blood circulating the wrong way.
+My father'll suffer some day, for keeping me at this low ebb of cash, by
+jingo!"
+
+He uttered this with a prophetic fierceness.
+
+"I cannot even scrape together enough for entrance money to a Club.
+It's sickening! I wonder whether I shall ever get used to banking work?
+There's an old clerk in our office who says he should feel ill if he
+missed a day. And the old porter beats him--bangs him to fits. I believe
+he'd die off if he didn't see the house open to the minute. They say
+that old boy's got a pretty niece; but he don't bring her to the office
+now. Reward of merit!--Mr. Anthony Hackbut is going to receive ten
+pounds a year extra. That's for his honesty. I wonder whether I could
+earn a reputation for the sake of a prospect of ten extra pounds to my
+salary. I've got a salary! hurrah! But if they keep me to my hundred
+and fifty per annum, don't let them trust me every day with the bags,
+as they do that old fellow. Some of the men say he's good to lend fifty
+pounds at a pinch.--Are the chops coming, Ned?"
+
+"The chops are coming," said Edward, who had thrown on a boating-coat
+and plunged into a book, and spoke echoing.
+
+"Here's little Peggy Lovell." Algernon faced this portrait. "It don't do
+her justice. She's got more life, more change in her, more fire. She's
+starting for town, I hear."
+
+"She is starting for town," said Edward.
+
+"How do you know that?" Algernon swung about to ask.
+
+Edward looked round to him. "By the fact of your not having fished for a
+holiday this week. How did you leave her yesterday, Algy? Quite well, I
+hope."
+
+The ingenuous face of the young gentleman crimsoned.
+
+"Oh, she was well," he said. "Ha! I see there can be some attraction in
+your dark women."
+
+"You mean that Judith? Yes, she's a good diversion." Edward gave a
+two-edged response. "What train did you come up by last night?"
+
+"The last from Wrexby. That reminds me: I saw a young Judith just as
+I got out. She wanted a cab. I called it for her. She belongs to old
+Hackbut of the Bank--the old porter, you know. If it wasn't that there's
+always something about dark women which makes me think they're going to
+have a moustache, I should take to that girl's face."
+
+Edward launched forth an invective against fair women.
+
+"What have they done to you-what have they done?" said Algernon.
+
+"My good fellow, they're nothing but colour. They've no conscience. If
+they swear a thing to you one moment, they break it the next. They
+can't help doing it. You don't ask a gilt weathercock to keep faith with
+anything but the wind, do you? It's an ass that trusts a fair woman at
+all, or has anything to do with the confounded set. Cleopatra was fair;
+so was Delilah; so is the Devil's wife. Reach me that book of Reports."
+
+"By jingo!" cried Algernon, "my stomach reports that if provision
+doesn't soon approach----why don't you keep a French cook here, Ned?
+Let's give up the women, and take to a French cook."
+
+Edward yawned horribly. "All in good time. It's what we come to. It's
+philosophy--your French cook! I wish I had it, or him. I'm afraid a
+fellow can't anticipate his years--not so lucky!"
+
+"By Jove! we shall have to be philosophers before we breakfast!"
+Algernon exclaimed. "It's nine. I've to be tied to the stake at ten,
+chained and muzzled--a leetle-a dawg! I wish I hadn't had to leave
+the service. It was a vile conspiracy against me there, Ned. Hang all
+tradesmen! I sit on a stool, and add up figures. I work harder than a
+nigger in the office. That's my life: but I must feed. It's no use going
+to the office in a rage."
+
+"Will you try on the gloves again?" was Edward's mild suggestion.
+
+Algernon thanked him, and replied that he knew him. Edward hit hard when
+he was empty.
+
+They now affected patience, as far as silence went to make up an element
+of that sublime quality. The chops arriving, they disdained the mask.
+Algernon fired his glove just over the waiter's head, and Edward put
+the ease to the man's conscience; after which they sat and ate, talking
+little. The difference between them was, that Edward knew the state of
+Algernon's mind and what was working within it, while the latter stared
+at a blank wall as regarded Edward's.
+
+"Going out after breakfast, Ned?" said Algernon. "We'll walk to the city
+together, if you like."
+
+Edward fixed one of his intent looks upon his cousin. "You're not going
+to the city to-day?"
+
+"The deuce, I'm not!"
+
+"You're going to dance attendance on Mrs. Lovell, whom it's your
+pleasure to call Peggy, when you're some leagues out of her hearing."
+
+Algernon failed to command his countenance. He glanced at one of the
+portraits, and said, "Who is that girl up there? Tell us her name.
+Talking of Mrs. Lovell, has she ever seen it?"
+
+"If you'll put on your coat, my dear Algy, I will talk to you about Mrs.
+Lovell." Edward kept his penetrative eyes on Algernon. "Listen to me:
+you'll get into a mess there."
+
+"If I must listen, Ned, I'll listen in my shirt-sleeves, with all
+respect to the lady."
+
+"Very well. The shirt-sleeves help the air of bravado. Now, you know
+that I've what they call 'knelt at her feet.' She's handsome. Don't cry
+out. She's dashing, and as near being a devil as any woman I ever met.
+Do you know why we broke? I'll tell you. Plainly, because I refused to
+believe that one of her men had insulted her. You understand what that
+means. I declined to be a chief party in a scandal."
+
+"Declined to fight the fellow?" interposed Algernon. "More shame to
+you!"
+
+"I think you're a year younger than I am, Algy. You have the privilege
+of speaking with that year's simplicity. Mrs. Lovell will play you as
+she played me. I acknowledge her power, and I keep out of her way. I
+don't bet; I don't care to waltz; I can't keep horses; so I don't lose
+much by the privation to which I subject myself."
+
+"I bet, I waltz, and I ride. So," said Algernon, "I should lose
+tremendously."
+
+"You will lose, mark my words."
+
+"Is the lecture of my year's senior concluded?" said Algernon.
+
+"Yes; I've done," Edward answered.
+
+"Then I'll put on my coat, Ned, and I'll smoke in it. That'll give you
+assurance I'm not going near Mrs. Lovell, if anything will."
+
+"That gives me assurance that Mrs. Lovell tolerates in you what she
+detests," said Edward, relentless in his insight; "and, consequently,
+gives me assurance that she finds you of particular service to her at
+present."
+
+Algernon had a lighted match in his hand. He flung it into the fire.
+"I'm hanged if I don't think you have the confounded vanity to suppose
+she sets me as a spy upon you!"
+
+A smile ran along Edward's lips. "I don't think you'd know it, if she
+did."
+
+"Oh, you're ten years older; you're twenty," bawled Algernon, in an
+extremity of disgust. "Don't I know what game you're following up? Isn't
+it clear as day you've got another woman in your eye?"
+
+"It's as clear as day, my good Algy, that you see a portrait hanging in
+my chambers, and you have heard Mrs. Lovell's opinion of the fact. So
+much is perfectly clear. There's my hand. I don't blame you. She's a
+clever woman, and like many of the sort, shrewd at guessing the worst.
+Come, take my hand. I tell you, I don't blame you. I've been little
+dog to her myself, and fetched and carried, and wagged my tail. It's
+charming while it lasts. Will you shake it?"
+
+"Your tail, man?" Algernon roared in pretended amazement.
+
+Edward eased him back to friendliness by laughing. "No; my hand."
+
+They shook hands.
+
+"All right," said Algernon. "You mean well. It's very well for you to
+preach virtue to a poor devil; you've got loose, or you're regularly in
+love."
+
+"Virtue! by heaven!" Edward cried; "I wish I were entitled to preach it
+to any man on earth."
+
+His face flushed. "There, good-bye, old fellow," he added.
+
+"Go to the city. I'll dine with you to-night, if you like; come and dine
+with me at my Club. I shall be disengaged."
+
+Algernon mumbled a flexible assent to an appointment at Edward's Club,
+dressed himself with care, borrowed a sovereign, for which he nodded his
+acceptance, and left him.
+
+Edward set his brain upon a book of law.
+
+It may have been two hours after he had sat thus in his Cistercian
+stillness, when a letter was delivered to him by one of the Inn porters.
+Edward read the superscription, and asked the porter who it was that
+brought it. Two young ladies, the porter said.
+
+These were the contents:--
+
+"I am not sure that you will ever forgive me. I cannot forgive myself
+when I think of that one word I was obliged to speak to you in the cold
+street, and nothing to explain why, and how much I love, you. Oh! how
+I love you! I cry while I write. I cannot help it. I was a sop of tears
+all night long, and oh! if you had seen my face in the morning. I am
+thankful you did not. Mother's Bible brought me home. It must have been
+guidance, for in my bed there lay my sister, and I could not leave her,
+I love her so. I could not have got down stairs again after seeing her
+there; and I had to say that cold word and shut the window on you. May I
+call you Edward still? Oh, dear Edward, do make allowance for me. Write
+kindly to me. Say you forgive me. I feel like a ghost to-day. My life
+seems quite behind me somewhere, and I hardly feel anything I touch.
+I declare to you, dearest one, I had no idea my sister was here. I was
+surprised when I heard her name mentioned by my landlady, and looked on
+the bed; suddenly my strength was gone, and it changed all that I was
+thinking. I never knew before that women were so weak, but now I see
+they are, and I only know I am at my Edward's mercy, and am stupid! Oh,
+so wretched and stupid. I shall not touch food till I hear from you. Oh,
+if, you are angry, write so; but do write. My suspense would make you
+pity me. I know I deserve your anger. It was not that I do not trust
+you, Edward. My mother in heaven sees my heart and that I trust, I trust
+my heart and everything I am and have to you. I would almost wish and
+wait to see you to-day in the Gardens, but my crying has made me such
+a streaked thing to look at. If I had rubbed my face with a
+scrubbing-brush, I could not look worse, and I cannot risk your seeing
+me. It would excuse you for hating me. Do you? Does he hate her? She
+loves you. She would die for you, dear Edward. Oh! I feel that if I was
+told to-day that I should die for you to-morrow, it would be happiness.
+I am dying--yes, I am dying till I hear from you.
+
+             "Believe me,
+
+          "Your tender, loving, broken-hearted,
+
+                  "Dahlia."
+
+   There was a postscript:--
+
+   "May I still go to lessons?"
+
+Edward finished the letter with a calmly perusing eye. He had winced
+triflingly at one or two expressions contained in it; forcible, perhaps,
+but not such as Mrs. Lovell smiling from the wall yonder would have
+used.
+
+"The poor child threatens to eat no dinner, if I don't write to her," he
+said; and replied in a kind and magnanimous spirit, concluding--"Go to
+lessons, by all means."
+
+Having accomplished this, he stood up, and by hazard fell to comparing
+the rival portraits; a melancholy and a comic thing to do, as you will
+find if you put two painted heads side by side, and set their merits
+contesting, and reflect on the contest, and to what advantages,
+personal, or of the artist's, the winner owes the victory. Dahlia had
+been admirably dealt with by the artist; the charm of pure ingenuousness
+without rusticity was visible in her face and figure. Hanging there on
+the wall, she was a match for Mrs. Lovell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Rhoda returned home the heavier for a secret that she bore with her. All
+through the first night of her sleeping in London, Dahlia's sobs, and
+tender hugs, and self-reproaches, had penetrated her dreams, and when
+the morning came she had scarcely to learn that Dahlia loved some one.
+The confession was made; but his name was reserved. Dahlia spoke of him
+with such sacredness of respect that she seemed lost in him, and like a
+creature kissing his feet. With tears rolling down her cheeks, and with
+moans of anguish, she spoke of the deliciousness of loving: of knowing
+one to whom she abandoned her will and her destiny, until, seeing how
+beautiful a bloom love threw upon the tearful worn face of her sister,
+Rhoda was impressed by a mystical veneration for this man, and readily
+believed him to be above all other men, if not superhuman: for she was
+of an age and an imagination to conceive a spiritual pre-eminence over
+the weakness of mortality. She thought that one who could so transform
+her sister, touch her with awe, and give her gracefulness and humility,
+must be what Dahlia said he was. She asked shyly for his Christian name;
+but even so little Dahlia withheld. It was his wish that Dahlia should
+keep silence concerning him.
+
+"Have you sworn an oath?" said Rhoda, wonderingly.
+
+"No, dear love," Dahlia replied; "he only mentioned what he desired."
+
+Rhoda was ashamed of herself for thinking it strange, and she
+surrendered her judgement to be stamped by the one who knew him well.
+
+As regarded her uncle, Dahlia admitted that she had behaved forgetfully
+and unkindly, and promised amendment. She talked of the Farm as of an
+old ruin, with nothing but a thin shade of memory threading its walls,
+and appeared to marvel vaguely that it stood yet. "Father shall not
+always want money," she said. She was particular in prescribing books
+for Rhoda to read; good authors, she emphasized, and named books of
+history, and poets, and quoted their verses. "For my darling will some
+day have a dear husband, and he must not look down on her." Rhoda
+shook her head, full sure that she could never be brought to utter such
+musical words naturally. "Yes, dearest, when you know what love is,"
+said Dahlia, in an underbreath.
+
+Could Robert inspire her with the power? Rhoda looked upon that poor
+homely young man half-curiously when she returned, and quite dismissed
+the notion. Besides she had no feeling for herself. Her passion was
+fixed upon her sister, whose record of emotions in the letters from
+London placed her beyond dull days and nights. The letters struck many
+chords. A less subservient reader would have set them down as variations
+of the language of infatuation; but Rhoda was responsive to every word
+and change of mood, from the, "I am unworthy, degraded, wretched," to
+"I am blest above the angels." If one letter said, "We met yesterday,"
+Rhoda's heart beat on to the question, "Shall I see him again
+to-morrow?" And will she see him?--has she seen him?--agitated her and
+absorbed her thoughts.
+
+So humbly did she follow her sister, without daring to forecast a
+prospect for her, or dream of an issue, that when on a summer morning
+a letter was brought in at the breakfast-table, marked "urgent and
+private," she opened it, and the first line dazzled her eyes--the
+surprise was a shock to her brain. She rose from her unfinished meal,
+and walked out into the wide air, feeling as if she walked on thunder.
+
+The letter ran thus:--
+
+"My Own Innocent!--I am married. We leave England to-day. I must not
+love you too much, for I have all my love to give to my Edward, my own
+now, and I am his trustingly for ever. But he will let me give you some
+of it--and Rhoda is never jealous. She shall have a great deal. Only
+I am frightened when I think how immense my love is for him, so that
+anything--everything he thinks right is right to me. I am not afraid to
+think so. If I were to try, a cloud would come over me--it does, if only
+I fancy for half a moment I am rash, and a straw. I cannot exist except
+through him. So I must belong to him, and his will is my law. My prayer
+at my bedside every night is that I may die for him. We used to think
+the idea of death so terrible! Do you remember how we used to shudder
+together at night when we thought of people lying in the grave? And
+now, when I think that perhaps I may some day die for him, I feel like a
+crying in my heart with joy.
+
+"I have left a letter--sent it, I mean--enclosed to uncle for father.
+He will see Edward by-and-by. Oh! may heaven spare him from any grief.
+Rhoda will comfort him. Tell him how devoted I am. I am like drowned to
+everybody but one.
+
+"We are looking on the sea. In half an hour I shall have forgotten the
+tread of English earth. I do not know that I breathe. All I know is a
+fear that I am flying, and my strength will not continue. That is when
+I am not touching his hand. There is France opposite. I shut my eyes
+and see the whole country, but it is like what I feel for Edward--all in
+dark moonlight. Oh! I trust him so! I bleed for him. I could make all
+my veins bleed out at a sad thought about him. And from France to
+Switzerland and Italy. The sea sparkles just as if it said 'Come to
+the sun;' and I am going. Edward calls. Shall I be punished for so much
+happiness? I am too happy, I am too happy.
+
+"God bless my beloved at home! That is my chief prayer now. I shall
+think of her when I am in the cathedrals.
+
+"Oh, my Father in heaven! bless them all! bless Rhoda! forgive me!
+
+"I can hear the steam of the steamer at the pier. Here is Edward. He
+says I may send his love to you.
+
+"Address:--
+
+     "Mrs. Edward Ayrton,
+        "Poste Restante,
+          "Lausanne,
+             "Switzerland.
+
+"P.S.--Lausanne is where--but another time, and I will always tell you
+the history of the places to instruct you, poor heart in dull England.
+Adieu! Good-bye and God bless my innocent at home, my dear sister. I
+love her. I never can forget her. The day is so lovely. It seems on
+purpose for us. Be sure you write on thin paper to Lausanne. It is on
+a blue lake; you see snow mountains, and now there is a bell
+ringing--kisses from me! we start. I must sign.
+
+             "Dahlia."
+
+By the reading of this letter, Rhoda was caught vividly to the shore,
+and saw her sister borne away in the boat to the strange countries;
+she travelled with her, following her with gliding speed through a
+multiplicity of shifting scenes, opal landscapes, full of fire and
+dreams, and in all of them a great bell towered. "Oh, my sweet! my own
+beauty!" she cried in Dahlia's language. Meeting Mrs. Sumfit, she called
+her "Mother Dumpling," as Dahlia did of old, affectionately, and kissed
+her, and ran on to Master Gammon, who was tramping leisurely on to the
+oatfield lying on toward the millholms.
+
+"My sister sends you her love," she said brightly to the old man. Master
+Gammon responded with no remarkable flash of his eyes, and merely opened
+his mouth and shut it, as when a duck divides its bill, but fails to
+emit the customary quack.
+
+"And to you, little pigs; and to you, Mulberry; and you, Dapple; and
+you, and you, and you."
+
+Rhoda nodded round to all the citizens of the farmyard; and so eased
+her heart of its laughing bubbles. After which, she fell to a meditative
+walk of demurer joy, and had a regret. It was simply that Dahlia's hurry
+in signing the letter, had robbed her of the delight of seeing "Dahlia
+Ayrton" written proudly out, with its wonderful signification of the
+change in her life.
+
+That was a trifling matter; yet Rhoda felt the letter was not complete
+in the absence of the bridal name. She fancied Dahlia to have meant,
+perhaps, that she was Dahlia to her as of old, and not a stranger.
+"Dahlia ever; Dahlia nothing else for you," she heard her sister say.
+But how delicious and mournful, how terrible and sweet with meaning
+would "Dahlia Ayrton," the new name in the dear handwriting, have
+looked! "And I have a brother-in-law," she thought, and her cheeks
+tingled. The banks of fern and foxglove, and the green young oaks
+fringing the copse, grew rich in colour, as she reflected that this
+beloved unknown husband of her sister embraced her and her father as
+well; even the old bent beggarman on the sandy ridge, though he had a
+starved frame and carried pitiless faggots, stood illumined in a soft
+warmth. Rhoda could not go back to the house.
+
+It chanced that the farmer that morning had been smitten with the
+virtue of his wife's opinion of Robert, and her parting recommendation
+concerning him.
+
+"Have you a mind to either one of my two girls?" he put the question
+bluntly, finding himself alone with Robert.
+
+Robert took a quick breath, and replied, "I have."
+
+"Then make your choice," said the farmer, and tried to go about his
+business, but hung near Robert in the fields till he had asked: "Which
+one is it, my boy?"
+
+Robert turned a blade of wheat in his mouth.
+
+"I think I shall leave her to tell that," was his answer.
+
+"Why, don't ye know which one you prefer to choose, man?" quoth Mr.
+Fleming.
+
+"I mayn't know whether she prefers to choose me," said Robert.
+
+The farmer smiled.
+
+"You never can exactly reckon about them; that's true."
+
+He was led to think: "Dahlia's the lass;" seeing that Robert had not had
+many opportunities of speaking with her.
+
+"When my girls are wives, they'll do their work in the house," he
+pursued. "They may have a little bit o' property in land, ye know, and
+they may have a share in--in gold. That's not to be reckoned on. We're
+an old family, Robert, and I suppose we've our pride somewhere down.
+Anyhow, you can't look on my girls and not own they're superior girls.
+I've no notion of forcing them to clean, and dish up, and do dairying,
+if it's not to their turn. They're handy with th' needle. They dress
+conformably, and do the millinery themselves. And I know they say their
+prayers of a night. That I know, if that's a comfort to ye, and it
+should be, Robert. For pray, and you can't go far wrong; and it's
+particularly good for girls. I'll say no more."
+
+At the dinner-table, Rhoda was not present. Mr. Fleming fidgeted,
+blamed her and excused her, but as Robert appeared indifferent about her
+absence, he was confirmed in his idea that Dahlia attracted his fancy.
+
+They had finished dinner, and Master Gammon had risen, when a voice
+immediately recognized as the voice of Anthony Hackbut was heard in the
+front part of the house. Mr. Fleming went round to him with a dismayed
+face.
+
+"Lord!" said Mrs. Sumfit, "how I tremble!"
+
+Robert, too, looked grave, and got away from the house. The dread of
+evil news of Dahlia was common to them all; yet none had mentioned it,
+Robert conceiving that it would be impertinence on his part to do so;
+the farmer, that the policy of permitting Dahlia's continued residence
+in London concealed the peril; while Mrs. Sumfit flatly defied the
+threatening of a mischance to one so sweet and fair, and her favourite.
+It is the insincerity of persons of their class; but one need not lay
+stress on the wilfulness of uneducated minds. Robert walked across the
+fields, walking like a man with an object in view. As he dropped
+into one of the close lanes which led up to Wrexby Hall, he saw Rhoda
+standing under an oak, her white morning-dress covered with sun-spots.
+His impulse was to turn back, the problem, how to speak to her, not
+being settled within him. But the next moment his blood chilled; for he
+had perceived, though he had not felt simultaneously, that two gentlemen
+were standing near her, addressing her. And it was likewise manifest
+that she listened to them. These presently raised their hats and
+disappeared. Rhoda came on toward Robert.
+
+"You have forgotten your dinner," he said, with a queer sense of shame
+at dragging in the mention of that meal.
+
+"I have been too happy to eat," Rhoda replied.
+
+Robert glanced up the lane, but she gave no heed to this indication, and
+asked: "Has uncle come?"
+
+"Did you expect him?"
+
+"I thought he would come."
+
+"What has made you happy?"
+
+"You will hear from uncle."
+
+"Shall I go and hear what those--"
+
+Robert checked himself, but it would have been better had he spoken
+out. Rhoda's face, from a light of interrogation, lowered its look to
+contempt.
+
+She did not affect the feminine simplicity which can so prettily
+misunderstand and put by an implied accusation of that nature. Doubtless
+her sharp instinct served her by telling her that her contempt would
+hurt him shrewdly now. The foolishness of a man having much to say to
+a woman, and not knowing how or where the beginning of it might be, was
+perceptible about him. A shout from her father at the open garden-gate,
+hurried on Rhoda to meet him. Old Anthony was at Mr. Fleming's elbow.
+
+"You know it? You have her letter, father?" said Rhoda, gaily, beneath
+the shadow of his forehead.
+
+"And a Queen of the Egyptians is what you might have been," said
+Anthony, with a speculating eye upon Rhoda's dark bright face.
+
+Rhoda put out her hand to him, but kept her gaze on her father.
+
+William Fleeting relaxed the knot of his brows and lifted the letter.
+
+"Listen all! This is from a daughter to her father."
+
+And he read, oddly accentuating the first syllables of the sentences:--
+
+   Dear Father,--
+
+   "My husband will bring me to see you when I return to dear England.
+   I ought to have concealed nothing, I know. Try to forgive me. I
+   hope you will. I shall always think of you. God bless you!
+
+               "I am,
+          "Ever with respect,
+
+             "Your dearly loving Daughter,
+
+                  "Dahlia."
+
+"Dahlia Blank!" said the farmer, turning his look from face to face.
+
+A deep fire of emotion was evidently agitating him, for the letter
+rustled in his hand, and his voice was uneven. Of this, no sign was
+given by his inexpressive features. The round brown eyes and the ruddy
+varnish on his cheeks were a mask upon grief, if not also upon joy.
+
+"Dahlia--what? What's her name?" he resumed. "Here--'my husband will
+bring me to see you'--who's her husband? Has he got a name? And a blank
+envelope to her uncle here, who's kept her in comfort for so long! And
+this is all she writes to me! Will any one spell out the meaning of it?"
+
+"Dahlia was in great haste, father," said Rhoda.
+
+"Oh, ay, you!--you're the one, I know," returned the farmer. "It's
+sister and sister, with you."
+
+"But she was very, very hurried, father. I have a letter from her, and I
+have only 'Dahlia' written at the end--no other name."
+
+"And you suspect no harm of your sister."
+
+"Father, how can I imagine any kind of harm?"
+
+"That letter, my girl, sticks to my skull, as though it meant to say,
+'You've not understood me yet.' I've read it a matter of twenty times,
+and I'm no nearer to the truth of it. But, if she's lying, here in this
+letter, what's she walking on? How long are we to wait for to hear? I
+give you my word, Robert, I'm feeling for you as I am for myself. Or,
+wasn't it that one? Is it this one?" He levelled his finger at Rhoda.
+"In any case, Robert, you'll feel for me as a father. I'm shut in a dark
+room with the candle blown out. I've heard of a sort of fear you have
+in that dilemmer, lest you should lay your fingers on edges of sharp
+knives, and if I think a step--if I go thinking a step, and feel my way,
+I do cut myself, and I bleed, I do. Robert, just take and say, it wasn't
+that one."
+
+Such a statement would carry with it the confession that it was this
+one for whom he cared this scornful one, this jilt, this brazen girl who
+could make appointments with gentlemen, or suffer them to speak to her,
+and subsequently look at him with innocence and with anger.
+
+"Believe me, Mr. Fleming, I feel for you as much as a man can," he said,
+uneasily, swaying half round as he spoke.
+
+"Do you suspect anything bad?" The farmer repeated the question, like
+one who only wanted a confirmation of his own suspicions to see the fact
+built up. "Robert, does this look like the letter of a married woman? Is
+it daughter-like--eh, man? Help another: I can't think for myself--she
+ties my hands. Speak out."
+
+Robert set his eyes on Rhoda. He would have given much to have been able
+to utter, "I do." Her face was like an eager flower straining for light;
+the very beauty of it swelled his jealous passion, and he flattered
+himself with his incapacity to speak an abject lie to propitiate her.
+
+"She says she is married. We're bound to accept what she says."
+
+That was his answer.
+
+"Is she married?" thundered the farmer. "Has she been and disgraced her
+mother in her grave? What am I to think? She's my flesh and blood. Is
+she--"
+
+"Oh, hush, father!" Rhoda laid her hand on his arm. "What doubt can
+there be of Dahlia? You have forgotten that she is always truthful. Come
+away. It is shameful to stand here and listen to unmanly things."
+
+She turned a face of ashes upon Robert.
+
+"Come away, father. She is our own. She is my sister. A doubt of her is
+an insult to us."
+
+"But Robert don't doubt her--eh?" The farmer was already half distracted
+from his suspicions. "Have you any real doubt about the girl, Robert?"
+
+"I don't trust myself to doubt anybody," said Robert.
+
+"You don't cast us off, my boy?"
+
+"I'm a labourer on the farm," said Robert, and walked away.
+
+"He's got reason to feel this more 'n the rest of us, poor lad! It's a
+blow to him." With which the farmer struck his hand on Rhoda's shoulder.
+
+"I wish he'd set his heart on a safer young woman."
+
+Rhoda's shudder of revulsion was visible as she put her mouth up to kiss
+her father's cheek.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+That is Wrexby Hall, upon the hill between Fenhurst and Wrexby: the
+white square mansion, with the lower drawing-room windows one full
+bow of glass against the sunlight, and great single trees spotting the
+distant green slopes. From Queen Anne's Farm you could read the hour by
+the stretching of their shadows. Squire Blancove, who lived there, was
+an irascible, gouty man, out of humour with his time, and beginning,
+alas for him! to lose all true faith in his Port, though, to do him
+justice, he wrestled hard with this great heresy. His friends perceived
+the decay in his belief sooner than he did himself. He was sour in the
+evening as in the morning. There was no chirp in him when the bottle
+went round. He had never one hour of a humane mood to be reckoned on
+now. The day, indeed, is sad when we see the skeleton of the mistress by
+whom we suffer, but cannot abandon her. The squire drank, knowing that
+the issue would be the terrific, curse-begetting twinge in his foot;
+but, as he said, he was a man who stuck to his habits. It was over his
+Port that he had quarrelled with his rector on the subject of hopeful
+Algernon, and the system he adopted with that young man. This incident
+has something to do with Rhoda's story, for it was the reason why Mrs.
+Lovell went to Wrexby Church, the spirit of that lady leading her to
+follow her own impulses, which were mostly in opposition. So, when
+perchance she visited the Hall, she chose not to accompany the squire
+and his subservient guests to Fenhurst, but made a point of going down
+to the unoccupied Wrexby pew. She was a beauty, and therefore powerful;
+otherwise her act of nonconformity would have produced bad blood between
+her and the squire.
+
+It was enough to have done so in any case; for now, instead of sitting
+at home comfortably, and reading off the week's chronicle of sport while
+he nursed his leg, the unfortunate gentleman had to be up and away to
+Fenhurst every Sunday morning, or who would have known that the old
+cause of his general abstention from Sabbath services lay in the
+detestable doctrine of Wrexby's rector?
+
+Mrs. Lovell was now at the Hall, and it was Sunday morning after
+breakfast. The lady stood like a rival head among the other guests,
+listening, gloved and bonneted, to the bells of Wrexby, West of the
+hills, and of Fenhurst, Northeast. The squire came in to them, groaning
+over his boots, cross with his fragile wife, and in every mood for
+satire, except to receive it.
+
+"How difficult it is to be gouty and good!" murmured Mrs. Lovell to the
+person next her.
+
+"Well," said the squire, singling out his enemy, "you're going to that
+fellow, I suppose, as usual--eh?"
+
+"Not 'as usual,'" replied Mrs. Lovell, sweetly; "I wish it were!"
+
+"Wish it were, do you?--you find him so entertaining? Has he got to
+talking of the fashions?"
+
+"He talks properly; I don't ask for more." Mrs. Lovell assumed an air of
+meekness under persecution.
+
+"I thought you were Low Church."
+
+"Lowly of the Church, I trust you thought," she corrected him. "But, for
+that matter, any discourse, plainly delivered, will suit me."
+
+"His elocution's perfect," said the squire; "that is, before dinner."
+
+"I have only to do with him before dinner, you know."
+
+"Well, I've ordered a carriage out for you."
+
+"That is very honourable and kind."
+
+"It would be kinder if I contrived to keep you away from the fellow."
+
+"Would it not be kinder to yourself," Mrs. Lovell swam forward to him
+in all tenderness, taking his hands, and fixing the swimming blue of
+her soft eyes upon him pathetically, "if you took your paper and your
+slippers, and awaited our return?"
+
+The squire felt the circulating smile about the room. He rebuked the
+woman's audacity with a frown; "Tis my duty to set an example," he said,
+his gouty foot and irritable temper now meeting in a common fire.
+
+"Since you are setting an example," rejoined the exquisite widow, "I
+have nothing more to say."
+
+The squire looked what he dared not speak. A woman has half, a beauty
+has all, the world with her when she is self-contained, and holds her
+place; and it was evident that Mrs. Lovell was not one to abandon her
+advantages.
+
+He snapped round for a victim, trying his wife first. Then his eyes
+rested upon Algernon.
+
+"Well, here we are; which of us will you take?" he asked Mrs. Lovell in
+blank irony.
+
+"I have engaged my cavalier, who is waiting, and will be as devout as
+possible." Mrs. Lovell gave Algernon a smile.
+
+"I thought I hit upon the man," growled the squire. "You're going in to
+Wrexby, sir! Oh, go, by all means, and I shan't be astonished at what
+comes of it. Like teacher, like pupil!"
+
+"There!" Mrs. Lovell gave Algernon another smile. "You have to bear the
+sins of your rector, as well as your own. Can you support it?"
+
+The flimsy fine dialogue was a little above Algernon's level in the
+society of ladies; but he muttered, bowing, that he would endeavour to
+support it, with Mrs. Lovell's help, and this did well enough; after
+which, the slight strain on the intellects of the assemblage relaxed,
+and ordinary topics were discussed. The carriages came round to the
+door; gloves, parasols, and scent-bottles were securely grasped;
+whereupon the squire, standing bare-headed on the steps, insisted upon
+seeing the party of the opposition off first, and waited to hand Mrs.
+Lovell into her carriage, an ironic gallantry accepted by the lady with
+serenity befitting the sacred hour.
+
+"Ah! my pencil, to mark the text for you, squire," she said, taking her
+seat; and Algernon turned back at her bidding, to get a pencil; and she,
+presenting a most harmonious aspect in the lovely landscape, reclined in
+the carriage as if, like the sweet summer air, she too were quieted by
+those holy bells, while the squire stood, fuming, bareheaded, and with
+boiling blood, just within the bounds of decorum on the steps. She was
+more than his match.
+
+She was more than a match for most; and it was not a secret. Algernon
+knew it as well as Edward, or any one. She was a terror to the soul
+of the youth, and an attraction. Her smile was the richest flattery
+he could feel; the richer, perhaps, from his feeling it to be a thing
+impossible to fix. He had heard tales of her; he remembered Edward's
+warning; but he was very humbly sitting with her now, and very happy.
+
+"I'm in for it," he said to his fair companion; "no cheque for me next
+quarter, and no chance of an increase. He'll tell me I've got a salary.
+A salary! Good Lord! what a man comes to! I've done for myself with the
+squire for a year."
+
+"You must think whether you have compensation," said the lady, and he
+received it in a cousinly squeeze of his hand.
+
+He was about to raise the lank white hand to his lips.
+
+"Ah!" she said, "there would be no compensation to me, if that were
+seen;" and her dainty hand was withdrawn. "Now, tell me," she changed
+her tone. "How do the loves prosper?"
+
+Algernon begged her not to call them 'loves.' She nodded and smiled.
+
+"Your artistic admirations," she observed. "I am to see her in church,
+am I not? Only, my dear Algy, don't go too far. Rustic beauties are as
+dangerous as Court Princesses. Where was it you saw her first?"
+
+"At the Bank," said Algernon.
+
+"Really! at the Bank! So your time there is not absolutely wasted. What
+brought her to London, I wonder?"
+
+"Well, she has an old uncle, a queer old fellow, and he's a sort of
+porter--money porter--in the Bank, awfully honest, or he might half
+break it some fine day, if he chose to cut and run. She's got a sister,
+prettier than this girl, the fellows say; I've never seen her. I expect
+I've seen a portrait of her, though."
+
+"Ah!" Mrs. Lovell musically drew him on. "Was she dark, too?"
+
+"No, she's fair. At least, she is in her portrait."
+
+"Brown hair; hazel eyes?"
+
+"Oh--oh! You guess, do you?"
+
+"I guess nothing, though it seems profitable. That Yankee betting man
+'guesses,' and what heaps of money he makes by it!"
+
+"I wish I did," Algernon sighed. "All my guessing and reckoning goes
+wrong. I'm safe for next Spring, that's one comfort. I shall make twenty
+thousand next Spring."
+
+"On Templemore?"
+
+"That's the horse. I've got a little on Tenpenny Nail as well. But
+I'm quite safe on Templemore; unless the Evil Principle comes into the
+field."
+
+"Is he so sure to be against you, if he does appear?" said Mrs. Lovell.
+
+"Certain!" ejaculated Algernon, in honest indignation.
+
+"Well, Algy, I don't like to have him on my side. Perhaps I will take a
+share in your luck, to make it--? to make it?"--She played prettily as
+a mistress teasing her lap-dog to jump for a morsel; adding: "Oh! Algy,
+you are not a Frenchman. To make it divine, sir! you have missed your
+chance."
+
+"There's one chance I shouldn't like to miss," said the youth.
+
+"Then, do not mention it," she counselled him. "And, seriously, I will
+take a part of your risk. I fear I am lucky, which is ruinous. We will
+settle that, by-and-by. Do you know, Algy, the most expensive position
+in the world is a widow's."
+
+"You needn't be one very long," growled he.
+
+"I'm so wretchedly fastidious, don't you see? And it's best not to sigh
+when we're talking of business, if you'll take me for a guide. So, the
+old man brought this pretty rustic Miss Rhoda to the Bank?"
+
+"Once," said Algernon. "Just as he did with her sister. He's proud of
+his nieces; shows them and then hides them. The fellows at the Bank
+never saw her again."
+
+"Her name is--?"
+
+"Dahlia."
+
+"Ah, yes!--Dahlia. Extremely pretty. There are brown dahlias--dahlias
+of all colours. And the portrait of this fair creature hangs up in your
+chambers in town?"
+
+"Don't call them my chambers," Algernon protested.
+
+"Your cousin's, if you like. Probably Edward happened to be at the Bank
+when fair Dahlia paid her visit. Once seems to have been enough for both
+of you."
+
+Algernon was unread in the hearts of women, and imagined that Edward's
+defection from Mrs. Lovell's sway had deprived him of the lady's
+sympathy and interest in his fortunes.
+
+"Poor old Ned's in some scrape, I think," he said.
+
+"Where is he?" the lady asked, languidly.
+
+"Paris."
+
+"Paris? How very odd! And out of the season, in this hot weather. It's
+enough to lead me to dream that he has gone over--one cannot realize
+why."
+
+"Upon my honour!" Algernon thumped on his knee; "by jingo!" he adopted
+a less compromising interjection; "Ned's fool enough. My idea is, he's
+gone and got married."
+
+Mrs. Lovell was lying back with the neglectful grace of incontestable
+beauty; not a line to wrinkle her smooth soft features. For one sharp
+instant her face was all edged and puckered, like the face of a fair
+witch. She sat upright.
+
+"Married! But how can that be when we none of us have heard a word of
+it?"
+
+"I daresay you haven't," said Algernon; "and not likely to. Ned's
+the closest fellow of my acquaintance. He hasn't taken me into his
+confidence, you maybe sure; he knows I'm too leaky. There's no bore like
+a secret! I've come to my conclusion in this affair by putting together
+a lot of little incidents and adding them up. First, I believe he was
+at the Bank when that fair girl was seen there. Secondly, from the
+description the fellows give of her, I should take her to be the
+original of the portrait. Next, I know that Rhoda has a fair sister who
+has run for it. And last, Rhoda has had a letter from her sister, to say
+she's away to the Continent and is married. Ned's in Paris. Those are my
+facts, and I give you my reckoning of them."
+
+Mrs. Lovell gazed at Algernon for one long meditative moment.
+
+"Impossible," she exclaimed. "Edward has more brains than heart." And
+now the lady's face was scarlet. "How did this Rhoda, with her absurd
+name, think of meeting you to tell you such stuff? Indeed, there's a
+simplicity in some of these young women--" She said the remainder to
+herself.
+
+"She's really very innocent and good," Algernon defended Rhoda, "she is.
+There isn't a particle of nonsense in her. I first met her in town, as I
+stated, at the Bank; just on the steps, and we remembered I had called a
+cab for her a little before; and I met her again by accident yesterday."
+
+"You are only a boy in their hands, my cousin Algy!" said Mrs. Lovell.
+
+Algernon nodded with a self-defensive knowingness. "I fancy there's no
+doubt her sister has written to her that she's married. It's certain she
+has. She's a blunt sort of girl; not one to lie, not even for a sister
+or a lover, unless she had previously made up her mind to it. In that
+case, she wouldn't stick at much."
+
+"But, do you know," said Mrs. Lovell--"do you know that Edward's father
+would be worse than yours over such an act of folly? He would call it
+an offence against common sense, and have no mercy for it. He would be
+vindictive on principle. This story of yours cannot be true. Nothing
+reconciles it."
+
+"Oh, Sir Billy will be rusty; that stands to reason," Algernon assented.
+"It mayn't be true. I hope it isn't. But Ned has a madness for fair
+women. He'd do anything on earth for them. He loses his head entirely."
+
+"That he may have been imprudent--" Mrs. Lovell thus blushingly hinted
+at the lesser sin of his deceiving and ruining the girl.
+
+"Oh, it needn't be true," said Algernon; and with meaning, "Who's to
+blame if it is?"
+
+Mrs. Lovell again reddened. She touched Algernon's fingers.
+
+"His friends mustn't forsake him, in any case."
+
+"By Jove! you are the right sort of woman," cried Algernon.
+
+It was beyond his faculties to divine that her not forsaking of Edward
+might haply come to mean something disastrous to him. The touch of Mrs.
+Lovell's hand made him forget Rhoda in a twinkling. He detained it,
+audaciously, even until she frowned with petulance and stamped her foot.
+
+There was over her bosom a large cameo-brooch, representing a tomb under
+a palm-tree, and the figure of a veiled woman with her head bowed upon
+the tomb. This brooch was falling, when Algernon caught it. The pin tore
+his finger, and in the energy of pain he dashed the brooch to her feet,
+with immediate outcries of violent disgust at himself and exclamations
+for pardon. He picked up the brooch. It was open. A strange,
+discoloured, folded substance lay on the floor of the carriage. Mrs.
+Lovell gazed down at it, and then at him, ghastly pale. He lifted it
+by one corner, and the diminutive folded squares came out, revealing a
+strip of red-stained handkerchief.
+
+Mrs. Lovell grasped it, and thrust it out of sight.
+
+She spoke as they approached the church-door: "Mention nothing of this
+to a soul, or you forfeit my friendship for ever."
+
+When they alighted, she was smiling in her old affable manner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Some consideration for Robert, after all, as being the man who loved
+her, sufficed to give him rank as a more elevated kind of criminal
+in Rhoda's sight, and exquisite torture of the highest form was
+administered to him. Her faith in her sister was so sure that she could
+half pardon him for the momentary harm he had done to Dahlia with her
+father; but, judging him by the lofty standard of one who craved to be
+her husband, she could not pardon his unmanly hesitation and manner of
+speech. The old and deep grievance in her heart as to what men thought
+of women, and as to the harshness of men, was stirred constantly by the
+remembrance of his irresolute looks, and his not having dared to speak
+nobly for Dahlia, even though he might have had, the knavery to think
+evil. As the case stood, there was still mischief to counteract.
+Her father had willingly swallowed a drug, but his suspicions only
+slumbered, and she could not instil her own vivid hopefulness and trust
+into him. Letters from Dahlia came regularly. The first, from Lausanne,
+favoured Rhoda's conception of her as of a happy spirit resting at
+celestial stages of her ascent upward through spheres of ecstacy. Dahlia
+could see the snow-mountains in a flying glimpse; and again, peacefully
+seated, she could see the snow-mountains reflected in clear blue waters
+from her window, which, Rhoda thought, must be like heaven. On these
+inspired occasions, Robert presented the form of a malignant serpent in
+her ideas. Then Dahlia made excursions upon glaciers with her beloved,
+her helpmate, and had slippings and tumblings--little earthly casualties
+which gave a charming sense of reality to her otherwise miraculous
+flight. The Alps were crossed: Italy was beheld. A profusion of "Oh's!"
+described Dahlia's impressions of Italy; and "Oh! the heat!" showed her
+to be mortal, notwithstanding the sublime exclamations. Como received
+the blissful couple. Dahlia wrote from Como:--
+
+   "Tell father that gentlemen in my Edward's position cannot always
+   immediately proclaim their marriage to the world. There are
+   reasons. I hope he has been very angry with me: then it will be
+   soon over, and we shall be--but I cannot look back. I shall not
+   look back till we reach Venice. At Venice, I know I shall see you
+   all as clear as day; but I cannot even remember the features of my
+   darling here."
+
+Her Christian name was still her only signature.
+
+The thin blue-and-pink paper, and the foreign postmarks--testifications
+to Dahlia's journey not being a fictitious event, had a singular
+deliciousness for the solitary girl at the Farm. At times, as she turned
+them over, she was startled by the intoxication of her sentiments, for
+the wild thought would come, that many, many whose passionate hearts she
+could feel as her own, were ready to abandon principle and the bondage
+to the hereafter, for such a long delicious gulp of divine life. Rhoda
+found herself more than once brooding on the possible case that Dahlia
+had done this thing.
+
+The fit of languor came on her unawares, probing at her weakness,
+and blinding her to the laws and duties of earth, until her conscious
+womanhood checked it, and she sprang from the vision in a spasm of
+terror, not knowing how far she had fallen.
+
+After such personal experiences, she suffered great longings to be with
+her sister, that the touch of her hand, the gaze of her eyes, the tone
+of Dahlia's voice, might make her sure of her sister's safety.
+
+Rhoda's devotions in church were frequently distracted by the occupants
+of the Blancove pew. Mrs. Lovell had the habit of looking at her with
+an extraordinary directness, an expressionless dissecting scrutiny, that
+was bewildering and confusing to the country damsel. Algernon likewise
+bestowed marked attention on her. Some curious hints had been thrown out
+to her by this young gentleman on the day when he ventured to speak
+to her in the lane, which led her to fancy distantly that he had some
+acquaintance with Dahlia's husband, or that he had heard of Dahlia.
+
+It was clear to Rhoda that Algernon sought another interview. He
+appeared in the neighbourhood of the farm on Saturdays, and on Sundays
+he was present in the church, sometimes with Mrs. Lovell, and sometimes
+without a companion. His appearance sent her quick wits travelling
+through many scales of possible conduct: and they struck one ringing
+note:--she thought that by the aid of this gentleman a lesson might be
+given to Robert's mean nature. It was part of Robert's punishment to see
+that she was not unconscious of Algernon's admiration.
+
+The first letter from Venice consisted of a series of interjections in
+praise of the poetry of gondolas, varied by allusions to the sad smell
+of the low tide water, and the amazing quality of the heat; and then
+Dahlia wrote more composedly:--
+
+"Titian the painter lived here, and painted ladies, who sat to him
+without a bit of garment on, and indeed, my darling, I often think it
+was more comfortable for the model than for the artist. Even modesty
+seems too hot a covering for human creatures here. The sun strikes me
+down. I am ceasing to have a complexion. It is pleasant to know that my
+Edward is still proud of me. He has made acquaintance with some of the
+officers here, and seems pleased at the compliments they pay me.
+
+"They have nice manners, and white uniforms that fit them like a
+kid glove. I am Edward's 'resplendent wife.' A colonel of one of
+the regiments invited him to dinner (speaking English), 'with your
+resplendent wife.' Edward has no mercy for errors of language, and he
+would not take me. Ah! who knows how strange men are! Never think
+of being happy unless you can always be blind. I see you all at
+home--Mother Dumpling and all--as I thought I should when I was to come
+to Venice.
+
+"Persuade--do persuade father that everything will be well. Some persons
+are to be trusted. Make him feel it. I know that I am life itself to
+Edward. He has lived as men do, and he can judge, and he knows that
+there never was a wife who brought a heart to her husband like mine to
+him. He wants to think, or he wants to smoke, and he leaves me; but, oh!
+when he returns, he can scarcely believe that he has me, his joy is so
+great. He looks like a glad thankful child, and he has the manliest of
+faces. It is generally thoughtful; you might think it hard, at first
+sight.
+
+"But you must be beautiful to please some men. You will laugh--I have
+really got the habit of talking to my face and all myself in the glass.
+Rhoda would think me cracked. And it is really true that I was never so
+humble about my good looks. You used to spoil me at home--you and that
+wicked old Mother Dumpling, and our own dear mother, Rhoda--oh! mother,
+mother! I wish I had always thought of you looking down on me! You made
+me so vain--much more vain than I let you see I was. There were
+times when it is quite true I thought myself a princess. I am not
+worse-looking now, but I suppose I desire to be so beautiful that
+nothing satisfies me.
+
+"A spot on my neck gives me a dreadful fright. If my hair comes out much
+when I comb it, it sets my heart beating; and it is a daily misery to
+me that my hands are larger than they should be, belonging to Edward's
+'resplendent wife.' I thank heaven that you and I always saw the
+necessity of being careful of our fingernails. My feet are of moderate
+size, though they are not French feet, as Edward says. No: I shall never
+dance. He sent me to the dancing-master in London, but it was too late.
+But I have been complimented on my walking, and that seems to please
+Edward. He does not dance (or mind dancing) himself, only he does not
+like me to miss one perfection. It is his love. Oh! if I have seemed to
+let you suppose he does not love me as ever, do not think it. He is most
+tender and true to me. Addio! I am signora, you are signorina.
+
+"They have such pretty manners to us over here. Edward says they think
+less of women: I say they think more. But I feel he must be right. Oh,
+my dear, cold, loving, innocent sister! put out your arms; I shall feel
+them round me, and kiss you, kiss you for ever!"
+
+Onward from city to city, like a radiation of light from the old
+farm-house, where so little of it was, Dahlia continued her journey; and
+then, without a warning, with only a word to say that she neared Rome,
+the letters ceased. A chord snapped in Rhoda's bosom. While she was
+hearing from her sister almost weekly, her confidence was buoyed on a
+summer sea. In the silence it fell upon a dread. She had no answer
+in her mind for her father's unspoken dissatisfaction, and she had to
+conceal her cruel anxiety. There was an interval of two months: a blank
+fell charged with apprehension that was like the humming of a toneless
+wind before storm; worse than the storm, for any human thing to bear.
+
+Rhoda was unaware that Robert, who rarely looked at her, and never
+sought to speak a word to her when by chance they met and were alone,
+studied each change in her face, and read its signs. He was left to his
+own interpretation of them, but the signs he knew accurately. He knew
+that her pride had sunk, and that her heart was desolate. He believed
+that she had discovered her sister's misery.
+
+One day a letter arrived that gave her no joyful colouring, though it
+sent colour to her cheeks. She opened it, evidently not knowing the
+handwriting; her eyes ran down the lines hurriedly. After a time she
+went upstairs for her bonnet.
+
+At the stile leading into that lane where Robert had previously seen
+her, she was stopped by him.
+
+"No farther," was all that he said, and he was one who could have
+interdicted men from advancing.
+
+"Why may I not go by you?" said Rhoda, with a woman's affected
+humbleness.
+
+Robert joined his hands. "You go no farther, Miss Rhoda, unless you take
+me with you."
+
+"I shall not do that, Mr. Robert."
+
+"Then you had better return home."
+
+"Will you let me know what reasons you have for behaving in this manner
+to me?"
+
+"I'll let you know by-and-by," said Robert. "At present, You'll let the
+stronger of the two have his way."
+
+He had always been so meek and gentle and inoffensive, that her contempt
+had enjoyed free play, and had never risen to anger; but violent anger
+now surged against him, and she cried, "Do you dare to touch me?" trying
+to force her passage by.
+
+Robert caught her softly by the wrist. There stood at the same time a
+full-statured strength of will in his eyes, under which her own fainted.
+
+"Go back," he said; and she turned that he might not see her tears of
+irritation and shame. He was treating her as a child; but it was to
+herself alone that she could defend herself. She marvelled that when she
+thought of an outspoken complaint against him, her conscience gave her
+no support.
+
+"Is there no freedom for a woman at all in this world?" Rhoda framed the
+bitter question.
+
+Rhoda went back as she had come. Algernon Blancove did the same. Between
+them stood Robert, thinking, "Now I have made that girl hate me for
+life."
+
+It was in November that a letter, dated from London, reached the farm,
+quickening Rhoda's blood anew. "I am alive," said Dahlia; and she said
+little more, except that she was waiting to see her sister, and bade her
+urgently to travel up alone. Her father consented to her doing so. After
+a consultation with Robert, however, he determined to accompany her.
+
+"She can't object to see me too," said the farmer; and Rhoda answered
+"No." But her face was bronze to Robert when they took their departure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Old Anthony was expecting them in London. It was now winter, and the
+season for theatres; so, to show his brother-in-law the fun of a theatre
+was one part of his projected hospitality, if Mr. Fleming should haply
+take the hint that he must pay for himself.
+
+Anthony had laid out money to welcome the farmer, and was shy and
+fidgety as a girl who anticipates the visit of a promising youth, over
+his fat goose for next day's dinner, and his shrimps for this day's tea,
+and his red slice of strong cheese, called of Cheshire by the reckless
+butter-man, for supper.
+
+He knew that both Dahlia and Rhoda must have told the farmer that he
+was not high up in Boyne's Bank, and it fretted him to think that the
+mysterious respect entertained for his wealth by the farmer, which
+delighted him with a novel emotion, might be dashed by what the farmer
+would behold.
+
+During his last visit to the farm, Anthony had talked of the Funds more
+suggestively than usual. He had alluded to his own dealings in them, and
+to what he would do and would not do under certain contingencies; thus
+shadowing out, dimly luminous and immense, what he could do, if his
+sagacity prompted the adventure. The farmer had listened through the
+buzzing of his uncertain grief, only sighing for answer. "If ever you
+come up to London, brother William John," said Anthony, "you mind you go
+about arm-in-arm with me, or you'll be judging by appearances, and says
+you, 'Lor', what a thousander fellow this is!' and 'What a millioner
+fellow that is!' You'll be giving your millions and your thousands
+to the wrong people, when they haven't got a penny. All London 'll be
+topsy-turvy to you, unless you've got a guide, and he'll show you a
+shabby-coated, head-in-the-gutter old man 'll buy up the lot. Everybody
+that doesn't know him says--look at him! but they that knows him--hats
+off, I can tell you. And talk about lords! We don't mind their coming
+into the city, but they know the scent of cash. I've had a lord take off
+his hat to me. It's a fact, I have."
+
+In spite of the caution Anthony had impressed upon his country relative,
+that he should not judge by appearances, he was nevertheless under an
+apprehension that the farmer's opinion of him, and the luxurious, almost
+voluptuous, enjoyment he had of it, were in peril. When he had purchased
+the well-probed fat goose, the shrimps, and the cheese, he was only
+half-satisfied. His ideas shot boldly at a bottle of wine, and he
+employed a summer-lighted evening in going a round of wine-merchants'
+placards, and looking out for the cheapest bottle he could buy. And
+he would have bought one--he had sealing-wax of his own and could have
+stamped it with the office-stamp of Boyne's Bank for that matter, to
+make it as dignified and costly as the vaunted red seals and green seals
+of the placards--he would have bought one, had he not, by one of his
+lucky mental illuminations, recollected that it was within his power to
+procure an order to taste wine at the Docks, where you may get as much
+wine as you like out of big sixpenny glasses, and try cask after cask,
+walking down gas-lit paths between the huge bellies of wine which groan
+to be tapped and tried, that men may know them. The idea of paying
+two shillings and sixpence for one miserable bottle vanished at the
+richly-coloured prospect. "That'll show him something of what London
+is," thought Anthony; and a companion thought told him in addition
+that the farmer, with a skinful of wine, would emerge into the open
+air imagining no small things of the man who could gain admittance into
+those marvellous caverns. "By George! it's like a boy's story-book,"
+cried Anthony, in his soul, and he chuckled over the vision of the
+farmer's amazement--acted it with his arms extended, and his hat
+unseated, and plunged into wheezy fits of laughter.
+
+He met his guests at the station. Mr. Fleming was soberly attired in
+what, to Anthony's London eye, was a curiosity costume; but the broad
+brim of the hat, the square cut of the brown coat, and the leggings,
+struck him as being very respectable, and worthy of a presentation at
+any Bank in London.
+
+"You stick to a leather purse, brother William John?" he inquired, with
+an artistic sentiment for things in keeping.
+
+"I do," said the farmer, feeling seriously at the button over it.
+
+"All right; I shan't ask ye to show it in the street," Anthony rejoined,
+and smote Rhoda's hand as it hung.
+
+"Glad to see your old uncle--are ye?"
+
+Rhoda replied quietly that she was, but had come with the principal
+object of seeing her sister.
+
+"There!" cried Anthony, "you never get a compliment out of this gal.
+She gives ye the nut, and you're to crack it, and there maybe, or there
+mayn't be, a kernel inside--she don't care."
+
+"But there ain't much in it!" the farmer ejaculated, withdrawing
+his fingers from the button they had been teasing for security since
+Anthony's question about the purse.
+
+"Not much--eh! brother William John?" Anthony threw up a puzzled look.
+"Not much baggage--I see that--" he exclaimed; "and, Lord be thanked! no
+trunks. Aha, my dear"--he turned to Rhoda--"you remember your lesson,
+do ye? Now, mark me--I'll remember you for it. Do you know, my dear," he
+said to Rhoda confidentially, "that sixpenn'orth of chaff which I made
+the cabman pay for--there was the cream of it!--that was better than
+Peruvian bark to my constitution. It was as good to me as a sniff of
+sea-breeze and no excursion expenses. I'd like another, just to feel
+young again, when I'd have backed myself to beat--cabmen? Ah! I've
+stood up, when I was a young 'un, and shut up a Cheap Jack at a fair.
+Circulation's the soul o' chaff. That's why I don't mind tackling
+cabmen--they sit all day, and all they've got to say is 'rat-tat,' and
+they've done. But I let the boys roar. I know what I was when a boy
+myself. I've got devil in me--never you fear--but it's all on the side
+of the law. Now, let's off, for the gentlemen are starin' at you, which
+won't hurt ye, ye know, but makes me jealous."
+
+Before the party moved away from the platform, a sharp tussle took place
+between Anthony and the farmer as to the porterage of the bulky bag; but
+it being only half-earnest, the farmer did not put out his strength, and
+Anthony had his way.
+
+"I rather astonished you, brother William John," he said, when they were
+in the street.
+
+The farmer admitted that he was stronger than he looked.
+
+"Don't you judge by appearances, that's all," Anthony remarked,
+setting down the bag to lay his finger on one side of his nose for
+impressiveness.
+
+"Now, there we leave London Bridge to the right, and we should away to
+the left, and quiet parts." He seized the bag anew. "Just listen. That's
+the roaring of cataracts of gold you hear, brother William John. It's a
+good notion, ain't it? Hark!--I got that notion from one of your penny
+papers. You can buy any amount for a penny, now-a-days--poetry up in a
+corner, stories, tales o' temptation--one fellow cut his lucky with
+his master's cash, dashed away to Australia, made millions, fit to be
+a lord, and there he was! liable to the law! and everybody bowing their
+hats and their heads off to him, and his knees knocking at the sight of
+a policeman--a man of a red complexion, full habit of body, enjoyed his
+dinner and his wine, and on account of his turning white so often,
+they called him--'sealing-wax and Parchment' was one name; 'Carrots and
+turnips' was another; 'Blumonge and something,' and so on. Fancy his
+having to pay half his income in pensions to chaps who could have had
+him out of his town or country mansion and popped into gaol in a jiffy.
+And found out at last! Them tales set you thinking. Once I was an idle
+young scaramouch. But you can buy every idea that's useful to you for
+a penny. I tried the halfpenny journals. Cheapness ain't always
+profitable. The moral is, Make your money, and you may buy all the
+rest."
+
+Discoursing thus by the way, and resisting the farmer's occasional
+efforts to relieve him of the bag, with the observation that appearances
+were deceiving, and that he intended, please his Maker, to live and turn
+over a little more interest yet, Anthony brought them to Mrs. Wicklow's
+house. Mrs. Wicklow promised to put them into the track of the omnibuses
+running toward Dahlia's abode in the Southwest, and Mary Ann Wicklow,
+who had a burning desire in her bosom to behold even the outside
+shell of her friend's new grandeur, undertook very disinterestedly to
+accompany them. Anthony's strict injunction held them due at a lamp-post
+outside Boyne's Bank, at half-past three o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+"My love to Dahly," he said. "She was always a head and shoulders over
+my size. Tell her, when she rolls by in her carriage, not to mind me. I
+got my own notions of value. And if that Mr. Ayrton of hers 'll bank at
+Boyne's, I'll behave to him like a customer. This here's the girl for my
+money." He touched Rhoda's arm, and so disappeared.
+
+The farmer chided her for her cold manner to her uncle, murmuring aside
+to her: "You heard what he said." Rhoda was frozen with her heart's
+expectation, and insensible to hints or reproof. The people who entered
+the omnibus seemed to her stale phantoms bearing a likeness to every
+one she had known, save to her beloved whom she was about to meet, after
+long separation.
+
+She marvelled pityingly at the sort of madness which kept the streets
+so lively for no reasonable purpose. When she was on her feet again, she
+felt for the first time, that she was nearing the sister for whom she
+hungered, and the sensation beset her that she had landed in a foreign
+country. Mary Ann Wicklow chattered all the while to the general ear. It
+was her pride to be the discoverer of Dahlia's terrace.
+
+"Not for worlds would she enter the house," she said, in a general tone;
+she knowing better than to present herself where downright entreaty did
+not invite her.
+
+Rhoda left her to count the numbers along the terrace-walk, and stood
+out in the road that her heart might select Dahlia's habitation from the
+other hueless residences. She fixed upon one, but she was wrong, and
+her heart sank. The fair Mary Ann fought her and beat her by means of a
+careful reckoning, as she remarked,--
+
+"I keep my eyes open; Number 15 is the corner house, the bow-window, to
+a certainty."
+
+Gardens were in front of the houses; or, to speak more correctly, strips
+of garden walks. A cab was drawn up close by the shrub-covered iron
+gate leading up to No. 15. Mary Ann hurried them on, declaring that they
+might be too late even now at a couple of dozen paces distant, seeing
+that London cabs, crawlers as they usually were, could, when required,
+and paid for it, do their business like lightning. Her observation
+was illustrated the moment after they had left her in the rear; for a
+gentleman suddenly sprang across the pavement, jumped into a cab, and
+was whirled away, with as much apparent magic to provincial eyes, as if
+a pantomimic trick had been performed. Rhoda pressed forward a step in
+advance of her father.
+
+"It may have been her husband," she thought, and trembled. The curtains
+up in the drawing-room were moved as by a hand; but where was Dahlia's
+face? Dahlia knew that they were coming, and she was not on the look-out
+for them!--a strange conflict of facts, over which Rhoda knitted her
+black brows, so that she looked menacing to the maid opening the
+door, whose "Oh, if you please, Miss," came in contact with "My
+sister--Mrs.--, she expects me. I mean, Mrs.--" but no other name than
+"Dahlia" would fit itself to Rhoda's mouth.
+
+"Ayrton," said the maid, and recommenced, "Oh, if you please, Miss, and
+you are the young lady, Mrs. Ayrton is very sorry, and have left word,
+would you call again to-morrow, as she have made a pressing appointment,
+and was sure you would excuse her, but her husband was very anxious for
+her to go, and could not put it off, and was very sorry, but would you
+call again to-morrow at twelve o'clock? and punctually she would be
+here."
+
+The maid smiled as one who had fairly accomplished the recital of her
+lesson. Rhoda was stunned.
+
+"Is Mrs. Ayrton at home?--Not at home?" she said.
+
+"No: don't ye hear?" quoth the farmer, sternly.
+
+"She had my letter--do you know?" Rhoda appealed to the maid.
+
+"Oh, yes, Miss. A letter from the country."
+
+"This morning?"
+
+"Yes, Miss; this morning."
+
+"And she has gone out? What time did she go out? When will she be in?"
+
+Her father plucked at her dress. "Best not go making the young woman
+repeat herself. She says, nobody's at home to ask us in. There's no
+more, then, to trouble her for."
+
+"At twelve o'clock to-morrow?" Rhoda faltered.
+
+"Would you, if you please, call again at twelve o'clock to-morrow, and
+punctually she would be here," said the maid.
+
+The farmer hung his head and turned. Rhoda followed him from the garden.
+She was immediately plied with queries and interjections of wonderment
+by Miss Wicklow, and it was not until she said: "You saw him go out,
+didn't you?--into the cab?" that Rhoda awakened to a meaning in her
+gabble.
+
+Was it Dahlia's husband whom they had seen? And if so, why was Dahlia
+away from her husband? She questioned in her heart, but not for an
+answer, for she allowed no suspicions to live. The farmer led on with
+his plodding country step, burdened shoulders, and ruddy-fowled, serious
+face, not speaking to Rhoda, who had no desire to hear a word from him,
+and let him be. Mary Ann steered him and called from behind the turnings
+he was to take, while she speculated aloud to Rhoda upon the nature of
+the business that had torn Dahlia from the house so inopportunely.
+At last she announced that she knew what it was, but Rhoda failed
+to express curiosity. Mary Ann was driven to whisper something about
+strange things in the way of purchases. At that moment the farmer threw
+up his umbrella, shouting for a cab, and Rhoda ran up to him,--
+
+"Oh, father, why do we want to ride?"
+
+"Yes, I tell ye!" said the farmer, chafing against his coat-collar.
+
+"It is an expense, when we can walk, father."
+
+"What do I care for th' expense? I shall ride." He roared again for a
+cab, and one came that took them in; after which, the farmer, not
+being spoken to, became gravely placid as before. They were put down at
+Boyne's Bank. Anthony was on the look-out, and signalled them to stand
+away some paces from the door. They were kept about a quarter of an hour
+waiting between two tides of wayfarers, which hustled them one way
+and another, when out, at last, came the old, broad, bent figure, with
+little finicking steps, and hurried past them head foremost, his arms
+narrowed across a bulgy breast. He stopped to make sure that they were
+following, beckoned with his chin, and proceeded at a mighty rate.
+Marvellous was his rounding of corners, his threading of obstructions,
+his skilful diplomacy with passengers. Presently they lost sight of him,
+and stood bewildered; but while they were deliberating they heard his
+voice. He was above them, having issued from two swinging bright doors;
+and he laughed and nodded, as he ran down the steps, and made signs, by
+which they were to understand that he was relieved of a weight.
+
+"I've done that twenty year of my life, brother William John," he said.
+"Eh? Perhaps you didn't guess I was worth some thousands when I got away
+from you just now? Let any chap try to stop me! They may just as well
+try to stop a railway train. Steam's up, and I'm off."
+
+He laughed and wiped his forehead. Slightly vexed at the small amount of
+discoverable astonishment on the farmer's face, he continued,--
+
+"You don't think much of it. Why, there ain't another man but myself
+Boyne's Bank would trust. They've trusted me thirty year:--why shouldn't
+they go on trusting me another thirty year? A good character, brother
+William John, goes on compound-interesting, just like good coin. Didn't
+you feel a sort of heat as I brushed by you--eh? That was a matter of
+one-two-three-four" Anthony watched the farmer as his voice swelled
+up on the heightening numbers: "five-six-six thousand pounds, brother
+William John. People must think something of a man to trust him with
+that sum pretty near every day of their lives, Sundays excepted--eh?
+don't you think so?"
+
+He dwelt upon the immense confidence reposed in him, and the terrible
+temptation it would be to some men, and how they ought to thank their
+stars that they were never thrown in the way of such a temptation, of
+which he really thought nothing at all--nothing! until the farmer's
+countenance was lightened of its air of oppression, for a puzzle was
+dissolved in his brain. It was now manifest to him that Anthony was
+trusted in this extraordinary manner because the heads and managers
+of Boyne's Bank knew the old man to be possessed of a certain very
+respectable sum: in all probability they held it in their coffers for
+safety and credited him with the amount. Nay, more; it was fair to
+imagine that the guileless old fellow, who conceived himself to be so
+deep, had let them get it all into their hands without any suspicion of
+their prominent object in doing so.
+
+Mr. Fleming said, "Ah, yes, surely."
+
+He almost looked shrewd as he smiled over Anthony's hat. The healthy
+exercise of his wits relieved his apprehensive paternal heart; and when
+he mentioned that Dahlia had not been at home when he called, he at the
+same time sounded his hearer for excuses to be raised on her behalf,
+himself clumsily suggesting one or two, as to show that he was willing
+to swallow a very little for comfort.
+
+"Oh, of course!" said Anthony, jeeringly. "Out? If you catch her in,
+these next three or four days, you'll be lucky. Ah, brother William
+John!"
+
+The farmer, half frightened by Anthony's dolorous shake of his head,
+exclaimed: "What's the matter, man?"
+
+"How proud I should be if only you was in a way to bank at Boyne's!"
+
+"Ah!" went the farmer in his turn, and he plunged his chin deep in his
+neckerchief.
+
+"Perhaps some of your family will, some day, brother William John."
+
+"Happen, some of my family do, brother Anthony!"
+
+"Will is what I said, brother William John; if good gals, and civil, and
+marry decently--eh?" and he faced about to Rhoda who was walking with
+Miss Wicklow. "What does she look so down about, my dear? Never be down.
+I don't mind you telling your young man, whoever he is; and I'd like him
+to be a strapping young six-footer I've got in my eye, who farms. What
+does he farm with to make farming answer now-a-days? Why, he farms with
+brains. You'll find that in my last week's Journal, brother William
+John, and thinks I, as I conned it--the farmer ought to read that! You
+may tell any young man you like, my dear, that your old uncle's fond of
+ye."
+
+On their arrival home, Mrs. Wicklow met them with a letter in her hand.
+It was for Rhoda from Dahlia, saying that Dahlia was grieved to the
+heart to have missed her dear father and her darling sister. But her
+husband had insisted upon her going out to make particular purchases,
+and do a dozen things; and he was extremely sorry to have been obliged
+to take her away, but she hoped to see her dear sister and her father
+very, very soon. She wished she were her own mistress that she might run
+to them, but men when they are husbands require so much waiting on that
+she could never call five minutes her own. She would entreat them to
+call tomorrow, only she would then be moving to her new lodgings. "But,
+oh! my dear, my blessed Rhoda!" the letter concluded, "do keep fast in
+your heart that I do love you so, and pray that we may meet soon, as I
+pray it every night and all day long. Beg father to stop till we meet.
+Things will soon be arranged. They must. Oh! oh, my Rhoda, love! how
+handsome you have grown. It is very well to be fair for a time, but the
+brunettes have the happiest lot. They last, and when we blonde ones cry
+or grow thin, oh! what objects we become!"
+
+There were some final affectionate words, but no further explanations.
+
+The wrinkles again settled on the farmer's mild, uncomplaining forehead.
+
+Rhoda said: "Let us wait, father."
+
+When alone, she locked the letter against her heart, as to suck the
+secret meaning out of it. Thinking over it was useless; except for
+this one thought: how did her sister know she had grown very handsome?
+Perhaps the housemaid had prattled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Dahlia, the perplexity to her sister's heart, lay stretched at full
+length upon the sofa of a pleasantly furnished London drawing-room,
+sobbing to herself, with her handkerchief across her eyes. She had cried
+passion out, and sobbed now for comfort.
+
+She lay in her rich silken dress like the wreck of a joyful creature,
+while the large red Winter sun rounded to evening, and threw
+deep-coloured beams against the wall above her head. They touched the
+nut-brown hair to vivid threads of fire: but she lay faceless. Utter
+languor and the dread of looking at her eyelids in the glass kept her
+prostrate.
+
+So, the darkness closed her about; the sickly gas-lamps of the street
+showing her as a shrouded body.
+
+A girl came in to spread the cloth for dinner, and went through her
+duties with the stolidity of the London lodging-house maidservant,
+poking a clogged fire to perdition, and repressing a songful spirit.
+
+Dahlia knew well what was being done; she would have given much to have
+saved her nostrils from the smell of dinner; it was a great immediate
+evil to her sickened senses; but she had no energy to call out, nor will
+of any kind. The odours floated to her, and passively she combated them.
+
+At first she was nearly vanquished; the meat smelt so acrid, the
+potatoes so sour; each afflicting vegetable asserted itself peculiarly;
+and the bread, the salt even, on the wings of her morbid fancy, came
+steaming about her, subtle, penetrating, thick, and hateful, like the
+pressure of a cloud out of which disease is shot.
+
+Such it seemed to her, till she could have shrieked; but only a few
+fresh tears started down her cheeks, and she lay enduring it.
+
+Dead silence and stillness hung over the dinner-service, when the outer
+door below was opened, and a light foot sprang up the stairs.
+
+There entered a young gentleman in evening dress, with a loose black
+wrapper drooping from his shoulders.
+
+He looked on the table, and then glancing at the sofa, said:
+
+"Oh, there she is!" and went to the window and whistled.
+
+After a minute of great patience, he turned his face back to the room
+again, and commenced tapping his foot on the carpet.
+
+"Well?" he said, finding these indications of exemplary self-command
+unheeded. His voice was equally powerless to provoke a sign of
+animation. He now displaced his hat, and said, "Dahlia!"
+
+She did not move.
+
+"I am here to very little purpose, then," he remarked.
+
+A guttering fall of her bosom was perceptible.
+
+"For heaven's sake, take away that handkerchief, my good child! Why
+have you let your dinner get cold? Here," he lifted a cover; "here's
+roast-beef. You like it--why don't you eat it? That's only a small piece
+of the general inconsistency, I know. And why haven't they put champagne
+on the table for you? You lose your spirits without it. If you took it
+when these moody fits came on--but there's no advising a woman to do
+anything for her own good. Dahlia, will you do me the favour to speak
+two or three words with me before I go? I would have dined here, but I
+have a man to meet me at the Club. Of what mortal service is it
+shamming the insensible? You've produced the required effect, I am as
+uncomfortable as I need be. Absolutely!
+
+"Well," seeing that words were of no avail, he summed up expostulation
+and reproach in this sigh of resigned philosophy: "I am going. Let me
+see--I have my Temple keys?--yes! I am afraid that even when you are
+inclined to be gracious and look at me, I shall not, be visible to you
+for some days. I start for Lord Elling's to-morrow morning at five. I
+meet my father there by appointment. I'm afraid we shall have to stay
+over Christmas. Good-bye." He paused. "Good-bye, my dear."
+
+Two or three steps nearer the door, he said, "By the way, do you want
+anything? Money?--do you happen to want any money? I will send a blank
+cheque tomorrow. I have sufficient for both of us. I shall tell the
+landlady to order your Christmas dinner. How about wine? There is
+champagne, I know, and bottled ale. Sherry? I'll drop a letter to my
+wine-merchant; I think the sherry's running dry."
+
+Her sense of hearing was now afflicted in as gross a manner as had been
+her sense of smell. She could not have spoken, though her vitality
+had pressed for speech. It would have astonished him to hear that his
+solicitude concerning provender for her during his absence was not
+esteemed a kindness; for surely it is a kindly thing to think of it; and
+for whom but for one for whom he cared would he be counting the bottles
+to be left at her disposal, insomuch that the paucity of the bottles of
+sherry in the establishment distressed his mental faculties?
+
+"Well, good-bye," he said, finally. The door closed.
+
+Had Dahlia's misery been in any degree simulated, her eyes now, as well
+as her ears, would have taken positive assurance of his departure.
+But with the removal of her handkerchief, the loathsome sight of the
+dinner-table would have saluted her, and it had already caused her
+suffering enough. She chose to remain as she was, saying to herself,
+"I am dead;" and softly revelling in that corpse-like sentiment. She
+scarcely knew that the door had opened again.
+
+"Dahlia!"
+
+She heard her name pronounced, and more entreatingly, and closer to her.
+
+"Dahlia, my poor girl!" Her hand was pressed. It gave her no shudders.
+
+"I am dead," she mentally repeated, for the touch did not run up to her
+heart and stir it.
+
+"Dahlia, do be reasonable! I can't leave you like this. We shall be
+separated for some time. And what a miserable fire you've got here! You
+have agreed with me that we are acting for the best. It's very hard
+on me I try what I can to make you comf--happy; and really, to see you
+leaving your dinner to get cold! Your hands are like ice. The meat won't
+be eatable. You know I'm not my own master. Come, Dahly, my darling!"
+
+He gently put his hand to her chin, and then drew away the handkerchief.
+
+Dahlia moaned at the exposure of her tear-stained face, she turned it
+languidly to the wall.
+
+"Are you ill, my dear?" he asked.
+
+Men are so considerately practical! He begged urgently to be allowed to
+send for a doctor.
+
+But women, when they choose to be unhappy, will not accept of practical
+consolations! She moaned a refusal to see the doctor.
+
+Then what can I do for her? he naturally thought, and he naturally
+uttered it.
+
+"Say good-bye to me," he whispered. "And my pretty one will write to me.
+I shall reply so punctually! I don't like to leave her at Christmas;
+and she will give me a line of Italian, and a little French--mind
+her accents, though!--and she needn't attempt any of the nasty
+German--kshrra-kouzzra-kratz!--which her pretty lips can't do, and won't
+do; but only French and Italian. Why, she learnt to speak Italian! 'La
+dolcezza ancor dentro me suona.' Don't you remember, and made such fun
+of it at first? 'Amo zoo;' 'no amo me?' my sweet!"
+
+This was a specimen of the baby-lover talk, which is charming in its
+season, and maybe pleasantly cajoling to a loving woman at all times,
+save when she is in Dahlia's condition. It will serve even then, or she
+will pass it forgivingly, as not the food she for a moment requires;
+but it must be purely simple in its utterance, otherwise she detects
+the poor chicanery, and resents the meanness of it. She resents it with
+unutterable sickness of soul, for it is the language of what were to her
+the holiest hours of her existence, which is thus hypocritically used
+to blind and rock her in a cradle of deception. If corrupt, she maybe
+brought to answer to it all the same, and she will do her part of the
+play, and babble words, and fret and pout deliciously; and the old days
+will seem to be revived, when both know they are dead; and she will
+thereby gain any advantage she is seeking.
+
+But Dahlia's sorrow was deep: her heart was sound. She did not even
+perceive the opportunity offered to her for a wily performance. She
+felt the hollowness of his speech, and no more; and she said, "Good-bye,
+Edward."
+
+He had been on one knee. Springing cheerfully to his feet, "Good-bye,
+darling," he said. "But I must see her sit to table first. Such a
+wretched dinner for her!" and he mumbled, "By Jove, I suppose I shan't
+get any at all myself!" His watch confirmed it to him that any dinner
+which had been provided for him at the Club would be spoilt.
+
+"Never mind," he said aloud, and examined the roast-beef ruefully,
+thinking that, doubtless, it being more than an hour behind the
+appointed dinner-time at the Club, his guest must now be gone.
+
+For a minute or so he gazed at the mournful spectacle. The potatoes
+looked as if they had committed suicide in their own steam. There were
+mashed turnips, with a glazed surface, like the bright bottom of a tin
+pan. One block of bread was by the lonely plate. Neither hot nor cold,
+the whole aspect of the dinner-table resisted and repelled the gaze, and
+made no pretensions to allure it.
+
+The thought of partaking of this repast endowed him with a critical
+appreciation of its character, and a gush of charitable emotion for
+the poor girl who had such miserable dishes awaiting her, arrested the
+philosophic reproof which he could have administered to one that knew
+so little how a dinner of any sort should be treated. He strode to the
+windows, pulled down the blind he had previously raised, rang the bell,
+and said,--
+
+"Dahlia, there--I'm going to dine with you, my love. I've rung the bell
+for more candles. The room shivers. That girl will see you, if you don't
+take care. Where is the key of the cupboard? We must have some wine out.
+The champagne, at all events, won't be flat."
+
+He commenced humming the song of complacent resignation. Dahlia was
+still inanimate, but as the door was about to open, she rose quickly and
+sat in a tremble on the sofa, concealing her face.
+
+An order was given for additional candles, coals, and wood. When the
+maid had disappeared Dahlia got on her feet, and steadied herself by the
+wall, tottering away to her chamber.
+
+"Ah, poor thing!" ejaculated the young man, not without an idea that the
+demonstration was unnecessary. For what is decidedly disagreeable is, in
+a young man's calculation concerning women, not necessary at all,--quite
+the reverse. Are not women the flowers which decorate sublunary life?
+It is really irritating to discover them to be pieces of machinery, that
+for want of proper oiling, creak, stick, threaten convulsions, and are
+tragic and stir us the wrong way. However, champagne does them good: an
+admirable wine--a sure specific for the sex!
+
+He searched around for the keys to get at a bottle and uncork it
+forthwith. The keys were on the mantelpiece a bad comment on Dahlia's
+housekeeping qualities; but in the hurry of action let it pass. He
+welcomed the candles gladly, and soon had all the cupboards in the room
+royally open.
+
+Bustle is instinctively adopted by the human race as the substitute of
+comfort. He called for more lights, more plates, more knives and forks.
+He sent for ice the maid observed that it was not to be had save at a
+distant street: "Jump into a cab--champagne's nothing without ice, even
+in Winter," he said, and rang for her as she was leaving the house, to
+name a famous fishmonger who was sure to supply the ice.
+
+The establishment soon understood that Mr. Ayrton intended dining within
+those walls. Fresh potatoes were put on to boil. The landlady came
+up herself to arouse the fire. The maid was for a quarter of an hour
+hovering between the order to get ice and the execution of immediate
+commands. One was that she should take a glass of champagne to Mrs.
+Ayrton in her room. He drank off one himself. Mrs. Ayrton's glass being
+brought back untouched, he drank that off likewise, and as he became
+more exhilarated, was more considerate for her, to such a degree, that
+when she appeared he seized her hands and only jestingly scolded her
+for her contempt of sound medicine, declaring, in spite of her
+protestations, that she was looking lovely, and so they sat down to
+their dinner, she with an anguished glance at the looking-glass as she
+sank in her chair.
+
+"It's not bad, after all," said he, drenching his tasteless mouthful of
+half-cold meat with champagne. "The truth is, that Clubs spoil us. This
+is Spartan fare. Come, drink with me, my dearest. One sip."
+
+She was coaxed by degrees to empty a glass. She had a gentle heart, and
+could not hold out long against a visible lively kindliness. It pleased
+him that she should bow to him over fresh bubbles; and they went
+formally through the ceremony, and she smiled. He joked and laughed and
+talked, and she eyed him a faint sweetness. He perceived now that she
+required nothing more than the restoration of her personal pride, and
+setting bright eyes on her, hazarded a bold compliment.
+
+Dahlia drooped like a yacht with idle sails struck by a sudden blast,
+that dips them in the salt; but she raised her face with the full bloom
+of a blush: and all was plain sailing afterward.
+
+"Has my darling seen her sister?" he asked softly.
+
+Dahlia answered, "No," in the same tone.
+
+Both looked away.
+
+"She won't leave town without seeing you?"
+
+"I hope--I don't know. She--she has called at our last lodgings twice."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"Yes; I think so."
+
+Dahlia kept her head down, replying; and his observation of her wavered
+uneasily.
+
+"Why not write to her, then?"
+
+"She will bring father."
+
+The sob thickened in her throat; but, alas for him who had at first,
+while she was on the sofa, affected to try all measures to revive her,
+that I must declare him to know well how certain was his mastery over
+her, when his manner was thoroughly kind. He had not much fear of her
+relapsing at present.
+
+"You can't see your father?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But, do. It's best."
+
+"I can't."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Not--" she hesitated, and clasped her hands in her lap.
+
+"Yes, yes; I know," said he; "but still! You could surely see him. You
+rouse suspicions that need not exist. Try another glass, my dear."
+
+"No more."
+
+"Well; as I was saying, you force him to think--and there is no
+necessity for it. He maybe as hard on this point as you say; but now
+and then a little innocent deception maybe practised. We only require to
+gain time. You place me in a very hard position. I have a father too.
+He has his own idea of things. He's a proud man, as I've told you;
+tremendously ambitious, and he wants to push me, not only at the bar,
+but in the money market matrimonial. All these notions I have to contend
+against. Things can't be done at once. If I give him a shock--well,
+we'll drop any consideration of the consequences. Write to your
+sister to tell her to bring your father. If they make particular
+inquiries--very unlikely I think--but, if they do, put them at their
+ease."
+
+She sighed.
+
+"Why was my poor darling so upset, when I came in?" said he.
+
+There was a difficulty in her speaking. He waited with much patient
+twiddling of bread crumbs; and at last she said:
+
+"My sister called twice at my--our old lodgings. The second time, she
+burst into tears. The girl told me so."
+
+"But women cry so often, and for almost anything, Dahlia."
+
+"Rhoda cries with her hands closed hard, and her eyelids too."
+
+"Well, that maybe her way."
+
+"I have only seen her cry once, and that was when mother was dying, and
+asked her to fetch a rose from the garden. I met her on the stairs. She
+was like wood. She hates crying. She loves me so."
+
+The sympathetic tears rolled down Dahlia's cheeks.
+
+"So, you quite refuse to see your father?" he asked.
+
+"Not yet!"
+
+"Not yet," he repeated.
+
+At the touch of scorn in his voice, she exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, Edward! not yet, I cannot. I know I am weak. I can't meet him now.
+If my Rhoda had come alone, as I hoped--! but he is with her. Don't
+blame me, Edward. I can't explain. I only know that I really have not
+the power to see him."
+
+Edward nodded. "The sentiment some women put into things is
+inexplicable," he said. "Your sister and father will return home. They
+will have formed their ideas. You know how unjust they will be. Since,
+however, the taste is for being a victim--eh?"
+
+London lodging-house rooms in Winter when the blinds are down, and a
+cheerless fire is in the grate, or when blinds are up and street-lamps
+salute the inhabitants with uncordial rays, are not entertaining places
+of residence for restless spirits. Edward paced about the room. He lit a
+cigar and puffed at it fretfully.
+
+"Will you come and try one of the theatres for an hour?" he asked.
+
+She rose submissively, afraid to say that she thought she should look
+ill in the staring lights; but he, with great quickness of perception,
+rendered her task easier by naming the dress she was to wear, the
+jewels, and the colour of the opera cloak. Thus prompted, Dahlia went to
+her chamber, and passively attired herself, thankful to have been spared
+the pathetic troubles of a selection of garments from her wardrobe. When
+she came forth, Edward thought her marvellously beautiful.
+
+Pity that she had no strength of character whatever, nor any pointed
+liveliness of mind to match and wrestle with his own, and cheer the
+domestic hearth! But she was certainly beautiful. Edward kissed her hand
+in commendation. Though it was practically annoying that she should
+be sad, the hue and spirit of sadness came home to her aspect. Sorrow
+visited her tenderly falling eyelids like a sister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Edward's engagement at his Club had been with his unfortunate cousin
+Algernon; who not only wanted a dinner but 'five pounds or so' (the
+hazy margin which may extend illimitably, or miserably contract, at the
+lender's pleasure, and the necessity for which shows the borrower to be
+dancing on Fortune's tight-rope above the old abyss).
+
+"Over claret," was to have been the time for the asking; and Algernon
+waited dinnerless until the healthy-going minutes distended and swelled
+monstrous and horrible as viper-bitten bodies, and the venerable
+Signior, Time, became of unhealthy hue. For this was the first dinner
+which, during the whole course of the young man's career, had ever been
+failing to him. Reflect upon the mournful gap! He could scarcely believe
+in his ill-luck. He suggested it to himself with an inane grin, as one
+of the far-away freaks of circumstances that had struck him--and was it
+not comical?
+
+He waited from the hour of six till the hour of seven. He compared
+clocks in the hall and the room. He changed the posture of his legs
+fifty times. For a while he wrestled right gallantly with the apparent
+menace of the Fates that he was to get no dinner at all that day; it
+seemed incredibly derisive, for, as I must repeat, it had never happened
+to him by any accident before. "You are born--you dine." Such appeared
+to him to be the positive regulation of affairs, and a most proper
+one,--of the matters of course following the birth of a young being.
+
+By what frightful mischance, then, does he miss his dinner? By placing
+the smallest confidence in the gentlemanly feeling of another man!
+Algernon deduced this reply accurately from his own experience, and
+whether it can be said by other "undined" mortals, does not matter in
+the least. But we have nothing to do with the constitutionally luckless:
+the calamitous history of a simple empty stomach is enough. Here the
+tragedy is palpable. Indeed, too sadly so, and I dare apply but a flash
+of the microscope to the rageing dilemmas of this animalcule. Five and
+twenty minutes had signalled their departure from the hour of seven,
+when Algernon pronounced his final verdict upon Edward's conduct by
+leaving the Club. He returned to it a quarter of an hour later, and
+lingered on in desperate mood till eight.
+
+He had neither watch in his pocket, nor ring on his finger, nor
+disposable stud in his shirt. The sum of twenty-one pence was in his
+possession, and, I ask you, as he asked himself, how is a gentleman to
+dine upon that? He laughed at the notion. The irony of Providence sent
+him by a cook's shop, where the mingled steam of meats and puddings
+rushed out upon the wayfarer like ambushed bandits, and seized him and
+dragged him in, or sent him qualmish and humbled on his way.
+
+Two little boys had flattened their noses to the whiteness of winkles
+against the jealously misty windows. Algernon knew himself to be
+accounted a generous fellow, and remembering his reputation, he, as to
+hint at what Fortune might do in his case, tossed some coppers to the
+urchins, who ducked to the pavement and slid before the counter, in a
+flash, with never a "thank ye" or the thought of it.
+
+Algernon was incapable of appreciating this childish faith in the
+beneficence of the unseen Powers who feed us, which, I must say for him,
+he had shared in a very similar manner only two hours ago. He laughed
+scornfully: "The little beggars!" considering in his soul that of such
+is humanity composed: as many a dinnerless man has said before, and
+will again, to point the speech of fools. He continued strolling on,
+comparing the cramped misty London aspect of things with his visionary
+free dream of the glorious prairies, where his other life was: the
+forests, the mountains, the endless expanses; the horses, the flocks,
+the slipshod ease of language and attire; and the grog-shops. Aha! There
+could be no mistake about him as a gentleman and a scholar out there!
+Nor would Nature shut up her pocket and demand innumerable things of
+him, as civilization did. This he thought in the vengefulness of his
+outraged mind.
+
+Not only had Algernon never failed to dine every day of his life: he
+had no recollection of having ever dined without drinking wine. His
+conception did not embrace the idea of a dinner lacking wine. Possibly
+he had some embodied understanding that wine did not fall to the lot
+of every fellow upon earth: he had heard of gullets unrefreshed even by
+beer: but at any rate he himself was accustomed to better things, and he
+did not choose to excavate facts from the mass of his knowledge in order
+to reconcile himself to the miserable chop he saw for his dinner in the
+distance--a spot of meat in the arctic circle of a plate, not shone upon
+by any rosy-warming sun of a decanter!
+
+But metaphorical language, though nothing other will convey the
+extremity of his misery, or the form of his thoughts, must be put aside.
+
+"Egad, and every friend I have is out of town!" he exclaimed, quite
+willing to think it part of the plot.
+
+He stuck his hands in his pockets, and felt vagabond-like and reckless.
+The streets were revelling in their winter muck. The carriages rolling
+by insulted him with their display of wealth.
+
+He had democratic sentiments regarding them. Oh for a horse upon the
+boundless plains! he sighed to his heart. He remembered bitterly how he
+had that day ridden his stool at the bank, dreaming of his wilds, where
+bailiff never ran, nor duns obscured the firmament.
+
+And then there were theatres here--huge extravagant places! Algernon
+went over to an entrance of one, to amuse his mind, cynically
+criticizing the bill. A play was going forward within, that enjoyed
+great popular esteem, "The Holly Berries." Seeing that the pit was
+crammed, Algernon made application to learn the state of the boxes, but
+hearing that one box was empty, he lost his interest in the performance.
+
+As he was strolling forth, his attention was taken by a noise at the
+pit-doors, which swung open, and out tumbled a tough little old man with
+a younger one grasping his coat-collar, who proclaimed that he would
+sicken him of pushing past him at the end of every act.
+
+"You're precious fond of plays," sneered the junior.
+
+"I'm fond of everything I pay for, young fellow," replied the shaken
+senior; "and that's a bit of enjoyment you've got to learn--ain't it?"
+
+"Well, don't you knock by me again, that's all," cried the choleric
+youth.
+
+"You don't think I'm likely to stop in your company, do you?"
+
+"Whose expense have you been drinking at?"
+
+"My country's, young fellow; and mind you don't soon feed at the table.
+Let me go."
+
+Algernon's hunger was appeased by the prospect of some excitement, and
+seeing a vicious shake administered to the old man by the young one, he
+cried, "Hands off!" and undertook policeman's duty; but as he was not
+in blue, his authoritative mandate obtained no respect until he had
+interposed his fist.
+
+When he had done so, he recognized the porter at Boyne's Bank, whose
+enemy retired upon the threat that there should be no more pushing past
+him to get back to seats for the next act.
+
+"I paid," said Anthony; "and you're a ticketer, and you ticketers sha'
+n't stop me. I'm worth a thousand of you. Holloa, sir," he cried to
+Algernon; "I didn't know you. I'm much obliged. These chaps get tickets
+given 'm, and grow as cocky in a theatre as men who pay. He never had
+such wine in him as I've got. That I'd swear. Ha! ha! I come out for an
+airing after every act, and there's a whole pitfall of ticketers yelling
+and tearing, and I chaff my way through and back clean as a red-hot
+poker."
+
+Anthony laughed, and rolled somewhat as he laughed.
+
+"Come along, sir, into the street," he said, boring on to the pavement.
+"It's after office hours. And, ha! ha! what do you think? There's old
+farmer in there, afraid to move off his seat, and the girl with him,
+sticking to him tight, and a good girl too. She thinks we've had too
+much. We been to the Docks, wine-tasting: Port--Sherry: Sherry--Port!
+and, ha! ha! 'what a lot of wine!' says farmer, never thinking how much
+he's taking on board. 'I guessed it was night,' says farmer, as we got
+into the air, and to see him go on blinking, and stumbling, and saying
+to me, 'You stand wine, brother Tony!' I'm blest if I ain't bottled
+laughter. So, says I, 'come and see "The Holly Berries," brother William
+John; it's the best play in London, and a suitable winter piece.' 'Is
+there a rascal hanged in the piece?' says he. 'Oh, yes!' I let him fancy
+there was, and he--ha! ha! old farmer's sticking to his seat, solemn as
+a judge, waiting for the gallows to come on the stage."
+
+A thought quickened Algernon's spirit. It was a notorious secret among
+the young gentlemen who assisted in maintaining the prosperity
+of Boyne's Bank, that the old porter--the "Old Ant," as he was
+called--possessed money, and had no objection to put out small sums for
+a certain interest. Algernon mentioned casually that he had left his
+purse at home; and "by the way," said he, "have you got a few sovereigns
+in your pocket?"
+
+"What! and come through that crush, sir?" Anthony negatived the question
+decisively with a reference to his general knowingness.
+
+Algernon pressed him; saying at last, "Well, have you got one?"
+
+"I don't think I've been such a fool," said Anthony, feeling slowly
+about his person, and muttering as to the changes that might possibly
+have been produced in him by the Docks.
+
+"Confound it, I haven't dined!" exclaimed Algernon, to hasten his
+proceedings; but at this, Anthony eyed him queerly. "What have you been
+about then, sir?"
+
+"Don't you see I'm in evening dress? I had an appointment to dine with
+a friend. He didn't keep it. I find I've left my purse in my other
+clothes."
+
+"That's a bad habit, sir," was Anthony's comment. "You don't care much
+for your purse."
+
+"Much for my purse, be hanged!" interjected Algernon.
+
+"You'd have felt it, or you'd have heard it, if there 'd been any weight
+in it," Anthony remarked.
+
+"How can you hear paper?"
+
+"Oh, paper's another thing. You keep paper in your mind, don't you--eh?
+Forget pound notes? Leave pound notes in a purse? And you Sir William's
+nephew, sir, who'd let you bank with him and put down everything in a
+book, so that you couldn't forget, or if you did, he'd remember for you;
+and you might change your clothes as often as not, and no fear of your
+losing a penny."
+
+Algernon shrugged disgustedly, and was giving the old man up as a bad
+business, when Anthony altered his manner. "Oh! well, sir, I don't mind
+letting you have what I've got. I'm out for fun. Bother affairs!"
+
+The sum of twenty shillings was handed to Algernon, after he had
+submitted to the indignity of going into a public-house, and writing
+his I.O.U. for twenty-three to Anthony Hackbut, which included interest.
+Algernon remonstrated against so needless a formality; but Anthony
+put the startling supposition to him, that he might die that night. He
+signed the document, and was soon feeding and drinking his wine. This
+being accomplished, he took some hasty puffs of tobacco, and returned to
+the theatre, in the hope that the dark girl Rhoda was to be seen there;
+for now that he had dined, Anthony's communication with regard to the
+farmer and his daughter became his uppermost thought, and a young man's
+uppermost thought is usually the propelling engine to his actions.
+
+By good chance, and the aid of a fee, he obtained a front seat,
+commanding an excellent side-view of the pit, which sat wrapt in
+contemplation of a Christmas scene snow, ice, bare twigs, a desolate
+house, and a woman shivering--one of man's victims.
+
+It is a good public, that of Britain, and will bear anything, so long
+as villany is punished, of which there was ripe promise in the oracular
+utterances of a rolling, stout, stage-sailor, whose nose, to say nothing
+of his frankness on the subject, proclaimed him his own worst enemy,
+and whose joke, by dint of repetition, had almost become the joke of the
+audience too; for whenever he appeared, there was agitation in pit and
+gallery, which subsided only on his jovial thundering of the familiar
+sentence; whereupon laughter ensued, and a quieting hum of satisfaction.
+
+It was a play that had been favoured with a great run. Critics had once
+objected to it, that it was made to subsist on scenery, a song, and a
+stupid piece of cockneyism pretending to be a jest, that was really
+no more than a form of slapping the public on the back. But the public
+likes to have its back slapped, and critics, frozen by the Medusa-head
+of Success, were soon taught manners. The office of critic is now,
+in fact, virtually extinct; the taste for tickling and slapping is
+universal and imperative; classic appeals to the intellect, and passions
+not purely domestic, have grown obsolete. There are captains of the
+legions, but no critics. The mass is lord.
+
+And behold our friend the sailor of the boards, whose walk is even
+as two meeting billows, appears upon the lonely moor, and salts that
+uninhabited region with nautical interjections. Loose are his hose in
+one part, tight in another, and he smacks them. It is cold; so let that
+be his excuse for showing the bottom of his bottle to the glittering
+spheres. He takes perhaps a sturdier pull at the liquor than becomes
+a manifest instrument of Providence, whose services may be immediately
+required; but he informs us that his ship was never known not to right
+itself when called upon.
+
+He is alone in the world, he tells us likewise. If his one friend, the
+uplifted flask, is his enemy, why then he feels bound to treat his enemy
+as his friend. This, with a pathetic allusion to his interior economy,
+which was applauded, and the remark "Ain't that Christian?" which was
+just a trifle risky; so he secured pit and gallery at a stroke by a
+surpassingly shrewd blow at the bishops of our Church, who are, it can
+barely be contested, in foul esteem with the multitude--none can say
+exactly, for what reason--and must submit to be occasionally offered up
+as propitiatory sacrifices.
+
+This good sailor was not always alone in the world. A sweet girl, whom
+he describes as reaching to his kneecap, and pathetically believes still
+to be of the same height, once called him brother Jack. To hear that
+name again from her lips, and a particular song!--he attempts it
+ludicrously, yet touchingly withal.
+
+Hark! Is it an echo from a spirit in the frigid air?
+
+The song trembled with a silver ring to the remotest corners of the
+house.
+
+At that moment the breathless hush of the audience was flurried by
+hearing "Dahlia" called from the pit.
+
+Algernon had been spying among the close-packed faces for a sight of
+Rhoda. Rhoda was now standing up amid gathering hisses and outcries. Her
+eyes were bent on a particular box, across which a curtain was hastily
+being drawn. "My sister!" she sent out a voice of anguish, and remained
+with clasped hands and twisted eyebrows, looking toward that one spot,
+as if she would have flown to it. She was wedged in the mass, and could
+not move.
+
+The exclamation heard had belonged to brother Jack, on the stage, whose
+burst of fraternal surprise and rapture fell flat after it, to the
+disgust of numbers keenly awakened for the sentiment of this scene.
+
+Roaring accusations that she was drunk; that she had just escaped from
+Bedlam for an evening; that she should be gagged and turned headlong
+out, surrounded her; but she stood like a sculptured figure, vital
+in her eyes alone. The farmer put his arm about his girl's waist. The
+instant, however, that Anthony's head uprose on the other side of her,
+the evil reputation he had been gaining for himself all through the
+evening produced a general clamour, over which the gallery played,
+miauling, and yelping like dogs that are never to be divorced from a
+noise. Algernon feared mischief. He quitted his seat, and ran out into
+the lobby.
+
+Half-a-dozen steps, and he came in contact with some one, and they were
+mutually drenched with water by the shock. It was his cousin Edward,
+bearing a glass in his hand.
+
+Algernon's wrath at the sight of this offender was stimulated by the
+cold bath; but Edward cut him short.
+
+"Go in there;" he pointed to a box-door. "A lady has fainted. Hold her
+up till I come."
+
+No time was allowed for explanation. Algernon passed into the box, and
+was alone with an inanimate shape in blue bournous. The uproar in the
+theatre raged; the whole pit was on its legs and shouting. He lifted
+the pallid head over one arm, miserably helpless and perplexed, but
+his anxiety concerning Rhoda's personal safety in that sea of strife
+prompted him to draw back the curtain a little, and he stood exposed.
+Rhoda perceived him. She motioned with both her hands in dumb
+supplication. In a moment the curtain closed between them. Edward's
+sharp white face cursed him mutely for his folly, while he turned and
+put the water to Dahlia's lips, and touched her forehead with it.
+
+"What's the matter?" whispered Algernon.
+
+"We must get her out as quick as we can. This is the way with women!
+Come! she's recovering." Edward nursed her sternly as he spoke.
+
+"If she doesn't, pretty soon, we shall have the pit in upon us," said
+Algernon. "Is she that girl's sister?"
+
+"Don't ask damned questions."
+
+Dahlia opened her eyes, staring placidly.
+
+"Now you can stand up, my dear. Dahlia! all's well. Try," said Edward.
+
+She sighed, murmuring, "What is the time?" and again, "What noise is
+it?"
+
+Edward coughed in a vexed attempt at tenderness, using all his force to
+be gentle with her as he brought her to her feet. The task was difficult
+amid the threatening storm in the theatre, and cries of "Show the young
+woman her sister!" for Rhoda had won a party in the humane public.
+
+"Dahlia, in God's name give me your help!" Edward called in her ear.
+
+The fair girl's eyelids blinked wretchedly in protestation of her
+weakness. She had no will either way, and suffered herself to be led out
+of the box, supported by the two young men.
+
+"Run for a cab," said Edward; and Algernon went ahead.
+
+He had one waiting for them as they came out. They placed Dahlia on a
+seat with care, and Edward, jumping in, drew an arm tightly about her.
+"I can't cry," she moaned.
+
+The cab was driving off as a crowd of people burst from the pit-doors,
+and Algernon heard the voice of Farmer Fleming, very hoarse. He had
+discretion enough to retire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Robert was to drive to the station to meet Rhoda and her father
+returning from London, on a specified day. He was eager to be asking
+cheerful questions of Dahlia's health and happiness, so that he might
+dispel the absurd general belief that he had ever loved the girl, and
+was now regretting her absence; but one look at Rhoda's face when she
+stepped from the railway carriage kept him from uttering a word on that
+subject, and the farmer's heavier droop and acceptance of a helping hand
+into the cart, were signs of bad import.
+
+Mr. Fleming made no show of grief, like one who nursed it. He took it to
+all appearance as patiently as an old worn horse would do, although such
+an outward submissiveness will not always indicate a placid spirit in
+men. He talked at stale intervals of the weather and the state of the
+ground along the line of rail down home, and pointed in contempt or
+approval to a field here and there; but it was as one who no longer had
+any professional interest in the tilling of the land.
+
+Doubtless he was trained to have no understanding of a good to be
+derived by his communicating what he felt and getting sympathy. Once,
+when he was uncertain, and a secret pride in Dahlia's beauty and
+accomplishments had whispered to him that her flight was possibly the
+opening of her road to a higher fortune, he made a noise for comfort,
+believing in his heart that she was still to be forgiven. He knew better
+now. By holding his peace he locked out the sense of shame which speech
+would have stirred within him.
+
+"Got on pretty smooth with old Mas' Gammon?" he expressed his hope; and
+Robert said, "Capitally. We shall make something out of the old man yet,
+never fear."
+
+Master Gammon was condemned to serve at the ready-set tea-table as a
+butt for banter; otherwise it was apprehended well that Mrs. Sumfit
+would have scorched the ears of all present, save the happy veteran of
+the furrows, with repetitions of Dahlia's name, and wailings about her
+darling, of whom no one spoke. They suffered from her in spite of every
+precaution.
+
+"Well, then, if I'm not to hear anything dooring meals--as if I'd
+swallow it and take it into my stomach!--I'll wait again for what ye've
+got to tell," she said, and finished her cup at a gulp, smoothing her
+apron.
+
+The farmer then lifted his head.
+
+"Mother, if you've done, you'll oblige me by going to bed," he said. "We
+want the kitchen."
+
+"A-bed?" cried Mrs. Sumfit, with instantly ruffled lap.
+
+"Upstairs, mother; when you've done--not before."
+
+"Then bad's the noos! Something have happened, William. You 'm not
+going to push me out? And my place is by the tea-pot, which I cling to,
+rememberin' how I seen her curly head grow by inches up above the table
+and the cups. Mas' Gammon," she appealed to the sturdy feeder, "five
+cups is your number?"
+
+Her hope was reduced to the prolonging of the service of tea, with
+Master Gammon's kind assistance.
+
+"Four, marm," said her inveterate antagonist, as he finished that
+amount, and consequently put the spoon in his cup.
+
+Mrs. Sumfit rolled in her chair.
+
+"O Lord, Mas' Gammon! Five, I say; and never a cup less so long as here
+you've been."
+
+"Four, marm. I don't know," said Master Gammon, with a slow nod of his
+head, "that ever I took five cups of tea at a stretch. Not runnin'."
+
+"I do know, Mas' Gammon. And ought to: for don't I pour out to ye? It's
+five you take, and please, your cup, if you'll hand it over."
+
+"Four's my number, marm," Master Gammon reiterated resolutely. He sat
+like a rock.
+
+"If they was dumplins," moaned Mrs. Sumfit, "not four, no, nor five,
+'d do till enough you'd had, and here we might stick to our chairs, but
+you'd go on and on; you know you would."
+
+"That's eatin', marm;" Master Gammon condescended to explain the nature
+of his habits. "I'm reg'lar in my drinkin'."
+
+Mrs. Sumfit smote her hands together. "O Lord, Mas' Gammon, the
+wearisomest old man I ever come across is you. More tea's in the
+pot, and it ain't watery, and you won't be comfortable. May you get
+forgiveness from above! is all I say, and I say no more. Mr. Robert,
+perhaps you'll be so good as let me help you, sir? It's good tea; and
+my Dody," she added, cajolingly, "my home girl 'll tell us what she saw.
+I'm pinched and starved to hear."
+
+"By-and-by, mother," interposed the farmer; "tomorrow." He spoke gently,
+but frowned.
+
+Both Rhoda and Robert perceived that they were peculiarly implicated in
+the business which was to be discussed without Mrs. Sumfit's assistance.
+Her father's manner forbade Rhoda from making any proposal for the
+relief of the forlorn old woman.
+
+"And me not to hear to-night about your play-going!" sighed Mrs.
+Sumfit. "Oh, it's hard on me. I do call it cruel. And how my sweet was
+dressed--like as for a Ball."
+
+She saw the farmer move his foot impatiently.
+
+"Then, if nobody drinks this remaining cup, I will," she pursued.
+
+No voice save her own was heard till the cup was emptied, upon which
+Master Gammon, according to his wont, departed for bed to avoid the
+seduction of suppers, which he shunned as apoplectic, and Mrs. Sumfit
+prepared, in a desolate way, to wash the tea-things, but the farmer,
+saying that it could be done in the morning, went to the door and opened
+it for her.
+
+She fetched a great sigh and folded her hands resignedly. As she was
+passing him to make her miserable enforced exit, the heavy severity
+of his face afflicted her with a deep alarm; she fell on her knees,
+crying,--
+
+"Oh, William! it ain't for sake of hearin' talk; but you, that went to
+see our Dahly, the blossom, 've come back streaky under the eyes, and
+you make the house feel as if we neighboured Judgement Day. Down to tea
+you set the first moment, and me alone with none of you, and my love for
+my girl known well to you. And now to be marched off! How can I go a-bed
+and sleep, and my heart jumps so? It ain't Christian to ask me to. I got
+a heart, dear, I have. Do give a bit of comfort to it. Only a word of my
+Dahly to me."
+
+The farmer replied: "Mother, let's have no woman's nonsense. What we've
+got to bear, let us bear. And you go on your knees to the Lord, and
+don't be a heathen woman, I say. Get up. There's a Bible in your
+bedroom. Find you out comfort in that."
+
+"No, William, no!" she sobbed, still kneeling: "there ain't a dose o'
+comfort there when poor souls is in the dark, and haven't got patience
+for passages. And me and my Bible!--how can I read it, and not know my
+ailing, and a'stract one good word, William? It'll seem only the devil's
+shootin' black lightnings across the page, as poor blessed granny used
+to say, and she believed witches could do it to you in her time, when
+they was evil-minded. No! To-night I look on the binding of the Holy
+Book, and I don't, and I won't, I sha' n't open it."
+
+This violent end to her petition was wrought by the farmer grasping her
+arm to bring her to her feet.
+
+"Go to bed, mother."
+
+"I shan't open it," she repeated, defiantly. "And it ain't," she
+gathered up her comfortable fat person to assist the words "it ain't
+good--no, not the best pious ones--I shall, and will say it! as is
+al'ays ready to smack your face with the Bible."
+
+"Now, don't ye be angry," said the farmer.
+
+She softened instantly.
+
+"William, dear, I got fifty-seven pounds sterling, and odd shillings, in
+a Savings-bank, and that I meant to go to Dahly, and not to yond' dark
+thing sitting there so sullen, and me in my misery; I'd give it to you
+now for news of my darlin'. Yes, William; and my poor husband's cottage,
+in Sussex--seventeen pound per annum. That, if you'll be goodness
+itself, and let me hear a word."
+
+"Take her upstairs," said the farmer to Rhoda, and Rhoda went by her
+and took her hands, and by dint of pushing from behind and dragging in
+front, Mrs. Sumfit, as near on a shriek as one so fat and sleek
+could be, was ejected. The farmer and Robert heard her struggles
+and exclamations along the passage, but her resistance subsided very
+suddenly.
+
+"There's power in that girl," said the farmer, standing by the shut
+door.
+
+Robert thought so, too. It affected his imagination, and his heart began
+to beat sickeningly.
+
+"Perhaps she promised to speak--what has happened, whatever that may
+be," he suggested.
+
+"Not she; not she. She respects my wishes."
+
+Robert did not ask what had happened.
+
+Mr. Fleming remained by the door, and shut his mouth from a further
+word till he heard Rhoda's returning footstep. He closed the door
+again behind her, and went up to the square deal table, leaned his body
+forward on the knuckles of his trembling fist, and said, "We're pretty
+well broken up, as it is. I've lost my taste for life."
+
+There he paused. Save by the shining of a wet forehead, his face
+betrayed nothing of the anguish he suffered. He looked at neither of
+them, but sent his gaze straight away under labouring brows to an arm of
+the fireside chair, while his shoulders drooped on the wavering support
+of his hard-shut hands. Rhoda's eyes, ox-like, as were her father's,
+smote full upon Robert's, as in a pang of apprehension of what was about
+to be uttered.
+
+It was a quick blaze of light, wherein he saw that the girl's spirit was
+not with him. He would have stopped the farmer at once, but he had not
+the heart to do it, even had he felt in himself strength to attract an
+intelligent response from that strange, grave, bovine fixity of look,
+over which the human misery sat as a thing not yet taken into the dull
+brain.
+
+"My taste for life," the old man resumed, "that's gone. I didn't bargain
+at set-out to go on fighting agen the world. It's too much for a man
+o' my years. Here's the farm. Shall 't go to pieces?--I'm a farmer of
+thirty year back--thirty year back, and more: I'm about no better'n a
+farm labourer in our time, which is to-day. I don't cost much. I ask to
+be fed, and to work for it, and to see my poor bit o' property safe,
+as handed to me by my father. Not for myself, 't ain't; though perhaps
+there's a bottom of pride there too, as in most things. Say it's for the
+name. My father seems to demand of me out loud, 'What ha' ye done with
+Queen Anne's Farm, William?' and there's a holler echo in my ears. Well;
+God wasn't merciful to give me a son. He give me daughters."
+
+Mr. Fleming bowed his head as to the very weapon of chastisement.
+
+"Daughters!" He bent lower.
+
+His hearers might have imagined his headless address to them to be also
+without a distinct termination, for he seemed to have ended as abruptly
+as he had begun; so long was the pause before, with a wearied lifting of
+his body, he pursued, in a sterner voice:
+
+"Don't let none interrupt me." His hand was raised as toward where Rhoda
+stood, but he sent no look with it; the direction was wide of her.
+
+The aspect of the blank blind hand motioning to the wall away from her,
+smote an awe through her soul that kept her dumb, though his next words
+were like thrusts of a dagger in her side.
+
+"My first girl--she's brought disgrace on this house. She's got a mother
+in heaven, and that mother's got to blush for her. My first girl's gone
+to harlotry in London."
+
+It was Scriptural severity of speech. Robert glanced quick with intense
+commiseration at Rhoda. He saw her hands travel upward till they fixed
+in at her temples with crossed fingers, making the pressure of an iron
+band for her head, while her lips parted, and her teeth, and cheeks,
+and eyeballs were all of one whiteness. Her tragic, even, in and out
+breathing, where there was no fall of the breast, but the air was taken
+and given, as it were the square blade of a sharp-edged sword, was
+dreadful to see. She had the look of a risen corpse, recalling some one
+of the bloody ends of life.
+
+The farmer went on,--
+
+"Bury her! Now you here know the worst. There's my second girl. She's
+got no stain on her; if people 'll take her for what she is herself.
+She's idle. But I believe the flesh on her bones she'd wear away for any
+one that touched her heart. She's a temper. But she's clean both in body
+and in spirit, as I believe, and say before my God. I--what I'd pray for
+is, to see this girl safe. All I have shall go to her. That is, to the
+man who will--won't be ashamed--marry her, I mean!"
+
+The tide of his harshness failed him here, and he began to pick
+his words, now feeble, now emphatic, but alike wanting in natural
+expression, for he had reached a point of emotion upon the limits of his
+nature, and he was now wilfully forcing for misery and humiliation right
+and left, in part to show what a black star Providence had been over
+him.
+
+"She'll be grateful. I shall be gone. What disgrace I bring to their
+union, as father of the other one also, will, I'm bound to hope, be
+buried with me in my grave; so that this girl's husband shan't have
+to complain that her character and her working for him ain't enough
+to cover any harm he's like to think o' the connexion. And he won't be
+troubled by relationships after that.
+
+"I used to think Pride a bad thing. I thank God we've all got it in our
+blood--the Flemings. I thank God for that now, I do. We don't face again
+them as we offend. Not, that is, with the hand out. We go. We're seen no
+more. And she'll be seen no more. On that, rely.
+
+"I want my girl here not to keep me in the fear of death. For I fear
+death while she's not safe in somebody's hands--kind, if I can get him
+for her. Somebody--young or old!"
+
+The farmer lifted his head for the first time, and stared vacantly at
+Robert.
+
+"I'd marry her," he said, "if I was knowing myself dying now or
+to-morrow morning, I'd marry her, rather than leave her alone--I'd marry
+her to that old man, old Gammon."
+
+The farmer pointed to the ceiling. His sombre seriousness cloaked and
+carried even that suggestive indication to the possible bridegroom's
+age and habits, and all things associated with him, through the gates of
+ridicule; and there was no laughter, and no thought of it.
+
+"It stands to reason for me to prefer a young man for her husband. He'll
+farm the estate, and won't sell it; so that it goes to our blood, if
+not to a Fleming. If, I mean, he's content to farm soberly, and not play
+Jack o' Lantern tricks across his own acres. Right in one thing's right,
+I grant; but don't argue right in all. It's right only in one thing.
+Young men, when they've made a true hit or so, they're ready to think
+it's themselves that's right."
+
+This was of course a reminder of the old feud with Robert, and
+sufficiently showed whom the farmer had in view for a husband to Rhoda,
+if any doubt existed previously.
+
+Having raised his eyes, his unwonted power of speech abandoned him, and
+he concluded, wavering in look and in tone,--
+
+"I'd half forgotten her uncle. I've reckoned his riches when I cared for
+riches. I can't say th' amount; but, all--I've had his word for it--all
+goes to this--God knows how much!--girl. And he don't hesitate to say
+she's worth a young man's fancying. May be so. It depends upon
+ideas mainly, that does. All goes to her. And this farm.--I wish ye
+good-night."
+
+He gave them no other sign, but walked in his oppressed way quietly to
+the inner door, and forth, leaving the rest to them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+The two were together, and all preliminary difficulties had been cleared
+for Robert to say what he had to say, in a manner to make the saying of
+it well-nigh impossible. And yet silence might be misinterpreted by her.
+He would have drawn her to his heart at one sign of tenderness. There
+came none. The girl was frightfully torn with a great wound of shame.
+She was the first to speak.
+
+"Do you believe what father says of my sister?"
+
+"That she--?" Robert swallowed the words. "No!" and he made a thunder
+with his fist.
+
+"No!" She drank up the word. "You do not? No! You know that Dahlia is
+innocent?"
+
+Rhoda was trembling with a look for the asseveration; her pale face
+eager as a cry for life; but the answer did not come at once hotly as
+her passion for it demanded. She grew rigid, murmuring faintly: "speak!
+Do speak!"
+
+His eyes fell away from hers. Sweet love would have wrought in him to
+think as she thought, but she kept her heart closed from him, and he
+stood sadly judicial, with a conscience of his own, that would not
+permit him to declare Dahlia innocent, for he had long been imagining
+the reverse.
+
+Rhoda pressed her hands convulsively, moaning, "Oh!" down a short deep
+breath.
+
+"Tell me what has happened?" said Robert, made mad by that reproachful
+agony of her voice. "I'm in the dark. I'm not equal to you all. If
+Dahlia's sister wants one to stand up for her, and defend her, whatever
+she has done or not done, ask me. Ask me, and I'll revenge her. Here am
+I, and I know nothing, and you despise me because--don't think me rude
+or unkind. This hand is yours, if you will. Come, Rhoda. Or, let me hear
+the case, and I'll satisfy you as best I can. Feel for her? I feel for
+her as you do. You don't want me to stand a liar to your question? How
+can I speak?"
+
+A woman's instinct at red heat pierces the partial disingenuousness
+which Robert could only have avoided by declaring the doubts he
+entertained. Rhoda desired simply to be supported by his conviction
+of her sister's innocence, and she had scorn of one who would not
+chivalrously advance upon the risks of right and wrong, and rank himself
+prime champion of a woman belied, absent, and so helpless. Besides,
+there was but one virtue possible in Rhoda's ideas, as regarded Dahlia:
+to oppose facts, if necessary, and have her innocent perforce, and fight
+to the death them that dared cast slander on the beloved head.
+
+Her keen instinct served her so far.
+
+His was alive when she refused to tell him what had taken place during
+their visit to London.
+
+She felt that a man would judge evil of the circumstances. Her father
+and her uncle had done so: she felt that Robert would. Love for him
+would have prompted her to confide in him absolutely. She was not
+softened by love; there was no fire on her side to melt and make them
+run in one stream, and they could not meet.
+
+"Then, if you will not tell me," said Robert, "say what you think of
+your father's proposal? He meant that I may ask you to be my wife.
+He used to fancy I cared for your sister. That's false. I care for
+her--yes; as my sister too; and here is my hand to do my utmost for her,
+but I love you, and I've loved you for some time. I'd be proud to marry
+you and help on with the old farm. You don't love me yet--which is a
+pretty hard thing for me to see to be certain of. But I love you, and I
+trust you. I like the stuff you're made of--and nice stuff I'm talking
+to a young woman," he added, wiping his forehead at the idea of the fair
+and flattering addresses young women expect when they are being wooed.
+
+As it was, Rhoda listened with savage contempt of his idle talk. Her
+brain was beating at the mystery and misery wherein Dahlia lay engulfed.
+She had no understanding for Robert's sentimentality, or her father's
+requisition. Some answer had to be given, and she said,--
+
+"I'm not likely to marry a man who supposes he has anything to pardon."
+
+"I don't suppose it," cried Robert.
+
+"You heard what father said."
+
+"I heard what he said, but I don't think the same. What has Dahlia to do
+with you?"
+
+He was proceeding to rectify this unlucky sentence. All her covert
+hostility burst out on it.
+
+"My sister?--what has my sister to do with me?--you mean!--you mean--you
+can only mean that we are to be separated and thought of as two people;
+and we are one, and will be till we die. I feel my sister's hand in
+mine, though she's away and lost. She is my darling for ever and ever.
+We're one!"
+
+A spasm of anguish checked the girl.
+
+"I mean," Robert resumed steadily, "that her conduct, good or bad,
+doesn't touch you. If it did, it'd be the same to me. I ask you to take
+me for your husband. Just reflect on what your father said, Rhoda."
+
+The horrible utterance her father's lips had been guilty of flashed
+through her, filling her with mastering vindictiveness, now that she had
+a victim.
+
+"Yes! I'm to take a husband to remind me of what he said."
+
+Robert eyed her sharpened mouth admiringly; her defence of her sister
+had excited his esteem, wilfully though she rebutted his straightforward
+earnestness and he had a feeling also for the easy turns of her neck,
+and the confident poise of her figure.
+
+"Ha! well!" he interjected, with his eyebrows queerly raised, so that
+she could make nothing of his look. It seemed half maniacal, it was so
+ridged with bright eagerness.
+
+"By heaven! the task of taming you--that's the blessing I'd beg for in
+my prayers! Though you were as wild as a cat of the woods, by heaven!
+I'd rather have the taming of you than go about with a leash of
+quiet"--he checked himself--"companions."
+
+Such was the sudden roll of his tongue, that she was lost in the
+astounding lead he had taken, and stared.
+
+"You're the beauty to my taste, and devil is what I want in a woman!
+I can make something out of a girl with a temper like yours. You don't
+know me, Miss Rhoda. I'm what you reckon a good young man. Isn't that
+it?"
+
+Robert drew up with a very hard smile.
+
+"I would to God I were! Mind, I feel for you about your sister. I
+like you the better for holding to her through thick and thin. But my
+sheepishness has gone, and I tell you I'll have you whether you will or
+no. I can help you and you can help me. I've lived here as if I had no
+more fire in me than old Gammon snoring on his pillow up aloft; and who
+kept me to it? Did you see I never touched liquor? What did you guess
+from that?--that I was a mild sort of fellow? So I am: but I haven't got
+that reputation in other parts. Your father 'd like me to marry you, and
+I'm ready. Who kept me to work, so that I might learn to farm, and be a
+man, and be able to take a wife? I came here--I'll tell you how. I was
+a useless dog. I ran from home and served as a trooper. An old aunt of
+mine left me a little money, which just woke me up and gave me a lift of
+what conscience I had, and I bought myself out.
+
+"I chanced to see your father's advertisement--came, looked at you all,
+and liked you--brought my traps and settled among you, and lived like a
+good young man. I like peace and orderliness, I find. I always thought
+I did, when I was dancing like mad to hell. I know I do now, and you're
+the girl to keep me to it. I've learnt that much by degrees. With any
+other, I should have been playing the fool, and going my old ways, long
+ago. I should have wrecked her, and drunk to forget. You're my match.
+By-and-by you'll know, me yours! You never gave me, or anybody else that
+I've seen, sly sidelooks.
+
+"Come! I'll speak out now I'm at work. I thought you at some girl's
+games in the Summer. You went out one day to meet a young gentleman.
+Offence or no offence, I speak and you listen. You did go out. I was in
+love with you then, too. I saw London had been doing its mischief. I was
+down about it. I felt that he would make nothing of you, but I chose to
+take the care of you, and you've hated me ever since.
+
+"That Mr. Algernon Blancove's a rascal. Stop! You'll say as much as you
+like presently. I give you a warning--the man's a rascal. I didn't play
+spy on your acts, but your looks. I can read a face like yours, and it's
+my home, my home!--by heaven, it is. Now, Rhoda, you know a little more
+of me. Perhaps I'm more of a man than you thought. Marry another, if you
+will; but I'm the man for you, and I know it, and you'll go wrong if you
+don't too. Come! let your father sleep well. Give me your hand."
+
+All through this surprising speech of Robert's, which was a revelation
+of one who had been previously dark to her, she had steeled her
+spirit as she felt herself being borne upon unexpected rapids, and she
+marvelled when she found her hand in his.
+
+Dismayed, as if caught in a trap, she said,--
+
+"You know I've no love for you at all."
+
+"None--no doubt," he answered.
+
+The fit of verbal energy was expended, and he had become listless,
+though he looked frankly at her and assumed the cheerfulness which was
+failing within him.
+
+"I wish to remain as I am," she faltered, surprised again by the equally
+astonishing recurrence of humility, and more spiritually subdued by it.
+"I've no heart for a change. Father will understand. I am safe."
+
+She ended with a cry: "Oh! my dear, my own sister! I wish you were safe.
+Get her here to me and I'll do what I can, if you're not hard on her.
+She's so beautiful, she can't do wrong. My Dahlia's in some trouble. Mr.
+Robert, you might really be her friend?"
+
+"Drop the Mister," said Robert.
+
+"Father will listen to you," she pleaded. "You won't leave us? Tell
+him you know I am safe. But I haven't a feeling of any kind while my
+sister's away. I will call you Robert, if you like." She reached her
+hand forth.
+
+"That's right," he said, taking it with a show of heartiness: "that's a
+beginning, I suppose."
+
+She shrank a little in his sensitive touch, and he added: "Oh never
+fear. I've spoken out, and don't do the thing too often. Now you know
+me, that's enough. I trust you, so trust me. I'll talk to your father.
+I've got a dad of my own, who isn't so easily managed. You and I,
+Rhoda--we're about the right size for a couple. There--don't be
+frightened! I was only thinking--I'll let go your hand in a minute. If
+Dahlia's to be found, I'll find her. Thank you for that squeeze. You'd
+wake a dead man to life, if you wanted to. To-morrow I set about the
+business. That's settled. Now your hand's loose. Are you going to say
+good night? You must give me your hand again for that. What a rough
+fellow I must seem to you! Different from the man you thought I was? I'm
+just what you choose to make me, Rhoda; remember that. By heaven! go at
+once, for you're an armful--"
+
+She took a candle and started for the door.
+
+"Aha! you can look fearful as a doe. Out! make haste!"
+
+In her hurry at his speeding gestures, the candle dropped; she was going
+to pick it up, but as he approached, she stood away frightened.
+
+"One kiss, my girl," he said. "Don't keep me jealous as fire. One! and
+I'm a plighted man. One!--or I shall swear you know what kisses are. Why
+did you go out to meet that fellow? Do you think there's no danger in
+it? Doesn't he go about boasting of it now, and saying--that girl! But
+kiss me and I'll forget it; I'll forgive you. Kiss me only once, and I
+shall be certain you don't care for him. That's the thought maddens me
+outright. I can't bear it now I've seen you look soft. I'm stronger than
+you, mind." He caught her by the waist.
+
+"Yes," Rhoda gasped, "you are. You are only a brute."
+
+"A brute's a lucky dog, then, for I've got you!"
+
+"Will you touch me?"
+
+"You're in my power."
+
+"It's a miserable thing, Robert."
+
+"Why don't you struggle, my girl? I shall kiss you in a minute."
+
+"You're never my friend again."
+
+"I'm not a gentleman, I suppose!"
+
+"Never! after this."
+
+"It isn't done. And first you're like a white rose, and next you're like
+a red. Will you submit?"
+
+"Oh! shame!" Rhoda uttered.
+
+"Because I'm not a gentleman?"
+
+"You are not."
+
+"So, if I could make you a lady--eh? the lips 'd be ready in a trice.
+You think of being made a lady--a lady!"
+
+His arm relaxed in the clutch of her figure.
+
+She got herself free, and said: "We saw Mr. Blancove at the theatre with
+Dahlia."
+
+It was her way of meeting his accusation that she had cherished an
+ambitious feminine dream.
+
+He, to hide a confusion that had come upon him, was righting the fallen
+candle.
+
+"Now I know you can be relied on; you can defend yourself," he said, and
+handed it to her, lighted. "You keep your kisses for this or that young
+gentleman. Quite right. You really can defend yourself. That's all I was
+up to. So let us hear that you forgive me. The door's open. You won't be
+bothered by me any more; and don't hate me overmuch."
+
+"You might have learned to trust me without insulting me, Robert," she
+said.
+
+"Do you fancy I'd take such a world of trouble for a kiss of your lips,
+sweet as they are?"
+
+His blusterous beginning ended in a speculating glance at her mouth.
+
+She saw it would be wise to accept him in his present mood, and go; and
+with a gentle "Good night," that might sound like pardon, she passed
+through the doorway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Next day, while Squire Blancove was superintending the laying down of
+lines for a new carriage drive in his park, as he walked slowly up the
+green slope he perceived Farmer Fleming, supported by a tall young
+man; and when the pair were nearer, he had the gratification of noting
+likewise that the worthy yeoman was very much bent, as with an acute
+attack of his well-known chronic malady of a want of money.
+
+The squire greatly coveted the freehold of Queen Anne's Farm. He had
+made offers to purchase it till he was tired, and had gained for himself
+the credit of being at the bottom of numerous hypothetical cabals to
+injure and oust the farmer from his possession. But if Naboth came with
+his vineyard in his hand, not even Wrexby's rector (his quarrel with
+whom haunted every turn in his life) could quote Scripture against him
+for taking it at a proper valuation.
+
+The squire had employed his leisure time during service in church to
+discover a text that might be used against him in the event of the
+farmer's reduction to a state of distress, and his, the squire's, making
+the most of it. On the contrary, according to his heathenish reading of
+some of the patriarchal doings, there was more to be said in his favour
+than not, if he increased his territorial property: nor could he,
+throughout the Old Testament, hit on one sentence that looked like a
+personal foe to his projects, likely to fit into the mouth of the rector
+of Wrexby.
+
+"Well, farmer," he said, with cheerful familiarity, "winter crops
+looking well? There's a good show of green in the fields from my
+windows, as good as that land of yours will allow in heavy seasons."
+
+To this the farmer replied, "I've not heart or will to be round about,
+squire. If you'll listen to me--here, or where you give command."
+
+"Has it anything to do with pen and paper, Fleming? In that case you'd
+better be in my study," said the squire.
+
+"I don't know that it have. I don't know that it have." The farmer
+sought Robert's face.
+
+"Best where there's no chance of interruption," Robert counselled, and
+lifted his hat to the squire.
+
+"Eh? Well, you see I'm busy." The latter affected a particular
+indifference, that in such cases, when well acted (as lords of money can
+do--squires equally with usurers), may be valued at hundreds of pounds
+in the pocket. "Can't you put it off? Come again to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow's a day too late," said the farmer, gravely. Whereto
+replying, "Oh! well, come along in, then," the squire led the way.
+
+"You're two to one, if it's a transaction," he said, nodding to Robert
+to close the library door. "Take seats. Now then, what is it? And if I
+make a face, just oblige me by thinking nothing about it, for my gout's
+beginning to settle in the leg again, and shoots like an electric
+telegraph from purgatory."
+
+He wheezed and lowered himself into his arm-chair; but the farmer and
+Robert remained standing, and the farmer spoke:--
+
+"My words are going to be few, squire. I've got a fact to bring to your
+knowledge, and a question to ask."
+
+Surprise, exaggerated on his face by a pain he had anticipated, made the
+squire glare hideously.
+
+"Confound it, that's what they say to a prisoner in the box. Here's a
+murder committed:--Are you the guilty person? Fact and question! Well,
+out with 'em, both together."
+
+"A father ain't responsible for the sins of his children," said the
+farmer.
+
+"Well, that's a fact," the squire emphasized. "I've always maintained
+it; but, if you go to your church, farmer--small blame to you if you
+don't; that fellow who preaches there--I forget his name--stands out
+for just the other way. You are responsible, he swears. Pay your son's
+debts, and don't groan over it:--He spent the money, and you're the
+chief debtor; that's his teaching. Well: go on. What's your question?"
+
+"A father's not to be held responsible for the sins of his children,
+squire. My daughter's left me. She's away. I saw my daughter at
+the theatre in London. She saw me, and saw her sister with me. She
+disappeared. It's a hard thing for a man to be saying of his own flesh
+and blood. She disappeared. She went, knowing her father's arms open to
+her. She was in company with your son."
+
+The squire was thrumming on the arm of his chair. He looked up vaguely,
+as if waiting for the question to follow, but meeting the farmer's
+settled eyes, he cried, irritably, "Well, what's that to me?"
+
+"What's that to you, squire?"
+
+"Are you going to make me out responsible for my son's conduct? My son's
+a rascal--everybody knows that. I paid his debts once, and I've finished
+with him. Don't come to me about the fellow. If there's a greater curse
+than the gout, it's a son."
+
+"My girl," said the farmer, "she's my flesh and blood, and I must find
+her, and I'm here to ask you to make your son tell me where she's to be
+found. Leave me to deal with that young man--leave you me! but I want my
+girl."
+
+"But I can't give her to you," roared the squire, afflicted by his two
+great curses at once. "Why do you come to me? I'm not responsible for
+the doings of the dog. I'm sorry for you, if that's what you want to
+know. Do you mean to say that my son took her away from your house?"
+
+"I don't do so, Mr. Blancove. I'm seeking for my daughter, and I see her
+in company with your son."
+
+"Very well, very well," said the squire; "that shows his habits; I can't
+say more. But what has it got to do with me?"
+
+The farmer looked helplessly at Robert.
+
+"No, no," the squire sung out, "no interlopers, no interpreting here.
+I listen to you. My son--your daughter. I understand that, so far. It's
+between us two. You've got a daughter who's gone wrong somehow: I'm
+sorry to hear it. I've got a son who never went right; and it's no
+comfort to me, upon my word. If you were to see the bills and the
+letters I receive! but I don't carry my grievances to my neighbours. I
+should think, Fleming, you'd do best, if it's advice you're seeking, to
+keep it quiet. Don't make a noise about it. Neighbours' gossip I find
+pretty well the worst thing a man has to bear, who's unfortunate enough
+to own children."
+
+The farmer bowed his head with that bitter humbleness which
+characterized his reception of the dealings of Providence toward him.
+
+"My neighbours 'll soon be none at all," he said. "Let 'em talk. I'm
+not abusing you, Mr. Blancove. I'm a broken man: but I want my poor lost
+girl, and, by God, responsible for your son or not, you must help me
+to find her. She may be married, as she says. She mayn't be. But I must
+find her."
+
+The squire hastily seized a scrap of paper on the table and wrote on it.
+
+"There!" he handed the paper to the farmer; "that's my son's address,
+'Boyne's Bank, City, London.' Go to him there, and you'll find him
+perched on a stool, and a good drubbing won't hurt him. You've my hearty
+permission, I can assure you: you may say so. 'Boyne's Bank.' Anybody
+will show you the place. He's a rascally clerk in the office, and
+precious useful, I dare swear. Thrash him, if you think fit."
+
+"Ay," said the farmer, "Boyne's Bank. I've been there already. He's
+absent from work, on a visit down into Hampshire, one of the young
+gentlemen informed me; Fairly Park was the name of the place: but I came
+to you, Mr. Blancove; for you're his father."
+
+"Well now, my good Fleming, I hope you think I'm properly punished for
+that fact." The squire stood up with horrid contortions.
+
+Robert stepped in advance of the farmer.
+
+"Pardon me, sir," he said, though the squire met his voice with a
+prodigious frown; "this would be an ugly business to talk about, as you
+observe. It would hurt Mr. Fleming in these parts of the country, and he
+would leave it, if he thought fit; but you can't separate your name
+from your son's--begging you to excuse the liberty I take in mentioning
+it--not in public: and your son has the misfortune to be well known
+in one or two places where he was quartered when in the cavalry. That
+matter of the jeweller--"
+
+"Hulloa," the squire exclaimed, in a perturbation.
+
+"Why, sir, I know all about it, because I was a trooper in the regiment
+your son, Mr. Algernon Blancove, quitted: and his name, if I may take
+leave to remark so, won't bear printing. How far he's guilty before Mr.
+Fleming we can't tell as yet; but if Mr. Fleming holds him guilty of
+an offence, your son 'll bear the consequences, and what's done will be
+done thoroughly. Proper counsel will be taken, as needn't be said. Mr.
+Fleming applied to you first, partly for your sake as well as his own.
+He can find friends, both to advise and to aid him."
+
+"You mean, sir," thundered the squire, "that he can find enemies of
+mine, like that infernal fellow who goes by the title of Reverend, down
+below there. That'll do, that will do; there's some extortion at the
+bottom of this. You're putting on a screw."
+
+"We're putting on a screw, sir," said Robert, coolly.
+
+"Not a penny will you get by it."
+
+Robert flushed with heat of blood.
+
+"You don't wish you were a young man half so much as I do just now," he
+remarked, and immediately they were in collision, for the squire made a
+rush to the bell-rope, and Robert stopped him. "We're going," he said;
+"we don't want man-servants to show us the way out. Now mark me, Mr.
+Blancove, you've insulted an old man in his misery: you shall suffer
+for it, and so shall your son, whom I know to be a rascal worthy of
+transportation. You think Mr. Fleming came to you for money. Look at
+this old man, whose only fault is that he's too full of kindness; he
+came to you just for help to find his daughter, with whom your rascal of
+a son was last seen, and you swear he's come to rob you of money. Don't
+you know yourself a fattened cur, squire though you be, and called
+gentleman? England's a good place, but you make England a hell to men
+of spirit. Sit in your chair, and don't ever you, or any of you cross my
+path; and speak a word to your servants before we're out of the house,
+and I stand in the hall and give 'em your son's history, and make Wrexby
+stink in your nostril, till you're glad enough to fly out of it. Now,
+Mr. Fleming, there's no more to be done here; the game lies elsewhere."
+
+Robert took the farmer by the arm, and was marching out of the enemy's
+territory in good order, when the squire, who had presented many
+changeing aspects of astonishment and rage, arrested them with a call.
+He began to say that he spoke to Mr. Fleming, and not to the young
+ruffian of a bully whom the farmer had brought there: and then asked in
+a very reasonable manner what he could do--what measures he could adopt
+to aid the farmer in finding his child. Robert hung modestly in the
+background while the farmer laboured on with a few sentences to explain
+the case, and finally the squire said, that his foot permitting (it was
+an almost pathetic reference to the weakness of flesh), he would go down
+to Fairly on the day following and have a personal interview with his
+son, and set things right, as far as it lay in his power, though he was
+by no means answerable for a young man's follies.
+
+He was a little frightened by the farmer's having said that Dahlia,
+according to her own declaration was married, and therefore himself the
+more anxious to see Mr. Algernon, and hear the truth from his estimable
+offspring, whom he again stigmatized as a curse terrible to him as
+his gouty foot, but nevertheless just as little to be left to his own
+devices. The farmer bowed to these observations; as also when the squire
+counselled him, for his own sake, not to talk of his misfortune all over
+the parish.
+
+"I'm not a likely man for that, squire; but there's no telling where
+gossips get their crumbs. It's about. It's about."
+
+"About my son?" cried the squire.
+
+"My daughter!"
+
+"Oh, well, good-day," the squire resumed more cheerfully. "I'll go down
+to Fairly, and you can't ask more than that."
+
+When the farmer was out of the house and out of hearing, he rebuked
+Robert for the inconsiderate rashness of his behaviour, and pointed out
+how he, the farmer, by being patient and peaceful, had attained to the
+object of his visit. Robert laughed without defending himself.
+
+"I shouldn't ha' known ye," the farmer repeated frequently; "I shouldn't
+ha' known ye, Robert."
+
+"No, I'm a trifle changed, may be," Robert agreed. "I'm going to claim a
+holiday of you. I've told Rhoda that if Dahlia's to be found, I'll find
+her, and I can't do it by sticking here. Give me three weeks. The land's
+asleep. Old Gammon can hardly turn a furrow the wrong way. There's
+nothing to do, which is his busiest occupation, when he's not
+interrupted at it."
+
+"Mas' Gammon's a rare old man," said the farmer, emphatically.
+
+"So I say. Else, how would you see so many farms flourishing!"
+
+"Come, Robert: you hit th' old man hard; you should learn to forgive."
+
+"So I do, and a telling blow's a man's best road to charity. I'd forgive
+the squire and many another, if I had them within two feet of my fist."
+
+"Do you forgive my girl Rhoda for putting of you off?"
+
+Robert screwed in his cheek.
+
+"Well, yes, I do," he said. "Only it makes me feel thirsty, that's all."
+
+The farmer remembered this when they had entered the farm.
+
+"Our beer's so poor, Robert," he made apology; "but Rhoda shall get you
+some for you to try, if you like. Rhoda, Robert's solemn thirsty."
+
+"Shall I?" said Rhoda, and she stood awaiting his bidding.
+
+"I'm not a thirsty subject," replied Robert. "You know I've avoided
+drink of any kind since I set foot on this floor. But when I drink," he
+pitched his voice to a hard, sparkling heartiness, "I drink a lot, and
+the stuff must be strong. I'm very much obliged to you, Miss Rhoda, for
+what you're so kind as to offer to satisfy my thirst, and you can't give
+better, and don't suppose that I'm complaining; but your father's right,
+it is rather weak, and wouldn't break the tooth of my thirst if I drank
+at it till Gammon left off thinking about his dinner."
+
+With that he announced his approaching departure.
+
+The farmer dropped into his fireside chair, dumb and spiritless.
+A shadow was over the house, and the inhabitants moved about their
+domestic occupations silent as things that feel the thunder-cloud.
+Before sunset Robert was gone on his long walk to the station, and Rhoda
+felt a woman's great envy of the liberty of a man, who has not, if it
+pleases him not, to sit and eat grief among familiar images, in a home
+that furnishes its altar-flame.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Fairly, Lord Elling's seat in Hampshire, lay over the Warbeach river; a
+white mansion among great oaks, in view of the summer sails and
+winter masts of the yachting squadron. The house was ruled, during
+the congregation of the Christmas guests, by charming Mrs. Lovell,
+who relieved the invalid Lady of the house of the many serious cares
+attending the reception of visitors, and did it all with ease. Under her
+sovereignty the place was delightful, and if it was by repute pleasanter
+to young men than to any other class, it will be admitted that she
+satisfied those who are loudest in giving tongue to praise.
+
+Edward and Algernon journeyed down to Fairly together, after the
+confidence which the astute young lawyer had been compelled to repose in
+his cousin. Sir William Blancove was to be at Fairly, and it was at
+his father's pointed request that Edward had accepted Mrs. Lovell's
+invitation. Half in doubt as to the lady's disposition toward him,
+Edward eased his heart with sneers at the soft, sanguinary graciousness
+they were to expect, and racked mythology for spiteful comparisons;
+while Algernon vehemently defended her with a battering fire of British
+adjectives in superlative. He as much as hinted, under instigation, that
+he was entitled to defend her; and his claim being by-and-by yawningly
+allowed by Edward, and presuming that he now had Edward in his power and
+need not fear him, he exhibited his weakness in the guise of a costly
+gem, that he intended to present to Mrs. Lovell--an opal set in a cross
+pendant from a necklace; a really fine opal, coquetting with the lights
+of every gem that is known: it shot succinct red flashes, and green, and
+yellow; the emerald, the amethyst, the topaz lived in it, and a remote
+ruby; it was veined with lightning hues, and at times it slept in a
+milky cloud, innocent of fire, quite maidenlike.
+
+"That will suit her," was Edward's remark.
+
+"I didn't want to get anything common," said Algernon, making the gem
+play before his eyes.
+
+"A pretty stone," said Edward.
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Very pretty indeed."
+
+"Harlequin pattern."
+
+"To be presented to Columbine!"
+
+"The Harlequin pattern is of the best sort, you know. Perhaps you like
+the watery ones best? This is fresh from Russia. There's a set I've my
+eye on. I shall complete it in time. I want Peggy Lovell to wear the
+jolliest opals in the world. It's rather nice, isn't it?"
+
+"It's a splendid opal," said Edward.
+
+"She likes opals," said Algernon.
+
+"She'll take your meaning at once," said Edward.
+
+"How? I'll be hanged if I know what my meaning is, Ned."
+
+"Don't you know the signification of your gift?"
+
+"Not a bit."
+
+"Oh! you'll be Oriental when you present it."
+
+"The deuce I shall!"
+
+"It means, 'You're the prettiest widow in the world.'"
+
+"So she is. I'll be right there, old boy."
+
+"And, 'You're a rank, right-down widow, and no mistake; you're
+everything to everybody; not half so innocent as you look: you're green
+as jealousy, red as murder, yellow as jaundice, and put on the whiteness
+of a virgin when you ought to be blushing like a penitent.' In short,
+'You have no heart of your own, and you pretend to possess half a dozen:
+you're devoid of one steady beam, and play tricks with every scale of
+colour: you're an arrant widow, and that's what you are.' An eloquent
+gift, Algy."
+
+"Gad, if it means all that, it'll be rather creditable to me," said
+Algernon. "Do opals mean widows?"
+
+"Of course," was the answer.
+
+"Well, she is a widow, and I suppose she's going to remain one, for
+she's had lots of offers. If I marry a girl I shall never like her half
+as much as Peggy Lovell. She's done me up for every other woman living.
+She never lets me feel a fool with her; and she has a way, by Jove, of
+looking at me, and letting me know she's up to my thoughts and isn't
+angry. What's the use of my thinking of her at all? She'd never go to
+the Colonies, and live in a log but and make cheeses, while I tore about
+on horseback gathering cattle."
+
+"I don't think she would," observed Edward, emphatically; "I don't think
+she would."
+
+"And I shall never have money. Confound stingy parents! It's a
+question whether I shall get Wrexby: there's no entail. I'm heir to the
+governor's temper and his gout, I dare say. He'll do as he likes with
+the estate. I call it beastly unfair."
+
+Edward asked how much the opal had cost.
+
+"Oh, nothing," said Algernon; "that is, I never pay for jewellery."
+
+Edward was curious to know how he managed to obtain it.
+
+"Why, you see," Algernon explained, "they, the jewellers--I've got two
+or three in hand--the fellows are acquainted with my position, and they
+speculate on my expectations. There is no harm in that if they like it.
+I look at their trinkets, and say, 'I've no money;' and they say, 'Never
+mind;' and I don't mind much. The understanding is, that I pay them when
+I inherit."
+
+"In gout and bad temper?"
+
+"Gad, if I inherit nothing else, they'll have lots of that for
+indemnification. It's a good system, Ned; it enables a young fellow like
+me to get through the best years of his life--which I take to be
+his youth--without that squalid poverty bothering him. You can make
+presents, and wear a pin or a ring, if it takes your eye. You look well,
+and you make yourself agreeable; and I see nothing to complain of in
+that."
+
+"The jewellers, then, have established an institution to correct one of
+the errors of Providence."
+
+"Oh! put it in your long-winded way, if you like," said Algernon; "all I
+know is, that I should often have wanted a five-pound note, if--that
+is, if I hadn't happened to be dressed like a gentleman. With your
+prospects, Ned, I should propose to charming Peggy tomorrow morning
+early. We mustn't let her go out of the family. If I can't have her, I'd
+rather you would."
+
+"You forget the incumbrances on one side," said Edward, his face
+darkening.
+
+"Oh! that's all to be managed," Algernon rallied him. "Why, Ned, you'll
+have twenty thousand a-year, if you have a penny; and you'll go into
+Parliament, and give dinners, and a woman like Peggy Lovell 'd intrigue
+for you like the deuce."
+
+"A great deal too like," Edward muttered.
+
+"As for that pretty girl," continued Algernon; but Edward peremptorily
+stopped all speech regarding Dahlia. His desire was, while he made
+holiday, to shut the past behind a brazen gate; which being communicated
+sympathetically to his cousin, the latter chimed to it in boisterous
+shouts of anticipated careless jollity at Fairly Park, crying out how
+they would hunt and snap fingers at Jews, and all mortal sorrows, and
+have a fortnight, or three weeks, perhaps a full month, of the finest
+life possible to man, with good horses, good dinners, good wines,
+good society, at command, and a queen of a woman to rule and order
+everything. Edward affected a disdainful smile at the prospect; but was
+in reality the weaker of the two in his thirst for it.
+
+They arrived at Fairly in time to dress for dinner, and in the
+drawing-room Mrs. Lovell sat to receive them. She looked up to Edward's
+face an imperceptible half-second longer than the ordinary form of
+welcome accords--one of the looks which are nothing at all when there
+is no spiritual apprehension between young people, and are so much when
+there is. To Algernon, who was gazing opals on her, she simply gave her
+fingers. At her right hand, was Sir John Capes, her antique devotee;
+a pure milky-white old gentleman, with sparkling fingers, who played
+Apollo to his Daphne, and was out of breath. Lord Suckling, a boy with
+a boisterous constitution, and a guardsman, had his place near her left
+hand, as if ready to seize it at the first whisper of encouragement
+or opportunity. A very little lady of seventeen, Miss Adeline Gosling,
+trembling with shyness under a cover of demureness, fell to Edward's
+lot to conduct down to dinner, where he neglected her disgracefully.
+His father, Sir William, was present at the table, and Lord Elling, with
+whom he was in repute as a talker and a wit. Quickened with his host's
+renowned good wine (and the bare renown of a wine is inspiriting),
+Edward pressed to be brilliant. He had an epigrammatic turn, and though
+his mind was prosaic when it ran alone, he could appear inventive and
+fanciful with the rub of other minds. Now, at a table where good talking
+is cared for, the triumphs of the excelling tongue are not for a moment
+to be despised, even by the huge appetite of the monster Vanity. For a
+year, Edward had abjured this feast. Before the birds appeared and the
+champagne had ceased to make its circle, he felt that he was now at home
+again, and that the term of his wandering away from society was one of
+folly. He felt the joy and vigour of a creature returned to his element.
+Why had he ever quitted it? Already he looked back upon Dahlia from a
+prodigious distance. He knew that there was something to be smoothed
+over; something written in the book of facts which had to be smeared
+out, and he seemed to do it, while he drank the babbling wine and heard
+himself talk. Not one man at that table, as he reflected, would consider
+the bond which held him in any serious degree binding. A lady is
+one thing, and a girl of the class Dahlia had sprung from altogether
+another. He could not help imagining the sort of appearance she would
+make there; and the thought even was a momentary clog upon his tongue.
+How he used to despise these people! Especially he had despised the
+young men as brainless cowards in regard to their views of women and
+conduct toward them. All that was changed. He fancied now that they,
+on the contrary, would despise him, if only they could be aware of the
+lingering sense he entertained of his being in bondage under a sacred
+obligation to a farmer's daughter.
+
+But he had one thing to discover, and that was, why Sir William had made
+it a peculiar request that he should come to meet him here. Could the
+desire possibly be to reconcile him with Mrs. Lovell? His common sense
+rejected the idea at once: Sir William boasted of her wit and tact, and
+admired her beauty, but Edward remembered his having responded tacitly
+to his estimate of her character, and Sir William was not the man
+to court the alliance of his son with a woman like Mrs. Lovell. He
+perceived that his father and the fair widow frequently took counsel
+together. Edward laughed at the notion that the grave senior had himself
+become fascinated, but without utterly scouting it, until he found that
+the little lady whom he had led to dinner the first day, was an heiress;
+and from that, and other indications, he exactly divined the nature
+of his father's provident wishes. But this revelation rendered Mrs.
+Lovell's behaviour yet more extraordinary. Could it be credited that
+she was abetting Sir William's schemes with all her woman's craft? "Has
+she," thought Edward, "become so indifferent to me as to care for my
+welfare?" He determined to put her to the test. He made love to Adeline
+Gosling. Nothing that he did disturbed the impenetrable complacency of
+Mrs. Lovell. She threw them together as she shuffled the guests. She
+really seemed to him quite indifferent enough to care for his welfare.
+It was a point in the mysterious ways of women, or of widows, that
+Edward's experience had not yet come across. All the parties immediately
+concerned were apparently so desperately acquiescing in his suit, that
+he soon grew uneasy. Mrs. Lovell not only shuffled him into places
+with the raw heiress, but with the child's mother; of whom he spoke to
+Algernon as of one too strongly breathing of matrimony to appease the
+cravings of an eclectic mind.
+
+"Make the path clear for me, then," said Algernon, "if you don't like
+the girl. Pitch her tales about me. Say, I've got a lot in me, though
+I don't let it out. The game's up between you and Peggy Lovell, that's
+clear. She don't forgive you, my boy."
+
+"Ass!" muttered Edward, seeing by the light of his perception, that he
+was too thoroughly forgiven.
+
+A principal charm of the life at Fairly to him was that there was no
+one complaining. No one looked reproach at him. If a lady was pale and
+reserved, she did not seem to accuse him, and to require coaxing. All
+faces here were as light as the flying moment, and did not carry the
+shadowy weariness of years, like that burdensome fair face in the London
+lodging-house, to which the Fates had terribly attached themselves. So,
+he was gay. He closed, as it were, a black volume, and opened a new and
+a bright one. Young men easily fancy that they may do this, and that
+when the black volume is shut the tide is stopped. Saying, "I was a
+fool," they believe they have put an end to the foolishness. What father
+teaches them that a human act once set in motion flows on for ever to
+the great account? Our deathlessness is in what we do, not in what we
+are. Comfortable Youth thinks otherwise.
+
+The days at a well-ordered country-house, where a divining lady rules,
+speed to the measure of a waltz, in harmonious circles, dropping like
+crystals into the gulfs of Time, and appearing to write nothing in his
+book. Not a single hinge of existence is heard to creak. There is no
+after-dinner bill. You are waited on, without being elbowed by the
+humanity of your attendants. It is a civilized Arcadia. Only, do not
+desire, that you may not envy. Accept humbly what rights of citizenship
+are accorded to you upon entering. Discard the passions when you cross
+the threshold. To breathe and to swallow merely, are the duties which
+should prescribe your conduct; or, such is the swollen condition of
+the animal in this enchanted region, that the spirit of man becomes
+dangerously beset.
+
+Edward breathed and swallowed, and never went beyond the prescription,
+save by talking. No other junior could enter the library, without
+encountering the scorn of his elders; so he enjoyed the privilege of
+hearing all the scandal, and his natural cynicism was plentifully fed.
+It was more of a school to him than he knew.
+
+These veterans, in their arm-chairs, stripped the bloom from life, and
+showed it to be bare bones: They took their wisdom for an experience of
+the past: they were but giving their sensations in the present. Not to
+perceive this, is Youth's, error when it hears old gentlemen talking at
+their ease.
+
+On the third morning of their stay at Fairly, Algernon came into
+Edward's room with a letter in his hand.
+
+"There! read that!" he said. "It isn't ill-luck; it's infernal
+persecution! What, on earth!--why, I took a close cab to the station.
+You saw me get out of it. I'll swear no creditor of mine knew I was
+leaving London. My belief is that the fellows who give credit have spies
+about at every railway terminus in the kingdom. They won't give me three
+days' peace. It's enough to disgust any man with civilized life; on my
+soul, it is!"
+
+Edward glanced at the superscription of the letter. "Not posted," he
+remarked.
+
+"No; delivered by some confounded bailiff, who's been hounding me."
+
+"Bailiffs don't generally deal in warnings."
+
+"Will you read it!" Algernon shouted.
+
+The letter ran thus:--
+
+   "Mr. Algernon Blancove,--
+
+   "The writer of this intends taking the first opportunity of meeting
+   you, and gives you warning, you will have to answer his question
+   with a Yes or a No; and speak from your conscience. The
+   respectfulness of his behaviour to you as a gentleman will depend
+   upon that."
+
+Algernon followed his cousin's eye down to the last letter in the page.
+
+"What do you think of it?" he asked eagerly.
+
+Edward's broad thin-lined brows were drawn down in gloom. Mastering
+some black meditation in his brain, he answered Algernon's yells for an
+opinion,--
+
+"I think--well, I think bailiffs have improved in their manners, and
+show you they are determined to belong to the social march in an age of
+universal progress. Nothing can be more comforting."
+
+"But, suppose this fellow comes across me?"
+
+"Don't know him."
+
+"Suppose he insists on knowing me?"
+
+"Don't know yourself."
+
+"Yes; but hang it! if he catches hold of me?"
+
+"Shake him off."
+
+"Suppose he won't let go?"
+
+"Cut him with your horsewhip."
+
+"You think it's about a debt, then?"
+
+"Intimidation, evidently."
+
+"I shall announce to him that the great Edward Blancove is not to be
+intimidated. You'll let me borrow your name, old Ned. I've stood by
+you in my time. As for leaving Fairly, I tell you I can't. It's too
+delightful to be near Peggy Lovell."
+
+Edward smiled with a peculiar friendliness, and Algernon went off, very
+well contented with his cousin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Within a mile of Fairly Park lay the farm of another yeoman; but he was
+of another character. The Hampshireman was a farmer of renown in his
+profession; fifth of a family that had cultivated a small domain of one
+hundred and seventy acres with sterling profit, and in a style to make
+Sutton the model of a perfect farm throughout the country. Royal eyes
+had inspected his pigs approvingly; Royal wits had taken hints from
+Jonathan Eccles in matters agricultural; and it was his comforting joke
+that he had taught his Prince good breeding. In return for the service,
+his Prince had transformed a lusty Radical into a devoted Royalist.
+Framed on the walls of his parlours were letters from his Prince,
+thanking him for specimen seeds and worthy counsel: veritable autograph
+letters of the highest value. The Prince had steamed up the salt river,
+upon which the Sutton harvests were mirrored, and landed on a spot
+marked in honour of the event by a broad grey stone; and from that
+day Jonathan Eccles stood on a pinnacle of pride, enabling him to see
+horizons of despondency hitherto unknown to him. For he had a son, and
+the son was a riotous devil, a most wild young fellow, who had no
+taste for a farmer's life, and openly declared his determination not to
+perpetuate the Sutton farm in the hands of the Eccleses, by running off
+one day and entering the ranks of the British army.
+
+Those framed letters became melancholy objects for contemplation,
+when Jonathan thought that no posterity of his would point them out
+gloryingly in emulation. Man's aim is to culminate; but it is the
+saddest thing in the world to feel that we have accomplished it. Mr.
+Eccles shrugged with all the philosophy he could summon, and transferred
+his private disappointment to his country, whose agricultural day was,
+he said, doomed. "We shall be beaten by those Yankees." He gave Old
+England twenty years of continued pre-eminence (due to the impetus of
+the present generation of Englishmen), and then, said he, the Yankees
+will flood the market. No more green pastures in Great Britain; no
+pretty clean-footed animals; no yellow harvests; but huge chimney pots
+everywhere; black earth under black vapour, and smoke-begrimed faces.
+In twenty years' time, sooty England was to be a gigantic manufactory,
+until the Yankees beat us out of that field as well; beyond which
+Jonathan Eccles did not care to spread any distinct border of prophecy;
+merely thanking the Lord that he should then be under grass. The decay
+of our glory was to be edged with blood; Jonathan admitted that there
+would be stuff in the fallen race to deliver a sturdy fight before they
+went to their doom.
+
+For this prodigious curse, England had to thank young Robert, the
+erratic son of Jonathan.
+
+It was now two years since Robert had inherited a small legacy of money
+from an aunt, and spent it in waste, as the farmer bitterly supposed.
+He was looking at some immense seed-melons in his garden, lying about in
+morning sunshine--a new feed for sheep, of his own invention,--when the
+call of the wanderer saluted his ears, and he beheld his son Robert at
+the gate.
+
+"Here I am, sir," Robert sang out from the exterior.
+
+"Stay there, then," was his welcome.
+
+They were alike in their build and in their manner of speech. The accost
+and the reply sounded like reports from the same pistol. The old man was
+tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular--a grey edition of the son, upon
+whose disorderly attire he cast a glance, while speaking, with settled
+disgust. Robert's necktie streamed loose; his hair was uncombed; a
+handkerchief dangled from his pocket. He had the look of the prodigal,
+returned with impudence for his portion instead of repentance.
+
+"I can't see how you are, sir, from this distance," said Robert, boldly
+assuming his privilege to enter.
+
+"Are you drunk?" Jonathan asked, as Robert marched up to him.
+
+"Give me your hand, sir."
+
+"Give me an answer first. Are you drunk?"
+
+Robert tried to force the complacent aspect of a mind unabashed,
+but felt that he made a stupid show before that clear-headed,
+virtuously-living old, man of iron nerves. The alternative to flying
+into a passion, was the looking like a fool.
+
+"Come, father," he said, with a miserable snigger, like a yokel's smile;
+"here I am at last. I don't say, kill the fatted calf, and take a
+lesson from Scripture, but give me your hand. I've done no man harm but
+myself--damned if I've done a mean thing anywhere! and there's no shame
+to you in shaking your son's hand after a long absence."
+
+Jonathan Eccles kept both hands firmly in his pockets.
+
+"Are you drunk?" he repeated.
+
+Robert controlled himself to answer, "I'm not."
+
+"Well, then, just tell me when you were drunk last."
+
+"This is a pleasant fatherly greeting!" Robert interjected.
+
+"You get no good by fighting shy of a simple question, Mr. Bob," said
+Jonathan.
+
+Robert cried querulously, "I don't want to fight shy of a simple
+question."
+
+"Well, then; when were you drunk last? answer me that."
+
+"Last night."
+
+Jonathan drew his hand from his pocket to thump his leg.
+
+"I'd have sworn it!"
+
+All Robert's assurance had vanished in a minute, and he stood like a
+convicted culprit before his father.
+
+"You know, sir, I don't tell lies. I was drunk last night. I couldn't
+help it."
+
+"No more could the little boy."
+
+"I was drunk last night. Say, I'm a beast."
+
+"I shan't!" exclaimed Jonathan, making his voice sound as a defence to
+this vile charge against the brutish character.
+
+"Say, I'm worse than a beast, then," cried Robert, in exasperation.
+"Take my word that it hasn't happened to me to be in that state for a
+year and more. Last night I was mad. I can't give you any reasons. I
+thought I was cured but I've trouble in my mind, and a tide swims you
+over the shallows--so I felt. Come, sir--father, don't make me mad
+again."
+
+"Where did you get the liquor?" inquired Jonathan.
+
+"I drank at 'The Pilot.'"
+
+"Ha! there's talk there of 'that damned old Eccles' for a month to
+come--'the unnatural parent.' How long have you been down here?"
+
+"Eight and twenty hours."
+
+"Eight and twenty hours. When are you going?"
+
+"I want lodging for a night."
+
+"What else?"
+
+"The loan of a horse that'll take a fence."
+
+"Go on."
+
+"And twenty pounds."
+
+"Oh!" said Jonathan. "If farming came as easy to you as face, you'd be a
+prime agriculturalist. Just what I thought! What's become of that money
+your aunt Jane was fool enough to bequeath to you?"
+
+"I've spent it."
+
+"Are you a Deserter?"
+
+For a moment Robert stood as if listening, and then white grew his face,
+and he swayed and struck his hands together. His recent intoxication had
+unmanned him.
+
+"Go in--go in," said his father in some concern, though wrath was
+predominant.
+
+"Oh, make your mind quiet about me." Robert dropped his arms. "I'm
+weakened somehow--damned weak, I am--I feel like a woman when my father
+asks me if I've been guilty of villany. Desert? I wouldn't desert from
+the hulks. Hear the worst, and this is the worst: I've got no money--I
+don't owe a penny, but I haven't got one."
+
+"And I won't give you one," Jonathan appended; and they stood facing one
+another in silence.
+
+A squeaky voice was heard from the other side of the garden hedge of
+clipped yew.
+
+"Hi! farmer, is that the missing young man?" and presently a neighbour,
+by name John Sedgett, came trotting through the gate, and up the garden
+path.
+
+"I say," he remarked, "here's a rumpus. Here's a bobbery up at Fairly.
+Oh! Bob Eccles! Bob Eccles! At it again!"
+
+Mr. Sedgett shook his wallet of gossip with an enjoying chuckle. He was
+a thin-faced creature, rheumy of eye, and drawing his breath as from a
+well; the ferret of the village for all underlying scandal and tattle,
+whose sole humanity was what he called pitifully 'a peakin' at his
+chest, and who had retired from his business of grocer in the village
+upon the fortune brought to him in the energy and capacity of a third
+wife to conduct affairs, while he wandered up and down and knitted
+people together--an estimable office in a land where your house is so
+grievously your castle.
+
+"What the devil have you got in you now?" Jonathan cried out to him.
+
+Mr. Sedgett was seized by his complaint and demanded commiseration, but,
+recovering, he chuckled again.
+
+"Oh, Bob Eccles! Don't you never grow older? And the first day
+down among us again, too. Why, Bob, as a military man, you ought to
+acknowledge your superiors. Why, Stephen Bilton, the huntsman, says,
+Bob, you pulled the young gentleman off his horse--you on foot, and him
+mounted. I'd ha' given pounds to be there. And ladies present! Lord
+help us! I'm glad you're returned, though. These melons of the farmer's,
+they're a wonderful invention; people are speaking of 'em right
+and left, and says, says they, Farmer Eccles, he's best farmer
+going--Hampshire ought to be proud of him--he's worth two of any others:
+that they are fine ones! And you're come back to keep 'em up, eh, Bob?
+Are ye, though, my man?"
+
+"Well, here I am, Mr. Sedgett," said Robert, "and talking to my father."
+
+"Oh! I wouldn't be here to interrupt ye for the world." Mr. Sedgett made
+a show of retiring, but Jonathan insisted upon his disburdening himself
+of his tale, saying: "Damn your raw beginnings, Sedgett! What's been up?
+Nobody can hurt me."
+
+"That they can't, neighbour; nor Bob neither, as far as stand up man to
+man go. I give him three to one--Bob Eccles! He took 'em when a boy.
+He may, you know, he may have the law agin him, and by George! if he
+do--why, a man's no match for the law. No use bein' a hero to the
+law. The law masters every man alive; and there's law in everything,
+neighbour Eccles; eh, sir? Your friend, the Prince, owns to it, as much
+as you or me. But, of course, you know what Bob's been doing. What
+I dropped in to ask was, why did ye do it, Bob? Why pull the young
+gentleman off his horse? I'd ha' given pounds to be there!"
+
+"Pounds o' tallow candles don't amount to much," quoth Robert.
+
+"That's awful bad brandy at 'The Pilot,'" said Mr. Sedgett, venomously.
+
+"Were you drunk when you committed this assault?" Jonathan asked his
+son.
+
+"I drank afterwards," Robert replied.
+
+"'Pilot' brandy's poor consolation," remarked Mr. Sedgett.
+
+Jonathan had half a mind to turn his son out of the gate, but the
+presence of Sedgett advised him that his doings were naked to the world.
+
+"You kicked up a shindy in the hunting-field--what about? Who mounted
+ye?"
+
+Robert remarked that he had been on foot.
+
+"On foot--eh? on foot!" Jonathan speculated, unable to realize the image
+of his son as a foot-man in the hunting-field, or to comprehend the
+insolence of a pedestrian who should dare to attack a mounted huntsman.
+"You were on foot? The devil you were on foot! Foot? And caught a man
+out of his saddle?"
+
+Jonathan gave up the puzzle. He laid out his fore finger decisively,--
+
+"If it's an assault, mind, you stand damages. My land gives and my land
+takes my money, and no drunken dog lives on the produce. A row in the
+hunting-field's un-English, I call it."
+
+"So it is, sir," said Robert.
+
+"So it be, neighbour," said Mr. Sedgett.
+
+Whereupon Robert took his arm, and holding the scraggy wretch forward,
+commanded him to out with what he knew.
+
+"Oh, I don't know no more than what I've told you." Mr. Sedgett twisted
+a feeble remonstrance of his bones, that were chiefly his being, at the
+gripe; "except that you got hold the horse by the bridle, and wouldn't
+let him go, because the young gentleman wouldn't speak as a gentleman,
+and--oh! don't squeeze so hard--"
+
+"Out with it!" cried Robert.
+
+"And you said, Steeve Bilton said, you said, 'Where is she?' you said,
+and he swore, and you swore, and a lady rode up, and you pulled, and
+she sang out, and off went the gentleman, and Steeve said she said, 'For
+shame.'"
+
+"And it was the truest word spoken that day!" Robert released him. "You
+don't know much, Mr. Sedgett; but it's enough to make me explain the
+cause to my father, and, with your leave, I'll do so."
+
+Mr. Sedgett remarked: "By all means, do;" and rather preferred that his
+wits should be accused of want of brightness, than that he should miss
+a chance of hearing the rich history of the scandal and its origin.
+Something stronger than a hint sent him off at a trot, hugging in his
+elbows.
+
+"The postman won't do his business quicker than Sedgett 'll tap this
+tale upon every door in the parish," said Jonathan.
+
+"I can only say I'm sorry, for your sake;" Robert was expressing his
+contrition, when his father caught him up,--
+
+"Who can hurt me?--my sake? Have I got the habits of a sot?--what you'd
+call 'a beast!' but I know the ways o' beasts, and if you did too,
+you wouldn't bring them in to bear your beastly sins. Who can hurt
+me?--You've been quarrelling with this young gentleman about a
+woman--did you damage him?"
+
+"If knuckles could do it, I should have brained him, sir," said Robert.
+
+"You struck him, and you got the best of it?"
+
+"He got the worst of it any way, and will again."
+
+"Then the devil take you for a fool! why did you go and drink I could
+understand it if you got licked. Drown your memory, then, if that filthy
+soaking's to your taste; but why, when you get the prize, we'll say, you
+go off headlong into a manure pond?--There! except that you're a damned
+idiot!" Jonathan struck the air, as to observe that it beat him, but
+for the foregoing elucidation: thundering afresh, "Why did you go and
+drink?"
+
+"I went, sir, I went--why did I go?" Robert slapped his hand
+despairingly to his forehead. "What on earth did I go for?--because I'm
+at sea, I suppose. Nobody cares for me. I'm at sea, and no rudder to
+steer me. I suppose that's it. So, I drank. I thought it best to take
+spirits on board. No; this was the reason--I remember: that lady,
+whoever she was, said something that stung me. I held the fellow under
+her eyes, and shook him, though she was begging me to let him off. Says
+she--but I've drunk it clean out of my mind."
+
+"There, go in and look at yourself in the glass," said Jonathan.
+
+"Give me your hand first,"--Robert put his own out humbly.
+
+"I'll be hanged if I do," said Jonathan firmly. "Bed and board you shall
+have while I'm alive, and a glass to look at yourself in; but my hand's
+for decent beasts. Move one way or t' other: take your choice."
+
+Seeing Robert hesitate, he added, "I shall have a damned deal more
+respect for you if you toddle." He waved his hand away from the
+premises.
+
+"I'm sorry you've taken so to swearing of late, sir," said Robert.
+
+"Two flints strike fire, my lad. When you keep distant, I'm quiet enough
+in my talk to satisfy your aunt Anne."
+
+"Look here, sir; I want to make use of you, so I'll go in."
+
+"Of course you do," returned Jonathan, not a whit displeased by his
+son's bluntness; "what else is a father good for? I let you know the
+limit, and that's a brick wall; jump it, if you can. Don't fancy it's
+your aunt Jane you're going in to meet."
+
+Robert had never been a favourite with his aunt Anne, who was Jonathan's
+housekeeper.
+
+"No, poor old soul! and may God bless her in heaven!" he cried.
+
+"For leaving you what you turned into a thundering lot of liquor to
+consume--eh?"
+
+"For doing all in her power to make a man of me; and she was close on
+it--kind, good old darling, that she was! She got me with that money
+of hers to the best footing I've been on yet--bless her heart, or her
+memory, or whatever a poor devil on earth may bless an angel for! But
+here I am."
+
+The fever in Robert blazed out under a pressure of extinguishing tears.
+
+"There, go along in," said Jonathan, who considered drunkenness to be
+the main source of water in a man's eyes. "It's my belief you've been at
+it already this morning."
+
+Robert passed into the house in advance of his father, whom he quite
+understood and appreciated. There was plenty of paternal love for him,
+and a hearty smack of the hand, and the inheritance of the farm, when
+he turned into the right way. Meantime Jonathan was ready to fulfil
+his parental responsibility, by sheltering, feeding, and not publicly
+abusing his offspring, of whose spirit he would have had a higher
+opinion if Robert had preferred, since he must go to the deuce, to go
+without troubling any of his relatives; as it was, Jonathan submitted
+to the infliction gravely. Neither in speech nor in tone did he solicit
+from the severe maiden, known as Aunt Anne, that snub for the wanderer
+whom he introduced, which, when two are agreed upon the infamous
+character of a third, through whom they are suffering, it is always
+agreeable to hear. He said, "Here, Anne; here's Robert. He hasn't
+breakfasted."
+
+"He likes his cold bath beforehand," said Robert, presenting his cheek
+to the fleshless, semi-transparent woman.
+
+Aunt Anne divided her lips to pronounce a crisp, subdued "Ow!" to
+Jonathan after inspecting Robert; and she shuddered at sight of
+Robert, and said "Ow!" repeatedly, by way of an interjectory token of
+comprehension, to all that was uttered; but it was a horrified "No!"
+when Robert's cheek pushed nearer.
+
+"Then, see to getting some breakfast for him," said Jonathan. "You're
+not anyway bound to kiss a drunken--"
+
+"Dog's the word, sir," Robert helped him. "Dogs can afford it. I never
+saw one in that state; so they don't lose character."
+
+He spoke lightly, but dejection was in his attitude. When his aunt Anne
+had left the room, he exclaimed,--
+
+"By jingo! women make you feel it, by some way that they have. She's a
+religious creature. She smells the devil in me."
+
+"More like, the brandy," his father responded.
+
+"Well! I'm on the road, I'm on the road!" Robert fetched a sigh.
+
+"I didn't make the road," said his father.
+
+"No, sir; you didn't. Work hard: sleep sound that's happiness. I've
+known it for a year. You're the man I'd imitate, if I could. The devil
+came first the brandy's secondary. I was quiet so long. I thought myself
+a safe man."
+
+He sat down and sent his hair distraught with an effort at smoothing it.
+
+"Women brought the devil into the world first. It's women who raise the
+devil in us, and why they--"
+
+He thumped the table just as his aunt Anne was preparing to spread the
+cloth.
+
+"Don't be frightened, woman," said Jonathan, seeing her start fearfully
+back. "You take too many cups of tea, morning and night--hang the
+stuff!"
+
+"Never, never till now have you abused me, Jonathan," she whimpered,
+severely.
+
+"I don't tell you to love him; but wait on him. That's all. And I'll
+about my business. Land and beasts--they answer to you."
+
+Robert looked up.
+
+"Land and beasts! They sound like blessed things. When next I go to
+church, I shall know what old Adam felt. Go along, sir. I shall break
+nothing in the house."
+
+"You won't go, Jonathan?" begged the trembling spinster.
+
+"Give him some of your tea, and strong, and as much of it as he can
+take--he wants bringing down," was Jonathan's answer; and casting a
+glance at one of the framed letters, he strode through the doorway,
+and Aunt Anne was alone with the flushed face and hurried eyes of her
+nephew, who was to her little better than a demon in the flesh. But
+there was a Bible in the room.
+
+An hour later, Robert was mounted and riding to the meet of hounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A single night at the Pilot Inn had given life and vigour to Robert's
+old reputation in Warbeach village, as the stoutest of drinkers and dear
+rascals throughout a sailor-breeding district, where Dibdin was still
+thundered in the ale-house, and manhood in a great degree measured by
+the capacity to take liquor on board, as a ship takes ballast. There was
+a profound affectation of deploring the sad fact that he drank as hard
+as ever, among the men, and genuine pity expressed for him by the women
+of Warbeach; but his fame was fresh again. As the Spring brings back
+its flowers, Robert's presence revived his youthful deeds. There had
+not been a boxer in the neighbourhood like Robert Eccles, nor such
+a champion in all games, nor, when he set himself to it, such an
+invincible drinker. It was he who thrashed the brute, Nic Sedgett, for
+stabbing with his clasp-knife Harry Boulby, son of the landlady of the
+Pilot Inn; thrashed him publicly, to the comfort of all Warbeach. He had
+rescued old Dame Garble from her burning cottage, and made his father
+house the old creature, and worked at farming, though he hated it,
+to pay for her subsistence. He vindicated the honour of Warbeach by
+drinking a match against a Yorkshire skipper till four o'clock in
+the morning, when it was a gallant sight, my boys, to see Hampshire
+steadying the defeated North-countryman on his astonished zigzag to
+his flattish-bottomed billyboy, all in the cheery sunrise on the
+river--yo-ho! ahoy!
+
+Glorious Robert had tried, first the sea, and then soldiering. Now let
+us hope he'll settle to farming, and follow his rare old father's ways,
+and be back among his own people for good. So chimed the younger ones,
+and many of the elder.
+
+Danish blood had settled round Warbeach. To be a really popular hero
+anywhere in Britain, a lad must still, I fear, have something of
+a Scandinavian gullet; and if, in addition to his being a powerful
+drinker, he is pleasant in his cups, and can sing, and forgive, be
+freehanded, and roll out the grand risky phrases of a fired brain, he
+stamps himself, in the apprehension of his associates, a king.
+
+Much of the stuff was required to deal King Robert of Warbeach the
+capital stroke, and commonly he could hold on till a puff of cold air
+from the outer door, like an admonitory messenger, reminded him that he
+was, in the greatness of his soul, a king of swine; after which his way
+of walking off, without a word to anybody, hoisting his whole stature,
+while others were staggering, or roaring foul rhymes, or feeling
+consciously mortal in their sensation of feverishness, became a theme
+for admiration; ay, and he was fresh as an orchard apple in the morning!
+there lay his commandership convincingly. What was proved overnight was
+confirmed at dawn.
+
+Mr. Robert had his contrast in Sedgett's son, Nicodemus Sedgett, whose
+unlucky Christian name had assisted the wits of Warbeach in bestowing
+on him a darkly-luminous relationship. Young Nic loved also to steep his
+spirit in the bowl; but, in addition to his never paying for his luxury,
+he drank as if in emulation of the colour of his reputed patron, and
+neighbourhood to Nic Sedgett was not liked when that young man became
+thoughtful over his glass.
+
+The episode of his stabbing the landlady's son Harry clung to him
+fatally. The wound was in the thigh, and nothing serious. Harry was
+up and off to sea before Nic had ceased to show the marks of Robert's
+vengeance upon him; but blood-shedding, even on a small scale, is so
+detested by Englishmen, that Nic never got back to his right hue in the
+eyes of Warbeach. None felt to him as to a countryman, and it may be
+supposed that his face was seen no more in the house of gathering, the
+Pilot Inn.
+
+He rented one of the Fairly farms, known as the Three-Tree Farm,
+subsisting there, men fancied, by the aid of his housekeeper's money.
+For he was of those evil fellows who disconcert all righteous prophecy,
+and it was vain for Mrs. Boulby and Warbeach village to declare that no
+good could come to him, when Fortune manifestly kept him going.
+
+He possessed the rogue's most serviceable art: in spite of a countenance
+that was not attractive, this fellow could, as was proved by evidence,
+make himself pleasing to women. "The truth of it is," said Mrs. Boulby,
+at a loss for any other explanation, and with a woman's love of sharp
+generalization, "it's because my sex is fools."
+
+He had one day no money to pay his rent, and forthwith (using for
+the purpose his last five shillings, it was said) advertized for a
+housekeeper; and before Warbeach had done chuckling over his folly, an
+agreeable woman of about thirty-five was making purchases in his name;
+she made tea, and the evening brew for such friends as he could collect,
+and apparently paid his rent for him, after a time; the distress was not
+in the house three days. It seemed to Warbeach an erratic proceeding on
+the part of Providence, that Nic should ever be helped to swim; but
+our modern prophets have small patience, and summon Destiny to strike
+without a preparation of her weapons or a warning to the victim.
+
+More than Robert's old occasional vice was at the bottom of his
+popularity, as I need not say. Let those who generalize upon ethnology
+determine whether the ancient opposition of Saxon and Norman be at an
+end; but it is certain, to my thinking, that when a hero of the
+people can be got from the common popular stock, he is doubly dear. A
+gentleman, however gallant and familiar, will hardly ever be as much
+beloved, until he dies to inform a legend or a ballad: seeing that death
+only can remove the peculiar distinctions and distances which the people
+feel to exist between themselves and the gentleman-class, and which, not
+to credit them with preternatural discernment, they are carefully taught
+to feel. Dead Britons are all Britons, but live Britons are not quite
+brothers.
+
+It was as the son of a yeoman, showing comprehensible accomplishments,
+that Robert took his lead. He was a very brave, a sweet-hearted, and a
+handsome young man, and he had very chivalrous views of life, that were
+understood by a sufficient number under the influence of ale or brandy,
+and by a few in default of that material aid; and they had a family
+pride in him. The pride was mixed with fear, which threw over it a
+tender light, like a mother's dream of her child. The people, I have
+said, are not so lost in self-contempt as to undervalue their best men,
+but it must be admitted that they rarely produce young fellows wearing
+the undeniable chieftain's stamp, and the rarity of one like Robert lent
+a hue of sadness to him in their thoughts.
+
+Fortune, moreover, the favourer of Nic Sedgett, blew foul whichever the
+way Robert set his sails. He would not look to his own advantage; and
+the belief that man should set his little traps for the liberal hand
+of his God, if he wishes to prosper, rather than strive to be merely
+honourable in his Maker's eye, is almost as general among poor people as
+it is with the moneyed classes, who survey them from their height.
+
+When jolly Butcher Billing, who was one of the limited company which had
+sat with Robert at the Pilot last night, reported that he had quitted
+the army, he was hearkened to dolefully, and the feeling was universal
+that glorious Robert had cut himself off from his pension and his
+hospital.
+
+But when gossip Sedgett went his rounds, telling that Robert was down
+among them again upon the darkest expedition their minds could conceive,
+and rode out every morning for the purpose of encountering one of the
+gentlemen up at Fairly, and had already pulled him off his horse and
+laid him in the mud, calling him scoundrel and challenging him either
+to yield his secret or to fight; and that he followed him, and was out
+after him publicly, and matched himself against that gentleman, who
+had all the other gentlemen, and the earl, and the law to back him, the
+little place buzzed with wonder and alarm. Faint hearts declared that
+Robert was now done for. All felt that he had gone miles beyond the
+mark. Those were the misty days when fogs rolled up the salt river
+from the winter sea, and the sun lived but an hour in the clotted sky,
+extinguished near the noon.
+
+Robert was seen riding out, and the tramp of his horse was heard as he
+returned homeward. He called no more at the Pilot. Darkness and mystery
+enveloped him. There were nightly meetings under Mrs. Boulby's roof,
+in the belief that he could not withstand her temptations; nor did she
+imprudently discourage them; but the woman at last overcame the landlady
+within her, and she wailed: "He won't come because of the drink. Oh! why
+was I made to sell liquor, which he says sends him to the devil, poor
+blessed boy? and I can't help begging him to take one little drop. I
+did, the first night he was down, forgetting his ways; he looked so
+desperate, he did, and it went on and went on, till he was primed, and
+me proud to see him get out of his misery. And now he hates the thought
+of me."
+
+In her despair she encouraged Sedgett to visit her bar and parlour, and
+he became everywhere a most important man.
+
+Farmer Eccles's habits of seclusion (his pride, some said), and more
+especially the dreaded austere Aunt Anne, who ruled that household, kept
+people distant from the Warbeach farm-house, all excepting Sedgett,
+who related that every night on his return, she read a chapter from the
+Bible to Robert, sitting up for him patiently to fulfil her duty; and
+that the farmer's words to his son had been: "Rest here; eat and drink,
+and ride my horse; but not a penny of my money do you have."
+
+By the help of Steeve Bilton, the Fairly huntsman, Sedgett was enabled
+to relate that there was a combination of the gentlemen against Robert,
+whose behaviour none could absolutely approve, save the landlady and
+jolly Butcher Billing, who stuck to him with a hearty blind faith.
+
+"Did he ever," asked the latter, "did Bob Eccles ever conduct himself
+disrespectful to his superiors? Wasn't he always found out at his
+wildest for to be right--to a sensible man's way of thinking?--though
+not, I grant ye, to his own interests--there's another tale." And Mr.
+Billing's staunch adherence to the hero of the village was cried out
+to his credit when Sedgett stated, on Stephen Bilton's authority, that
+Robert's errand was the defence of a girl who had been wronged, and
+whose whereabout, that she might be restored to her parents, was all he
+wanted to know. This story passed from mouth to mouth, receiving much
+ornament in the passage. The girl in question became a lady; for it
+is required of a mere common girl that she should display remarkable
+character before she can be accepted as the fitting companion of a
+popular hero. She became a young lady of fortune, in love with Robert,
+and concealed by the artifice of the offending gentleman whom Robert had
+challenged. Sedgett told this for truth, being instigated to boldness of
+invention by pertinacious inquiries, and the dignified sense which the
+whole story hung upon him.
+
+Mrs. Boulby, who, as a towering woman, despised Sedgett's weak frame,
+had been willing to listen till she perceived him to be but a man of
+fiction, and then she gave him a flat contradiction, having no esteem
+for his custom.
+
+"Eh! but, Missis, I can tell you his name--the gentleman's name,"
+said Sedgett, placably. "He's a Mr. Algernon Blancove, and a cousin by
+marriage, or something, of Mrs. Lovell."
+
+"I reckon you're right about that, goodman," replied Mrs. Boulby, with
+intuitive discernment of the true from the false, mingled with a desire
+to show that she was under no obligation for the news. "All t' other's a
+tale of your own, and you know it, and no more true than your rigmaroles
+about my brandy, which is French; it is, as sure as my blood's British."
+
+"Oh! Missis," quoth Sedgett, maliciously, "as to tales, you've got
+witnesses enough it crassed chann'l. Aha! Don't bring 'em into the box.
+Don't you bring 'em into ne'er a box."
+
+"You mean to say, Mr. Sedgett, they won't swear?"
+
+"No, Missis; they'll swear, fast and safe, if you teach 'em. Dashed if
+they won't run the Pilot on a rock with their swearin'. It ain't a good
+habit."
+
+"Well, Mr. Sedgett, the next time you drink my brandy and find the
+consequences bad, you let me hear of it."
+
+"And what'll you do, Missis, may be?"
+
+Listeners were by, and Mrs. Boulby cruelly retorted; "I won't send you
+home to your wife;" which created a roar against this hen-pecked man.
+
+"As to consequences, Missis, it's for your sake I'm looking at them,"
+Sedgett said, when he had recovered from the blow.
+
+"You say that to the Excise, Mr. Sedgett; it, belike, 'll make 'em
+sorry."
+
+"Brandy's your weak point, it appears, Missis."
+
+"A little in you would stiffen your back, Mr. Sedgett."
+
+"Poor Bob Eccles didn't want no stiffening when he come down first,"
+Sedgett interjected.
+
+At which, flushing enraged, Mrs. Boulby cried: "Mention him, indeed! And
+him and you, and that son of your'n--the shame of your cheeks if people
+say he's like his father. Is it your son, Nic Sedgett, thinks to inform
+against me, as once he swore to, and to get his wage that he may step
+out of a second bankruptcy? and he a farmer! You let him know that he
+isn't feared by me, Sedgett, and there's one here to give him a
+second dose, without waiting for him to use clasp-knives on harmless
+innocents."
+
+"Pacify yourself, ma'am, pacify yourself," remarked Sedgett, hardened
+against words abroad by his endurance of blows at home. "Bob Eccles,
+he's got his hands full, and he, maybe, 'll reach the hulks before my
+Nic do, yet. And how 'm I answerable for Nic, I ask you?"
+
+"More luck to you not to be, I say; and either, Sedgett, you does
+woman's work, gossipin' about like a cracked bell-clapper, or men's the
+biggest gossips of all, which I believe; for there's no beating you at
+your work, and one can't wish ill to you, knowing what you catch."
+
+"In a friendly way, Missis,"--Sedgett fixed on the compliment to his
+power of propagating news--"in a friendly way. You can't accuse me
+of leavin' out the 'l' in your name, now, can you? I make that
+observation,"--the venomous tattler screwed himself up to the widow
+insinuatingly, as if her understanding could only be seized at close
+quarters, "I make that observation, because poor Dick Boulby, your
+lamented husband--eh! poor Dick! You see, Missis, it ain't the tough
+ones last longest: he'd sing, 'I'm a Sea Booby,' to the song, 'I'm a
+green Mermaid:' poor Dick! 'a-shinin' upon the sea-deeps.' He kept the
+liquor from his head, but didn't mean it to stop down in his leg."
+
+"Have you done, Mr. Sedgett?" said the widow, blandly.
+
+"You ain't angry, Missis?"
+
+"Not a bit, Mr. Sedgett; and if I knock you over with the flat o' my
+hand, don't you think so."
+
+Sedgett threw up the wizened skin of his forehead, and retreated from
+the bar. At a safe distance, he called: "Bad news that about Bob Eccles
+swallowing a blow yesterday!"
+
+Mrs. Boulby faced him complacently till he retired, and then observed to
+those of his sex surrounding her, "Don't 'woman-and-dog-and-walnut-tree'
+me! Some of you men 'd be the better for a drubbing every day of your
+lives. Sedgett yond' 'd be as big a villain as his son, only for what he
+gets at home."
+
+That was her way of replying to the Parthian arrow; but the barb was
+poisoned. The village was at fever heat concerning Robert, and this
+assertion that he had swallowed a blow, produced almost as great a
+consternation as if a fleet of the enemy had been reported off Sandy
+Point.
+
+Mrs. Boulby went into her parlour and wrote a letter to Robert, which
+she despatched by one of the loungers about the bar, who brought back
+news that three of the gentlemen of Fairly were on horseback, talking to
+Farmer Eccles at his garden gate. Affairs were waxing hot. The gentlemen
+had only to threaten Farmer Eccles, to make him side with his son,
+right or wrong. In the evening, Stephen Bilton, the huntsman, presented
+himself at the door of the long parlour of the Pilot, and loud cheers
+were his greeting from a full company.
+
+"Gentlemen all," said Stephen, with dapper modesty; and acted as if no
+excitement were current, and he had nothing to tell.
+
+"Well, Steeve?" said one, to encourage him.
+
+"How about Bob, to-day?" said another.
+
+Before Stephen had spoken, it was clear to the apprehension of the whole
+room that he did not share the popular view of Robert. He declined to
+understand who was meant by "Bob." He played the questions off; and then
+shrugged, with, "Oh, let's have a quiet evening."
+
+It ended in his saying, "About Bob Eccles? There, that's summed up
+pretty quick--he's mad."
+
+"Mad!" shouted Warbeach.
+
+"That's a lie," said Mrs. Boulby, from the doorway.
+
+"Well, mum, I let a lady have her own opinion." Stephen nodded to her.
+"There ain't a doubt as t' what the doctors 'd bring him in I ain't
+speaking my ideas alone. It's written like the capital letters in a
+newspaper. Lunatic's the word! And I'll take a glass of something warm,
+Mrs. Boulby. We had a stiff run to-day."
+
+"Where did ye kill, Steeve?" asked a dispirited voice.
+
+"We didn't kill at all: he was one of those 'longshore dog-foxes,' and
+got away home on the cliff." Stephen thumped his knee. "It's my belief
+the smell o' sea gives 'em extra cunning."
+
+"The beggar seems to have put ye out rether--eh, Steeve?"
+
+So it was generally presumed: and yet the charge of madness was very
+staggering; madness being, in the first place, indefensible, and
+everybody's enemy when at large; and Robert's behaviour looked extremely
+like it. It had already been as a black shadow haunting enthusiastic
+minds in the village, and there fell a short silence, during which
+Stephen made his preparations for filling and lighting a pipe.
+
+"Come; how do you make out he's mad?"
+
+Jolly Butcher Billing spoke; but with none of the irony of confidence.
+
+"Oh!" Stephen merely clapped both elbows against his sides.
+
+Several pairs of eyes were studying him. He glanced over them in turn,
+and commenced leisurely the puff contemplative.
+
+"Don't happen to have a grudge of e'er a kind against old Bob, Steeve?"
+
+"Not I!"
+
+Mrs. Boulby herself brought his glass to Stephen, and, retreating, left
+the parlour-door open.
+
+"What causes you for to think him mad, Steeve?"
+
+A second "Oh!" as from the heights dominating argument, sounded from
+Stephen's throat, half like a grunt. This time he condescended to add,--
+
+"How do you know when a dog's gone mad? Well, Robert Eccles, he's gone
+in like manner. If you don't judge a man by his actions, you've got no
+means of reckoning. He comes and attacks gentlemen, and swears he'll go
+on doing it."
+
+"Well, and what does that prove?" said jolly Butcher Billing.
+
+Mr. William Moody, boatbuilder, a liver-complexioned citizen, undertook
+to reply.
+
+"What does that prove? What does that prove when the midshipmite was
+found with his head in the mixedpickle jar? It proved that his head was
+lean, and t' other part was rounder."
+
+The illustration appeared forcible, but not direct, and nothing more was
+understood from it than that Moody, and two or three others who had been
+struck by the image of the infatuated young naval officer, were going
+over to the enemy. The stamp of madness upon Robert's acts certainly
+saved perplexity, and was the easiest side of the argument. By this time
+Stephen had finished his glass, and the effect was seen.
+
+"Hang it!" he exclaimed, "I don't agree he deserves shooting. And he may
+have had harm done to him. In that case, let him fight. And I say, too,
+let the gentleman give him satisfaction."
+
+"Hear! hear!" cried several.
+
+"And if the gentleman refuse to give him satisfaction in a fair stand-up
+fight, I say he ain't a gentleman, and deserves to be treated as such.
+My objection's personal. I don't like any man who spoils sport, and
+ne'er a rascally vulpeci' spoils sport as he do, since he's been down in
+our parts again. I'll take another brimmer, Mrs. Boulby."
+
+"To be sure you will, Stephen," said Mrs. Boulby, bending as in a
+curtsey to the glass; and so soft with him that foolish fellows thought
+her cowed by the accusation thrown at her favourite.
+
+"There's two questions about they valpecies, Master Stephen," said
+Farmer Wainsby, a farmer with a grievance, fixing his elbow on his knee
+for serious utterance. "There's to ask, and t' ask again. Sport, I grant
+ye. All in doo season. But," he performed a circle with his pipe stem,
+and darted it as from the centre thereof toward Stephen's breast, with
+the poser, "do we s'pport thieves at public expense for them to keep
+thievin'--black, white, or brown--no matter, eh? Well, then, if the
+public wunt bear it, dang me if I can see why individles shud bear it.
+It ent no manner o' reason, net as I can see; let gentlemen have their
+opinion, or let 'em not. Foxes be hanged!"
+
+Much slow winking was interchanged. In a general sense, Farmer Wainsby's
+remarks were held to be un-English, though he was pardoned for them as
+one having peculiar interests at stake.
+
+"Ay, ay! we know all about that," said Stephen, taking succour from the
+eyes surrounding him.
+
+"And so, may be, do we," said Wainsby.
+
+"Fox-hunting 'll go on when your great-grandfather's your youngest son,
+farmer; or t' other way."
+
+"I reckon it'll be a stuffed fox your chil'ern 'll hunt, Mr. Steeve;
+more straw in 'em than bow'ls."
+
+"If the country," Stephen thumped the table, "were what you'd make of
+it, hang me if my name 'd long be Englishman!"
+
+"Hear, hear, Steeve!" was shouted in support of the Conservative
+principle enunciated by him.
+
+"What I say is, flesh and blood afore foxes!"
+
+Thus did Farmer Wainsby likewise attempt a rallying-cry; but Stephen's
+retort, "Ain't foxes flesh and blood?" convicted him of clumsiness, and,
+buoyed on the uproar of cheers, Stephen pursued, "They are; to kill 'em
+in cold blood's beast-murder, so it is. What do we do? We give 'em
+a fair field--a fair field and no favour! We let 'em trust to the
+instincts Nature, she's given 'em; and don't the old woman know best?
+If they cap, get away, they win the day. All's open, and honest, and
+aboveboard. Kill your rats and kill your rabbits, but leave foxes to
+your betters. Foxes are gentlemen. You don't understand? Be hanged if
+they ain't! I like the old fox, and I don't like to see him murdered
+and exterminated, but die the death of a gentleman, at the hands of
+gentlemen--"
+
+"And ladies," sneered the farmer.
+
+All the room was with Stephen, and would have backed him uproariously,
+had he not reached his sounding period without knowing it, and thus
+allowed his opponent to slip in that abominable addition.
+
+"Ay, and ladies," cried the huntsman, keen at recovery. "Why shouldn't
+they? I hate a field without a woman in it; don't you? and you? and you?
+And you, too, Mrs. Boulby? There you are, and the room looks better for
+you--don't it, lads? Hurrah!"
+
+The cheering was now aroused, and Stephen had his glass filled again
+in triumph, while the farmer meditated thickly over the ruin of his
+argument from that fatal effort at fortifying it by throwing a hint to
+the discredit of the sex, as many another man has meditated before.
+
+"Eh! poor old Bob!" Stephen sighed and sipped. "I can cry that with any
+of you. It's worse for me to see than for you to hear of him. Wasn't I
+always a friend of his, and said he was worthy to be a gentleman, many
+a time? He's got the manners of a gentleman now; offs with his hat,
+if there's a lady present, and such a neat way of speaking. But there,
+acting's the thing, and his behaviour's beastly bad! You can't call
+it no other. There's two Mr. Blancoves up at Fairly, relations of
+Mrs. Lovell's--whom I'll take the liberty of calling My Beauty, and no
+offence meant: and it's before her that Bob only yesterday rode up--one
+of the gentlemen being Mr. Algernon, free of hand and a good seat in the
+saddle, t' other's Mr. Edward; but Mr. Algernon, he's Robert Eccles's
+man--up rides Bob, just as we was tying Mr. Reenard's brush to the
+pommel of the lady's saddle, down in Ditley Marsh; and he bows to the
+lady. Says he--but he's mad, stark mad!"
+
+Stephen resumed his pipe amid a din of disappointment that made the
+walls ring and the glasses leap.
+
+"A little more sugar, Stephen?" said Mrs. Boulby, moving in lightly from
+the doorway.
+
+"Thank ye, mum; you're the best hostess that ever breathed."
+
+"So she be; but how about Bob?" cried her guests--some asking whether he
+carried a pistol or flourished a stick.
+
+"Ne'er a blessed twig, to save his soul; and there's the madness written
+on him;" Stephen roared as loud as any of them. "And me to see him
+riding in the ring there, and knowing what the gentleman had sworn to
+do if he came across the hunt; and feeling that he was in the wrong! I
+haven't got a oath to swear how mad I was. Fancy yourselves in my place.
+I love old Bob. I've drunk with him; I owe him obligations from since
+I was a boy up'ard; I don't know a better than Bob in all England. And
+there he was: and says to Mr. Algernon, 'You know what I'm come for.'
+I never did behold a gentleman so pale--shot all over his cheeks as
+he was, and pinkish under the eyes; if you've ever noticed a chap laid
+hands on by detectives in plain clothes. Smack at Bob went Mr. Edward's
+whip."
+
+"Mr. Algernon's," Stephen was corrected.
+
+"Mr. Edward's, I tell ye--the cousin. And right across the face. My
+Lord! it made my blood tingle."
+
+A sound like the swish of a whip expressed the sentiments of that
+assemblage at the Pilot.
+
+"Bob swallowed it?"
+
+"What else could he do, the fool? He had nothing to help him but his
+hand. Says he, 'That's a poor way of trying to stop me. My business is
+with this gentleman;' and Bob set his horse at Mr. Algernon, and Mrs.
+Lovell rode across him with her hand raised; and just at that moment up
+jogged the old gentleman, Squire Blancove, of Wrexby: and Robert Eccles
+says to him, 'You might have saved your son something by keeping your
+word.' It appears according to Bob, that the squire had promised to see
+his son, and settle matters. All Mrs. Lovell could do was hardly enough
+to hold back Mr. Edward from laying out at Bob. He was like a white
+devil, and speaking calm and polite all the time. Says Bob, 'I'm willing
+to take one when I've done with the other;' and the squire began talking
+to his son, Mrs. Lovell to Mr. Edward, and the rest of the gentlemen all
+round poor dear old Bob, rather bullying--like for my blood; till Bob
+couldn't help being nettled, and cried out, 'Gentlemen, I hold him in my
+power, and I'm silent so long as there's a chance of my getting him to
+behave like a man with human feelings.' If they'd gone at him then, I
+don't think I could have let him stand alone: an opinion's one thing,
+but blood's another, and I'm distantly related to Bob; and a man who's
+always thinking of the value of his place, he ain't worth it. But Mrs.
+Lovell, she settled the case--a lady, Farmer Wainsby, with your leave.
+There's the good of having a lady present on the field. That's due to a
+lady!"
+
+"Happen she was at the bottom of it," the farmer returned Stephen's nod
+grumpily.
+
+"How did it end, Stephen, my lad?" said Butcher Billing, indicating a
+"never mind him."
+
+"It ended, my boy, it ended like my glass here--hot and strong stuff,
+with sugar at the bottom. And I don't see this, so glad as I saw that,
+my word of honour on it! Boys all!" Stephen drank the dregs.
+
+Mrs. Boulby was still in attendance. The talk over the circumstances was
+sweeter than the bare facts, and the replenished glass enabled Stephen
+to add the picturesque bits of the affray, unspurred by a surrounding
+eagerness of his listeners--too exciting for imaginative effort. In
+particular, he dwelt on Robert's dropping the reins and riding with his
+heels at Algernon, when Mrs. Lovell put her horse in his way, and the
+pair of horses rose like waves at sea, and both riders showed their
+horsemanship, and Robert an adroit courtesy, for which the lady thanked
+him with a bow of her head.
+
+"I got among the hounds, pretending to pacify them, and call 'em
+together," said Stephen, "and I heard her say--just before all was over,
+and he turned off--I heard her say: 'Trust this to me: I will meet you.'
+I'll swear to them exact words, though there was more, and a 'where' in
+the bargain, and that I didn't hear. Aha! by George! thinks I, old Bob,
+you're a lucky beggar, and be hanged if I wouldn't go mad too for a
+minute or so of short, sweet, private talk with a lovely young widow
+lady as ever the sun did shine upon so boldly--oho!
+
+     You've seen a yacht upon the sea,
+     She dances and she dances, O!
+     As fair is my wild maid to me...
+
+Something about 'prances, O!' on her horse, you know, or you're a hem'd
+fool if you don't. I never could sing; wish I could! It's the joy of
+life! It's utterance! Hey for harmony!"
+
+"Eh! brayvo! now you're a man, Steeve! and welcomer and welcomest;
+yi--yi, O!" jolly Butcher Billing sang out sharp. "Life wants watering.
+Here's a health to Robert Eccles, wheresoever and whatsoever! and ne'er
+a man shall say of me I didn't stick by a friend like Bob. Cheers, my
+lads!"
+
+Robert's health was drunk in a thunder, and praises of the purity of the
+brandy followed the grand roar. Mrs. Boulby received her compliments on
+that head.
+
+"'Pends upon the tide, Missis, don't it?" one remarked with a grin broad
+enough to make the slyness written on it easy reading.
+
+"Ah! first a flow and then a ebb," said another.
+
+     "It's many a keg I plant i' the mud,
+     Coastguardsman, come! and I'll have your blood!"
+
+Instigation cried, "Cut along;" but the defiant smuggler was deficient
+in memory, and like Steeve Bilton, was reduced to scatter his concluding
+rhymes in prose, as "something about;" whereat jolly Butcher Billing, a
+reader of song-books from a literary delight in their contents, scraped
+his head, and then, as if he had touched a spring, carolled,--
+
+     "In spite of all you Gov'ment pack,
+     I'll land my kegs of the good Cognyac"--
+
+"though," he took occasion to observe when the chorus and a sort of
+cracker of irrelevant rhymes had ceased to explode; "I'm for none of
+them games. Honesty!--there's the sugar o' my grog."
+
+"Ay, but you like to be cock-sure of the stuff you drink, if e'er a man
+did," said the boatbuilder, whose eye blazed yellow in this frothing
+season of song and fun.
+
+"Right so, Will Moody!" returned the jolly butcher: "which means--not
+wrong this time!"
+
+"Then, what's understood by your sticking prongs into your hostess
+here concerning of her brandy? Here it is--which is enough, except for
+discontented fellows."
+
+"Eh, Missus?" the jolly butcher appealed to her, and pointed at Moody's
+complexion for proof.
+
+It was quite a fiction that kegs of the good cognac were sown at low
+water, and reaped at high, near the river-gate of the old Pilot Inn
+garden; but it was greatly to Mrs. Boulby's interest to encourage the
+delusion which imaged her brandy thus arising straight from the very
+source, without villanous contact with excisemen and corrupting dealers;
+and as, perhaps, in her husband's time, the thing had happened, and
+still did, at rare intervals, she complacently gathered the profitable
+fame of her brandy being the best in the district.
+
+"I'm sure I hope you're satisfied, Mr. Billing," she said.
+
+The jolly butcher asked whether Will Moody was satisfied, and Mr.
+William Moody declaring himself thoroughly satisfied, "then I'm
+satisfied too!" said the jolly butcher; upon which the boatbuilder
+heightened the laugh by saying he was not satisfied at all; and to
+escape from the execrations of the majority, pleaded that it was because
+his glass was empty: thus making his peace with them. Every glass in the
+room was filled again.
+
+The young fellows now loosened tongue; and Dick Curtis, the promising
+cricketer of Hampshire, cried, "Mr. Moody, my hearty! that's your fourth
+glass, so don't quarrel with me, now!"
+
+"You!" Moody fired up in a bilious frenzy, and called him a this and
+that and t' other young vagabond; for which the company, feeling
+the ominous truth contained in Dick Curtis's remark more than its
+impertinence, fined Mr. Moody in a song. He gave the--
+
+     "So many young Captains have walked o'er my pate,
+     It's no wonder you see me quite bald, sir,"
+
+with emphatic bitterness, and the company thanked him. Seeing him stand
+up as to depart, however, a storm of contempt was hurled at him; some
+said he was like old Sedgett, and was afraid of his wife; and some, that
+he was like Nic Sedgett, and drank blue.
+
+     "You're a bag of blue devils, oh dear! oh dear!"
+
+sang Dick to the tune of "The Campbells are coming."
+
+"I ask e'er a man present," Mr. Moody put out his fist, "is that to be
+borne? Didn't you," he addressed Dick Curtis,--"didn't you sing into my
+chorus--"
+
+     'It's no wonder to hear how you squall'd, sir?'
+
+"You did!"
+
+"Don't he,"--Dick addressed the company, "make Mrs. Boulby's brandy look
+ashamed of itself in his face? I ask e'er a gentleman present."
+
+Accusation and retort were interchanged, in the course of which, Dick
+called Mr. Moody Nic Sedgett's friend; and a sort of criminal inquiry
+was held. It was proved that Moody had been seen with Nic Sedgett; and
+then three or four began to say that Nic Sedgett was thick with some of
+the gentlemen up at Fairly;--just like his luck! Stephen let it be known
+that he could confirm this fact; he having seen Mr. Algernon Blancove
+stop Nic on the road and talk to him.
+
+"In that case," said Butcher Billing, "there's mischief in a state of
+fermentation. Did ever anybody see Nic and the devil together?"
+
+"I saw Nic and Mr. Moody together," said Dick Curtis. "Well, I'm only
+stating a fact," he exclaimed, as Moody rose, apparently to commence an
+engagement, for which the company quietly prepared, by putting chairs
+out of his way: but the recreant took his advantage from the error, and
+got away to the door, pursued.
+
+"Here's an example of what we lose in having no President," sighed
+the jolly butcher. "There never was a man built for the chair like Bob
+Eccles I say! Our evening's broke up, and I, for one, 'd ha' made it
+morning. Hark, outside; By Gearge! they're snowballing."
+
+An adjournment to the front door brought them in view of a white
+and silent earth under keen stars, and Dick Curtis and the bilious
+boatbuilder, foot to foot, snowball in hand. A bout of the smart
+exercise made Mr. Moody laugh again, and all parted merrily, delivering
+final shots as they went their several ways.
+
+"Thanks be to heaven for snowing," said Mrs. Boulby; "or when I should
+have got to my bed, Goodness only can tell!" With which, she closed the
+door upon the empty inn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+The night was warm with the new-fallen snow, though the stars sparkled
+coldly. A fleet of South-westerly rainclouds had been met in mid-sky by
+a sharp puff from due North, and the moisture had descended like a woven
+shroud, covering all the land, the house-tops, and the trees.
+
+Young Harry Boulby was at sea, and this still weather was just what a
+mother's heart wished for him. The widow looked through her bed-room
+window and listened, as if the absolute stillness must beget a sudden
+cry. The thought of her boy made her heart revert to Robert. She was
+thinking of Robert when the muffled sound of a horse at speed caused her
+to look up the street, and she saw one coming--a horse without a rider.
+The next minute he was out of sight.
+
+Mrs. Boulby stood terrified. The silence of the night hanging everywhere
+seemed to call on her for proof that she had beheld a real earthly
+spectacle, and the dead thump of the hooves on the snow-floor in passing
+struck a chill through her as being phantom-like. But she had seen
+a saddle on the horse, and the stirrups flying, and the horse looked
+affrighted. The scene was too earthly in its suggestion of a tale
+of blood. What if the horse were Robert's? She tried to laugh at her
+womanly fearfulness, and had almost to suppress a scream in doing
+so. There was no help for it but to believe her brandy as good and
+efficacious as her guests did, so she went downstairs and took a
+fortifying draught; after which her blood travelled faster, and the
+event galloped swiftly into the recesses of time, and she slept.
+
+While the morning was still black, and the streets without a sign
+of life, she was aroused by a dream of some one knocking at her
+grave-stone. "Ah, that brandy!" she sighed. "This is what a poor woman
+has to pay for custom!" Which we may interpret as the remorseful morning
+confession of a guilt she had been the victim of over night. She knew
+that good brandy did not give bad dreams, and was self-convicted.
+Strange were her sensations when the knocking continued; and presently
+she heard a voice in the naked street below call in a moan, "Mother!"
+
+"My darling!" she answered, divided in her guess at its being Harry or
+Robert.
+
+A glance from the open window showed Robert leaning in the quaint old
+porch, with his head bound by a handkerchief; but he had no strength to
+reply to a question at that distance, and when she let him in he made
+two steps and dropped forward on the floor.
+
+Lying there, he plucked at her skirts. She was shouting for help, but
+with her ready apprehension of the pride in his character, she knew what
+was meant by his broken whisper before she put her ear to his lips, and
+she was silent, miserable sight as was his feeble efforts to rise on an
+elbow that would not straighten.
+
+His head was streaming with blood, and the stain was on his neck and
+chest. He had one helpless arm; his clothes were torn as from a fierce
+struggle.
+
+"I'm quite sensible," he kept repeating, lest she should relapse into
+screams.
+
+"Lord love you for your spirit!" exclaimed the widow, and there they
+remained, he like a winged eagle, striving to raise himself from time
+to time, and fighting with his desperate weakness. His face was to the
+ground; after a while he was still. In alarm the widow stooped over him:
+she feared that he had given up his last breath; but the candle-light
+showed him shaken by a sob, as it seemed to her, though she could scarce
+believe it of this manly fellow. Yet it proved true; she saw the very
+tears. He was crying at his helplessness.
+
+"Oh, my darling boy!" she burst out; "what have they done to ye? the
+cowards they are! but do now have pity on a woman, and let me get some
+creature to lift you to a bed, dear. And don't flap at me with your hand
+like a bird that's shot. You're quite, quite sensible, I know; quite
+sensible, dear; but for my sake, Robert, my Harry's good friend, only
+for my sake, let yourself be a carried to a clean, nice bed, till I get
+Dr. Bean to you. Do, do."
+
+Her entreaties brought on a succession of the efforts to rise, and at
+last, getting round on his back, and being assisted by the widow, he
+sat up against the wall. The change of posture stupified him with a
+dizziness. He tried to utter the old phrase, that he was sensible, but
+his hand beat at his forehead before the words could be shaped.
+
+"What pride is when it's a man!" the widow thought, as he recommenced
+the grievous struggle to rise on his feet; now feeling them up to the
+knee with a questioning hand, and pausing as if in a reflective wonder,
+and then planting them for a spring that failed wretchedly; groaning and
+leaning backward, lost in a fit of despair, and again beginning, patient
+as an insect imprisoned in a circle.
+
+The widow bore with his man's pride, until her nerves became afflicted
+by the character of his movements, which, as her sensations conceived
+them, were like those of a dry door jarring loose. She caught him in her
+arms: "It's let my back break, but you shan't fret to death there, under
+my eyes, proud or humble, poor dear," she said, and with a great pull
+she got him upright. He fell across her shoulder with so stiff a groan
+that for a moment she thought she had done him mortal injury.
+
+"Good old mother," he said boyishly, to reassure her.
+
+"Yes; and you'll behave to me like a son," she coaxed him.
+
+They talked as by slow degrees the stairs were ascended.
+
+"A crack o' the head, mother--a crack o' the head," said he.
+
+"Was it the horse, my dear?"
+
+"A crack o' the head, mother."
+
+"What have they done to my boy Robert?"
+
+"They've,"--he swung about humorously, weak as he was and throbbing with
+pain--"they've let out some of your brandy, mother...got into my head."
+
+"Who've done it, my dear?"
+
+"They've done it, mother."
+
+"Oh, take care o' that nail at your foot; and oh, that beam to your poor
+poll--poor soul! he's been and hurt himself again. And did they do it to
+him? and what was it for?" she resumed in soft cajolery.
+
+"They did it, because--"
+
+"Yes, my dear; the reason for it?"
+
+"Because, mother, they had a turn that way."
+
+"Thanks be to Above for leaving your cunning in you, my dear," said the
+baffled woman, with sincere admiration. "And Lord be thanked, if you're
+not hurt bad, that they haven't spoilt his handsome face," she added.
+
+In the bedroom, he let her partially undress him, refusing all doctor's
+aid, and commanding her to make no noise about him and then he lay down
+and shut his eyes, for the pain was terrible--galloped him and threw
+him with a shock--and galloped him and threw him again, whenever his
+thoughts got free for a moment from the dizzy aching.
+
+"My dear," she whispered, "I'm going to get a little brandy."
+
+She hastened away upon this mission.
+
+He was in the same posture when she returned with bottle and glass.
+
+She poured out some, and made much of it as a specific, and of the great
+things brandy would do; but he motioned his hand from it feebly, till
+she reproached him tenderly as perverse and unkind.
+
+"Now, my dearest boy, for my sake--only for my sake. Will you? Yes, you
+will, my Robert!"
+
+"No brandy, mother."
+
+"Only one small thimbleful?"
+
+"No more brandy for me!"
+
+"See, dear, how seriously you take it, and all because you want the
+comfort."
+
+"No brandy," was all he could say.
+
+She looked at the label on the bottle. Alas! she knew whence it came,
+and what its quality. She could cheat herself about it when herself only
+was concerned--but she wavered at the thought of forcing it upon Robert
+as trusty medicine, though it had a pleasant taste, and was really, as
+she conceived, good enough for customers.
+
+She tried him faintly with arguments in its favour; but his resolution
+was manifested by a deaf ear.
+
+With a perfect faith in it she would, and she was conscious that she
+could, have raised his head and poured it down his throat. The crucial
+test of her love for Robert forbade the attempt. She burst into an
+uncontrollable fit of crying.
+
+"Halloa! mother," said Robert, opening his eyes to the sad candlelight
+surrounding them.
+
+"My darling boy! whom I do love so; and not to be able to help you! What
+shall I do--what shall I do!"
+
+With a start, he cried, "Where's the horse!"
+
+"The horse?"
+
+"The old dad 'll be asking for the horse to-morrow."
+
+"I saw a horse, my dear, afore I turned to my prayers at my bedside,
+coming down the street without his rider. He came like a rumble
+of deafness in my ears. Oh, my boy, I thought, Is it Robert's
+horse?--knowing you've got enemies, as there's no brave man has not got
+'em--which is our only hope in the God of heaven!"
+
+"Mother, punch my ribs."
+
+He stretched himself flat for the operation, and shut his mouth.
+
+"Hard, mother!--and quick!--I can't hold out long."
+
+"Oh! Robert," moaned the petrified woman "strike you?"
+
+"Straight in the ribs. Shut your fist and do it--quick."
+
+"My dear!--my boy!--I haven't the heart to do it!"
+
+"Ah!" Robert's chest dropped in; but tightening his muscles again, he
+said, "now do it--do it!"
+
+"Oh! a poke at a poor fire puts it out, dear. And make a murderess of
+me, you call mother! Oh! as I love the name, I'll obey you, Robert.
+But!--there!"
+
+"Harder, mother."
+
+"There!--goodness forgive me!"
+
+"Hard as you can--all's right."
+
+"There!--and there!--oh!--mercy!"
+
+"Press in at my stomach."
+
+She nerved herself to do his bidding, and, following his orders, took
+his head in her hands, and felt about it. The anguish of the touch wrung
+a stifled scream from him, at which she screamed responsive. He laughed,
+while twisting with the pain.
+
+"You cruel boy, to laugh at your mother," she said, delighted by the
+sound of safety in that sweet human laughter. "Hey! don't ye shake
+your brain; it ought to lie quiet. And here's the spot of the wicked
+blow--and him in love--as I know he is! What would she say if she saw
+him now? But an old woman's the best nurse--ne'er a doubt of it."
+
+She felt him heavy on her arm, and knew that he had fainted. Quelling
+her first impulse to scream, she dropped him gently on the pillow, and
+rapped to rouse up her maid.
+
+The two soon produced a fire and hot water, bandages, vinegar in a
+basin, and every crude appliance that could be thought of, the maid
+followed her mistress's directions with a consoling awe, for Mrs. Boulby
+had told her no more than that a man was hurt.
+
+"I do hope, if it's anybody, it's that ther' Moody," said the maid.
+
+"A pretty sort of a Christian you think yourself, I dare say," Mrs.
+Boulby replied.
+
+"Christian or not, one can't help longin' for a choice, mum. We ain't
+all hands and knees."
+
+"Better for you if you was," said the widow. "It's tongues, you're to
+remember, you're not to be. Now come you up after me--and you'll not
+utter a word. You'll stand behind the door to do what I tell you. You're
+a soldier's daughter, Susan, and haven't a claim to be excitable."
+
+"My mother was given to faints," Susan protested on behalf of her
+possible weakness.
+
+"You may peep." Thus Mrs. Boulby tossed a sop to her frail woman's
+nature.
+
+But for her having been appeased by the sagacious accordance of this
+privilege, the maid would never have endured to hear Robert's voice in
+agony, and to think that it was really Robert, the beloved of Warbeach,
+who had come to harm. Her apprehensions not being so lively as her
+mistress's, by reason of her love being smaller, she was more terrified
+than comforted by Robert's jokes during the process of washing off the
+blood, cutting the hair from the wound, bandaging and binding up the
+head.
+
+His levity seemed ghastly; and his refusal upon any persuasion to see a
+doctor quite heathenish, and a sign of one foredoomed.
+
+She believed that his arm was broken, and smarted with wrath at her
+mistress for so easily taking his word to the contrary. More than all,
+his abjuration of brandy now when it would do him good to take
+it, struck her as an instance of that masculine insanity in the
+comprehension of which all women must learn to fortify themselves. There
+was much whispering in the room, inarticulate to her, before Mrs. Boulby
+came out; enjoining a rigorous silence, and stating that the patient
+would drink nothing but tea.
+
+"He begged," she said half to herself, "to have the window blinds up
+in the morning, if the sun wasn't strong, for him to look on our river
+opening down to the ships."
+
+"That looks as if he meant to live," Susan remarked.
+
+"He!" cried the widow, "it's Robert Eccles. He'd stand on his last
+inch."
+
+"Would he, now!" ejaculated Susan, marvelling at him, with no question
+as to what footing that might be.
+
+"Leastways," the widow hastened to add, "if he thought it was only
+devils against him. I've heard him say, 'It's a fool that holds out
+against God, and a coward as gives in to the devil;' and there's my
+Robert painted by his own hand."
+
+"But don't that bring him to this so often, Mum?" Susan ruefully
+inquired, joining teapot and kettle.
+
+"I do believe he's protected," said the widow.
+
+With the first morning light Mrs. Boulby was down at Warbeach Farm, and
+being directed to Farmer Eccles in the stables, she found the sturdy
+yeoman himself engaged in grooming Robert's horse.
+
+"Well, Missis," he said, nodding to her; "you win, you see. I thought
+you would; I'd have sworn you would. Brandy's stronger than blood, with
+some of our young fellows."
+
+"If you please, Mr. Eccles," she replied, "Robert's sending of me was to
+know if the horse was unhurt and safe."
+
+"Won't his legs carry him yet, Missis?"
+
+"His legs have been graciously spared, Mr. Eccles; it's his head."
+
+"That's where the liquor flies, I'm told."
+
+"Pray, Mr. Eccles, believe me when I declare he hasn't touched a drop of
+anything but tea in my house this past night."
+
+"I'm sorry for that; I'd rather have him go to you. If he takes it, let
+him take it good; and I'm given to understand that you've a reputation
+that way. Just tell him from me, he's at liberty to play the devil with
+himself, but not with my beasts."
+
+The farmer continued his labour.
+
+"No, you ain't a hard man, surely," cried the widow. "Not when I say he
+was sober, Mr. Eccles; and was thrown, and made insensible?"
+
+"Never knew such a thing to happen to him, Missis, and, what's more,
+I don't believe it. Mayhap you're come for his things: his Aunt Anne's
+indoors, and she'll give 'em up, and gladly. And my compliments to
+Robert, and the next time he fancies visiting Warbeach, he'd best
+forward a letter to that effect."
+
+Mrs. Boulby curtseyed humbly. "You think bad of me, sir, for keeping a
+public; but I love your son as my own, and if I might presume to say so,
+Mr. Eccles, you will be proud of him too before you die. I know no more
+than you how he fell yesterday, but I do know he'd not been drinking,
+and have got bitter bad enemies."
+
+"And that's not astonishing, Missis."
+
+"No, Mr. Eccles; and a man who's brave besides being good soon learns
+that."
+
+"Well spoken, Missis."
+
+"Is Robert to hear he's denied his father's house?"
+
+"I never said that, Mrs. Boulby. Here's my principle--My house is open
+to my blood, so long as he don't bring downright disgrace on it, and
+then any one may claim him that likes I won't give him money, because
+I know of a better use for it; and he shan't ride my beasts, because he
+don't know how to treat 'em. That's all."
+
+"And so you keep within the line of your duty, sir," the widow summed
+his speech.
+
+"So I hope to," said the farmer.
+
+"There's comfort in that," she replied.
+
+"As much as there's needed," said he.
+
+The widow curtseyed again. "It's not to trouble you, sir, I called.
+Robert--thanks be to Above!--is not hurt serious, though severe."
+
+"Where's he hurt?" the farmer asked rather hurriedly.
+
+"In the head, it is."
+
+"What have you come for?"
+
+"First, his best hat."
+
+"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the farmer. "Well, if that 'll mend his head
+it's at his service, I'm sure."
+
+Sick at his heartlessness, the widow scattered emphasis over her
+concluding remarks. "First, his best hat, he wants; and his coat and
+clean shirt; and they mend the looks of a man, Mr. Eccles; and it's to
+look well is his object: for he's not one to make a moan of himself, and
+doctors may starve before he'd go to any of them. And my begging prayer
+to you is, that when you see your son, you'll not tell him I let you
+know his head or any part of him was hurt. I wish you good morning, Mr.
+Eccles."
+
+"Good morning to you, Mrs. Boulby. You're a respectable woman."
+
+"Not to be soaped," she murmured to herself in a heat.
+
+The apparently medicinal articles of attire were obtained from Aunt
+Anne, without a word of speech on the part of that pale spinster. The
+deferential hostility between the two women acknowledged an intervening
+chasm. Aunt Anne produced a bundle, and placed the hat on it, upon which
+she had neatly pinned a tract, "The Drunkard's Awakening!" Mrs. Boulby
+glanced her eye in wrath across this superscription, thinking to
+herself, "Oh, you good people! how you make us long in our hearts for
+trouble with you." She controlled the impulse, and mollified her
+spirit on her way home by distributing stray leaves of the tract to the
+outlying heaps of rubbish, and to one inquisitive pig, who was looking
+up from a badly-smelling sty for what the heavens might send him.
+
+She found Robert with his arm doubled over a basin, and Susan sponging
+cold water on it.
+
+"No bones broken, mother!" he sang out. "I'm sound; all right again. Six
+hours have done it this time. Is it a thaw? You needn't tell me what the
+old dad has been saying. I shall be ready to breakfast in half an hour."
+
+"Lord, what a big arm it is!" exclaimed the widow. "And no wonder, or
+how would you be a terror to men? You naughty boy, to think of stirring!
+Here you'll lie."
+
+"Ah, will I?" said Robert: and he gave a spring, and sat upright in the
+bed, rather white with the effort, which seemed to affect his mind, for
+he asked dubiously, "What do I look like, mother?"
+
+She brought him the looking-glass, and Susan being dismissed, he
+examined his features.
+
+"Dear!" said the widow, sitting down on the bed; "it ain't much for me
+to guess you've got an appointment."
+
+"At twelve o'clock, mother."
+
+"With her?" she uttered softly.
+
+"It's with a lady, mother."
+
+"And so many enemies prowling about, Robert, my dear! Don't tell me they
+didn't fall upon you last night. I said nothing, but I'd swear it on the
+Book. Do you think you can go?"
+
+"Why, mother, I go by my feelings, and there's no need to think at all,
+or God knows what I should think."
+
+The widow shook her head. "Nothing 'll stop you, I suppose?"
+
+"Nothing inside of me will, mother."
+
+"Doesn't she but never mind. I've no right to ask, Robert; and if I
+have curiosity, it's about last night, and why you should let villains
+escape. But there's no accounting for a man's notions; only, this I say,
+and I do say it, Nic Sedgett, he's at the bottom of any mischief brewed
+against you down here. And last night Stephen Bilton, or somebody,
+declared that Nic Sedgett had been seen up at Fairly."
+
+"Selling eggs, mother. Why shouldn't he? We mustn't complain of his
+getting an honest livelihood."
+
+"He's black-blooded, Robert; and I never can understand why the Lord did
+not make him a beast in face. I'm told that creature's found pleasing by
+the girls."
+
+"Ugh, mother, I'm not."
+
+"She won't have you, Robert?"
+
+He laughed. "We shall see to-day."
+
+"You deceiving boy!" cried the widow; "and me not know it's Mrs. Lovell
+you're going to meet! and would to heaven she'd see the worth of ye, for
+it's a born lady you ought to marry."
+
+"Just feel in my pockets, mother, and you won't be so ready with your
+talk of my marrying. And now I'll get up. I feel as if my legs had to
+learn over again how to bear me. The old dad, bless his heart! gave me
+sound wind and limb to begin upon, so I'm not easily stumped, you see,
+though I've been near on it once or twice in my life."
+
+Mrs. Boulby murmured, "Ah! are you still going to be at war with those
+gentlemen, Robert?"
+
+He looked at her steadily, while a shrewd smile wrought over his face,
+and then taking her hand, he said, "I'll tell you a little; you
+deserve it, and won't tattle. My curse is, I'm ashamed to talk about
+my feelings; but there's no shame in being fond of a girl, even if she
+refuses to have anything to say to you, is there? No, there isn't.
+I went with my dear old aunt's money to a farmer in Kent, and learnt
+farming; clear of the army first, by--But I must stop that burst of
+swearing. Half the time I've been away, I was there. The farmer's a
+good, sober, downhearted man--a sort of beaten Englishman, who don't
+know it, tough, and always backing. He has two daughters: one went to
+London, and came to harm, of a kind. The other I'd prick this vein
+for and bleed to death, singing; and she hates me! I wish she did. She
+thought me such a good young man! I never drank; went to bed early, was
+up at work with the birds. Mr. Robert Armstrong! That changeing of my
+name was like a lead cap on my head. I was never myself with it, felt
+hang-dog--it was impossible a girl could care for such a fellow as I
+was. Mother, just listen: she's dark as a gipsy. She's the faithfullest,
+stoutest-hearted creature in the world. She has black hair, large brown
+eyes; see her once! She's my mate. I could say to her, 'Stand there;
+take guard of a thing;' and I could be dead certain of her--she'd perish
+at her post. Is the door locked? Lock the door; I won't be seen when I
+speak of her. Well, never mind whether she's handsome or not. She isn't
+a lady; but she's my lady; she's the woman I could be proud of. She
+sends me to the devil! I believe a woman 'd fall in love with her
+cheeks, they are so round and soft and kindly coloured. Think me a fool;
+I am. And here am I, away from her, and I feel that any day harm may
+come to her, and she 'll melt, and be as if the devils of hell were
+mocking me. Who's to keep harm from her when I'm away? What can I do
+but drink and forget? Only now, when I wake up from it, I'm a crawling
+wretch at her feet. If I had her feet to kiss! I've never kissed
+her--never! And no man has kissed her. Damn my head! here's the ache
+coming on. That's my last oath, mother. I wish there was a Bible handy,
+but I'll try and stick to it without. My God! when I think of her, I
+fancy everything on earth hangs still and doubts what's to happen. I'm
+like a wheel, and go on spinning. Feel my pulse now. Why is it I can't
+stop it? But there she is, and I could crack up this old world to know
+what's coming. I was mild as milk all those days I was near her. My
+comfort is, she don't know me. And that's my curse too! If she did,
+she'd know as clear as day I'm her mate, her match, the man for her. I
+am, by heaven!--that's an oath permitted. To see the very soul I want,
+and to miss her! I'm down here, mother; she loves her sister, and I
+must learn where her sister's to be found. One of those gentlemen up at
+Fairly's the guilty man. I don't say which; perhaps I don't know. But
+oh, what a lot of lightnings I see in the back of my head!"
+
+Robert fell back on the pillow. Mrs. Boulby wiped her eyes. Her feelings
+were overwhelmed with mournful devotion to the passionate young man; and
+she expressed them practically: "A rump-steak would never digest in his
+poor stomach!"
+
+He seemed to be of that opinion too, for when, after lying till eleven,
+he rose and appeared at the breakfast-table, he ate nothing but crumbs
+of dry bread. It was curious to see his precise attention to the
+neatness of his hat and coat, and the nervous eye he cast upon the
+clock, while brushing and accurately fixing these garments. The hat
+would not sit as he was accustomed to have it, owing to the bruise on
+his head, and he stood like a woman petulant with her milliner before
+the glass; now pressing the hat down till the pain was insufferable, and
+again trying whether it presented him acceptably in the enforced style
+of his wearing it. He persisted in this, till Mrs. Boulby's exclamation
+of wonder admonished him of the ideas received by other eyes than his
+own. When we appear most incongruous, we are often exposing the key to
+our characters; and how much his vanity, wounded by Rhoda, had to do
+with his proceedings down at Warbeach, it were unfair to measure just
+yet, lest his finer qualities be cast into shade, but to what degree it
+affected him will be seen.
+
+Mrs. Boulby's persuasions induced him to take a stout silver-topped
+walking-stick of her husband's, a relic shaped from the wood of the
+Royal George; leaning upon which rather more like a Naval pensioner than
+he would have cared to know, he went forth to his appointment with the
+lady.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+The park-sward of Fairly, white with snow, rolled down in long sweeps to
+the salt water: and under the last sloping oak of the park there was
+a gorse-bushed lane, green in Summer, but now bearing cumbrous
+blossom--like burdens of the crisp snow-fall. Mrs. Lovell sat on
+horseback here, and alone, with her gauntleted hand at her waist,
+charmingly habited in tone with the landscape. She expected a cavalier,
+and did not perceive the approach of a pedestrian, but bowed quietly
+when Robert lifted his hat.
+
+"They say you are mad. You see, I trust myself to you."
+
+"I wish I could thank you for your kindness, madam."
+
+"Are you ill?"
+
+"I had a fall last night, madam."
+
+The lady patted her horse's neck.
+
+"I haven't time to inquire about it. You understand that I cannot give
+you more than a minute."
+
+She glanced at her watch.
+
+"Let us say five exactly. To begin: I can't affect to be ignorant of
+the business which brings you down here. I won't pretend to lecture you
+about the course you have taken; but, let me distinctly assure you, that
+the gentleman you have chosen to attack in this extraordinary manner,
+has done no wrong to you or to any one. It is, therefore, disgracefully
+unjust to single him out. You know he cannot possibly fight you. I speak
+plainly."
+
+"Yes, madam," said Robert. "I'll answer plainly. He can't fight a man
+like me. I know it. I bear him no ill-will. I believe he's innocent
+enough in this matter, as far as acts go."
+
+"That makes your behaviour to him worse!"
+
+Robert looked up into her eyes.
+
+"You are a lady. You won't be shocked at what I tell you."
+
+"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Lovell, hastily: "I have learnt--I am aware of the
+tale. Some one has been injured or, you think so. I don't accuse you of
+madness, but, good heavens! what means have you been pursuing! Indeed,
+sir, let your feelings be as deeply engaged as possible, you have gone
+altogether the wrong way to work."
+
+"Not if I have got your help by it, madam."
+
+"Gallantly spoken."
+
+She smiled with a simple grace. The next moment she consulted her watch.
+
+"Time has gone faster than I anticipated. I must leave you. Let this be
+our stipulation:"
+
+She lowered her voice.
+
+"You shall have the address you require. I will undertake to see her
+myself, when next I am in London. It will be soon. In return, sir,
+favour me with your word of honour not to molest this gentleman any
+further. Will you do that? You may trust me."
+
+"I do, madam, with all my soul!" said Robert.
+
+"That's sufficient. I ask no more. Good morning."
+
+Her parting bow remained with him like a vision. Her voice was like the
+tinkling of harp-strings about his ears. The colour of her riding-habit
+this day, harmonious with the snow-faced earth, as well as the gentle
+mission she had taken upon herself, strengthened his vivid fancy in
+blessing her as something quite divine.
+
+He thought for the first time in his life bitterly of the great fortune
+which fell to gentlemen in meeting and holding equal converse with so
+adorable a creature; and he thought of Rhoda as being harshly earthly;
+repulsive in her coldness as that black belt of water contrasted against
+the snow on the shores.
+
+He walked some paces in the track of Mrs. Lovell's horse, till his doing
+so seemed too presumptuous, though to turn the other way and retrace
+his steps was downright hateful: and he stood apparently in profound
+contemplation of a ship of war and the trees of the forest behind the
+masts. Either the fatigue of standing, or emotion, caused his head to
+throb, so that he heard nothing, not even men's laughter; but looking
+up suddenly, he beheld, as in a picture, Mrs. Lovell with some gentlemen
+walking their horses toward him. The lady gazed softly over his head,
+letting her eyes drop a quiet recognition in passing; one or two of the
+younger gentlemen stared mockingly.
+
+Edward Blancove was by Mrs. Lovell's side. His eyes fixed upon Robert
+with steady scrutiny, and Robert gave him a similar inspection, though
+not knowing why. It was like a child's open look, and he was feeling
+childish, as if his brain had ceased to act. One of the older gentlemen,
+with a military aspect, squared his shoulders, and touching an end of
+his moustache, said, half challengingly,--
+
+"You are dismounted to-day?"
+
+"I have only one horse," Robert simply replied.
+
+Algernon Blancove came last. He neither spoke nor looked at his enemy,
+but warily clutched his whip. All went by, riding into line some paces
+distant; and again they laughed as they bent forward to the lady,
+shouting.
+
+"Odd, to have out the horses on a day like this," Robert thought, and
+resumed his musing as before. The lady's track now led him homeward, for
+he had no will of his own. Rounding the lane, he was surprised to see
+Mrs. Boulby by the hedge. She bobbed like a beggar woman, with a rueful
+face.
+
+"My dear," she said, in apology for her presence, "I shouldn't ha'
+interfered, if there was fair play. I'm Englishwoman enough for that.
+I'd have stood by, as if you was a stranger. Gentlemen always give fair
+play before a woman. That's why I come, lest this appointment should ha'
+proved a pitfall to you. Now you'll come home, won't you; and forgive
+me?"
+
+"I'll come to the old Pilot now, mother," said Robert, pressing her
+hand.
+
+"That's right; and ain't angry with me for following of you?"
+
+"Follow your own game, mother."
+
+"I did, Robert; and nice and vexed I am, if I'm correct in what I heard
+say, as that lady and her folk passed, never heeding an old woman's
+ears. They made a bet of you, dear, they did."
+
+"I hope the lady won," said Robert, scarce hearing.
+
+"And it was she who won, dear. She was to get you to meet her, and give
+up, and be beaten like, as far as I could understand their chatter;
+gentlefolks laugh so when they talk; and they can afford to laugh, for
+they has the best of it. But I'm vexed; just as if I'd felt big and had
+burst. I want you to be peaceful, of course I do; but I don't like my
+boy made a bet of."
+
+"Oh, tush, mother," said Robert impatiently.
+
+"I heard 'em, my dear; and complimenting the lady they was, as they
+passed me. If it vexes you my thinking it, I won't, dear; I reelly
+won't. I see it lowers you, for there you are at your hat again. It is
+lowering, to be made a bet of. I've that spirit, that if you was well
+and sound, I'd rather have you fighting 'em. She's a pleasant enough
+lady to look at, not a doubt; small-boned, and slim, and fair."
+
+Robert asked which way they had gone.
+
+"Back to the stables, my dear; I heard 'em say so, because one gentleman
+said that the spectacle was over, and the lady had gained the day; and
+the snow was balling in the horses' feet; and go they'd better, before
+my lord saw them out. And another said, you were a wild man she'd tamed;
+and they said, you ought to wear a collar, with Mrs. Lovell's, her
+name, graved on it. But don't you be vexed; you may guess they're not
+my Robert's friends. And, I do assure you, Robert, your hat's neat,
+if you'd only let it be comfortable: such fidgeting worries the brim.
+You're best in appearance--and I always said it--when stripped for
+boxing. Hats are gentlemen's things, and becomes them like as if a title
+to their heads; though you'd bear being Sir Robert, that you would; and
+for that matter, your hat is agreeable to behold, and not like the run
+of our Sunday hats; only you don't seem easy in it. Oh, oh! my tongue's
+a yard too long. It's the poor head aching, and me to forget it. It's
+because you never will act invalidy; and I remember how handsome you
+were one day in the field behind our house, when you boxed a wager
+with Simon Billet, the waterman; and you was made a bet of then, for my
+husband betted on you; and that's what made me think of comparisons of
+you out of your hat and you in it."
+
+Thus did Mrs. Boulby chatter along the way. There was an eminence a
+little out of the road, overlooking the Fairly stables. Robert left
+her and went to this point, from whence he beheld the horsemen with the
+grooms at the horses' heads.
+
+"Thank God, I've only been a fool for five minutes!" he summed up his
+sensations at the sight. He shut his eyes, praying with all his might
+never to meet Mrs. Lovell more. It was impossible for him to combat the
+suggestion that she had befooled him; yet his chivalrous faith in
+women led him to believe, that as she knew Dahlia's history, she would
+certainly do her best for the poor girl, and keep her word to him.
+The throbbing of his head stopped all further thought. It had become
+violent. He tried to gather his ideas, but the effort was like that of
+a light dreamer to catch the sequence of a dream, when blackness follows
+close up, devouring all that is said and done. In despair, he thought
+with kindness of Mrs. Boulby's brandy.
+
+"Mother," he said, rejoining her, "I've got a notion brandy can't hurt
+a man when he's in bed. I'll go to bed, and you shall brew me some; and
+you'll let no one come nigh me; and if I talk light-headed, it's blank
+paper and scribble, mind that."
+
+The widow promised devoutly to obey all his directions; but he had begun
+to talk light-headed before he was undressed. He called on the name of
+a Major Waring, of whom Mrs. Boulby had heard him speak tenderly as a
+gentleman not ashamed to be his friend; first reproaching him for not
+being by, and then by the name of Percy, calling to him endearingly, and
+reproaching himself for not having written to him.
+
+"Two to one, and in the dark!" he kept moaning "and I one to twenty,
+Percy, all in broad day. Was it fair, I ask?"
+
+Robert's outcries became anything but "blank paper and scribble" to the
+widow, when he mentioned Nic Sedgett's name, and said: "Look over his
+right temple he's got my mark a second time."
+
+Hanging by his bedside, Mrs. Boulby strung together, bit by bit, the
+history of that base midnight attack, which had sent her glorious boy
+bleeding to her. Nic Sedgett; she could understand, was the accomplice
+of one of the Fairly gentlemen; but of which one, she could not
+discover, and consequently set him down as Mr. Algernon Blancove.
+
+By diligent inquiry, she heard that Algernon had been seen in company
+with the infamous Nic, and likewise that the countenance of Nicodemus
+was reduced to accept the consolation of a poultice, which was
+confirmation sufficient. By nightfall Robert was in the doctor's hands,
+unconscious of Mrs. Boulby's breach of agreement. His father and his
+aunt were informed of his condition, and prepared, both of them, to
+bow their heads to the close of an ungodly career. It was known over
+Warbeach, that Robert lay in danger, and believed that he was dying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Mrs. Boulby's ears had not deceived her; it had been a bet: and the day
+would have gone disastrously with Robert, if Mrs. Lovell had not won
+her bet. What was heroism to Warbeach, appeared very outrageous
+blackguardism up at Fairly. It was there believed by the gentlemen,
+though rather against evidence, that the man was a sturdy ruffian,
+and an infuriated sot. The first suggestion was to drag him before
+the magistrates; but against this Algernon protested, declaring his
+readiness to defend himself, with so vehement a magnanimity, that it was
+clearly seen the man had a claim on him. Lord Elling, however, when he
+was told of these systematic assaults upon one of his guests, announced
+his resolve to bring the law into operation. Algernon heard it as the
+knell to his visit.
+
+He was too happy, to go away willingly; and the great Jew City of London
+was exceedingly hot for him at that period; but to stay and risk an
+exposure of his extinct military career, was not possible. In his
+despair, he took Mrs. Lovell entirely into his confidence; in doing
+which, he only filled up the outlines of what she already knew
+concerning Edward. He was too useful to the lady for her to afford to
+let him go. No other youth called her "angel" for listening complacently
+to strange stories of men and their dilemmas; no one fetched and carried
+for her like Algernon; and she was a woman who cherished dog-like
+adoration, and could not part with it. She had also the will to reward
+it.
+
+At her intercession, Robert was spared an introduction to the
+magistrates. She made light of his misdemeanours, assuring everybody
+that so splendid a horseman deserved to be dealt with differently from
+other offenders. The gentlemen who waited upon Farmer Eccles went in
+obedience to her orders.
+
+Then came the scene on Ditley Marsh, described to that assembly at the
+Pilot, by Stephen Bilton, when she perceived that Robert was manageable
+in silken trammels, and made a bet that she would show him tamed. She
+won her bet, and saved the gentlemen from soiling their hands, for which
+they had conceived a pressing necessity, and they thanked her, and paid
+their money over to Algernon, whom she constituted her treasurer. She
+was called "the man-tamer," gracefully acknowledging the compliment.
+Colonel Barclay, the moustachioed horseman, who had spoken the few words
+to Robert in passing, now remarked that there was an end of the military
+profession.
+
+"I surrender my sword," he said gallantly.
+
+Another declared that ladies would now act in lieu of causing an appeal
+to arms.
+
+"Similia similibus, &c.," said Edward. "They can, apparently, cure what
+they originate."
+
+"Ah, the poor sex!" Mrs. Lovell sighed. "When we bring the millennium to
+you, I believe you will still have a word against Eve."
+
+The whole parade back to the stables was marked by pretty speeches.
+
+"By Jove! but he ought to have gone down on his knees, like a horse when
+you've tamed him," said Lord Suckling, the young guardsman.
+
+"I would mark a distinction between a horse and a brave man, Lord
+Suckling," said the lady; and such was Mrs. Lovell's dignity when an
+allusion to Robert was forced on her, and her wit and ease were so
+admirable, that none of those who rode with her thought of sitting in
+judgement on her conduct. Women can make for themselves new spheres,
+new laws, if they will assume their right to be eccentric as an
+unquestionable thing, and always reserve a season for showing forth like
+the conventional women of society.
+
+The evening was Mrs. Lovell's time for this important re-establishment
+of her position; and many a silly youth who had sailed pleasantly with
+her all the day, was wrecked when he tried to carry on the topics where
+she reigned the lady of the drawing-room. Moreover, not being eccentric
+from vanity, but simply to accommodate what had once been her tastes,
+and were now her necessities, she avoided slang, and all the insignia of
+eccentricity.
+
+Thus she mastered the secret of keeping the young men respectfully
+enthusiastic; so that their irrepressible praises did not (as is usual
+when these are in acclamation) drag her to their level; and the female
+world, with which she was perfectly feminine, and as silkenly insipid
+every evening of her life as was needed to restore her reputation,
+admitted that she belonged to it, which is everything to an adventurous
+spirit of that sex: indeed, the sole secure basis of operations.
+
+You are aware that men's faith in a woman whom her sisters
+discountenance, and partially repudiate, is uneasy, however deeply
+they may be charmed. On the other hand, she maybe guilty of prodigious
+oddities without much disturbing their reverence, while she is in the
+feminine circle.
+
+But what fatal breath was it coming from Mrs. Lovell that was always
+inflaming men to mutual animosity? What encouragement had she given to
+Algernon, that Lord Suckling should be jealous of him? And what to Lord
+Suckling, that Algernon should loathe the sight of the young lord? And
+why was each desirous of showing his manhood in combat before an eminent
+peacemaker?
+
+Edward laughed--"Ah-ha!" and rubbed his hands as at a special
+confirmation of his prophecy, when Algernon came into his room and
+said, "I shall fight that fellow Suckling. Hang me if I can stand his
+impudence! I want to have a shot at a man of my own set, just to let
+Peggy Lovell see! I know what she thinks."
+
+"Just to let Mrs. Lovell see!" Edward echoed. "She has seen it lots of
+times, my dear Algy. Come; this looks lively. I was sure she would soon
+be sick of the water-gruel of peace."
+
+"I tell you she's got nothing to do with it, Ned. Don't be confoundedly
+unjust. She didn't tell me to go and seek him. How can she help his
+whispering to her? And then she looks over at me, and I swear I'm not
+going to be defended by a woman. She must fancy I haven't got the pluck
+of a flea. I know what her idea of young fellows is. Why, she said
+to me, when Suckling went off from her, the other day, 'These are our
+Guards.' I shall fight him."
+
+"Do," said Edward.
+
+"Will you take a challenge?"
+
+"I'm a lawyer, Mr. Mars."
+
+"You won't take a challenge for a friend, when he's insulted?"
+
+"I reply again, I am a lawyer. But this is what I'll do, if you like.
+I'll go to Mrs. Lovely and inform her that it is your desire to gain her
+esteem by fighting with pistols. That will accomplish the purpose you
+seek. It will possibly disappoint her, for she will have to stop the
+affair; but women are born to be disappointed--they want so much."
+
+"I'll fight him some way or other," said Algernon, glowering; and
+then his face became bright: "I say, didn't she manage that business
+beautifully this morning? Not another woman in the world could have done
+it."
+
+"Oh, Una and the Lion! Mrs. Valentine and Orson! Did you bet with the
+rest?" his cousin asked.
+
+"I lost my tenner; but what's that!"
+
+"There will be an additional five to hand over to the man Sedgett.
+What's that!"
+
+"No, hang it!" Algernon shouted.
+
+"You've paid your ten for the shadow cheerfully. Pay your five for the
+substance."
+
+"Do you mean to say that Sedgett--" Algernon stared.
+
+"Miracles, if you come to examine them, Algy, have generally had a
+pathway prepared for them; and the miracle of the power of female
+persuasion exhibited this morning was not quite independent of the
+preliminary agency of a scoundrel."
+
+"So that's why you didn't bet." Algernon signified the opening of his
+intelligence with his eyelids, pronouncing "by jingos" and "by Joves,"
+to ease the sudden rush of ideas within him. "You might have let me
+into the secret, Ned. I'd lose any number of tens to Peggy Lovell, but a
+fellow don't like to be in the dark."
+
+"Except, Algy, that when you carry light, you're a general illuminator.
+Let the matter drop. Sedgett has saved you from annoyance. Take him his
+five pounds."
+
+"Annoyance be hanged, my good Ned!" Algernon was aroused to reply. "I
+don't complain, and I've done my best to stand in front of you; and as
+you've settled the fellow, I say nothing; but, between us two, who's the
+guilty party, and who's the victim?"
+
+"Didn't he tell you he had you in his power?"
+
+"I don't remember that he did."
+
+"Well, I heard him. The sturdy cur refused to be bribed, so there was
+only one way of quieting him; and you see what a thrashing does for that
+sort of beast. I, Algy, never abandon a friend; mark that. Take the five
+pounds to Sedgett."
+
+Algernon strode about the room. "First of all, you stick me up in a
+theatre, so that I'm seen with a girl; and then you get behind me, and
+let me be pelted," he began grumbling. "And ask a fellow for money, who
+hasn't a farthing! I shan't literally have a farthing till that horse
+'Templemore' runs; and then, by George! I'll pay my debts. Jews are
+awful things!"
+
+"How much do you require at present?" said Edward, provoking his
+appetite for a loan.
+
+"Oh, fifty--that is, just now. More like a thousand when I get to town.
+And where it's to come from! but never mind. 'Pon my soul, I pity the
+fox I run down here. I feel I'm exactly in his case in London. However,
+if I can do you any service, Ned--"
+
+Edward laughed. "You might have done me the service of not excusing
+yourself to the squire when he came here, in such a way as to implicate
+me."
+
+"But I was so tremendously badgered, Ned."
+
+"You had a sort of gratification in letting the squire crow over his
+brother. And he did crow for a time."
+
+"On my honour, Ned, as to crowing! he went away cursing at me. Peggy
+Lovell managed it somehow for you. I was really awfully badgered."
+
+"Yes; but you know what a man my father is. He hasn't the squire's
+philosophy in those affairs."
+
+"'Pon my soul, Mr. Ned, I never guessed it before; but I rather fancy
+you got clear with Sir Billy the banker by washing in my basin--eh, did
+you?"
+
+Edward looked straight at his cousin, saying, "You deserved worse than
+that. You were treacherous. You proved you were not to be trusted; and
+yet, you see, I trust you. Call it my folly. Of course (and I don't mind
+telling you) I used my wits to turn the point of the attack. I may be
+what they call unscrupulous when I'm surprised. I have to look to
+money as well as you; and if my father thought it went in a--what he
+considers--wrong direction, the source would be choked by paternal
+morality. You betrayed me. Listen."
+
+"I tell you, Ned, I merely said to my governor--"
+
+"Listen to me. You betrayed me. I defended myself; that is, I've managed
+so that I may still be of service to you. It was a near shave; but you
+now see the value of having a character with one's father. Just open my
+writing-desk there, and toss out the cheque-book. I confess I can't see
+why you should have objected--but let that pass. How much do you want?
+Fifty? Say forty-five, and five I'll give you to pay to Sedgett--making
+fifty. Eighty before, and fifty--one hundred and thirty. Write that you
+owe me that sum, on a piece of paper. I can't see why you should wish to
+appear so uncommonly virtuous."
+
+Algernon scribbled the written acknowledgment, which he despised himself
+for giving, and the receiver for taking, but was always ready to give
+for the money, and said, as he put the cheque in his purse: "It was this
+infernal fellow completely upset me. If you were worried by a bull-dog,
+by Jove, Ned, you'd lose your coolness. He bothered my head off. Ask me
+now, and I'll do anything on earth for you. My back's broad. Sir Billy
+can't think worse of me than he does. Do you want to break positively
+with that pretty rival to Peggy L.? I've got a scheme to relieve you,
+my poor old Ned, and make everybody happy. I'll lay the foundations of a
+fresh and brilliant reputation for myself."
+
+Algernon took a chair. Edward was fathoms deep in his book.
+
+The former continued: "I'd touch on the money-question last, with any
+other fellow than you; but you always know that money's the hinge, and
+nothing else lifts a man out of a scrape. It costs a stiff pull on your
+banker, and that reminds me, you couldn't go to Sir Billy for it; you'd
+have to draw in advance, by degrees anyhow, look here:--There are lots
+of young farmers who want to emigrate and want wives and money. I know
+one. It's no use going into particulars, but it's worth thinking over.
+Life is made up of mutual help, Ned. You can help another fellow better
+than yourself. As for me, when I'm in a hobble, I give you my word of
+honour, I'm just like a baby, and haven't an idea at my own disposal.
+The same with others. You can't manage without somebody's assistance.
+What do you say, old boy?"
+
+Edward raised his head from his book. "Some views of life deduced
+from your private experience?" he observed; and Algernon cursed at
+book-worms, who would never take hints, and left him.
+
+But when he was by himself, Edward pitched his book upon the floor and
+sat reflecting. The sweat started on his forehead. He was compelled to
+look into his black volume and study it. His desire was to act humanely
+and generously; but the question inevitably recurred: "How can I utterly
+dash my prospects in the world?" It would be impossible to bring Dahlia
+to great houses; and he liked great houses and the charm of mixing among
+delicately-bred women. On the other hand, lawyers have married beneath
+them--married cooks, housemaids, governesses, and so forth. And what has
+a lawyer to do with a dainty lady, who will constantly distract him with
+finicking civilities and speculations in unprofitable regions? What he
+does want is a woman amiable as a surface of parchment, serviceable
+as his inkstand; one who will be like the wig in which he closes his
+forensic term, disreputable from overwear, but suited to the purpose.
+
+"Ah! if I meant to be nothing but a lawyer!" Edward stopped the flow of
+this current in Dahlia's favour. His passion for her was silent. Was it
+dead? It was certainly silent. Since Robert had come down to play his
+wild game of persecution at Fairly, the simple idea of Dahlia had been
+Edward's fever. He detested brute force, with a finely-witted man's full
+loathing; and Dahlia's obnoxious champion had grown to be associated
+in his mind with Dahlia. He swept them both from his recollection
+abhorrently, for in his recollection he could not divorce them. He
+pretended to suppose that Dahlia, whose only reproach to him was her
+suffering, participated in the scheme to worry him. He could even forget
+her beauty--forget all, save the unholy fetters binding him. She seemed
+to imprison him in bare walls. He meditated on her character. She had
+no strength. She was timid, comfort-loving, fond of luxury, credulous,
+preposterously conventional; that is, desirous more than the ordinary
+run of women of being hedged about and guarded by ceremonies--"mere
+ceremonies," said Edward, forgetting the notion he entertained of women
+not so protected. But it may be, that in playing the part of fool and
+coward, we cease to be mindful of the absolute necessity for sheltering
+the weak from that monstrous allied army, the cowards and the fools.
+He admitted even to himself that he had deceived her, at the same time
+denouncing her unheard-of capacity of belief, which had placed him in a
+miserable hobble, and that was the truth.
+
+Now, men confessing themselves in a miserable hobble, and knowing they
+are guilty of the state of things lamented by them, intend to drown that
+part of their nature which disturbs them by its outcry. The submission
+to a tangle that could be cut through instantaneously by any exertion of
+a noble will, convicts them. They had better not confide, even to their
+secret hearts, that they are afflicted by their conscience and the
+generosity of their sentiments, for it will be only to say that these
+high qualities are on the failing side. Their inclination, under
+the circumstances, is generally base, and no less a counsellor than
+uncorrupted common sense, when they are in such a hobble, will sometimes
+advise them to be base. But, in admitting the plea which common sense
+puts forward on their behalf, we may fairly ask them to be masculine in
+their baseness. Or, in other words, since they must be selfish, let them
+be so without the poltroonery of selfishness. Edward's wish was to be
+perfectly just, as far as he could be now--just to himself as well; for
+how was he to prove of worth and aid to any one depending on him, if he
+stood crippled? Just, also, to his family; to his possible posterity;
+and just to Dahlia. His task was to reconcile the variety of justness
+due upon all sides. The struggle, we will assume, was severe, for he
+thought so; he thought of going to Dahlia and speaking the word of
+separation; of going to her family and stating his offence, without
+personal exculpation; thus masculine in baseness, he was in idea; but
+poltroonery triumphed, the picture of himself facing his sin and its
+victims dismayed him, and his struggle ended in his considering as
+to the fit employment of one thousand pounds in his possession, the
+remainder of a small legacy, hitherto much cherished.
+
+A day later, Mrs. Lovell said to him: "Have you heard of that
+unfortunate young man? I am told that he lies in great danger from a
+blow on the back of his head. He looked ill when I saw him, and however
+mad he may be, I'm sorry harm should have come to one who is really
+brave. Gentle means are surely best. It is so with horses, it must be so
+with men. As to women, I don't pretend to unriddle them."
+
+"Gentle means are decidedly best," said Edward, perceiving that her
+little dog Algy had carried news to her, and that she was setting
+herself to fathom him. "You gave an eminent example of it yesterday. I
+was so sure of the result that I didn't bet against you."
+
+"Why not have backed me?"
+
+The hard young legal face withstood the attack of her soft blue eyes,
+out of which a thousand needles flew, seeking a weak point in the mask.
+
+"The compliment was, to incite you to a superhuman effort."
+
+"Then why not pay the compliment?"
+
+"I never pay compliments to transparent merit; I do not hold candles to
+lamps."
+
+"True," said she.
+
+"And as gentle means are so admirable, it would be as well to stop
+incision and imbruing between those two boys."
+
+"Which?" she asked innocently.
+
+"Suckling and Algy."
+
+"Is it possible? They are such boys."
+
+"Exactly of the kind to do it. Don't you know?" and Edward explained
+elaborately and cruelly the character of the boys who rushed into
+conflicts. Colour deep as evening red confused her cheeks, and she said,
+"We must stop them."
+
+"Alas!" he shook his head; "if it's not too late."
+
+"It never is too late."
+
+"Perhaps not, when the embodiment of gentle means is so determined."
+
+"Come; I believe they are in the billiard room now, and you shall see,"
+she said.
+
+The pair were found in the billiard room, even as a pair of terriers
+that remember a bone. Mrs. Lovell proposed a game, and offered herself
+for partner to Lord Suckling.
+
+"Till total defeat do us part," the young nobleman acquiesced; and total
+defeat befell them. During the play of the balls, Mrs. Lovell threw a
+jealous intentness of observation upon all the strokes made by Algernon;
+saying nothing, but just looking at him when he did a successful thing.
+She winked at some quiet stately betting that went on between him and
+Lord Suckling.
+
+They were at first preternaturally polite and formal toward one another;
+by degrees, the influence at work upon them was manifested in a thaw
+of their stiff demeanour, and they fell into curt dialogues, which Mrs.
+Lovell gave herself no concern to encourage too early.
+
+Edward saw, and was astonished himself to feel that she had ceased to
+breathe that fatal inciting breath, which made men vindictively emulous
+of her favour, and mad to match themselves for a claim to the chief
+smile. No perceptible change was displayed. She was Mrs. Lovell still;
+vivacious and soft; flame-coloured, with the arrowy eyelashes; a
+pleasant companion, who did not play the woman obtrusively among men,
+and show a thirst for homage. All the difference appeared to be, that
+there was an absence as of some evil spiritual emanation.
+
+And here a thought crossed him--one of the memorable little evanescent
+thoughts which sway us by our chance weakness; "Does she think me
+wanting in physical courage?"
+
+Now, though the difference between them had been owing to a scornful
+remark that she had permitted herself to utter, on his refusal to accept
+a quarrel with one of her numerous satellites, his knowledge of her
+worship of brains, and his pride in his possession of the burdensome
+weight, had quite precluded his guessing that she might haply suppose
+him to be deficient in personal bravery. He was astounded by the
+reflection that she had thus misjudged him. It was distracting;
+sober-thoughted as he was by nature. He watched the fair simplicity of
+her new manner with a jealous eye. Her management of the two youths
+was exquisite; but to him, Edward, she had never condescended to show
+herself thus mediating and amiable. Why? Clearly, because she conceived
+that he had no virile fire in his composition. Did the detestable little
+devil think silly duelling a display of valour? Did the fair seraph
+think him anything less than a man?
+
+How beautifully hung the yellow loop of her hair as she leaned over the
+board! How gracious she was and like a Goddess with these boys, as he
+called them! She rallied her partner, not letting him forget that he
+had the honour of being her partner; while she appeared envious of
+Algernon's skill, and talked to both and got them upon common topics,
+and laughed, and was like a fair English flower of womanhood; nothing
+deadly.
+
+"There, Algy; you have beaten us. I don't think I'll have Lord Suckling
+for my partner any more," she said, putting up her wand, and pouting.
+
+"You don't bear malice?" said Algernon, revived.
+
+"There is my hand. Now you must play a game alone with Lord Suckling,
+and beat him; mind you beat him, or it will redound to my discredit."
+
+With which, she and Edward left them.
+
+"Algy was a little crestfallen, and no wonder," she said. "He is soon
+set up again. They will be good friends now."
+
+"Isn't it odd, that they should be ready to risk their lives for
+trifles?"
+
+Thus Edward tempted her to discuss the subject which he had in his mind.
+
+She felt intuitively the trap in his voice.
+
+"Ah, yes," she replied; "it must be because they know their lives are
+not precious."
+
+So utterly at her mercy had he fallen, that her pronunciation of that
+word "precious" carried a severe sting to him, and it was not spoken
+with peculiar emphasis; on the contrary, she wished to indicate that she
+was of his way of thinking, as regarded this decayed method of settling
+disputes. He turned to leave her.
+
+"You go to your Adeline, I presume," she said.
+
+"Ah! that reminds me. I have never thanked you."
+
+"For my good services? such as they are. Sir William will be very happy,
+and it was for him, a little more than for you, that I went out of my
+way to be a matchmaker."
+
+"It was her character, of course, that struck you as being so eminently
+suited to mine."
+
+"Can I tell what is the character of a girl? She is mild and shy, and
+extremely gentle. In all probability she has a passion for battles and
+bloodshed. I judged from your father's point of view. She has money, and
+you are to have money; and the union of money and money is supposed to
+be a good thing. And besides, you are variable, and off to-morrow what
+you are on to-day; is it not so? and heiresses are never jilted. Colonel
+Barclay is only awaiting your retirement. Le roi est mort; vive le roi!
+Heiresses may cry it like kingdoms."
+
+"I thought," said Edward, meaningly, "the colonel had better taste."
+
+"Do you not know that my friends are my friends because they are not
+allowed to dream they will do anything else? If they are taken poorly, I
+commend them to a sea-voyage--Africa, the North-West Passage, the source
+of the Nile. Men with their vanity wounded may discover wonders! They
+return friendly as before, whether they have done the Geographical
+Society a service or not. That is, they generally do."
+
+"Then I begin to fancy I must try those latitudes."
+
+"Oh! you are my relative."
+
+He scarcely knew that he had uttered "Margaret."
+
+She replied to it frankly, "Yes, Cousin Ned. You have made the voyage,
+you see, and have come back friends with me. The variability of opals!
+Ah! Sir John, you join us in season. We were talking of opals. Is the
+opal a gem that stands to represent women?"
+
+Sir John Capes smoothed his knuckles with silken palms, and with
+courteous antique grin, responded, "It is a gem I would never dare to
+offer to a lady's acceptance."
+
+"It is by repute unlucky; so you never can have done so.
+
+"Exquisite!" exclaimed the veteran in smiles, "if what you deign to
+imply were only true!"
+
+They entered the drawing-room among the ladies.
+
+Edward whispered in Mrs. Lovell's ear, "He is in need of the voyage."
+
+"He is very near it," she answered in the same key, and swam into
+general conversation.
+
+Her cold wit, Satanic as the gleam of it struck through his mind, gave
+him a throb of desire to gain possession of her, and crush her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+The writing of a letter to Dahlia had previously been attempted and
+abandoned as a sickening task. Like an idle boy with his holiday
+imposition, Edward shelved it among the nightmares, saying, "How can I
+sit down and lie to her!" and thinking that silence would prepare her
+bosom for the coming truth.
+
+Silence is commonly the slow poison used by those who mean to murder
+love. There is nothing violent about it; no shock is given; Hope is not
+abruptly strangled, but merely dreams of evil, and fights with gradually
+stifling shadows. When the last convulsions come they are not terrific;
+the frame has been weakened for dissolution; love dies like natural
+decay. It seems the kindest way of doing a cruel thing. But Dahlia
+wrote, crying out her agony at the torture. Possibly your nervously
+organized natures require a modification of the method.
+
+Edward now found himself able to conduct a correspondence. He despatched
+the following:--
+
+   "My Dear Dahlia,--Of course I cannot expect you to be aware of the
+   bewildering occupations of a country house, where a man has
+   literally not five minutes' time to call his own; so I pass by your
+   reproaches. My father has gone at last. He has manifested an
+   extraordinary liking for my society, and I am to join him elsewhere
+   --perhaps run over to Paris (your city)--but at present for a few
+   days I am my own master, and the first thing I do is to attend to
+   your demands: not to write 'two lines,' but to give you a good long
+   letter.
+
+   "What on earth makes you fancy me unwell? You know I am never
+   unwell. And as to your nursing me--when has there ever been any
+   need for it?
+
+   "You must positively learn patience. I have been absent a week or
+   so, and you talk of coming down here and haunting the house! Such
+   ghosts as you meet with strange treatment when they go about
+   unprotected, let me give you warning. You have my full permission
+   to walk out in the Parks for exercise. I think you are bound to do
+   it, for your health's sake.
+
+   "Pray discontinue that talk about the alteration in your looks. You
+   must learn that you are no longer a child. Cease to write like a
+   child. If people stare at you, as you say, you are very well aware
+   it is not because you are becoming plain. You do not mean it, I
+   know; but there is a disingenuousness in remarks of this sort that
+   is to me exceedingly distasteful. Avoid the shadow of hypocrisy.
+   Women are subject to it--and it is quite innocent, no doubt. I
+   won't lecture you.
+
+   "My cousin Algernon is here with me. He has not spoken of your
+   sister. Your fears in that direction are quite unnecessary. He is
+   attached to a female cousin of ours, a very handsome person, witty,
+   and highly sensible, who dresses as well as the lady you talk about
+   having seen one day in Wrexby Church. Her lady's-maid is a
+   Frenchwoman, which accounts for it. You have not forgotten the
+   boulevards?
+
+   "I wish you to go on with your lessons in French. Educate yourself,
+   and you will rise superior to these distressing complaints. I
+   recommend you to read the newspapers daily. Buy nice picture-books,
+   if the papers are too matter-of-fact for you. By looking eternally
+   inward, you teach yourself to fret, and the consequence is, or will
+   be, that you wither. No constitution can stand it. All the ladies
+   here take an interest in Parliamentary affairs. They can talk to
+   men upon men's themes. It is impossible to explain to you how
+   wearisome an everlasting nursery prattle becomes. The idea that men
+   ought never to tire of it is founded on some queer belief that they
+   are not mortal.
+
+   "Parliament opens in February. My father wishes me to stand for
+   Selborough. If he or some one will do the talking to the tradesmen,
+   and provide the beer and the bribes, I have no objection. In that
+   case my Law goes to the winds. I'm bound to make a show of
+   obedience, for he has scarcely got over my summer's trip. He holds
+   me a prisoner to him for heaven knows how long--it may be months.
+
+   "As for the heiress whom he has here to make a match for me, he and
+   I must have a pitched battle about her by and by. At present my
+   purse insists upon my not offending him. When will old men
+   understand young ones? I burn your letters, and beg you to follow
+   the example. Old letters are the dreariest ghosts in the world, and
+   you cannot keep more treacherous rubbish in your possession. A
+   discovery would exactly ruin me.
+
+   "Your purchase of a black-velvet bonnet with pink ribands, was very
+   suitable. Or did you write 'blue' ribands? But your complexion can
+   bear anything.
+
+   "You talk of being annoyed when you walk out. Remember, that no
+   woman who knows at all how to conduct herself need for one moment
+   suffer annoyance.
+
+   "What is the 'feeling' you speak of? I cannot conceive any
+   'feeling' that should make you helpless when you consider that you
+   are insulted. There are women who have natural dignity, and women
+   who have none.
+
+   "You ask the names of the gentlemen here:--Lord Carey, Lord Wippern
+   (both leave to-morrow), Sir John Capes, Colonel Barclay, Lord
+   Suckling. The ladies:--Mrs. Gosling, Miss Gosling, Lady Carey.
+   Mrs. Anybody--to any extent.
+
+   "They pluck hen's feathers all day and half the night. I see them
+   out, and make my bow to the next batch of visitors, and then I don't
+   know where I am.
+
+   "Read poetry, if it makes up for my absence, as you say. Repeat it
+   aloud, minding the pulsation of feet. Go to the theatre now and
+   then, and take your landlady with you. If she's a cat, fit one of
+   your dresses on the servant-girl, and take her. You only want a
+   companion--a dummy will do. Take a box and sit behind the curtain,
+   back to the audience.
+
+   "I wrote to my wine-merchant to send Champagne and Sherry. I hope
+   he did: the Champagne in pints and half-pints; if not, return them
+   instantly. I know how Economy, sitting solitary, poor thing, would
+   not dare to let the froth of a whole pint bottle fly out.
+
+   "Be an obedient girl and please me.
+
+          "Your stern tutor,
+
+             "Edward the First."
+
+He read this epistle twice over to satisfy himself that it was a warm
+effusion, and not too tender; and it satisfied him. By a stretch of
+imagination, he could feel that it represented him to her as in a higher
+atmosphere, considerate for her, and not so intimate that she could
+deem her spirit to be sharing it. Another dose of silence succeeded this
+discreet administration of speech.
+
+Dahlia replied with letter upon letter; blindly impassioned, and again
+singularly cold; but with no reproaches. She was studying, she said.
+Her head ached a little; only a little. She walked; she read poetry;
+she begged him to pardon her for not drinking wine. She was glad that
+he burnt her letters, which were so foolish that if she could have the
+courage to look at them after they were written, they would never be
+sent. He was slightly revolted by one exclamation: "How ambitious you
+are!"
+
+"Because I cannot sit down for life in a London lodging-house!" he
+thought, and eyed her distantly as a poor good creature who had already
+accepted her distinctive residence in another sphere than his. From such
+a perception of her humanity, it was natural that his livelier sense of
+it should diminish. He felt that he had awakened; and he shook her off.
+
+And now he set to work to subdue Mrs. Lovell. His own subjugation was
+the first fruit of his effort. It was quite unacknowledged by him: but
+when two are at this game, the question arises--"Which can live without
+the other?" and horrid pangs smote him to hear her telling musically of
+the places she was journeying to, the men she would see, and the chances
+of their meeting again before he was married to the heiress Adeline.
+
+"I have yet to learn that I am engaged to her," he said. Mrs. Lovell
+gave him a fixed look,--
+
+"She has a half-brother."
+
+He stepped away in a fury.
+
+"Devil!" he muttered, absolutely muttered it, knowing that he fooled and
+frowned like a stage-hero in stagey heroics. "You think to hound me into
+this brutal stupidity of fighting, do you? Upon my honour," he added in
+his natural manner, "I believe she does, though!"
+
+But the look became his companion. It touched and called up great vanity
+in his breast, and not till then could he placably confront the look.
+He tried a course of reading. Every morning he was down in the library,
+looking old in an arm-chair over his book; an intent abstracted figure.
+
+Mrs. Lovell would enter and eye him carelessly; utter little
+commonplaces and go forth. The silly words struck on his brain. The
+book seemed hollow; sounded hollow as he shut it. This woman breathed of
+active striving life. She was a spur to black energies; a plumed glory;
+impulsive to chivalry. Everything she said and did held men in scales,
+and approved or rejected them.
+
+Intoxication followed this new conception of her. He lost altogether his
+right judgement; even the cooler after-thoughts were lost. What sort of
+man had Harry been, her first husband? A dashing soldier, a quarrelsome
+duellist, a dull dog. But, dull to her? She, at least, was reverential
+to the memory of him.
+
+She lisped now and then of "my husband," very prettily, and with intense
+provocation; and yet she worshipped brains. Evidently she thirsted
+for that rare union of brains and bravery in a man, and would never
+surrender till she had discovered it. Perhaps she fancied it did not
+exist. It might be that she took Edward as the type of brains, and
+Harry of bravery, and supposed that the two qualities were not to be had
+actually in conjunction.
+
+Her admiration of his (Edward's) wit, therefore, only strengthened the
+idea she entertained of his deficiency in that other companion manly
+virtue.
+
+Edward must have been possessed, for he ground his teeth villanously in
+supposing himself the victim of this outrageous suspicion. And how
+to prove it false? How to prove it false in a civilized age, among
+sober-living men and women, with whom the violent assertion of bravery
+would certainly imperil his claim to brains? His head was like a
+stew-pan over the fire, bubbling endlessly.
+
+He railed at her to Algernon, and astonished the youth, who thought them
+in a fair way to make an alliance. "Milk and capsicums," he called her,
+and compared her to bloody mustard-haired Saxon Queens of history, and
+was childishly spiteful. And Mrs. Lovell had it all reported to her, as
+he was-quite aware.
+
+"The woman seeking for an anomaly wants a master."
+
+With this pompous aphorism, he finished his reading of the fair Enigma.
+
+Words big in the mouth serve their turn when there is no way of
+satisfying the intelligence.
+
+To be her master, however, one must not begin by writhing as her slave.
+
+The attempt to read an inscrutable woman allows her to dominate us too
+commandingly. So the lordly mind takes her in a hard grasp, cracks the
+shell, and drawing forth the kernel, says, "This was all the puzzle."
+
+Doubtless it is the fate which women like Mrs. Lovell provoke. The truth
+was, that she could read a character when it was under her eyes; but
+its yesterday and to-morrow were a blank. She had no imaginative hold
+on anything. For which reason she was always requiring tangible signs of
+virtues that she esteemed.
+
+The thirst for the shows of valour and wit was insane with her; but she
+asked for nothing that she herself did not give in abundance, and with
+beauty super-added. Her propensity to bet sprang of her passion for
+combat; she was not greedy of money, or reckless in using it; but a
+difference of opinion arising, her instinct forcibly prompted her to
+back her own. If the stake was the risk of a lover's life, she was ready
+to put down the stake, and would have marvelled contemptuously at the
+lover complaining. "Sheep! sheep!" she thought of those who dared not
+fight, and had a wavering tendency to affix the epithet to those who
+simply did not fight.
+
+Withal, Mrs. Lovell was a sensible person; clearheaded and shrewd;
+logical, too, more than the run of her sex: I may say, profoundly
+practical. So much so, that she systematically reserved the after-years
+for enlightenment upon two or three doubts of herself, which struck her
+in the calm of her spirit, from time to time.
+
+"France," Edward called her, in one of their colloquies.
+
+It was an illuminating title. She liked the French (though no one was
+keener for the honour of her own country in opposition to them), she
+liked their splendid boyishness, their unequalled devotion, their
+merciless intellects; the oneness of the nation when the sword is bare
+and pointing to chivalrous enterprise.
+
+She liked their fine varnish of sentiment, which appears so much on the
+surface that Englishmen suppose it to have nowhere any depth; as if the
+outer coating must necessarily exhaust the stock, or as if what is at
+the source of our being can never be made visible.
+
+She had her imagination of them as of a streaming banner in the jaws
+of storm, with snows among the cloud-rents and lightning in the
+chasms:--which image may be accounted for by the fact that when a girl
+she had in adoration kissed the feet of Napoleon, the giant of the later
+ghosts of history.
+
+It was a princely compliment. She received it curtseying, and disarmed
+the intended irony. In reply, she called him "Great Britain." I regret
+to say that he stood less proudly for his nation. Indeed, he flushed.
+He remembered articles girding at the policy of peace at any price, and
+half felt that Mrs. Lovell had meant to crown him with a Quaker's
+hat. His title fell speedily into disuse; but, "Yes, France," and "No,
+France," continued, his effort being to fix the epithet to frivolous
+allusions, from which her ingenuity rescued it honourably.
+
+Had she ever been in love? He asked her the question. She stabbed him
+with so straightforward an affirmative that he could not conceal the
+wound.
+
+"Have I not been married?" she said.
+
+He began to experience the fretful craving to see the antecedents of the
+torturing woman spread out before him. He conceived a passion for her
+girlhood. He begged for portraits of her as a girl. She showed him the
+portrait of Harry Lovell in a locket. He held the locket between his
+fingers. Dead Harry was kept very warm. Could brains ever touch her
+emotions as bravery had done?
+
+"Where are the brains I boast of?" he groaned, in the midst of these
+sensational extravagances.
+
+The lull of action was soon to be disturbed. A letter was brought to
+him.
+
+He opened it and read--
+
+   "Mr. Edward Blancove,--When you rode by me under Fairly Park, I did
+   not know you. I can give you a medical certificate that since then
+   I have been in the doctor's hands. I know you now. I call upon you
+   to meet me, with what weapons you like best, to prove that you are
+   not a midnight assassin. The place shall be where you choose to
+   appoint. If you decline I will make you publicly acknowledge what
+   you have done. If you answer, that I am not a gentleman and you are
+   one, I say that you have attacked me in the dark, when I was on
+   horseback, and you are now my equal, if I like to think so. You
+   will not talk about the law after that night. The man you employed
+   I may punish or I may leave, though he struck the blow. But I will
+   meet you. To-morrow, a friend of mine, who is a major in the army,
+   will be down here, and will call on you from me; or on any friend of
+   yours you are pleased to name. I will not let you escape. Whether
+   I shall face a guilty man in you, God knows; but I know I have a
+   right to call upon you to face me.
+
+          "I am, Sir,
+
+             "Yours truly,
+
+               "Robert Eccles."
+
+Edward's face grew signally white over the contents of this
+unprecedented challenge. The letter had been brought in to him at the
+breakfast table. "Read it, read it," said Mrs. Lovell, seeing him put it
+by; and he had read it with her eyes on him.
+
+The man seemed to him a man of claws, who clutched like a demon. Would
+nothing quiet him? Edward thought of bribes for the sake of peace; but a
+second glance at the letter assured his sagacious mind that bribes were
+powerless in this man's case; neither bribes nor sticks were of service.
+Departure from Fairly would avail as little: the tenacious devil would
+follow him to London; and what was worse, as a hound from Dahlia's
+family he was now on the right scent, and appeared to know that he was.
+How was a scandal to be avoided? By leaving Fairly instantly for any
+place on earth, he could not avoid leaving the man behind; and if the
+man saw Mrs. Lovell again, her instincts as a woman of her class were
+not to be trusted. As likely as not she would side with the ruffian;
+that is, she would think he had been wronged--perhaps think that he
+ought to have been met. There is the democratic virus secret in
+every woman; it was predominant in Mrs. Lovell, according to Edward's
+observation of the lady. The rights of individual manhood were, as he
+angrily perceived, likely to be recognized by her spirit, if only they
+were stoutly asserted; and that in defiance of station, of reason, of
+all the ideas inculcated by education and society.
+
+"I believe she'll expect me to fight him," he exclaimed. At least, he
+knew she would despise him if he avoided the brutal challenge without
+some show of dignity.
+
+On rising from the table, he drew Algernon aside. It was an insufferable
+thought that he was compelled to take his brainless cousin into his
+confidence, even to the extent of soliciting his counsel, but there was
+no help for it. In vain Edward asked himself why he had been such an
+idiot as to stain his hands with the affair at all. He attributed it to
+his regard for Algernon. Having commonly the sway of his passions, he
+was in the habit of forgetting that he ever lost control of them; and
+the fierce black mood, engendered by Robert's audacious persecution, had
+passed from his memory, though it was now recalled in full force.
+
+"See what a mess you drag a man into," he said.
+
+Algernon read a line of the letter. "Oh, confound this infernal fellow!"
+he shouted, in sickly wonderment; and snapped sharp, "drag you into the
+mess? Upon my honour, your coolness, Ned, is the biggest part about you,
+if it isn't the best."
+
+Edward's grip fixed on him, for they were only just out of earshot of
+Mrs. Lovell. They went upstairs, and Algernon read the letter through.
+
+"'Midnight assassin,'" he repeated; "by Jove! how beastly that sounds.
+It's a lie that you attacked him in the dark, Ned--eh?"
+
+"I did not attack him at all," said Edward. "He behaved like a ruffian
+to you, and deserved shooting like a mad dog."
+
+"Did you, though," Algernon persisted in questioning, despite his
+cousin's manifest shyness of the subject "did you really go out with
+that man Sedgett, and stop this fellow on horseback? He speaks of a
+blow. You didn't strike him, did you, Ned? I mean, not a hit, except in
+self-defence?"
+
+Edward bit his lip, and shot a level reflective side-look, peculiar to
+him when meditating. He wished his cousin to propose that Mrs. Lovell
+should see the letter. He felt that by consulting with her, he could
+bring her to apprehend the common sense of the position, and be so far
+responsible for what he might do, that she would not dare to let her
+heart be rebellious toward him subsequently. If he himself went to her
+it would look too much like pleading for her intercession. The subtle
+directness of the woman's spirit had to be guarded against at every
+point.
+
+He replied to Algernon,--
+
+"What I did was on your behalf. Oblige me by not interrogating me. I
+give you my positive assurance that I encouraged no unmanly assault on
+him."
+
+"That'll do, that'll do," said Algernon, eager not to hear more, lest
+there should come an explanation of what he had heard. "Of course, then,
+this fellow has no right--the devil's in him! If we could only make him
+murder Sedgett and get hanged for it! He's got a friend who's a major in
+the army? Oh, come, I say; this is pitching it too stiff. I shall insist
+upon seeing his commission. Really, Ned, I can't advise. I'll stand by
+you, that you may be sure of--stand by you; but what the deuce to say
+to help you! Go before the magistrate.... Get Lord Elling to issue a
+warrant to prevent a breach of the peace. No; that won't do. This quack
+of a major in the army's to call to-morrow. I don't mind, if he shows
+his credentials all clear, amusing him in any manner he likes. I can't
+see the best scheme. Hang it, Ned, it's very hard upon me to ask me
+to do the thinking. I always go to Peggy Lovell when I'm bothered.
+There--Mrs. Lovell! Mistress Lovell! Madame! my Princess Lovell, if you
+want me to pronounce respectable titles to her name. You're too proud to
+ask a woman to help you, ain't you, Ned?"
+
+"No," said Edward, mildly. "In some cases their wits are keen enough.
+One doesn't like to drag her into such a business."
+
+"Hm," went Algernon. "I don't think she's so innocent of it as you
+fancy."
+
+"She's very clever," said Edward.
+
+"She's awfully clever!" cried Algernon. He paused to give room for more
+praises of her, and then pursued:
+
+"She's so kind. That's what you don't credit her for. I'll go and
+consult her, if positively you don't mind. Trust her for keeping it
+quiet. Come, Ned, she's sure to hit upon the right thing. May I go?"
+
+"It's your affair, more than mine," said Edward.
+
+"Have it so, if you like," returned the good-natured fellow. "It's worth
+while consulting her, just to see how neatly she'll take it. Bless your
+heart, she won't know a bit more than you want her to know. I'm off to
+her now." He carried away the letter.
+
+Edward's own practical judgement would have advised his instantly
+sending a short reply to Robert, explaining that he was simply in
+conversation with the man Sedgett, when Robert, the old enemy of the
+latter, rode by, and, that while regretting Sedgett's proceedings, he
+could not be held accountable for them. But it was useless to think of
+acting in accordance with his reason. Mrs. Lovell was queen, and sat
+in reason's place. It was absolutely necessary to conciliate her
+approbation of his conduct in this dilemma, by submitting to the decided
+unpleasantness of talking with her on a subject that fevered him, and of
+allowing her to suppose he required the help of her sagacity. Such was
+the humiliation imposed upon him. Further than this he had nothing to
+fear, for no woman could fail to be overborne by the masculine force
+of his brain in an argument. The humiliation was bad enough, and half
+tempted him to think that his old dream of working as a hard student,
+with fair and gentle Dahlia ministering to his comforts, and too happy
+to call herself his, was best. Was it not, after one particular step
+had been taken, the manliest life he could have shaped out? Or did
+he imagine it so at this moment, because he was a coward, and because
+pride, and vanity, and ferocity alternately had to screw him up to meet
+the consequences of his acts, instead of the great heart?
+
+If a coward, Dahlia was his home, his refuge, his sanctuary. Mrs. Lovell
+was perdition and its scorching fires to a man with a taint of cowardice
+in him.
+
+Whatever he was, Edward's vanity would not permit him to acknowledge
+himself that. Still, he did not call on his heart to play inspiriting
+music. His ideas turned to subterfuge. His aim was to keep the
+good opinion of Mrs. Lovell while he quieted Robert; and he entered
+straightway upon that very perilous course, the attempt, for the sake of
+winning her, to bewilder and deceive a woman's instincts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Over a fire in one of the upper sitting-rooms of the Pilot Inn, Robert
+sat with his friend, the beloved friend of whom he used to speak to
+Dahlia and Rhoda, too proudly not to seem betraying the weaker point of
+pride. This friend had accepted the title from a private soldier of his
+regiment; to be capable of doing which, a man must be both officer and
+gentleman in a sterner and less liberal sense than is expressed by that
+everlasting phrase in the mouth of the military parrot. Major Percy
+Waring, the son of a clergyman, was a working soldier, a slayer, if you
+will, from pure love of the profession of arms, and all the while the
+sweetest and gentlest of men. I call him a working soldier in opposition
+to the parading soldier, the coxcomb in uniform, the hero by accident,
+and the martial boys of wealth and station, who are of the army of
+England. He studied war when the trumpet slumbered, and had no place but
+in the field when it sounded. To him the honour of England was as a babe
+in his arms: he hugged it like a mother. He knew the military history of
+every regiment in the service. Disasters even of old date brought groans
+from him. This enthusiastic face was singularly soft when the large dark
+eyes were set musing. The cast of it being such, sometimes in speaking
+of a happy play of artillery upon congregated masses, an odd effect
+was produced. Ordinarily, the clear features were reflective almost to
+sadness, in the absence of animation; but an exulting energy for action
+would now and then light them up. Hilarity of spirit did not belong to
+him. He was, nevertheless, a cheerful talker, as could be seen in
+the glad ear given to him by Robert. Between them it was "Robert" and
+"Percy." Robert had rescued him from drowning on the East Anglian
+shore, and the friendship which ensued was one chief reason for Robert's
+quitting the post of trooper and buying himself out. It was against
+Percy's advice, who wanted to purchase a commission for him; but the
+humbler man had the sturdy scruples of his rank regarding money, and
+his romantic illusions being dispersed by an experience of the absolute
+class-distinctions in the service, Robert; that he might prevent his
+friend from violating them, made use of his aunt's legacy to obtain
+release. Since that date they had not met; but their friendship was
+fast. Percy had recently paid a visit to Queen Anne's Farm, where he had
+seen Rhoda and heard of Robert's departure. Knowing Robert's birthplace,
+he had come on to Warbeach, and had seen Jonathan Eccles, who referred
+him to Mrs. Boulby, licenced seller of brandy, if he wished to enjoy an
+interview with Robert Eccles.
+
+"The old man sent up regularly every day to inquire how his son was
+faring on the road to the next world," said Robert, laughing. "He's
+tough old English oak. I'm just to him what I appear at the time. It's
+better having him like that than one of your jerky fathers, who seem to
+belong to the stage of a theatre. Everybody respects my old dad, and I
+can laugh at what he thinks of me. I've only to let him know I've
+served an apprenticeship in farming, and can make use of some of his
+ideas--sound! every one of 'em; every one of 'em sound! And that I say
+of my own father."
+
+"Why don't you tell him?" Percy asked.
+
+"I want to forget all about Kent and drown the county," said Robert.
+"And I'm going to, as far as my memory's concerned."
+
+Percy waited for some seconds. He comprehended perfectly this state of
+wilfulness in an uneducated sensitive man.
+
+"She has a steadfast look in her face, Robert. She doesn't look as if
+she trifled. I've really never seen a finer, franker girl in my life, if
+faces are to be trusted."
+
+"It's t' other way. There's no trifling in her case. She's frank. She
+fires at you point blank."
+
+"You never mentioned her in your letters to me, Robert."
+
+"No. I had a suspicion from the first I was going to be a fool about the
+girl."
+
+Percy struck his hand.
+
+"You didn't do quite right."
+
+"Do you say that?"
+
+Robert silenced him with this question, for there was a woman in Percy's
+antecedent history.
+
+The subject being dismissed, they talked more freely. Robert related the
+tale of Dahlia, and of his doings at Fairly.
+
+"Oh! we agree," he said, noting a curious smile that Percy could
+not smooth out of sight. "I know it was odd conduct. I do respect my
+superiors; but, believe me or not, Percy, injury done to a girl makes me
+mad, and I can't hold back; and she's the sister of the girl you saw. By
+heaven! if it weren't for my head getting blind now when my blood boils,
+I've the mind to walk straight up to the house and screw the secret out
+of one of them. What I say is--Is there a God up aloft? Then, he sees
+all, and society is vapour, and while I feel the spirit in me to do it,
+I go straight at my aim."
+
+"If, at the same time, there's no brandy in you," said Percy, "which
+would stop your seeing clear or going straight."
+
+The suggestion was a cruel shock. Robert nodded. "That's true. I suppose
+it's my bad education that won't let me keep cool. I'm ashamed of myself
+after it. I shout and thunder, and the end of it is, I go away and think
+about the same of Robert Eccles that I've frightened other people into
+thinking. Perhaps you'll think me to blame in this case? One of those
+Mr. Blancoves--not the one you've heard of--struck me on the field
+before a lady. I bore it. It was part of what I'd gone out to meet. I
+was riding home late at night, and he stood at the corner of the
+lane, with an old enemy of mine, and a sad cur that is! Sedgett's his
+name--Nic, the Christian part of it. There'd just come a sharp snowfall
+from the north, and the moonlight shot over the flying edge of the
+rear-cloud; and I saw Sedgett with a stick in his hand; but the
+gentleman had no stick. I'll give Mr. Edward Blancove credit for not
+meaning to be active in a dastardly assault.
+
+"But why was he in consultation with my enemy? And he let my enemy--by
+the way, Percy, you dislike that sort of talk of 'my enemy,' I know. You
+like it put plain and simple: but down in these old parts again, I catch
+at old habits; and I'm always a worse man when I haven't seen you for
+a time. Sedgett, say. Sedgett, as I passed, made a sweep at my horse's
+knees, and took them a little over the fetlock. The beast reared. While
+I was holding on he swung a blow at me, and took me here."
+
+Robert touched his head. "I dropped like a horse-chestnut from the tree.
+When I recovered, I was lying in the lane. I think I was there flat,
+face to the ground, for half an hour, quite sensible, looking at the
+pretty colour of my blood on the snow. The horse was gone. I just
+managed to reel along to this place, where there's always a home for me.
+Now, will you believe it possible? I went out next day: I saw Mr. Edward
+Blancove, and I might have seen a baby and felt the same to it. I didn't
+know him a bit. Yesterday morning your letter was sent up from Sutton
+farm. Somehow, the moment I'd read it, I remembered his face. I sent
+him word there was a matter to be settled between us. You think I was
+wrong?"
+
+Major Waring had set a deliberately calculating eye on him.
+
+"I want to hear more," he said.
+
+"You think I have no claim to challenge a man in his position?"
+
+"Answer me first, Robert. You think this Mr. Blancove helped, or
+instigated this man Sedgett in his attack upon you?"
+
+"I haven't a doubt that he did."
+
+"It's not plain evidence."
+
+"It's good circumstantial evidence."
+
+"At any rate, you are perhaps justified in thinking him capable of this:
+though the rule is, to believe nothing against a gentleman until it is
+flatly proved--when we drum him out of the ranks. But, if you can fancy
+it true, would you put yourself upon an equal footing with him?"
+
+"I would," said Robert.
+
+"Then you accept his code of morals."
+
+"That's too shrewd for me: but men who preach against duelling, or any
+kind of man-to-man in hot earnest, always fence in that way."
+
+"I detest duelling," Major Waring remarked. "I don't like a system that
+permits knaves and fools to exercise a claim to imperil the lives of
+useful men. Let me observe, that I am not a preacher against it. I
+think you know my opinions; and they are not quite those of the English
+magistrate, and other mild persons who are wrathful at the practice upon
+any pretence. Keep to the other discussion. You challenge a man--you
+admit him your equal. But why do I argue with you? I know your mind as
+well as my own. You have some other idea in the background."
+
+"I feel that he's the guilty man," said Robert.
+
+"You feel called upon to punish him."
+
+"No. Wait: he will not fight; but I have him and I'll hold him. I feel
+he's the man who has injured this girl, by every witness of facts that I
+can bring together; and as for the other young fellow I led such a dog's
+life down here, I could beg his pardon. This one's eye met mine. I
+saw it wouldn't have stopped short of murder--opportunity given. Why?
+Because I pressed on the right spring. I'm like a woman in seeing some
+things. He shall repent. By--! Slap me on the face, Percy. I've taken to
+brandy and to swearing. Damn the girl who made me forget good lessons!
+Bless her heart, I mean. She saw you, did she? Did she colour when she
+heard your name?"
+
+"Very much," said Major Waring.
+
+"Was dressed in--?"
+
+"Black, with a crimson ribbon round the collar."
+
+Robert waved the image from his eyes.
+
+"I'm not going to dream of her. Peace, and babies, and farming, and
+pride in myself with a woman by my side--there! You've seen her--all
+that's gone. I might as well ask the East wind to blow West. Her face is
+set the other way. Of course, the nature and value of a man is shown by
+how he takes this sort of pain; and hark at me! I'm yelling. I thought
+I was cured. I looked up into the eyes of a lady ten times
+sweeter--when?--somewhen! I've lost dates. But here's the girl at me
+again. She cuddles into me--slips her hand into my breast and tugs at
+strings there. I can't help talking to you about her, now we've got over
+the first step. I'll soon give it up.
+
+"She wore a red ribbon? If it had been Spring, you'd have seen roses.
+Oh! what a stanch heart that girl has. Where she sets it, mind! Her life
+where that creature sets her heart! But, for me, not a penny of comfort!
+Now for a whole week of her, day and night, in that black dress with
+the coloured ribbon. On she goes: walking to church; sitting at table;
+looking out of the window!
+
+"Will you believe I thought those thick eyebrows of hers ugly once--a
+tremendous long time ago. Yes; but what eyes she has under them! And if
+she looks tender, one corner of her mouth goes quivering; and the eyes
+are steady, so that it looks like some wonderful bit of mercy.
+
+"I think of that true-hearted creature praying and longing for her
+sister, and fearing there's shame--that's why she hates me. I wouldn't
+say I was certain her sister had not fallen into a pit. I couldn't. I
+was an idiot. I thought I wouldn't be a hypocrite. I might have said I
+believed as she did. There she stood ready to be taken--ready to have
+given herself to me, if I had only spoken a word! It was a moment of
+heaven, and God the Father could not give it to me twice The chance has
+gone.
+
+"Oh! what a miserable mad dog I am to gabble on in this way.--Come in!
+come in, mother."
+
+Mrs. Boulby entered, with soft footsteps, bearing a letter.
+
+"From the Park," she said, and commenced chiding Robert gently, to
+establish her right to do it with solemnity.
+
+"He will talk, sir. He's one o' them that either they talk or they hang
+silent, and no middle way will they take; and the doctor's their foe,
+and health they despise; and since this cruel blow, obstinacy do seem to
+have been knocked like a nail into his head so fast, persuasion have not
+a atom o' power over him."
+
+"There must be talking when friends meet, ma'am," said Major Waring.
+
+"Ah!" returned the widow, "if it wouldn't be all on one side."
+
+"I've done now, mother," said Robert.
+
+Mrs. Boulby retired, and Robert opened the letter.
+
+It ran thus:--
+
+   "Sir, I am glad you have done me the favour of addressing me
+   temperately, so that I am permitted to clear myself of an unjust and
+   most unpleasant imputation. I will, if you please, see you, or your
+   friend; to whom perhaps I shall better be able to certify how
+   unfounded is the charge you bring against me. I will call upon you
+   at the Pilot Inn, where I hear that you are staying; or, if you
+   prefer it, I will attend to any appointment you may choose to direct
+   elsewhere. But it must be immediate, as the term of my residence in
+   this neighbourhood is limited.
+
+               "I am,
+
+                  "Sir,
+
+               "Yours obediently,
+
+                    "Edward Blancove."
+
+Major Waning read the lines with a critical attention.
+
+"It seems fair and open," was his remark.
+
+"Here," Robert struck his breast, "here's what answers him. What shall I
+do? Shall I tell him to come?"
+
+"Write to say that your friend will meet him at a stated place."
+
+Robert saw his prey escaping. "I'm not to see him?"
+
+"No. The decent is the right way in such cases. You must leave it to me.
+This will be the proper method between gentlemen."
+
+"It appears to my idea," said Robert, "that gentlemen are always,
+somehow, stopped from taking the straight-ahead measure."
+
+"You," Percy rejoined, "are like a civilian before a fortress. Either he
+finds it so easy that he can walk into it, or he gives it up in despair
+as unassailable. You have followed your own devices, and what have you
+accomplished?"
+
+"He will lie to you smoothly."
+
+"Smoothly or not, if I discover that he has spoken falsely, he is
+answerable to me."
+
+"To me, Percy."
+
+"No; to me. He can elude you; and will be acquitted by the general
+verdict. But when he becomes answerable to me, his honour, in the
+conventional, which is here the practical, sense, is at stake, and I
+have him."
+
+"I see that. Yes; he can refuse to fight me," Robert sighed. "Hey, Lord!
+it's a heavy world when we come to methods. But will you, Percy, will
+you put it to him at the end of your fist--'Did you deceive the girl,
+and do you know where the girl now is?' Why, great heaven! we only ask
+to know where she is. She may have been murdered. She's hidden from her
+family. Let him confess, and let him go."
+
+Major Waring shook his head. "You see like a woman perhaps, Robert. You
+certainly talk like a woman. I will state your suspicions. When I have
+done so, I am bound to accept his reply. If we discover it to have been
+false, I have my remedy."
+
+"Won't you perceive, that it isn't my object to punish him by and by,
+but to tear the secret out of him on the spot--now--instantly," Robert
+cried.
+
+"I perceive your object, and you have experienced some of the results
+of your system. It's the primitive action of an appeal to the god of
+combats, that is exploded in these days. You have no course but to take
+his word."
+
+"She said"--Robert struck his knee--"she said I should have the girl's
+address. She said she would see her. She pledged that to me. I'm
+speaking of the lady up at Fairly. Come! things get clearer. If she
+knows where Dahlia is, who told her? This Mr. Algernon--not Edward
+Blancove--was seen with Dahlia in a box at the Playhouse. He was there
+with Dahlia, yet I don't think him the guilty man. There's a finger of
+light upon that other."
+
+"Who is this lady?" Major Waring asked, with lifted eyebrows.
+
+"Mrs. Lovell."
+
+At the name, Major Waring sat stricken.
+
+"Lovell!" he repeated, under his breath. "Lovell! Was she ever in
+India?"
+
+"I don't know, indeed."
+
+"Is she a widow?"
+
+"Ay; that I've heard."
+
+"Describe her."
+
+Robert entered upon the task with a dozen headlong exclamations, and
+very justly concluded by saying that he could give no idea of her; but
+his friend apparently had gleaned sufficient.
+
+Major Waring's face was touched by a strange pallor, and his smile had
+vanished. He ran his fingers through his hair, clutching it in a knot,
+as he sat eyeing the red chasm in the fire, where the light of old days
+and wild memories hangs as in a crumbling world.
+
+Robert was aware of there being a sadness in Percy's life, and that he
+had loved a woman and awakened from his passion. Her name was unknown to
+him. In that matter, his natural delicacy and his deference to Percy had
+always checked him from sounding the subject closely. He might be, as
+he had said, keen as a woman where his own instincts were in action;
+but they were ineffective in guessing at the cause for Percy's sudden
+depression.
+
+"She said--this lady, Mrs. Lovell, whoever she may be--she said you
+should have the girl's address:--gave you that pledge of her word?"
+Percy spoke, half meditating. "How did this happen? When did you see
+her?"
+
+Robert related the incident of his meeting with her, and her effort to
+be a peacemaker, but made no allusion to Mrs. Boulby's tale of the bet.
+
+"A peacemaker!" Percy interjected. "She rides well?"
+
+"Best horsewoman I ever saw in my life," was Robert's ready answer.
+
+Major Waring brushed at his forehead, as in impatience of thought.
+
+"You must write two letters: one to this Mrs. Lovell. Say, you are
+about to leave the place, and remind her of her promise. It's
+incomprehensible; but never mind. Write that first. Then to the man. Say
+that your friend--by the way, this Mrs. Lovell has small hands, has she?
+I mean, peculiarly small? Did you notice, or not? I may know her. Never
+mind. Write to the man. Say--don't write down my name--say that I will
+meet him." Percy spoke on as in a dream. "Appoint any place and hour.
+To-morrow at ten, down by the river--the bridge. Write briefly. Thank
+him for his offer to afford you explanations. Don't argue it with me any
+more. Write both the letters straight off."
+
+His back was to Robert as he uttered the injunction. Robert took pen and
+paper, and did as he was bidden, with all the punctilious obedience of a
+man who consents perforce to see a better scheme abandoned.
+
+One effect of the equality existing between these two of diverse rank in
+life and perfect delicacy of heart, was, that the moment Percy assumed
+the lead, Robert never disputed it. Muttering simply that he was
+incapable of writing except when he was in a passion, he managed to
+produce what, in Percy's eyes, were satisfactory epistles, though Robert
+had horrible misgivings in regard to his letter to Mrs. Lovell--the
+wording of it, the cast of the sentences, even down to the character of
+the handwriting. These missives were despatched immediately.
+
+"You are sure she said that?" Major Waring inquired more than once
+during the afternoon, and Robert assured him that Mrs. Lovell had given
+him her word. He grew very positive, and put it on his honour that she
+had said it.
+
+"You may have heard incorrectly."
+
+"I've got the words burning inside me," said Robert.
+
+They walked together, before dark, to Sutton Farm, but Jonathan Eccles
+was abroad in his fields, and their welcome was from Mistress Anne, whom
+Major Waring had not power to melt; the moment he began speaking praise
+of Robert, she closed her mouth tight and crossed her wrists meekly.
+
+"I see," said Major Waring, as they left the farm, "your aunt is of the
+godly who have no forgiveness."
+
+"I'm afraid so," cried Robert. "Cold blood never will come to an
+understanding with hot blood, and the old lady's is like frozen milk.
+She's right in her way, I dare say. I don't blame her. Her piety's right
+enough, take it as you find it."
+
+Mrs. Boulby had a sagacious notion that gentlemen always dined well
+every day of their lives, and claimed that much from Providence as their
+due. She had exerted herself to spread a neat little repast for Major
+Waring, and waited on the friends herself; grieving considerably to
+observe that the major failed in his duty as a gentleman, as far as the
+relish of eating was concerned.
+
+"But," she said below at her bar, "he smokes the beautifullest--smelling
+cigars, and drinks coffee made in his own way. He's very particular."
+Which was reckoned to be in Major Waring's favour.
+
+The hour was near midnight when she came into the room, bearing another
+letter from the Park. She thumped it on the table, ruffling and making
+that pretence at the controlling of her bosom which precedes a feminine
+storm. Her indignation was caused by a communication delivered by Dick
+Curtis, in the parlour underneath, to the effect that Nicodemus Sedgett
+was not to be heard of in the neighbourhood.
+
+Robert laughed at her, and called her Hebrew woman--eye-for-eye and
+tooth-for-tooth woman.
+
+"Leave real rascals to the Lord above, mother. He's safe to punish them.
+They've stepped outside the chances. That's my idea. I wouldn't go out
+of my way to kick them--not I! It's the half-and-half villains we've got
+to dispose of. They're the mischief, old lady."
+
+Percy, however, asked some questions about Sedgett, and seemed to think
+his disappearance singular. He had been examining the handwriting of the
+superscription to the letter. His face was flushed as he tossed it for
+Robert to open. Mrs. Boulby dropped her departing curtsey, and Robert
+read out, with odd pauses and puzzled emphasis:
+
+   "Mrs. Lovell has received the letter which Mr. Robert Eccles has
+   addressed to her, and regrets that a misconception should have
+   arisen from anything that was uttered during their interview. The
+   allusions are obscure, and Mrs. Lovell can only remark, that she is
+   pained if she at all misled Mr. Eccles in what she either spoke or
+   promised. She is not aware that she can be of any service to him.
+   Should such an occasion present itself, Mr. Eccles may rest assured
+   that she will not fail to avail herself of it, and do her utmost to
+   redeem a pledge to which he has apparently attached a meaning she
+   can in no way account for or comprehend."
+
+When Robert had finished, "It's like a female lawyer," he said.
+"That woman speaking, and that woman writing, they're two different
+creatures--upon my soul, they are! Quick, sharp, to the point, when she
+speaks; and read this! Can I venture to say of a lady, she's a liar?"
+
+"Perhaps you had better not," said Major Waring, who took the letter in
+his hand and seemed to study it. After which he transferred it to his
+pocket.
+
+"To-morrow? To-morrow's Sunday," he observed. "We will go to church
+to-morrow." His eyes glittered.
+
+"Why, I'm hardly in the mood," Robert protested. "I haven't had the
+habit latterly."
+
+"Keep up the habit," said Percy. "It's a good thing for men like you."
+
+"But what sort of a fellow am I to be showing myself there among all
+the people who've been talking about me--and the people up at Fairly!"
+Robert burst out in horror of the prospect. "I shall be a sight among
+the people. Percy, upon my honour, I don't think I well can. I'll read
+the Bible at home if you like."
+
+"No; you'll do penance," said Major Waring.
+
+"Are you meaning it?"
+
+"The penance will be ten times greater on my part, believe me."
+
+Robert fancied him to be referring to some idea of mocking the
+interposition of religion.
+
+"Then we'll go to Upton Church," he said. "I don't mind it at Upton."
+
+"I intend to go to the church attended by 'The Family,' as we say in our
+parts; and you must come with me to Warbeach."
+
+Clasping one hand across his forehead, Robert cried, "You couldn't ask
+me to do a thing I hate so much. Go, and sit, and look sheepish, and
+sing hymns with the people I've been badgering; and everybody seeing me!
+How can it be anything to you like what it is to me?"
+
+"You have only to take my word for it that it is, and far more," said
+Major Waring, sinking his voice. "Come; it won't do you any harm to make
+an appointment to meet your conscience now and then. You will never be
+ruled by reason, and your feelings have to teach you what you learn. At
+any rate, it's my request."
+
+This terminated the colloquy upon that topic. Robert looked forward to a
+penitential Sabbath-day.
+
+"She is a widow still," thought Major Waring, as he stood alone in his
+bed-room, and, drawing aside the curtains of his window, looked up at
+the white moon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+When the sun takes to shining in winter, and the Southwest to blowing,
+the corners of the earth cannot hide from him--the mornings are like
+halls full of light. Robert had spent his hopes upon a wet day that
+would have kept the congregation sparse and the guests at Fairly absent
+from public devotions.
+
+He perceived at once that he was doomed to be under everybody's eyes
+when he walked down the aisle, for everybody would attend the service on
+such a morning as this.
+
+Already he had met his conscience, in so far as that he shunned asking
+Percy again what was the reason for their going to church, and he
+had not the courage to petition to go in the afternoon instead of the
+morning.
+
+The question, "Are you ashamed of yourself, then?" sang in his ears as a
+retort ready made.
+
+There was no help for it; so he set about assisting his ingenuity
+to make the best appearance possible--brushing his hat and coat with
+extraordinary care.
+
+Percy got him to point out the spot designated for the meeting, and
+telling him to wait in the Warbeach churchyard, or within sight of it,
+strolled off in the direction of the river. His simple neatness and
+quiet gentlemanly air abashed Robert, and lured him from his intense
+conception of abstract right and wrong, which had hitherto encouraged
+and incited him, so that he became more than ever crestfallen at
+the prospect of meeting the eyes of the church people, and with the
+trembling sensitiveness of a woman who weighs the merits of a lover when
+passion is having one of its fatal pauses, he looked at himself, and
+compared himself with the class of persons he had outraged, and tried
+to think better of himself, and to justify himself, and sturdily reject
+comparisons. They would not be beaten back. His enemies had never
+suggested them, but they were forced on him by the aspect of his friend.
+
+Any man who takes the law into his own hands, and chooses to stand
+against what is conventionally deemed fitting:--against the world, as we
+say, is open to these moods of degrading humility. Robert waited for the
+sound of the bells with the emotions of a common culprit. Could he have
+been driven to the church and deposited suddenly in his pew, his mind
+would have been easier.
+
+It was the walking there, the walking down the aisle, the sense of his
+being the fellow who had matched himself against those well-attired
+gentlemen, which entirely confused him. And not exactly for his own
+sake--for Percy's partly. He sickened at the thought of being seen by
+Major Waring's side. His best suit and his hat were good enough, as
+far as they went, only he did not feel that he wore them--he could not
+divine how it was--with a proper air, an air of signal comfort. In
+fact, the graceful negligence of an English gentleman's manner had been
+unexpectedly revealed to him; and it was strange, he reflected, that
+Percy never appeared to observe how deficient he was, and could still
+treat him as an equal, call him by his Christian name, and not object to
+be seen with him in public.
+
+Robert did not think at the same time that illness had impoverished his
+blood. Your sensational beings must keep a strong and a good flow of
+blood in their veins to be always on a level with the occasion which
+they provoke. He remembered wonderingly that he had used to be easy
+in gait and ready of wit when walking from Queen Anne's Farm to Wrexby
+village church. Why was he a different creature now? He could not answer
+the question.
+
+Two or three of his Warbeach acquaintances passed him in the lanes. They
+gave him good day, and spoke kindly, and with pleasant friendly looks.
+
+Their impression when they left him was that he was growing proud.
+
+The jolly butcher of Warbeach, who had a hearty affection for him,
+insisted upon clapping his hand, and showing him to Mrs. Billing, and
+showing their two young ones to Robert. With a kiss to the children, and
+a nod, Robert let them pass.
+
+Here and there, he was hailed by young fellows who wore their hats on
+one side, and jaunty-fashioned coats--Sunday being their own bright day
+of exhibition. He took no notice of the greetings.
+
+He tried to feel an interest in the robins and twittering wrens, and
+called to mind verses about little birds, and kept repeating them,
+behind a face that chilled every friendly man who knew him.
+
+Moody the boat-builder asked him, with a stare, if he was going to
+church, and on Robert's replying that perhaps he was, said "I'm dashed!"
+and it was especially discouraging to one in Robert's condition.
+
+Further to inspirit him, he met Jonathan Eccles, who put the same
+question to him, and getting the same answer, turned sharp round and
+walked homeward.
+
+Robert had a great feeling of relief when the bells were silent, and
+sauntered with a superior composure round the holly and laurel bushes
+concealing the church. Not once did he ponder on the meeting between
+Major Waring and Mr. Edward Blancove, until he beheld the former
+standing alone by the churchyard gate, and then he thought more of the
+empty churchyard and the absence of carriages, proclaiming the dreadful
+admonition that he must immediately consider as to the best way of
+comporting himself before an observant and censorious congregation.
+
+Major Waring remarked, "You are late."
+
+"Have I kept you waiting?" said Robert.
+
+"Not long. They are reading the lessons."
+
+"Is it full inside?"
+
+"I dare say it is."
+
+"You have seen him, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh yes; I have seen him."
+
+Percy was short in his speech, and pale as Robert had never seen him
+before. He requested hastily to be told the situation of Lord Elling's
+pew.
+
+"Don't you think of going into the gallery?" said Robert, but received
+no answer, and with an inward moan of "Good God! they'll think I've come
+here in a sort of repentance," he found himself walking down the aisle;
+and presently, to his amazement, settled in front of the Fairly pew, and
+with his eyes on Mrs. Lovell.
+
+What was the matter with her? Was she ill? Robert forgot his own
+tribulation in an instant. Her face was like marble, and as she stood
+with the prayer-book in her hand, her head swayed over it: her lips made
+a faint effort at smiling, and she sat quietly down, and was concealed.
+Algernon and Sir John Capes were in the pew beside her, as well as Lady
+Elling, who, with a backward-turned hand and disregarding countenance,
+reached out her smelling-bottle.
+
+"Is this because she fancies I know of her having made a bet of me?"
+thought Robert, and it was not his vanity prompted the supposition,
+though his vanity was awakened by it. "Or is she ashamed of her
+falsehood?" he thought again, and forgave her at the sight of her sweet
+pale face. The singing of the hymns made her evident suffering seem holy
+as a martyr's. He scarce had the power to conduct himself reverently, so
+intense was his longing to show her his sympathy.
+
+"That is Mrs. Lovell--did you see her just now?" he whispered.
+
+"Ah?" said Major Waring.
+
+"I'm afraid she has fainted."
+
+"Possibly."
+
+But Mrs. Lovell had not fainted. She rose when the time for rising came
+again, and fixing her eyes with a grave devotional collectedness upon
+the vicar at his reading-desk, looked quite mistress of herself--but
+mistress of herself only when she kept them so fixed. When they moved,
+it was as if they had relinquished some pillar of support, and they
+wavered; livid shades chased her face, like the rain-clouds on a grey
+lake-water. Some one fronting her weighed on her eyelids. This was
+evident. Robert thought her a miracle of beauty. She was in colour like
+days he had noted thoughtfully: days with purple storm, and with golden
+horizon edges. She had on a bonnet of black velvet, with a delicate
+array of white lace, that was not suffered to disturb the contrast to
+her warm yellow hair. Her little gloved hands were both holding the
+book; at times she perused it, or, the oppression becoming unendurable,
+turned her gaze toward the corner of the chancel, and thence once more
+to her book. Robert rejected all idea of his being in any way the cause
+of her strange perturbation. He cast a glance at his friend. He had
+begun to nourish a slight suspicion; but it was too slight to bear up
+against Percy's self-possession; for, as he understood the story, Percy
+had been the sufferer, and the lady had escaped without a wound. How,
+then, if such were the case, would she be showing emotion thus deep,
+while he stood before her with perfect self-command?
+
+Robert believed that if he might look upon that adorable face for many
+days together, he could thrust Rhoda's from his memory. The sermon was
+not long enough for him; and he was angry with Percy for rising before
+there was any movement for departure in the Fairly pew. In the doorway
+of the church Percy took his arm, and asked him to point out the family
+tombstone. They stood by it, when Lady Elling and Mrs. Lovell came forth
+and walked to the carriage, receiving respectful salutes from the people
+of Warbeach.
+
+"How lovely she is!" said Robert.
+
+"Do you think her handsome?" said Major Waring.
+
+"I can't understand such a creature dying." Robert stepped over an open
+grave.
+
+The expression of Percy's eyes was bitter.
+
+"I should imagine she thinks it just as impossible."
+
+The Warbeach villagers waited for Lady Elling's carriage to roll away,
+and with a last glance at Robert, they too went off in gossiping groups.
+Robert's penance was over, and he could not refrain from asking what
+good his coming to church had done.
+
+"I can't assist you," said Percy. "By the way, Mr. Blancove denies
+everything. He thinks you mad. He promises, now that you have adopted
+reasonable measures, to speak to his cousin, and help, as far as he can,
+to discover the address you are in search of."
+
+"That's all?" cried Robert.
+
+"That is all."
+
+"Then where am I a bit farther than when I began?"
+
+"You are only at the head of another road, and a better one."
+
+"Oh, why do I ever give up trusting to my right hand--" Robert muttered.
+
+But the evening brought a note to him from Algernon Blancove. It
+contained a dignified condemnation of Robert's previous insane
+behaviour, and closed by giving Dahlia's address in London.
+
+"How on earth was this brought about?" Robert now questioned.
+
+"It's singular, is it not?" said Major blaring; "but if you want a dog
+to follow you, you don't pull it by the collar; and if you want a potato
+from the earth, you plant the potato before you begin digging. You are
+a soldier by instinct, my good Robert: your first appeal is to force.
+I, you see, am a civilian: I invariably try the milder methods. Do
+you start for London tonight? I remain. I wish to look at the
+neighbourhood."
+
+Robert postponed his journey to the morrow, partly in dread of his
+approaching interview with Dahlia, but chiefly to continue a little
+longer by the side of him whose gracious friendship gladdened his life.
+They paid a second visit to Sutton Farm. Robert doggedly refused to
+let a word be said to his father about his having taken to farming,
+and Jonathan listened to all Major Waring said of his son like a man
+deferential to the accomplishment of speaking, but too far off to hear
+more than a chance word. He talked, in reply, quite cheerfully of
+the weather and the state of the ground; observed that the soil was
+a perpetual study, but he knew something of horses and dogs, and
+Yorkshiremen were like Jews in the trouble they took to over-reach in
+a bargain. "Walloping men is poor work, if you come to compare it
+with walloping Nature," he said, and explained that, according to
+his opinion, "to best a man at buying and selling was as wholesome an
+occupation as frowzlin' along the gutters for parings and strays." He
+himself preferred to go to the heart of things: "Nature makes you rich,
+if your object is to do the same for her. Yorkshire fellows never think
+except of making theirselves rich by fattening on your blood, like
+sheep-ticks." In fine, Jonathan spoke sensibly, and abused Yorkshire,
+without hesitating to confess that a certain Yorkshireman, against whom
+he had matched his wits in a purchase of horseflesh, had given him a
+lively recollection of the encounter.
+
+Percy asked him what he thought of his country. "I'll tell you," said
+Jonathan; "Englishmen's business is to go to war with the elements, and
+so long as we fight them, we're in the right academy for learnin' how
+the game goes. Our vulnerability commences when we think we'll sit
+down and eat the fruits, and if I don't see signs o' that, set me
+mole-tunnelling. Self-indulgence is the ruin of our time."
+
+This was the closest remark he made to his relations with Robert, who
+informed him that he was going to London on the following day. Jonathan
+shook his hand heartily, without troubling himself about any inquiries.
+
+"There's so much of that old man in me," said Robert, when Percy praised
+him, on their return, "that I daren't call him a Prince of an old
+boy: and never a spot of rancour in his soul. Have a claim on him--and
+there's your seat at his table: take and offend him--there's your seat
+still. Eat and drink, but you don't get near his heart. I'll surprise
+him some day. He fancies he's past surprises."
+
+"Well," said Percy, "you're younger than I am, and may think the future
+belongs to you."
+
+Early next morning they parted. Robert was in town by noon. He lost no
+time in hurrying to the Western suburb. As he neared the house where
+he was to believe Dahlia to be residing, he saw a man pass through the
+leafless black shrubs by the iron gate; and when he came to the gate
+himself the man was at the door. The door opened and closed on this man.
+It was Nicodemus Sedgett, or Robert's eyes did him traitorous service.
+He knocked at the door violently, and had to knock a second and a third
+time. Dahlia was denied to him. He was told that Mrs. Ayrton had lived
+there, but had left, and her present address was unknown. He asked to
+be allowed to speak a word to the man who had just entered the house.
+No one had entered for the last two hours, was the reply. Robert had
+an impulse to rush by the stolid little female liar, but Percy's recent
+lesson to him acted as a restraint; though, had it been a brawny woman
+or a lacquey in his path, he would certainly have followed his natural
+counsel. He turned away, lingering outside till it was dusk and the
+bruise on his head gave great throbs, and then he footed desolately
+farther and farther from the house. To combat with evil in his own
+country village had seemed a simple thing enough, but it appeared a
+superhuman task in giant London.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+It requires, happily, many years of an ordinary man's life to teach him
+to believe in the exceeding variety and quantity of things money can
+buy: yet, when ingenuous minds have fully comprehended the potent
+character of the metal, they are likely enough to suppose that it will
+buy everything: after which comes the groaning anxiety to possess it.
+
+This stage of experience is a sublime development in the great souls of
+misers. It is their awakening moment, and it is their first real sense
+of a harvest being in their hands. They have begun under the influence
+of the passion for hoarding, which is but a blind passion of the
+finger-ends. The idea that they have got together, bit by bit, a
+power, travels slowly up to their heavy brains. Once let it be grasped,
+however, and they clutch a god. They feed on everybody's hunger for it.
+And, let us confess, they have in that a mighty feast.
+
+Anthony Hackbut was not a miser. He was merely a saving old man. His
+vanity was, to be thought a miser, envied as a miser. He lived in daily
+hearing of the sweet chink of gold, and loved the sound, but with a
+poetical love, rather than with the sordid desire to amass gold pieces.
+Though a saving old man, he had his comforts; and if they haunted him
+and reproached him subsequently, for indulging wayward appetites for
+herrings and whelks and other sea-dainties that render up no account to
+you when they have disappeared, he put by copper and silver continually,
+weekly and monthly, and was master of a sum.
+
+He knew the breadth of this sum with accuracy, and what it would expand
+to this day come a year, and probably this day come five years. He knew
+it only too well. The sum took no grand leaps. It increased, but did not
+seem to multiply. And he was breathing in the heart of the place, of all
+places in the world, where money did multiply.
+
+He was the possessor of twelve hundred pounds, solid, and in haven; that
+is, the greater part in the Bank of England, and a portion in Boyne's
+Bank. He had besides a few skirmishing securities, and some such bits of
+paper as Algernon had given him in the public-house on that remarkable
+night of his visit to the theatre.
+
+These, when the borrowers were defaulters in their payments and pleaded
+for an extension of time, inspired him with sentiments of grandeur that
+the solid property could not impart. Nevertheless, the anti-poetical
+tendency within him which warred with the poetical, and set him reducing
+whatsoever he claimed to plain figures, made it but a fitful hour of
+satisfaction.
+
+He had only to fix his mind upon Farmer Fleming's conception of his
+wealth, to feel the miserable smallness of what seemed legitimately his
+own; and he felt it with so poignant an emotion that at times his fears
+of death were excited by the knowledge of a dead man's impotence to
+suggest hazy margins in the final exposure of his property. There it
+would lie, dead as himself! contracted, coffined, contemptible!
+
+What would the farmer think when he came to hear that his brother Tony's
+estate was not able to buy up Queen Anne's Farm?--when, in point of
+fact, he found that he had all along been the richer man of the two!
+
+Anthony's comfort was in the unfaltering strength of his constitution.
+He permitted his estimate of it to hint at the probability of his
+outlasting his brother William John, to whom he wished no earthly ill,
+but only that he should not live with a mitigated veneration for him. He
+was really nourished by the farmer's gluttonous delight in his supposed
+piles of wealth. Sometimes, for weeks, he had the gift of thinking
+himself one of the Bank with which he had been so long connected; and
+afterward a wretched reaction set in.
+
+It was then that his touch upon Bank money began to intoxicate him
+strangely. He had at times thousands hugged against his bosom, and his
+heart swelled to the money-bags immense. He was a dispirited, but a
+grateful creature, after he had delivered them up. The delirium came by
+fits, as if a devil lurked to surprise him.
+
+"With this money," said the demon, "you might speculate, and in two days
+make ten times the amount."
+
+To which Anthony answered: "My character's worth fifty times the
+amount."
+
+Such was his reply, but he did not think it. He was honest, and his
+honesty had become a habit; but the money was the only thing which acted
+on his imagination; his character had attained to no sacred halo, and
+was just worth his annual income and the respect of the law for his
+person. The money fired his brain!
+
+"Ah! if it was mine!" he sighed. "If I could call it mine for just forty
+or fifty hours! But it ain't, and I can't."
+
+He fought dogged battles with the tempter, and beat him off again and
+again. One day he made a truce with him by saying that if ever the
+farmer should be in town of an afternoon he would steal ten minutes
+or so, and make an appointment with him somewhere and show him the
+money-bags without a word: let him weigh and eye them: and then the plan
+was for Anthony to talk of politics, while the farmer's mind was in a
+ferment.
+
+With this arrangement the infernal Power appeared to be content, and
+Anthony was temporarily relieved of his trouble. In other words, the
+intermittent fever of a sort of harmless rascality was afflicting this
+old creature. He never entertained the notion of running clear away with
+the money entrusted to him.
+
+Whither could an aged man fly? He thought of foreign places as of spots
+that gave him a shivering sense of its being necessary for him to be
+born again in nakedness and helplessness, if ever he was to see them and
+set foot on them.
+
+London was his home, and clothed him about warmly and honourably, and so
+he said to the demon in their next colloquy.
+
+Anthony had become guilty of the imprudence of admitting him to
+conferences and arguing with him upon equal terms. They tell us, that
+this is the imprudence of women under temptation; and perhaps Anthony
+was pushed to the verge of the abyss from causes somewhat similar to
+those which imperil them, and employed the same kind of efforts in his
+resistance.
+
+In consequence of this compromise, the demon by degrees took seat at
+his breakfast-table, when Mrs. Wicklow, his landlady, could hear Anthony
+talking in the tone of voice of one who was pushed to his sturdiest
+arguments. She conceived that the old man's head was softening.
+
+He was making one of his hurried rushes with the porterage of money on
+an afternoon in Spring, when a young female plucked at his coat, and his
+wrath at offenders against the law kindled in a minute into fury.
+
+"Hands off, minx!" he cried. "You shall be given in charge. Where's a
+policeman?"
+
+"Uncle!" she said.
+
+"You precious swindler in petticoats!" Anthony fumed.
+
+But he had a queer recollection of her face, and when she repeated
+piteously: "Uncle!" he peered at her features, saying,--
+
+"No!" in wonderment, several times.
+
+Her hair was cut like a boy's. She was in common garments, with a
+close-shaped skull-cap and a black straw bonnet on her head; not gloved,
+of ill complexion, and with deep dark lines slanting down from the
+corners of her eyes. Yet the inspection convinced him that he beheld
+Dahlia, his remembering the niece. He was amazed; but speedily priceless
+trust in his arms, and the wickedness of the streets, he bade her
+follow him. She did so with some difficulty, for he ran, and dodged, and
+treated the world as his enemy, suddenly vanished, and appeared again
+breathing freely.
+
+"Why, my girl?" he said: "Why, Dahl--Mrs. What's-your-name? Why, who'd
+have known you? Is that"--he got his eyes close to her hair; "is that
+the ladies' fashion now? 'Cause, if it is, our young street scamps has
+only got to buy bonnets, and--I say, you don't look the Pomp. Not as you
+used to, Miss Ma'am, I mean--no, that you don't. Well, what's the news?
+How's your husband?"
+
+"Uncle," said Dahlia; "will you, please, let me speak to you somewhere?"
+
+"Ain't we standing together?"
+
+"Oh! pray, out of the crowd!"
+
+"Come home with me, if my lodgings ain't too poor for you," said
+Anthony.
+
+"Uncle, I can't. I have been unwell. I cannot walk far. Will you take me
+to some quiet place?"
+
+"Will you treat me to a cab?" Anthony sneered vehemently.
+
+"I have left off riding, uncle."
+
+"What! Hulloa!" Anthony sang out. "Cash is down in the mouth at home, is
+it? Tell me that, now?"
+
+Dahlia dropped her eyelids, and then entreated him once more to conduct
+her to a quiet place where they might sit together, away from noise. She
+was very earnest and very sad, not seeming to have much strength.
+
+"Do you mind taking my arm?" said Anthony.
+
+She leaned her hand on his arm, and he dived across the road with her,
+among omnibuses and cabs, shouting to them through the roar,--
+
+"We're the Independence on two legs, warranted sound, and no
+competition;" and saying to Dahlia: "Lor' bless you! there's no retort
+in 'em, or I'd say something worth hearing. It's like poking lions in
+cages with raw meat, afore you get a chaffing-match out o' them. Some
+of 'em know me. They'd be good at it, those fellows. I've heard of
+good things said by 'em. But there they sit, and they've got no
+circulation--ain't ready, except at old women, or when they catch you in
+a mess, and getting the worst of it. Let me tell you; you'll never
+get manly chaff out of big bundles o' fellows with ne'er an atom o'
+circulation. The river's the place for that. I've heard uncommon good
+things on the river--not of 'em, but heard 'em. T' other's most part
+invention. And, they tell me, horseback's a prime thing for chaff.
+Circulation, again. Sharp and lively, I mean; not bawl, and answer
+over your back--most part impudence, and nothing else--and then out
+of hearing. That sort o' chaff's cowardly. Boys are stiff young
+parties--circulation--and I don't tackle them pretty often, 'xcept when
+I'm going like a ball among nine-pins. It's all a matter o' circulation.
+I say, my dear," Anthony addressed her seriously, "you should never lay
+hold o' my arm when you see me going my pace of an afternoon. I took you
+for a thief, and worse--I did. That I did. Had you been waiting to see
+me?"
+
+"A little," Dahlia replied, breathless.
+
+"You have been ill?"
+
+"A little," she said.
+
+"You've written to the farm? O' course you have!"
+
+"Oh! uncle, wait," moaned Dahlia.
+
+"But, ha' you been sick, and not written home?"
+
+"Wait; please, wait," she entreated him.
+
+"I'll wait," said Anthony; "but that's no improvement to queerness; and
+'queer''s your motto. Now we cross London Bridge. There's the Tower that
+lived in times when no man was safe of keeping his own money, 'cause of
+grasping kings--all claws and crown. I'm Republican as far as 'none o'
+them'--goes. There's the ships. The sun rises behind 'em, and sets
+afore 'em, and you may fancy, if you like, there's always gold in their
+rigging. Gals o' your sort think I say, come! tell me, if you are a
+lady?"
+
+"No, uncle, no!" Dahlia cried, and then drawing in her breath, added:
+"not to you."
+
+"Last time I crossed this bridge with a young woman hanging on my arm,
+it was your sister; they say she called on you, and you wouldn't see
+her; and a gal so good and a gal so true ain't to be got for a sister
+every day in the year! What are you pulling me for?"
+
+Dahlia said nothing, but clung to him with a drooping head, and so they
+hurried along, until Anthony stopped in front of a shop displaying cups
+and muffins at the window, and leprous-looking strips of bacon, and
+sausages that had angled for appetites till they had become pallid
+sodden things, like washed-out bait.
+
+Into this shop he led her, and they took possession of a compartment,
+and ordered tea and muffins.
+
+The shop was empty.
+
+"It's one of the expenses of relationship," Anthony sighed, after
+probing Dahlia unsatisfactorily to see whether she intended to pay for
+both, or at least for herself; and finding that she had no pride at all.
+"My sister marries your father, and, in consequence--well! a muffin now
+and then ain't so very much. We'll forget it, though it is a breach,
+mind, in counting up afterwards, and two-pences every day's equal to a
+good big cannonball in the castle-wall at the end of the year. Have you
+written home?"
+
+Dahlia's face showed the bright anguish of unshed tears.
+
+"Uncle-oh! speak low. I have been near death. I have been ill for so
+long a time. I have come to you to hear about them--my father and Rhoda.
+Tell me what they are doing, and do they sleep and eat well, and are not
+in trouble? I could not write. I was helpless. I could not hold a pen.
+Be kind, dear uncle, and do not reproach me. Please, tell me that they
+have not been sorrowful."
+
+A keenness shot from Anthony's eyes. "Then, where's your husband?" he
+asked.
+
+She made a sad attempt at smiling. "He is abroad."
+
+"How about his relations? Ain't there one among 'em to write for you
+when you're ill?"
+
+"He... Yes, he has relatives. I could not ask them. Oh! I am not strong,
+uncle; if you will only leave following me so with questions; but tell
+me, tell me what I want to know."
+
+"Well, then, you tell me where your husband banks," returned Anthony.
+
+"Indeed, I cannot say."
+
+"Do you," Anthony stretched out alternative fingers, "do you get money
+from him to make payments in gold, or, do you get it in paper?"
+
+She stared as in terror of a pit-fall. "Paper," she said at a venture.
+
+"Well, then, name your Bank."
+
+There was no cunning in her eye as she answered: "I don't know any bank,
+except the Bank of England."
+
+"Why the deuce didn't you say so at once--eh?" cried Anthony. "He gives
+you bank-notes. Nothing better in the world. And he a'n't been givin'
+you many lately--is that it? What's his profession, or business?"
+
+"He is...he is no profession."
+
+"Then, what is he? Is he a gentleman?"
+
+"Yes," she breathed plaintively.
+
+"Your husband's a gentleman. Eh?--and lost his money?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How did he lose it?"
+
+The poor victim of this pertinacious interrogatory now beat about within
+herself for succour. "I must not say," she replied.
+
+"You're going to try to keep a secret, are ye?" said Anthony; and she,
+in her relief at the pause to her torment, said: "I am," with a little
+infantile, withering half-smile.
+
+"Well, you've been and kept yourself pretty secret," the old man
+pursued. "I suppose your husband's proud? He's proud, ain't he? He's
+of a family, I'll be bound. Is he of a family? How did he like your
+dressing up like a mill'ner gal to come down in the City and see me?"
+
+Dahlia's guile was not ready. "He didn't mind," she said.
+
+"He didn't mind, didn't he? He don't mind your cutting of your hair
+so?--didn't mind that?"
+
+She shook her head. "No."
+
+Anthony was down upon her like a hawk.
+
+"Why, he's abroad!"
+
+"Yes; I mean, he did not see me."
+
+With which, in a minute, she was out of his grasp; but her heart beat
+thick, her lips were dry, and her thoughts were in disorder.
+
+"Then, he don't know you've been and got shaved, and a poll like a
+turnip-head of a thief? That's something for him to learn, is it?"
+
+The picture of her beauty gone, seared her eyes like heated brass. She
+caught Anthony's arm with one firm hand to hold him silent, and with the
+other hand covered her sight and let the fit of weeping pass.
+
+When the tears had spent themselves, she relinquished her hold of the
+astonished old man, who leaned over the table to her, and dominated by
+the spirit of her touch, whispered, like one who had accepted a bond
+of secresy: "Th' old farmer's well. So's Rhoda--my darkie lass. They've
+taken on a bit. And then they took to religion for comfort. Th' old
+farmer attends Methody meetin's, and quotes Scriptur' as if he was fixed
+like a pump to the Book, and couldn't fetch a breath without quotin'.
+Rhoda's oftenest along with your rector's wife down there, and does
+works o' charity, sicknussin', readin'--old farmer does the preachin'.
+Old mother Sumfit's fat as ever, and says her money's for you. Old
+Gammon goes on eatin' of the dumplins. Hey! what a queer old ancient he
+is. He seems to me to belong to a time afore ever money was. That Mr.
+Robert's off...never been down there since he left, 'cause my darkie
+lass thought herself too good for him. So she is!--too good for anybody.
+They're going to leave the farm; sell, and come to London."
+
+"Oh, no!" exclaimed Dahlia; "not going to leave the dear old farm, and
+our lane, and the old oaks, leading up to the heath. Are they? Father
+will miss it. Rhoda will mourn so. No place will ever be like that to
+them. I love it better than any place on earth."
+
+"That's queer," said Anthony. "Why do you refuse to go, or won't
+let your husband take you down there; if you like the place that
+raving-like? But 'queer''s your motto. The truth is this--you just
+listen. Hear me--hush! I won't speak in a bawl. You're a reasonable
+being, and you don't--that's to say, you do understand, the old farmer
+feels it uncomfortable--"
+
+"But I never helped him when I was there," said Dahlia, suddenly
+shrinking in a perceptible tremble of acute divination. "I was no use. I
+never helped him--not at all. I was no--no use!"
+
+Anthony blinked his eyes, not knowing how it was that he had thus been
+thrown out of his direct road. He began again, in his circumlocutory
+delicacy: "Never mind; help or no help, what th' old farmer feels
+is--and quite nat'ral. There's sensations as a father, and sensations as
+a man; and what th' old farmer feels is--"
+
+"But Rhoda has always been more to father than I have," Dahlia cried,
+now stretching forward with desperate courage to confront her uncle,
+distract his speech, and avert the saying of the horrible thing she
+dreaded. "Rhoda was everything to him. Mother perhaps took to me--my
+mother!"
+
+The line of her long underlie drawn sharp to check her tears, stopped
+her speaking.
+
+"All very well about Rhoda," said Anthony. "She's everything to me,
+too."
+
+"Every--everybody loves her!" Dahlia took him up.
+
+"Let 'em, so long as they don't do no harm to her," was Anthony's
+remark. There was an idea in this that he had said, and the light of it
+led off his fancy. It was some time before he returned to the attack.
+
+"Neighbours gossip a good deal. O' course you know that."
+
+"I never listen to them," said Dahlia, who now felt bare at any instant
+for the stab she saw coming.
+
+"No, not in London; but country's different, and a man hearing of his
+child 'it's very odd!' and 'keepin' away like that!' and 'what's become
+of her?' and that sort of thing, he gets upset."
+
+Dahlia swallowed in her throat, as in perfect quietude of spirit, and
+pretended to see no meaning for herself in Anthony's words.
+
+But she said, inadvertently, "Dear father!" and it gave Anthony his
+opening.
+
+"There it is. No doubt you're fond of him. You're fond o' th' old
+farmer, who's your father. Then, why not make a entry into the village,
+and show 'em? I loves my father, says you. I can or I can't bring my
+husband, you seems to say; but I'm come to see my old father. Will you
+go down to-morrow wi' me?"
+
+"Oh!" Dahlia recoiled and abandoned all defence in a moan: "I can't--I
+can't!"
+
+"There," said Anthony, "you can't. You confess you can't; and there's
+reason for what's in your father's mind. And he hearin' neighbours'
+gossip, and it comes to him by a sort of extractin'--'Where's her
+husband?' bein' the question; and 'She ain't got one,' the answer--it's
+nat'ral for him to leave the place. I never can tell him how you went
+off, or who's the man, lucky or not. You went off sudden, on a morning,
+after kissin' me at breakfast; and no more Dahly visible. And he
+suspects--he more'n suspects. Farm's up for sale. Th' old farmer thinks
+it's unbrotherly of me not to go and buy, and I can't make him see I
+don't understand land: it's about like changeing sovereigns for lumps
+o' clay, in my notions; and that ain't my taste. Long and the short
+is--people down there at Wrexby and all round say you ain't married. He
+ain't got a answer for 'em; it's cruel to hear, and crueller to think:
+he's got no answer, poor old farmer! and he's obliged to go inter exile.
+Farm's up for sale."
+
+Anthony thumped with his foot conclusively.
+
+"Say I'm not married!" said Dahlia, and a bad colour flushed her
+countenance. "They say--I'm not married. I am--I am. It's false. It's
+cruel of father to listen to them--wicked people! base--base people! I
+am married, uncle. Tell father so, and don't let him sell the farm. Tell
+him, I said I was married. I am. I'm respected. I have only a little
+trouble, and I'm sure others have too. We all have. Tell father not to
+leave. It breaks my heart. Oh! uncle, tell him that from me."
+
+Dahlia gathered her shawl close, and set an irresolute hand upon her
+bonnet strings, that moved as if it had forgotten its purpose. She could
+say no more. She could only watch her uncle's face, to mark the effect
+of what she had said.
+
+Anthony nodded at vacancy. His eyebrows were up, and did not descend
+from their elevation. "You see, your father wants assurances; he wants
+facts. They're easy to give, if give 'em you can. Ah, there's a weddin'
+ring on your finger, sure enough. Plain gold--and, Lord! how bony your
+fingers ha' got, Dahly. If you are a sinner, you're a bony one now, and
+that don't seem so bad to me. I don't accuse you, my dear. Perhaps I'd
+like to see your husband's banker's book. But what your father hears,
+is--You've gone wrong."
+
+Dahlia smiled in a consummate simulation of scorn.
+
+"And your father thinks that's true."
+
+She smiled with an equal simulation of saddest pity.
+
+"And he says this: 'Proof,' he says, 'proof's what I want, that she's
+an honest woman.' He asks for you to clear yourself. He says, 'It's hard
+for an old man'--these are his words 'it's hard for an old man to hear
+his daughter called...'"
+
+Anthony smacked his hand tight on his open mouth.
+
+He was guiltless of any intended cruelty, and Dahlia's first impulse
+when she had got her breath, was to soothe him. She took his hand. "Dear
+father! poor father! Dear, dear father!" she kept saying.
+
+"Rhoda don't think it," Anthony assured her.
+
+"No?" and Dahlia's bosom exulted up to higher pain.
+
+"Rhoda declares you are married. To hear that gal fight for you--there's
+ne'er a one in Wrexby dares so much as hint a word within a mile of
+her."
+
+"My Rhoda! my sister!" Dahlia gasped, and the tears came pouring down
+her face.
+
+In vain Anthony lifted her tea-cup and the muffin-plate to her for
+consolation. His hushings and soothings were louder than her weeping.
+Incapable of resisting such a protest of innocence, he said, "And I
+don't think it, neither."
+
+She pressed his fingers, and begged him to pay the people of the shop:
+at which sign of her being probably moneyless, Anthony could not help
+mumbling, "Though I can't make out about your husband, and why he lets
+ye be cropped--that he can't help, may be--but lets ye go about dressed
+like a mill'ner gal, and not afford cabs. Is he very poor?"
+
+She bowed her head.
+
+"Poor?"
+
+"He is very poor."
+
+"Is he, or ain't he, a gentleman?"
+
+Dahlia seemed torn by a new anguish.
+
+"I see," said Anthony. "He goes and persuades you he is, and you've
+been and found out he's nothin' o' the sort--eh? That'd be a way of
+accounting for your queerness, more or less. Was it that fellow that
+Wicklow gal saw ye with?"
+
+Dahlia signified vehemently, "No."
+
+"Then, I've guessed right; he turns out not to be a gentleman--eh,
+Dahly? Go on noddin', if ye like. Never mind the shop people; we're
+well-conducted, and that's all they care for. I say, Dahly, he ain't a
+gentleman? You speak out or nod your head. You thought you'd caught a
+gentleman and 'taint the case. Gentlemen ain't caught so easy. They
+all of 'em goes to school, and that makes 'em knowin'. Come; he ain't a
+gentleman?"
+
+Dahlia's voice issued, from a terrible inward conflict, like a voice of
+the tombs. "No," she said.
+
+"Then, will you show him to me? Let me have a look at him."
+
+Pushed from misery to misery, she struggled within herself again, and
+again in the same hollow manner said, "Yes."
+
+"You will?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Seein's believin'. If you'll show him to me, or me to him..."
+
+"Oh! don't talk of it." Dahlia struck her fingers in a tight lock.
+
+"I only want to set eye on him, my gal. Whereabouts does he live?"
+
+"Down--down a great--very great way in the West."
+
+Anthony stared.
+
+She replied to the look: "In the West of London--a long way down."
+
+"That's where he is?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I thought--hum!" went the old man suspiciously. "When am I to see him?
+Some day?"
+
+"Yes; some day."
+
+"Didn't I say, Sunday?"
+
+"Next Sunday?"--Dahlia gave a muffled cry.
+
+"Yes, next Sunday. Day after to-morrow. And I'll write off to-morrow,
+and ease th' old farmer's heart, and Rhoda 'll be proud for you. She
+don't care about gentleman--or no gentleman. More do th' old farmer.
+It's let us, live and die respectable, and not disgrace father nor
+mother. Old-fashioned's best-fashioned about them things, I think.
+Come, you bring him--your husband--to me on Sunday, if you object to my
+callin' on you. Make up your mind to."
+
+"Not next Sunday--the Sunday after," Dahlia pleaded. "He is not here
+now."
+
+"Where is he?" Anthony asked.
+
+"He's in the country."
+
+Anthony pounced on her, as he had done previously.
+
+"You said to me he was abroad."
+
+"In the country--abroad. Not--not in the great cities. I could not make
+known your wishes to him."
+
+She gave this cool explanation with her eyelids fluttering timorously,
+and rose as she uttered it, but with faint and ill-supporting limbs,
+for during the past hour she had gone through the sharpest trial of her
+life, and had decided for the course of her life. Anthony was witless
+thereof, and was mystified by his incapability of perceiving where and
+how he had been deluded; but he had eaten all the muffin on the plate,
+and her rising proclaimed that she had no intention of making him call
+for another; which was satisfactory. He drank off her cup of tea at a
+gulp.
+
+The waitress named the sum he was to pay, and receiving a meditative
+look in return for her air of expectancy after the amount had been laid
+on the table, at once accelerated their passage from the shop by opening
+the door.
+
+"If ever I did give pennies, I'd give 'em to you," said Anthony, when
+he was out of her hearing. "Women beat men in guessing at a man by his
+face. Says she--you're honourable--you're legal--but prodigal ain't your
+portion. That's what she says, without the words, unless she's a reader.
+Now, then, Dahly, my lass, you take my arm. Buckle to. We'll to the
+West. Don't th' old farmer pronounce like 'toe' the West? We'll 'toe'
+the West. I can afford to laugh at them big houses up there.
+
+"Where's the foundation, if one of them's sound? Why, in the City.
+
+"I'll take you by our governor's house. You know--you know--don't ye,
+Dahly, know we been suspecting his nephew? 'cause we saw him with you at
+the theatre.
+
+"I didn't suspect. I knew he found you there by chance, somehow. And I
+noticed your dress there. No wonder your husband's poor. He wanted to
+make you cut a figure as one of the handsomes, and that's as ruinous as
+cabs--ha! ha!"
+
+Anthony laughed, but did not reveal what had struck him.
+
+"Sir William Blancove's house is a first-rater. I've been in it. He
+lives in the library. All the other rooms--enter 'em, and if 'taint like
+a sort of, a social sepulchre! Dashed if he can get his son to live with
+him; though they're friends, and his son'll get all the money, and go
+into Parliament, and cut a shine, never fear.
+
+"By the way, I've seen Robert, too. He called on me at the Bank. Asked
+after you.
+
+"'Seen her?' says he.
+
+"'No,' I says.
+
+"'Ever see Mr. Edward Blancove here?' he says.
+
+"I told him, I'd heard say, Mr. Edward was Continentalling. And then
+Robert goes off. His opinion is you ain't in England; 'cause a policeman
+he spoke to can't find you nowhere.
+
+"'Come," says I, 'let's keep our detectives to catch thieves, and not go
+distracting of 'em about a parcel o' women.'
+
+"He's awfully down about Rhoda. She might do worse than take him. I
+don't think he's got a ounce of a chance now Religion's set in, though
+he's the mildest big 'un I ever come across. I forgot to haul him
+over about what he 'd got to say about Mr. Edward. I did remark, I
+thought--ain't I right?--Mr. Algernon's not the man?--eh? How come you
+in the theatre with him?"
+
+Dahlia spoke huskily. "He saw me. He had seen me at home. It was an
+accident."
+
+"Exactly how I put it to Robert. And he agreed with me. There's sense
+in that young man. Your husband wouldn't let you come to us there--eh?
+because he...why was that?"
+
+Dahlia had it on her lips to say it "Because he was poorer than I
+thought;" but in the intensity of her torment, the wretchedness of
+this lie, revolted her. "Oh! for God's sake, uncle, give me peace about
+that."
+
+The old man murmured: "Ay, ay;" and thought it natural that she should
+shun an allusion to the circumstance.
+
+They crossed one of the bridges, and Dahlia stopped and said: "Kiss me,
+uncle."
+
+"I ain't ashamed," said Anthony.
+
+This being over, she insisted on his not accompanying her farther.
+
+Anthony made her pledge her word of honour as a married woman, to bring
+her husband to the identical spot where they stood at three o'clock in
+the afternoon of Sunday week. She promised it.
+
+"I'll write home to th' old farmer--a penny," said Anthony, showing that
+he had considered the outlay and was prepared for it.
+
+"And uncle," she stipulated in turn, "they are not to see me yet. Very
+soon; but not yet. Be true to me, and come alone, or it will be your
+fault--I shall not appear. Now, mind. And beg them not to leave
+the farm. It will kill father. Can you not," she said, in the faded
+sweetness of her speech, "could you not buy it, and let father be your
+tenant, uncle? He would pay you regularly."
+
+Anthony turned a rough shoulder on her.
+
+"Good-bye, Dahly. You be a good girl, and all 'll go right. Old farmer
+talks about praying. If he didn't make it look so dark to a chap, I'd be
+ready to fancy something in that. You try it. You try, Dahly. Say a bit
+of a prayer to-night."
+
+"I pray every night," Dahlia answered.
+
+Her look of meek despair was hauntingly sad with Anthony on his way
+home.
+
+He tracked her sorrowfulness to the want of money; and another of his
+terrific vague struggles with the money-demon set in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Sir William Blancove did business at his Bank till the hour of three in
+the afternoon, when his carriage conveyed him to a mews near the park of
+Fashion, where he mounted horse and obeyed the bidding of his doctor for
+a space, by cantering in a pleasant, portly, cock-horsey style, up and
+down the Row.
+
+It was the day of the great race on Epsom Downs, and elderly gentlemen
+pricked by the doctors were in the ascendant in all London congregations
+on horseback.
+
+Like Achilles (if the bilious Shade will permit the impudent
+comparison), they dragged their enemy, Gout, at their horses' heels
+for a term, and vengeance being accomplished went to their dinners and
+revived him.
+
+Sir William was disturbed by his son's absence from England. A youth
+to whom a baronetcy and wealth are to be bequeathed is an important
+organism; and Sir William, though his faith reposed in his son, was
+averse to his inexplicably prolonged residence in the French metropolis,
+which, a school for many things, is not a school for the study of our
+Parliamentary system, and still less for that connubial career Sir
+William wished him to commence.
+
+Edward's delightful cynical wit--the worldly man's profundity--and his
+apt quotations of the wit of others, would have continued to exercise
+their charm, if Sir William had not wanted to have him on the spot that
+he might answer certain questions pertinaciously put by Mama Gosling on
+behalf of her daughter.
+
+"There is no engagement," Edward wrote; "let the maiden wait and discern
+her choice: let her ripen;" and he quoted Horace up to a point.
+
+Nor could his father help smiling and completing the lines. He laughed,
+too, as he read the jog of a verse: "Were I to marry the Gosling, pray,
+which would be the goose?"
+
+He laughed, but with a shade of disappointment in the fancy that
+he perceived a wearing away of the robust mental energy which had
+characterized his son: and Sir William knew the danger of wit, and how
+the sharp blade cuts the shoots of the sapling. He had thought that
+Edward was veritable tough oak, and had hitherto encouraged his light
+play with the weapon.
+
+It became a question with him now, whether Wit and Ambition may dwell
+together harmoniously in a young man: whether they will not give such
+manifestation of their social habits as two robins shut in a cage
+will do: of which pretty birds one will presently be discovered with a
+slightly ruffled bosom amid the feathers of his defunct associate.
+
+Thus painfully revolving matters of fact and feeling, Sir William
+cantered, and, like a cropped billow blown against by the wind, drew up
+in front of Mrs. Lovell, and entered into conversation with that lady,
+for the fine needles of whose brain he had the perfect deference of an
+experienced senior. She, however, did not give him comfort. She informed
+him that something was wrong with Edward; she could not tell what. She
+spoke of him languidly, as if his letters contained wearisome trifling.
+
+"He strains to be Frenchy," she said. "It may be a good compliment for
+them to receive: it's a bad one for him to pay."
+
+"Alcibiades is not the best of models," murmured Sir William. "He
+doesn't mention Miss Gosling."
+
+"Oh dear, yes. I have a French acrostic on her name."
+
+"An acrostic!"
+
+A more contemptible form of mental exercise was not to be found,
+according to Sir William's judgement.
+
+"An acrostic!" he made it guttural. "Well!"
+
+"He writes word that he hears Moliere every other night. That can't harm
+him. His reading is principally Memoirs, which I think I have heard you
+call 'The backstairs of history.' We are dull here, and I should not
+imagine it to be a healthy place to dwell in, if the absence of friends
+and the presence of sunshine conspire to dullness. Algy, of course, is
+deep in accounts to-day?"
+
+Sir William remarked that he had not seen the young man at the office,
+and had not looked for him; but the mention of Algernon brought
+something to his mind, and he said,--
+
+"I hear he is continually sending messengers from the office to you
+during the day. You rule him with a rod of iron. Make him discontinue
+that practice. I hear that he despatched our old porter to you yesterday
+with a letter marked 'urgent.'"
+
+Mrs. Lovell laughed pleadingly for Algernon.
+
+"No; he shall not do it again. It occurred yesterday, and on no other
+occasion that I am aware of. He presumes that I am as excited as he is
+himself about the race--"
+
+The lady bowed to a passing cavalier; a smarting blush dyed her face.
+
+"He bets, does he!" said Sir William. "A young man, whose income, at the
+extreme limit, is two hundred pounds a year."
+
+"May not the smallness of the amount in some degree account for the
+betting?" she asked whimsically. "You know, I bet a little--just a
+little. If I have but a small sum, I already regard it as a stake; I am
+tempted to bid it fly."
+
+"In his case, such conduct puts him on the high road to rascality," said
+Sir William severely. "He is doing no good."
+
+"Then the squire is answerable for such conduct, I think."
+
+"You presume to say that he is so because he allows his son very little
+money to squander? How many young men have to contain their expenses
+within two hundred pounds a year!"
+
+"Not sons of squires and nephews of baronets," said Mrs. Lovell. "Adieu!
+I think I see a carrier-pigeon flying overhead, and, as you may suppose,
+I am all anxiety."
+
+Sir William nodded to her. He disliked certain of her ways; but they
+were transparent bits of audacity and restlessness pertaining to a
+youthful widow, full of natural dash; and she was so sweetly mistress of
+herself in all she did, that he never supposed her to be needing caution
+against excesses. Old gentlemen have their pets, and Mrs. Lovell was a
+pet of Sir William's.
+
+She was on the present occasion quite mistress of herself, though the
+stake was large. She was mistress of herself when Lord Suckling, who had
+driven from the Downs and brushed all save a spot of white dust out of
+his baby moustache to make himself presentable, rode up to her to say
+that the horse Templemore was beaten, and that his sagacity in always
+betting against favourites would, in this last instance, transfer a "pot
+of money" from alien pockets to his own.
+
+"Algy Blancove's in for five hundred to me," he said; adding with
+energy, "I hope you haven't lost? No, don't go and dash my jolly feeling
+by saying you have. It was a fine heat; neck-and-neck past the Stand.
+Have you?"
+
+"A little," she confessed. "It's a failing of mine to like favourites.
+I'm sorry for Algy."
+
+"I'm afraid he's awfully hit."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"He took it so awfully cool."
+
+"That may mean the reverse."
+
+"It don't with him. But, Mrs. Lovell, do tell me you haven't lost.
+Not much, is it? Because, I know there's no guessing, when you are
+concerned."
+
+The lady trifled with her bridle-rein.
+
+"I really can't tell you yet. I may have lost. I haven't won. I'm not
+cool-blooded enough to bet against favourites. Addio, son of Fortune!
+I'm at the Opera to-night."
+
+As she turned her horse from Lord Suckling, the cavalier who had saluted
+her when she was with Sir William passed again. She made a signal to her
+groom, and sent the man flying in pursuit of him, while she turned and
+cantered. She was soon overtaken.
+
+"Madam, you have done me the honour."
+
+"I wish to know why it is your pleasure to avoid me, Major Waring?"
+
+"In this place?"
+
+"Wherever we may chance to meet."
+
+"I must protest."
+
+"Do not. The thing is evident."
+
+They rode together silently.
+
+Her face was toward the sunset. The light smote her yellow hair, and
+struck out her grave and offended look, as in a picture.
+
+"To be condemned without a hearing!" she said. "The most dastardly
+criminal gets that. Is it imagined that I have no common feelings? Is it
+manly to follow me with studied insult? I can bear the hatred of fools.
+Contempt I have not deserved. Dead! I should be dead, if my conscience
+had once reproached me. I am a mark for slander, and brave men should
+beware of herding with despicable slanderers."
+
+She spoke, gazing frontward all the while. The pace she maintained in no
+degree impeded the concentrated passion of her utterance.
+
+But it was a more difficult task for him, going at that pace, to make
+explanations, and she was exquisitely fair to behold! The falling beams
+touched her with a mellow sweetness that kindled bleeding memories.
+
+"If I defend myself?" he said.
+
+"No. All I ask is that you should Accuse me. Let me know what I have
+done--done, that I have not been bitterly punished for? What is it? what
+is it? Why do you inflict a torture on me whenever you see me? Not
+by word, not by look. You are too subtle in your cruelty to give me
+anything I can grasp. You know how you wound me. And I am alone."
+
+"That is supposed to account for my behaviour?"
+
+She turned her face to him. "Oh, Major blaring! say nothing unworthy of
+yourself. That would be a new pain to me."
+
+He bowed. In spite of a prepossessing anger, some little softness crept
+through his heart.
+
+"You may conceive that I have dropped my pride," she said. "That is the
+case, or my pride is of a better sort."
+
+"Madam, I fully hope and trust," said he.
+
+"And believe," she added, twisting his words to the ironic tongue. "You
+certainly must believe that my pride has sunk low. Did I ever speak to
+you in this manner before?"
+
+"Not in this manner, I can attest."
+
+"Did I speak at all, when I was hurt?" She betrayed that he had planted
+a fresh sting.
+
+"If my recollection serves me," said he, "your self-command was
+remarkable."
+
+Mrs. Lovell slackened her pace.
+
+"Your recollection serves you too well, Major Waring. I was a girl. You
+judged the acts of a woman. I was a girl, and you chose to put your own
+interpretation on whatever I did. You scourged me before the whole army.
+Was not that enough? I mean, enough for you? For me, perhaps not, for I
+have suffered since, and may have been set apart to suffer. I saw you in
+that little church at Warbeach; I met you in the lanes; I met you on the
+steamer; on the railway platform; at the review. Everywhere you kept
+up the look of my judge. You! and I have been 'Margaret' to you. Major
+Waring, how many a woman in my place would attribute your relentless
+condemnation of her to injured vanity or vengeance? In those days I
+trifled with everybody. I played with fire. I was ignorant of life.
+I was true to my husband; and because I was true, and because I was
+ignorant, I was plunged into tragedies I never suspected. This is to be
+what you call a coquette. Stamping a name saves thinking. Could I
+read my husband's temper? Would not a coquette have played her cards
+differently? There never was need for me to push my husband to a
+contest. I never had the power to restrain him. Now I am wiser; and now
+is too late; and now you sit in judgement on me. Why? It is not fair; it
+is unkind."
+
+Tears were in her voice, though not in her eyes.
+
+Major Waring tried to study her with the coolness of a man who has
+learnt to doubt the truth of women; but he had once yearned in a young
+man's frenzy of love to take that delicate shape in his arms, and he was
+not proof against the sedate sweet face and keen sad ring of the voice.
+
+He spoke earnestly.
+
+"You honour me by caring for my opinion. The past is buried. I have some
+forgiveness to ask. Much, when I think of it--very much. I did you a
+public wrong. From a man to a woman it was unpardonable. It is a blot on
+my career. I beg you humbly to believe that I repent it."
+
+The sun was flaming with great wings red among the vapours; and in the
+recollection of the two, as they rode onward facing it, arose that day
+of the forlorn charge of English horse in the Indian jungle, the thunder
+and the dust, the fire and the dense knot of the struggle. And like
+a ghost sweeping across her eyeballs, Mrs. Lovell beheld, part in his
+English freshness, part ensanguined, the image of the gallant boy who
+had ridden to perish at the spur of her mad whim. She forgot all present
+surroundings.
+
+"Percy!" she said.
+
+"Madam?"
+
+"Percy!"
+
+"Margaret?"
+
+"Oh, what an undying day, Percy!"
+
+And then she was speechless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+The Park had been empty, but the opera-house was full; and in the
+brilliance of the lights and divine soaring of the music, the genius of
+Champagne luncheons discussed the fate of the horse Templemore; some, as
+a matter of remote history; some, as another delusion in horse-flesh
+the greater number, however, with a determination to stand by the beaten
+favourite, though he had fallen, and proclaim him the best of racers
+and an animal foully mishandled on the course. There were whispers,
+and hints, and assertions; now implicating the jockey, now the owner
+of Templemore. The Manchester party, and the Yorkshire party, and their
+diverse villanous tricks, came under review. Several offered to back
+Templemore at double the money they had lost, against the winner. A
+favourite on whom money has been staked, not only has friends, but in
+adversity he is still believed in; nor could it well be otherwise, for
+the money, no doubt, stands for faith, or it would never have been put
+up to the risks of a forfeit.
+
+Foremost and wildest among the excited young men who animated the
+stalls, and rushed about the lobby, was Algernon. He was the genius of
+Champagne luncheon incarnate. On him devolves, for a time, the movement
+of this story, and we shall do well to contemplate him, though he may
+seem possibly to be worthless. What is worthless, if it be well
+looked at? Nay, the most worthless creatures are most serviceable for
+examination, when the microscope is applied to them, as a simple study
+of human mechanism. This youth is one of great Nature's tom-fools:
+an elegant young gentleman outwardly, of the very large class who are
+simply the engines of their appetites, and, to the philosophic eye,
+still run wild in woods, as did the primitive nobleman that made a noise
+in the earlier world.
+
+Algernon had this day lost ten times more than he could hope to be in a
+position to pay within ten years, at the least, if his father continued
+to argue the matter against Providence, and live. He had lost, and might
+speedily expect to be posted in all good betting circles as something
+not pleasantly odoriferous for circles where there is no betting.
+Nevertheless, the youth was surcharged with gaiety. The soul of mingled
+chicken and wine illumined his cheeks and eyes. He laughed and joked
+about the horse--his horse, as he called Templemore--and meeting Lord
+Suckling, won five sovereigns of him by betting that the colours of one
+of the beaten horses, Benloo, were distinguished by a chocolate bar. The
+bet was referred to a dignified umpire, who, a Frenchman, drew his right
+hand down an imperial tuft of hair dependent from his chin, and gave a
+decision in Algernon's favour. Lord Suckling paid the money on the spot,
+and Algernon pocketed it exulting. He had the idea that it was the first
+start in his making head against the flood. The next instant he could
+have pitched himself upon the floor and bellowed. For, a soul of chicken
+and wine, lightly elated, is easily dashed; and if he had but said to
+Lord Suckling that, it might as well be deferred, the thing would have
+become a precedent, and his own debt might have been held back. He went
+on saying, as he rushed forward alone: "Never mind, Suckling. Oh, hang
+it! put it in your pocket;" and the imperative necessity for talking,
+and fancying what was adverse to fact, enabled him to feel for a time
+as if he had really acted according to the prompting of his wisdom. It
+amazed him to see people sitting and listening. The more he tried it,
+the more unendurable it became. Those sitters and loungers appeared like
+absurd petrifactions to him. If he abstained from activity for ever so
+short a term, he was tormented by a sense of emptiness; and, as he said
+to himself, a man who has eaten a chicken, and part of a game-pie, and
+drunk thereto Champagne all day, until the popping of the corks has
+become as familiar as minute-guns, he can hardly be empty. It
+was peculiar. He stood, just for the sake of investigating the
+circumstance--it was so extraordinary. The music rose in a triumphant
+swell. And now he was sure that he was not to be blamed for thinking
+this form of entertainment detestable. How could people pretend to
+like it? "Upon my honour!" he said aloud. The hypocritical nonsense of
+pretending to like opera-music disgusted him.
+
+"Where is it, Algy?" a friend of his and Suckling's asked, with a
+languid laugh.
+
+"Where's what?"
+
+"Your honour."
+
+"My honour? Do you doubt my honour?" Algernon stared defiantly at the
+inoffensive little fellow.
+
+"Not in the slightest. Very sorry to, seeing that I have you down in my
+book."
+
+"Latters? Ah, yes," said Algernon, musically, and letting his under-lip
+hang that he might restrain the impulse to bite it. "Fifty, or a
+hundred, is it? I lost my book on the Downs."
+
+"Fifty; but wait till settling-day, my good fellow, and don't fiddle at
+your pockets as if I'd been touching you up for the money. Come and sup
+with me to-night."
+
+Algernon muttered a queer reply in a good-tempered tone, and escaped
+him.
+
+He was sobered by that naming of settling-day. He could now listen to
+the music with attention, if not with satisfaction. As he did so, the
+head of drowned memory rose slowly up through the wine-bubbles in his
+brain, and he flung out a far thought for relief: "How, if I were to
+leave England with that dark girl Rhoda at Wrexby, marry her like a man,
+and live a wild ramping life in the colonies?" A curtain closed on the
+prospect, but if memory was resolved that it would not be drowned, he
+had at any rate dosed it with something fresh to occupy its digestion.
+
+His opera-glass had been scouring the house for a sight of Mrs. Lovell,
+and at last she appeared in Lord Elling's box.
+
+"I can give you two minutes, Algy," she said, as he entered and found
+her opportunely alone. "We have lost, I hear. No interjection, pray. Let
+it be, fors l'honneur, with us. Come to me to-morrow. You have tossed
+trinkets into my lap. They were marks of esteem, my cousin. Take them in
+the same light back from me. Turn them into money, and pay what is most
+pressing. Then go to Lord Suckling. He is a good boy, and won't distress
+you; but you must speak openly to him at once. Perhaps he will help you.
+I will do my best, though whether I can, I have yet to learn."
+
+"Dear Mrs. Lovell!" Algernon burst out, and the corners of his mouth
+played nervously.
+
+He liked her kindness, and he was wroth at the projected return of his
+gifts. A man's gifts are an exhibition of the royalty of his soul, and
+they are the last things which should be mentioned to him as matters to
+be blotted out when he is struggling against ruin. The lady had blunt
+insight just then. She attributed his emotion to gratitude.
+
+"The door may be opened at any minute," she warned him.
+
+"It's not about myself," he said; "it's you. I believe I tempted you to
+back the beastly horse. And he would have won--a fair race, and he would
+have won easy. He was winning. He passed the stand a head ahead. He did
+win. It's a scandal to the Turf. There's an end of racing in England.
+It's up. They've done for themselves to-day. There's a gang. It's in the
+hands of confederates."
+
+"Think so, if it consoles you," said Mrs. Lovell, "don't mention your
+thoughts, that is all."
+
+"I do think so. Why should we submit to a robbery? It's a sold affair.
+That Frenchman, Baron Vistocq, says we can't lift our heads after it."
+
+"He conducts himself with decency, I hope."
+
+"Why, he's won!"
+
+"Imitate him."
+
+Mrs. Lovell scanned the stalls.
+
+"Always imitate the behaviour of the winners when you lose," she
+resumed. "To speak of other things: I have had no letter of late from
+Edward. He should be anxious to return. I went this morning to see that
+unhappy girl. She consents."
+
+"Poor creature," murmured Algernon; and added "Everybody wants money."
+
+"She decides wisely; for it is the best she can do. She deserves pity,
+for she has been basely used."
+
+"Poor old Ned didn't mean," Algernon began pleading on his cousin's
+behalf, when Mrs. Lovell's scornful eye checked the feeble attempt.
+
+"I am a woman, and, in certain cases, I side with my sex."
+
+"Wasn't it for you?"
+
+"That he betrayed her? If that were so, I should be sitting in ashes."
+
+Algernon's look plainly declared that he thought her a mystery.
+
+The simplicity of his bewilderment made her smile.
+
+"I think your colonies are the right place for you, Algy, if you can get
+an appointment; which must be managed by-and-by. Call on me to-morrow,
+as I said."
+
+Algernon signified positively that he would not, and doggedly refused to
+explain why.
+
+"Then I will call on you," said Mrs. Lovell.
+
+He was going to say something angrily, when Mrs. Lovell checked him:
+"Hush! she is singing."
+
+Algernon listened to the prima donna in loathing; he had so much to
+inquire about, and so much to relate: such a desire to torment and be
+comforted!
+
+Before he could utter a word further, the door opened, and Major Waring
+appeared, and he beheld Mrs. Lovell blush strangely. Soon after, Lord
+Elling came in, and spoke the ordinary sentence or two concerning the
+day's topic--the horse Templemore. Algernon quitted the box. His ears
+were surcharged with sound entirely foreign to his emotions, and he
+strolled out of the house and off to his dingy chambers, now tenanted by
+himself alone, and there faced the sealed letters addressed to Edward,
+which had, by order, not been forwarded. No less than six were in
+Dahlia's handwriting. He had imagination sufficient to conceive the
+lamentations they contained, and the reproach they were to his own
+subserviency in not sending them. He looked at the postmarks. The last
+one was dated two months back.
+
+"How can she have cared a hang for Ned, if she's ready to go and marry a
+yokel, for the sake of a home and respectability?" he thought, rather in
+scorn; and, having established this contemptuous opinion of one of the
+sex, he felt justified in despising all. "Just like women! They--no!
+Peggy Lovell isn't. She's a trump card, and she's a coquette--can't
+help being one. It's in the blood. I never saw her look so confoundedly
+lovely as when that fellow came into the box. One up, one down. Ned's
+away, and it's this fellow's turn. Why the deuce does she always
+think I'm a boy? or else, she pretends to. But I must give my mind to
+business."
+
+He drew forth the betting-book which his lively fancy had lost on the
+Downs. Prompted by an afterthought, he went to the letter-box, saying,--
+
+"Who knows? Wait till the day's ended before you curse your luck."
+
+There was a foreign letter in it from Edward, addressed to him, and
+another addressed to "Mr. Blancuv," that he tore open and read with
+disgusted laughter. It was signed "N. Sedgett." Algernon read it twice
+over, for the enjoyment of his critical detection of the vile grammar,
+with many "Oh! by Joves!" and a concluding, "This is a curiosity!"
+
+It was a countryman's letter, ill-spelt, involved, and of a character
+to give Algernon a fine scholarly sense of superiority altogether novel.
+Everybody abused Algernon for his abuse of common Queen's English in his
+epistles: but here was a letter in comparison with which his own were
+doctorial, and accordingly he fell upon it with an acrimonious rapture
+of pedantry known to dull wits that have by extraordinary hazard pounced
+on a duller.
+
+"You're 'willing to forgeit and forgeive,' are you, you dog!" he
+exclaimed, half dancing. "You'd forge anything, you rascal, if you could
+disguise your hand--that, I don't doubt. You 'expeck the thousand pound
+to be paid down the day of my marriage,' do you, you impudent ruffian!
+'acording to agremint.' What a mercenary vagabond this is!"
+
+Algernon reflected a minute. The money was to pass through his hands. He
+compressed a desire to dispute with Sedgett that latter point about the
+agreement, and opened Edward's letter.
+
+It contained an order on a firm of attorneys to sell out so much Bank
+Stock and pay over one thousand pounds to Mr. A. Blancove.
+
+The beautiful concision of style in this document gave Algernon a
+feeling of profound deference toward the law and its officers.
+
+"Now, that's the way to Write!" he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+Accompanying this pleasant, pregnant bit of paper, possessed of such
+admirable literary excellence, were the following flimsy lines from
+Edward's self, to Algernon incomprehensible.
+
+As there is a man to be seen behind these lines in the dull unconscious
+process of transformation from something very like a villain to
+something by a few degrees more estimable, we may as well look at the
+letter in full.
+
+It begins with a neat display of consideration for the person addressed,
+common to letters that are dictated by overpowering egoism:--
+
+   "Dear Algy,--I hope you are working and attending regularly to
+   office business. Look to that and to your health at present.
+   Depend upon it, there is nothing like work. Fix your teeth in it.
+   Work is medicine. A truism! Truisms, whether they lie in the
+   depths of thought, or on the surface, are at any rate the pearls of
+   experience.
+
+   "I am coming home. Let me know the instant this affair is over. I
+   can't tell why I wait here. I fall into lethargies. I write to no
+   one but to you. Your supposition that I am one of the hangers-on of
+   the coquette of her time, and that it is for her I am seeking to get
+   free, is conceived with your usual discrimination. For Margaret
+   Lovell? Do you imagine that I desire to be all my life kicking the
+   beam, weighed in capricious scales, appraised to the direct nicety,
+   petulantly taken up, probed for my weakest point, and then flung
+   into the grate like a child's toy? That's the fate of the several
+   asses who put on the long-eared Lovell-livery.
+
+   "All women are the same. Know one, know all. Aware of this, and
+   too wise to let us study them successfully, Nature pretty language
+   this is for you, Algy! I can do nothing but write nonsense. I am
+   sick of life. I feel choked. After a month, Paris is sweet
+   biscuit.
+
+   "I have sent you the order for the money. If it were two, or
+   twenty, thousand pounds, it would be the same to me.
+
+   "I swear to heaven that my lowest cynical ideas of women, and the
+   loathing with which their simply animal vagaries inspires a
+   thoughtful man, are distanced and made to seem a benevolent
+   criticism, by the actualities of my experience. I say that you
+   cannot put faith in a woman. Even now, I do not--it's against
+   reason--I do not believe that she--this Dahlia--means to go through
+   with it. She is trying me. I have told her that she was my wife.
+   Her self-respect--everything that keeps a woman's head up--must have
+   induced her to think so. Why, she is not a fool! How can she mean
+   to give herself to an ignorant country donkey? She does not: mark
+   me. For her, who is a really--I may say, the most refined nature I
+   have ever met, to affect this, and think of deceiving me, does not
+   do credit to her wits--and she is not without her share.
+
+   "I did once mean that she should be honourably allied to me. It's
+   comforting that the act is not the wife of the intention, or I
+   should now be yoked to a mere thing of the seasons and the hours--a
+   creature whose 'No' to-day is the 'Yes' of to-morrow. Women of this
+   cast are sure to end comfortably for themselves, they are so
+   obedient to the whips of Providence.
+
+   "But I tell you candidly, Algy, I believe she's pushing me, that she
+   may see how far I will let her go. I do not permit her to play at
+   this game with me." The difficulty is in teaching women that we are
+   not constituted as they are, and that we are wilfully earnest, while
+   they, who never can be so save under compulsion, carry it on with
+   us, expecting that at a certain crisis a curtain will drop, and we
+   shall take a deep breath, join hands, and exclaim, 'What an exciting
+   play!'--weeping luxuriously. The actualities of life must be
+   branded on their backs--you can't get their brains to apprehend
+   them.
+
+   "Poor things! they need pity. I am ready to confess I did not keep
+   my promise to her. I am very sorry she has been ill. Of course,
+   having no brains--nothing but sensations wherewith to combat every
+   new revolution of fortune, she can't but fall ill. But I think of
+   her; and I wish to God I did not. She is going to enter her own
+   sphere--though, mark me, it will turn out as I say, that, when it
+   comes to the crisis, there will be shrieks and astonishment that the
+   curtain doesn't fall and the whole resolve itself to what they call
+   a dream in our language, a farce.
+
+   "I am astonished that there should be no letters for me. I can
+   understand her not writing at first; but apparently she cherishes
+   rancour. It is not like her. I can't help thinking there must be
+   one letter from her, and that you keep it back. I remember that I
+   told you when I left England I desired to have no letter forwarded
+   to me, but I have repeatedly asked you since if there was a letter,
+   and it appears to me that you have shuffled in your answer. I
+   merely wish to know if there is a letter; because I am at present
+   out in my study of her character. It seems monstrous that she
+   should never have written! Don't you view it in that light? To be
+   ready to break with me, without one good-bye!--it's gratifying, but
+   I am astonished; for so gentle and tender a creature, such as I knew
+   her, never existed to compare with her. Ce qui est bien la preuve
+   que je ne la connaissais pas! I thought I did, which was my error.
+   I have a fatal habit of trusting to my observation less than to my
+   divining wit; and La Rochefoucauld is right: 'on est quelquefois un
+   sot avec de l'esprit; mais on ne Pest jamais avec du jugement.'
+   Well! better be deceived in a character than doubt it.
+
+   "This will soon be over. Then back to the dear old dusky chambers,
+   with the pick and the axe in the mine of law, till I strike a gold
+   vein, and follow it to the woolsack. I want peace. I begin to hate
+   pleading. I hope to meet Death full-wigged. By my troth, I will
+   look as grimly at him as he at me. Meantime, during a vacation, I
+   will give you holiday (or better, in the February days, if I can
+   spare time and Equity is dispensed without my aid), dine you, and
+   put you in the whirl of Paris. You deserve a holiday. Nunc est
+   bibendum! You shall sing it. Tell me what you think of her
+   behaviour. You are a judge of women. I think I am developing
+   nerves. In fact, work is what I need--a file to bite. And send me
+   also the name of this man who has made the bargain--who is to be her
+   husband. Give me a description of him. It is my duty to see that
+   he has principle; at least we're bound to investigate his character,
+   if it's really to go on. I wonder whether you will ever perceive
+   the comedy of, life. I doubt whether a man is happier when he does
+   perceive it. Perhaps the fact is, that he has by that time lost his
+   power of laughter; except in the case of here and there a very
+   tremendous philosopher.
+
+   "I believe that we comic creatures suffer more than your tragic
+   personages. We, do you see, are always looking to be happy and
+   comfortable; but in a tragedy, the doomed wretches are
+   liver-complexioned from the opening act. Their laughter is the owl:
+   their broadest smile is twilight. All the menacing horrors of an
+   eclipse are ours, for we have a sun over us; but they are born in
+   shades, with the tuck of a curtain showing light, and little can be
+   taken from them; so that they find scarce any terrors in the
+   inevitable final stroke. No; the comedy is painfullest. You and I,
+   Algy, old bachelors, will earn the right just to chuckle. We will
+   take the point of view of science, be the stage carpenters, and let
+   the actors move on and off. By this, we shall learn to take a
+   certain pride in the machinery. To become stage carpenter, is to
+   attain to the highest rank within the reach of intellectual man.
+   But your own machinery must be sound, or you can't look after that
+   of the theatre. Don't over-tax thy stomach, O youth!
+
+   "And now, farewell, my worthy ass! You have been thinking me one
+   through a fair half of this my letter, so I hasten to be in advance
+   of you, by calling you one. You are one: I likewise am one. We are
+   all one. The universal language is hee-haw, done in a grievous
+   yawn.
+
+                  "Yours,
+
+                    "Edward B.
+
+   "P.S.--Don't fail to send a letter by the next post; then, go and
+   see her; write again exactly what she says, and let me know the
+   man's name. You will not lose a minute. Also, don't waste ink in
+   putting Mrs. Lovell's name to paper: I desire not to hear anything
+   of the woman."
+
+Algernon read this letter in a profound mystification, marvelling how it
+could possibly be that Edward and Mrs. Lovell had quarrelled once more,
+and without meeting.
+
+They had parted, he knew or supposed that he knew, under an engagement
+to arrange the preliminaries of an alliance, when Edward should return
+from France; in other words, when Edward had thrown grave-dust on a
+naughty portion of his past; severing an unwise connection. Such had
+certainly been Edward's view of the matter. But Mrs. Lovell had never
+spoken to Algernon on that subject. She had spoken willingly and in deep
+sympathy of Dahlia. She had visited her, pitied her, comforted her; and
+Algernon remembered that she had looked very keen and pinched about
+the mouth in alluding to Dahlia; but how she and Edward had managed to
+arrive at another misunderstanding was a prodigious puzzle to him; and
+why, if their engagement had snapped, each consented to let Dahlia's
+marriage (which was evidently distasteful to both) go on to the
+conclusion of the ceremony, he could not comprehend. There were,
+however, so many things in the world that he could not comprehend, and
+he had grown so accustomed, after an effort to master a difficulty,
+to lean his head back upon downy ignorance, that he treated this
+significant letter of Edward's like a tough lesson, and quietly put it
+by, together with every recommendation it contained. For all that was
+practical in it, it might just as well not have been written.
+
+The value of the letter lies in the exhibition it presents of a rather
+mark-worthy young man, who has passed through the hands of a--(what I
+must call her; and in doing so, I ask pardon of all the Jack Cades of
+Letters, who, in the absence of a grammatical king and a government,
+sit as lords upon the English tongue) a crucible woman. She may be
+inexcusable herself; but you for you to be base, for you to be cowardly,
+even to betray a weakness, though it be on her behalf,--though you can
+plead that all you have done is for her, yea, was partly instigated by
+her,--it will cause her to dismiss you with the inexorable contempt of
+Nature, when she has tried one of her creatures and found him wanting.
+
+Margaret Lovell was of this description: a woman fashioned to do both
+harm and good, and more of harm than of good; but never to sanction
+a scheme of evil or blink at it in alliance with another: a woman, in
+contact with whom you were soon resolved to your component elements.
+Separated from a certain fascination that there was for her in Edward's
+acerb wit, she saw that he was doing a dastardly thing in cold blood. We
+need not examine their correspondence. In a few weeks she had contrived
+to put a chasm between them as lovers. Had he remained in England,
+boldly facing his own evil actions, she would have been subjugated, for
+however keenly she might pierce to the true character of a man, the show
+of an unflinching courage dominated her; but his departure, leaving all
+the brutality to be done for him behind his back, filled this woman with
+a cutting spleen. It is sufficient for some men to know that they are
+seen through, in order to turn away in loathing from her whom they have
+desired; and when they do thus turn away, they not uncommonly turn with
+a rush of old affection to those who have generously trusted them in the
+days past, and blindly thought them estimable beings.
+
+Algernon was by no means gifted to perceive whether this was the case
+with his cousin in Paris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+So long as the fool has his being in the world, he will be a part of
+every history, nor can I keep him from his place in a narrative that is
+made to revolve more or less upon its own wheels. Algernon went to
+bed, completely forgetting Edward and his own misfortunes, under the
+influence of the opiate of the order for one thousand pounds, to
+be delivered to him upon application. The morning found him calmly
+cheerful, until a little parcel was brought to his door, together with
+a note from Mrs. Lovell, explaining that the parcel contained those
+jewels, his precious gifts of what she had insultingly chosen to call
+"esteem" for her.
+
+Algernon took it in his hand, and thought of flinging it through the
+window; but as the window happened to be open, he checked the impulse,
+and sent it with great force into a corner of the room: a perfectly
+fool-like proceeding, for the fool is, after his fashion, prudent, and
+will never, if he can help it, do himself thorough damage, that he may
+learn by it and be wiser.
+
+"I never stand insult," he uttered, self-approvingly, and felt manlier.
+"No; not even from you, ma'am," he apostrophized Mrs. Lovell's portrait,
+that had no rival now upon the wall, and that gave him a sharp fight
+for the preservation of his anger, so bewitching she was to see. Her not
+sending up word that she wished him to come to her rendered his battle
+easier.
+
+"It looks rather like a break between us," he said. "If so, you won't
+find me so obedient to your caprices, Mrs. Margaret L.; though you are a
+pretty woman, and know it. Smile away. I prefer a staunch, true sort of
+a woman, after all. And the colonies it must be, I begin to suspect."
+This set him conjuring before his eyes the image of Rhoda, until he
+cried, "I'll be hanged if the girl doesn't haunt me!" and considered the
+matter with some curiosity.
+
+He was quickly away, and across the square of Lincoln's Inn Fields to
+the attorney's firm, where apparently his coming was expected, and he
+was told that the money would be placed in his hands on the following
+day. He then communicated with Edward, in the brief Caesarian tongue
+of the telegraph: "All right. Stay. Ceremony arranged." After which, he
+hailed a skimming cab, and pronouncing the word "Epsom," sank back in
+it, and felt in his breast-pocket for his cigar-case, without casting
+one glance of interest at the deep fit of cogitation the cabman had been
+thrown into by the suddenness of the order.
+
+"Dash'd if it ain't the very thing I went and gone and dreamed last
+night," said the cabman, as he made his dispositions to commence the
+journey.
+
+Certain boys advised him to whip it away as hard as he could, and he
+would come in the winner.
+
+"Where shall I grub, sir?" the cabman asked through the little door
+above, to get some knowledge of the quality of his fare.
+
+"Eat your 'grub' on the course," said Algernon.
+
+"Ne'er a hamper to take up nowheres, is there, sir?"
+
+"Do you like the sight of one?"
+
+"Well, it ain't what I object to."
+
+"Then go fast, my man, and you will soon see plenty."
+
+"If you took to chaffin' a bit later in the day, it'd impart more
+confidence to my bosom," said the cabman; but this he said to that bosom
+alone.
+
+"Ain't no particular colours you'd like me to wear, is there? I'll get
+a rosette, if you like, sir, and enter in triumph. Gives ye something to
+stand by. That's always my remark, founded on observation."
+
+"Go to the deuce! Drive on," Algernon sang out. "Red, yellow, and
+green."
+
+"Lobster, ale, and salad!" said the cabman, flicking his whip; "and good
+colours too. Tenpenny Nail's the horse. He's the colours I stick to."
+And off he drove, envied of London urchins, as mortals would have envied
+a charioteer driving visibly for Olympus.
+
+Algernon crossed his arms, with the frown of one looking all inward.
+
+At school this youth had hated sums. All arithmetical difficulties had
+confused and sickened him. But now he worked with indefatigable industry
+on an imaginary slate; put his postulate, counted probabilities, allowed
+for chances, added, deducted, multiplied, and unknowingly performed
+algebraic feats, till his brows were stiff with frowning, and his brain
+craved for stimulant.
+
+This necessity sent his hand to his purse, for the calling of the
+cab had not been a premeditated matter. He discovered therein some
+half-crowns and a sixpence, the latter of which he tossed in contempt at
+some boys who were cheering the vehicles on their gallant career.
+
+There was something desperately amusing to him in the thought that he
+had not even money enough to pay the cabman, or provide for a repast. He
+rollicked in his present poverty. Yesterday he had run down with a party
+of young guardsmen in a very royal manner; and yesterday he had lost.
+To-day he journeyed to the course poorer than many of the beggars he
+would find there; and by a natural deduction, to-day he was to win.
+
+He whistled mad waltzes to the measure of the wheels. He believed that
+he had a star. He pitched his half-crowns to the turnpike-men, and
+sought to propitiate Fortune by displaying a signal indifference to
+small change; in which method of courting her he was perfectly serious.
+He absolutely rejected coppers. They "crossed his luck." Nor can we say
+that he is not an authority on this point: the Goddess certainly does
+not deal in coppers.
+
+Anxious efforts at recollection perplexed him. He could not remember
+whether he had "turned his money" on looking at the last new moon. When
+had he seen the last new moon, and where? A cloud obscured it; he had
+forgotten. He consoled himself by cursing superstition. Tenpenny
+Nail was to gain the day in spite of fortune. Algernon said this, and
+entrenched his fluttering spirit behind common sense, but he found it a
+cold corner. The longing for Champagne stimulant increased in fervour.
+Arithmetic languished.
+
+As he was going up the hill, the wheels were still for a moment, and
+hearing "Tenpenny Nail" shouted, he put forth his head, and asked what
+the cry was, concerning that horse.
+
+"Gone lame," was the answer.
+
+It hit the centre of his nerves, without reaching his comprehension, and
+all Englishmen being equal on Epsom Downs, his stare at the man who had
+spoken, and his sickly colour, exposed him to pungent remarks.
+
+"Hullos! here's another Ninepenny--a penny short!" and similar specimens
+of Epsom wit, encouraged by the winks and retorts of his driver,
+surrounded him; but it was empty clamour outside. A rage of emotions
+drowned every idea in his head, and when he got one clear from the mass,
+it took the form of a bitter sneer at Providence, for cutting off his
+last chance of reforming his conduct and becoming good. What would he
+not have accomplished, that was brilliant, and beautiful, and soothing,
+but for this dead set against him!
+
+It was clear that Providence cared "not a rap," whether he won or
+lost--was good or bad. One might just as well be a heathen; why not?
+
+He jumped out of the cab (tearing his coat in the acts minor evil,
+but "all of a piece," as he said), and made his way to the Ring. The
+bee-swarm was thick as ever on the golden bough. Algernon heard no
+curses, and began to nourish hope again, as he advanced. He began to
+hope wildly that this rumour about the horse was a falsity, for there
+was no commotion, no one declaiming.
+
+He pushed to enter the roaring circle, which the demand for an
+entrance-fee warned him was a privilege, and he stammered, and forgot
+the gentlemanly coolness commonly distinguishing him, under one of the
+acuter twinges of his veteran complaint of impecuniosity. And then the
+cabman made himself heard: a civil cabman, but without directions, and
+uncertain of his dinner and his pay, tolerably hot, also, from threading
+a crowd after a deaf gentleman. His half-injured look restored to
+Algernon his self-possession.
+
+"Ah! there you are:--scurry away and fetch my purse out of the bottom of
+the cab. I've dropped it."
+
+On this errand, the confiding cabman retired. Holding to a gentleman's
+purse is even securer than holding to a gentleman.
+
+While Algernon was working his forefinger in his waistcoat-pocket
+reflectively, a man at his elbow said, with a show of familiar
+deference,--
+
+"If it's any convenience to you, sir," and showed the rim of a gold
+piece 'twixt finger and thumb.
+
+"All right," Algernon replied readily, and felt that he was known, but
+tried to keep his eyes from looking at the man's face; which was a vain
+effort. He took the money, nodded curtly, and passed in.
+
+Once through the barrier, he had no time to be ashamed. He was in the
+atmosphere of challenges. He heard voices, and saw men whom not to
+challenge, or try a result with, was to acknowledge oneself mean, and to
+abandon the manliness of life. Algernon's betting-book was soon out and
+in operation. While thus engaged, he beheld faces passing and repassing
+that were the promise of luncheon and a loan; and so comfortable was the
+assurance thereof to him, that he laid the thought of it aside, quite in
+the background, and went on betting with an easy mind.
+
+Small, senseless bets, they merely occupied him; and winning them was
+really less satisfactory than losing, which, at all events, had the
+merit of adding to the bulk of his accusation against the ruling Powers
+unseen.
+
+Algernon was too savage for betting when the great race was run. He
+refused both at taunts and cajoleries; but Lord Suckling coming by, said
+"Name your horse," and, caught unawares, Algernon named Little John, one
+of the ruck, at a hazard. Lord Suckling gave him fair odds, asking: "In
+tens?--fifties?"
+
+"Silver," shrugged Algernon, implacable toward Fortune; and the kindly
+young nobleman nodded, and made allowance for his ill-temper and want of
+spirit, knowing the stake he had laid on the favourite.
+
+Little John startled the field by coming in first at a canter.
+
+"Men have committed suicide for less than this" said Algernon within
+his lips, and a modest expression of submission to fate settled on his
+countenance. He stuck to the Ring till he was haggard with fatigue. His
+whole nature cried out for Champagne, and now he burst away from that
+devilish circle, looking about for Lord Suckling and a hamper. Food and
+a frothing drink were all that he asked from Fortune. It seemed to him
+that the concourse on the downs shifted in a restless way.
+
+"What's doing, I wonder?" he thought aloud.
+
+"Why, sir, the last race ain't generally fashionable," said his cabman,
+appearing from behind his shoulder. "Don't you happen to be peckish,
+sir?--'cause, luck or no luck, that's my case. I couldn't see, your
+purse, nowheres."
+
+"Confound you! how you hang about me! What do you want?" Algernon cried;
+and answered his own question, by speeding the cabman to a booth with
+what money remained to him, and appointing a place of meeting for the
+return. After which he glanced round furtively to make sure that he was
+not in view of the man who had lent him the sovereign. It became evident
+that the Downs were flowing back to London.
+
+He hurried along the lines of carriages, all getting into motion. The
+ghastly conviction overtook him that he was left friendless, to starve.
+Wherever he turned, he saw strangers and empty hampers, bottles, straw,
+waste paper--the ruins of the feast: Fate's irony meantime besetting him
+with beggars, who swallowed his imprecations as the earnest of coming
+charity in such places.
+
+At last, he was brought almost to sigh that he might see the man who had
+lent him the sovereign, and his wish was hardly formed, when Nicodemus
+Sedgett approached, waving a hat encircled by preposterous wooden
+figures, a trifle less lightly attired than the ladies of the ballet,
+and as bold in the matter of leg as the female fashion of the period.
+
+Algernon eyed the lumpy-headed, heavy-browed rascal with what disgust he
+had left in him, for one who came as an instrument of the Fates to help
+him to some poor refreshment. Sedgett informed him that he had never had
+such fun in his life.
+
+"Just 'fore matrimony," he communicated in a dull whisper, "a fellow
+ought to see a bit o' the world, I says--don't you, sir? and this has
+been rare sport, that it has! Did ye find your purse, sir? Never mind
+'bout that ther' pound. I'll lend you another, if ye like. How sh'll it
+be? Say the word."
+
+Algernon was meditating, apparently on a remote subject. He nodded
+sharply.
+
+"Yes. Call at my chambers to-morrow."
+
+Another sovereign was transferred to him: but Sedgett would not be
+shaken off.
+
+"I just wanted t' have a bit of a talk with you," he spoke low.
+
+"Hang it! I haven't eaten all day," snapped the irritable young
+gentleman, fearful now of being seen in the rascal's company.
+
+"You come along to the jolliest booth--I'll show it to you," said
+Sedgett, and lifted one leg in dancing attitude. "Come along, sir: the
+jolliest booth I ever was in, dang me if it ain't! Ale and music--them's
+my darlings!" the wretch vented his slang. "And I must have a talk with
+you. I'll stick to you. I'm social when I'm jolly, that I be: and I
+don't know a chap on these here downs. Here's the pint: Is all square?
+Am I t' have the cash in cash counted down, I asks? And is it to be
+before, or is it to be after, the ceremony? There! bang out! say, yes or
+no."
+
+Algernon sent him to perdition with infinite heartiness, but he was dry,
+dispirited, and weak, and he walked on, Sedgett accompanying him. He
+entered a booth, and partook of ale and ham, feeling that he was in the
+dregs of calamity. Though the ale did some service in reviving, it
+did not cheer him, and he had a fit of moral objection to Sedgett's
+discourse.
+
+Sedgett took his bluntness as a matter to be endured for the honour of
+hob-a-nobbing with a gentleman. Several times he recurred to the theme
+which he wanted, as he said, to have a talk upon.
+
+He related how he had courted the young woman, "bashful-like," and had
+been so; for she was a splendid young woman; not so handsome now, as
+she used to be when he had seen her in the winter: but her illness had
+pulled her down and made her humble: they had cut her hair during the
+fever, which had taken her pride clean out of her; and when he had put
+the question to her on the evening of last Sunday, she had gone into a
+sort of faint, and he walked away with her affirmative locked up in his
+breast-pocket, and was resolved always to treat her well--which he swore
+to.
+
+"Married, and got the money, and the lease o' my farm disposed of, I'm
+off to Australia and leave old England behind me, and thank ye, mother,
+thank ye! and we shan't meet again in a hurry. And what sort o' song I'm
+to sing for 'England is my nation, ain't come across me yet. Australia's
+such a precious big world; but that'll come easy in time. And there'll I
+farm, and damn all you gentlemen, if you come anigh me."
+
+The eyes of the fellow were fierce as he uttered this; they were
+rendered fierce by a peculiar blackish flush that came on his brows and
+cheek-bones; otherwise, the yellow about the little brown dot in the
+centre of the eyeball had not changed; but the look was unmistakably
+savage, animal, and bad. He closed the lids on them, and gave a sort of
+churlish smile immediately afterward.
+
+"Harmony's the game. You act fair, I act fair. I've kept to the
+condition. She don't know anything of my whereabouts--res'dence, I mean;
+and thinks I met you in her room for the first time. That's the truth,
+Mr. Blancove. And thinks me a sheepish chap, and I'm that, when I'm
+along wi' her. She can't make out how I come to call at her house and
+know her first. Gives up guessing, I suppose, for she's quiet about it;
+and I pitch her tales about Australia, and life out there. I've got her
+to smile, once or twice. She'll turn her hand to making cheeses, never
+you fear. Only, this I say. I must have the money. It's a thousand and a
+bargain. No thousand, and no wife for me. Not that I don't stand by the
+agreement. I'm solid."
+
+Algernon had no power of encountering a human eye steadily, or he would
+have shown the man with a look how repulsive he was to a gentleman. His
+sensations grew remorseful, as if he were guilty of handing a victim to
+the wretch.
+
+But the woman followed her own inclination, did she not? There was no
+compulsion: she accepted this man. And if she could do that, pity was
+wasted on her!
+
+So thought he: and so the world would think of the poor forlorn soul
+striving to expiate her fault, that her father and sister might be at
+peace, without shame.
+
+Algernon signified to Sedgett that the agreement was fixed and
+irrevocable on his part.
+
+Sedgett gulped some ale.
+
+"Hands on it," he said, and laid his huge hand open across the table.
+
+This was too much.
+
+"My word must satisfy you," said Algernon, rising.
+
+"So it shall. So it do," returned Sedgett, rising with him. "Will you
+give it in writing?"
+
+"I won't."
+
+"That's blunt. Will you come and have a look at a sparring-match in
+yond' brown booth, sir?"
+
+"I am going back to London."
+
+"London and the theayter that's the fun, now, ain't it!" Sedgett
+laughed.
+
+Algernon discerned his cabman and the conveyance ready, and beckoned
+him.
+
+"Perhaps, sir," said Sedgett, "if I might make so bold--I don't want to
+speak o' them sovereigns--but I've got to get back too, and cash is run
+low. D' ye mind, sir? Are you kind-hearted?"
+
+A constitutional habit of servility to his creditor when present before
+him signalized Algernon. He detested the man, but his feebleness was
+seized by the latter question, and he fancied he might, on the road to
+London, convey to Sedgett's mind that it would be well to split that
+thousand, as he had previously devised.
+
+"Jump in," he said.
+
+When Sedgett was seated, Algernon would have been glad to walk the
+distance to London to escape from the unwholesome proximity. He took the
+vacant place, in horror of it. The man had hitherto appeared respectful;
+and in Dahlia's presence he had seemed a gentle big fellow with a
+reverent, affectionate heart. Sedgett rallied him.
+
+"You've had bad luck--that's wrote on your hatband. Now, if you was a
+woman, I'd say, tak' and go and have a peroose o' your Bible. That's
+what my young woman does; and by George! it's just like medicine to
+her--that 'tis! I've read out to her till I could ha' swallowed two
+quart o' beer at a gulp--I was that mortal thirsty. It don't somehow
+seem to improve men. It didn't do me no good. There was I, cursin' at
+the bother, down in my boots, like, and she with her hands in a knot,
+staring the fire out o' count'nance. They're weak, poor sort o' things."
+
+The intolerable talk of the ruffian prompted Algernon to cry out, for
+relief,--
+
+"A scoundrel like you must be past any good to be got from reading his
+Bible."
+
+Sedgett turned his dull brown eyes on him, the thick and hateful flush
+of evil blood informing them with detestable malignity.
+
+"Come; you be civil, if you're going to be my companion," he said. "I
+don't like bad words; they don't go down my windpipe. 'Scoundrel 's
+a name I've got a retort for, and if it hadn't been you, and you a
+gentleman, you'd have had it spanking hot from the end o' my fist.
+Perhaps you don't know what sort of a arm I've got? Just you feel that
+ther' muscle."
+
+He doubled his arm, the knuckles of the fist toward Algernon's face.
+
+"Down with it, you dog!" cried Algernon, crushing his hat as he started
+up.
+
+"It'll come on your nose, if I downs with it, my lord," said Sedgett.
+"You've what they Londoners calls 'bonneted yourself.'"
+
+He pulled Algernon by the coat-tail into his seat.
+
+"Stop!" Algernon shouted to the cabman.
+
+"Drive ahead!" roared Sedgett.
+
+This signal of a dissension was heard along the main street of Epsom,
+and re-awakened the flagging hilarity of the road.
+
+Algernon shrieked his commands; Sedgett thundered his. They tussled,
+and each having inflicted an unpleasant squeeze on the other, they came
+apart by mutual consent, and exchanged half-length blows. Overhead, the
+cabman--not merely a cabman, but an individual--flicked the flanks of
+his horse, and cocked his eye and head in answer to gesticulations from
+shop-doors and pavement.
+
+"Let 'em fight it out, I'm impartial," he remarked; and having lifted
+his little observing door, and given one glance, parrot-wise, below,
+he shut away the troubled prospect of those mortals, and drove along
+benignly.
+
+Epsom permitted it; but Ewell contained a sturdy citizen, who, smoking
+his pipe under his eaves, contemplative of passers-by, saw strife
+rushing on like a meteor. He raised the waxed end of his pipe, and with
+an authoritative motion of his head at the same time, pointed out the
+case to a man in a donkey-cart, who looked behind, saw pugnacity upon
+wheels, and manoeuvred a docile and wonderfully pretty-stepping little
+donkey in such a manner that the cabman was fain to pull up.
+
+The combatants jumped into the road.
+
+"That's right, gentlemen; I don't want to spile sport," said the
+donkey's man. "O' course you ends your Epsom-day with spirit."
+
+"There's sunset on their faces," said the cabman. "Would you try a
+by-lane, gentlemen?"
+
+But now the donkey's man had inspected the figures of the antagonistic
+couple.
+
+"Taint fair play," he said to Sedgett. "You leave that gentleman alone,
+you, sir?"
+
+The man with the pipe came up.
+
+"No fighting," he observed. "We ain't going to have our roads disgraced.
+It shan't be said Englishmen don't know how to enjoy themselves without
+getting drunk and disorderly. You drop your fists."
+
+The separation had to be accomplished by violence, for Algernon's blood
+was up.
+
+A crowd was not long in collecting, which caused a stoppage of vehicles
+of every description.
+
+A gentleman leaned from an open carriage to look at the fray critically,
+and his companion stretching his neck to do likewise, "Sedgett!" burst
+from his lips involuntarily.
+
+The pair of original disputants (for there were many by this time)
+turned their heads simultaneously toward the carriage.
+
+"Will you come on?" Sedgett roared, but whether to Algernon, or to one
+of the gentlemen, or one of the crowd, was indefinite. None responding,
+he shook with ox-like wrath, pushed among shoulders, and plunged back to
+his seat, making the cabman above bound and sway, and the cab-horse to
+start and antic.
+
+Greatly to the amazement of the spectators, the manifest gentleman (by
+comparison) who had recently been at a pummelling match with him, and
+bore the stains of it, hung his head, stepped on the cab, and suffered
+himself to be driven away.
+
+"Sort of a 'man-and-wife' quarrel," was the donkey's man's comment.
+"There's something as corks 'em up, and something uncorks 'em; but what
+that something is, I ain't, nor you ain't, man enough to inform the
+company."
+
+He rubbed his little donkey's nose affectionately.
+
+"Any gentleman open to a bet I don't overtake that ere Hansom within
+three miles o' Ewell?" he asked, as he took the rein.
+
+But his little donkey's quality was famous in the neighbourhood.
+
+"Come on, then," he said; "and show what you can do, without emilation,
+Master Tom."
+
+Away the little donkey trotted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+Those two in the open carriage, one of whom had called out Sedgett's
+name, were Robert and Major Waring. When the cab had flown by, they fell
+back into their seats, and smoked; the original stipulation for the day
+having been that no harassing matter should be spoken of till nightfall.
+
+True to this, Robert tried to think hard on the scene of his recent
+enjoyment. Horses were to him what music is to a poet, and the glory
+of the Races he had witnessed was still quick in heart, and partly
+counteracted his astonishment at the sight of his old village enemy in
+company with Algernon Blancove.
+
+It was not astonishing at all to him that they should have quarrelled
+and come to blows; for he knew Sedgett well, and the imperative
+necessity for fighting him, if only to preserve a man's self-respect and
+the fair division of peace, when once he had been allowed to get upon
+terms sufficiently close to assert his black nature; but how had it come
+about? How was it that a gentleman could consent to appear publicly
+with such a fellow? He decided that it meant something, and something
+ominous--but what? Whom could it affect? Was Algernon Blancove such a
+poor creature that, feeling himself bound by certain dark dealings with
+Sedgett to keep him quiet, he permitted the bullying dog to hang to his
+coat-tail? It seemed improbable that any young gentleman should be so
+weak, but it might be the case; and "if so," thought Robert, "and I let
+him know I bear him no ill-will for setting Sedgett upon me, I may be
+doing him a service."
+
+He remembered with pain Algernon's glance of savage humiliation upward,
+just before he turned to follow Sedgett into the cab; and considered
+that he ought in kindness to see him and make him comfortable by
+apologizing, as if he himself had no complaint to make.
+
+He resolved to do it when the opportunity should come. Meantime, what on
+earth brought them together?
+
+"How white the hedges are!" he said.
+
+"There's a good deal of dust," Major Waring replied.
+
+"I wasn't aware that cabs came to the races."
+
+"They do, you see."
+
+Robert perceived that Percy meant to fool him if he attempted a breach
+of the bond; but he longed so much for Percy's opinion of the strange
+alliance between Sedgett and Algernon Blancove, that at any cost he was
+compelled to say, "I can't get to the bottom of that."
+
+"That squabble in the road?" said Percy. "We shall see two or three more
+before we reach home."
+
+"No. What's the meaning of a gentleman consorting with a blackguard?"
+Robert persisted.
+
+"One or the other has discovered an assimilation, I suppose," Percy gave
+answer. "That's an odd remark on returning from Epsom. Those who jump
+into the same pond generally come out the same colour."
+
+Robert spoke low.
+
+"Has it anything to do with the poor girl, do you think?"
+
+"I told you I declined to think till we were home again. Confound it,
+man, have you no idea of a holiday?"
+
+Robert puffed his tobacco-smoke.
+
+"Let's talk of Mrs. Lovell," he said.
+
+"That's not a holiday for me," Percy murmured but Robert's mind was too
+preoccupied to observe the tone, and he asked,--
+
+"Is she to be trusted to keep her word faithfully this time?"
+
+"Come," said Percy, "we haven't betted to-day. I'll bet you she will, if
+you like. Will you bet against it?"
+
+"I won't. I can't nibble at anything. Betting's like drinking."
+
+"But you can take a glass of wine. This sort of bet is much the same.
+However, don't; for you would lose."
+
+"There," said Robert; "I've heard of being angry with women for
+fickleness, changeableness, and all sorts of other things. She's a
+lady I couldn't understand being downright angry with, and here's the
+reason--it ain't a matter of reason at all--she fascinates me. I do,
+I declare, clean forget Rhoda; I forget the girl, if only I see Mrs.
+Lovell at a distance. How's that? I'm not a fool, with nonsensical
+fancies of any kind. I know what loving a woman is; and a man in my
+position might be ass enough to--all sorts of things. It isn't that;
+it's fascination. I'm afraid of her. If she talks to me, I feel
+something like having gulped a bottle of wine. Some women you have a
+respect for; some you like or you love; some you despise: with her, I
+just feel I'm intoxicated."
+
+Major Waring eyed him steadily. He said: "I'll unriddle it, if I can, to
+your comprehension. She admires you for what you are, and she lets you
+see it; I dare say she's not unwilling that you should see it. She has a
+worship for bravery: it's a deadly passion with her."
+
+Robert put up a protesting blush of modesty, as became him. "Then why,
+if she does me the honour to think anything of me, does she turn against
+me?"
+
+"Ah! now you go deeper. She is giving you what assistance she can; at
+present: be thankful, if you can be satisfied with her present doings.
+Perhaps I'll answer the other question by-and-by. Now we enter London,
+and our day is over. How did you like it?"
+
+Robert's imagination rushed back to the downs.
+
+"The race was glorious. I wish we could go at that pace in life; I
+should have a certainty of winning. How miserably dull the streets look;
+and the people creep along--they creep, and seem to like it. Horseback's
+my element."
+
+They drove up to Robert's lodgings, where, since the Winter, he had been
+living austerely and recklessly; exiled by his sensitiveness from his
+two homes, Warbeach and Wrexby; and seeking over London for Dahlia--a
+pensioner on his friend's bounty; and therein had lain the degrading
+misery to a man of his composition. Often had he thought of enlisting
+again, and getting drafted to a foreign station. Nothing but the
+consciousness that he was subsisting on money not his own would have
+kept him from his vice. As it was, he had lived through the months
+between Winter and Spring, like one threading his way through the
+tortuous lengths of a cavern; never coming to the light, but coming
+upon absurd mishaps in his effort to reach it. His adventures in London
+partook somewhat of the character of those in Warbeach, minus the
+victim; for whom two or three gentlemen in public thoroughfares had been
+taken. These misdemeanours, in the face of civil society, Robert made no
+mention of in his letters to Percy.
+
+But there was light now, though at first it gave but a faint glimmer,
+in a lady's coloured envelope, lying on the sitting-room table. Robert
+opened it hurriedly, and read it; seized Dahlia's address, with a brain
+on fire, and said:
+
+"It's signed 'Margaret Lovell.' This time she calls me 'Dear Sir.'"
+
+"She could hardly do less," Percy remarked.
+
+"I know: but there is a change in her. There's a summer in her writing
+now. She has kept her word, Percy. She's the dearest lady in the world.
+I don't ask why she didn't help me before."
+
+"You acknowledge the policy of mild measures," said Major Waring.
+
+"She's the dearest lady in the world," Robert repeated. He checked his
+enthusiasm. "Lord in heaven! what an evening I shall have."
+
+The thought of his approaching interview with Dahlia kept him dumb.
+
+As they were parting in the street, Major Waring said, "I will be here
+at twelve. Let me tell you this, Robert: she is going to be married; say
+nothing to dissuade her; it's the best she can do; take a manly view of
+it. Good-bye."
+
+Robert was but slightly affected by the intelligence. His thoughts were
+on Dahlia as he had first seen her, when in her bloom, and the sister
+of his darling; now miserable; a thing trampled to earth! With him, pity
+for a victim soon became lost in rage at the author of the wrong, and
+as he walked along he reflected contemptuously on his feeble efforts to
+avenge her at Warbeach. She lived in a poor row of cottages, striking
+off from one of the main South-western suburb roads, not very distant
+from his own lodgings, at which he marvelled, as at a cruel irony. He
+could not discern the numbers, and had to turn up several of the dusky
+little strips of garden to read the numbers on the doors. A faint smell
+of lilac recalled the country and old days, and some church bells began
+ringing. The number of the house where he was to find Dahlia was seven.
+He was at the door of the house next to it, when he heard voices in the
+garden beside him.
+
+A man said, "Then I have your answer?"
+
+A woman said, "Yes; yes."
+
+"You will not trust to my pledged honour?"
+
+"Pardon me; not that. I will not live in disgrace."
+
+"When I promise, on my soul, that the moment I am free I will set you
+right before the world?"
+
+"Oh! pardon me."
+
+"You will?"
+
+"No; no! I cannot."
+
+"You choose to give yourself to an obscure dog, who'll ill-treat you,
+and for whom you don't care a pin's-head; and why? that you may be
+fenced from gossip, and nothing more. I thought you were a woman above
+that kind of meanness. And this is a common countryman. How will you
+endure that kind of life? You were made for elegance and happiness: you
+shall have it. I met you before your illness, when you would not listen
+to me: I met you after. I knew you at once. Am I changed? I swear to you
+I have dreamed of you ever since, and love you. Be as faded as you like;
+be hideous, if you like; but come with me. You know my name, and what I
+am. Twice I have followed you, and found your name and address; twice I
+have written to you, and made the same proposal. And you won't trust
+to my honour? When I tell you I love you tenderly? When I give you my
+solemn assurance that you shall not regret it? You have been deceived by
+one man: why punish me? I know--I feel you are innocent and good. This
+is the third time that you have permitted me to speak to you: let it
+be final. Say you will trust yourself to me--trust in my honour. Say
+it shall be to-morrow. Yes; say the word. To-morrow. My sweet
+creature--do!"
+
+The man spoke earnestly, but a third person and extraneous hearer could
+hardly avoid being struck by the bathetic conclusion. At least, in tone
+it bordered on a fall; but the woman did not feel it so.
+
+She replied: "You mean kindly to me, sir. I thank you indeed, for I am
+very friendless. Oh! pardon me: I am quite--quite determined. Go--pray,
+forget me."
+
+This was Dahlia's voice.
+
+Robert was unconscious of having previously suspected it. Heartily
+ashamed of letting his ears be filled with secret talk, he went from the
+garden and crossed the street.
+
+He knew this to be one of the temptations of young women in London.
+
+Shortly after, the man came through the iron gateway of the garden. He
+passed under lamplight, and Robert perceived him to be a gentleman in
+garb.
+
+A light appeared in the windows of the house. Now that he had heard
+her voice, the terrors of his interview were dispersed, and he had only
+plain sadness to encounter. He knocked at the door quietly. There was
+a long delay after he had sent in his name; but finally admission was
+given.
+
+"If I had loved her!" groaned Robert, before he looked on her; but when
+he did look on her, affectionate pity washed the selfish man out of
+him. All these false sensations, peculiar to men, concerning the soiled
+purity of woman, the lost innocence; the brand of shame upon her, which
+are commonly the foul sentimentalism of such as can be too eager in
+the chase of corruption when occasion suits, and are another side of
+pruriency, not absolutely foreign to the best of us in our youth--all
+passed away from him in Dahlia's presence.
+
+The young man who can look on them we call fallen women with a noble
+eye, is to my mind he that is most nobly begotten of the race, and
+likeliest to be the sire of a noble line. Robert was less than he; but
+Dahlia's aspect helped him to his rightful manliness. He saw that her
+worth survived.
+
+The creature's soul had put no gloss upon her sin. She had sinned, and
+her suffering was manifest.
+
+She had chosen to stand up and take the scourge of God; after which the
+stones cast by men are not painful.
+
+By this I mean that she had voluntarily stripped her spirit bare of
+evasion, and seen herself for what she was; pleading no excuse. His
+scourge is the Truth, and she had faced it.
+
+Innumerable fanciful thoughts, few of them definite, beset the mind at
+interviews such as these; but Robert was distinctly impressed by her
+look. It was as that of one upon the yonder shore. Though they stood
+close together, he had the thought of their being separate--a gulf
+between.
+
+The colourlessness of her features helped to it, and the odd
+little close-fitting white linen cap which she wore to conceal the
+stubborn-twisting clipped curls of her shorn head, made her unlike women
+of our world. She was dressed in black up to the throat. Her eyes were
+still luminously blue, and she let them dwell on Robert one gentle
+instant, giving him her hand humbly.
+
+"Dahlia!--my dear sister, I wish I could say; but the luck's against
+me," Robert began.
+
+She sat, with her fingers locked together in her lap, gazing forward on
+the floor, her head a little sideways bent.
+
+"I believe," he went on--"I haven't heard, but I believe Rhoda is well."
+
+"She and father are well, I know," said Dahlia.
+
+Robert started: "Are you in communication with them?"
+
+She shook her head. "At the end of some days I shall see them."
+
+"And then perhaps you'll plead my cause, and make me thankful to you for
+life, Dahlia?"
+
+"Rhoda does not love you."
+
+"That's the fact, if a young woman's to be trusted to know her own mind,
+in the first place, and to speak it, in the second."
+
+Dahlia, closed her lips. The long-lined underlip was no more very red.
+Her heart knew that it was not to speak of himself that he had come; but
+she was poor-witted, through weakness of her blood, and out of her
+own immediate line of thought could think neither far nor deep. He
+entertained her with talk of his notions of Rhoda, finishing:
+
+"But at the end of a week you will see her, and I dare say she'll give
+you her notions of me. Dahlia! how happy this'll make them. I do say
+thank God! from my soul, for this."
+
+She pressed her hands in her lap, trembling. "If you will, please, not
+speak of it, Mr. Robert."
+
+"Say only you do mean it, Dahlia. You mean to let them see you?"
+
+She shivered out a "Yes."
+
+"That's right. Because, a father and a sister--haven't they a claim?
+Think a while. They've had a terrible time. And it's true that you've
+consented to a husband, Dahlia? I'm glad, if it is; and he's good and
+kind. Right soul-glad I am."
+
+While he was speaking, her eyelids lifted and her eyes became fixed on
+him in a stony light of terror, like a creature in anguish before her
+executioner. Then again her eyelids dropped. She had not moved from her
+still posture.
+
+"You love him?" he asked, in some wonderment.
+
+She gave no answer.
+
+"Don't you care for him?"
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Because, Dahlia, if you do not I know I have no right to fancy you do
+not. How is it? Tell me. Marriage is an awful thing, where there's
+no love. And this man, whoever he is--is he in good circumstances? I
+wouldn't speak of him; but, you see, I must, as your friend--and I'm
+that. Come: he loves you? Of course he does. He has said so. I believe
+it. And he's a man you can honour and esteem? You wouldn't consent
+without, I'm sure. What makes me anxious--I look on you as my sister,
+whether Rhoda will have it so or not; I'm anxious because--I'm anxious
+it should be over, for then Rhoda will be proud of the faith she had in
+you, and it will lighten the old man's heart."
+
+Once more the inexplicable frozen look struck over him from her opened
+eyes, as if one of the minutes of Time had yawned to show him its deep,
+mute, tragic abyss, and was extinguished.
+
+"When does it take place, Dahlia?"
+
+Her long underlip, white almost as the row of teeth it revealed, hung
+loose.
+
+"When?" he asked, leaning forward to hear, and the word was "Saturday,"
+uttered with a feeble harshness, not like the gentle voice of Dahlia.
+
+"This coming Saturday?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Saturday week?"
+
+She fell into a visible trembling.
+
+"You named the day?"
+
+He pushed for an indication of cheerful consent to the act she was about
+to commit, or of reluctance.
+
+Possibly she saw this, for now she answered, "I did." The sound was deep
+in her throat.
+
+"Saturday week," said Robert. "I feel to the man as a brother, already.
+Do you live--you'll live in the country?"
+
+"Abroad."
+
+"Not in Old England? I'm sorry for that. But--well! Things must be as
+they're ordered. Heigho! I've got to learn it."
+
+Dahlia smiled kindly.
+
+"Rhoda will love you. She is firm when she loves."
+
+"When she loves. Where's the consolation to me?"
+
+"Do you think she loves me as much--as much"
+
+"As much as ever? She loves her sister with all her heart--all, for I
+haven't a bit of it."
+
+"It is because," said Dahlia slowly, "it is because she thinks I am--"
+
+Here the poor creature's bosom heaved piteously.
+
+"What has she said of me? I wish her to have blamed me--it is less
+pain."
+
+"Listen," said Robert. "She does not, and couldn't blame you, for it's a
+sort of religion with her to believe no wrong of you. And the reason why
+she hates me is, that I, knowing something more of the world, suspected,
+and chose to let her know it--I said it, in fact--that you had been
+deceived by a--But this isn't the time to abuse others. She would
+have had me, if I had thought proper to think as she thinks, or play
+hypocrite, and pretend to. I'll tell you openly, Dahlia; your father
+thinks the worst. Ah! you look the ghost again. It's hard for you to
+hear, but you give me a notion of having got strength to hear it. It's
+your father's way to think the worst. Now, when you can show him your
+husband, my dear, he'll lift his head. He's old English. He won't dream
+of asking questions. He'll see a brave and honest young man who must
+love you, or--he does love you, that's settled. Your father'll shake his
+hand, and as for Rhoda, she'll triumph. The only person to speak out to,
+is the man who marries you, and that you've done."
+
+Robert looked the interrogation he did not utter.
+
+"I have," said Dahlia.
+
+"Good: if I may call him brother, some day, all the better for me. Now,
+you won't leave England the day you're married."
+
+"Soon. I pray that it may be soon."
+
+"Yes; well, on that morning, I'll have your father and Rhoda at my
+lodgings, not wide from here: if I'd only known it earlier!--and you and
+your husband shall come there and join us. It'll be a happy meeting at
+last."
+
+Dahlia stopped her breathing.
+
+"Will you see Rhoda?"
+
+"I'll go to her to-morrow, if you like."
+
+"If I might see her, just as I am leaving England! not before."
+
+"That's not generous," said Robert.
+
+"Isn't it?" she asked like a child.
+
+"Fancy!--to see you she's been longing for, and the ship that takes you
+off, perhaps everlastingly, as far as this world's concerned!"
+
+"Mr. Robert, I do not wish to deceive my sister. Father need not be
+distressed. Rhoda shall know. I will not be guilty of falsehoods any
+more--no more! Will you go to her? Tell her--tell Rhoda what I am. Say I
+have been ill. It will save her from a great shock."
+
+She covered her eyes.
+
+"I said in all my letters that my husband was a gentleman."
+
+It was her first openly penitential utterance in his presence, and her
+cheeks were faintly reddened. It may have been this motion of her blood
+which aroused the sunken humanity within her; her heart leaped, and she
+cried "I can see her as I am, I can. I thought it impossible. Oh! I can.
+Will she come to me? My sister is a Christian and forgives. Oh! let me
+see her. And go to her, dear Mr. Robert, and ask her--tell her all, and
+ask her if I may be spared, and may work at something--anything, for my
+livelihood near my sister. It is difficult for women to earn money,
+but I think I can. I have done so since my illness. I have been in the
+hospital with brain fever. He was lodging in the house with me before.
+He found me at the hospital. When I came out, he walked with me to
+support me: I was very weak. He read to me, and then asked me to marry
+him. He asked again. I lay in bed one night, and with my eyes open, I
+saw the dangers of women, and the trouble of my father and sister;
+and pits of wickedness. I saw like places full of snakes. I had such a
+yearning for protection. I gave him my word I would be his wife, if he
+was not ashamed of a wife like me. I wished to look once in father's
+face. I had fancied that Rhoda would spurn me, when she discovered my
+falsehood. She--sweet dear! would she ever? Go to her. Say, I do not
+love any man. I am heart-dead. I have no heart except for her. I cannot
+love a husband. He is good, and it is kind: but, oh! let me be spared.
+His face!--"
+
+She pressed her hands tight into the hollow of her eyes.
+
+"No; it can't be meant. Am I very ungrateful? This does not seem to be
+what God orders. Only if this must be! only if it must be! If my sister
+cannot look on me without! He is good, and it is unselfish to take a
+moneyless, disgraced creature: but, my misery!--If my sister will see
+me, without my doing this!--Go to her, Mr. Robert. Say, Dahlia was
+false, and repents, and has worked with her needle to subsist, and can,
+and will, for her soul strives to be clean. Try to make her understand.
+If Rhoda could love you, she would know. She is locked up--she is only
+ideas. My sweet is so proud. I love her for her pride, if she will only
+let me creep to her feet, kiss her feet. Dear Mr. Robert, help me! help
+me! I will do anything she says. If she says I am to marry him, I will.
+Don't mind my tears--they mean nothing now. Tell my dear, I will obey
+her. I will not be false any more to her. I wish to be quite stripped.
+And Rhoda may know me, and forgive me, if she can. And--Oh! if she
+thinks, for father's sake, I ought, I will submit and speak the words; I
+will; I am ready. I pray for mercy."
+
+Robert sat with his fist at his temples, in a frowning meditation.
+
+Had she declared her reluctance to take the step, in the first moments
+of their interview, he might have been ready to support her: but a
+project fairly launched becomes a reality in the brain--a thing once
+spoken of attracts like a living creature, and does not die voluntarily.
+Robert now beheld all that was in its favour, and saw nothing but
+flighty flimsy objections to it. He was hardly moved by her unexpected
+outburst.
+
+Besides, there was his own position in the case. Rhoda would smile on
+him, if he brought Dahlia to her, and brought her happy in the world's
+eye. It will act as a sort of signal for general happiness. But if he
+had to go and explain matters base and mournful to her, there would be
+no smile on her face, and not much gratitude in her breast. There would
+be none for a time, certainly. Proximity to her faded sister made him
+conceive her attainable, and thrice precious by contrast.
+
+He fixed his gaze on Dahlia, and the perfect refinement of her
+simplicity caused him to think that she might be aware of an
+inappropriateness in the contemplated union.
+
+"Is he a clumsy fellow? I mean, do you read straight off that he has no
+pretension to any manners of a gentleman--nothing near it?"
+
+To this question, put with hesitation by Robert, Dahlia made answer, "I
+respect him."
+
+She would not strengthen her prayer by drawing the man's portrait.
+Speedily she forgot how the doing so would in any way have strengthened
+her prayer. The excitement had left her brain dull. She did little more
+than stare mildly, and absently bend her head, while Robert said that he
+would go to Rhoda on the morrow, and speak seriously with her.
+
+"But I think I can reckon her ideas will side with mine, that it is to
+your interest, my dear, to make your feelings come round warm to a man
+you can respect, and who offers you a clear path," he said.
+
+Whereat Dahlia quietly blinked her eyes.
+
+When he stood up, she rose likewise.
+
+"Am I to take a kiss to Rhoda?" he said, and seeing her answer, bent his
+forehead, to which she put her lips.
+
+"And now I must think all night long about the method of transferring
+it. Good-bye, Dahlia. You shall hear from your sister the morning after
+to-morrow. Good-bye!"
+
+He pressed her hand, and went to the door.
+
+"There's nothing I can do for you, Dahlia?"
+
+"Not anything."
+
+"God bless you, my dear!"
+
+Robert breathed with the pleasant sense of breathing, when he was again
+in the street. Amazement, that what he had dreaded so much should be so
+easily over, set him thinking, in his fashion, on the marvels of life,
+and the naturalness in the aspect of all earthly things when you look at
+them with your eyes.
+
+But in the depths of his heart there was disquiet.
+
+"It's the best she can do; she can do no better," he said; and said it
+more frequently than it needed by a mind established in the conviction.
+Gradually he began to feel that certain things seen with the eyes,
+natural as they may then appear and little terrible, leave distinct,
+solid, and grave impressions. Something of what our human tragedy may
+show before high heaven possessed him. He saw it bare of any sentiment,
+in the person of the girl Dahlia. He could neither put a halo of
+imagination about her, nor could he conceive one degraded thought of the
+creature. She stood a naked sorrow, haunting his brain.
+
+And still he continued saying, "It's the best she can do: it's best for
+all. She can do nothing better."
+
+He said it, unaware that he said it in self-defence.
+
+The pale nun-like ghostly face hung before him, stronger in outline the
+farther time widened between him and that suffering flesh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+The thousand pounds were in Algernon's hands at last. He had made his
+escape from Boyne's Bank early in the afternoon, that he might obtain
+the cheque and feel the money in his pocket before that day's sun
+was extinguished. There was a note for five hundred; four notes for a
+hundred severally; and two fifties. And all had come to him through the
+mere writing down of his name as a recipient of the sum!
+
+It was enough to make one in love with civilization. Money, when it is
+once in your pocket, seems to have come there easily, even if you have
+worked for it; but if you have done no labour whatever, and still find
+it there, your sensations (supposing you to be a butterfly youth--the
+typical child of a wealthy country) exult marvellously, and soar above
+the conditions of earth.
+
+He knew the very features of the notes. That gallant old Five Hundred,
+who might have been a Thousand, but that he had nobly split himself into
+centurions and skirmishers, stood in his imaginative contemplation
+like a grand white-headed warrior, clean from the slaughter and in
+court-ruffles--say, Blucher at the court of the Waterloo Regent. The
+Hundreds were his Generals; the Fifties his captains; and each one
+was possessed of unlimited power of splitting himself into serviceable
+regiments, at the call of his lord, Algernon.
+
+He scarcely liked to make the secret confession that it was the
+largest sum he had ever as yet carried about; but, as it heightened his
+pleasure, he did confess it for half an instant. Five Hundred in the
+bulk he had never attained to. He felt it as a fortification against
+every mishap in life.
+
+To a young man commonly in difficulties with regard to the paying of his
+cabman, and latterly the getting of his dinner, the sense of elevation
+imparted by the sum was intoxicating. But, thinking too much of the
+Five Hundred waxed dangerous for the fifties; it dwarfed them to such
+insignificance that it made them lose their self-respect. So, Algernon,
+pursuing excellent tactics, set his mind upon some stray shillings that
+he had a remainder of five pounds borrowed from old Anthony, when he
+endeavoured to obtain repayment of the one pound and interest dating
+from the night at the theatre. Algernon had stopped his mouth on
+that point, as well as concerning his acquaintance with Dahlia, by
+immediately attempting to borrow further, whenever Anthony led the way
+for a word in private. A one-pound creditor had no particular terrors
+for him, and he manoeuvred the old man neatly, saying, as previously,
+"Really, I don't know the young person you allude to: I happened to
+meet her, or some one like her, casually," and dropping his voice, "I'm
+rather short--what do you think? Could you?--a trifling accommodation?"
+from which Anthony fled.
+
+But on the day closing the Epsom week he beckoned Anthony secretly to
+follow him out of the office, and volunteered to give news that he had
+just heard of Dahlia.
+
+"Oh," said Anthony, "I've seen her."
+
+"I haven't," said Algernon, "upon my honour."
+
+"Yes, I've seen her, sir, and sorry to hear her husband's fallen a bit
+low." Anthony touched his pocket. "What they calls 'nip' tides, ain't
+it?"
+
+Algernon sprang a compliment under him, which sent the vain old fellow
+up, whether he would or not, to the effect that Anthony's tides were not
+subject to lunar influence.
+
+"Now, Mr. Blancove, you must change them notions o' me. I don't say I
+shouldn't be richer if I'd got what's owing to me."
+
+"You'd have to be protected; you'd be Bullion on two legs," said
+Algernon, always shrewd in detecting a weakness. "You'd have to go about
+with sentries on each side, and sleep in an iron safe!"
+
+The end of the interview was a visit to the public-house, and the
+transferring of another legal instrument from Algernon to Anthony. The
+latter departed moaning over his five pounds ten shillings in paper; the
+former rejoicing at his five pounds in gold. That day was Saturday. On
+Monday, only a few shillings of the five pounds remained; but they were
+sufficient to command a cab, and, if modesty in dining was among the
+prescriptions for the day, a dinner. Algernon was driven to the West.
+
+He remembered when he had plunged in the midst of the fashionable
+whirlpool, having felt reckless there formerly, but he had become
+remarkably sedate when he stepped along the walks. A certain equipage,
+or horse, was to his taste, and once he would have said: "That's the
+thing for me;" being penniless. Now, on the contrary, he reckoned the
+possible cost, grudgingly, saying "Eh?" to himself, and responding "No,"
+faintly, and then more positively, "Won't do."
+
+He was by no means acting as one on a footing of equality with the
+people he beholds. A man who is ready to wager a thousand pounds that no
+other man present has that amount in his pocket, can hardly feel unequal
+to his company.
+
+Charming ladies on horseback cantered past. "Let them go," he thought.
+Yesterday, the sight of one would have set him dreaming on grand
+alliances. When you can afford to be a bachelor, the case is otherwise.
+Presently, who should ride by but Mrs. Lovell! She was talking more
+earnestly than was becoming, to that easy-mannered dark-eyed fellow; the
+man who had made him savage by entering the opera-box.
+
+"Poor old Ned!" said Algernon; "I must put him on his guard." But, even
+the lifting of a finger--a hint on paper--would bring Edward over from
+Paris, as he knew; and that was not in his scheme; so he only determined
+to write to his cousin.
+
+A flood of evening gold lay over the Western park.
+
+"The glory of this place," Algernon said to himself, "is, that you're
+sure of meeting none but gentlemen here;" and he contrasted it with
+Epsom Downs.
+
+A superstitious horror seized him when, casting his eyes ahead, he
+perceived Sedgett among the tasteful groups--as discordant a figure as
+could well be seen, and clumsily aware of it, for he could neither step
+nor look like a man at ease. Algernon swung round and retraced his way;
+but Sedgett had long sight.
+
+"I'd heard of London"--Algernon soon had the hated voice in his
+ears,--"and I've bin up to London b'fore; I came here to have a wink
+at the fash'nables--hang me, if ever I see such a scrumptious lot. It's
+worth a walk up and down for a hour or more. D' you come heer often,
+sir?"
+
+"Eh? Who are you? Oh!" said Algernon, half mad with rage. "Excuse me;"
+and he walked faster.
+
+"Fifty times over," Sedgett responded cheerfully. "I'd pace you for a
+match up and down this place if you liked. Ain't the horses a spectacle?
+I'd rather be heer than there at they Races. As for the ladies, I'll
+tell you what: ladies or no ladies, give my young woman time for her
+hair to grow; and her colour to come, by George! if she wouldn't shine
+against e'er a one--smite me stone blind, if she wouldn't! So she shall!
+Australia'll see. I owe you my thanks for interdoocin' me, and never
+fear my not remembering."
+
+Where there was a crowd, Algernon could elude his persecutor by
+threading his way rapidly; but the open spaces condemned him to
+merciless exposure, and he flew before eyes that his imagination
+exaggerated to a stretch of supernatural astonishment. The tips of
+his fingers, the roots of his hair, pricked with vexation, and still,
+manoeuvre as he might, Sedgett followed him.
+
+"Call at my chambers," he said sternly.
+
+"You're never at home, sir."
+
+"Call to-morrow morning, at ten."
+
+"And see a great big black door, and kick at it till my toe comes
+through my boot. Thank ye."
+
+"I tell you, I won't have you annoying me in public; once for all."
+
+"Why, sir; I thought we parted friends, last time. Didn't you shake my
+hand, now, didn't you shake my hand, sir? I ask you, whether you shook
+my hand, or whether you didn't? A plain answer. We had a bit of a
+scrimmage, coming home. I admit we had; but shaking hands, means
+'friends again we are.' I know you're a gentleman, and a man like me
+shouldn't be so bold as fur to strike his betters. Only, don't you see,
+sir, Full-o'-Beer's a hasty chap, and up in a minute; and he's sorry for
+it after."
+
+Algernon conceived a brilliant notion. Drawing five shillings from his
+pocket, he held them over to Sedgett, and told him to drive down to his
+chambers, and await his coming. Sedgett took the money; but it was five
+shillings lost. He made no exhibition of receiving orders, and it was
+impossible to address him imperiously without provoking observations of
+an animated kind from the elegant groups parading and sitting.
+
+Young Harry Latters caught Algernon's eye; never was youth more joyfully
+greeted. Harry spoke of the Friday's race, and the defection of the
+horse Tenpenny Nail. A man passed with a nod and "How d' ye do?" for
+which he received in reply a cool stare.
+
+"Who's that?" Algernon asked.
+
+"The son of a high dignitary," said Harry.
+
+"You cut him."
+
+"I can do the thing, you see, when it's a public duty."
+
+"What's the matter with him?"
+
+"Merely a black-leg, a grec, a cheat, swindler, or whatever name you
+like," said Harry. "We none of us nod to the professionals in this line;
+and I won't exchange salutes with an amateur. I'm peculiar. He chose to
+be absent on the right day last year; so from that date; I consider
+him absent in toto; 'none of your rrrrr--m reckonings, let's have the
+rrrrr--m toto;'--you remember Suckling's story of the Yankee fellow?
+Bye-bye; shall see you the day after to-morrow. You dine with me and
+Suckling at the club."
+
+Latters was hailed by other friends. Algernon was forced to let him
+go. He dipped under the iron rail, and crossed the row at a run; an
+indecorous proceeding; he could not help it. The hope was that Sedgett
+would not have the like audacity, or might be stopped, and Algernon's
+reward for so just a calculation was, that on looking round, he found
+himself free. He slipped with all haste out of the Park. Sedgett's
+presence had the deadening power of the torpedo on the thousand pounds.
+
+For the last quarter of an hour, Algernon had not felt a motion of it. A
+cab, to make his escape certain, was suggested to his mind; and he would
+have called a cab, had not the novel apparition of economy, which now
+haunted him, suggested that he had recently tossed five shillings into
+the gutter. A man might dine on four shillings and sixpence, enjoying
+a modest half-pint of wine, and he possessed that sum. To pinch himself
+and deserve well of Providence, he resolved not to drink wine, but beer,
+that day. He named the beverage; a pint-bottle of ale; and laughed, as a
+royal economist may, who punishes himself to please himself.
+
+"Mighty jolly, ain't it, sir?" said Sedgett, at his elbow.
+
+Algernon faced about, and swore an oath from his boots upward; so
+vehement was his disgust, and all-pervading his amazement.
+
+"I'll wallop you at that game," said Sedgett.
+
+"You infernal scoundrel!"
+
+"If you begin swearing," Sedgett warned him.
+
+"What do you want with me?"
+
+"I'll tell you, sir. I don't want to go to ne'er a cock-fight, nor
+betting hole."
+
+"Here, come up this street," said Algernon, leading the way into a
+dusky defile from a main parade of fashion. "Now, what's your business,
+confound you!"
+
+"Well, sir, I ain't goin' to be confounded: that, I'll--I'll swear to.
+The long and the short is, I must have some money 'fore the week's out."
+
+"You won't have a penny from me."
+
+"That's blunt, though it ain't in my pocket," said Sedgett, grinning.
+"I say, sir, respectful as you like, I must. I've got to pay for
+passengerin' over the sea, self and wife; and quick it must be. There's
+things to buy on both sides. A small advance and you won't be bothered.
+Say, fifty. Fifty, and you don't see me till Saturday, when, accordin'
+to agreement, you hand to me the cash, outside the church door; and then
+we parts to meet no more. Oh! let us be joyful--I'll sing."
+
+Algernon's loathing of the coarseness and profanity of villany increased
+almost to the depth of a sentiment as he listened to Sedgett.
+
+"I do nothing of the sort," he said. "You shall not have a farthing. Be
+off. If you follow me, I give you into custody of a policeman."
+
+"You durst n't." Sedgett eyed him warily.
+
+He could spy a physical weakness, by affinity of cowardice, as quickly
+as Algernon a moral weakness, by the same sort of relationship to it.
+
+"You don't dare," Sedgett pursued. "And why should you, sir? there's
+ne'er a reason why. I'm civil. I asks for my own: no more 'n my own, it
+ain't. I call the bargain good: why sh'd I want fur to break it? I want
+the money bad. I'm sick o' this country. I'd like to be off in the first
+ship that sails. Can't you let me have ten till to-morrow? then t' other
+forty. I've got a mortal need for it, that I have. Come, it's no use
+your walking at that rate; my legs are's good as yours."
+
+Algernon had turned back to the great thoroughfare. He was afraid that
+ten pounds must be forfeited to this worrying demon in the flesh, and
+sought the countenance of his well-dressed fellows to encourage him in
+resisting. He could think of no subterfuge; menace was clearly useless:
+and yet the idea of changeing one of the notes and for so infamous a
+creature, caused pangs that helped him further to endure his dogging
+feet and filthy tongue. This continued until he saw a woman's hand
+waving from a cab. Presuming that such a signal, objectionable as it
+was, must be addressed to himself, he considered whether he should lift
+his hat, or simply smile as a favoured, but not too deeply flattered,
+man. The cab drew up, and the woman said, "Sedgett." She was a
+well-looking woman, strongly coloured, brown-eyed, and hearty in
+appearance.
+
+"What a brute you are, Sedgett, not to be at home when you brought me up
+to London with all the boxes and bedding--my goodness! It's a Providence
+I caught you in my eye, or I should have been driving down to the docks,
+and seeing about the ship. You are a brute. Come in, at once."
+
+"If you're up to calling names, I've got one or two for you," Sedgett
+growled.
+
+Algernon had heard enough. Sure that he had left Sedgett in hands not
+likely to relinquish him, he passed on with elastic step. Wine was
+greatly desired, after his torments. Where was credit to be had? True,
+he looked contemptuously on the blooming land of credit now, but an
+entry to it by one of the back doors would have been convenient, so that
+he might be nourished and restored by a benevolent dinner, while he kept
+his Thousand intact. However, he dismissed the contemplation of credit
+and its transient charms. "I won't dine at all," he said.
+
+A beggar woman stretched out her hand--he dropped a shilling in it.
+
+"Hang me, if I shall be able to," was his next reflection; and with
+the remaining three and sixpence, he crossed the threshold of a
+tobacconist's shop and bought cigars, to save himself from excesses
+in charity. After gravely reproaching the tobacconist for the growing
+costliness of cigars, he came into the air, feeling extraordinarily
+empty. Of this he soon understood the cause, and it amused him.
+Accustomed to the smell of tobacco always when he came from his dinner,
+it seemed, as the fumes of the shop took his nostril, that demands were
+being made within him by an inquisitive spirit, and dissatisfaction
+expressed at the vacancy there.
+
+"What's the use? I can't dine," he uttered argumentatively. "I'm not
+going to change a note, and I won't dine. I've no Club. There's not a
+fellow I can see who'll ask me to dine. I'll lounge along home. There is
+some Sherry there."
+
+But Algernon bore vividly in mind that he did not approve of that
+Sherry.
+
+"I've heard of fellows frying sausages at home, and living on something
+like two shillings a day," he remarked in meditation; and then it struck
+him that Mrs. Lovell's parcel of returned jewels lay in one of
+his drawers at home--that is, if the laundress had left the parcel
+untouched.
+
+In an agony of alarm, he called a cab, and drove hotly to the Temple.
+Finding the packet safe, he put a couple of rings and the necklace with
+the opal in his waistcoat pocket. The cabman must be paid, of course;
+so a jewel must be pawned. Which shall it be? diamond or opal? Change a
+dozen times and let it be the trinket in the right hand--the opal; let
+it be the opal. How much would the opal fetch? The pawnbroker can best
+inform us upon that point. So he drove to the pawnbroker; one whom he
+knew. The pawnbroker offered him five-and-twenty pounds on the security
+of the opal.
+
+"What on earth is it that people think disgraceful in your entering a
+pawnbroker's shop?" Algernon asked himself when, taking his ticket and
+the five-and-twenty pounds, he repelled the stare of a man behind a
+neighbouring partition.
+
+"There are not many of that sort in the kingdom," he said to the
+pawnbroker, who was loftily fondling the unlucky opal.
+
+"Well--h'm; perhaps there's not;" the pawnbroker was ready to admit it,
+now that the arrangement had been settled.
+
+"I shan't be able to let you keep it long."
+
+"As quick back as you like, sir."
+
+Algernon noticed as he turned away that the man behind the partition,
+who had more the look of a dapper young shopman than of a needy
+petitioner for loans or securities, stretched over the counter to look
+at the opal; and he certainly heard his name pronounced. It enraged
+him; but policy counselled a quiet behaviour in this place, and no
+quarrelling with his pawnbroker. Besides, his whole nature cried out for
+dinner. He dined and had his wine; as good, he ventured to assert,
+as any man could get for the money; for he knew the hotels with the
+venerable cellars.
+
+"I should have made a first-rate courier to a millionaire," he said,
+with scornful candour, but without abusing the disposition of things
+which had ordered his being a gentleman. Subsequently, from his having
+sat so long over his wine without moving a leg, he indulged in the
+belief that he had reflected profoundly; out of which depths he started,
+very much like a man who has dozed, and felt a discomfort in his limbs
+and head.
+
+"I must forget myself," he said. Nor was any grave mentor by, to assure
+him that his tragic state was the issue of an evil digestion of his
+dinner and wine. "I must forget myself. I'm under some doom. I see it
+now. Nobody cares for me. I don't know what happiness is. I was born
+under a bad star. My fate's written." Following his youthful wisdom,
+this wounded hart dragged his slow limbs toward the halls of brandy and
+song.
+
+One learns to have compassion for fools, by studying them: and the
+fool, though Nature is wise, is next door to Nature. He is naked in
+his simplicity; he can tell us much, and suggest more. My excuse for
+dwelling upon him is, that he holds the link of my story. Where fools
+are numerous, one of them must be prominent now and then in a veracious
+narration. There comes an hour when the veil drops on him, he not being
+always clean to the discreeter touch.
+
+Algernon was late at the Bank next day, and not cheerful, though he
+received his customary reprimand with submission. This day was after the
+pattern of the day preceding, except that he did not visit the Park; the
+night likewise.
+
+On Wednesday morning, he arose with the conviction that England was no
+place for him to dwell in. What if Rhoda were to accompany him to one of
+the colonies? The idea had been gradually taking shape in his mind from
+the moment that he had possessed the Thousand. Could she not make butter
+and cheeses capitally, while he rode on horseback through space? She was
+a strong girl, a loyal girl, and would be a grateful wife.
+
+"I'll marry her," he said; and hesitated. "Yes, I'll marry her." But it
+must be done immediately.
+
+He resolved to run down to Wrexby, rejoice her with a declaration of
+love, astound her with a proposal of marriage, bewilder her little brain
+with hurrying adjectives, whisk her up to London, and in little
+more than a week be sailing on the high seas, new born; nothing of
+civilization about him, save a few last very first-rate cigars which he
+projected to smoke on the poop of the vessel, and so dream of the world
+he left behind.
+
+He went down to the Bank in better spirits, and there wrote off a
+straightforward demand of an interview, to Rhoda, hinting at the purpose
+of it. While at his work, he thought of Harry Latters and Lord
+Suckling, and the folly of his dining with men in his present position.
+Settling-day, it or yesterday might be, but a colonist is not supposed
+to know anything of those arrangements. One of his fellow-clerks
+reminded him of a loan he had contracted, and showed him his name
+written under obligatory initials. He paid it, ostentatiously drawing
+out one of his fifties. Up came another, with a similar strip of paper.
+"You don't want me to change this, do you?" said Algernon; and heard a
+tale of domestic needs--and a grappling landlady. He groaned inwardly:
+"Odd that I must pay for his landlady being a vixen!" The note was
+changed; the debt liquidated. On the door-step, as he was going to
+lunch, old Anthony waylaid him, and was almost noisily persistent in
+demanding his one pound three and his five pound ten. Algernon paid
+the sums, ready to believe that there was a suspicion abroad of his
+intention to become a colonist.
+
+He employed the luncheon hour in a visit to a colonial shipping office,
+and nearly ran straight upon Sedgett at the office-door. The woman who
+had hailed him from the cab, was in Sedgett's company, but Sedgett saw
+no one. His head hung and his sullen brows were drawn moodily. Algernon
+escaped from observation. His first inquiry at the office was as to the
+business of the preceding couple, and he was satisfied by hearing that
+Sedgett wanted berths for himself and wife.
+
+"Who's the woman, I wonder!" Algernon thought, and forgot her.
+
+He obtained some particular information, and returning to the Bank,
+was called before his uncle, who curtly reckoned up his merits in a
+contemptuous rebuke, and confirmed him in his resolution to incur this
+sort of thing no longer. In consequence, he promised Sir William that
+he would amend his ways, and these were the first hopeful words that Sir
+William had ever heard from him.
+
+Algernon's design was to dress, that evening, in the uniform of society,
+so that, in the event of his meeting Harry Latters, he might assure him
+he was coming to his Club, and had been compelled to dine elsewhere with
+his uncle, or anybody. When he reached the door of his chambers, a man
+was standing there, who said,--
+
+"Mr. Algernon Blancove?"
+
+"Yes," Algernon prolonged an affirmative, to diminish the confidence it
+might inspire, if possible.
+
+"May I speak with you, sir?"
+
+Algernon told him to follow in. The man was tall and large-featured,
+with an immense blank expression of face.
+
+"I've come from Mr. Samuels, sir," he said, deferentially.
+
+Mr. Samuels was Algernon's chief jeweller.
+
+"Oh," Algernon remarked. "Well, I don't want anything; and let me say,
+I don't approve of this touting for custom. I thought Mr. Samuels was
+above it."
+
+The man bowed. "My business is not that, sir. Ahem! I dare say you
+remember an opal you had from our house. It was set in a necklace."
+
+"All right; I remember it, perfectly," said Algernon; cool, but not of
+the collected colour.
+
+"The cost of it was fifty-five pounds, sir."
+
+"Was it? Well, I've forgotten."
+
+"We find that it has been pawned for five-and-twenty."
+
+"A little less than half," said Algernon. "Pawnbrokers are simply
+cheats."
+
+"They mayn't be worse than others," the man observed.
+
+Algernon was exactly in the position where righteous anger is the proper
+weapon, if not the sole resource. He flushed, but was not sure of his
+opportunity for the explosion. The man read the flush.
+
+"May I ask you, did you pawn it, sir? I'm obliged to ask the question."
+
+"I?--I really don't--I don't choose to answer impudent questions. What
+do you mean by coming here?"
+
+"I may as well be open with you, sir, to prevent misunderstandings. One
+of the young men was present when you pawned it. He saw the thing done."
+
+"Suppose he did?"
+
+"He would be a witness."
+
+"Against me? I've dealt with Samuels for three-four years."
+
+"Yes, sir; but you have never yet paid any account; and I believe I am
+right in saying that this opal is not the first thing coming from
+our house that has been pledged--I can't say you did it on the other
+occasions."
+
+"You had better not," rejoined Algernon.
+
+He broke an unpleasant silence by asking, "What further?"
+
+"My master has sent you his bill."
+
+Algernon glanced at the prodigious figures.
+
+"Five hun--!" he gasped, recoiling; and added, "Well, I can't pay it on
+the spot."
+
+"Let me tell you, you're liable to proceedings you'd better avoid, sir,
+for the sake of your relations."
+
+"You dare to threaten to expose me to my relatives?" Algernon said
+haughtily, and immediately perceived that indignation at this point was
+a clever stroke; for the man, while deprecating the idea of doing so,
+showed his more established belief in the possible virtue of such a
+threat.
+
+"Not at all, sir; but you know that pledging things not paid for is
+illegal, and subject to penalties. No tradesman likes it; they can't
+allow it. I may as well let you know that Mr. Samuels--"
+
+"There, stop!" cried Algernon, laughing, as he thought, heartily. "Mr.
+Samuels is a very tolerable Jew; but he doesn't seem to understand
+dealing with gentlemen. Pressure comes;" he waved his hand swimmingly;
+"one wants money, and gets it how one can. Mr. Samuels shall not go to
+bed thinking he has been defrauded. I will teach Mr. Samuels to think
+better of us Gentiles. Write me a receipt."
+
+"For what amount, sir?" said the man, briskly.
+
+"For the value of the opal--that is to say, for the value put upon it by
+Mr. Samuels. Con! hang! never mind. Write the receipt."
+
+He cast a fluttering fifty and a fluttering five on the table, and
+pushed paper to the man for a receipt.
+
+The man reflected, and refused to take them.
+
+"I don't think, sir," he said, "that less than two-thirds of the bill
+will make Mr. Samuels easy. You see, this opal was in a necklace. It
+wasn't like a ring you might have taken off your finger. It's a lady's
+ornament; and soon after you obtain it from us; you make use of it by
+turning it into cash. It's a case for a criminal prosecution, which, for
+the sake of your relations, Mr. Samuels wouldn't willingly bring on.
+The criminal box is no place for you, sir; but Mr. Samuels must have his
+own. His mind is not easy. I shouldn't like, sir, to call a policeman."
+
+"Hey!" shouted Algernon; "you'd have to get a warrant."
+
+"It's out, sir."
+
+Though inclined toward small villanies, he had not studied law, and
+judging from his own affrighted sensations, and the man's impassive
+face, Algernon supposed that warrants were as lightly granted as writs
+of summons.
+
+He tightened his muscles. In his time he had talked glibly of Perdition;
+but this was hot experience. He and the man measured the force of their
+eyes. Algernon let his chest fall.
+
+"Do you mean?" he murmured.
+
+"Why, sir, it's no use doing things by halves. When a tradesman says he
+must have his money, he takes his precautions."
+
+"Are you in Mr. Samuels' shop?"
+
+"Not exactly, sir."
+
+"You're a detective?"
+
+"I have been in the service, sir."
+
+"Ah! now I understand." Algernon raised his head with a strain
+at haughtiness. "If Mr. Samuels had accompanied you, I would have
+discharged the debt: It's only fair that I should insist upon having a
+receipt from him personally, and for the whole amount."
+
+With this, he drew forth his purse and displayed the notable Five
+hundred.
+
+His glow of victory was short. The impassive man likewise had something
+to exhibit.
+
+"I assure you, sir," he said, "Mr. Samuels does know how to deal with
+gentlemen. If you will do me the honour, sir, to run up with me to Mr.
+Samuels' shop? Or, very well, sir; to save you that annoyance here is
+his receipt to the bill."
+
+Algernon mechanically crumpled up his note.
+
+"Samuels?" ejaculated the unhappy fellow. "Why, my mother dealt with
+Samuels. My aunt dealt with Samuels. All my family have dealt with him
+for years; and he talks of proceeding against me, because--upon my
+soul, it's too absurd! Sending a policeman, too! I'll tell you what--the
+exposure would damage Mister Samuels most materially. Of course, my
+father would have to settle the matter; but Mister--Mister Samuels would
+not recover so easily. He'd be glad to refund the five hundred--what is
+it?--and twenty-five--why not, 'and sixpence three farthings?' I tell
+you, I shall let my father pay. Mr. Samuels had better serve me with
+a common writ. I tell you, I'm not going to denude myself of money
+altogether. I haven't examined the bill. Leave it here. You can tear off
+the receipt. Leave it here."
+
+The man indulged in a slight demonstration of dissent.
+
+"No, sir, that won't do."
+
+"Half the bill," roared Algernon; "half the bill, I wouldn't mind
+paying."
+
+"About two-thirds, sir, is what Mr. Samuels asked for, and he'll stop,
+and go on as before."
+
+"He'll stop and he'll go on, will he? Mr. Samuels is amazingly like one
+of his own watches," Algernon sneered vehemently. "Well," he pursued, in
+fancied security, "I'll pay two-thirds."
+
+"Three hundred, sir."
+
+"Ay, three hundred. Tell him to send a receipt for the three hundred,
+and he shall have it. As to my entering his shop again, that I shall
+have to think over."
+
+"That's what gentlemen in Mr. Samuels' position have to run risk of,
+sir," said the man.
+
+Algernon, more in astonishment than trepidation, observed him feeling
+at his breast-pocket. The action resulted in an exhibition of a second
+bill, with a legal receipt attached to it, for three hundred pounds.
+
+"Mr. Samuels is anxious to accommodate you in every way, sir. It isn't
+the full sum he wants; it's a portion. He thought you might prefer to
+discharge a portion."
+
+After this exhibition of foresight on the part of the jeweller, there
+was no more fight in Algernon beyond a strenuous "Faugh!" of uttermost
+disgust.
+
+He examined the bill and receipt in the man's hand with great apparent
+scrupulousness; not, in reality, seeing a clear syllable.
+
+"Take it and change it," he threw his Five hundred down, but recovered
+it from the enemy's grasp; and with a "one, two, three," banged his
+hundreds on the table: for which he had the loathsome receipt handed to
+him.
+
+"How," he asked, chokingly, "did Mr. Samuels know I could--I had money?"
+
+"Why, sir, you see," the man, as one who throws off a mask, smiled
+cordially, after buttoning up the notes; "credit 'd soon give up the
+ghost, if it hadn't its own dodges,' as I may say. This is only a feeler
+on Mr. Samuels' part. He heard of his things going to pledge. Halloa!
+he sings out. And tradesmen are human, sir. Between us, I side with
+gentlemen, in most cases. Hows'-ever, I'm, so to speak, in Mr. Samuels'
+pay. A young gentleman in debt, give him a good fright, out comes his
+money, if he's got any. Sending of a bill receipted's a good trying
+touch. It's a compliment to him to suppose he can pay. Mr. Samuels, sir,
+wouldn't go issuing a warrant: if he could, he wouldn't. You named a
+warrant; that set me up to it. I shouldn't have dreamed of a gentleman
+supposing it otherwise. Didn't you notice me show a wall of a face?
+I shouldn't ha' dared to have tried that on an old hand--begging your
+pardon; I mean a real--a scoundrel. The regular ones must see features:
+we mustn't be too cunning with them, else they grow suspicious: they're
+keen as animals; they are. Good afternoon to you, sir."
+
+Algernon heard the door shut. He reeled into a chair, and muffling his
+head in his two arms on the table, sobbed desperately; seeing himself
+very distinctly reflected in one of the many facets of folly. Daylight
+became undesireable to him. He went to bed.
+
+A man who can, in such extremities of despair, go premeditatingly to
+his pillow, obeys an animal instinct in pursuit of oblivion, that will
+befriend his nerves. Algernon awoke in deep darkness, with a delicious
+sensation of hunger. He jumped up. Six hundred and fifty pounds of the
+money remained intact; and he was joyful. He struck a light to look at
+his watch: the watch had stopped;--that was a bad sign. He could not
+forget it. Why had his watch stopped? A chilling thought as to whether
+predestination did not govern the world, allayed all tumult in his mind.
+He dressed carefully, and soon heard a great City bell, with horrid
+gulfs between the strokes, tell him that the hour was eleven toward
+midnight. "Not late," he said.
+
+"Who'd have thought it?" cried a voice on the landing of the stairs, as
+he went forth.
+
+It was Sedgett.
+
+Algernon had one inclination to strangle, and another to mollify the
+wretch.
+
+"Why, sir, I've been lurking heer for your return from your larks. Never
+guessed you was in."
+
+"It's no use," Algernon began.
+
+"Ay; but it is, though," said Sedgett, and forced his way into the room.
+"Now, just listen. I've got a young woman I want to pack out o' the
+country. I must do it, while I'm a--a bachelor boy. She must go, or we
+shall be having shindies. You saw how she caught me out of a cab. She's
+sure to be in the place where she ain't wanted. She goes to America.
+I've got to pay her passage, and mine too. Here's the truth: she thinks
+I'm off with her. She knows I'm bankrup' at home. So I am. All the more
+reason for her thinking me her companion. I get her away by train to the
+vessel, and on board, and there I give her the slip.
+
+"Ship's steaming away by this time t'morrow night. I've paid for
+her--and myself too, she thinks. Leave it to me. I'll manage all that
+neatly enough. But heer's the truth: I'm stumped. I must, and I will
+have fifty; I don't want to utter ne'er a threat. I want the money, and
+if you don't give it, I break off; and you mind this, Mr. Blancove: you
+don't come off s' easy, if I do break off, mind. I know all about your
+relations, and by--! I'll let 'em know all about you. Why, you're as
+quiet heer, sir, as if you was miles away, in a wood cottage, and ne'er
+a dog near."
+
+So Algernon was thinking; and without a light, save the gas lamp in the
+square, moreover.
+
+They wrangled for an hour. When Algernon went forth a second time, he
+was by fifty pounds poorer. He consoled himself by thinking that the
+money had only anticipated its destination as arranged, and it became a
+partial gratification to him to reflect that he had, at any rate, paid
+so much of the sum, according to his bond in assuming possession of it.
+
+And what were to be his proceedings? They were so manifestly in the
+hands of fate, that he declined to be troubled on that head.
+
+Next morning came the usual short impatient scrawl on thin blue paper
+from Edward, scarce worthy of a passing thought. In a postscript, he
+asked: "Are there, on your oath, no letters for me? If there are, send
+them immediately--every one, bills as well. Don't fail. I must have
+them."
+
+Algernon was at last persuaded to pack up Dahlia's letters, saying:
+"I suppose they can't do any harm now." The expense of the postage
+afflicted him; but "women always cost a dozen to our one," he remarked.
+On his way to the City, he had to decide whether he would go to the
+Bank, or take the train leading to Wrexby. He chose the latter course,
+until, feeling that he was about to embark in a serious undertaking, he
+said to himself, "No! duty first;" and postponed the expedition for the
+day following.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+Squire Blancove, having business in town, called on his brother at the
+Bank, asking whether Sir William was at home, with sarcastic emphasis
+on the title, which smelt to him of commerce. Sir William invited him to
+dine and sleep at his house that night.
+
+"You will meet Mrs. Lovell, and a Major Waring, a friend of hers, who
+knew her and her husband in India," said the baronet.
+
+"The deuce I shall," said the squire, and accepted maliciously.
+
+Where the squire dined, he drank, defying ladies and the new-fangled
+subserviency to those flustering teabodies. This was understood;
+so, when the Claret and Port had made a few rounds, Major Waring was
+permitted to follow Mrs. Lovell, and the squire and his brother settled
+to conversation; beginning upon gout. Sir William had recently had a
+touch of the family complaint, and spoke of it in terms which gave
+the squire some fraternal sentiment. From that, they fell to talking
+politics, and differed. The breach was healed by a divergence to their
+sons. The squire knew his own to be a scamp.
+
+"You'll never do anything with him," he said.
+
+"I don't think I shall," Sir William admitted.
+
+"Didn't I tell you so?"
+
+"You did. But, the point is, what will you do with him?"
+
+"Send him to Jericho to ride wild jackasses. That's all he's fit for."
+
+The superior complacency of Sir William's smile caught the squire's
+attention.
+
+"What do you mean to do with Ned?" he asked.
+
+"I hope," was the answer, "to have him married before the year is out."
+
+"To the widow?"
+
+"The widow?" Sir William raised his eyebrows.
+
+"Mrs. Lovell, I mean."
+
+"What gives you that idea?"
+
+"Why, Ned has made her an offer. Don't you know that?"
+
+"I know nothing of the sort."
+
+"And don't believe it? He has. He's only waiting now, over there in
+Paris, to get comfortably out of a scrape--you remember what I told you
+at Fairly--and then Mrs. Lovell's going to have him--as he thinks; but,
+by George, it strikes me this major you've got here, knows how to follow
+petticoats and get in his harvest in the enemy's absence."
+
+"I think you're quite under a delusion, in both respects," observed Sir
+William.
+
+"What makes you think that?"
+
+"I have Edward's word."
+
+"He lies as naturally as an infant sucks."
+
+"Pardon me; this is my son you are speaking of."
+
+"And this is your Port I'm drinking; so I'll say no more."
+
+The squire emptied his glass, and Sir William thrummed on the table.
+
+"Now, my dog has got his name," the squire resumed. "I'm not ambitious
+about him. You are, about yours; and you ought to know him. He spends
+or he don't spend. It's not the question whether he gets into debt,
+but whether he does mischief with what he spends. If Algy's a bad
+fish, Ned's a bit of a serpent; damned clever, no doubt. I suppose, you
+wouldn't let him marry old Fleming's daughter, now, if he wanted to?"
+
+"Who is Fleming?" Sir William thundered out.
+
+"Fleming's the father of the girl. I'm sorry for him. He sells his
+farm-land which I've been looking at for years; so I profit by it; but
+I don't like to see a man like that broken up. Algy, I said before, 's a
+bad fish. Hang me, if I think he'd have behaved like Ned. If he had, I'd
+have compelled him to marry her, and shipped them both off, clean out of
+the country, to try their luck elsewhere.
+
+"You're proud; I'm practical. I don't expect you to do the same. I'm up
+in London now to raise money to buy the farm--Queen's Anne's Farm; it's
+advertized for sale, I see. Fleeting won't sell it to me privately,
+because my name's Blancove, and I'm the father of my son, and he fancies
+Algy's the man. Why? he saw Algy at the theatre in London with this
+girl of his;--we were all young fellows once!--and the rascal took Ned's
+burden on his shoulders. So, I shall have to compete with other buyers,
+and pay, I dare say, a couple of hundred extra for the property. Do you
+believe what I tell you now?"
+
+"Not a word of it," said Sir William blandly.
+
+The squire seized the decanter and drank in a fury.
+
+"I had it from Algy."
+
+"That would all the less induce me to believe it."
+
+"H'm!" the squire frowned. "Let me tell you--he's a dog--but it's a
+damned hard thing to hear one's own flesh and blood abused. Look here:
+there's a couple. One of them has made a fool of a girl. It can't be my
+rascal--stop a minute--he isn't the man, because she'd have been sure to
+have made a fool of him, that's certain. He's a soft-hearted dog. He'd
+aim at a cock-sparrow, and be glad if he missed. There you have him.
+He was one of your good boys. I used to tell his poor mother, 'When you
+leave off thinking for him, he'll go to the first handy villain--and
+that's the devil.' And he's done it. But, here's the difference. He goes
+himself; he don't send another. I'll tell you what: if you don't know
+about Mr. Ned's tricks, you ought. And you ought to make him marry the
+girl, and be off to New Zealand, or any of the upside-down places, where
+he might begin by farming, and soon, with his abilities, be cock o' the
+walk. He would, perhaps, be sending us a letter to say that he preferred
+to break away from the mother country and establish a republic. He's got
+the same political opinions as you. Oh! he'll do well enough over here;
+of course he will. He's the very fellow to do well. Knock at him, he's
+hard as nails, and 'll stick anywhere. You wouldn't listen to me, when
+I told you about this at Fairly, where some old sweetheart of the girl
+mistook that poor devil of a scapegoat, Algy, for him, and went pegging
+at him like a madman."
+
+"No," said Sir William; "No, I would not. Nor do I now. At least," he
+struck out his right hand deprecatingly, "I listen."
+
+"Can you tell me what he was doing when he went to Italy?"
+
+"He went partly at my suggestion."
+
+"Turns you round his little finger! He went off with this girl: wanted
+to educate her, or some nonsense of the sort. That was Mr. Ned's
+business. Upon my soul, I'm sorry for old Fleming. I'm told he takes it
+to heart. It's done him up. Now, if it should turn out to be Ned, would
+you let him right the girl by marrying her? You wouldn't!"
+
+"The principle of examining your hypothesis before you proceed to
+decide by it, is probably unknown to you," Sir William observed, after
+bestowing a considerate smile on his brother, who muffled himself up
+from the chilling sententiousness, and drank.
+
+Sir William, in the pride of superior intellect, had heard as good as
+nothing of the charge against his son.
+
+"Well," said the squire, "think as you like, act as you like; all's one
+to me. You're satisfied; that's clear; and I'm some hundred of pounds
+out of pocket. This major's paying court to the widow, is he?"
+
+"I can't say that he is."
+
+"It would be a good thing for her to get married."
+
+"I should be glad."
+
+"A good thing for her, I say."
+
+"A good thing for him, let us hope."
+
+"If he can pay her debts."
+
+Sir William was silent, and sipped his wine.
+
+"And if he can keep a tight hand on the reins. That's wanted," said the
+squire.
+
+The gentleman whose road to happiness was thus prescribed stood by Mrs.
+Lovell's chair, in the drawing-room. He held a letter in his hand, for
+which her own was pleadingly extended.
+
+"I know you to be the soul of truth, Percy," she was saying.
+
+"The question is not that; but whether you can bear the truth."
+
+"Can I not? Who would live without it?"
+
+"Pardon me; there's more. You say, you admire this friend of mine; no
+doubt you do. Mind, I am going to give you the letter. I wish you simply
+to ask yourself now, whether you are satisfied at my making a confidant
+of a man in Robert Eccles's position, and think it natural and just--you
+do?"
+
+"Quite just," said Mrs. Lovell; "and natural? Yes, natural; though not
+common. Eccentric; which only means, hors du commun; and can be natural.
+It is natural. I was convinced he was a noble fellow, before I knew that
+you had made a friend of him. I am sure of it now. And did he not save
+your life, Percy?"
+
+"I have warned you that you are partly the subject of the letter."
+
+"Do you forget that I am a woman, and want it all the more impatiently?"
+
+Major Waring suffered the letter to be snatched from his hand, and stood
+like one who is submitting to a test, or watching the effect of a potent
+drug.
+
+"It is his second letter to you," Mrs. Lovell murmured. "I see; it is a
+reply to yours."
+
+She read a few lines, and glanced up, blushing. "Am I not made to bear
+more than I deserve?"
+
+"If you can do such mischief, without meaning any, to a man who is in
+love with another woman--," said Percy.
+
+"Yes," she nodded, "I perceive the deduction; but inferences are like
+shadows on the wall--they are thrown from an object, and are monstrous
+distortions of it. That is why you misjudge women. You infer one thing
+from another, and are ruled by the inference."
+
+He simply bowed. Edward would have answered her in a bright strain, and
+led her on to say brilliant things, and then have shown her, as by a
+sudden light, that she had lost herself, and reduced her to feel the
+strength and safety of his hard intellect. That was the idea in her
+brain. The next moment her heart ejected it.
+
+"Petty, when I asked permission to look at this letter, I was not aware
+how great a compliment it would be to me if I was permitted to see it.
+It betrays your friend."
+
+"It betrays something more," said he.
+
+Mrs. Lovell cast down her eyes and read, without further comment.
+
+These were the contents:--
+
+   "My Dear Percy,--Now that I see her every day again, I am worse than
+   ever; and I remember thinking once or twice that Mrs. L. had cured
+   me. I am a sort of man who would jump to reach the top of a
+   mountain. I understand how superior Mrs. L. is to every woman in
+   the world I have seen; but Rhoda cures me on that head. Mrs. Lovell
+   makes men mad and happy, and Rhoda makes them sensible and
+   miserable. I have had the talk with Rhoda. It is all over. I have
+   felt like being in a big room with one candle alight ever since.
+   She has not looked at me, and does nothing but get by her father
+   whenever she can, and takes his hand and holds it. I see where the
+   blow has struck her: it has killed her pride; and Rhoda is almost
+   all pride. I suppose she thinks our plan is the best. She has not
+   said she does, and does not mention her sister. She is going to
+   die, or she turns nun, or marries a gentleman. I shall never get
+   her. She will not forgive me for bringing this news to her. I told
+   you how she coloured, the first day I came; which has all gone now.
+   She just opens her lips to me. You remember Corporal Thwaites--you
+   caught his horse, when he had his foot near wrenched off, going
+   through the gate--and his way of breathing through the under-row of
+   his teeth--the poor creature was in such pain--that's just how she
+   takes her breath. It makes her look sometimes like that woman's
+   head with the snakes for her hair. This bothers me--how is it you
+   and Mrs. Lovell manage to talk together of such things? Why, two
+   men rather hang their heads a bit. My notion is, that women--
+   ladies, in especial, ought never to hear of sad things of this sort.
+   Of course, I mean, if they do, it cannot harm them. It only upsets
+   me. Why are ladies less particular than girls in Rhoda's place?"
+
+   ("Shame being a virtue," was Mrs. Lovell's running comment.)
+
+   "She comes up to town with her father to-morrow. The farm is
+   ruined. The poor old man had to ask me for a loan to pay the
+   journey. Luckily, Rhoda has saved enough with her pennies and
+   two-pences. Ever since I left the farm, it has been in the hands
+   of an old donkey here, who has worked it his own way. What is in
+   the ground will stop there, and may as well.
+
+   "I leave off writing, I write such stuff; and if I go on
+   writing to you, I shall be putting these things '--!--!--!' The way
+   you write about Mrs. Lovell, convinces me you are not in my scrape,
+   or else gentlemen are just as different from their inferiors as
+   ladies are from theirs. That's the question. What is the meaning
+   of your 'not being able to leave her for a day, for fear she should
+   fall under other influences'? Then, I copy your words, you say,
+   'She is all things to everybody, and cannot help it.' In that case,
+   I would seize my opportunity and her waist, and tell her she was
+   locked up from anybody else. Friendship with men--but I cannot
+   understand friendship with women, and watching them to keep them
+   right, which must mean that you do not think much of them."
+
+Mrs. Lovell, at this point, raised her eyes abruptly from the letter and
+returned it.
+
+"You discuss me very freely with your friend," she said.
+
+Percy drooped to her. "I warned you when you wished to read it."
+
+"But, you see, you have bewildered him. It was scarcely wise to write
+other than plain facts. Men of that class." She stopped.
+
+"Of that class?" said he.
+
+"Men of any class, then: you yourself: if any one wrote to you such
+things, what would you think? It is very unfair. I have the honour of
+seeing you daily, because you cannot trust me out of your sight? What is
+there inexplicable about me? Do you wonder that I talk openly of women
+who are betrayed, and do my best to help them?".
+
+"On the contrary; you command my esteem," said Percy.
+
+"But you think me a puppet?"
+
+"Fond of them, perhaps?" his tone of voice queried in a manner that made
+her smile.
+
+"I hate them," she said, and her face expressed it.
+
+"But you make them."
+
+"How? You torment me."
+
+"How can I explain the magic? Are you not making one of me now, where I
+stand?"
+
+"Then, sit."
+
+"Or kneel?"
+
+"Oh, Percy! do nothing ridiculous."
+
+Inveterate insight was a characteristic of Major Waring; but he was
+not the less in Mrs. Lovell's net. He knew it to be a charm that she
+exercised almost unknowingly. She was simply a sweet instrument for
+those who could play on it, and therein lay her mighty fascination.
+Robert's blunt advice that he should seize the chance, take her and
+make her his own, was powerful with him. He checked the particular
+appropriating action suggested by Robert.
+
+"I owe you an explanation," he said. "Margaret, my friend."
+
+"You can think of me as a friend, Percy?"
+
+"If I can call you my friend, what would I not call you besides? I did
+you a great and shameful wrong when you were younger. Hush! you did
+not deserve that. Judge of yourself as you will; but I know now what my
+feelings were then. The sublime executioner was no more than a spiteful
+man. You give me your pardon, do you not? Your hand?"
+
+She had reached her hand to him, but withdrew it quickly.
+
+"Not your hand, Margaret? But, you must give it to some one. You will be
+ruined, if you do not."
+
+She looked at him with full eyes. "You know it then?" she said slowly;
+but the gaze diminished as he went on.
+
+"I know, by what I know of you, that you of all women should owe a
+direct allegiance. Come; I will assume privileges. Are you free?"
+
+"Would you talk to me so, if you thought otherwise?" she asked.
+
+"I think I would," said Percy. "A little depends upon the person. Are
+you pledged at all to Mr. Edward Blancove?"
+
+"Do you suppose me one to pledge myself?"
+
+"He is doing a base thing."
+
+"Then, Percy, let an assurance of my knowledge of that be my answer."
+
+"You do not love the man?"
+
+"Despise him, say!"
+
+"Is he aware of it?"
+
+"If clear writing can make him."
+
+"You have told him as much?"
+
+"To his apprehension, certainly."
+
+"Further, Margaret, I must speak:--did he act with your concurrence, or
+knowledge of it at all, in acting as he has done?"
+
+"Heavens! Percy, you question me like a husband."
+
+"It is what I mean to be, if I may."
+
+The frame of the fair lady quivered as from a blow, and then her eyes
+rose tenderly.
+
+"I thought you knew me. This is not possible."
+
+"You will not be mine? Why is it not possible?"
+
+"I think I could say, because I respect you too much."
+
+"Because you find you have not the courage?"
+
+"For what?"
+
+"To confess that you were under bad influence, and were not the Margaret
+I can make of you. Put that aside. If you remain as you are, think of
+the snares. If you marry one you despise, look at the pit. Yes; you will
+be mine! Half my love of my country and my profession is love of you.
+Margaret is fire in my blood. I used to pray for opportunities, that
+Margaret might hear of me. I knew that gallant actions touched her; I
+would have fallen gladly; I was sure her heart would leap when she heard
+of me. Let it beat against mine. Speak!"
+
+"I will," said Mrs. Lovell, and she suppressed the throbs of her bosom.
+Her voice was harsh and her face bloodless. "How much money have you,
+Percy?"
+
+This sudden sluicing of cold water on his heat of passion petrified him.
+
+"Money," he said, with a strange frigid scrutiny of her features. As in
+the flash of a mirror, he beheld her bony, worn, sordid, unacceptable.
+But he was fain to admit it to be an eminently proper demand for
+enlightenment.
+
+He said deliberately, "I possess an income of five hundred a year,
+extraneous, and in addition to my pay as major in Her Majesty's
+service."
+
+Then he paused, and the silence was like a growing chasm between them.
+
+She broke it by saying, "Have you any expectations?"
+
+This was crueller still, though no longer astonishing. He complained in
+his heart merely that her voice had become so unpleasant.
+
+With emotionless precision, he replied, "At my mother's death--"
+
+She interposed a soft exclamation.
+
+"At my mother's death there will come to me by reversion, five or six
+thousand pounds. When my father dies, he may possibly bequeath his
+property to me. On that I cannot count."
+
+Veritable tears were in her eyes. Was she affecting to weep
+sympathetically in view of these remote contingencies?
+
+"You will not pretend that you know me now, Percy," she said, trying to
+smile; and she had recovered the natural feminine key of her voice.
+"I am mercenary, you see; not a mercenary friend. So, keep me as a
+friend--say you will be my friend."
+
+"Nay, you had a right to know," he protested.
+
+"It was disgraceful--horrible; but it was necessary for me to know."
+
+"And now that you do know?"
+
+"Now that I know, I have only to say--be as merciful in your idea of me
+as you can."
+
+She dropped her hand in his, and it was with a thrill of dismay that he
+felt the rush of passion reanimating his frozen veins.
+
+"Be mercenary, but be mine! I will give you something better to live
+for than this absurd life of fashion. You reckon on what our expenditure
+will be by that standard. It's comparative poverty; but--but you can
+have some luxuries. You can have a carriage, a horse to ride. Active
+service may come: I may rise. Give yourself to me, and you must love me,
+and regret nothing."
+
+"Nothing! I should regret nothing. I don't want carriages, or horses, or
+luxuries. I could live with you on a subaltern's pay. I can't marry you,
+Percy, and for the very reason which would make me wish to marry you."
+
+"Charade?" said he; and the contempt of the utterance brought her head
+close under his.
+
+"Dearest friend, you have not to learn how to punish me."
+
+The little reproach, added to the wound to his pride, required a healing
+medicament; she put her lips to his fingers.
+
+Assuredly the comedy would not have ended there, but it was stopped
+by an intrusion of the squire, followed by Sir William, who, while
+the squire--full of wine and vindictive humours--went on humming, "Ah!
+h'm--m--m! Soh!" said in the doorway to some one behind him: "And if
+you have lost your key, and Algernon is away, of what use is it to drive
+down to the Temple for a bed? I make it an especial request that you
+sleep here tonight. I wish it. I have to speak with you."
+
+Mrs. Lovell was informed that the baronet had been addressing his
+son, who was fresh from Paris, and not, in his own modest opinion,
+presentable before a lady.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+Once more Farmer Fleming and Rhoda prepared for their melancholy journey
+up to London. A light cart was at the gateway, near which Robert stood
+with the farmer, who, in his stiff brown overcoat, that reached to his
+ankles, and broad country-hat, kept his posture of dumb expectation
+like a stalled ox, and nodded to Robert's remarks on the care which the
+garden had been receiving latterly, the many roses clean in bud, and the
+trim blue and white and red garden beds. Every word was a blow to him;
+but he took it, as well as Rhoda's apparent dilatoriness, among the
+things to be submitted to by a man cut away by the roots from the home
+of his labour and old associations. Above his bowed head there was a
+board proclaiming that Queen Anne's Farm, and all belonging thereunto,
+was for sale. His prospect in the vague wilderness of the future, was
+to seek for acceptance as a common labourer on some kind gentleman's
+property. The phrase "kind gentleman" was adopted by his deliberate
+irony of the fate which cast him out. Robert was stamping fretfully for
+Rhoda to come. At times, Mrs. Sumfit showed her head from the window of
+her bed-room, crying, "D'rectly!" and disappearing.
+
+The still aspect of the house on the shining May afternoon was otherwise
+undisturbed. Besides Rhoda, Master Gammon was being waited for; on whom
+would devolve the driving of the cart back from the station. Robert
+heaped his vexed exclamations upon this old man. The farmer restrained
+his voice in Master Gammon's defence, thinking of the comparison he
+could make between him and Robert: for Master Gammon had never run
+away from the farm and kept absent, leaving it to take care of itself.
+Gammon, slow as he might be, was faithful, and it was not he who had
+made it necessary for the farm to be sold. Gammon was obstinate, but it
+was not he who, after taking a lead, and making the farm dependent on
+his lead, had absconded with the brains and energy of the establishment.
+Such reflections passed through the farmer's mind.
+
+Rhoda and Mrs. Sumfit came together down the trim pathway; and Robert
+now had a clear charge against Master Gammon. He recommended an
+immediate departure.
+
+"The horse 'll bring himself home quite as well and as fast as Gammon
+will," he said.
+
+"But for the shakin' and the joltin', which tells o' sovereigns and
+silver," Mrs. Sumfit was observing to Rhoda, "you might carry the
+box--and who would have guessed how stout it was, and me to hit it with
+a poker and not break it, I couldn't, nor get a single one through the
+slit;--the sight I was, with a poker in my hand! I do declare I felt
+azactly like a housebreaker;--and no soul to notice what you carries.
+Where you hear the gold, my dear, go so"--Mrs. Sumfit performed a
+methodical "Ahem!" and noised the sole of her shoe on the gravel "so,
+and folks 'll think it's a mistake they made."
+
+"What's that?"--the farmer pointed at a projection under Rhoda's shawl.
+
+"It is a present, father, for my sister," said Rhoda.
+
+"What is it?" the farmer questioned again.
+
+Mrs. Sumfit fawned before him penitently--"Ah! William, she's poor,
+and she do want a little to spend, or she will be so nipped and like a
+frost-bitten body, she will. And, perhaps, dear, haven't money in her
+sight for next day's dinner, which is--oh, such a panic for a young
+wife! for it ain't her hunger, dear William--her husband, she thinks of.
+And her cookery at a stand-still! Thinks she, 'he will charge it on the
+kitchen;' so unreasonable's men. Yes," she added, in answer to the rigid
+dejection of his look, "I said true to you. I know I said, 'Not a penny
+can I get, William,' when you asked me for loans; and how could I get
+it? I can't get it now. See here, dear!"
+
+She took the box from under Rhoda's shawl, and rattled it with a down
+turn and an up turn.
+
+"You didn't ask me, dear William, whether I had a money-box. I'd ha'
+told you so at once, had ye but asked me. And had you said, 'Gi' me your
+money-box,' it was yours, only for your asking. You do see, you can't
+get any of it out. So, when you asked for money I was right to say, I'd
+got none."
+
+The farmer bore with her dreary rattling of the box in demonstration of
+its retentive capacities. The mere force of the show stopped him from
+retorting; but when, to excuse Master Gammon for his tardiness, she
+related that he also had a money-box, and was in search of it, the
+farmer threw up his head with the vigour of a young man, and thundered
+for Master Gammon, by name, vehemently wrathful at the combined
+hypocrisy of the pair. He called twice, and his face was purple and red
+as he turned toward the cart, saying,--
+
+"We'll go without the old man."
+
+Mrs. Sumfit then intertwisted her fingers, and related how that she and
+Master Gammon had one day, six years distant, talked on a lonely evening
+over the mischances which befel poor people when they grew infirm, or
+met with accident, and what "useless clays" they were; and yet they had
+their feelings. It was a long and confidential talk on a summer evening;
+and, at the end of it, Master Gammon walked into Wrexby, and paid
+a visit to Mr. Hammond, the carpenter, who produced two strong
+saving-boxes excellently manufactured by his own hand, without a lid to
+them, or lock and key: so that there would be no getting at the contents
+until the boxes were full, or a pressing occasion counselled the
+destruction of the boxes. A constant subject of jest between Mrs. Sumfit
+and Master Gammon was, as to which first of them would be overpowered
+by curiosity to know the amount of their respective savings; and their
+confessions of mutual weakness and futile endeavours to extract one
+piece of gold from the hoard.
+
+"And now, think it or not," said Mrs. Sumfit, "I got that power over
+him, from doctorin' him, and cookin' for him, I persuaded him to help my
+poor Dahly in my blessed's need. I'd like him to do it by halves, but he
+can't."
+
+Master Gammon appeared round a corner of the house, his box, draped by
+his handkerchief, under his arm. The farmer and Robert knew, when he was
+in sight, that gestures and shouts expressing extremities of the need
+for haste, would fail to accelerate his steps, so they allowed him to
+come on at his own equal pace, steady as Time, with the peculiar lopping
+bend of knees which jerked the moveless trunk regularly upward, and
+the ancient round eyes fixed contemplatively forward. There was an
+affectingness in this view of the mechanical old man bearing his poor
+hoard to bestow it.
+
+Robert said out, unawares, "He mustn't be let to part with h'old
+pennies."
+
+"No;" the farmer took him up; "nor I won't let him."
+
+"Yes, father!" Rhoda intercepted his address to Master Gammon. "Yes,
+father!" she hardened her accent. "It is for my sister. He does a good
+thing. Let him do it."
+
+"Mas' Gammon, what ha' ye got there?" the farmer sung out.
+
+But Master Gammon knew that he was about his own business. He was a
+difficult old man when he served the farmer; he was quite unmanageable
+in his private affairs.
+
+Without replying, he said to Mrs. Sumfit,--
+
+"I'd gummed it."
+
+The side of the box showed that it had been made adhesive, for the sake
+of security, to another substance.
+
+"That's what's caused ye to be so long, Mas' Gammon?"
+
+The veteran of the fields responded with a grin, designed to show a
+lively cunning.
+
+"Deary me, Mas' Gammon, I'd give a fortnight's work to know how much
+you'm saved, now, I would. And, there! Your comfort's in your heart. And
+it shall be paid to you. I do pray heaven in mercy to forgive me," she
+whimpered, "if ever knowin'ly I hasted you at a meal, or did deceive you
+when you looked for the pickings of fresh-killed pig. But if you only
+knew how--to cookit spoils the temper of a woman! I'd a aunt was cook
+in a gentleman's fam'ly, and daily he dirtied his thirteen plates--never
+more nor never less; and one day--was ever a woman punished so! her best
+black silk dress she greased from the top to the bottom, and he sent
+down nine clean plates, and no word vouchsafed of explanation. For
+gentlefolks, they won't teach themselves how it do hang together with
+cooks in a kitchen--"
+
+"Jump up, Mas' Gammon," cried the farmer, wrathful at having been
+deceived by two members of his household, who had sworn to him, both,
+that they had no money, and had disregarded his necessity. Such being
+human nature!
+
+Mrs. Sumfit confided the termination of her story to Rhoda; or suggested
+rather, at what distant point it might end; and then, giving Master
+Gammon's box to her custody, with directions for Dahlia to take the
+boxes to a carpenter's shop--not attempting the power of pokers upon
+them--and count and make a mental note of the amount of the rival
+hoards, she sent Dahlia all her messages of smirking reproof, and
+delighted love, and hoped that they would soon meet and know happiness.
+
+Rhoda, as usual, had no emotion to spare. She took possession of the
+second box, and thus laden, suffered Robert to lift her into the cart.
+They drove across the green, past the mill and its flashing waters, and
+into the road, where the waving of Mrs. Sumfit's desolate handkerchief
+was latest seen.
+
+A horseman rode by, whom Rhoda recognized, and she blushed and had a
+boding shiver. Robert marked him, and the blush as well.
+
+It was Algernon, upon a livery-stable hack. His countenance expressed a
+mighty disappointment.
+
+The farmer saw no one. The ingratitude and treachery of Robert, and of
+Mrs. Sumfit and Master Gammon, kept him brooding in sombre disgust of
+life. He remarked that the cart jolted a good deal.
+
+"If you goes in a cart, wi' company o' four, you expects to be jolted,"
+said Master Gammon.
+
+"You seem to like it," Robert observed to the latter.
+
+"It don't disturb my in'ards," quoth the serenest of mankind.
+
+"Gammon," the farmer addressed him from the front seat, without turning
+his head: "you'll take and look about for a new place."
+
+Master Gammon digested the recommendation in silence. On its being
+repeated, with, "D' ye hear?" he replied that he heard well enough.
+
+"Well, then, look about ye sharp, or maybe, you'll be out in the cold,"
+said the farmer.
+
+"Na," returned Master Gammon, "ah never frets till I'm pinched."
+
+"I've given ye notice," said the farmer.
+
+"No, you ha'n't," said Master Gammon.
+
+"I give ye notice now."
+
+"No, you don't."
+
+"How d' ye mean?"
+
+"Cause I don't take ne'er a notice."
+
+"Then you'll be kicked out, old man."
+
+"Hey! there y' have me," said Master Gammon. "I growed at the farm, and
+you don't go and tell ne'er a tree t' walk."
+
+Rhoda laid her fingers in the veteran's palm.
+
+"You're a long-lived family, aren't you, Master Gammon?" said Robert,
+eyeing Rhoda's action enviously.
+
+Master Gammon bade him go to a certain churchyard in Sussex, and
+inspect a particular tombstone, upon which the ages of his ancestry were
+written. They were more like the ages of oaks than of men.
+
+"It's the heart kills," said Robert.
+
+"It's damned misfortune," murmured the farmer.
+
+"It is the wickedness in the world," thought Rhoda.
+
+"It's a poor stomach, I reckon," Master Gammon ruminated.
+
+They took leave of him at the station, from which eminence it was a
+notable thing to see him in the road beneath, making preparations for
+his return, like a conqueror of the hours. Others might run, and stew,
+if they liked: Master Gammon had chosen his pace, and was not of a mind
+to change it for anybody or anything. It was his boast that he had never
+ridden by railway: "nor ever means to, if I can help it," he would say.
+He was very much in harmony with universal nature, if to be that is the
+secret of human life.
+
+Meantime, Algernon retraced his way to the station in profound chagrin:
+arriving there just as the train was visible. He caught sight of the
+cart with Master Gammon in it, and asked him whether all his people were
+going up to London; but the reply was evidently a mile distant, and had
+not started; so putting a sovereign in Master Gammon's hand, together
+with the reins of his horse, Algernon bade the old man conduct the
+animal to the White Bear Inn, and thus violently pushing him off the
+tramways of his intelligence, left him stranded.
+
+He had taken a first-class return-ticket, of course, being a gentleman.
+In the desperate hope that he might jump into a carriage with Rhoda, he
+entered one of the second-class compartments; a fact not only foreign to
+his tastes and his habits, but somewhat disgraceful, as he thought. His
+trust was, that the ignoble of this earth alone had beheld him: at
+any rate, his ticket was first class, as the guard would instantly and
+respectfully perceive, and if he had the discomforts, he had also some
+of the consolations of virtue.
+
+Once on his way, the hard seat and the contemptible society surrounding
+him, assured his reflective spirit that he loved: otherwise, was it in
+reason that he should endure these hardships? "I really love the girl,"
+he said, fidgeting for cushions.
+
+He was hot, and wanted the window up, to which his fellow-travellers
+assented. Then, the atmosphere becoming loaded with offence to his
+morbid sense of smell, he wanted the windows down; and again they
+assented. "By Jove! I must love the girl," ejaculated Algernon inwardly,
+as cramp, cold, and afflicted nostrils combined to astonish his
+physical sensations. Nor was it displeasing to him to evince that he was
+unaccustomed to bare boards.
+
+"We're a rich country," said a man to his neighbour; "but, if you
+don't pay for it, you must take your luck, and they'll make you as
+uncomfortable as they can."
+
+"Ay," said the other. "I've travelled on the Continent. The second-class
+carriages there are fit for anybody to travel in. This is what comes of
+the worship of money--the individual is not respected. Pounds alone!"
+
+"These," thought Algernon, "are beastly democrats."
+
+Their remarks had been sympathetic with his manifestations, which had
+probably suggested them. He glowered out of the window in an exceedingly
+foreign manner. A plainly dressed woman requested that the window should
+be closed. One of the men immediately proceeded to close it. Algernon
+stopped him.
+
+"Pardon me, sir," said the man; "it's a lady wants it done;" and he did
+it.
+
+A lady! Algernon determined that these were the sort of people he should
+hate for life. "Go among them and then see what they are," he addressed
+an imaginary assembly of anti-democrats, as from a senatorial chair set
+in the after days. Cramp, cold, ill-ordered smells, and eternal hatred
+of his fellow-passengers, convinced him, in their aggregation, that he
+surmounted not a little for love of Rhoda.
+
+The train arrived in London at dusk. Algernon saw Rhoda step from a
+carriage near the engine, assisted by Robert; and old Anthony was on the
+platform to welcome her; and Anthony seized her bag, and the troop
+of passengers moved away. It may be supposed that Algernon had angry
+sensations at sight of Robert; and to a certain extent this was the
+case; but he was a mercurial youth, and one who had satisfactorily
+proved superior strength enjoyed a portion of his respect. Besides, if
+Robert perchance should be courting Rhoda, he and Robert would enter
+into another field of controversy; and Robert might be taught a lesson.
+
+He followed the party on foot until they reached Anthony's
+dwelling-place, noted the house, and sped to the Temple. There, he found
+a telegraphic message from Edward, that had been awaiting him since the
+morning.
+
+"Stop It," were the sole words of the communication brief, and if one
+preferred to think so, enigmatic.
+
+"What on earth does he mean?" cried Algernon, and affected again
+and again to see what Edward meant, without success. "Stop it?--stop
+what?--Stop the train? Stop my watch? Stop the universe? Oh! this is
+rank humbug." He flung the paper down, and fell to counting the money in
+his possession. The more it dwindled, the more imperative it became that
+he should depart from his country.
+
+Behind the figures, he calculated that, in all probability, Rhoda would
+visit her sister this night. "I can't stop that," he said: and hearing
+a clock strike, "nor that" a knock sounded on the door; "nor that." The
+reflection inspired him with fatalistic views.
+
+Sedgett appeared, and was welcome. Algernon had to check the impulse of
+his hand to stretch out to the fellow, so welcome was he: Sedgett stated
+that everything stood ready for the morrow. He had accomplished all that
+had to be done.
+
+"And it's more than many'd reckon," he said, and rubbed his hands, and
+laughed. "I was aboard ship in Liverpool this morning, that I was.
+That ere young woman's woke up from her dream", (he lengthened the word
+inexpressibly) "by this time, that she is. I had to pay for my passage,
+though;" at which recollection he swore. "That's money gone. Never mind:
+there's worse gone with it. Ain't it nasty--don't you think, sir--to get
+tired of a young woman you've been keepin' company with, and have to be
+her companion, whether you will, or whether you won't? She's sick enough
+now. We travelled all night. I got her on board; got her to go to her
+bed; and, says I, I'll arrange about the luggage. I packs myself down
+into a boat, and saw the ship steam away a good'n. Hanged if I didn't
+catch myself singin'. And haven't touched a drop o' drink, nor will,
+till tomorrow's over. Don't you think 'Daehli's' a very pretty name,
+sir? I run back to her as hard as rail 'd carry me. She's had a letter
+from her sister, recommending o' her to marry me: 'a noble man,' she
+calls me--ha, ha! that's good. 'And what do you think, my dear?' says I;
+and, bother me, if I can screw either a compliment or a kiss out of her.
+She's got fine lady airs of her own. But I'm fond of her, that I am.
+Well, sir, at the church door, after the ceremony, you settle our
+business, honour bright--that's it, en't it?"
+
+Algernon nodded. Sedgett's talk always produced discomfort in his
+ingenuous bosom.
+
+"By the way, what politics are you?" he asked.
+
+Sedgett replied, staring, that he was a Tory, and Algernon nodded again,
+but with brows perturbed at the thought of this ruffian being of the
+same political persuasion as himself.
+
+"Eh?" cried Sedgett; "I don't want any of your hustings pledges,
+though. You'll be at the door tomorrow, or I'll have a row--mind that. A
+bargain's a bargain. I like the young woman, but I must have the money.
+Why not hand it over now?"
+
+"Not till the deed's done," said Algernon, very reasonably.
+
+Sedgett studied his features, and as a result remarked: "You put me up
+to this: I'll do it, and trust you so far, but if I'm played on, I
+throw the young woman over and expose you out and out. But you mean
+honourable?"
+
+"I do," Algernon said of his meaning.
+
+Another knock sounded on the door. It proved to be a footman in Sir
+William's livery, bearing a letter from Edward; an amplification of the
+telegram:
+
+   "Dear Algy, Stop it. I'm back, and have to see
+   my father. I may be down about two, or three, or four,
+   in the morning. No key; so, keep in. I want to see
+   you. My whole life is changed. I must see her. Did
+   you get my telegram? Answer, by messenger; I shall
+   come to you the moment my father has finished his
+   lecture.
+               "Yours,
+                  "E.B."
+
+Algernon told Sedgett to wait while he dressed in evening uniform, and
+gave him a cigar to smoke.
+
+He wrote:--
+
+   "Dear Ned, Stop what? Of course, I suppose there's only one thing,
+   and how can I stop it? What for? You ridiculous old boy! What a
+   changeable old fellow you are!--Off, to see what I can do. After
+   eleven o'clock to-morrow, you'll feel comfortable.--If the Governor
+   is sweet, speak a word for the Old Brown; and bring two dozen in a
+   cab, if you can. There's no encouragement to keep at home in this
+   place. Put that to him. I, in your place, could do it. Tell him
+   it's a matter of markets. If I get better wine at hotels, I go to
+   hotels, and I spend twice--ten times the money. And say, we intend
+   to make the laundress cook our dinners in chambers, as a rule. Old
+   B. an inducement.
+
+                    "Yours aff.
+                       "A.B."
+
+This epistle he dispatched by the footman, and groaned to think that
+if, perchance, the Old Brown Sherry should come, he would, in all
+probability, barely drink more than half-a-dozen bottles of that prime
+vintage. He and Sedgett, soon after, were driving down to Dahlia's poor
+lodgings in the West. On the way, an idea struck him:
+
+Would not Sedgett be a noisier claimant for the thousand than Edward?
+If he obeyed Edward's direction and stopped the marriage, he could hand
+back a goodly number of hundreds, and leave it to be supposed that he
+had advanced the remainder to Sedgett. How to do it? Sedgett happened to
+say: "If you won't hand the money now, I must have it when I've married
+her. Swear you'll be in the vestry when we're signing. I know all about
+marriages. You swear, or I tell you, if I find I'm cheated, I will throw
+the young woman over slap."
+
+Algernon nodded: "I shall be there," he said, and thought that he
+certainly would not. The thought cleared an oppression in his head,
+though it obscured the pretty prospect of a colonial but and horse, with
+Rhoda cooking for him, far from cares. He did his best to resolve that
+he would stop the business, if he could. But, if it is permitted to the
+fool to create entanglements and set calamity in motion, to arrest its
+course is the last thing the Gods allow of his doing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+In the shadowy library light, when there was dawn out of doors, Edward
+sat with his father, and both were silent, for Edward had opened his
+heart, and his father had breathed some of the dry stock of wisdom on
+it. Many times Edward rose to go; and Sir William signalled with his
+finger that he should stay: an impassive motion, not succeeded by
+speech. And, in truth, the baronet was revolving such a problem as a
+long career of profitable banking refreshed by classical exercitations
+does not help us to solve. There sat the son of his trust and his pride,
+whose sound and equal temperament, whose precocious worldly wit, whose
+precise and broad intelligence, had been the visionary comfort of his
+paternal days to come; and his son had told him, reiterating it in
+language special and exact as that of a Chancery barrister unfolding
+his case to the presiding judge, that he had deceived and wronged
+an under-bred girl of the humbler classes; and that, after a term of
+absence from her, he had discovered her to be a part of his existence,
+and designed "You would marry her?" Sir William asked, though less
+forcibly than if he could have put on a moral amazement.
+
+"That is my intention, sir, with your permission," Edward replied
+firmly, and his father understood that he had never known this young
+man, and dealt virtually with a stranger in his son--as shrewd a blow as
+the vanity which is in paternal nature may have to endure.
+
+He could not fashion the words, "Cerritus fuit," though he thought
+the thing in both tenses: Edward's wits had always been too clearly in
+order: and of what avail was it to repeat great and honoured prudential
+maxims to a hard-headed fellow, whose choice was to steer upon the
+rocks? He did remark, in an undertone,--
+
+"The 'misce stultitiam' seems to be a piece of advice you have adopted
+too literally. I quote what you have observed of some one else."
+
+"It is possible, sir," said Edward. "I was not particularly sparing when
+I sat in the high seat. 'Non eadem est aetas, non mens.' I now think
+differently."
+
+"I must take your present conduct as the fruit of your premature
+sagacity, I suppose. By the same rule, your cousin Algernon may prove to
+be some comfort to his father, in the end."
+
+"Let us hope he will, sir. His father will not have deserved it so well
+as mine."
+
+"The time is morning," said Sir William, looking at his watch, and
+bestowing, in the bitterness of his reflections, a hue of triumph on the
+sleep of his brother upstairs. "You are your own master, Edward. I will
+detain you no more."
+
+Edward shook his limbs, rejoicing.
+
+"You prepare for a life of hard work," Sir William resumed, not without
+some instigation to sternness from this display of alacrity. "I counsel
+you to try the Colonial Bar."
+
+Edward read in the first sentence, that his income would be restricted;
+and in the second, that his father's social sphere was no longer to be
+his.
+
+"Exactly, sir; I have entertained that notion myself," he said; and his
+breast narrowed and his features grew sharp.
+
+"And, if I may suggest such matters to you, I would advise you to see
+very little company for some years to come."
+
+"There, sir, you only anticipate my previously formed resolution. With
+a knavery on my conscience, and a giddy-pated girl on my hands, and
+the doors of the London world open to me, I should scarcely have been
+capable of serious work. The precious metal, which is Knowledge, sir,
+is only to be obtained by mining for it; and that excellent occupation
+necessarily sends a man out of sight for a number of years. In the
+meantime, 'mea virtute me involvo.'"
+
+"You need not stop short," said his father, with a sardonic look for the
+concluding lines.
+
+"The continuation is becoming in the mouth of a hero; but humbler
+persons must content themselves not to boast the patent fact, I think."
+Edward warmed as he spoke. "I am ready to bear it. I dislike poverty;
+but, as I say, I am ready to bear it. Come, sir; you did me the honour
+once to let me talk to you as a friend, with the limits which I have
+never consciously overstepped; let me explain myself plainly and
+simply."
+
+Sir William signified, "Pray speak," from the arms of his chair! and
+Edward, standing, went on: "After all, a woman's devotion is worth
+having, when one is not asked for the small change every ten minutes. I
+am aware of the philosophic truth, that we get nothing in life for which
+we don't pay. The point is, to appreciate what we desire; and so we
+reach a level that makes the payment less--" He laughed. Sir William
+could hardly keep back the lines of an ironical smile from his lips.
+
+"This," pursued the orator, "is not the language for the Colonial Bar.
+I wish to show you that I shall understand the character of my vocation
+there. No, sir; my deeper wish is that you may accept my view of the
+sole course left to a man whose sense of honour is of accord with
+the inclination of his heart, and not in hostility to his clearer
+judgement."
+
+"Extremely forensic," said Sir William, not displeased by the promise of
+the periods.
+
+"Well, sir, I need not remark to you that rhetoric, though it should
+fail to convey, does not extinguish, or imply the absence of emotion in
+the speaker; but rather that his imagination is excited by his theme,
+and that he addresses more presences than such as are visible. It is,
+like the Roman mask, fashioned for large assemblages."
+
+"By a parity of reasoning, then,"--Sir William was seduced into
+colloquy,--"an eternal broad grin is not, in the instance of a dualogue,
+good comedy."
+
+"It may hide profound grief." Edward made his eyes flash. "I find I can
+laugh; it would be difficult for me to smile. Sir, I pray that you will
+listen to me seriously, though my language is not of a kind to make you
+think me absolutely earnest in what I say, unless you know me."
+
+"Which, I must protest, I certainly do not," interposed Sir William.
+
+"I will do my best to instruct you, sir. Until recently, I have not
+known myself. I met this girl. She trusted herself to me. You are aware
+that I know a little of men and of women; and when I tell you that I
+respect her now even more than I did at first--much more--so thoroughly,
+that I would now put my honour in her hands, by the counsel of my
+experience, as she, prompted by her instinct and her faith in me,
+confided hers to mine,--perhaps, even if you persist in accusing me
+of rashness, you will allow that she must be in the possession of
+singularly feminine and estimable qualities. I deceived her. My object
+in doing so was to spare you. Those consequences followed which can
+hardly fail to ensue, when, of two living together, the woman is at a
+disadvantage, and eats her heart without complaining. I could have borne
+a shrewish tongue better, possibly because I could have answered it
+better. It is worse to see a pale sad face with a smile of unalterable
+tenderness. The very sweetness becomes repugnant."
+
+"As little boys requiring much medicine have anticipated you by noting
+in this world," observed Sir William.
+
+"I thank you for the illustration." Edward bowed, but he smarted. "A man
+so situated lives with the ghost of his conscience."
+
+"A doubtful figure of speech," Sir William broke in. "I think you should
+establish the personality before you attempt to give a feature to the
+essence. But, continue."
+
+Edward saw that by forfeiting simplicity, in order to catch his father's
+peculiar cast of mind, he had left him cold and in doubt as to the
+existence of the powerful impulse by which he was animated. It is a
+prime error in the orator not to seize the emotions and subdue the
+humanity of his hearers first. Edward perceived his mistake. He had,
+however, done well in making a show of the unabated vigour of his wits.
+Contempt did not dwell in the baronet's tone. On the contrary, they
+talked and fenced, and tripped one another as of old; and, considering
+the breach he had been compelled to explode between his father and
+himself, Edward understood that this was a real gain.
+
+He resumed: "All figures of speech must be inadequate--"
+
+"Ah, pardon me," said Sir William, pertinaciously; "the figure I alluded
+to was not inadequate. A soap-bubble is not inadequate."
+
+"Plainly, sir, in God's name, hear me out," cried Edward. "She--what
+shall I call her? my mistress, my sweetheart, if you like--let the name
+be anything 'wife' it should have been, and shall be--I left her, and
+have left her and have not looked on her for many months. I thought I
+was tired of her--I was under odd influences--witchcraft, it seems. I
+could believe in witchcraft now. Brutal selfishness is the phrase for my
+conduct. I have found out my villany. I have not done a day's sensible
+work, or had a single clear thought, since I parted from her. She has
+had brain-fever. She has been in the hospital. She is now prostrate with
+misery. While she suffered, I--I can't look back on myself. If I had to
+plead before you for more than manly consideration, I could touch you. I
+am my own master, and am ready to subsist by my own efforts; there is no
+necessity for me to do more than say I abide by the choice I make, and
+my own actions. In deciding to marry her, I do a good thing--I do a just
+thing. I will prove to you that I have done a wise thing.
+
+"Let me call to your recollection what you did me the honour to remark
+of my letters from Italy. Those were written with her by my side. Every
+other woman vexed me. This one alone gives me peace, and nerve to work.
+If I did not desire to work, should I venture to run the chances of
+an offence to you? Your girls of society are tasteless to me. And they
+don't makes wives to working barristers. No, nor to working Members.
+
+"They are very ornamental and excellent, and, as I think you would
+call them, accomplished. All England would leap to arms to defend their
+incontestible superiority to their mothers and their duties. I have not
+the wish to stand opposed to my countrymen on any question, although
+I go to other shores, and may be called upon to make capital out of
+opposition. They are admirable young persons, no doubt. I do not offer
+you a drab for your daughter-in-law, sir. If I rise, she will be equal
+to my station. She has the manners of a lady; a lady, I say; not of the
+modern young lady; with whom, I am happy to think, she does not come
+into competition. She has not been sedulously trained to pull her way,
+when she is to go into harness with a yokefellow.
+
+"But I am laying myself open to the charge of feeling my position weak,
+seeing that I abuse the contrary one. Think what you will of me, sir,
+you will know that I have obeyed my best instinct and my soundest
+judgement in this matter; I need not be taught, that if it is my destiny
+to leave England I lose the association with him who must ever be my
+dearest friend. And few young men can say as much of one standing in the
+relation of father."
+
+With this, Edward finished; not entirely to his satisfaction; for he had
+spoken with too distinct a sincerity to please his own critical taste,
+which had been educated to delight in acute antithesis and culminating
+sentences--the grand Biscayan billows of rhetorical utterance, in
+comparison wherewith his talk was like the little chopping waves of a
+wind-blown lake. But he had, as he could see, produced an impression.
+His father stood up.
+
+"We shall be always friends; I hope," Sir William said. "As regards a
+provision for you, suitable to your estate, that will be arranged. You
+must have what comforts you have been taught to look to. At the same
+time, I claim a personal freedom for my own actions."
+
+"Certainly, sir," said Edward, not conceiving any new development in
+these.
+
+"You have an esteem for Mrs. Lovell, have you not?"
+
+Edward flushed. "I should have a very perfect esteem for her, if--" he
+laughed slightly--"you will think I want everybody to be married and in
+the traces now; she will never be manageable till she is married."
+
+"I am also of that opinion," said Sir William. "I will detain you no
+longer. It is a quarter to five in the morning. You will sleep here, of
+course."
+
+"No, I must go to the Temple. By the way, Algy prefers a petition for
+Sherry. He is beginning to discern good wine from bad, which may be a
+hopeful augury."
+
+"I will order Holmes to send some down to him when he has done a week's
+real duty at the Bank."
+
+"Sooner or later, then. Good morning, sir."
+
+"Good morning." Sir William shook his son's hand.
+
+A minute after, Edward had quitted the house. "That's over!" he said,
+sniffing the morning air gratefully, and eyeing certain tinted wisps of
+cloud that were in a line of the fresh blue sky.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+A shy and humble entreaty had been sent by Dahlia through Robert to
+Rhoda, saying that she wished not to be seen until the ceremony was at
+an end; but Rhoda had become mentally stern toward her sister, and as
+much to uphold her in the cleansing step she was about to take, as in
+the desire to have the dear lost head upon her bosom, she disregarded
+Dahlia's foolish prayer, and found it was well that she had done so;
+for, to her great amazement, Dahlia, worn, shorn, sickened, and reduced
+to be a mark for the scorn of the cowardice which is in the world,
+through the selfishness of a lying man, loved the man still, and
+wavered, or rather shrank with a pitiful fleshly terror from the noble
+husband who would wipe the spot of shame from her forehead.
+
+When, after their long separation, the sisters met, Dahlia was mistress
+of herself, and pronounced Rhoda's name softly, as she moved up to kiss
+her. Rhoda could not speak. Oppressed by the strangeness of the white
+face which had passed through fire, she gave a mute kiss and a single
+groan, while Dahlia gently caressed her on the shoulder. The frail touch
+of her hand was harder to bear than the dreary vision had been, and
+seemed not so real as many a dream of it. Rhoda sat by her, overcome by
+the awfulness of an actual sorrow, never imagined closely, though she
+had conjured up vague pictures of Dahlia's face. She had imagined agony,
+tears, despair, but not the spectral change, the burnt-out look. It
+was a face like a crystal lamp in which the flame has died. The ghastly
+little skull-cap showed forth its wanness rigidly. Rhoda wondered to
+hear her talk simply of home and the old life. At each question, the
+then and the now struck her spirit with a lightning flash of opposing
+scenes. But the talk deepened. Dahlia's martyrdom was near, and their
+tongues were hurried into plain converse of the hour, and then Dahlia
+faltered and huddled herself up like a creature swept by the torrent;
+Rhoda learnt that, instead of hate or loathing of the devilish man who
+had deceived her, love survived. Upon Dahlia's lips it was compassion
+and forgiveness; but Rhoda, in her contempt for the word, called it
+love. Dahlia submitted gladly to the torture of interrogation; "Do you,
+can you care for him still?" and sighed in shame and fear of her sister,
+not daring to say she thought her harsh, not daring to plead for escape,
+as she had done with Robert.
+
+"Why is there no place for the unhappy, who do not wish to live, and
+cannot die?" she moaned.
+
+And Rhoda cruelly fixed her to the marriage, making it seem irrevocable,
+and barring all the faint lights to the free outer world, by praise of
+her--passionate praise of her--when she confessed, that half inanimate
+after her recovery from the fever, and in the hope that she might
+thereby show herself to her father, she had consented to devote her life
+to the only creature who was then near her to be kind to her. Rhoda
+made her relate how this man had seen her first, and how, by untiring
+diligence, he had followed her up and found her. "He--he must love you,"
+said Rhoda; and in proportion as she grew more conscious of her sister's
+weakness, and with every access of tenderness toward her, she felt that
+Dahlia must be thought for very much as if she were a child.
+
+Dahlia tried to float out some fretting words for mercy, on one or other
+of her heavy breathings; but her brain was under lead. She had a thirst
+for Rhoda's praise in her desolation; it was sweet, though the price of
+it was her doing an abhorred thing. Abhorred? She did not realize the
+consequences of the act, or strength would have come to her to wrestle
+with the coil: a stir of her blood would have endued her with womanly
+counsel and womanly frenzy; nor could Rhoda have opposed any real
+vehemence of distaste to the union on Dahlia's part. But Dahlia's blood
+was frozen, her brain was under lead. She clung to the poor delight
+in her sister's praise, and shuddered and thirsted. She caught at the
+minutes, and saw them slip from her. All the health of her thoughts
+went to establish a sort of blind belief that God; having punished
+her enough, would not permit a second great misery to befall her. She
+expected a sudden intervention, even though at the altar. She argued to
+herself that misery, which follows sin, cannot surely afflict us further
+when we are penitent, and seek to do right: her thought being, that
+perchance if she refrained from striving against the current, and if
+she suffered her body to be borne along, God would be the more merciful.
+With the small cunning of an enfeebled spirit, she put on a mute
+submissiveness, and deceived herself by it sufficiently to let the
+minutes pass with a lessened horror and alarm.
+
+This was in the first quarter of the night. The dawn was wearing near.
+Sedgett had been seen by Rhoda; a quiet interview; a few words on either
+side, attention paid to them by neither. But the girl doated on his
+ugliness; she took it for plain proof of his worthiness; proof too that
+her sister must needs have seen the latter very distinctly, or else she
+could not have submitted.
+
+Dahlia looked at the window-blinds and at the candlelight. The little
+which had been spoken between her and her sister in such a chasm of
+time, gave a terrible swiftness to the hours. Half shrieking, she
+dropped her head in Rhoda's lap. Rhoda, thinking that with this
+demonstration she renounced the project finally, prepared to say what
+she had to say, and to yield. But, as was natural after a paroxysm of
+weakness, Dahlia's frenzy left no courage behind it.
+
+Dahlia said, as she swept her brows, "I am still subject to nervous
+attacks."
+
+"They will soon leave you," said Rhoda, nursing her hand.
+
+Dahlia contracted her lips. "Is father very unforgiving to women?"
+
+"Poor father!" Rhoda interjected for answer, and Dahlia's frame was
+taken with a convulsion.
+
+"Where shall I see him to-morrow?" she asked; and, glancing from the
+beamless candle to the window-blinds "Oh! it's day. Why didn't I sleep!
+It's day! where am I to see him?"
+
+"At Robert's lodgings. We all go there."
+
+"We all go?--he goes?"
+
+"Your husband will lead you there."
+
+"My heaven! my heaven! I wish you had known what this is, a little--just
+a little."
+
+"I do know that it is a good and precious thing to do right," said
+Rhoda.
+
+"If you had only had an affection, dear! Oh I how ungrateful I am to
+you."
+
+"It is only, darling, that I seem unkind to you," said Rhoda.
+
+"You think I must do this? Must? Why?"
+
+"Why?" Rhoda pressed her fingers. "Why, when you were ill, did you not
+write to me, that I might have come to you?"
+
+"I was ashamed," said Dahlia.
+
+"You shall not be ashamed any more, my sister."
+
+Dahlia seized the window-blind with her trembling finger-tips, and
+looked out on the day. As if it had smitten her eyeballs, she covered
+her face, giving dry sobs.
+
+"Oh! I wish--I wish you had known what this is. Must I do it? His face!
+Dear, I am very sorry to distress you. Must I do it? The doctor says I
+am so strong that nothing will break in me, and that I must live, if I
+am not killed. But, if I might only be a servant in father's house--I
+would give all my love to a little bed of flowers."
+
+"Father has no home now," said Rhoda.
+
+"I know--I know. I am ready. I will submit, and then father will not be
+ashamed to remain at the Farm. I am ready. Dear, I am ready. Rhoda, I
+am ready. It is not much." She blew the candle out. "See. No one will do
+that for me. We are not to live for ourselves. I have done wrong, and I
+am going to be humble; yes, I am. I never was when I was happy, and that
+proves I had no right to be happy. All I ask is for another night
+with you. Why did we not lie down together and sleep? We can't sleep
+now--it's day."
+
+"Come and lie down with me for a few hours, my darling," said Rhoda.
+
+While she was speaking, Dahlia drew the window-blind aside, to look out
+once more upon the vacant, inexplicable daylight, and looked, and then
+her head bent like the first thrust forward of a hawk's sighting quarry;
+she spun round, her raised arms making a cramped, clapping motion.
+
+"He is there."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+At once Rhoda perceived that it was time for her to act. The name of
+him who stood in the street below was written on her sister's face. She
+started to her side, got possession of her hands, murmuring,--
+
+"Come with me. You are to come with me. Don't speak. I know. I will go
+down. Yes; you are to obey, and do what I tell you."
+
+Dahlia's mouth opened, but like a child when it is warned not to cry,
+she uttered a faint inward wailing, lost her ideas, and was passive in a
+shuddering fit.
+
+"What am I to do?" she said supplicatingly, as Rhoda led her to her
+bedroom.
+
+"Rest here. Be perfectly quiet. Trust everything to me. I am your
+sister."
+
+Leaving her under the spell of coldly-spoken words, Rhoda locked the
+door on her. She was herself in great agitation, but nerved by deeper
+anger there was no faltering in her movements. She went to the glass a
+minute, as she tied her bonnet-strings under her chin, and pinned her
+shawl. A night's vigil had not chased the bloom from her cheek, or the
+swimming lustre from her dark eyes. Content that her aspect should
+be seemly, she ran down the stairs, unfastened the bolts, and without
+hesitation closed the door behind her. At the same instant, a gentleman
+crossed the road. He asked whether Mrs. Ayrton lived in that house?
+Rhoda's vision danced across his features, but she knew him unerringly
+to be the cruel enemy.
+
+"My sister, Dahlia Fleming, lives there," she said.
+
+"Then, you are Rhoda?"
+
+"My name is Rhoda."
+
+"Mine--I fear it will not give you pleasure to hear it--is Edward
+Blancove. I returned late last night from abroad."
+
+She walked to a distance, out of hearing and out of sight of the house,
+and he silently followed. The streets were empty, save for the solitary
+footing of an early workman going to his labour.
+
+She stopped, and he said, "I hope your sister is well."
+
+"She is quite well."
+
+"Thank heaven for that! I heard of some illness."
+
+"She has quite recovered."
+
+"Did she--tell me the truth--did she get a letter that I sent two days
+ago, to her? It was addressed to 'Miss Fleming, Wrexby, Kent, England.'
+Did it reach her?"
+
+"I have not seen it."
+
+"I wrote," said Edward.
+
+His scrutiny of her features was not reassuring to him. But he had a
+side-thought, prompted by admiration of her perfect build of figure, her
+succinct expression of countenance, and her equable manner of speech: to
+the effect, that the true English yeomanry can breed consummate women.
+Perhaps--who knows? even resolute human nature is the stronger for an
+added knot--it approved the resolution he had formed, or stamped with a
+justification the series of wild impulses, the remorse, and the returned
+tenderness and manliness which had brought him to that spot.
+
+"You know me, do you not?" he said.
+
+"Yes," she answered shortly.
+
+"I wish to see Dahlia."
+
+"You cannot."
+
+"Not immediately, of course. But when she has risen later in the
+morning. If she has received my letter, she will, she must see me."
+
+"No, not later; not at all," said Rhoda.
+
+"Not at all? Why not?"
+
+Rhoda controlled the surging of her blood for a vehement reply; saying
+simply, "You will not see her."
+
+"My child, I must."
+
+"I am not a child, and I say what I mean."
+
+"But why am I not to see her? Do you pretend that it is her wish not to
+see me? You can't. I know her perfectly. She is gentleness itself."
+
+"Yes; you know that," said Rhoda, with a level flash of her eyes, and
+confronting him in a way so rarely distinguishing girls of her class,
+that he began to wonder and to ache with an apprehension.
+
+"She has not changed? Rhoda--for we used to talk of you so often! You
+will think better of me, by-and-by.
+
+"Naturally enough, you detest me at present. I have been a brute.
+I can't explain it, and I don't excuse myself. I state the fact to
+you--her sister. My desire is to make up for the past. Will you take a
+message to her from me?"
+
+"I will not."
+
+"You are particularly positive."
+
+Remarks touching herself Rhoda passed by.
+
+"Why are you so decided?" he said more urgently. "I know I have deeply
+offended and hurt you. I wish, and intend to repair the wrong to the
+utmost of my power. Surely it's mere silly vindictiveness on your part
+to seek to thwart me. Go to her; say I am here. At all events, let it be
+her choice not to see me, if I am to be rejected at the door. She can't
+have had my letter. Will you do that much?"
+
+"She knows that you are here; she has seen you."
+
+"Has seen me?" Edward drew in his breath sharply. "Well? and she sends
+you out to me?"
+
+Rhoda did not answer. She was strongly tempted to belie Dahlia's frame
+of mind.
+
+"She does send you to speak to me," Edward insisted.
+
+"She knows that I have come."
+
+"And you will not take one message in?"
+
+"I will take no message from you."
+
+"You hate me, do you not?"
+
+Again she controlled the violent shock of her heart to give him hard
+speech. He went on:--
+
+"Whether you hate me or not is beside the matter. It lies between Dahlia
+and me. I will see her. When I determine, I allow of no obstacles,
+not even of wrong-headed girls. First, let me ask, is your father in
+London?"
+
+Rhoda threw a masculine meaning into her eyes.
+
+"Do not come before him, I advise you."
+
+"If," said Edward, with almost womanly softness, "you could know what
+I have passed through in the last eight-and-forty hours, you would
+understand that I am equal to any meeting; though, to speak truth, I
+would rather not see him until I have done what I mean to do. Will you
+be persuaded? Do you suppose that I have ceased to love your sister?"
+
+This, her execrated word, coming from his mouth, vanquished her
+self-possession.
+
+"Are you cold?" he said, seeing the ripple of a trembling run over her.
+
+"I am not cold. I cannot remain here." Rhoda tightened her intertwisting
+fingers across under her bosom. "Don't try to kill my sister outright.
+She's the ghost of what she was. Be so good as to go. She will soon be
+out of your reach. You will have to kill me first, if you get near her.
+Never! you never shall. You have lied to her--brought disgrace on her
+poor head. We poor people read our Bibles, and find nothing that excuses
+you. You are not punished, because there is no young man in our family.
+Go."
+
+Edward gazed at her for some time. "Well, I've deserved worse," he said,
+not sorry, now that he saw an opponent in her, that she should waste her
+concentrated antagonism in this fashion, and rejoiced by the testimony
+it gave him that he was certainly not too late.
+
+"You know, Rhoda, she loves me."
+
+"If she does, let her pray to God on her knees."
+
+"My good creature, be reasonable. Why am I here? To harm her? You take
+me for a kind of monster. You look at me very much, let me say, like
+a bristling cat. Here are the streets getting full of people, and you
+ought not to be seen. Go to Dahlia. Tell her I am here. Tell her I am
+come to claim her for good, and that her troubles are over. This is a
+moment to use your reason. Will you do what I ask?"
+
+"I would cut my tongue out, if it did you a service," said Rhoda.
+
+"Citoyenne Corday," thought Edward, and observed: "Then I will dispense
+with your assistance."
+
+He moved in the direction of the house. Rhoda swiftly outstripped him.
+They reached the gates together. She threw herself in the gateway. He
+attempted to parley, but she was dumb to it.
+
+"I allow nothing to stand between her and me," he said, and seized her
+arm. She glanced hurriedly to right and left. At that moment Robert
+appeared round a corner of the street. He made his voice heard, and,
+coming up at double quick, caught Edward Blancove by the collar,
+swinging him off. Rhoda, with a sign, tempered him to muteness, and the
+three eyed one another.
+
+"It's you," said Robert, and, understanding immediately the tactics
+desired by Rhoda, requested Edward to move a step or two away in his
+company.
+
+Edward settled the disposition of his coat-collar, as a formula
+wherewith to regain composure of mind, and passed along beside Robert,
+Rhoda following.
+
+"What does this mean?" said Robert sternly.
+
+Edward's darker nature struggled for ascendancy within him. It was
+this man's violence at Fairly which had sickened him, and irritated him
+against Dahlia, and instigated him, as he remembered well, more than
+Mrs. Lovell's witcheries, to the abhorrent scheme to be quit of her, and
+rid of all botheration, at any cost.
+
+"You're in some conspiracy to do her mischief, all of you," he cried.
+
+"If you mean Dahlia Fleming," said Robert, "it'd be a base creature that
+would think of doing harm to her now."
+
+He had a man's perception that Edward would hardly have been found in
+Dahlia's neighbourhood with evil intentions at this moment, though it
+was a thing impossible to guess. Generous himself, he leaned to the more
+generous view.
+
+"I think your name is Eccles," said Edward. "Mr. Eccles, my position
+here is a very sad one. But first, let me acknowledge that I have
+done you personally a wrong. I am ready to bear the burden of your
+reproaches, or what you will. All that I beg is, that you will do me the
+favour to grant me five minutes in private. It is imperative."
+
+Rhoda burst in--"No, Robert!" But Robert said, "It is a reasonable
+request;" and, in spite of her angry eyes, he waved her back, and walked
+apart with Edward.
+
+She stood watching them, striving to divine their speech by their
+gestures, and letting her savage mood interpret the possible utterances.
+It went ill with Robert in her heart that he did not suddenly grapple
+and trample the man, and so break away from him. She was outraged to see
+Robert's listening posture. "Lies! lies!" she said to herself, "and
+he doesn't know them to be lies." The window-blinds in Dahlia's
+sitting-room continued undisturbed; but she feared the agency of the
+servant of the house in helping to release her sister. Time was flowing
+to dangerous strands. At last Robert turned back singly. Rhoda fortified
+her soul to resist.
+
+"He has fooled you," she murmured, inaudibly, before he spoke.
+
+"Perhaps, Rhoda, we ought not to stand in his way. He wishes to do
+what a man can do in his case. So he tells me, and I'm bound not to
+disbelieve him. He says he repents--says the word; and gentlemen seem to
+mean it when they use it. I respect the word, and them when they're up
+to that word. He wrote to her that he could not marry her, and it did
+the mischief, and may well be repented of; but he wishes to be forgiven
+and make amends--well, such as he can. He's been abroad, and only
+received Dahlia's letters within the last two or three days. He seems to
+love her, and to be heartily wretched. Just hear me out; you'll decide;
+but pray, pray don't be rash. He wishes to marry her; says he has spoken
+to his father this very night; came straight over from France, after he
+had read her letters. He says--and it seems fair--he only asks to see
+Dahlia for two minutes. If she bids him go, he goes. He's not a friend
+of mine, as I could prove to you; but I do think he ought to see her. He
+says he looks on her as his wife; always meant her to be his wife, but
+things were against him when he wrote that letter. Well, he says so; and
+it's true that gentlemen are situated--they can't always, or think they
+can't, behave quite like honest men. They've got a hundred things to
+consider for our one. That's my experience, and I know something of the
+best among 'em. The question is about this poor young fellow who's to
+marry her to-day. Mr. Blancove talks of giving him a handsome sum--a
+thousand pounds--and making him comfortable--"
+
+"There!" Rhoda exclaimed, with a lightning face. "You don't see what he
+is, after that? Oh!--" She paused, revolted.
+
+"Will you let me run off to the young man, wherever he's to be found,
+and put the case to him--that is, from Dahlia? And you know she doesn't
+like the marriage overmuch, Rhoda. Perhaps he may think differently when
+he comes to hear of things. As to Mr. Blancove, men change and change
+when they're young. I mean, gentlemen. We must learn to forgive. Either
+he's as clever as the devil, or he's a man in earnest, and deserves
+pity. If you'd heard him!"
+
+"My poor sister!" sighed Rhoda. The mentioning of money to be paid
+had sickened and weakened her, as with the very physical taste of
+degradation.
+
+Hearing the sigh, Robert thought she had become subdued. Then Rhoda
+said: "We are bound to this young man who loves my sister--bound to him
+in honour: and Dahlia must esteem him, to have consented. As for the
+other..." She waved the thought of his claim on her sister aside with a
+quick shake of her head. "I rely on you to do this:--I will speak to Mr.
+Blancove myself. He shall not see her there." She indicated the house.
+"Go to my sister; and lose no time in taking her to your lodgings.
+Father will not arrive till twelve. Wait and comfort her till I come,
+and answer no questions. Robert," she gave him her hand gently, and,
+looking sweetly, "if you will do this!"
+
+"If I will!" cried Robert, transported by the hopeful tenderness. The
+servant girl of the house had just opened the front door, intent on
+scrubbing, and he passed in. Rhoda walked on to Edward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+A profound belief in the efficacy of his eloquence, when he chose
+to expend it, was one of the principal supports of Edward's sense of
+mastery; a secret sense belonging to certain men in every station
+of life, and which is the staff of many an otherwise impressible and
+fluctuating intellect. With this gift, if he trifled, or slid downward
+in any direction, he could right himself easily, as he satisfactorily
+conceived. It is a gift that may now and then be the ruin of promising
+youths, though as a rule they find it helpful enough. Edward had exerted
+it upon his father, and upon Robert. Seeing Rhoda's approach, he thought
+of it as a victorious swordsman thinks of his weapon, and aimed his
+observation over her possible weak and strong points, studying
+her curiously even when she was close up to him. With Robert, the
+representative of force, to aid her, she could no longer be regarded
+in the light of a despicable hindrance to his wishes. Though inclined
+strongly to detest, he respected her. She had decision, and a worthy
+bearing, and a marvellously blooming aspect, and a brain that worked
+withal. When she spoke, desiring him to walk on by her side, he was
+pleased by her voice, and recognition of the laws of propriety, and
+thought it a thousand pities that she likewise should not become the
+wife of a gentleman. By degrees, after tentative beginnings, he put his
+spell upon her ears, for she was attentive, and walked with a demure
+forward look upon the pavement; in reality taking small note of what
+things he said, until he quoted, as against himself, sentences from
+Dahlia's letters; and then she fixed her eyes on him, astonished that he
+should thus heap condemnation on his own head. They were most pathetic
+scraps quoted by him, showing the wrestle of love with a petrifying
+conviction of its hopelessness, and with the stealing on of a malady of
+the blood. They gave such a picture of Dahlia's reverent love for this
+man, her long torture, her chastity of soul and simple innocence, and
+her gathering delirium of anguish, as Rhoda had never taken at all
+distinctly to her mind. She tried to look out on him from a mist of
+tears.
+
+"How could you bear to read the letters?" she sobbed.
+
+"Could any human being read them and not break his heart for her?" said
+he.
+
+"How could you bear to read them and leave her to perish!"
+
+His voice deepened to an impressive hollow: "I read them for the first
+time yesterday morning, in France, and I am here!"
+
+It was undeniably, in its effect on Rhoda, a fine piece of pleading
+artifice. It partially excused or accounted for his behaviour, while
+it filled her with emotions which she felt to be his likewise, and
+therefore she could not remain as an unsympathetic stranger by his side.
+
+With this, he flung all artifice away. He told her the whole story,
+saving the one black episode of it--the one incomprehensible act of
+a desperate baseness that, blindly to get free, he had deliberately
+permitted, blinked at, and had so been guilty of. He made a mental pause
+as he was speaking, to consider in amazement how and by what agency
+he had been reduced to shame his manhood, and he left it a marvel.
+Otherwise, he in no degree exonerated himself. He dwelt sharply on his
+vice of ambition, and scorned it as a misleading light. "Yet I have
+done little since I have been without her!" And then, with a persuasive
+sincerity, he assured her that he could neither study nor live apart
+from Dahlia. "She is the dearest soul to me on earth; she is the purest
+woman. I have lived with her, I have lived apart from her, and I cannot
+live without her. I love her with a husband's love. Now, do you suppose
+I will consent to be separated from her? I know that while her heart
+beats, it's mine. Try to keep her from me--you kill her."
+
+"She did not die," said Rhoda. It confounded his menaces.
+
+"This time she might," he could not refrain from murmuring.
+
+"Ah!" Rhoda drew off from him.
+
+"But I say," cried he, "that I will see her."
+
+"We say, that she shall do what is for her good."
+
+"You have a project? Let me hear it. You are mad, if you have."
+
+"It is not our doing, Mr. Blancove. It was--it was by her own choice.
+She will not always be ashamed to look her father in the face. She dare
+not see him before she is made worthy to see him. I believe her to have
+been directed right."
+
+"And what is her choice?"
+
+"She has chosen for herself to marry a good and worthy man."
+
+Edward called out, "Have you seen him--the man?"
+
+Rhoda, thinking he wished to have the certainty of the stated fact
+established, replied, "I have."
+
+"A good and worthy man," muttered Edward. "Illness, weakness, misery,
+have bewildered her senses. She thinks him a good and worthy man?"
+
+"I think him so."
+
+"And you have seen him?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"Why, what monstrous delusion is this? It can't be! My good creature,
+you're oddly deceived, I imagine. What is the man's name? I can
+understand that she has lost her will and distinct sight; but you are
+clear-sighted, and can estimate. What is the man's name?"
+
+"I can tell you," said Rhoda; "his name is Mr. Sedgett."
+
+"Mister--!" Edward gave one hollow stave of laughter. "And you have seen
+him, and think him--"
+
+"I know he is not a gentleman," said Rhoda. "He has been deeply good to
+my sister, and I thank him, and do respect him."
+
+"Deeply!" Edward echoed. He was prompted to betray and confess himself:
+courage failed.
+
+They looked around simultaneously on hearing an advancing footstep.
+
+The very man appeared--in holiday attire, flushed, smiling, and with a
+nosegay of roses in his hand. He studied the art of pleasing women. His
+eye struck on Edward, and his smile vanished. Rhoda gave him no word of
+recognition. As he passed on, he was led to speculate from his having
+seen Mr. Edward instead of Mr. Algernon, and from the look of the
+former, that changes were in the air, possibly chicanery, and the
+proclaiming of himself as neatly diddled by the pair whom, with another,
+he heartily hoped to dupe.
+
+After he had gone by, Edward and Rhoda changed looks. Both knew the
+destination of that lovely nosegay. The common knowledge almost kindled
+an illuminating spark in her brain; but she was left in the dark, and
+thought him strangely divining, or only strange. For him, a horror
+cramped his limbs. He felt that he had raised a devil in that abominable
+smirking ruffian. It may not, perhaps, be said that he had distinctly
+known Sedgett to be the man. He had certainly suspected the possibility
+of his being the man. It is out of the power of most wilful and selfish
+natures to imagine, so as to see accurately, the deeds they prompt
+or permit to be done. They do not comprehend them until these black
+realities stand up before their eyes.
+
+Ejaculating "Great heaven!" Edward strode some steps away, and returned.
+
+"It's folly, Rhoda!--the uttermost madness ever conceived! I do not
+believe--I know that Dahlia would never consent--first, to marry any man
+but myself; secondly, to marry a man who is not a perfect gentleman. Her
+delicacy distinguishes her among women."
+
+"Mr. Blancove, my sister is nearly dead, only that she is so strong.
+The disgrace has overwhelmed her, it has. When she is married, she will
+thank and honour him, and see nothing but his love and kindness. I will
+leave you now."
+
+"I am going to her," said Edward.
+
+"Do not."
+
+"There's an end of talking. I trust no one will come in my path. Where
+am I?"
+
+He looked up at the name of the street, and shot away from her. Rhoda
+departed in another direction, firm, since she had seen Sedgett pass,
+that his nobleness should not meet with an ill reward. She endowed
+him with fair moral qualities, which she contrasted against Edward
+Blancove's evil ones; and it was with a democratic fervour of contempt
+that she dismissed the superior outward attractions of the gentleman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+This neighbourhood was unknown to Edward, and, after plunging about in
+one direction and another, he found that he had missed his way. Down
+innumerable dusky streets of dwarfed houses, showing soiled silent
+window-blinds, he hurried and chafed; at one moment in sharp joy that
+he had got a resolution, and the next dismayed by the singular petty
+impediments which were tripping him. "My dearest!" his heart cried to
+Dahlia, "did I wrong you so? I will make all well. It was the work of a
+fiend." Now he turned to right, now to left, and the minutes flew. They
+flew; and in the gathering heat of his brain he magnified things until
+the sacrifice of herself Dahlia was preparing for smote his imagination
+as with a blaze of the upper light, and stood sublime before him in the
+grandeur of old tragedy. "She has blinded her eyes, stifled her senses,
+eaten her heart. Oh! my beloved! my wife! my poor girl! and all to be
+free from shame in her father's sight!" Who could have believed that a
+girl of Dahlia's class would at once have felt the shame so keenly, and
+risen to such pure heights of heroism? The sacrifice flouted conception;
+it mocked the steady morning. He refused to believe in it, but the short
+throbs of his blood were wiser.
+
+A whistling urchin became his guide. The little lad was carelessly
+giving note to a popular opera tune, with happy disregard of concord.
+It chanced that the tune was one which had taken Dahlia's ear, and,
+remembering it and her pretty humming of it in the old days, Edward's
+wrestling unbelief with the fatality of the hour sank, so entirely was
+he under the sovereignty of his sensations. He gave the boy a big fee,
+desiring superstitiously to feel that one human creature could bless the
+hour. The house was in view. He knocked, and there came a strange murmur
+of some denial. "She is here," he said, menacingly.
+
+"She was taken away, sir, ten minutes gone, by a gentleman," the servant
+tied to assure him.
+
+The landlady of the house, coming up the kitchen stairs, confirmed the
+statement. In pity for his torpid incredulity she begged him to examine
+her house from top to bottom, and herself conducted him to Dahlia's
+room.
+
+"That bed has not been slept in," said the lawyer, pointing his finger
+to it.
+
+"No, sir; poor thing! she didn't sleep last night. She's been wearying
+for weeks; and last night her sister came, and they hadn't met for very
+long. Two whole candles they burnt out, or near upon it."
+
+"Where?--" Edward's articulation choked.
+
+"Where they're gone to, sir? That I do not know. Of course she will come
+back."
+
+The landlady begged him to wait; but to sit and see the minutes--the
+black emissaries of perdition--fly upon their business, was torture as
+big as to endure the tearing off of his flesh till the skeleton stood
+out. Up to this point he had blamed himself; now he accused the just
+heavens. Yea! is not a sinner their lawful quarry? and do they not slip
+the hounds with savage glee, and hunt him down from wrong to evil, from
+evil to infamy, from infamy to death, from death to woe everlasting?
+And is this their righteousness?--He caught at the rusty garden rails to
+steady his feet.
+
+Algernon was employed in the comfortable degustation of his breakfast,
+meditating whether he should transfer a further slice of ham or of
+Yorkshire pie to his plate, or else have done with feeding and light a
+cigar, when Edward appeared before him.
+
+"Do you know where that man lives?"
+
+Algernon had a prompting to respond, "Now, really! what man?" But
+passion stops the breath of fools. He answered, "Yes."
+
+"Have you the thousand in your pocket?"
+
+Algernon nodded with a sickly grin.
+
+"Jump up! Go to him. Give it up to him! Say, that if he leaves London on
+the instant, and lets you see him off--say, it shall be doubled. Stay,
+I'll write the promise, and put my signature. Tell him he shall, on my
+word of honour, have another--another thousand pounds--as soon as I can
+possibly obtain it, if he holds his tongue, and goes with you; and
+see that he goes. Don't talk to me on any other subject, or lose one
+minute."
+
+Algernon got his limbs slackly together, trying to think of the
+particular pocket in which he had left his cigar-case. Edward wrote a
+line on a slip of note-paper, and signed his name beneath. With this and
+an unsatisfied longing for tobacco Algernon departed, agreeing to meet
+his cousin in the street where Dahlia dwelt.
+
+"By Jove! two thousand! It's an expensive thing not to know your own
+mind," he thought.
+
+"How am I to get out of this scrape? That girl Rhoda doesn't care a
+button for me. No colonies for me. I should feel like a convict if I
+went alone. What on earth am I to do?"
+
+It seemed preposterous to him that he should take a cab, when he had not
+settled upon a scheme. The sight of a tobacconist's shop charmed one of
+his more immediate difficulties to sleep. He was soon enabled to puff
+consoling smoke.
+
+"Ned's mad," he pursued his soliloquy. "He's a weather-cock. Do I ever
+act as he does? And I'm the dog that gets the bad name. The idea of
+giving this fellow two thousand--two thousand pounds! Why, he might live
+like a gentleman."
+
+And that when your friend proves himself to be distraught, the proper
+friendly thing to do is to think for him, became eminently clear in
+Algernon's mind.
+
+"Of course, it's Ned's money. I'd give it if I had it, but I haven't;
+and the fellow won't take a farthing less; I know him. However, it's my
+duty to try."
+
+He summoned a vehicle. It was a boast of his proud youth that never in
+his life had he ridden in a close cab. Flinging his shoulders back,
+he surveyed the world on foot. "Odd faces one sees," he meditated. "I
+suppose they've got feelings, like the rest; but a fellow can't help
+asking--what's the use of them? If I inherit all right, as I ought
+to--why shouldn't I?--I'll squat down at old Wrexby, garden and farm,
+and drink my Port. I hate London. The squire's not so far wrong, I
+fancy."
+
+It struck him that his chance of inheriting was not so very obscure,
+after all. Why had he ever considered it obscure? It was decidedly next
+to certain, he being an only son. And the squire's health was bad!
+
+While speculating in this wise he saw advancing, arm-in-arm, Lord
+Suckling and Harry Latters. They looked at him, and evidently spoke
+together, but gave neither nod, nor smile, nor a word, in answer to his
+flying wave of the hand. Furious, and aghast at this signal of exclusion
+from the world, just at the moment when he was returning to it almost
+cheerfully in spirit, he stopped the cab, jumped out, and ran after the
+pair.
+
+"I suppose I must say Mr. Latters," Algernon commenced.
+
+Harry deliberated a quiet second or two. "Well, according to our laws of
+primogeniture, I don't come first, and therefore miss a better title,"
+he said.
+
+"How are you?" Algernon nodded to Lord Suckling, who replied, "Very
+well, I thank you."
+
+Their legs were swinging forward concordantly. Algernon plucked out his
+purse. "I have to beg you to excuse me," he said, hurriedly; "my
+cousin Ned's in a mess, and I've been helping him as well as I
+can--bothered--not an hour my own. Fifty, I think?" That amount he
+tendered to Harry Latters, who took it most coolly.
+
+"A thousand?" he queried of Lord Suckling.
+
+"Divided by two," replied the young nobleman, and the Blucher of
+bank-notes was proffered to him. He smiled queerly, hesitating to take
+it.
+
+"I was looking for you at all the Clubs last night," said Algernon.
+
+Lord Suckling and Latters had been at theirs, playing whist till past
+midnight; yet is money, even when paid over in this egregious public
+manner by a nervous hand, such testimony to the sincerity of a man, that
+they shouted a simultaneous invitation for him to breakfast with them,
+in an hour, at the Club, or dine with them there that evening. Algernon
+affected the nod of haste and acquiescence, and ran, lest they should
+hear him groan. He told the cabman to drive Northward, instead of to
+the South-west. The question of the thousand pounds had been decided
+for him--"by fate," he chose to affirm. The consideration that one is
+pursued by fate, will not fail to impart a sense of dignity even to the
+meanest. "After all, if I stop in England," said he, "I can't afford to
+lose my position in society; anything's better than that an unmitigated
+low scoundrel like Sedgett should bag the game." Besides, is it not
+somewhat sceptical to suppose that when Fate decides, she has not
+weighed the scales, and decided for the best? Meantime, the whole energy
+of his intellect was set reflecting on the sort of lie which Edward
+would, by nature and the occasion, be disposed to swallow. He quitted
+the cab, and walked in the Park, and au diable to him there! the fool
+has done his work.
+
+It was now half-past ten. Robert, with a most heavy heart, had
+accomplished Rhoda's commands upon him. He had taken Dahlia to his
+lodgings, whither, when free from Edward, Rhoda proceeded in a mood
+of extreme sternness. She neither thanked Robert, nor smiled upon her
+sister. Dahlia sent one quivering look up at her, and cowered lower in
+her chair near the window.
+
+"Father comes at twelve?" Rhoda said.
+
+Robert replied: "He does."
+
+After which a silence too irritating for masculine nerves filled the
+room.
+
+"You will find, I hope, everything here that you may want," said Robert.
+"My landlady will attend to the bell. She is very civil."
+
+"Thank you; we shall not want anything," said Rhoda. "There is my
+sister's Bible at her lodgings."
+
+Robert gladly offered to fetch it, and left them with a sense of relief
+that was almost joy. He waited a minute in the doorway, to hear whether
+Dahlia addressed him. He waited on the threshold of the house, that he
+might be sure Dahlia did not call for his assistance. Her cry of appeal
+would have fortified him to stand against Rhoda; but no cry was heard.
+He kept expecting it, pausing for it, hoping it would come to solve his
+intense perplexity. The prolonged stillness terrified him; for, away
+from the sisters, he had power to read the anguish of Dahlia's heart,
+her frozen incapacity, and the great and remorseless mastery which lay
+in Rhoda's inexorable will.
+
+A few doors down the street he met Major blaring, on his way to him.
+"Here's five minutes' work going to be done, which we may all of us
+regret till the day of our deaths," Robert said, and related what had
+passed during the morning hours.
+
+Percy approved Rhoda, saying, "She must rescue her sister at all
+hazards. The case is too serious for her to listen to feelings, and
+regrets, and objections. The world against one poor woman is unfair
+odds, Robert. I come to tell you I leave England in a day or two. Will
+you join me?"
+
+"How do I know what I shall or can do?" said Robert, mournfully: and
+they parted.
+
+Rhoda's unflickering determination to carry out, and to an end,
+this tragic struggle of duty against inclination; on her own sole
+responsibility forcing it on; acting like a Fate, in contempt of mere
+emotions,--seemed barely real to his mind: each moment that he conceived
+it vividly, he became more certain that she must break down. Was it in
+her power to drag Dahlia to the steps of the altar? And would not her
+heart melt when at last Dahlia did get her voice? "This marriage can
+never take place!" he said, and was convinced of its being impossible.
+He forgot that while he was wasting energy at Fairly, Rhoda had sat
+hiving bitter strength in the loneliness of the Farm; with one vile
+epithet clapping on her ears, and nothing but unavailing wounded love
+for her absent unhappy sister to make music of her pulses.
+
+He found his way to Dahlia's room; he put her Bible under his arm,
+and looked about him sadly. Time stood at a few minutes past eleven.
+Flinging himself into a chair, he thought of waiting in that place; but
+a crowd of undefinable sensations immediately beset him. Seeing Edward
+Blancove in the street below, he threw up the window compassionately,
+and Edward, casting a glance to right and left, crossed the road. Robert
+went down to him.
+
+"I am waiting for my cousin." Edward had his watch in his hand. "I think
+I am fast. Can you tell me the time exactly?"
+
+"Why, I'm rather slow," said Robert, comparing time with his own watch.
+"I make it four minutes past the hour."
+
+"I am at fourteen," said Edward. "I fancy I must be fast."
+
+"About ten minutes past, is the time, I think."
+
+"So much as that!"
+
+"It may be a minute or so less."
+
+"I should like," said Edward, "to ascertain positively."
+
+"There's a clock down in the kitchen here, I suppose," said Robert.
+"Safer, there's a clock at the church, just in sight from here."
+
+"Thank you; I will go and look at that."
+
+Robert bethought himself suddenly that Edward had better not. "I can
+tell you the time to a second," he said. "It's now twelve minutes past
+eleven."
+
+Edward held his watch balancing. "Twelve," he repeated; and, behind this
+mask of common-place dialogue, they watched one another--warily, and
+still with pity, on Robert's side.
+
+"You can't place any reliance on watches," said Edward.
+
+"None, I believe," Robert remarked.
+
+"If you could see the sun every day in this climate!" Edward looked up.
+
+"Ah, the sun's the best timepiece, when visible," Robert acquiesced.
+"Backwoodsmen in America don't need watches."
+
+"Unless it is to astonish the Indians with them."
+
+"Ah! yes!" hummed Robert.
+
+"Twelve--fifteen--it must be a quarter past. Or, a three quarters to the
+next hour, as the Germans say."
+
+"Odd!" Robert ejaculated. "Foreigners have the queerest ways in the
+world. They mean no harm, but they make you laugh."
+
+"They think the same of us, and perhaps do the laughing more loudly."
+
+"Ah! let them," said Robert, not without contemptuous indignation,
+though his mind was far from the talk.
+
+The sweat was on Edward's forehead. "In a few minutes it will be
+half-past--half-past eleven! I expect a friend; that makes me impatient.
+Mr. Eccles"--Edward showed his singular, smallish, hard-cut and flashing
+features, clear as if he had blown off a mist--"you are too much of a
+man to bear malice. Where is Dahlia? Tell me at once. Some one seems to
+be cruelly driving her. Has she lost her senses? She has:--or else she
+is coerced in an inexplicable and shameful manner."
+
+"Mr. Blancove," said Robert, "I bear you not a bit of malice--couldn't
+if I would. I'm not sure I could have said guilty to the same sort of
+things, in order to tell an enemy of mine I was sorry for what I had
+done, and I respect you for your courage. Dahlia was taken from here by
+me."
+
+Edward nodded, as if briefly assenting, while his features sharpened.
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"It was her sister's wish."
+
+"Has she no will of her own?"
+
+"Very little, I'm afraid, just now, sir."
+
+"A remarkable sister! Are they of Puritan origin?"
+
+"Not that I am aware of."
+
+"And this father?"
+
+"Mr. Blancove, he is one of those sort--he can't lift up his head if he
+so much as suspects a reproach to his children."
+
+Edward brooded. "I desire--as I told you, as I told her sister, as I
+told my father last night--I desire to make her my wife. What can I do
+more? Are they mad with some absurd country pride? Half-past eleven!--it
+will be murder if they force her to it! Where is she? To such a man as
+that! Poor soul! I can hardly fear it, for I can't imagine it. Here--the
+time is going. You know the man yourself."
+
+"I know the man?" said Robert. "I've never set eyes on him--I've never
+set eyes on him, and never liked to ask much about him. I had a sort
+of feeling. Her sister says he is a good, and kind, honourable young
+fellow, and he must be."
+
+"Before it's too late," Edward muttered hurriedly--"you know him--his
+name is Sedgett."
+
+Robert hung swaying over him with a big voiceless chest.
+
+"That Sedgett?" he breathed huskily, and his look was hard to meet.
+
+Edward frowned, unable to raise his head.
+
+"Lord in heaven! some one has something to answer for!" cried Robert.
+"Come on; come to the church. That foul dog?--Or you, stay where you
+are. I'll go. He to be Dahlia's husband! They've seen him, and can't
+see what he is!--cunning with women as that? How did they meet? Do you
+know?--can't you guess?"
+
+He flung a lightning at Edward and ran off. Bursting into the aisle, he
+saw the minister closing the Book at the altar, and three persons moving
+toward the vestry, of whom the last, and the one he discerned, was
+Rhoda.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+Late into the afternoon, Farmer Fleming was occupying a chair in
+Robert's lodgings, where he had sat since the hour of twelve, without a
+movement of his limbs or of his mind, and alone. He showed no sign that
+he expected the approach of any one. As mute and unremonstrant as a
+fallen tree, nearly as insensible, his eyes half closed, and his hands
+lying open, the great figure of the old man kept this attitude as
+of stiff decay through long sunny hours, and the noise of the London
+suburb. Although the wedding people were strangely late, it was
+unnoticed by him. When the door opened and Rhoda stepped into the room,
+he was unaware that he had been waiting, and only knew that the hours
+had somehow accumulated to a heavy burden upon him.
+
+"She is coming, father; Robert is bringing her up," Rhoda said.
+
+"Let her come," he answered.
+
+Robert's hold was tight under Dahlia's arm as they passed the doorway,
+and then the farmer stood. Robert closed the door.
+
+For some few painful moments the farmer could not speak, and his hand
+was raised rejectingly. The return of human animation to his heart made
+him look more sternly than he felt; but he had to rid himself of one
+terrible question before he satisfied his gradual desire to take his
+daughter to his breast. It came at last like a short roll of drums, the
+words were heard,--
+
+"Is she an honest woman?"
+
+"She is," said Rhoda.
+
+The farmer was looking on Robert.
+
+Robert said it likewise in a murmur, but with steadfast look.
+
+Bending his eyes now upon Dahlia, a mist of affection grew in them. He
+threw up his head, and with a choking, infantine cry, uttered, "Come."
+
+Robert placed her against her father's bosom.
+
+He moved to the window beside Rhoda, and whispered, and she answered,
+and they knew not what they said. The joint moans of father and
+daughter--the unutterable communion of such a meeting--filled their
+ears. Grief held aloof as much as joy. Neither joy nor grief were in
+those two hearts of parent and child; but the senseless contentment of
+hard, of infinite hard human craving.
+
+The old man released her, and Rhoda undid her hands from him, and led
+the pale Sacrifice to another room.
+
+"Where's...?" Mr. Fleming asked.
+
+Robert understood him.
+
+"Her husband will not come."
+
+It was interpreted by the farmer as her husband's pride. Or, may be, the
+man who was her husband now had righted her at last, and then flung her
+off in spite for what he had been made to do.
+
+"I'm not being deceived, Robert?"
+
+"No, sir; upon my soul!"
+
+"I've got that here," the farmer struck his ribs.
+
+Rhoda came back. "Sister is tired," she said. "Dahlia is going down home
+with you, for...I hope, for a long stay."
+
+"All the better, while home we've got. We mayn't lose time, my girl.
+Gammon's on 's way to the station now. He'll wait. He'll wait till
+midnight. You may always reckon on a slow man like Gammon for waitin'.
+Robert comes too?"
+
+"Father, we have business to do. Robert gives me his rooms here for a
+little time; his landlady is a kind woman, and will take care of me. You
+will trust me to Robert."
+
+"I'll bring Rhoda down on Monday evening," Robert said to the farmer.
+"You may trust me, Mr. Fleming."
+
+"That I know. That I'm sure of. That's a certainty," said the farmer.
+"I'd do it for good, if for good was in the girl's heart, Robert. There
+seems," he hesitated; "eh, Robert, there seems a something upon us all.
+There's a something to be done, is there? But if I've got my flesh and
+blood, and none can spit on her, why should I be asking 'whats' and
+'whys'? I bow my head; and God forgive me, if ever I complained. And you
+will bring Rhoda to us on Monday?"
+
+"Yes; and try and help to make the farm look up again, if Gammon'll do
+the ordering about."
+
+"Poor old Mas' Gammon! He's a rare old man. Is he changed by adversity,
+Robert? Though he's awful secret, that old man! Do you consider a bit
+Gammon's faithfulness, Robert!"
+
+"Ay, he's above most men in that," Robert agreed.
+
+"On with Dahlia's bonnet--sharp!" the farmer gave command. He felt, now
+that he was growing accustomed to the common observation of things,
+that the faces and voices around him were different from such as the
+day brings in its usual course. "We're all as slow as Mas' Gammon, I
+reckon."
+
+"Father," said Rhoda, "she is weak. She has been very unwell. Do not
+trouble her with any questions. Do not let any questions be asked of her
+at hone. Any talking fatigues; it may be dangerous to her."
+
+The farmer stared. "Ay, and about her hair....I'm beginning to remember.
+She wears a cap, and her hair's cut off like an oakum-picker's. That's
+more gossip for neighbours!"
+
+"Mad people! will they listen to truth?" Rhoda flamed out in her dark
+fashion. "We speak truth, nothing but truth. She has had a brain fever.
+That makes her very weak, and every one must be silent at home. Father,
+stop the sale of the farm, for Robert will work it into order. He has
+promised to be our friend, and Dahlia will get her health there, and be
+near mother's grave."
+
+The farmer replied, as from a far thought, "There's money in my pocket
+to take down two."
+
+He continued: "But there's not money there to feed our family a week on;
+I leave it to the Lord. I sow; I dig, and I sow, and when bread fails
+to us the land must go; and let it go, and no crying about it. I'm
+astonishing easy at heart, though if I must sell, and do sell, I shan't
+help thinking of my father, and his father, and the father before
+him--mayhap, and in most likelihood, artfuller men 'n me--for what they
+was born to they made to flourish. They'll cry in their graves. A man's
+heart sticks to land, Robert; that you'll find, some day. I thought I
+cared none but about land till that poor, weak, white thing put her arms
+on my neck."
+
+Rhoda had slipped away from them again.
+
+The farmer stooped to Robert's ear. "Had a bit of a disagreement with
+her husband, is it?"
+
+Robert cleared his throat. "Ay, that's it," he said.
+
+"Serious, at all?"
+
+"One can't tell, you know."
+
+"And not her fault--not my girl's fault, Robert?"
+
+"No; I can swear to that."
+
+"She's come to the right home, then. She'll be near her mother and me.
+Let her pray at night, and she'll know she's always near her blessed
+mother. Perhaps the women 'll want to take refreshment, if we may so far
+make free with your hospitality; but it must be quick, Robert--or will
+they? They can't eat, and I can't eat."
+
+Soon afterward Mr. Fleming took his daughter Dahlia from the house and
+out of London. The deeply-afflicted creature was, as the doctors had
+said of her, too strong for the ordinary modes of killing. She could
+walk and still support herself, though the ordeal she had gone through
+this day was such as few women could have traversed. The terror to
+follow the deed she had done was yet unseen by her; and for the hour she
+tasted, if not peace, the pause to suffering which is given by an act
+accomplished.
+
+Robert and Rhoda sat in different rooms till it was dusk. When she
+appeared before him in the half light, the ravage of a past storm was
+visible on her face. She sat down to make tea, and talked with singular
+self command.
+
+"Mr. Fleming mentioned the gossips down at Wrexby," said Robert: "are
+they very bad down there?"
+
+"Not worse than in other villages," said Rhoda. "They have not been
+unkind. They have spoken about us, but not unkindly--I mean, not
+spitefully."
+
+"And you forgive them?"
+
+"I do: they cannot hurt us now."
+
+Robert was but striving to master some comprehension of her character.
+
+"What are we to resolve, Rhoda?"
+
+"I must get the money promised to this man."
+
+"When he has flung off his wife at the church door?"
+
+"He married my sister for the money. He said it. Oh! he said it. He
+shall not say that we have deceived him. I told him he should have it.
+He married her for money!"
+
+"You should not have told him so, Rhoda."
+
+"I did, and I will not let my word be broken."
+
+"Pardon me if I ask you where you will get the money? It's a large sum."
+
+"I will get it," Rhoda said firmly.
+
+"By the sale of the farm?"
+
+"No, not to hurt father."
+
+"But this man's a scoundrel. I know him. I've known him for years. My
+fear is that he will be coming to claim his wife. How was it I never
+insisted on seeing the man before--! I did think of asking, but
+fancied--a lot of things; that you didn't wish it and he was shy. Ah,
+Lord! what miseries happen from our not looking straight at facts! We
+can't deny she's his wife now."
+
+"Not if we give him the money."
+
+Rhoda spoke of "the money" as if she had taken heated metal into her
+mouth.
+
+"All the more likely," said Robert. "Let him rest. Had you your eyes on
+him when he saw me in the vestry? For years that man has considered me
+his deadly enemy, because I punished him once. What a scene! I'd have
+given a limb, I'd have given my life, to have saved you from that scene,
+Rhoda."
+
+She replied: "If my sister could have been spared! I ought to know
+what wickedness there is in the world. It's ignorance that leads to the
+unhappiness of girls."
+
+"Do you know that I'm a drunkard?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He called me something like it; and he said something like the truth.
+There's the sting. Set me adrift, and I drink hard. He spoke a fact, and
+I couldn't answer him."
+
+"Yes, it's the truth that gives such pain," said Rhoda, shivering. "How
+can girls know what men are? I could not guess that you had any fault.
+This man was so respectful; he sat modestly in the room when I saw him
+last night--last night, was it? I thought, 'he has been brought up
+with sisters and a mother.' And he has been kind to my dear--and all we
+thought love for her, was--shameful! shameful!"
+
+She pressed her eyelids, continuing: "He shall have the money--he shall
+have it. We will not be in debt to such a man. He has saved my sister
+from one as bad--who offered it to be rid of her. Oh, men!--you heard
+that?--and now pretends to love her. I think I dream. How could she ever
+have looked happily on that hateful face?"
+
+"He would be thought handsome," said Robert, marvelling how it was that
+Rhoda could have looked on Sedgett for an instant without reading his
+villanous nature. "I don't wish you to regret anything you have done
+or you may do, Rhoda. But this is what made me cry out when I looked on
+that man, and knew it was he who had come to be Dahlia's husband. He'll
+be torture to her. The man's temper, his habits--but you may well say
+you are ignorant of us men. Keep so. What I do with all my soul entreat
+of you is--to get a hiding-place for your sister. Never let him take her
+off. There's such a thing as hell upon earth. If she goes away with him
+she'll know it. His black temper won't last. He will come for her, and
+claim her."
+
+"He shall have money." Rhoda said no more.
+
+On a side-table in the room stood a remarkable pile, under cover of a
+shawl. Robert lifted the shawl, and beheld the wooden boxes, one upon
+the other, containing Master Gammon's and Mrs. Sumfit's rival savings,
+which they had presented to Dahlia, in the belief that her husband was
+under a cloud of monetary misfortune that had kept her proud heart from
+her old friends. The farmer had brought the boxes and left them there,
+forgetting them.
+
+"I fancy," said Robert, "we might open these."
+
+"It may be a little help," said Rhoda.
+
+"A very little," Robert thought; but, to relieve the oppression of
+the subject they had been discussing, he forthwith set about procuring
+tools, with which he split first the box which proved to be Mrs.
+Sumfit's, for it contained, amid six gold sovereigns and much silver
+and pence, a slip of paper, whereon was inscribed, in a handwriting
+identified by Rhoda as peculiar to the loving woman,--
+
+     "And sweetest love to her ever dear."
+
+Altogether the sum amounted to nine pounds, three shillings, and a
+farthing.
+
+"Now for Master Gammon--he's heavy," said Robert; and he made the
+savings of that unpretentious veteran bare. Master Gammon had likewise
+written his word. It was discovered on the blank space of a bit of
+newspaper, and looked much as if a fat lobworm had plunged himself into
+a bowl of ink, and in his literary delirium had twisted uneasily to the
+verge of the paper. With difficulty they deciphered,--
+
+          "Complemens."
+
+Robert sang, "Bravo, Gammon!" and counted the hoard. All was in
+copper coinage, Lycurgan and severe, and reached the sum of one pound,
+seventeen shillings. There were a number of farthings of Queen Anne's
+reign, and Robert supposed them to be of value. "So that, as yet, we
+can't say who's the winner," he observed.
+
+Rhoda was in tears.
+
+"Be kind to him, please, when you see him," she whispered. The smaller
+gift had touched her heart more tenderly.
+
+"Kind to the old man!" Robert laughed gently, and tied the two hoards in
+separate papers, which he stowed into one box, and fixed under string.
+"This amount, put all in one, doesn't go far, Rhoda."
+
+"No," said she: "I hope we may not need it." She broke out: "Dear, good,
+humble friends! The poor are God's own people. Christ has said so.
+This is good, this is blessed money!" Rhoda's cheeks flushed to their
+orange-rounded swarthy red, and her dark eyes had the fervour of an
+exalted earnestness. "They are my friends for ever. They save me from
+impiety. They help me, as if God had answered my prayer. Poor pennies!
+and the old man not knowing where his days may end! He gives all--he
+must have true faith in Providence. May it come back to him multiplied a
+thousand fold! While I have strength to work, the bread I earn shall be
+shared with him. Old man, old man, I love you--how I love you! You
+drag me out of deep ditches. Oh, good and dear old man, if God takes
+me first, may I have some power to intercede for you, if you have ever
+sinned! Everybody in the world is not wicked. There are some who go the
+ways directed by the Bible. I owe you more than I can ever pay."
+
+She sobbed, but told Robert it was not for sorrow. He, longing to catch
+her in his arms, and punctilious not to overstep the duties of his post
+of guardian, could merely sit by listening, and reflecting on her as a
+strange Biblical girl, with Hebrew hardness of resolution, and Hebrew
+exaltation of soul; beautiful, too, as the dark women of the East. He
+admitted to himself that he never could have taken it on his conscience
+to subdue a human creature's struggling will, as Rhoda had not hesitated
+to do with Dahlia, and to command her actions, and accept all imminent
+responsibilities; not quailing with any outcry, or abandonment of
+strength, when the shock of that revelation in the vestry came violently
+on her. Rhoda, seeing there that it was a brute, and not a man, into
+whose hand she had perilously forced her sister's, stood steadying
+her nerves to act promptly with advantage; less like a woman, Robert
+thought, than a creature born for battle. And she appeared to be still
+undaunted, full of her scheme, and could cry without fear of floods.
+Something of the chivalrous restraint he put upon the motions of his
+heart, sprang from the shadowy awe which overhung that impressible
+organ. This feeling likewise led him to place a blind reliance on her
+sagacity and sense of what was just, and what should be performed.
+
+"You promised this money to him," he said, half thinking it incredible.
+
+"On Monday," said Rhoda.
+
+"You must get a promise from him in return."
+
+She answered: "Why? when he could break it the instant he cared to, and
+a promise would tempt him to it. He does not love her."
+
+"No; he does not love her," said Robert, meditating whether he could
+possibly convey an idea of the character of men to her innocent mind.
+
+"He flung her off. Thank heaven for it! I should have been punished too
+much--too much. He has saved her from the perils of temptation. He shall
+be paid for it. To see her taken away by such a man! Ah!" She shuddered
+as at sight of a hideous pit.
+
+But Robert said: "I know him, Rhoda. That was his temper. It'll last
+just four-and-twenty hours, and then we shall need all our strength and
+cunning. My dear, it would be the death of Dahlia. You've seen the man
+as he is. Take it for a warning. She belongs to him. That's the law,
+human and divine."
+
+"Not when he has flung her off, Robert?" Rhoda cried piteously.
+
+"Let us take advantage of that. He did fling her off, spat at us all,
+and showed the blackest hellish plot I ever in my life heard of. He's
+not the worst sinner, scoundrel as he is. Poor girl! poor soul! a hard
+lot for women in this world! Rhoda, I suppose I may breakfast with you
+in the morning? I hear Major Waring's knock below. I want a man to talk
+to."
+
+"Do come, Robert," Rhoda said, and gave him her hand. He strove to
+comprehend why it was that her hand was merely a hand, and no more to
+him just then; squeezed the cold fingers, and left her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+So long as we do not know that we are performing any remarkable feat,
+we may walk upon the narrowest of planks between precipices with perfect
+security; but when we suffer our minds to eye the chasm underneath, we
+begin to be in danger, and we are in very great fear of losing our equal
+balance the moment we admit the insidious reflection that other men,
+placed as we are, would probably topple headlong over. Anthony Hackbut,
+of Boyne's Bank, had been giving himself up latterly to this fatal
+comparison. The hour when gold was entrusted to his charge found him
+feverish and irritable. He asked himself whether he was a mere machine
+to transfer money from spot to spot, and he spurned at the pittance
+bestowed upon honesty in this life. Where could Boyne's Bank discover
+again such an honest man as he? And because he was honest he was poor!
+The consideration that we alone are capable of doing the unparalleled
+thing may sometimes inspire us with fortitude; but this will depend
+largely upon the antecedent moral trials of a man. It is a temptation
+when we look on what we accomplish at all in that light. The temptation
+being inbred, is commonly a proof of internal corruption. "If I take a
+step, suppose now, to the right, or to the left," Anthony had got
+into the habit of saying, while he made his course, and after he had
+deposited his charge he would wipe his moist forehead, in a state of
+wretched exultation over his renowned trustworthiness.
+
+He had done the thing for years. And what did the people in the streets
+know about him? Formerly, he had used to regard the people in the
+streets, and their opinions, with a voluptuous contempt; but he was no
+longer wrapped in sweet calculations of his savings, and his chances,
+and his connection with a mighty Bank. The virtue had gone out of him.
+Yet he had not the slightest appetite for other men's money; no hunger,
+nor any definite notion of enjoyment to be derived from money not
+his own. Imagination misled the old man. There have been spotless
+reputations gained in the service of virtue before now; and chaste and
+beautiful persons have walked the narrow plank, envied and admired; and
+they have ultimately tottered and all but fallen; or they have quite
+fallen, from no worse an incitement than curiosity. Cold curiosity,
+as the directors of our human constitution tell us, is, in the colder
+condition of our blood, a betraying vice, leading to sin at a period
+when the fruits of sin afford the smallest satisfaction. It is, in fact,
+our last probation, and one of our latest delusions. If that is passed
+successfully, we may really be pronounced as of some worth. Anthony
+wished to give a light indulgence to his curiosity; say, by running away
+and over London Bridge on one side, and back on the other, hugging the
+money. For two weeks, he thought of this absurd performance as a comical
+and agreeable diversion. How would he feel when going in the direction
+of the Surrey hills? And how, when returning, and when there was a
+prospect of the Bank, where the money was to be paid in, being shut?
+Supposing that he was a minute behind his time, would the Bank-doors
+remain open, in expectation of him? And if the money was not paid in,
+what would be thought? What would be thought at Boyne's, if, the next
+day, he was late in making his appearance?
+
+"Holloa! Hackbut, how's this?"--"I'm a bit late, sir, morning."--"Late!
+you were late yesterday evening, weren't you?"--"Why, sir, the way the
+clerks at that Bank of Mortimer and Pennycuick's rush away from business
+and close the doors after 'em, as if their day began at four p.m., and
+business was botheration: it's a disgrace to the City o' London. And I
+beg pardon for being late, but never sleeping a wink all night for fear
+about this money, I am late this morning, I humbly confess. When I got
+to the Bank, the doors were shut. Our clock's correct; that I know.
+My belief, sir, is, the clerks at Mortimer and Pennycuick's put on the
+time."--"Oh! we must have this inquired into."
+
+Anthony dramatized the farcical scene which he imagined between himself
+and Mr. Sequin, the head clerk at Boyne's, with immense relish; and
+terminated it by establishing his reputation for honesty higher than
+ever at the Bank, after which violent exercise of his fancy, the old
+man sank into a dulness during several days. The farmer slept at his
+lodgings for one night, and talked of money, and of selling his farm;
+and half hinted that it would be a brotherly proceeding on Anthony's
+part to buy it, and hold it, so as to keep it in the family. The
+farmer's deep belief in the existence of his hoards always did Anthony
+peculiar mischief. Anthony grew conscious of a giddiness, and all the
+next day he was scarcely fit for his work. But the day following that he
+was calm and attentive. Two bags of gold were placed in his hands, and
+he walked with caution down the steps of the Bank, turned the corner,
+and went straight on to the West, never once hesitating, or casting a
+thought behind upon Mortimer and Pennycuick's. He had not, in truth, one
+that was loose to be cast. All his thoughts were boiling in his head,
+obfuscating him with a prodigious steam, through which he beheld the
+city surging, and the streets curving like lines in water, and the
+people mixing and passing into and out of one another in an astonishing
+manner--no face distinguishable; the whole thick multitude appearing to
+be stirred like glue in a gallipot. The only distinct thought which he
+had sprang from a fear that the dishonest ruffians would try to steal
+his gold, and he hugged it, and groaned to see that villany was abroad.
+Marvellous, too, that the clocks on the churches, all the way along
+the Westward thoroughfare, stuck at the hour when Banks are closed
+to business! It was some time, or a pretence at some time, before the
+minute-hands surmounted that difficulty. Having done so, they rushed
+ahead to the ensuing hour with the mad precipitation of pantomimic
+machinery. The sight of them presently standing on the hour, like a
+sentinel presenting arms, was startling--laughable. Anthony could not
+have flipped with his fingers fifty times in the interval; he was sure
+of it, "or not much more," he said. So the City was shut to him behind
+iron bars.
+
+Up in the West there is not so much to be dreaded from the rapacity of
+men. You do not hear of such alarming burglaries there every day; every
+hand is not at another's throat there, or in another's pocket; at least,
+not until after nightfall; and when the dark should come on, Anthony
+had determined to make for his own quarter with all speed. Darkness is
+horrible in foreign places, but foreign places are not so accusing to
+you by daylight.
+
+The Park was vastly pleasant to the old man.
+
+"Ah!" he sniffed, "country air," and betook himself to a seat.
+"Extraordinary," he thought, "what little people they look on their
+horses and in their carriages! That's the aristocracy, is it!" The
+aristocracy appeared oddly diminutive to him. He sneered at the
+aristocracy, but, beholding a policeman, became stolid of aspect. The
+policeman was a connecting link with his City life, the true lord of
+his fearful soul. Though the moneybags were under his arm, beneath his
+buttoned coat, it required a deep pause before he understood what he had
+done; and then the Park began to dance and curve like the streets, and
+there was a singular curtseying between the heavens and the earth.
+He had to hold his money-bags tight, to keep them from plunging into
+monstrous gulfs. "I don't remember that I've taken a drink of any sort,"
+he said, "since I and the old farmer took our turn down in the Docks.
+How's this?" He seemed to rock. He was near upon indulging in a fit of
+terror; but the impolicy of it withheld him from any demonstration, save
+an involuntary spasmodic ague. When this had passed, his eyesight and
+sensations grew clearer, and he sat in a mental doze, looking at things
+with quiet animal observation. His recollection of the state, after a
+lapse of minutes, was pleasurable. The necessity for motion, however,
+set him on his feet, and off he went, still Westward, out of the Park,
+and into streets. He trotted at a good pace. Suddenly came a call of his
+name in his ear, and he threw up one arm in self-defence.
+
+"Uncle Anthony, don't you know me?"
+
+"Eh? I do; to be sure I do," he answered, peering dimly upon Rhoda: "I'm
+always meeting one of you."
+
+"I've been down in the City, trying to find you all day, uncle. I meet
+you--I might have missed! It is direction from heaven, for I prayed."
+
+Anthony muttered, "I'm out for a holiday."
+
+"This"--Rhoda pointed to a house--"is where I am lodging."
+
+"Oh!" said Anthony; "and how's your family?"
+
+Rhoda perceived that he was rather distraught. After great persuasion,
+she got him to go upstairs with her.
+
+"Only for two seconds," he stipulated. "I can't sit."
+
+"You will have a cup of tea with me, uncle?"
+
+"No; I don't think I'm equal to tea."
+
+"Not with Rhoda?"
+
+"It's a name in Scripture," said Anthony, and he drew nearer to her.
+"You're comfortable and dark here, my dear. How did you come here?
+What's happened? You won't surprise me."
+
+"I'm only stopping for a day or two in London, uncle."
+
+"Ah! a wicked place; that it is. No wickeder than other places, I'll be
+bound. Well; I must be trotting. I can't sit, I tell you. You're as dark
+here as a gaol."
+
+"Let me ring for candles, uncle."
+
+"No; I'm going."
+
+She tried to touch him, to draw him to a chair. The agile old man
+bounded away from her, and she had to pacify him submissively before he
+would consent to be seated. The tea-service was brought, and Rhoda made
+tea, and filled a cup for him. Anthony began to enjoy the repose of
+the room. But it made the money-bags' alien to him, and serpents in his
+bosom. Fretting--on his chair, he cried: "Well! well! what's to talk
+about? We can't drink tea and not talk!"
+
+Rhoda deliberated, and then said: "Uncle, I think you have always loved
+me."
+
+It seemed to him a merit that he should have loved her. He caught at the
+idea.
+
+"So I have, Rhoda, my dear; I have. I do."
+
+"You do love me, dear uncle!"
+
+"Now I come to think of it, Rhoda--my Dody, I don't think ever I've
+loved anybody else. Never loved e'er a young woman in my life. As a
+young man."
+
+"Tell me, uncle; are you not very rich?"
+
+"No, I ain't; not 'very'; not at all."
+
+"You must not tell untruths, uncle."
+
+"I don't," said Anthony; only, too doggedly to instil conviction.
+
+"I have always felt, uncle, that you love money too much. What is the
+value of money, except to give comfort, and help you to be a blessing to
+others in their trouble? Does not God lend it you for that purpose? It
+is most true! And if you make a store of it, it will only be unhappiness
+to yourself. Uncle, you love me. I am in great trouble for money."
+
+Anthony made a long arm over the projection of his coat, and clasped it
+securely; sullenly refusing to answer. "Dear uncle; hear me out. I come
+to you, because I know you are rich. I was on my way to your lodgings
+when we met; we were thrown together. You have more money than you know
+what to do with. I am a beggar to you for money. I have never asked
+before; I never shall ask again. Now I pray for your help. My life, and
+the life dearer to me than any other, depend on you. Will you help me,
+Uncle Anthony? Yes!"
+
+"No!" Anthony shouted.
+
+"Yes! yes!"
+
+"Yes, if I can. No, if I can't. And 'can't' it is. So, it's 'No.'"
+
+Rhoda's bosom sank, but only as a wave in the sea-like energy of her
+spirit.
+
+"Uncle, you must."
+
+Anthony was restrained from jumping up and running away forthwith by the
+peace which was in the room, and the dread of being solitary after he
+had tasted of companionship.
+
+"You have money, uncle. You are rich. You must help me. Don't you
+ever think what it is to be an old man, and no one to love you and be
+grateful to you? Why do you cross your arms so close?"
+
+Anthony denied that he crossed his arms closely.
+
+Rhoda pointed to his arms in evidence; and he snarled out: "There, now;
+'cause I'm supposed to have saved a trifle, I ain't to sit as I like.
+It's downright too bad! It's shocking!"
+
+But, seeing that he did not uncross his arms, and remained bunched up
+defiantly, Rhoda silently observed him. She felt that money was in the
+room.
+
+"Don't let it be a curse to you," she said. And her voice was hoarse
+with agitation.
+
+"What?" Anthony asked. "What's a curse?"
+
+"That."
+
+Did she know? Had she guessed? Her finger was laid in a line at the
+bags. Had she smelt the gold?
+
+"It will be a curse to you, uncle. Death is coming. What's money then?
+Uncle, uncross your arms. You are afraid; you dare not. You carry it
+about; you have no confidence anywhere. It eats your heart. Look at
+me. I have nothing to conceal. Can you imitate me, and throw your hands
+out--so? Why, uncle, will you let me be ashamed of you? You have the
+money there.
+
+"You cannot deny it. Me crying to you for help! What have we talked
+together?--that we would sit in a country house, and I was to look to
+the flower-beds, and always have dishes of green peas for you-plenty, in
+June; and you were to let the village boys know what a tongue you have,
+if they made a clatter of their sticks along the garden-rails; and you
+were to drink your tea, looking on a green and the sunset. Uncle! Poor
+old, good old soul! You mean kindly. You must be kind. A day will make
+it too late. You have the money there. You get older and older every
+minute with trying to refuse me. You know that I can make you happy.
+I have the power, and I have the will. Help me, I say, in my great
+trouble. That money is a burden. You are forced to carry it about, for
+fear. You look guilty as you go running in the streets, because you fear
+everybody. Do good with it. Let it be money with a blessing on it! It
+will save us from horrid misery! from death! from torture and death!
+Think, uncle! look, uncle! You with the money--me wanting it. I pray to
+heaven, and I meet you, and you have it. Will you say that you refuse
+to give it, when I see--when I show you, you are led to meet me and help
+me? Open;--put down that arm."
+
+Against this storm of mingled supplication and shadowy menace, Anthony
+held out with all outward firmness until, when bidding him to put down
+his arm, she touched the arm commandingly, and it fell paralyzed.
+
+Rhoda's eyes were not beautiful as they fixed on the object of her
+quest. In this they were of the character of her mission. She was
+dealing with an evil thing, and had chosen to act according to her
+light, and by the counsel of her combative and forceful temper. At each
+step new difficulties had to be encountered by fresh contrivances; and
+money now--money alone had become the specific for present use. There
+was a limitation of her spiritual vision to aught save to money; and the
+money being bared to her eyes, a frightful gleam of eagerness shot from
+them. Her hands met Anthony's in a common grasp of the money-bags.
+
+"It's not mine!" Anthony cried, in desperation.
+
+"Whose money is it?" said Rhoda, and caught up her hands as from fire.
+
+"My Lord!" Anthony moaned, "if you don't speak like a Court o' Justice.
+Hear yourself!"
+
+"Is the money yours, uncle?"
+
+"It--is," and "isn't" hung in the balance.
+
+"It is not?" Rhoda dressed the question for him in the terror of
+contemptuous horror.
+
+"It is. I--of course it is; how could it help being mine? My money? Yes.
+What sort o' thing's that to ask--whether what I've got's mine or yours,
+or somebody else's? Ha!"
+
+"And you say you are not rich, uncle?"
+
+A charming congratulatory smile was addressed to him, and a shake of the
+head of tender reproach irresistible to his vanity.
+
+"Rich! with a lot o' calls on me; everybody wantin' to borrow--I'm rich!
+And now you coming to me! You women can't bring a guess to bear upon the
+right nature o' money."
+
+"Uncle, you will decide to help me, I know."
+
+She said it with a staggering assurance of manner.
+
+"How do you know?" cried Anthony.
+
+"Why do you carry so much money about with you in bags, uncle?"
+
+"Hear it, my dear." He simulated miser's joy.
+
+"Ain't that music? Talk of operas! Hear that; don't it talk? don't it
+chink? don't it sing?" He groaned "Oh, Lord!" and fell back.
+
+This transition from a state of intensest rapture to the depths of pain
+alarmed her.
+
+"Nothing; it's nothing." Anthony anticipated her inquiries. "They bags
+is so heavy."
+
+"Then why do you carry them about?"
+
+"Perhaps it's heart disease," said Anthony, and grinned, for he knew the
+soundness of his health.
+
+"You are very pale, uncle."
+
+"Eh? you don't say that?"
+
+"You are awfully white, dear uncle."
+
+"I'll look in the glass," said Anthony. "No, I won't." He sank back in
+his chair. "Rhoda, we're all sinners, ain't we? All--every man and woman
+of us, and baby, too. That's a comfort; yes, it is a comfort. It's a
+tremendous comfort--shuts mouths. I know what you're going to say--some
+bigger sinners than others. If they're sorry for it, though, what then?
+They can repent, can't they?"
+
+"They must undo any harm they may have done. Sinners are not to repent
+only in words, uncle."
+
+"I've been feeling lately," he murmured.
+
+Rhoda expected a miser's confession.
+
+"I've been feeling, the last two or three days," he resumed.
+
+"What, uncle?"
+
+"Sort of taste of a tremendous nice lemon in my mouth, my dear, and
+liked it, till all of a sudden I swallowed it whole--such a gulp! I felt
+it just now. I'm all right."
+
+"No, uncle," said Rhoda: "you are not all right: this money makes you
+miserable. It does; I can see that it does. Now, put those bags in my
+hands. For a minute, try; it will do you good. Attend to me; it will.
+Or, let me have them. They are poison to you. You don't want them."
+
+"I don't," cried Anthony. "Upon my soul, I don't. I don't want 'em. I'd
+give--it is true, my dear, I don't want 'em. They're poison."
+
+"They're poison to you," said Rhoda; "they're health, they're life
+to me. I said, 'My uncle Anthony will help me. He is not--I know his
+heart--he is not a miser.' Are you a miser, uncle?"
+
+Her hand was on one of his bags. It was strenuously withheld: but while
+she continued speaking, reiterating the word "miser," the hold relaxed.
+She caught the heavy bag away, startled by its weight.
+
+He perceived the effect produced on her, and cried; "Aha! and I've been
+carrying two of 'em--two!"
+
+Rhoda panted in her excitement.
+
+"Now, give it up," said he. She returned it. He got it against his
+breast joylessly, and then bade her to try the weight of the two. She
+did try them, and Anthony doated on the wonder of her face.
+
+"Uncle, see what riches do! You fear everybody--you think there is no
+secure place--you have more? Do you carry about all your money?"
+
+"No," he chuckled at her astonishment. "I've...Yes. I've got more of my
+own." Her widened eyes intoxicated him. "More. I've saved. I've put by.
+Say, I'm an old sinner. What'd th' old farmer say now? Do you love your
+uncle Tony? 'Old Ant,' they call me down at--" "The Bank," he was on
+the point of uttering; but the vision of the Bank lay terrific in
+his recollection, and, summoned at last, would not be wiped away. The
+unbearable picture swam blinking through accumulating clouds; remote and
+minute as the chief scene of our infancy, but commanding him with the
+present touch of a mighty arm thrown out. "I'm honest," he cried. "I
+always have been honest. I'm known to be honest. I want no man's money.
+I've got money of my own. I hate sin. I hate sinners. I'm an honest man.
+Ask them, down at--Rhoda, my dear! I say, don't you hear me? Rhoda, you
+think I've a turn for misering. It's a beastly mistake: poor savings,
+and such a trouble to keep honest when you're poor; and I've done it
+for years, spite o' temptation 't 'd send lots o' men to the hulks. Safe
+into my hand, safe out o' my hands! Slip once, and there ain't mercy in
+men. And you say, 'I had a whirl of my head, and went round, and didn't
+know where I was for a minute, and forgot the place I'd to go to, and
+come away to think in a quiet part.'..." He stopped abruptly in his
+ravings. "You give me the money, Rhoda!"
+
+She handed him the money-bags.
+
+He seized them, and dashed them to the ground with the force of madness.
+Kneeling, he drew out his penknife, and slit the sides of the bags, and
+held them aloft, and let the gold pour out in torrents, insufferable to
+the sight; and uttering laughter that clamoured fierily in her ears
+for long minutes afterwards, the old man brandished the empty bags, and
+sprang out of the room.
+
+She sat dismayed in the centre of a heap of gold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+On the Monday evening, Master Gammon was at the station with the cart.
+Robert and Rhoda were a train later, but the old man seemed to be
+unaware of any delay, and mildly staring, received their apologies, and
+nodded. They asked him more than once whether all was well at the Farm;
+to which he replied that all was quite well, and that he was never
+otherwise. About half-an-hour after, on the road, a gradual dumb chuckle
+overcame his lower features. He flicked the horse dubitatively, and
+turned his head, first to Robert, next to Rhoda; and then he chuckled
+aloud:
+
+"The last o' they mel'ns rotted yest'day afternoon!"
+
+"Did they?" said Robert. "You'll have to get fresh seed, that's all."
+
+Master Gammon merely showed his spirit to be negative.
+
+"You've been playing the fool with the sheep," Robert accused him.
+
+It hit the old man in a very tender part.
+
+"I play the fool wi' ne'er a sheep alive, Mr. Robert. Animals likes
+their 'customed food, and don't like no other. I never changes my
+food, nor'd e'er a sheep, nor'd a cow, nor'd a bullock, if animals was
+masters. I'd as lief give a sheep beer, as offer him, free-handed--of my
+own will, that's to say--a mel'n. They rots."
+
+Robert smiled, though he was angry. The delicious unvexed country-talk
+soothed Rhoda, and she looked fondly on the old man, believing that he
+could not talk on in his sedate way, if all were not well at home.
+
+The hills of the beacon-ridge beyond her home, and the line of stunted
+firs, which she had named "the old bent beggarmen," were visible in the
+twilight. Her eyes flew thoughtfully far over them, with the feeling
+that they had long known what would come to her and to those dear to
+her, and the intense hope that they knew no more, inasmuch as they
+bounded her sight.
+
+"If the sheep thrive," she ventured to remark, so that the comforting
+old themes might be kept up.
+
+"That's the particular 'if!'" said Robert, signifying something that had
+to be leaped over.
+
+Master Gammon performed the feat with agility.
+
+"Sheep never was heartier," he pronounced emphatically.
+
+"Lots of applications for melon-seed, Gammon?"
+
+To this the veteran's tardy answer was: "More fools 'n one about, I
+reckon"; and Robert allowed him the victory implied by silence.
+
+"And there's no news in Wrexby? none at all?" said Rhoda.
+
+A direct question inevitably plunged Master Gammon so deep amid
+the soundings of his reflectiveness, that it was the surest way
+of precluding a response from him; but on this occasion his honest
+deliberation bore fruit.
+
+"Squire Blancove, he's dead."
+
+The name caused Rhoda to shudder.
+
+"Found dead in 's bed, Sat'day morning," Master Gammon added, and,
+warmed upon the subject, went on: "He's that stiff, folks say, that
+stiff he is, he'll have to get into a rounded coffin: he's just like
+half a hoop. He was all of a heap, like. Had a fight with 's bolster,
+and got th' wust of it. But, be 't the seizure, or be 't gout in 's
+belly, he's gone clean dead. And he wunt buy th' Farm, nether. Shutters
+is all shut up at the Hall. He'll go burying about Wednesday. Men that
+drinks don't keep."
+
+Rhoda struck at her brain to think in what way this death could work and
+show like a punishment of the heavens upon that one wrong-doer; but it
+was not manifest as a flame of wrath, and she laid herself open to the
+peace of the fields and the hedgeways stepping by. The farm-house came
+in sight, and friendly old Adam and Eve turning from the moon. She heard
+the sound of water. Every sign of peace was around the farm. The cows
+had been milked long since; the geese were quiet. There was nothing but
+the white board above the garden-gate to speak of the history lying in
+her heart.
+
+They found the farmer sitting alone, shading his forehead. Rhoda kissed
+his cheeks and whispered for tidings of Dahlia.
+
+"Go up to her," the farmer said.
+
+Rhoda grew very chill. She went upstairs with apprehensive feet, and
+recognizing Mrs. Sumfit outside the door of Dahlia's room, embraced her,
+and heard her say that Dahlia had turned the key, and had been crying
+from mornings to nights. "It can't last," Mrs. Sumfit sobbed: "lonesome
+hysterics, they's death to come. She's falling into the trance. I'll go,
+for the sight o' me shocks her."
+
+Rhoda knocked, waited patiently till her persistent repetition of her
+name gained her admission. She beheld her sister indeed, but not the
+broken Dahlia from whom she had parted. Dahlia was hard to her caress,
+and crying, "Has he come?" stood at bay, white-eyed, and looking like a
+thing strung with wires.
+
+"No, dearest; he will not trouble you. Have no fear."
+
+"Are you full of deceit?" said Dahlia, stamping her foot.
+
+"I hope not, my sister."
+
+Dahlia let fall a long quivering breath. She went to her bed, upon which
+her mother's Bible was lying, and taking it in her two hands, held it
+under Rhoda's lips.
+
+"Swear upon that?"
+
+"What am I to swear to, dearest?"
+
+"Swear that he is not in the house."
+
+"He is not, my own sister; believe me. It is no deceit. He is not.
+He will not trouble you. See; I kiss the Book, and swear to you,
+my beloved! I speak truth. Come to me, dear." Rhoda put her arms up
+entreatingly, but Dahlia stepped back.
+
+"You are not deceitful? You are not cold? You are not inhuman? Inhuman!
+You are not? You are not? Oh, my God! Look at her!"
+
+The toneless voice was as bitter for Rhoda to hear as the accusations.
+She replied, with a poor smile: "I am only not deceitful. Come, and see.
+You will not be disturbed."
+
+"What am I tied to?" Dahlia struggled feebly as against a weight of
+chains. "Oh! what am I tied to? It's on me, tight like teeth. I can't
+escape. I can't breathe for it. I was like a stone when he asked
+me--marry him!--loved me! Some one preached--my duty! I am lost, I am
+lost! Why? you girl!--why?--What did you do? Why did you take my hand
+when I was asleep and hurry me so fast? What have I done to you? Why did
+you push me along?--I couldn't see where. I heard the Church babble. For
+you--inhuman! inhuman! What have I done to you? What have you to do with
+punishing sin? It's not sin. Let me be sinful, then. I am. I am sinful.
+Hear me. I love him; I love my lover, and," she screamed out, "he loves
+me!"
+
+Rhoda now thought her mad.
+
+She looked once at the rigid figure of her transformed sister, and
+sitting down, covered her eyes and wept.
+
+To Dahlia, the tears were at first an acrid joy; but being weak, she
+fell to the bed, and leaned against it, forgetting her frenzy for a
+time.
+
+"You deceived me," she murmured; and again, "You deceived me." Rhoda did
+not answer. In trying to understand why her sister should imagine it,
+she began to know that she had in truth deceived Dahlia. The temptation
+to drive a frail human creature to do the thing which was right, had
+led her to speak falsely for a good purpose. Was it not righteously
+executed? Away from the tragic figure in the room, she might have
+thought so, but the horror in the eyes and voice of this awakened
+Sacrifice, struck away the support of theoretic justification. Great
+pity for the poor enmeshed life, helpless there, and in a woman's worst
+peril,--looking either to madness, or to death, for an escape--drowned
+her reason in a heavy cloud of tears. Long on toward the stroke of the
+hour, Dahlia heard her weep, and she murmured on, "You deceived me;"
+but it was no more to reproach; rather, it was an exculpation of her
+reproaches. "You did deceive me, Rhoda." Rhoda half lifted her head; the
+slight tone of a change to tenderness swelled the gulfs of pity, and
+she wept aloud. Dahlia untwisted her feet, and staggered up to her, fell
+upon her shoulder, and called her, "My love!--good sister!" For a
+great mute space they clung together. Their lips met and they kissed
+convulsively. But when Dahlia had close view of Rhoda's face, she drew
+back, saying in an under-breath,--
+
+"Don't cry. I see my misery when you cry."
+
+Rhoda promised that she would check her tears, and they sat quietly,
+side by side, hand in hand. Mrs. Sumfit, outside, had to be dismissed
+twice with her fresh brews of supplicating tea and toast, and the cakes
+which, when eaten warm with good country butter and a sprinkle of salt,
+reanimate (as she did her utmost to assure the sisters through the
+closed door) humanity's distressed spirit. At times their hands
+interchanged a fervent pressure, their eyes were drawn to an equal gaze.
+
+In the middle of the night Dahlia said: "I found a letter from Edward
+when I came here."
+
+"Written--Oh, base man that he is!" Rhoda could not control the impulse
+to cry it out.
+
+"Written before," said Dahlia, divining her at once. "I read it; did not
+cry. I have no tears. Will you see it? It is very short-enough; it
+said enough, and written before--" She crumpled her fingers in Rhoda's;
+Rhoda, to please her, saying "Yes," she went to the pillow of the bed,
+and drew the letter from underneath.
+
+"I know every word," she said; "I should die if I repeated it. 'My wife
+before heaven,' it begins. So, I was his wife. I must have broken his
+heart--broken my husband's." Dahlia cast a fearful eye about her; her
+eyelids fluttered as from a savage sudden blow. Hardening her mouth to
+utter defiant spite: "My lover's," she cried. "He is. If he loves me and
+I love him, he is my lover, my lover, my lover! Nothing shall stop
+me from saying it--lover! and there is none to claim me but he. Oh,
+loathsome! What a serpent it is I've got round me! And you tell me God
+put it. Do you? Answer that; for I want to know, and I don't know where
+I am. I am lost! I am lost! I want to get to my lover. Tell me, Rhoda,
+you would curse me if I did. And listen to me. Let him open his arms to
+me, I go; I follow him as far as my feet will bear me. I would go if it
+lightened from heaven. If I saw up there the warning, 'You shall not!' I
+would go. But, look on me!" she smote contempt upon her bosom. "He would
+not call to such a thing as me. Me, now? My skin is like a toad's to
+him. I've become like something in the dust. I could hiss like adders.
+I am quite impenitent. I pray by my bedside, my head on my Bible, but I
+only say, 'Yes, yes; that's done; that's deserved, if there's no mercy.'
+Oh, if there is no mercy, that's deserved! I say so now. But this is
+what I say, Rhoda (I see nothing but blackness when I pray), and I say,
+'Permit no worse!' I say, 'Permit no worse, or take the consequences.'
+He calls me his wife. I am his wife. And if--" Dahlia fell to speechless
+panting; her mouth was open; she made motion with her hands; horror, as
+of a blasphemy struggling to her lips, kept her dumb, but the prompting
+passion was indomitable.... "Read it," said her struggling voice; and
+Rhoda bent over the letter, reading and losing thought of each sentence
+as it passed. To Dahlia, the vital words were visible like evanescent
+blue gravelights. She saw them rolling through her sister's mind; and
+just upon the conclusion, she gave out, as in a chaunt: "And I who have
+sinned against my innocent darling, will ask her to pray with me
+that our future may be one, so that may make good to her what she has
+suffered, and to the God whom we worship, the offence I have committed."
+
+Rhoda looked up at the pale penetrating eyes.
+
+"Read. Have you read to the last?" said Dahlia. "Speak it. Let me hear
+you. He writes it.... Yes? you will not? 'Husband,' he says," and then
+she took up the sentences of the letter backwards to the beginning,
+pausing upon each one with a short moan, and smiting her bosom. "I found
+it here, Rhoda. I found his letter here when I came.. I came a dead
+thing, and it made me spring up alive. Oh, what bliss to be dead! I've
+felt nothing...nothing, for months." She flung herself on the bed,
+thrusting her handkerchief to her mouth to deaden the outcry. "I'm
+punished. I'm punished, because I did not trust to my darling. No, not
+for one year! Is it that since we parted? I am an impatient creature,
+and he does not reproach me. I tormented my own, my love, my dear, and
+he thought I--I was tired of our life together. No; he does not accuse
+me," Dahlia replied to her sister's unspoken feeling, with the shrewd
+divination which is passion's breathing space. "He accuses himself. He
+says it--utters it--speaks it 'I sold my beloved.' There is no guile in
+him. Oh, be just to us, Rhoda! Dearest," she came to Rhoda's side, "you
+did deceive me, did you not? You are a deceiver, my love?"
+
+Rhoda trembled, and raising her eyelids, answered, "Yes."
+
+"You saw him in the street that morning?"
+
+Dahlia smiled a glittering tenderness too evidently deceitful in part,
+but quite subduing.
+
+"You saw him, my Rhoda, and he said he was true to me, and sorrowful;
+and you told him, dear one, that I had no heart for him, and wished to
+go to hell--did you not, good Rhoda? Forgive me; I mean 'good;' my true,
+good Rhoda. Yes, you hate sin; it is dreadful; but you should never
+speak falsely to sinners, for that does not teach them to repent. Mind
+you never lie again. Look at me. I am chained, and I have no repentance
+in me. See me. I am nearer it...the other--sin, I mean. If that man
+comes...will he?"
+
+"No--no!" Rhoda cried.
+
+"If that man comes--"
+
+"He will not come!"
+
+"He cast me off at the church door, and said he had been cheated. Money!
+Oh, Edward!"
+
+Dahlia drooped her head.
+
+"He will keep away. You are safe," said Rhoda.
+
+"Because, if no help comes, I am lost--I am lost for ever!"
+
+"But help will come. I mean peace will come. We will read; we will work
+in the garden. You have lifted poor father up, my dear."
+
+"Ah! that old man!" Dahlia sighed.
+
+"He is our father."
+
+"Yes, poor old man!" and Dahlia whispered: "I have no pity for him. If I
+am dragged away, I'm afraid I shall curse him. He seems a stony old
+man. I don't understand fathers. He would make me go away. He talks the
+Scriptures when he is excited. I'm afraid he would shut my Bible for me.
+Those old men know nothing of the hearts of women. Now, darling, go to
+your room."
+
+Rhoda begged earnestly for permission to stay with her, but Dahlia said:
+"My nights are fevers. I can't have arms about me."
+
+They shook hands when they separated, not kissing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+Three days passed quietly at the Farm, and each morning Dahlia came down
+to breakfast, and sat with the family at their meals; pale, with the
+mournful rim about her eyelids, but a patient figure. No questions were
+asked. The house was guarded from visitors, and on the surface the home
+was peaceful. On the Wednesday Squire Blancove was buried, when Master
+Gammon, who seldom claimed a holiday or specified an enjoyment of which
+he would desire to partake, asked leave to be spared for a couple of
+hours, that he might attend the ceremonious interment of one to whom a
+sort of vagrant human sentiment of clanship had made him look up, as to
+the chief gentleman of the district, and therefore one having claims on
+his respect. A burial had great interest for the old man.
+
+"I'll be home for dinner; it'll gi'e me an appetite," Master Gammon
+said solemnly, and he marched away in his serious Sunday hat and careful
+coat, blither than usual.
+
+After his departure, Mrs. Sumfit sat and discoursed on deaths and
+burials, the certain end of all: at least, she corrected herself, the
+deaths were. The burials were not so certain. Consequently, we might
+take the burials, as they were a favour, to be a blessing, except in
+the event of persons being buried alive. She tried to make her hearers
+understand that the idea of this calamity had always seemed intolerable
+to her, and told of numerous cases which, the coffin having been opened,
+showed by the convulsed aspect of the corpse, or by spots of blood upon
+the shroud, that the poor creature had wakened up forlorn, "and not a
+kick allowed to him, my dears."
+
+"It happens to women, too, does it not, mother?" said Dahlia.
+
+"They're most subject to trances, my sweet. From always imitatin' they
+imitates their deaths at last; and, oh!" Mrs. Sumfit was taken with
+nervous chokings of alarm at the thought. "Alone--all dark! and hard
+wood upon your chest, your elbows, your nose, your toes, and you under
+heaps o' gravel! Not a breath for you, though you snap and catch for
+one--worse than a fish on land."
+
+"It's over very soon, mother," said Dahlia.
+
+"The coldness of you young women! Yes; but it's the time--you feeling,
+trying for air; it's the horrid 'Oh, dear me!' You set your mind on it!"
+
+"I do," said Dahlia. "You see coffin-nails instead of stars. You'd give
+the world to turn upon one side. You can't think. You can only hate
+those who put you there. You see them taking tea, saying prayers,
+sleeping in bed, putting on bonnets, walking to church, kneading dough,
+eating--all at once, like the firing of a gun. They're in one world;
+you're in another."
+
+"Why, my goodness, one'd say she'd gone through it herself," ejaculated
+Mrs. Sumfit, terrified.
+
+Dahlia sent her eyes at Rhoda.
+
+"I must go and see that poor man covered." Mrs. Sumfit succumbed to a
+fit of resolution much under the pretence that it had long been forming.
+
+"Well, and mother," said Dahlia, checking her, "promise me. Put a
+feather on my mouth; put a glass to my face, before you let them carry
+me out. Will you? Rhoda promises. I have asked her."
+
+"Oh! the ideas of this girl!" Mrs. Sumfit burst out. "And looking so, as
+she says it. My love, you didn't mean to die?"
+
+Dahlia soothed her, and sent her off.
+
+"I am buried alive!" she said. "I feel it all--the stifling! the
+hopeless cramp! Let us go and garden. Rhoda, have you got laudanum in
+the house?"
+
+Rhoda shook her head, too sick at heart to speak. They went into the
+garden, which was Dahlia's healthfullest place. It seemed to her that
+her dead mother talked to her there. That was not a figure of speech,
+when she said she felt buried alive. She was in the state of sensational
+delusion. There were times when she watched her own power of motion
+curiously: curiously stretched out her hands, and touched things, and
+moved them. The sight was convincing, but the shudder came again. In
+a frame less robust the brain would have given way. It was the very
+soundness of the brain which, when her blood was a simple tide of life
+in her veins, and no vital force, had condemned her to see the wisdom
+and the righteousness of the act of sacrifice committed by her, and had
+urged her even up to the altar. Then the sudden throwing off of the mask
+by that man to whom she had bound herself, and the reading of Edward's
+letter of penitence and love, thwarted reason, but without blinding or
+unsettling it. Passion grew dominant; yet against such deadly matters
+on all sides had passion to strive, that, under a darkened sky, visibly
+chained, bound down, and hopeless, she felt between-whiles veritably
+that she was a living body buried. Her senses had become semi-lunatic.
+
+She talked reasonably; and Rhoda, hearing her question and answer at
+meal-times like a sane woman, was in doubt whether her sister wilfully
+simulated a partial insanity when they were alone together. Now, in the
+garden, Dahlia said: "All those flowers, my dear, have roots in mother
+and me. She can't feel them, for her soul's in heaven. But mine is down
+there. The pain is the trying to get your soul loose. It's the edge of a
+knife that won't cut through. Do you know that?"
+
+Rhoda said, as acquiescingly as she could, "Yes."
+
+"Do you?" Dahlia whispered. "It's what they call the 'agony.' Only, to
+go through it in the dark, when you are all alone! boarded round! you
+will never know that. And there's an angel brings me one of mother's
+roses, and I smell it. I see fields of snow; and it's warm there, and
+no labour for breath. I see great beds of flowers; I pass them like a
+breeze. I'm shot, and knock on the ground, and they bury me for dead
+again. Indeed, dearest, it's true."
+
+She meant, true as regarded her sensations. Rhoda could barely give
+a smile for response; and Dahlia's intelligence being supernaturally
+active, she read her sister's doubt, and cried out,--
+
+"Then let me talk of him!"
+
+It was the fiery sequence to her foregone speech, signifying that if her
+passion had liberty to express itself, she could clear understandings.
+But even a moment's free wing to passion renewed the blinding terror
+within her. Rhoda steadied her along the walks, praying for the time to
+come when her friends, the rector and his wife, might help in the task
+of comforting this poor sister. Detestation of the idea of love made her
+sympathy almost deficient, and when there was no active work to do in
+aid, she was nearly valueless, knowing that she also stood guilty of a
+wrong.
+
+The day was very soft and still. The flowers gave light for light. They
+heard through the noise of the mill-water the funeral bell sound.
+It sank in Rhoda like the preaching of an end that was promise of a
+beginning, and girdled a distancing land of trouble. The breeze that
+blew seemed mercy. To live here in forgetfulness with Dahlia was the
+limit of her desires. Perhaps, if Robert worked among them, she would
+gratefully give him her hand. That is, if he said not a word of love.
+
+Master Gammon and Mrs. Sumfit were punctual in their return near the
+dinnerhour; and the business of releasing the dumplings and potatoes,
+and spreading out the cold meat and lettuces, restrained for some period
+the narrative of proceedings at the funeral. Chief among the incidents
+was, that Mrs. Sumfit had really seen, and only wanted, by corroboration
+of Master Gammon, to be sure she had positively seen, Anthony Hackbut
+on the skirts of the funeral procession. Master Gammon, however, was no
+supporter of conjecture. What he had thought he had thought; but that
+was neither here nor there. He would swear to nothing that he had not
+touched;--eyes deceived;--he was never a guesser. He left Mrs. Sumfit
+to pledge herself in perturbation of spirit to an oath that her eyes had
+seen Anthony Hackbut; and more, which was, that after the close of the
+funeral service, the young squire had caught sight of Anthony crouching
+in a corner of the churchyard, and had sent a man to him, and they had
+disappeared together. Mrs. Sumfit was heartily laughed at and rallied
+both by Robert and the farmer. "Tony at a funeral! and train expenses!"
+the farmer interjected. "D'ye think, mother, Tony'd come to Wrexby
+churchyard 'fore he come Queen Anne's Farm? And where's he now, mayhap?"
+
+Mrs. Sumfit appealed in despair to Master Gammon, with entreaties, and a
+ready dumpling.
+
+"There, Mas' Gammon; and why you sh'd play at 'do believe' and at 'don't
+believe,' after that awesome scene, the solem'est of life's, when you
+did declare to me, sayin', it was a stride for boots out o' London this
+morning. Your words, Mas' Gammon! and 'boots'-=it's true, if by that
+alone! For, 'boots,' I says to myself--he thinks by 'boots,' there being
+a cord'er in his family on the mother's side; which you yourself told
+to me, as you did, Mas' Gammon, and now holds back, you did, like a bad
+horse."
+
+"Hey! does Gammon jib?" said the farmer, with the ghost of old laughter
+twinkling in his eyes.
+
+"He told me this tale," Mrs. Sumfit continued, daring her irresponsive
+enemy to contradict her, with a threatening gaze. "He told me this tale,
+he did; and my belief's, his game 's, he gets me into a corner--there to
+be laughed at! Mas' Gammon, if you're not a sly old man, you said, you
+did, he was drownded; your mother's brother's wife's brother; and he had
+a brother, and what he was to you--that brother--" Mrs. Sumfit smote her
+hands--"Oh, my goodness, my poor head! but you shan't slip away, Mas'
+Gammon; no, try you ever so much. Drownded he was, and eight days in the
+sea, which you told me over a warm mug of ale by the fire years back.
+And I do believe them dumplings makes ye obstinate; for worse you get,
+and that fond of 'em, I sh'll soon not have enough in our biggest pot.
+Yes, you said he was eight days in the sea, and as for face, you said,
+poor thing! he was like a rag of towel dipped in starch, was your own
+words, and all his likeness wiped out; and Joe, the other brother, a
+cord'er--bootmaker, you call 'em--looked down him, as he was stretched
+out on the shore of the sea, all along, and didn't know him till he come
+to the boots, and he says, 'It's Abner;' for there was his boots to know
+him by. Now, will you deny, Mas' Gammon, you said, Mr. Hackbut's boots,
+and a long stride it was for 'em from London? And I won't be laughed at
+through arts of any sly old man!"
+
+The circumstantial charge made no impression on Master Gammon, who was
+heard to mumble, as from the inmost recesses of tight-packed dumpling;
+but he left the vindication of his case to the farmer's laughter. The
+mention of her uncle had started a growing agitation in Rhoda, to whom
+the indication of his eccentric behaviour was a stronger confirmation of
+his visit to the neighbourhood. And wherefore had he journeyed down? Had
+he come to haunt her on account of the money he had poured into her lap?
+Rhoda knew in a moment that she was near a great trial of her strength
+and truth. She had more than once, I cannot tell you how distantly,
+conceived that the money had been money upon which the mildest word
+for "stolen" should be put to express the feeling she had got about
+it, after she had parted with the bulk of it to the man Sedgett. Not
+"stolen," not "appropriated," but money that had perhaps been entrusted,
+and of which Anthony had forgotten the rightful ownership. This idea
+of hers had burned with no intolerable fire; but, under a weight of all
+discountenancing appearances, feeble though it was, it had distressed
+her. The dealing with money, and the necessity for it, had given Rhoda a
+better comprehension of its nature and value. She had taught herself to
+think that her suspicion sprang from her uncle's wild demeanour, and the
+scene of the gold pieces scattered on the floor, as if a heart had burst
+at her feet.
+
+No sooner did she hear that Anthony had been, by supposition, seen, than
+the little light of secret dread flamed a panic through her veins. She
+left the table before Master Gammon had finished, and went out of the
+house to look about for her uncle. He was nowhere in the fields, nor in
+the graveyard. She walked over the neighbourhood desolately, until her
+quickened apprehension was extinguished, and she returned home relieved,
+thinking it folly to have imagined her uncle was other than a man of
+hoarded wealth, and that he was here. But, in the interval, she had
+experienced emotions which warned her of a struggle to come. Who would
+be friendly to her, and an arm of might? The thought of the storm she
+had sown upon all sides made her tremble foolishly. When she placed her
+hand in Robert's, she gave his fingers a confiding pressure, and all but
+dropped her head upon his bosom, so sick she was with weakness. It would
+have been a deceit toward him, and that restrained her; perhaps, yet
+more, she was restrained by the gloomy prospect of having to reply to
+any words of love, without an idea of what to say, and with a loathing
+of caresses. She saw herself condemned to stand alone, and at a season
+when she was not strengthened by pure self-support.
+
+Rhoda had not surrendered the stern belief that she had done well by
+forcing Dahlia's hand to the marriage, though it had resulted evilly. In
+reflecting on it, she had still a feeling of the harsh joy peculiar to
+those who have exercised command with a conscious righteousness upon
+wilful, sinful, and erring spirits, and have thwarted the wrongdoer.
+She could only admit that there was sadness in the issue; hitherto,
+at least, nothing worse than sad disappointment. The man who was her
+sister's husband could no longer complain that he had been the victim
+of an imposition. She had bought his promise that he would leave the
+country, and she had rescued the honour of the family by paying him. At
+what cost? She asked herself that now, and then her self-support became
+uneven. Could her uncle have parted with the great sum--have shed it
+upon her, merely beneficently, and because he loved her? Was it possible
+that he had the habit of carrying his own riches through the streets of
+London? She had to silence all questions imperiously, recalling exactly
+her ideas of him, and the value of money in the moment when money was an
+object of hunger--when she had seized it like a wolf, and its value was
+quite unknown, unguessed at.
+
+Rhoda threw up her window before she slept, that she might breathe the
+cool night air; and, as she leaned out, she heard steps moving away, and
+knew them to be Robert's, in whom that pressure of her hand had cruelly
+resuscitated his longing for her. She drew back, wondering at the
+idleness of men--slaves while they want a woman's love, savages when
+they have won it. She tried to pity him, but she had not an emotion to
+spare, save perhaps one of dull exultation, that she, alone of women,
+was free from that wretched mess called love; and upon it she slept.
+
+It was between the breakfast and dinner hours, at the farm, next day,
+when the young squire, accompanied by Anthony Hackbut, met farmer
+Fleming in the lane bordering one of the outermost fields of wheat.
+Anthony gave little more than a blunt nod to his relative, and slouched
+on, leaving the farmer in amazement, while the young squire stopped him
+to speak with him. Anthony made his way on to the house. Shortly after,
+he was seen passing through the gates of the garden, accompanied by
+Rhoda. At the dinner-hour, Robert was taken aside by the farmer.
+Neither Rhoda nor Anthony presented themselves. They did not appear till
+nightfall. When Anthony came into the room, he took no greetings and
+gave none. He sat down on the first chair by the door, shaking his
+head, with vacant eyes. Rhoda took off her bonnet, and sat as strangely
+silent. In vain Mrs. Sumfit asked her; "Shall it be tea, dear, and a
+little cold meat?" The two dumb figures were separately interrogated,
+but they had no answer.
+
+"Come! brother Tony?" the farmer tried to rally him.
+
+Dahlia was knitting some article of feminine gear. Robert stood by the
+musk-pots at the window, looking at Rhoda fixedly. Of this gaze she
+became conscious, and glanced from him to the clock.
+
+"It's late," she said, rising.
+
+"But you're empty, my dear. And to think o' going to bed without a
+dinner, or your tea, and no supper! You'll never say prayers, if you
+do," said Mrs. Sumfit.
+
+The remark engendered a notion in the farmer's head, that Anthony
+promised to be particularly prayerless.
+
+"You've been and spent a night at the young squire's, I hear, brother
+Tony. All right and well. No complaints on my part, I do assure ye. If
+you're mixed up with that family, I won't bring it in you're anyways
+mixed up with this family; not so as to clash, do you see. Only, man,
+now you are here, a word'd be civil, if you don't want a doctor."
+
+"I was right," murmured Mrs. Sumfit. "At the funeral, he was; and Lord
+be thanked! I thought my eyes was failin'. Mas' Gammon, you'd ha' lost
+no character by sidin' wi' me."
+
+"Here's Dahlia, too," said the farmer. "Brother Tony, don't you see her?
+She's beginning to be recognizable, if her hair'd grow a bit faster.
+She's...well, there she is."
+
+A quavering, tiny voice, that came from Anthony, said: "How d' ye
+do--how d' ye do;" sounding like the first effort of a fife. But Anthony
+did not cast eye on Dahlia.
+
+"Will you eat, man?--will you smoke a pipe?--won't you talk a
+word?--will you go to bed?"
+
+These several questions, coming between pauses, elicited nothing from
+the staring oldman.
+
+"Is there a matter wrong at the Bank?" the farmer called out, and
+Anthony jumped in a heap.
+
+"Eh?" persisted the farmer.
+
+Rhoda interposed: "Uncle is tired; he is unwell. Tomorrow he will talk
+to you."
+
+"No, but is there anything wrong up there, though?" the farmer asked
+with eager curiosity, and a fresh smile at the thought that those
+Banks and city folk were mortal, and could upset, notwithstanding their
+crashing wheels. "Brother Tony, you speak out; has anybody been and
+broke? Never mind a blow, so long, o' course, as they haven't swallowed
+your money. How is it? Why, I never saw such a sight as you. You come
+down from London; you play hide and seek about your relation's house;
+and here, when you do condescend to step in--eh? how is it? You ain't, I
+hope, ruined, Tony, are ye?"
+
+Rhoda stood over her uncle to conceal him.
+
+"He shall not speak till he has had some rest. And yes, mother, he shall
+have some warm tea upstairs in bed. Boil some water. Now, uncle, come
+with me."
+
+"Anybody broke?" Anthony rolled the words over, as Rhoda raised his arm.
+"I'm asked such a lot, my dear, I ain't equal to it. You said here 'd
+be a quiet place. I don't know about money. Try my pockets. Yes, mum, if
+you was forty policemen, I'm empty; you'd find it. And no objection to
+nod to prayers; but never was taught one of my own. Where am I going, my
+dear?"
+
+"Upstairs with me, uncle."
+
+Rhoda had succeeded in getting him on his feet.
+
+The farmer tapped at his forehead, as a signification to the others
+that Anthony had gone wrong in the head, which reminded him that he had
+prophesied as much. He stiffened out his legs, and gave a manful spring,
+crying, "Hulloa, brother Tony! why, man, eh? Look here. What, goin'
+to bed? What, you, Tony? I say--I say--dear me!" And during these
+exclamations intricate visions of tripping by means of gold wires danced
+before him.
+
+Rhoda hurried Anthony out.
+
+After the door had shut, the farmer said: "That comes of it; sooner or
+later, there it is! You give your heart to money--you insure in a ship,
+and as much as say, here's a ship, and, blow and lighten, I defy you.
+Whereas we day-by-day people, if it do blow and if it do lighten, and
+the waves are avilanches, we've nothing to lose. Poor old Tony--a smash,
+to a certainty. There's been a smash, and he's gone under the harrow.
+Any o' you here might ha' heard me say, things can't last for ever.
+Ha'n't you, now?"
+
+The persons present meekly acquiesced in his prophetic spirit to this
+extent. Mrs. Sumfit dolorously said, "Often, William dear," and accepted
+the incontestable truth in deep humiliation of mind.
+
+"Save," the farmer continued, "save and store, only don't put your heart
+in the box."
+
+"It's true, William;" Mrs. Sumfit acted clerk to the sermon.
+
+Dahlia took her softly by the neck, and kissed her.
+
+"Is it love for the old woman?" Mrs. Sumfit murmured fondly; and Dahlia
+kissed her again.
+
+The farmer had by this time rounded to the thought of how he personally
+might be affected by Anthony's ill-luck, supposing; perchance, that
+Anthony was suffering from something more than a sentimental attachment
+to the Bank of his predilection: and such a reflection instantly
+diverted his tendency to moralize.
+
+"We shall hear to-morrow," he observed in conclusion; which, as it
+caused a desire for the morrow to spring within his bosom, sent his eyes
+at Master Gammon, who was half an hour behind his time for bed, and had
+dropped asleep in his chair. This unusual display of public somnolence
+on Master Gammon's part, together with the veteran's reputation
+for slowness, made the farmer fret at him as being in some way an
+obstruction to the lively progress of the hours.
+
+"Hoy, Gammon!" he sang out, awakeningly to ordinary ears; but Master
+Gammon was not one who took the ordinary plunge into the gulf of sleep,
+and it was required to shake him and to bellow at him--to administer at
+once earthquake and thunder--before his lizard eyelids would lift over
+the great, old-world eyes; upon which, like a clayey monster refusing to
+be informed with heavenly fire, he rolled to the right of his chair and
+to the left, and pitched forward, and insisted upon being inanimate.
+Brought at last to a condition of stale consciousness, he looked at
+his master long, and uttered surprisingly "Farmer, there's queer things
+going on in this house," and then relapsed to a combat with Mrs. Sumfit,
+regarding the candle; she saying that it was not to be entrusted to him,
+and he sullenly contending that it was.
+
+"Here, we'll all go to bed," said the farmer. "What with one person
+queer, and another person queer, I shall be in for a headache, if I take
+to thinking. Gammon's a man sees in 's sleep what he misses awake. Did
+you ever know," he addressed anybody, "such a thing as Tony Hackbut
+coming into a relation's house, and sitting there, and not a word for
+any of us? It's, I call it, dumbfoundering. And that's me: why didn't I
+go up and shake his hand, you ask. Well, why not? If he don't know he's
+welcome, without ceremony, he's no good. Why, I've got matters t' occupy
+my mind, too, haven't I? Every man has, and some more'n others, let
+alone crosses. There's something wrong with my brother-in-law, Tony,
+that's settled. Odd that we country people, who bide, and take the
+Lord's gifts--" The farmer did not follow out this reflection, but
+raising his arms, shepherd-wise, he puffed as if blowing the two women
+before him to their beds, and then gave a shy look at Robert, and nodded
+good-night to him. Robert nodded in reply. He knew the cause of the
+farmer's uncommon blitheness. Algernon Blancove, the young squire, had
+proposed for Rhoda's hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+Anthony had robbed the Bank. The young squire was aware of the fact,
+and had offered to interpose for him, and to make good the money to the
+Bank, upon one condition. So much, Rhoda had gathered from her uncle's
+babbling interjections throughout the day. The farmer knew only of the
+young squire's proposal, which had been made direct to him; and he had
+left it to Robert to state the case to Rhoda, and plead for himself. She
+believed fully, when she came downstairs into the room where Robert was
+awaiting her, that she had but to speak and a mine would be sprung; and
+shrinking from it, hoping for it, she entered, and tried to fasten her
+eyes upon Robert distinctly, telling him the tale. Robert listened with
+a calculating seriousness of manner that quieted her physical dread
+of his passion. She finished; and he said "It will, perhaps, save your
+uncle: I'm sure it will please your father."
+
+She sat down, feeling that a warmth had gone, and that she was very
+bare.
+
+"Must I consent, then?"
+
+"If you can, I suppose."
+
+Both being spirits formed for action, a perplexity found them weak as
+babes. He, moreover, was stung to see her debating at all upon such a
+question; and he was in despair before complicated events which gave
+nothing for his hands and heart to do. Stiff endurance seemed to him to
+be his lesson; and he made a show of having learnt it.
+
+"Were you going out, Robert?"
+
+"I usually make the rounds of the house, to be sure all's safe."
+
+His walking about the garden at night was not, then, for the purpose of
+looking at her window. Rhoda coloured in all her dark crimson with shame
+for thinking that it had been so.
+
+"I must decide to-morrow morning."
+
+"They say, the pillow's the best counsellor."
+
+A reply that presumed she would sleep appeared to her as bitterly
+unfriendly.
+
+"Did father wish it?"
+
+"Not by what he spoke."
+
+"You suppose he does wish it?"
+
+"Where's the father who wouldn't? Of course, he wishes it. He's kind
+enough, but you may be certain he wishes it."
+
+"Oh! Dahlia, Dahlia!" Rhoda moaned, under a rush of new sensations,
+unfilial, akin to those which her sister had distressed her by speaking
+shamelessly out.
+
+"Ah! poor soul!" added Robert.
+
+"My darling must be brave: she must have great courage. Dahlia cannot be
+a coward. I begin to see."
+
+Rhoda threw up her face, and sat awhile as one who was reading old
+matters by a fresh light.
+
+"I can't think," she said, with a start. "Have I been dreadfully cruel?
+Was I unsisterly? I have such a horror of some things--disgrace. And men
+are so hard on women; and father--I felt for him. And I hated that base
+man. It's his cousin and his name! I could almost fancy this trial is
+brought round to me for punishment."
+
+An ironic devil prompted Robert to say, "You can't let harm come to your
+uncle."
+
+The thing implied was the farthest in his idea of any woman's possible
+duty.
+
+"Are you of that opinion?" Rhoda questioned with her eyes, but uttered
+nothing.
+
+Now, he had spoken almost in the ironical tone. She should have noted
+that. And how could a true-hearted girl suppose him capable of giving
+such counsel to her whom he loved? It smote him with horror and anger;
+but he was much too manly to betray these actual sentiments, and
+continued to dissemble. You see, he had not forgiven her for her
+indifference to him.
+
+"You are no longer your own mistress," he said, meaning exactly the
+reverse.
+
+This--that she was bound in generosity to sacrifice herself--was what
+Rhoda feared. There was no forceful passion in her bosom to burst
+through the crowd of weak reasonings and vanities, to bid her be a
+woman, not a puppet; and the passion in him, for which she craved, that
+she might be taken up by it and whirled into forgetfulness, with a seal
+of betrothal upon her lips, was absent so that she thought herself
+loved no more by Robert. She was weary of thinking and acting on her
+own responsibility, and would gladly have abandoned her will; yet her
+judgement, if she was still to exercise it, told her that the step she
+was bidden to take was one, the direct consequence and the fruit of her
+other resolute steps. Pride whispered, "You could compel your sister
+to do that which she abhorred;" and Pity pleaded for her poor old
+uncle Anthony. She looked back in imagination at that scene with him
+in London, amazed at her frenzy of power, and again, from that
+contemplation, amazed at her present nervelessness.
+
+"I am not fit to be my own mistress," she said.
+
+"Then, the sooner you decide the better," observed Robert, and the room
+became hot and narrow to him.
+
+"Very little time is given me," she murmured. The sound was like a
+whimper; exasperating to one who had witnessed her remorseless energy.
+
+"I dare say you won't find the hardship so great," said he.
+
+"Because," she looked up quickly, "I went out one day to meet him? Do
+you mean that, Robert? I went to hear news of my sister. I had received
+no letters from her. And he wrote to say that he could tell me about
+her. My uncle took me once to the Bank. I saw him there first. He spoke
+of Wrexby, and of my sister. It is pleasant to inexperienced girls to
+hear themselves praised. Since the day when you told me to turn back I
+have always respected you."
+
+Her eyelids lowered softly.
+
+Could she have humbled herself more? But she had, at the same time,
+touched his old wound: and his rival then was the wooer now, rich, and a
+gentleman. And this room, Robert thought as he looked about it, was the
+room in which she had refused him, when he first asked her to be his.
+
+"I think," he said, "I've never begged your pardon for the last occasion
+of our being alone here together. I've had my arm round you. Don't be
+frightened. That's my marriage, and there was my wife. And there's an
+end of my likings and my misconduct. Forgive me for calling it to mind."
+
+"No, no, Robert," Rhoda lifted her hands, and, startled by the impulse,
+dropped them, saying: "What forgiveness? Was I ever angry with you?"
+
+A look of tenderness accompanied the words, and grew into a dusky
+crimson rose under his eyes.
+
+"When you went into the wood, I saw you going: I knew it was for some
+good object," he said, and flushed equally.
+
+But, by the recurrence to that scene, he had checked her sensitive
+developing emotion. She hung a moment in languor, and that oriental
+warmth of colour ebbed away from her cheeks.
+
+"You are very kind," said she.
+
+Then he perceived in dimmest fashion that possibly a chance had come
+to ripeness, withered, and fallen, within the late scoffing seconds
+of time. Enraged at his blindness, and careful, lest he had wrongly
+guessed, not to expose his regret (the man was a lover), he remarked,
+both truthfully and hypocritically: "I've always thought you were born
+to be a lady." (You had that ambition, young madam.)
+
+She answered: "That's what I don't understand." (Your saying it, O my
+friend!)
+
+"You will soon take to your new duties." (You have small objection to
+them even now.)
+
+"Yes, or my life won't be worth much." (Know, that you are driving me to
+it.)
+
+"And I wish you happiness, Rhoda." (You are madly imperilling the
+prospect thereof.)
+
+To each of them the second meaning stood shadowy behind the utterances.
+And further,--
+
+"Thank you, Robert." (I shall have to thank you for the issue.)
+
+"Now it's time to part." (Do you not see that there's a danger for me in
+remaining?)
+
+"Good night." (Behold, I am submissive.)
+
+"Good night, Rhoda." (You were the first to give the signal of parting.)
+
+"Good night." (I am simply submissive.)
+
+"Why not my name? Are you hurt with me?"
+
+Rhoda choked. The indirectness of speech had been a shelter to her,
+permitting her to hint at more than she dared clothe in words.
+
+Again the delicious dusky rose glowed beneath his eyes.
+
+But he had put his hand out to her, and she had not taken it.
+
+"What have I done to offend you? I really don't know, Rhoda."
+
+"Nothing." The flower had closed.
+
+He determined to believe that she was gladdened at heart by the prospect
+of a fine marriage, and now began to discourse of Anthony's delinquency,
+saying,--
+
+"It was not money taken for money's sake: any one can see that. It was
+half clear to me, when you told me about it, that the money was not his
+to give, but I've got the habit of trusting you to be always correct."
+
+"And I never am," said Rhoda, vexed at him and at herself.
+
+"Women can't judge so well about money matters. Has your uncle no
+account of his own at the Bank? He was thought to be a bit of a miser."
+
+"What he is, or what he was, I can't guess. He has not been near the
+Bank since that day; nor to his home. He has wandered down on his way
+here, sleeping in cottages. His heart seems broken. I have still a great
+deal of the money. I kept it, thinking it might be a protection for
+Dahlia. Oh! my thoughts and what I have done! Of course, I imagined him
+to be rich. A thousand pounds seemed a great deal to me, and very little
+for one who was rich. If I had reflected at all, I must have seen that
+Uncle Anthony would never have carried so much through the streets.
+I was like a fiend for money. I must have been acting wrongly. Such a
+craving as that is a sign of evil."
+
+"What evil there is, you're going to mend, Rhoda."
+
+"I sell myself, then."
+
+"Hardly so bad as that. The money will come from you instead of from
+your uncle."
+
+Rhoda bent forward in her chair, with her elbows on her knees, like a
+man brooding. Perhaps, it was right that the money should come from her.
+And how could she have hoped to get the money by any other means? Here
+at least was a positive escape from perplexity. It came at the right
+moment; was it a help divine? What cowardice had been prompting her to
+evade it? After all, could it be a dreadful step that she was required
+to take?
+
+Her eyes met Robert's, and he said startlingly: "Just like a woman!"
+
+"Why?" but she had caught the significance, and blushed with spite.
+
+"He was the first to praise you."
+
+"You are brutal to me, Robert."
+
+"My name at last! You accused me of that sort of thing before, in this
+room."
+
+Rhoda stood up. "I will wish you good night."
+
+"And now you take my hand."
+
+"Good night," they uttered simultaneously; but Robert did not give up
+the hand he had got in his own. His eyes grew sharp, and he squeezed the
+fingers.
+
+"I'm bound," she cried.
+
+"Once!" Robert drew her nearer to him.
+
+"Let me go."
+
+"Once!" he reiterated. "Rhoda, as I've never kissed you--once!"
+
+"No: don't anger me."
+
+"No one has ever kissed you?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Then, I--" His force was compelling the straightened figure.
+
+Had he said, "Be mine!" she might have softened to his embrace; but
+there was no fire of divining love in her bosom to perceive her lover's
+meaning. She read all his words as a placard on a board, and revolted
+from the outrage of submitting her lips to one who was not to be her
+husband. His jealousy demanded that gratification foremost. The "Be
+mine!" was ready enough to follow.
+
+"Let me go, Robert."
+
+She was released. The cause for it was the opening of the door. Anthony
+stood there.
+
+A more astounding resemblance to the phantasm of a dream was never
+presented. He was clad in a manner to show forth the condition of his
+wits, in partial night and day attire: one of the farmer's nightcaps
+was on his head, surmounted by his hat. A confused recollection of the
+necessity for trousers, had made him draw on those garments sufficiently
+to permit of the movement of his short legs, at which point their
+subserviency to the uses ended. Wrinkled with incongruous clothing from
+head to foot, and dazed by the light, he peered on them, like a mouse
+magnified and petrified.
+
+"Dearest uncle!" Rhoda went to him.
+
+Anthony nodded, pointing to the door leading out of the house.
+
+"I just want to go off--go off. Never you mind me. I'm only going off."
+
+"You must go to your bed, uncle."
+
+"Oh, Lord! no. I'm going off, my dear. I've had sleep enough for forty.
+I--" he turned his mouth to Rhoda's ear, "I don't want t' see th' old
+farmer." And, as if he had given a conclusive reason for his departure,
+he bored towards the door, repeating it, and bawling additionally, "in
+the morning."
+
+"You have seen him, uncle. You have seen him. It's over," said Rhoda.
+
+Anthony whispered: "I don't want t' see th' old farmer."
+
+"But, you have seen him, uncle."
+
+"In the morning, my dear. Not in the morning. He'll be looking and
+asking, 'Where away, brother Tony?' 'Where's your banker's book, brother
+Tony?' 'How's money-market, brother Tony?' I can't see th' old farmer."
+
+It was impossible to avoid smiling: his imitation of the farmer's
+country style was exact.
+
+She took his hands, and used every persuasion she could think of to
+induce him to return to his bed; nor was he insensible to argument, or
+superior to explanation.
+
+"Th' old farmer thinks I've got millions, my dear. You can't satisfy
+him. He... I don't want t' see him in the morning. He thinks I've got
+millions. His mouth'll go down. I don't want... You don't want him to
+look... And I can't count now; I can't count a bit. And every post I see
+'s a policeman. I ain't hiding. Let 'em take the old man. And he was a
+faithful servant, till one day he got up on a regular whirly-go-round,
+and ever since...such a little boy! I'm frightened o' you, Rhoda."
+
+"I will do everything for you," said Rhoda, crying wretchedly.
+
+"Because, the young squire says," Anthony made his voice mysterious.
+
+"Yes, yes," Rhoda stopped him; "and I consent:" she gave a hurried
+half-glance behind her. "Come, uncle. Oh! pity! don't let me think your
+reason's gone. I can get you the money, but if you go foolish, I cannot
+help you."
+
+Her energy had returned to her with the sense of sacrifice. Anthony
+eyed her tears. "We've sat on a bank and cried together, haven't we?"
+he said. "And counted ants, we have. Shall we sit in the sun together
+to-morrow? Say, we shall. Shall we? A good long day in the sun and
+nobody looking at me 's my pleasure."
+
+Rhoda gave him the assurance, and he turned and went upstairs with her,
+docile at the prospect of hours to be passed in the sunlight.
+
+Yet, when morning came, he had disappeared. Robert also was absent from
+the breakfast-table. The farmer made no remarks, save that he reckoned
+Master Gammon was right--in allusion to the veteran's somnolent
+observation overnight; and strange things were acted before his eyes.
+
+There came by the morning delivery of letters one addressed to "Miss
+Fleming." He beheld his daughters rise, put their hands out, and claim
+it, in a breath; and they gazed upon one another like the two women
+demanding the babe from the justice of the Wise King. The letter was
+placed in Rhoda's hand; Dahlia laid hers on it. Their mouths were shut;
+any one not looking at them would have been unaware that a supreme
+conflict was going on in the room. It was a strenuous wrestle of their
+eyeballs, like the "give way" of athletes pausing. But the delirious
+beat down the constitutional strength. A hard bright smile ridged the
+hollow of Dahlia's cheeks. Rhoda's dark eyes shut; she let go her hold,
+and Dahlia thrust the letter in against her bosom, snatched it out
+again, and dipped her face to roses in a jug, and kissing Mrs. Sumfit,
+ran from the room for a single minute; after which she came back smiling
+with gravely joyful eyes and showing a sedate readiness to eat and
+conclude the morning meal.
+
+What did this mean? The farmer could have made allowance for Rhoda's
+behaving so, seeing that she notoriously possessed intellect; and he had
+the habit of charging all freaks and vagaries of manner upon intellect.
+
+But Dahlia was a soft creature, without this apology for extravagance,
+and what right had she to letters addressed to "Miss Fleming?" The
+farmer prepared to ask a question, and was further instigated to it
+by seeing Mrs. Sumfit's eyes roll sympathetic under a burden of
+overpowering curiosity and bewilderment. On the point of speaking, he
+remembered that he had pledged his word to ask no questions; he feared
+to--that was the secret; he had put his trust in Rhoda's assurance, and
+shrank from a spoken suspicion. So, checking himself, he broke out upon
+Mrs. Sumfit: "Now, then, mother!" which caused her to fluster guiltily,
+she having likewise given her oath to be totally unquestioning, even
+as was Master Gammon, whom she watched with a deep envy. Mrs. Sumfit
+excused the anxious expression of her face by saying that she was
+thinking of her dairy, whither, followed by the veteran, she retired.
+
+Rhoda stood eyeing Dahlia, nerved to battle against the contents of
+that letter, though in the first conflict she had been beaten. "Oh, this
+curse of love!" she thought in her heart; and as Dahlia left the room,
+flushed, stupefied, and conscienceless, Rhoda the more readily told
+her father the determination which was the result of her interview with
+Robert.
+
+No sooner had she done so, than a strange fluttering desire to look on
+Robert awoke within her bosom. She left the house, believing that she
+went abroad to seek her uncle, and walked up a small grass-knoll, a
+little beyond the farm-yard, from which she could see green corn-tracts
+and the pastures by the river, the river flowing oily under summer
+light, and the slow-footed cows, with their heads bent to the herbage;
+far-away sheep, and white hawthorn bushes, and deep hedge-ways bursting
+out of the trimness of the earlier season; and a nightingale sang among
+the hazels near by.
+
+This scene of unthrobbing peacefulness was beheld by Rhoda with her
+first conscious delight in it. She gazed round on the farm, under a
+quick new impulse of affection for her old home. And whose hand was
+it that could alone sustain the working of the farm, and had done so,
+without reward? Her eyes travelled up to Wrexby Hall, perfectly barren
+of any feeling that she was to enter the place, aware only that it was
+full of pain for her. She accused herself, but could not accept the
+charge of her having ever hoped for transforming events that should
+twist and throw the dear old farm-life long back into the fields of
+memory. Nor could she understand the reason of her continued coolness
+to Robert. Enough of accurate reflection was given her to perceive that
+discontent with her station was the original cause of her discontent
+now. What she had sown she was reaping:--and wretchedly colourless are
+these harvests of our dream! The sun has not shone on them. They may
+have a tragic blood-hue, as with Dahlia's; but they will never have
+any warm, and fresh, and nourishing sweetness--the juice which is in a
+single blade of grass.
+
+A longing came upon Rhoda to go and handle butter. She wished to smell
+it as Mrs. Sumfit drubbed and patted and flattened and rounded it in the
+dairy; and she ran down the slope, meeting her father at the gate. He
+was dressed in his brushed suit, going she knew whither, and when he
+asked if she had seen her uncle, she gave for answer a plain negative,
+and longed more keenly to be at work with her hands, and to smell the
+homely creamy air under the dairy-shed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+She watched her father as he went across the field and into the lane.
+Her breathing was suppressed till he appeared in view at different
+points, more and more distant, and then she sighed heavily, stopped her
+breathing, and hoped her unshaped hope again. The last time he was in
+sight, she found herself calling to him with a voice like that of a
+burdened sleeper: her thought being, "How can you act so cruelly to
+Robert!" He passed up Wrexby Heath, and over the black burnt patch where
+the fire had caught the furzes on a dry Maynight, and sank on the side
+of the Hall.
+
+When we have looked upon a picture of still green life with a troubled
+soul, and the blow falls on us, we accuse Nature of our own treachery
+to her. Rhoda hurried from the dairy-door to shut herself up in her room
+and darken the light surrounding her. She had turned the lock, and
+was about systematically to pull down the blind, when the marvel of
+beholding Dahlia stepping out of the garden made her for a moment less
+the creature of her sickened senses. Dahlia was dressed for a walk, and
+she went very fast. The same paralysis of motion afflicted Rhoda as
+when she was gazing after her father; but her hand stretched out
+instinctively for her bonnet when Dahlia had crossed the green and the
+mill-bridge, and was no more visible. Rhoda drew her bonnet on, and
+caught her black silk mantle in her hand, and without strength to throw
+it across her shoulders, dropped before her bed, and uttered a strange
+prayer. "Let her die rather than go back to disgrace, my God! my God!"
+
+She tried to rise, and failed in the effort, and superstitiously renewed
+her prayer. "Send death to her rather!"--and Rhoda's vision under
+her shut eyes conjured up clouds and lightnings, and spheres in
+conflagration.
+
+There is nothing so indicative of fevered or of bad blood as the
+tendency to counsel the Almighty how he shall deal with his creatures.
+The strain of a long uncertainty, and the late feverish weeks had
+distempered the fine blood of the girl, and her acts and words were
+becoming remoter exponents of her character.
+
+She bent her head in a blind doze that gave her strength to rise. As
+swiftly as she could she went in the track of her sister.
+
+That morning, Robert had likewise received a letter. It was from Major
+Waring, and contained a bank-note, and a summons to London, as also
+an enclosure from Mrs. Boulby of Warbeach; the nature of which was
+an advertisement cut out of the county paper, notifying to one Robert
+Eccles that his aunt Anne had died, and that there was a legacy for him,
+to be paid over upon application. Robert crossed the fields, laughing
+madly at the ironical fate which favoured him a little and a little, and
+never enough, save just to keep him swimming.
+
+The letter from Major Waring said:--
+
+"I must see you immediately. Be quick and come. I begin to be of your
+opinion--there are some things which we must take into our own hands and
+deal summarily with."
+
+"Ay!--ay!" Robert gave tongue in the clear morning air, scenting
+excitement and eager for it as a hound.
+
+More was written, which he read subsequently
+
+   "I wrong," Percy's letter continued, "the best of women. She was
+   driven to my door. There is, it seems, some hope that Dahlia will
+   find herself free. At any rate, keep guard over her, and don't
+   leave her. Mrs. Lovell has herself been moving to make discoveries
+   down at Warbeach. Mr. Blancove has nearly quitted this sphere. She
+   nursed him--I was jealous!--the word's out. Truth, courage, and
+   suffering touch Margaret's heart.
+
+                  "Yours,
+
+                       "Percy."
+
+Jumping over a bank, Robert came upon Anthony, who was unsteadily gazing
+at a donkey that cropped the grass by a gate.
+
+"Here you are," said Robert, and took his arm.
+
+Anthony struggled, though he knew the grasp was friendly; but he was
+led along: nor did Robert stop until they reached Greatham, five miles
+beyond Wrexby, where he entered the principal inn and called for wine.
+
+"You want spirit: you want life," said Robert.
+
+Anthony knew that he wanted no wine, whatever his needs might be. Yet
+the tender ecstacy of being paid for was irresistible, and he drank,
+saying, "Just one glass, then."
+
+Robert pledged him. They were in a private room, of which, having
+ordered up three bottles of sherry, Robert locked the door. The devil
+was in him. He compelled Anthony to drink an equal portion with himself,
+alternately frightening and cajoling the old man.
+
+"Drink, I tell you. You've robbed me, and you shall drink!"
+
+"I haven't, I haven't," Anthony whined.
+
+"Drink, and be silent. You've robbed me, and you shall drink! and by
+heaven! if you resist, I'll hand you over to bluer imps than you've ever
+dreamed of, old gentleman! You've robbed me, Mr. Hackbut. Drink! I tell
+you."
+
+Anthony wept into his glass.
+
+"That's a trick I could never do," said Robert, eyeing the drip of the
+trembling old tear pitilessly. "Your health, Mr. Hackbut. You've robbed
+me of my sweetheart. Never mind. Life's but the pop of a gun. Some of us
+flash in the pan, and they're the only ones that do no mischief. You're
+not one of them, sir; so you must drink, and let me see you cheerful."
+
+By degrees, the wine stirred Anthony's blood, and he chirped feebly, as
+one who half remembered that he ought to be miserable. Robert listened
+to his maundering account of his adventure with the Bank money, sternly
+replenishing his glass. His attention was taken by the sight of Dahlia
+stepping forth from a chemist's shop in the street nearly opposite
+to the inn. "This is my medicine," said Robert; "and yours too," he
+addressed Anthony.
+
+The sun had passed its meridian when they went into the streets again.
+Robert's head was high as a cock's, and Anthony leaned on his arm;
+performing short half-circles headlong to the front, until the mighty
+arm checked and uplifted him. They were soon in the fields leading to
+Wrexby. Robert saw two female figures far ahead. A man was hastening
+to join them. The women started and turned suddenly: one threw up her
+hands, and darkened her face. It was in the pathway of a broad meadow,
+deep with grass, wherein the red sorrel topped the yellow buttercup,
+like rust upon the season's gold. Robert hastened on. He scarce at the
+moment knew the man whose shoulder he seized, but he had recognised
+Dahlia and Rhoda, and he found himself face to face with Sedgett.
+
+"It's you!"
+
+"Perhaps you'll keep your hands off; before you make sure, another
+time."
+
+Robert said: "I really beg your pardon. Step aside with me."
+
+"Not while I've a ha'p'orth o' brains in my noddle," replied Sedgett,
+drawling an imitation of his enemy's courteous tone. "I've come for my
+wife. I'm just down by train, and a bit out of my way, I reckon.
+I'm come, and I'm in a hurry. She shall get home, and have on her
+things--boxes packed, and we go."
+
+Robert waved Dahlia and Rhoda to speed homeward. Anthony had fallen
+against the roots of a banking elm, and surveyed the scene with
+philosophic abstractedness. Rhoda moved, taking Dahlia's hand.
+
+"Stop," cried Sedgett. "Do you people here think me a fool? Eccles, you
+know me better 'n that. That young woman's my wife. I've come for her, I
+tell ye."
+
+"You've no claim on her," Rhoda burst forth weakly, and quivered, and
+turned her eyes supplicatingly on Robert. Dahlia was a statue of icy
+fright.
+
+"You've thrown her off, man, and sold what rights you had," said Robert,
+spying for the point of his person where he might grasp the wretch and
+keep him off.
+
+"That don't hold in law," Sedgett nodded. "A man may get in a passion,
+when he finds he's been cheated, mayn't he?"
+
+"I have your word of honour," said Rhoda; muttering, "Oh! devil come to
+wrong us!"
+
+"Then, you shouldn't ha' run ferreting down in my part o' the country.
+You, or Eccles--I don't care who 'tis--you've been at my servants to get
+at my secrets. Some of you have. You've declared war. You've been trying
+to undermine me. That's a breach, I call it. Anyhow, I've come for my
+wife. I'll have her."
+
+"None of us, none of us; no one has been to your house," said Rhoda,
+vehemently. "You live in Hampshire, sir, I think; I don't know any more.
+I don't know where. I have not asked my sister. Oh! spare us, and go."
+
+"No one has been down into your part of the country," said Robert, with
+perfect mildness.
+
+To which Sedgett answered bluffly, "There ye lie, Bob Eccles;" and he
+was immediately felled by a tremendous blow. Robert strode over him,
+and taking Dahlia by the elbow, walked three paces on, as to set her in
+motion. "Off!" he cried to Rhoda, whose eyelids cowered under the blaze
+of his face.
+
+It was best that her sister should be away, and she turned and walked
+swiftly, hurrying Dahlia, and touching her. "Oh! don't touch my arm,"
+Dahlia said, quailing in the fall of her breath. They footed together,
+speechless; taking the woman's quickest gliding step. At the last stile
+of the fields, Rhoda saw that they were not followed. She stopped,
+panting: her heart and eyes were so full of that flaming creature who
+was her lover. Dahlia took from her bosom the letter she had won in the
+morning, and held it open in both hands to read it. The pause was short.
+Dahlia struck the letter into her bosom again, and her starved features
+had some of the bloom of life. She kept her right hand in her pocket,
+and Rhoda presently asked,--
+
+"What have you there?"
+
+"You are my enemy, dear, in some things," Dahlia replied, a muscular
+shiver passing over her.
+
+"I think," said Rhoda, "I could get a little money to send you away.
+Will you go? I am full of grief for what I have done. God forgive me."
+
+"Pray, don't speak so; don't let us talk," said Dahlia.
+
+Scorched as she felt both in soul and body, a touch or a word was a
+wound to her. Yet she was the first to resume: "I think I shall be
+saved. I can't quite feel I am lost. I have not been so wicked as that."
+
+Rhoda gave a loving answer, and again Dahlia shrank from the miserable
+comfort of words.
+
+As they came upon the green fronting the iron gateway, Rhoda perceived
+that the board proclaiming the sale of Queen Anne's Farm had been
+removed, and now she understood her father's readiness to go up to
+Wrexby Hall. "He would sell me to save the farm." She reproached herself
+for the thought, but she could not be just; she had the image of her
+father plodding relentlessly over the burnt heath to the Hall, as
+conceived by her agonized sensations in the morning, too vividly to be
+just, though still she knew that her own indecision was to blame.
+
+Master Gammon met them in the garden.
+
+Pointing aloft, over the gateway, "That's down," he remarked, and
+the three green front teeth of his quiet grin were stamped on the
+impressionable vision of the girls in such a way that they looked at one
+another with a bare bitter smile. Once it would have been mirth.
+
+"Tell father," Dahlia said, when they were at the back doorway, and her
+eyes sparkled piteously, and she bit on her underlip. Rhoda tried to
+detain her; but Dahlia repeated, "Tell father," and in strength and in
+will had become more than a match for her sister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+Rhoda spoke to her father from the doorway, with her hand upon the lock
+of the door.
+
+At first he paid little attention to her, and, when he did so, began
+by saying that he hoped she knew that she was bound to have the young
+squire, and did not intend to be prankish and wilful; because the young
+squire was eager to settle affairs, that he might be settled himself.
+"I don't deny it's honour to us, and it's a comfort," said the farmer.
+"This is the first morning I've thought easily in my chair for years.
+I'm sorry about Robert, who's a twice unlucky 'un; but you aimed at
+something higher, I suppose."
+
+Rhoda was prompted to say a word in self-defence, but refrained, and
+again she told Dahlia's story, wondering that her father showed no
+excitement of any kind. On the contrary, there was the dimple of one of
+his voiceless chuckles moving about the hollow of one cheek, indicating
+some slow contemplative action that was not unpleasant within. He said:
+"Ah! well, it's very sad;--that is, if 'tis so," and no more, for a
+time.
+
+She discovered that he was referring to her uncle Anthony, concerning
+whose fortunate position in the world, he was beginning to entertain
+some doubts. "Or else," said the farmer, with a tap on his forehead,
+"he's going here. It 'd be odd after all, if commercially, as he 'd call
+it, his despised brother-in-law--and I say it in all kindness--should
+turn out worth, not exactly millions, but worth a trifle."
+
+The farmer nodded with an air of deprecating satisfaction.
+
+Rhoda did not gain his ear until, as by an instinct, she perceived what
+interest the story of her uncle and the money-bags would have for him.
+She related it, and he was roused. Then, for the third time, she told
+him of Dahlia.
+
+Rhoda saw her father's chest grow large, while his eyes quickened with
+light. He looked on her with quite a strange face. Wrath, and a
+revived apprehension, and a fixed will were expressed in it, and as he
+catechized her for each particular of the truth which had been concealed
+from him, she felt a respectfulness that was new in her personal
+sensations toward her father, but it was at the expense of her love.
+
+When he had heard and comprehended all, he said, "Send the girl down to
+me."
+
+But Rhoda pleaded, "She is too worn, she is tottering. She cannot endure
+a word on this; not even of kindness and help."
+
+"Then, you," said the farmer, "you tell her she's got a duty's her first
+duty now. Obedience to her husband! Do you hear? Then, let her hear it.
+Obedience to her husband! And welcome's the man when he calls on me.
+He's welcome. My doors are open to him. I thank him. I honour him. I
+bless his name. It's to him I owe--You go up to her and say, her father
+owes it to the young man who's married her that he can lift up his head.
+Go aloft. Ay! for years I've been suspecting something of this. I tell
+ye, girl, I don't understand about church doors and castin' of her
+off--he's come for her, hasn't he? Then, he shall have her. I tell ye,
+I don't understand about money: he's married her. Well, then, she's his
+wife; and how can he bargain not to see her?"
+
+"The base wretch!" cried Rhoda.
+
+"Hasn't he married her?" the farmer retorted. "Hasn't he given the poor
+creature a name? I'm not for abusing her, but him I do thank, and I say,
+when he calls, here's my hand for him. Here, it's out and waiting for
+him."
+
+"Father, if you let me see it--" Rhoda checked the intemperate outburst.
+"Father, this is a bad--a bad man. He is a very wicked man. We were all
+deceived by him. Robert knows him. He has known him for years, and knows
+that he is very wicked. This man married our Dahlia to get--" Rhoda
+gasped, and could not speak it. "He flung her off with horrible words at
+the church door. After this, how can he claim her? I paid him all he had
+to expect with uncle's money, for his promise by his sacred oath never,
+never to disturb or come near my sister. After that he can't, can't
+claim her. If he does--"
+
+"He's her husband," interrupted the farmer; "when he comes here, he's
+welcome. I say he's welcome. My hand's out to him:--If it's alone
+that he's saved the name of Fleming from disgrace! I thank him, and my
+daughter belongs to him. Where is he now? You talk of a scuffle with
+Robert. I do hope Robert will not forget his proper behaviour. Go you up
+to your sister, and say from me--All's forgotten and forgiven; say, It's
+all underfoot; but she must learn to be a good girl from this day. And,
+if she's at the gate to welcome her husband, so much the better 'll her
+father be pleased;--say that. I want to see the man. It'll gratify me
+to feel her husband's flesh and blood. His being out of sight so long's
+been a sore at my heart; and when I see him I'll welcome him, and so
+must all in my house."
+
+This was how William Fleming received the confession of his daughter's
+unhappy plight.
+
+Rhoda might have pleaded Dahlia's case better, but that she was too
+shocked and outraged by the selfishness she saw in her father, and the
+partial desire to scourge which she was too intuitively keen at
+the moment not to perceive in the paternal forgiveness, and in the
+stipulation of the forgiveness.
+
+She went upstairs to Dahlia, simply stating that their father was aware
+of all the circumstances.
+
+Dahlia looked at her, but dared ask nothing.
+
+So the day passed. Neither Robert nor Anthony appeared. The night came:
+all doors were locked. The sisters that night slept together, feeling
+the very pulses of the hours; yet neither of them absolutely hopelessly,
+although in a great anguish.
+
+Rhoda was dressed by daylight. The old familiar country about the house
+lay still as if it knew no expectation. She observed Master Gammon
+tramping forth afield, and presently heard her father's voice below. All
+the machinery of the daily life got into motion; but it was evident that
+Robert and Anthony continued to be absent. A thought struck her that
+Robert had killed the man. It came with a flash of joy that was speedily
+terror, and she fell to praying vehemently and vaguely. Dahlia lay
+exhausted on the bed, but nigh the hour when letters were delivered, she
+sat up, saying, "There is one for me; get it."
+
+There was in truth a letter for her below, and it was in her father's
+hand and open.
+
+"Come out," said the farmer, as Rhoda entered to him. When they were in
+the garden, he commanded her to read and tell him the meaning of it. The
+letter was addressed to Dahlia Fleming.
+
+"It's for my sister," Rhoda murmured, in anger, but more in fear.
+
+She was sternly bidden to read, and she read,--
+
+   Dahlia,--There is mercy for us. You are not lost to me.
+
+                  "Edward."
+
+After this, was appended in a feminine hand:--
+
+   "There is really hope. A few hours will tell us. But keep firm.
+   If he comes near you, keep from him. You are not his. Run, hide,
+   go anywhere, if you have reason to think he is near. I dare not
+   write what it is we expect. Yesterday I told you to hope; to-day I
+   can say, believe that you will be saved. You are not lost.
+   Everything depends on your firmness.
+
+                  "Margaret L."
+
+Rhoda lifted up her eyes.
+
+The farmer seized the letter, and laid his finger on the first
+signature.
+
+"Is that the christian name of my girl's seducer?"
+
+He did not wait for an answer, but turned and went into the
+breakfast-table, when he ordered a tray with breakfast for Dahlia to
+betaken up to her bed-room; and that done, he himself turned the key
+of the door, and secured her. Mute woe was on Mrs. Sumfit's face at
+all these strange doings, but none heeded her, and she smothered her
+lamentations. The farmer spoke nothing either of Robert or of Anthony.
+He sat in his chair till the dinner hour, without book or pipe, without
+occupation for eyes or hands; silent, but acute in his hearing.
+
+The afternoon brought relief to Rhoda's apprehensions. A messenger ran
+up to the farm bearing a pencilled note to her from Robert, which said
+that he, in company with her uncle, was holding Sedgett at a distance
+by force of arm, and that there was no fear. Rhoda kissed the words,
+hurrying away to the fields for a few minutes to thank and bless and
+dream of him who had said that there was no fear. She knew that Dahlia
+was unconscious of her imprisonment, and had less compunction in
+counting the minutes of her absence. The sun spread in yellow and fell
+in red before she thought of returning, so sweet it had become to her
+to let her mind dwell with Robert; and she was half a stranger to the
+mournfulness of the house when she set her steps homeward. But when she
+lifted the latch of the gate, a sensation, prompted by some unwitting
+self-accusal, struck her with alarm. She passed into the room, and
+beheld her father, and Mrs. Sumfit, who was sitting rolling, with her
+apron over her head.
+
+The man Sedgett was between them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+No sooner had Rhoda appeared than her father held up the key of Dahlia's
+bed-room, and said, "Unlock your sister, and fetch her down to her
+husband."
+
+Mechanically Rhoda took the key.
+
+"And leave our door open," he added.
+
+She went up to Dahlia, sick with a sudden fright lest evil had come to
+Robert, seeing that his enemy was here; but that was swept from her by
+Dahlia's aspect.
+
+"He is in the house," Dahlia said; and asked, "Was there no letter--no
+letter; none, this morning?"
+
+Rhoda clasped her in her arms, seeking to check the convulsions of her
+trembling.
+
+"No letter! no letter! none? not any? Oh! no letter for me!"
+
+The strange varying tones of musical interjection and interrogation were
+pitiful to hear.
+
+"Did you look for a letter?" said Rhoda, despising herself for so
+speaking.
+
+"He is in the house! Where is my letter?"
+
+"What was it you hoped? what was it you expected, darling?"
+
+Dahlia moaned: "I don't know. I'm blind. I was told to hope. Yesterday I
+had my letter, and it told me to hope. He is in the house!"
+
+"Oh, my dear, my love!" cried Rhoda; "come down a minute. See him. It is
+father's wish. Come only for a minute. Come, to gain time, if there is
+hope."
+
+"But there was no letter for me this morning, Rhoda. I can't hope. I am
+lost. He is in the house!"
+
+"Dearest, there was a letter," said Rhoda, doubting that she did well in
+revealing it.
+
+Dahlia put out her hands dumb for the letter.
+
+"Father opened it, and read it, and keeps it," said Rhoda, clinging
+tight to the stricken form.
+
+"Then, he is against me? Oh, my letter!" Dahlia wrung her hands.
+
+While they were speaking, their father's voice was heard below calling
+for Dahlia to descend. He came thrice to the foot of the stairs, and
+shouted for her.
+
+The third time he uttered a threat that sprang an answer from her bosom
+in shrieks.
+
+Rhoda went out on the landing and said softly, "Come up to her, father."
+
+After a little hesitation, he ascended the stairs.
+
+"Why, girl, I only ask you to come down and see your husband," he
+remarked with an attempt at kindliness of tone. "What's the harm, then?
+Come and see him; that's all; come and see him."
+
+Dahlia was shrinking out of her father's sight as he stood in the
+doorway. "Say," she communicated to Rhoda, "say, I want my letter."
+
+"Come!" William Fleming grew impatient.
+
+"Let her have her letter, father," said Rhoda. "You have no right to
+withhold it."
+
+"That letter, my girl" (he touched Rhoda's shoulder as to satisfy
+her that he was not angry), "that letter's where it ought to be.
+I've puzzled out the meaning of it. That letter's in her husband's
+possession."
+
+Dahlia, with her ears stretching for all that might be uttered, heard
+this. Passing round the door, she fronted her father.
+
+"My letter gone to him!" she cried. "Shameful old man! Can you look on
+me? Father, could you give it? I'm a dead woman."
+
+She smote her bosom, stumbling backward upon Rhoda's arm.
+
+"You have been a wicked girl," the ordinarily unmoved old man retorted.
+"Your husband has come for you, and you go with him. Know that, and let
+me hear no threats. He's a modest-minded, quiet young man, and a farmer
+like myself, and needn't be better than he is. Come you down to him at
+once. I'll tell you: he comes to take you away, and his cart's at the
+gate. To the gate you go with him. When next I see you--you visiting me
+or I visiting you--I shall see a respected creature, and not what you
+have been and want to be. You have racked the household with fear
+and shame for years. Now come, and carry out what you've begun in the
+contrary direction. You've got my word o' command, dead woman or live
+woman. Rhoda, take one elbow of your sister. Your aunt's coming up to
+pack her box. I say I'm determined, and no one stops me when I say that.
+Come out, Dahlia, and let our parting be like between parent and child.
+Here's the dark falling, and your husband's anxious to be away. He has
+business, and 'll hardly get you to the station for the last train to
+town. Hark at him below! He's naturally astonished, he is, and you're
+trying his temper, as you'd try any man's. He wants to be off. Come, and
+when next we meet I shall see you a happy wife."
+
+He might as well have spoken to a corpse.
+
+"Speak to her still, father," said Rhoda, as she drew a chair upon which
+she leaned her sister's body, and ran down full of the power of hate and
+loathing to confront Sedgett; but great as was that power within her,
+it was overmatched by his brutal resolution to take his wife away. No
+argument, no irony, no appeals, can long withstand the iteration of
+a dogged phrase. "I've come for my wife," Sedgett said to all her
+instances. His voice was waxing loud and insolent, and, as it sounded,
+Mrs. Sumfit moaned and flapped her apron.
+
+"Then, how could you have married him?"
+
+They heard the farmer's roar of this unanswerable thing, aloft.
+
+"Yes--how! how!" cried Rhoda below, utterly forgetting the part she had
+played in the marriage.
+
+"It's too late to hate a man when you've married him, my girl."
+
+Sedgett went out to the foot of the stairs.
+
+"Mr. Fleming--she's my wife. I'll teach her about hating and loving.
+I'll behave well to her, I swear. I'm in the midst of enemies; but I say
+I do love my wife, and I've come for her, and have her I will. Now,
+in two minutes' time. Mr. Fleming, my cart's at the gate, and I've got
+business, and she's my wife."
+
+The farmer called for Mrs. Sumfit to come up and pack Dahlia's box, and
+the forlorn woman made her way to the bedroom. All the house was silent.
+Rhoda closed her sight, and she thought: "Does God totally abandon us?"
+
+She let her father hear: "Father, you know that you are killing your
+child."
+
+"I hear ye, my lass," said he.
+
+"She will die, father."
+
+"I hear ye, I hear ye."
+
+"She will die, father."
+
+He stamped furiously, exclaiming: "Who's got the law of her better and
+above a husband? Hear reason, and come and help and fetch down your
+sister. She goes!"
+
+"Father!" Rhoda cried, looking at her open hands, as if she marvelled to
+see them helpless.
+
+There was for a time that silence which reigns in a sickchamber when
+the man of medicine takes the patient's wrist. And in the silence came a
+blessed sound--the lifting of a latch. Rhoda saw Robert's face.
+
+"So," said Robert, as she neared him, "you needn't tell me what's
+happened. Here's the man, I see. He dodged me cleverly. The hound wants
+practice; the fox is born with his cunning."
+
+Few words were required to make him understand the position of things in
+the house. Rhoda spoke out all without hesitation in Sedgett's hearing.
+
+But the farmer respected Robert enough to come down to him and explain
+his views of his duty and his daughter's duty. By the kitchen firelight
+he and Robert and Sedgett read one another's countenances.
+
+"He has a proper claim to take his wife, Robert," said the farmer. "He's
+righted her before the world, and I thank him; and if he asks for her of
+me he must have her, and he shall."
+
+"All right, sir," replied Robert, "and I say too, shall, when I'm stiff
+as log-wood."
+
+"Oh! Robert, Robert!" Rhoda cried in great joy.
+
+"Do you mean that you step 'twixt me and my own?" said Mr. Fleming.
+
+"I won't let you nod at downright murder--that's all," said Robert.
+"She--Dahlia, take the hand of that creature!"
+
+"Why did she marry me?" thundered Sedgett.
+
+"There's one o' the wonders!" Robert rejoined. "Except that you're an
+amazingly clever hypocrite with women; and she was just half dead and
+had no will of her own; and some one set you to hunt her down. I tell
+you, Mr. Fleming, you might as well send your daughter to the hangman as
+put her in this fellow's hands."
+
+"She's his wife, man."
+
+"May be," Robert assented.
+
+"You, Robert Eccles!" said Sedgett hoarsely; "I've come for my wife--do
+you hear?"
+
+"You have, I dare say," returned Robert. "You dodged me cleverly, that
+you did. I'd like to know how it was done. I see you've got a cart
+outside and a boy at the horse's head. The horse steps well, does he?
+I'm about three hours behind him, I reckon:--not too late, though!"
+
+He let fall a great breath of weariness.
+
+Rhoda went to the cupboard and drew forth a rarely touched bottle of
+spirits, with which she filled a small glass, and handing the glass to
+him, said, "Drink." He smiled kindly and drank it off.
+
+"The man's in your house, Mr. Fleming," he said.
+
+"And he's my guest, and my daughter's husband, remember that," said the
+farmer.
+
+"And mean to wait not half a minute longer till I've taken her off--mark
+that," Sedgett struck in. "Now, Mr. Fleming, you see you keep good your
+word to me."
+
+"I'll do no less," said the farmer. He went into the passage shouting
+for Mrs. Sumfit to bring down the box.
+
+"She begs," Mrs. Sumfit answered to him--"She begs, William, on'y a
+short five minutes to pray by herself, which you will grant unto her,
+dear, you will. Lord! what's come upon us?"
+
+"Quick, and down with the box, then, mother," he rejoined.
+
+The box was dragged out, and Dahlia's door was shut, that she might have
+her last minutes alone.
+
+Rhoda kissed her sister before leaving her alone: and so cold were
+Dahlia's lips, so tight the clutch of her hands, that she said:
+"Dearest, think of God:" and Dahlia replied: "I do."
+
+"He will not forsake you," Rhoda said.
+
+Dahlia nodded, with shut eyes, and Rhoda went forth.
+
+"And now, Robert, you and I'll see who's master on these premises," said
+the farmer. "Hear, all! I'm bounders under a sacred obligation to the
+husband of my child, and the Lord's wrath on him who interferes and
+lifts his hand against me when I perform my sacred duty as a father.
+Place there! I'm going to open the door. Rhoda, see to your sister's
+bonnet and things. Robert, stand out of my way. There's no refreshment
+of any sort you'll accept of before starting, Mr. Sedgett? None at all!
+That's no fault of my hospitality. Stand out of my way, Robert."
+
+He was obeyed. Robert looked at Rhoda, but had no reply for her gaze of
+despair.
+
+The farmer threw the door wide open.
+
+There were people in the garden--strangers. His name was inquired
+for out of the dusk. Then whisperings were heard passing among the
+ill-discerned forms, and the farmer went out to them. Robert listened
+keenly, but the touch of Rhoda's hand upon his own distracted his
+hearing. "Yet it must be!" he said. "Why does she come here?"
+
+Both he and Rhoda followed the farmer's steps, drawn forth by the
+ever-credulous eagerness which arises from an interruption to excited
+wretchedness. Near and nearer to the group, they heard a quaint old
+woman exclaim: "Come here to you for a wife, when he has one of his own
+at home; a poor thing he shipped off to America, thinking himself more
+cunning than devils or angels: and she got put out at a port, owing to
+stress of weather, to defeat the man's wickedness! Can't I prove it to
+you, sir, he's a married man, which none of us in our village knew till
+the poor tricked thing crawled back penniless to find him;--and there
+she is now with such a story of his cunning to tell to anybody as will
+listen; and why he kept it secret to get her pension paid him still on.
+It's all such a tale for you to hear by-and-by."
+
+Robert burst into a glorious laugh.
+
+"Why, mother! Mrs. Boulby! haven't you got a word for me?"
+
+"My blessedest Robert!" the good woman cried, as she rushed up to kiss
+him. "Though it wasn't to see you I came exactly." She whispered: "The
+Major and the good gentleman--they're behind. I travelled down with
+them. Dear,--you'd like to know:--Mrs. Lovell sent her little cunning
+groom down to Warbeach just two weeks back to make inquiries about that
+villain; and the groom left me her address, in case, my dear, when
+the poor creature--his true wife--crawled home, and we knew of her at
+Three-Tree Farm and knew her story. I wrote word at once, I did, to Mrs.
+Lovell, and the sweet good lady sent down her groom to fetch me to
+you to make things clear here. You shall understand them soon. It's
+Providence at work. I do believe that now there's a chance o' punishing
+the wicked ones."
+
+The figure of Rhoda with two lights in her hand was seen in the porch,
+and by the shadowy rays she beheld old Anthony leaning against the
+house, and Major Waring with a gentleman beside him close upon the gate.
+
+At the same time a sound of wheels was heard.
+
+Robert rushed back into the great parlour-kitchen, and finding it empty,
+stamped with vexation. His prey had escaped.
+
+But there was no relapse to give spare thoughts to that pollution of the
+house. It had passed. Major Waring was talking earnestly to Mr. Fleming,
+who held his head low, stupefied, and aware only of the fact that it
+was a gentleman imparting to him strange matters. By degrees all were
+beneath the farmer's roof--all, save one, who stood with bowed head by
+the threshold.
+
+There is a sort of hero, and a sort of villain, to this story: they are
+but instruments. Hero and villain are combined in the person of Edward,
+who was now here to abase himself before the old man and the family he
+had injured, and to kneel penitently at the feet of the woman who had
+just reason to spurn him. He had sold her as a slave is sold; he had
+seen her plunged into the blackest pit; yet was she miraculously kept
+pure for him, and if she could give him her pardon, might still be his.
+The grief for which he could ask no compassion had at least purified him
+to meet her embrace. The great agony he had passed through of late had
+killed his meaner pride. He stood there ready to come forward and ask
+forgiveness from unfriendly faces, and beg that he might be in Dahlia's
+eyes once--that he might see her once.
+
+He had grown to love her with the fullest force of a selfish, though
+not a common, nature. Or rather he had always loved her, and much of the
+selfishness had fallen away from his love. It was not the highest form
+of love, but the love was his highest development. He had heard that
+Dahlia, lost to him, was free. Something like the mortal yearning to
+look upon the dead risen to life, made it impossible for him to remain
+absent and in doubt. He was ready to submit to every humiliation that he
+might see the rescued features; he was willing to pay all his penalties.
+Believing, too, that he was forgiven, he knew that Dahlia's heart would
+throb for him to be near her, and he had come.
+
+The miraculous agencies which had brought him and Major Waring and Mrs.
+Boulby to the farm, that exalted woman was relating to Mrs. Sumfit in
+another part of the house.
+
+The farmer, and Percy, and Robert were in the family sitting-room,
+when, after an interval, William Fleming said aloud, "Come in, sir," and
+Edward stepped in among them.
+
+Rhoda was above, seeking admittance to her sisters door, and she heard
+her father utter that welcome. It froze her limbs, for still she hated
+the evil-doer. Her hatred of him was a passion. She crouched over the
+stairs, listening to a low and long-toned voice monotonously telling
+what seemed to be one sole thing over and over, without variation, in
+the room where the men were. Words were indistinguishable. Thrice, after
+calling to Dahlia and getting no response, she listened again, and awe
+took her soul at last, for, abhorred as he was by her, his power was
+felt: she comprehended something of that earnestness which made the
+offender speak of his wrongful deeds, and his shame, and his remorse,
+before his fellow-men, straight out and calmly, like one who has been
+plunged up to the middle in the fires of the abyss, and is thereafter
+insensible to meaner pains. The voice ended. She was then aware that
+it had put a charm upon her ears. The other voices following it sounded
+dull.
+
+"Has he--can he have confessed in words all his wicked baseness?" she
+thought, and in her soul the magnitude of his crime threw a gleam of
+splendour on his courage, even at the bare thought that he might have
+done this. Feeling that Dahlia was saved, and thenceforth at liberty to
+despise him and torture him, Rhoda the more readily acknowledged that it
+might be a true love for her sister animating him. From the height of a
+possible vengeance it was perceptible.
+
+She turned to her sister's door and knocked at it, calling to her,
+"Safe, safe!" but there came no answer; and she was half glad, for she
+had a fear that in the quick revulsion of her sister's feelings, mere
+earthly love would act like heavenly charity, and Edward would find
+himself forgiven only too instantly and heartily.
+
+In the small musk-scented guest's parlour, Mrs. Boulby was giving
+Mrs. Sumfit and poor old sleepy Anthony the account of the miraculous
+discovery of Sedgett's wickedness, which had vindicated all one hoped
+for from Above; as also the narration of the stabbing of her boy, and
+the heroism and great-heartedness of Robert. Rhoda listened to her for
+a space, and went to her sister's door again; but when she stood outside
+the kitchen she found all voices silent within.
+
+It was, in truth, not only very difficult for William Fleming to change
+his view of the complexion of circumstances as rapidly as circumstances
+themselves changed, but it was very bitter for him to look upon Edward,
+and to see him in the place of Sedgett.
+
+He had been struck dumb by the sudden revolution of affairs in his
+house; and he had been deferentially convinced by Major Waring's tone
+that he ought rightly to give his hearing to an unknown young gentleman
+against whom anger was due. He had listened to Edward without one
+particle of comprehension, except of the fact that his behaviour was
+extraordinary. He understood that every admission made by Edward with
+such grave and strange directness, would justly have condemned him
+to punishment which the culprit's odd, and upright, and even-toned
+self-denunciation rendered it impossible to think of inflicting. He
+knew likewise that a whole history was being narrated to him, and that,
+although the other two listeners manifestly did not approve it, they
+expected him to show some tolerance to the speaker.
+
+He said once, "Robert, do me the favour to look about outside for t'
+other." Robert answered him, that the man was far away by this time.
+
+The farmer suggested that he might be waiting to say his word presently.
+
+"Don't you know you've been dealing with a villain, sir?" cried Robert.
+"Throw ever so little light upon one of that breed, and they skulk in
+a hurry. Mr. Fleming, for the sake of your honour, don't mention him
+again. What you're asked to do now, is to bury the thoughts of him."
+
+"He righted my daughter when there was shame on her," the farmer
+replied.
+
+That was the idea printed simply on his understanding.
+
+For Edward to hear it was worse than a scourging with rods. He bore it,
+telling the last vitality of his pride to sleep, and comforting himself
+with the drowsy sensuous expectation that he was soon to press the hand
+of his lost one, his beloved, who was in the house, breathing the same
+air with him; was perhaps in the room above, perhaps sitting impatiently
+with clasped fingers, waiting for the signal to unlock them and fling
+them open. He could imagine the damp touch of very expectant fingers;
+the dying look of life-drinking eyes; and, oh! the helplessness of her
+limbs as she sat buoying a heart drowned in bliss.
+
+It was unknown to him that the peril of her uttermost misery had been
+so imminent, and the picture conjured of her in his mind was that of a
+gentle but troubled face--a soul afflicted, yet hoping because it had
+been told to hope, and half conscious that a rescue, almost divine in
+its suddenness and unexpectedness, and its perfect clearing away of all
+shadows, approached.
+
+Manifestly, by the pallid cast of his visage, he had tasted shrewd and
+wasting grief of late. Robert's heart melted as he beheld the change in
+Edward.
+
+"I believe, Mr. Blancove, I'm a little to blame," he said. "Perhaps when
+I behaved so badly down at Fairly, you may have thought she sent me, and
+it set your heart against her for a time. I can just understand how it
+might."
+
+Edward thought for a moment, and conscientiously accepted the
+suggestion; for, standing under that roof, with her whom he loved near
+him, it was absolutely out of his power for him to comprehend that his
+wish to break from Dahlia, and the measures he had taken or consented
+to, had sprung from his own unassisted temporary baseness.
+
+Then Robert spoke to the farmer.
+
+Rhoda could hear Robert's words. Her fear was that Dahlia might hear
+them too, his pleading for Edward was so hearty. "Yet why should I
+always think differently from Robert?" she asked herself, and with that
+excuse for changeing, partially thawed.
+
+She was very anxious for her father's reply; and it was late in coming.
+She felt that he was unconvinced. But suddenly the door opened, and the
+farmer called into the darkness,--
+
+"Dahlia down here!"
+
+Previously emotionless, an emotion was started in Rhoda's bosom by the
+command, and it was gladness. She ran up and knocked, and found herself
+crying out: "He is here--Edward."
+
+But there came no answer.
+
+"Edward is here. Come, come and see him."
+
+Still not one faint reply.
+
+"Dahlia! Dahlia!"
+
+The call of Dahlia's name seemed to travel endlessly on. Rhoda knelt,
+and putting her mouth to the door, said,--
+
+"My darling, I know you will reply to me. I know you do not doubt me
+now. Listen. You are to come down to happiness."
+
+The silence grew heavier; and now a doubt came shrieking through her
+soul.
+
+"Father!" rang her outcry.
+
+The father came; and then the lover came, and neither to father nor to
+lover was there any word from Dahlia's voice.
+
+She was found by the side of the bed, inanimate, and pale as a sister of
+death.
+
+But you who may have cared for her through her many tribulations, have
+no fear for this gentle heart. It was near the worst; yet not the worst.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+Up to the black gates, but not beyond them. The dawn following such a
+night will seem more like a daughter of the night than promise of day.
+It is day that follows, notwithstanding: The sad fair girl survived,
+and her flickering life was the sole light of the household; at
+times burying its members in dusk, to shine on them again more like a
+prolonged farewell than a gladsome restoration.
+
+She was saved by what we call chance; for it had not been in her design
+to save herself. The hand was firm to help her to the deadly draught. As
+far as could be conjectured, she had drunk it between hurried readings
+from her mother's Bible; the one true companion to which she had often
+clung, always half-availingly. The Bible was found by her side, as if
+it had fallen from the chair before which she knelt to read her last
+quickening verses, and had fallen with her. One arm was about it; one
+grasped the broken phial with its hideous label.
+
+It was uncomplainingly registered among the few facts very distinctly
+legible in Master Gammon's memory, that for three entire weeks he had
+no dumplings for dinner at the farm; and although, upon a computation,
+articles of that description, amounting probably to sixty-three (if
+there is any need for our being precise), were due to him, and would
+necessarily be for evermore due to him, seeing that it is beyond all
+human and even spiritual agency to make good unto man the dinner he has
+lost, Master Gammon uttered no word to show that he was sensible of a
+slight, which was the only indication given by him of his knowledge of a
+calamity having changed the order of things at the farm. On the day when
+dumplings reappeared, he remarked, with a glance at the ceiling: "Goin'
+on better--eh, marm?"
+
+"Oh! Mas' Gammon," Mrs. Sumfit burst out; "if I was only certain you
+said your prayers faithful every night!" The observation was apparently
+taken by Master Gammon to express one of the mere emotions within her
+bosom, for he did not reply to it.
+
+She watched him feeding in his steady way, with the patient bent back,
+and slowly chopping old grey jaws, and struck by a pathos in the sight,
+exclaimed,--
+
+"We've all been searched so, Mas' Gammon! I feel I know everything
+that's in me. I'd say, I couldn't ha' given you dumplin's and tears; but
+think of our wickedness, when I confess to you I did feel spiteful at
+you to think that you were wiltin' to eat the dumplin's while all of
+us mourned and rocked as in a quake, expecting the worst to befall; and
+that made me refuse them to you. It was cruel of me, and well may you
+shake your head. If I was only sure you said your prayers!"
+
+The meaning in her aroused heart was, that if she could be sure Master
+Gammon said his prayers, so as to be searched all through by them,
+as she was herself, and to feel thereby, as she did, that he knew
+everything that was within him, she would then, in admiration of his
+profound equanimity, acknowledge him to be a superior Christian.
+
+Naturally enough, Master Gammon allowed the interjection to pass,
+regarding it as simply a vagrant action of the engine of speech; while
+Mrs. Sumfit, with an interjector's consciousness of prodigious things
+implied which were not in any degree comprehended, left his presence
+in kindness, and with a shade less of the sense that he was a superior
+Christian.
+
+Nevertheless, the sight of Master Gammon was like a comforting medicine
+to all who were in the house. He was Mrs. Sumfit's clock; he was balm
+and blessedness in Rhoda's eyes; Anthony was jealous of him; the farmer
+held to him as to a stake in the ground: even Robert, who rallied and
+tormented, and was vexed by him, admitted that he stood some way between
+an example and a warning, and was a study. The grand primaeval quality
+of unchangeableness, as exhibited by this old man, affected them
+singularly in their recovery from the storm and the wreck of the hours
+gone by; so much so that they could not divest themselves of the idea
+that it was a manifestation of power in Master Gammon to show forth
+undisturbed while they were feeling their life shaken in them to
+the depths. I have never had the opportunity of examining the
+idol-worshipping mind of a savage; but it seems possible that the
+immutability of aspect of his little wooden God may sometimes touch him
+with a similar astounded awe;--even when, and indeed especially after,
+he has thrashed it. Had the old man betrayed his mortality in a sign of
+curiosity to know why the hubbub of trouble had arisen, and who was
+to blame, and what was the story, the effect on them would have been
+diminished. He really seemed granite among the turbulent waves. "Give me
+Gammon's life!" was Farmer Fleming's prayerful interjection; seeing him
+come and go, sit at his meals, and sleep and wake in season, all through
+those tragic hours of suspense, without a question to anybody. Once
+or twice, when his eye fell upon the doctor, Master Gammon appeared to
+meditate. He observed that the doctor had never been called in to one
+of his family, and it was evident that he did not understand the
+complication of things which rendered the doctor's visit necessary.
+
+"You'll never live so long as that old man," the farmer said to Robert.
+
+"No; but when he goes, all of him's gone," Robert answered.
+
+"But Gammon's got the wisdom to keep himself safe, Robert; there's no
+one to blame for his wrinkles."
+
+"Gammon's a sheepskin old Time writes his nothings on," said Robert.
+"He's safe--safe enough. An old hulk doesn't very easily manage to
+founder in the mud, and Gammon's been lying on the mud all his life."
+
+"Let that be how 't will," returned the farmer; "I've had days o' mortal
+envy of that old man."
+
+"Well, it's whether you prefer being the fiddle or the fiddle-case,"
+quoth Robert.
+
+Of Anthony the farmer no longer had any envy. In him, though he was as
+passive as Master Gammon, the farmer beheld merely a stupefied old
+man, and not a steady machine. He knew that some queer misfortune had
+befallen Anthony.
+
+"He'll find I'm brotherly," said Mr. Fleming; but Anthony had darkened
+his golden horizon for him, and was no longer an attractive object to
+his vision.
+
+Upon an Autumn afternoon; Dahlia, looking like a pale Spring flower,
+came down among them. She told her sister that it was her wish to see
+Edward. Rhoda had lost all power of will, even if she had desired to
+keep them asunder. She mentioned Dahlia's wish to her father, who at
+once went for his hat, and said: "Dress yourself neat, my lass." She
+knew what was meant by that remark. Messages daily had been coming down
+from the Hall, but the rule of a discerning lady was then established
+there, and Rhoda had been spared a visit from either Edward or Algernon,
+though she knew them to be at hand. During Dahlia's convalescence, the
+farmer had not spoken to Rhoda of her engagement to the young squire.
+The great misery intervening, seemed in her mind to have cancelled all
+earthly engagements; and when he said that she must use care in her
+attire he suddenly revived a dread within her bosom, as if he had
+plucked her to the verge of a chasm.
+
+But Mrs. Lovell's delicacy was still manifest: Edward came alone, and he
+and Dahlia were left apart.
+
+There was no need to ask for pardon from those gentle eyes. They joined
+hands. She was wasted and very weak, but she did not tremble. Passion
+was extinguished. He refrained from speaking of their union, feeling
+sure that they were united. It required that he should see her to know
+fully the sinner he had been. Wasted though she was, he was ready to
+make her his own, if only for the sake of making amends to this dear
+fair soul, whose picture of Saint was impressed on him, first as a
+response to the world wondering at his sacrifice of himself, and next,
+by degrees, as an absolute visible fleshly fact. She had come out of her
+martyrdom stamped with the heavenly sign-mark.
+
+"Those are the old trees I used to speak of," she said, pointing to the
+two pines in the miller's grounds. "They always look like Adam and Eve
+turning away."
+
+"They do not make you unhappy to see them, Dahlia?"
+
+"I hope to see them till I am gone."
+
+Edward pressed her fingers. He thought that warmer hopes would soon flow
+into her.
+
+"The neighbours are kind?" he asked.
+
+"Very kind. They, inquire after me daily."
+
+His cheeks reddened; he had spoken at random, and he wondered that
+Dahlia should feel it pleasurable to be inquired after, she who was so
+sensitive.
+
+"The clergyman sits with me every day, and knows my heart," she added.
+
+"The clergyman is a comfort to women," said Edward.
+
+Dahlia looked at him gently. The round of her thin eyelids dwelt on him.
+She wished. She dared not speak her wish to one whose remembered mastery
+in words forbade her poor speechlessness. But God would hear her prayers
+for him.
+
+Edward begged that he might come to her often, and she said,--
+
+"Come."
+
+He misinterpreted the readiness of the invitation.
+
+When he had left her, he reflected on the absence of all endearing
+epithets in her speech, and missed them. Having himself suffered, he
+required them. For what had she wrestled so sharply with death, if not
+to fall upon his bosom and be his in a great outpouring of gladness? In
+fact he craved the immediate reward for his public acknowledgement of
+his misdeeds. He walked in this neighbourhood known by what he had done,
+and his desire was to take his wife away, never more to be seen there.
+Following so deep a darkness, he wanted at least a cheerful dawn: not
+one of a penitential grey--not a hooded dawn, as if the paths of life
+were to be under cloistral arches. And he wanted a rose of womanhood
+in his hand like that he had parted with, and to recover which he had
+endured every earthly mortification, even to absolute abasement. The
+frail bent lily seemed a stranger to him.
+
+Can a man go farther than his nature? Never, when he takes passion on
+board. By other means his nature may be enlarged and nerved, but passion
+will find his weakness, and, while urging him on, will constantly betray
+him at that point. Edward had three interviews with Dahlia; he wrote to
+her as many times. There was but one answer for him; and when he ceased
+to charge her with unforgivingness, he came to the strange conclusion
+that beyond our calling of a woman a Saint for rhetorical purposes, and
+esteeming her as one for pictorial, it is indeed possible, as he had
+slightly discerned in this woman's presence, both to think her saintly
+and to have the sentiments inspired by the overearthly in her person.
+Her voice, her simple words of writing, her gentle resolve, all issuing
+of a capacity to suffer evil, and pardon it, conveyed that character to
+a mind not soft for receiving such impressions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+Major Waring came to Wrexby Hall at the close of the October month. He
+came to plead his own cause with Mrs. Lovell; but she stopped him by
+telling him that his friend Robert was in some danger of losing his
+love.
+
+"She is a woman, Percy; I anticipate your observation. But, more than
+that, she believes she is obliged to give her hand to my cousin, the
+squire. It's an intricate story relating to money. She does not care for
+Algy a bit, which is not a matter that greatly influences him. He has
+served her in some mysterious way; by relieving an old uncle of hers.
+Algy has got him the office of village postman for this district, I
+believe; if it's that; but I think it should be more, to justify her. At
+all events, she seems to consider that her hand is pledged. You know the
+kind of girl your friend fancies. Besides, her father insists she is to
+marry 'the squire,' which is certainly the most natural thing of all.
+So, don't you think, dear Percy, you had better take your friend on the
+Continent for some weeks? I never, I confess, exactly understood the
+intimacy existing between you, but it must be sincere."
+
+"Are you?" said Percy.
+
+"Yes, perfectly; but always in a roundabout way. Why do you ask me in
+this instance?"
+
+"Because you could stop this silly business in a day."
+
+"I know I could."
+
+"Then, why do you not?"
+
+"Because of a wish to be sincere. Percy, I have been that throughout,
+if you could read me. I tried to deliver my cousin Edward from what I
+thought was a wretched entanglement. His selfish falseness offended me,
+and I let him know that I despised him. When I found that he was a man
+who had courage, and some heart, he gained my friendship once more, and
+I served him as far as I could--happily, as it chanced. I tell you all
+this, because I don't care to forfeit your esteem, and heaven knows, I
+may want it in the days to come. I believe I am the best friend in the
+world--and bad anything else. No one perfectly pleases me, not even
+you: you are too studious of character, and, like myself, exacting of
+perfection in one or two points. But now hear what I have done, and
+approve it if you think fit. I have flirted--abominable word!--I am
+compelled to use the language of the Misses--yes, I have flirted with my
+cousin Algy. I do it too well, I know--by nature! and I hate it. He has
+this morning sent a letter down to the farm saying, that, as he
+believes he has failed in securing Rhoda's affections, he renounces all
+pretensions, etc., subject to her wishes, etc. The courting, I imagine,
+can scarcely have been pleasant to him. My delightful manner with him
+during the last fortnight has been infinitely pleasanter. So, your
+friend Robert may be made happy by-and-by; that is to say, if his Rhoda
+is not too like her sex."
+
+"You're an enchantress," exclaimed Percy.
+
+"Stop," said she, and drifted into seriousness. "Before you praise me
+you must know more. Percy, that duel in India--"
+
+He put out his hand to her.
+
+"Yes, I forgive," she resumed. "You were cruel then. Remember that,
+and try to be just now. The poor boy would go to his doom. I could have
+arrested it. I partly caused it. I thought the honour of the army at
+stake. I was to blame on that day, and I am to blame again, but I feel
+that I am almost excuseable, if you are not too harsh a judge. No, I am
+not; I am execrable; but forgive me."
+
+Percy's face lighted up in horrified amazement as Margaret Lovell
+unfastened the brooch at her neck and took out the dull-red
+handkerchief.
+
+"It was the bond between us," she pursued, "that I was to return this
+to you when I no longer remained my own mistress. Count me a miserably
+heartless woman. I do my best. You brought this handkerchief to me
+dipped in the blood of the poor boy who was slain. I have worn it. It
+was a safeguard. Did you mean it to serve as such? Oh, Percy! I felt
+continually that blood was on my bosom. I felt it fighting with me. It
+has saved me from much. And now I return it to you."
+
+He could barely articulate "Why?"
+
+"Dear friend, by the reading of the bond you should know. I asked you
+when I was leaving India, how long I was to keep it by me. You said,
+'Till you marry.' Do not be vehement, Percy. This is a thing that could
+not have been averted."
+
+"Is it possible," Percy cried, "that you carried the play out so far as
+to promise him to marry him?"
+
+"Your forehead is thunder, Percy. I know that look."
+
+"Margaret, I think I could bear to see our army suffer another defeat
+rather than you should be contemptible."
+
+"Your chastisement is not given in half measures, Percy."
+
+"Speak on," said he; "there is more to come. You are engaged to marry
+him?"
+
+"I engaged that I would take the name of Blancove."
+
+"If he would cease to persecute Rhoda Fleming!"
+
+"The stipulation was exactly in those words."
+
+"You mean to carry it out?"
+
+"To be sincere? I do, Percy!
+
+"You mean to marry Algernon Blancove?"
+
+"I should be contemptible indeed if I did, Percy!
+
+"You do not?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"And you are sincere? By all the powers of earth and heaven, there's no
+madness like dealing with an animated enigma! What is it you do mean?"
+
+"As I said--to be sincere. But I was also bound to be of service to your
+friend. It is easy to be sincere and passive."
+
+Percy struck his brows. "Can you mean that Edward Blancove is the man?"
+
+"Oh! no. Edward will never marry any one. I do him the justice to say
+that his vice is not that of unfaithfulness. He had but one love, and
+her heart is quite dead. There is no marriage for him--she refuses. You
+may not understand the why of that, but women will. She would marry him
+if she could bring herself to it;--the truth is, he killed her pride.
+Her taste for life has gone. She is bent on her sister's marrying your
+friend. She has no other thought of marriage, and never will have. I
+know the state. It is not much unlike mine."
+
+Waring fixed her eyes. "There is a man?"
+
+"Yes," she answered bluntly.
+
+"It is somebody, then, whose banker's account is, I hope, satisfactory."
+
+"Yes, Percy;" she looked eagerly forward, as thanking him for releasing
+her from a difficulty. "You still can use the whip, but I do not feel
+the sting. I marry a banker's account. Do you bear in mind the day I
+sent after you in the park? I had just heard that I was ruined. You know
+my mania for betting. I heard it, and knew when I let my heart warm to
+you that I could never marry you. That is one reason, perhaps, why I
+have been an enigma. I am sincere in telling Algy I shall take the name
+of Blancove. I marry the banker. Now take this old gift of yours."
+
+Percy grasped the handkerchief, and quitted her presence forthwith,
+feeling that he had swallowed a dose of the sex to serve him for a
+lifetime. Yet he lived to reflect on her having decided practically,
+perhaps wisely for all parties. Her debts expunged, she became an old
+gentleman's demure young wife, a sweet hostess, and, as ever, a true
+friend: something of a miracle to one who had inclined to make a heroine
+of her while imagining himself to accurately estimate her deficiencies.
+Honourably by this marriage the lady paid for such wild oats as she had
+sown in youth.
+
+There were joy-bells for Robert and Rhoda, but none for Dahlia and
+Edward.
+
+Dahlia lived seven years her sister's housemate, nurse of the growing
+swarm. She had gone through fire, as few women have done in like manner,
+to leave their hearts among the ashes; but with that human heart she
+left regrets behind her. The soul of this young creature filled its
+place. It shone in her eyes and in her work, a lamp to her little
+neighbourhood; and not less a lamp of cheerful beams for one day being
+as another to her. In truth, she sat above the clouds. When she died she
+relinquished nothing. Others knew the loss. Between her and Robert there
+was deeper community on one subject than she let Rhoda share. Almost
+her last words to him, spoken calmly, but with the quaver of breath
+resembling sobs, were: "Help poor girls."
+
+
+
+
+  ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+  A fleet of South-westerly rainclouds had been met in mid-sky
+  All women are the same--Know one, know all
+  Ashamed of letting his ears be filled with secret talk
+  Borrower to be dancing on Fortune's tight-rope above the old abyss
+  But you must be beautiful to please some men
+  But the key to young men is the ambition, or, in the place of it.....
+  But great, powerful London--the new universe to her spirit
+  Can a man go farther than his nature?
+  Childish faith in the beneficence of the unseen Powers who feed us
+  Cold curiosity
+  Dahlia, the perplexity to her sister's heart, lay stretched....
+  Dead Britons are all Britons, but live Britons are not quite brothers
+  Developing stiff, solid, unobtrusive men, and very personable women
+  Exceeding variety and quantity of things money can buy
+  Found by the side of the bed, inanimate, and pale as a sister of death
+  Full-o'-Beer's a hasty chap
+  Gravely reproaching the tobacconist for the growing costliness of cigars
+  He had no recollection of having ever dined without drinking wine
+  He tried to gather his ideas, but the effort was like that of a light dreamer
+  He lies as naturally as an infant sucks
+  He will be a part of every history (the fool)
+  I haven't got the pluck of a flea
+  I never pay compliments to transparent merit
+  I would cut my tongue out, if it did you a service
+  Inferences are like shadows on the wall
+  It was her prayer to heaven that she might save a doctor's bill
+  Land and beasts! They sound like blessed things
+  Love dies like natural decay
+  Marriage is an awful thing, where there's no love
+  Mrs. Fleming, of Queen Anne's Farm, was the wife of a yeoman
+  My first girl--she's brought disgrace on this house
+  My plain story is of two Kentish damsels
+  One learns to have compassion for fools, by studying them
+  Pleasant companion, who did not play the woman obtrusively among men
+  Principle of examining your hypothesis before you proceed to decide by it
+  Rhoda will love you. She is firm when she loves
+  Silence is commonly the slow poison used by those who mean to murder love
+  Sinners are not to repent only in words
+  So long as we do not know that we are performing any remarkable feat
+  Sort of religion with her to believe no wrong of you
+  The unhappy, who do not wish to live, and cannot die
+  The kindest of men can be cruel
+  The idea of love upon the lips of ordinary men, provoked Dahlia's irony
+  The backstairs of history (Memoirs)
+  The woman seeking for an anomaly wants a master
+  Then, if you will not tell me
+  There were joy-bells for Robert and Rhoda, but none for Dahlia
+  To be a really popular hero anywhere in Britain (must be a drinker)
+  To be her master, however, one must not begin by writhing as her slave
+  Wait till the day's ended before you curse your luck
+  William John Fleming was simply a poor farmer
+  With this money, said the demon, you might speculate
+  Work is medicine
+  You who may have cared for her through her many tribulations, have no fear
+  You choose to give yourself to an obscure dog
+  You're a rank, right-down widow, and no mistake
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Rhoda Fleming, Complete, by George Meredith
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+
+
+RHODA FLEMING, complete
+
+By George Meredith
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+BOOK 1.
+I.        THE KENTISH FAMILY
+II.       QUEEN ANNE'S FARM
+III.      SUGGESTS THE MIGHT OF THE MONEY DEMON
+IV.       THE TEXT FROM SCRIPTURE
+V.        THE SISTERS MEET
+VI.       EDWARD AND ALGERNON
+VII.      GREAT NEWS FROM DAHLIA
+VIII.     INTRODUCES MRS. LOVELL
+IX.       ROBERT INTERVENES
+X.        DAHLIA IS NOT VISIBLE
+XI.       AN INDICATIVE DUET IN A MINOR KEY
+
+BOOK 2.
+XII.      AT THE THEATRE.
+XIII.     THE FARMER SPEAKS
+XIV.      BETWEEN RHODA AND ROBERT
+XI.       A VISIT TO WREXBY HALL
+XII.      AT FAIRLY PARK
+XVII.     A YEOMAN OF THE OLD BREED
+XVIII.    AN ASSEMBLY AT THE PILOT INN
+XIX.      ROBERT SMITTEN LOW
+XX.       MRS. LOVELL SHOWS A TAME BRUTE
+
+BOOK 3.
+XXI.      GIVES A GLIMPSE OF WHAT POOR VILLANIES THE STORY CONTAINS
+XXII.     EDWARD TAKES HIS COURSE
+XXIII.    MAJOR PERCY WARING
+XXIV.     WARBEACH VILLAGE CHURCH
+XXV.      OF THE FEARFUL TEMPTATION WHICH CAME UPON ANTHONY HACKBUT, AND
+          OF HIS MEETING WITH DAHLIA
+XXVI.     IN THE PARK
+XXVII.    CONTAINS A STUDY OF A FOOL IN TROUBLE
+XXVIII.   EDWARD'S LETTER
+XXIX.     FURTHERMORE OF THE FOOL
+
+BOOK 4.
+XXX.      THE EXPIATION
+XXXI.     THE MELTING OF THE THOUSAND
+XXXII.    LA QUESTION D'ARGENT
+XXXIII.   EDWARD'S RETURN
+XXXIV.    FATHER AND SON
+XXXV.     THE NIGHT BEFORE
+XXXVI.    EDWARD MEETS HIS MATCH
+XXXVII.   EDWARD TRIES HIS ELOQUENCE
+XXXVIII.  TOO LATE
+
+BOOK 5.
+XXXIX.    DAHLIA GOES HOME
+XL.       A FREAK OF THE MONEY-DEMON, THAT MAY HAVE BEEN ANTICIPATED
+XLI.      DAHLIA'S FRENZY
+XLII.     ANTHONY IN A COLLAPSE
+XLIII.    RHODA PLEDGES HER HAND
+XLIV.     THE ENEMY APPEARS
+XLV.      THE FARMER IS AWAKENED
+XLVI.     WHEN THE NIGHT IS DARKEST
+XLVII.    DAWN IS NEAR
+XLVIII.   CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+
+RHODA FLEMING
+
+BOOK 1.
+
+I.        THE KENTISH FAMILY
+II.       QUEEN ANNE'S FARM
+III.      SUGGESTS THE MIGHT OF THE MONEY-DEMON
+IV.       THE TEXT FROM SCRIPTURE
+V.        THE SISTERS MEET
+VI.       EDWARD AND ALGERNON
+VII.      GREAT NEWS FROM DAHLIA
+VIII.     INTRODUCES MRS. LOVELL
+IX.       ROBERT INTERVENES
+X.        DAHLIA IS NOT VISIBLE
+XI.       AN INDICATIVE DUET IN A MINOR KEY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Remains of our good yeomanry blood will be found in Kent, developing
+stiff, solid, unobtrusive men, and very personable women.  The
+distinction survives there between Kentish women and women of Kent, as a
+true South-eastern dame will let you know, if it is her fortune to belong
+to that favoured portion of the county where the great battle was fought,
+in which the gentler sex performed manful work, but on what luckless
+heads we hear not; and when garrulous tradition is discreet, the severe
+historic Muse declines to hazard a guess.  Saxon, one would presume,
+since it is thought something to have broken them.
+
+My plain story is of two Kentish damsels, and runs from a home of flowers
+into regions where flowers are few and sickly, on to where the flowers
+which breathe sweet breath have been proved in mortal fire.
+
+Mrs. Fleming, of Queen Anne's Farm, was the wife of a yeoman-farmer of
+the county.  Both were of sound Kentish extraction, albeit varieties of
+the breed.  The farm had its name from a tradition, common to many other
+farmhouses within a circuit of the metropolis, that the ante-Hanoverian
+lady had used the place in her day as a nursery-hospital for the royal
+little ones.  It was a square three-storied building of red brick, much
+beaten and stained by the weather, with an ivied side, up which the ivy
+grew stoutly, topping the roof in triumphant lumps.  The house could
+hardly be termed picturesque.  Its aspect had struck many eyes as being
+very much that of a red-coat sentinel grenadier, battered with service,
+and standing firmly enough, though not at ease.  Surrounding it was a
+high wall, built partly of flint and partly of brick, and ringed all over
+with grey lichen and brown spots of bearded moss, that bore witness to
+the touch of many winds and rains.  Tufts of pale grass, and
+gilliflowers, and travelling stone-crop, hung from the wall, and driblets
+of ivy ran broadening to the outer ground.  The royal Arms were said to
+have surmounted the great iron gateway; but they had vanished, either
+with the family, or at the indications of an approaching rust.  Rust
+defiled its bars; but, when you looked through them, the splendour of an
+unrivalled garden gave vivid signs of youth, and of the taste of an
+orderly, laborious, and cunning hand.
+
+The garden was under Mrs. Fleming's charge.  The joy of her love for it
+was written on its lustrous beds, as poets write.  She had the poetic
+passion for flowers.  Perhaps her taste may now seem questionable.  She
+cherished the old-fashioned delight in tulips; the house was reached on a
+gravel-path between rows of tulips, rich with one natural blush, or
+freaked by art.  She liked a bulk of colour; and when the dahlia dawned
+upon our gardens, she gave her heart to dahlias.  By good desert, the
+fervent woman gained a prize at a flower-show for one of her dahlias, and
+`Dahlia' was the name uttered at the christening of her eldest daughter,
+at which all Wrexby parish laughed as long as the joke could last.  There
+was laughter also when Mrs. Fleming's second daughter received the name
+of 'Rhoda;' but it did not endure for so long a space, as it was known
+that she had taken more to the solitary and reflective reading of her
+Bible, and to thoughts upon flowers eternal.  Country people are not
+inclined to tolerate the display of a passion for anything.  They find it
+as intrusive and exasperating as is, in the midst of larger
+congregations, what we call genius.  For some years,  Mrs. Fleming's
+proceedings were simply a theme for gossips, and her vanity was openly
+pardoned, until that delusively prosperous appearance which her labour
+lent to the house, was worn through by the enforced confession of there
+being poverty in the household.  The ragged elbow was then projected in
+the face of Wrexby in a manner to preclude it from a sober appreciation
+of the fairness of the face.
+
+Critically, moreover, her admission of great poppy-heads into her garden
+was objected to.  She would squander her care on poppies, and she had
+been heard to say that, while she lived, her children should be fully
+fed.  The encouragement of flaunting weeds in a decent garden was
+indicative of a moral twist that the expressed resolution to supply her
+table with plentiful nourishment, no matter whence it came, or how
+provided, sufficiently confirmed.  The reason with which she was stated
+to have fortified her stern resolve was of the irritating order, right in
+the abstract, and utterly unprincipled in the application.  She said,
+`Good bread, and good beef, and enough of both, make good blood; and my
+children shall be stout.'  This is such a thing as maybe announced by
+foreign princesses and rulers over serfs; but English Wrexby, in
+cogitative mood, demanded an equivalent for its beef and divers economies
+consumed by the hungry children of the authoritative woman.  Practically
+it was obedient, for it had got the habit of supplying her.  Though
+payment was long in arrear, the arrears were not treated as lost ones by
+Mrs. Fleming, who, without knowing it, possessed one main secret for
+mastering the custodians of credit.  She had a considerate remembrance
+and regard for the most distant of her debts, so that she seemed to be
+only always a little late, and exceptionally wrongheaded in theory.
+Wrexby, therefore, acquiesced in helping to build up her children to
+stoutness, and but for the blindness of all people, save artists, poets,
+novelists, to the grandeur of their own creations, the inhabitants of
+this Kentish village might have had an enjoyable pride in the beauty and
+robust grace of the young girls,--fair-haired, black-haired girls, a
+kindred contrast, like fire and smoke, to look upon.  In stature, in
+bearing, and in expression, they were, if I may adopt the eloquent modern
+manner of eulogy, strikingly above their class.  They carried erect
+shoulders, like creatures not ashamed of showing a merely animal pride,
+which is never quite apart from the pride of developed beauty.  They were
+as upright as Oriental girls, whose heads are nobly poised from carrying
+the pitcher to the well.  Dark Rhoda might have passed for Rachel, and
+Dahlia called her Rachel.  They tossed one another their mutual
+compliments, drawn from the chief book of their reading.  Queen of Sheba
+was Dahlia's title.  No master of callisthenics could have set them up
+better than their mother's receipt for making good blood, combined with a
+certain harmony of their systems, had done; nor could a schoolmistress
+have taught them correcter speaking.  The characteristic of girls having
+a disposition to rise, is to be cravingly mimetic; and they remembered,
+and crooned over, till by degrees they adopted the phrases and manner of
+speech of highly grammatical people, such as the rector and his lady, and
+of people in story-books, especially of the courtly French fairy-books,
+wherein the princes talk in periods as sweetly rounded as are their
+silken calves; nothing less than angelically, so as to be a model to
+ordinary men.
+
+The idea of love upon the lips of ordinary men, provoked Dahlia's irony;
+and the youths of Wrexby and Fenhurst had no chance against her secret
+Prince Florizels.  Them she endowed with no pastoral qualities; on the
+contrary, she conceived that such pure young gentlemen were only to be
+seen, and perhaps met, in the great and mystic City of London.
+Naturally, the girls dreamed of London.  To educate themselves, they
+copied out whole pages of a book called the `Field of Mars,' which was
+next to the family Bible in size among the volumes of the farmer's small
+library.  The deeds of the heroes of this book, and the talk of the fairy
+princes, were assimilated in their minds; and as they looked around them
+upon millers', farmers', maltsters', and tradesmen's sons, the thought of
+what manner of youth would propose to marry them became a precocious
+tribulation.  Rhoda, at the age of fifteen, was distracted by it, owing
+to her sister's habit of masking her own dismal internal forebodings on
+the subject, under the guise of a settled anxiety concerning her sad
+chance.
+
+In dress, the wife of the rector of Wrexby was their model.  There came
+once to Squire Blancove's unoccupied pew a dazzling vision of a fair
+lady.  They heard that she was a cousin of his third wife, and a widow,
+Mrs. Lovell by name.  They looked at her all through the service, and the
+lady certainly looked at them in return; nor could they, with any
+distinctness, imagine why, but the look dwelt long in their hearts, and
+often afterward, when Dahlia, upon taking her seat in church, shut her
+eyes, according to custom, she strove to conjure up the image of herself,
+as she had appeared to the beautiful woman in the dress of grey-shot
+silk, with violet mantle and green bonnet, rose-trimmed; and the picture
+she conceived was the one she knew herself by, for many ensuing years.
+
+Mrs. Fleming fought her battle with a heart worthy of her countrywomen,
+and with as much success as the burden of a despondent husband would
+allow to her.  William John Fleming was simply a poor farmer, for whom
+the wheels of the world went too fast:--a big man, appearing to be
+difficult to kill, though deeply smitten.  His cheeks bloomed in spite of
+lines and stains, and his large, quietly dilated, brown ox-eyes, that
+never gave out a meaning, seldom showed as if they had taken one from
+what they saw.  Until his wife was lost to him, he believed that he had a
+mighty grievance against her; but as he was not wordy, and was by nature
+kind, it was her comfort to die and not to know it.  This grievance was
+rooted in the idea that she was ruinously extravagant.  The sight of the
+plentiful table was sore to him; the hungry mouths, though he grudged to
+his offspring nothing that he could pay for, were an afflicting prospect.
+"Plump 'em up, and make 'em dainty," he advanced in contravention of his
+wife's talk of bread and beef.
+
+But he did not complain.  If it came to an argument, the farmer sidled
+into a secure corner of prophecy, and bade his wife to see what would
+come of having dainty children.  He could not deny that bread and beef
+made blood, and were cheaper than the port-wine which doctors were in the
+habit of ordering for this and that delicate person in the neighbourhood;
+so he was compelled to have recourse to secret discontent.  The
+attention, the time, and the trifles of money shed upon the flower
+garden, were hardships easier to bear.  He liked flowers, and he liked to
+hear the praise of his wife's horticultural skill.  The garden was a
+distinguishing thing to the farm, and when on a Sunday he walked home
+from church among full June roses, he felt the odour of them to be so
+like his imagined sensations of prosperity, that the deception was worth
+its cost.  Yet the garden in its bloom revived a cruel blow.  His wife
+had once wounded his vanity.  The massed vanity of a silent man, when it
+does take a wound, desires a giant's vengeance; but as one can scarcely
+seek to enjoy that monstrous gratification when one's wife is the
+offender, the farmer escaped from his dilemma by going apart into a
+turnip-field, and swearing, with his fist outstretched, never to forget
+it.  His wife had asked him, seeing that the garden flourished and the
+farm decayed, to yield the labour of the farm to the garden; in fact, to
+turn nurseryman under his wife's direction.  The woman could not see that
+her garden drained the farm already, distracted the farm, and most
+evidently impoverished him.  She could not understand, that in permitting
+her, while he sweated fruitlessly, to give herself up to the occupation
+of a lady, he had followed the promptings of his native kindness, and
+certainly not of his native wisdom.  That she should deem herself `best
+man' of the two, and suggest his stamping his name to such an opinion
+before the world, was an outrage.
+
+Mrs. Fleming was failing in health.  On that plea, with the solemnity
+suited to the autumn of her allotted days, she persuaded her husband to
+advertise for an assistant, who would pay a small sum of money to learn
+sound farming, and hear arguments in favour of the Corn Laws.  To please
+her, he threw seven shillings away upon an advertisement, and laughed
+when the advertisement was answered, remarking that he doubted much
+whether good would come of dealings with strangers.  A young man, calling
+himself Robert Armstrong, underwent a presentation to the family.  He
+paid the stipulated sum, and was soon enrolled as one of them.  He was of
+a guardsman's height and a cricketer's suppleness, a drinker of water,
+and apparently the victim of a dislike of his species; for he spoke of
+the great night-lighted city with a horror that did not seem to be an
+estimable point in him, as judged by a pair of damsels for whom the
+mysterious metropolis flew with fiery fringes through dark space, in
+their dreams.
+
+In other respects, the stranger was well thought of, as being handsome
+and sedate.  He talked fondly of one friend that he had, an officer in
+the army, which was considered pardonably vain.  He did not reach to the
+ideal of his sex which had been formed by the sisters; but Mrs. Fleming,
+trusting to her divination of his sex's character, whispered a mother's
+word about him to her husband a little while before her death.
+
+It was her prayer to heaven that she might save a doctor's bill.  She
+died, without lingering illness, in her own beloved month of June; the
+roses of her tending at the open window, and a soft breath floating up to
+her from the garden.  On the foregoing May-day, she had sat on the green
+that fronted the iron gateway, when Dahlia and Rhoda dressed the children
+of the village in garlands, and crowned the fairest little one queen of
+May: a sight that revived in Mrs. Fleming's recollection the time of her
+own eldest and fairest taking homage, shy in her white smock and light
+thick curls.  The gathering was large, and the day was of the old nature
+of May, before tyrannous Eastwinds had captured it and spoiled its
+consecration.  The mill-stream of the neighbouring mill ran blue among
+the broad green pastures; the air smelt of cream-bowls and wheaten
+loaves; the firs on the beacon-ridge, far southward, over Fenhurst and
+Helm villages, were transported nearer to see the show, and stood like
+friends anxious to renew acquaintance.  Dahlia and Rhoda taught the
+children to perceive how they resembled bent old beggar-men.  The two
+stone-pines in the miller's grounds were likened by them to Adam and Eve
+turning away from the blaze of Paradise; and the saying of one receptive
+child, that they had nothing but hair on, made the illustration undying
+both to Dahlia and Rhoda.
+
+The magic of the weather brought numerous butterflies afield, and one
+fiddler, to whose tuning the little women danced; others closer upon
+womanhood would have danced likewise, if the sisters had taken partners;
+but Dahlia was restrained by the sudden consciousness that she was under
+the immediate observation of two manifestly London gentlemen, and she
+declined to be led forth by Robert Armstrong.  The intruders were youths
+of good countenance, known to be the son and the nephew of Squire
+Blancove of Wrexby Hall.  They remained for some time watching the scene,
+and destroyed Dahlia's single-mindedness.  Like many days of gaiety, the
+Gods consenting, this one had its human shadow.  There appeared on the
+borders of the festivity a young woman, the daughter of a Wrexby
+cottager, who had left her home and but lately returned to it, with a
+spotted name.  No one addressed her, and she stood humbly apart.  Dahlia,
+seeing that every one moved away from her, whispering with satisfied
+noddings, wished to draw her in among the groups.  She mentioned the name
+of Mary Burt to her father, supposing that so kind a man would not fail
+to sanction her going up to the neglected young woman.  To her surprise,
+her father became violently enraged, and uttered a stern prohibition,
+speaking a word that stained her cheeks.  Rhoda was by her side, and she
+wilfully, without asking leave, went straight over to Mary, and stood
+with her under the shadow of the Adam and Eve, until the farmer sent a
+messenger to say that he was about to enter the house.  Her punishment
+for the act of sinfulness was a week of severe silence; and the farmer
+would have kept her to it longer, but for her mother's ominously growing
+weakness.  The sisters were strangely overclouded by this incident.  They
+could not fathom the meaning of their father's unkindness, coarseness,
+and indignation.  Why, and why?  they asked one another, blankly.  The
+Scriptures were harsh in one part, but was the teaching to continue so
+after the Atonement?  By degrees they came to reflect, and not in a mild
+spirit, that the kindest of men can be cruel, and will forget their
+Christianity toward offending and repentant women.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Mrs. Fleming had a brother in London, who had run away from his Kentish
+home when a small boy, and found refuge at a Bank.  The position of
+Anthony Hackbut in that celebrated establishment, and the degree of
+influence exercised by him there, were things unknown; but he had stuck
+to the Bank for a great number of years, and he had once confessed to his
+sister that he was not a beggar.  Upon these joint facts the farmer
+speculated, deducing from them that a man in a London Bank, holding money
+of his own, must have learnt the ways of turning it over--farming golden
+ground, as it were; consequently, that amount must now have increased to
+a very considerable sum.  You ask, What amount?  But one who sits
+brooding upon a pair of facts for years, with the imperturbable gravity
+of creation upon chaos, will be as successful in evoking the concrete
+from the abstract.  The farmer saw round figures among the possessions of
+the family, and he assisted mentally in this money-turning of Anthony's,
+counted his gains for him, disposed his risks, and eyed the pile of
+visionary gold with an interest so remote, that he was almost correct in
+calling it disinterested.  The brothers-in-law had a mutual plea of
+expense that kept them separate.  When Anthony refused, on petition, to
+advance one hundred pounds to the farmer, there was ill blood to divide
+them.  Queen Anne's Farm missed the flourishing point by one hundred
+pounds exactly.  With that addition to its exchequer, it would have made
+head against its old enemy, Taxation, and started rejuvenescent.  But the
+Radicals were in power to legislate and crush agriculture, and "I've got
+a miser for my brother-in-law," said the farmer.  Alas! the hundred
+pounds to back him, he could have sowed what he pleased, and when it
+pleased him, partially defying the capricious clouds and their treasures,
+and playing tunefully upon his land, his own land.  Instead of which, and
+while too keenly aware that the one hundred would have made excesses in
+any direction tributary to his pocket, the poor man groaned at continuous
+falls of moisture, and when rain was prayed for in church, he had to be
+down on his knees, praying heartily with the rest of the congregation.
+It was done, and bitter reproaches were cast upon Anthony for the
+enforced necessity to do it.
+
+On the occasion of his sister's death, Anthony informed his bereaved
+brother-in-law that he could not come down to follow the hearse as a
+mourner.  "My place is one of great trust;" he said, "and I cannot be
+spared."  He offered, however, voluntarily to pay half the expenses of
+the funeral, stating the limit of the cost.  It is unfair to sound any
+man's springs of action critically while he is being tried by a sorrow;
+and the farmer's angry rejection of Anthony's offer of aid must pass.  He
+remarked in his letter of reply, that his wife's funeral should cost no
+less than he chose to expend on it.  He breathed indignant fumes against
+"interferences."  He desired Anthony to know that he also was "not a
+beggar," and that he would not be treated as one.  The letter showed a
+solid yeoman's fist.  Farmer Fleming told his chums, and the shopkeeper
+of Wrexby, with whom he came into converse, that he would honour his dead
+wife up to his last penny.  Some month or so afterward it was generally
+conjectured that he had kept his word.
+
+Anthony's rejoinder was characterized by a marked humility.  He expressed
+contrition for the farmer's misunderstanding of his motives.  His
+fathomless conscience had plainly been reached.  He wrote again, without
+waiting for an answer, speaking of the Funds indeed, but only to
+pronounce them worldly things, and hoping that they all might meet in
+heaven, where brotherly love, as well as money, was ready made, and not
+always in the next street.  A hint occurred that it would be a
+gratification to him to be invited down, whether he could come or no; for
+holidays were expensive, and journeys by rail had to be thought over
+before they were undertaken; and when you are away from your post, you
+never knew who maybe supplanting you.  He did not promise that he could
+come, but frankly stated his susceptibility to the friendliness of an
+invitation.  The feeling indulged by Farmer Fleming in refusing to notice
+Anthony's advance toward a reconciliation, was, on the whole, not
+creditable to him.  Spite is more often fattened than propitiated by
+penitence.  He may have thought besides (policy not being always a vacant
+space in revengeful acts) that Anthony was capable of something stronger
+and warmer, now that his humanity had been aroused.  The speculation is
+commonly perilous; but Farmer Fleming had the desperation of a man who
+has run slightly into debt, and has heard the first din of dunning, which
+to the unaccustomed imagination is fearful as bankruptcy (shorn of the
+horror of the word).  And, moreover, it was so wonderful to find Anthony
+displaying humanity at all, that anything might be expected of him.
+"Let's see what he will do," thought the farmer in an interval of his
+wrath; and the wrath is very new which has none of these cool intervals.
+The passions, do but watch them, are all more or less intermittent.
+
+As it chanced, he acted sagaciously, for Anthony at last wrote to say
+that his home in London was cheerless, and that he intended to move into
+fresh and airier lodgings, where the presence of a discreet young
+housekeeper, who might wish to see London, and make acquaintance with the
+world, would be agreeable to him.  His project was that one of his nieces
+should fill this office, and he requested his brother-in-law to reflect
+on it, and to think of him as of a friend of the family, now and in the
+time to come.  Anthony spoke of the seductions of London quite
+unctuously.  Who could imagine this to be the letter of an old crabbed
+miser? "Tell her," he said, "there's fruit at stalls at every
+street-corner all the year through--oysters and whelks, if she likes--
+winkles, lots of pictures in shops--a sight of muslin and silks, and
+rides on omnibuses--bands of all sorts, and now and then we can take a
+walk to see the military on horseback, if she's for soldiers."  Indeed,
+he joked quite comically in speaking of the famous horse-guards--warriors
+who sit on their horses to be looked at, and do not mind it, because they
+are trained so thoroughly.  "Horse-guards blue, and horse-guards red," he
+wrote--"the blue only want boiling."  There is reason to suppose that his
+disrespectful joke was not original in him, but it displayed his
+character in a fresh light.  Of course, if either of the girls was to go,
+Dahlia was the person.  The farmer commenced his usual process of sitting
+upon the idea.  That it would be policy to attach one of the family to
+this chirping old miser, he thought incontestable.  On the other hand, he
+had a dread of London, and Dahlia was surpassingly fair.  He put the case
+to Robert, in remembrance of what his wife had spoken, hoping that Robert
+would amorously stop his painful efforts to think fast enough for the
+occasion.  Robert, however, had nothing to say, and seemed willing to let
+Dahlia depart.  The only opponents to the plan were Mrs. Sumfit, a
+kindly, humble relative of the farmer's, widowed out of Sussex, very
+loving and fat; the cook to the household, whose waist was dimly
+indicated by her apron-string; and, to aid her outcries, the
+silently-protesting Master Gammon, an old man with the cast of eye of an
+antediluvian lizard, the slowest old man of his time--a sort of foreman
+of the farm before Robert had come to take matters in hand, and thrust
+both him and his master into the background.  Master Gammon remarked
+emphatically, once and for all, that "he never had much opinion of
+London."  As he had never visited London, his opinion was considered the
+less weighty, but, as he advanced no further speech, the sins and
+backslidings of the metropolis were strongly brought to mind by his
+condemnatory utterance.  Policy and Dahlia's entreaties at last prevailed
+with the farmer, and so the fair girl went up to the great city.
+
+After months of a division that was like the division of her living
+veins, and when the comfort of letters was getting cold, Rhoda, having
+previously pledged herself to secresy, though she could not guess why it
+was commanded, received a miniature portrait of Dahlia, so beautiful that
+her envy of London for holding her sister away from her, melted in
+gratitude.  She had permission to keep the portrait a week; it was
+impossible to forbear from showing it to Mrs. Sumfit, who peeped in awe,
+and that emotion subsiding, shed tears abundantly.  Why it was to be kept
+secret, they failed to inquire; the mystery was possibly not without its
+delights to them.  Tears were shed again when the portrait had to be
+packed up and despatched.  Rhoda lived on abashed by the adorable new
+refinement of Dahlia's features, and her heart yearned to her uncle for
+so caring to decorate the lovely face.
+
+One day Rhoda was at her bed-room window, on the point of descending to
+encounter the daily dumpling, which was the principal and the unvarying
+item of the midday meal of the house, when she beheld a stranger trying
+to turn the handle of the iron gate.  Her heart thumped.  She divined
+correctly that it was her uncle.  Dahlia had now been absent for very
+many months, and Rhoda's growing fretfulness sprang the conviction in her
+mind that something closer than letters must soon be coming.  She ran
+downstairs, and along the gravel-path.  He was a little man,
+square-built, and looking as if he had worn to toughness; with an evident
+Sunday suit on: black, and black gloves, though the day was only
+antecedent to Sunday.
+
+"Let me help you, sir," she said, and her hands came in contact with his,
+and were squeezed.
+
+"How is my sister?"  She had no longer any fear in asking.
+
+"Now, you let me through, first," he replied, imitating an arbitrary
+juvenile.  "You're as tight locked in as if you was in dread of all the
+thieves of London.  You ain't afraid o' me, miss?  I'm not the party
+generally outside of a fortification; I ain't, I can assure you.  I'm a
+defence party, and a reg'lar lion when I've got the law backing me."
+
+He spoke in a queer, wheezy voice, like a cracked flute, combined with
+the effect of an ill-resined fiddle-bow.
+
+"You are in the garden of Queen Anne's Farm," said Rhoda.
+
+"And you're my pretty little niece, are you? 'the darkie lass,' as your
+father says.  "Little," says I; why, you needn't be ashamed to stand
+beside a grenadier.  Trust the country for growing fine gals."
+
+"You are my uncle, then?" said Rhoda.  "Tell me how my sister is.  Is she
+well?  Is she quite happy?"
+
+"Dahly?" returned old Anthony, slowly.
+
+"Yes, yes; my sister!"  Rhoda looked at him with distressful eagerness.
+
+"Now, don't you be uneasy about your sister Dahly."  Old Anthony, as he
+spoke, fixed his small brown eyes on the girl, and seemed immediately to
+have departed far away in speculation.  A question recalled him.
+
+"Is her health good?"
+
+"Ay; stomach's good, head's good, lungs, brain, what not, all good.
+She's a bit giddy, that's all."
+
+"In her head?"
+
+"Ay; and on her pins.  Never you mind.  You look a steady one, my dear.
+I shall take to you, I think."
+
+"But my sister--" Rhoda was saying, when the farmer came out, and sent a
+greeting from the threshold,--
+
+"Brother Tony!"
+
+"Here he is, brother William John."
+
+"Surely, and so he is, at last."  The farmer walked up to him with his
+hand out.
+
+"And it ain't too late, I hope.  Eh?"
+
+"It's never too late--to mend," said the farmer.
+
+"Eh? not my manners, eh?"  Anthony struggled to keep up the ball; and in
+this way they got over the confusion of the meeting after many years and
+some differences.
+
+"Made acquaintance with Rhoda, I see," said the farmer, as they turned to
+go in.
+
+"The 'darkie lass' you write of.  She's like a coal nigh a candle.  She
+looks, as you'd say, 't' other side of her sister.' Yes, we've had a
+talk."
+
+"Just in time for dinner, brother Tony.  We ain't got much to offer, but
+what there is, is at your service.  Step aside with me."
+
+The farmer got Anthony out of hearing a moment, questioned, and was
+answered: after which he looked less anxious, but a trifle perplexed, and
+nodded his head as Anthony occasionally lifted his, to enforce certain
+points in some halting explanation.  You would have said that a debtor
+was humbly putting his case in his creditor's ear, and could only now and
+then summon courage to meet the censorious eyes.  They went in to Mrs.
+Sumfit's shout that the dumplings were out of the pot: old Anthony bowed
+upon the announcement of his name, and all took seats.  But it was not
+the same sort of dinner-hour as that which the inhabitants of the house
+were accustomed to; there was conversation.
+
+The farmer asked Anthony by what conveyance he had come.  Anthony shyly,
+but not without evident self-approbation, related how, having come by the
+train, he got into conversation with the driver of a fly at a station,
+who advised him of a cart that would be passing near Wrexby.  For
+threepennyworth of beer, he had got a friendly introduction to the
+carman, who took him within two miles of the farm for one shilling, a
+distance of fifteen miles.  That was pretty good!
+
+"Home pork, brother Tony," said the farmer, approvingly.
+
+"And home-made bread, too, brother William John," said Anthony, becoming
+brisk.
+
+"Ay, and the beer, such as it is."  The farmer drank and sighed.
+
+Anthony tried the beer, remarking, "That's good beer; it don't cost
+much."
+
+"It ain't adulterated.  By what I read of your London beer, this stuff's
+not so bad, if you bear in mind it's pure.  Pure's my motto.  'Pure,
+though poor!'"
+
+"Up there, you pay for rank poison," said Anthony.  "So, what do I do?  I
+drink water and thank 'em, that's wise."
+
+"Saves stomach and purse."  The farmer put a little stress on 'purse.'
+
+"Yes, I calculate I save threepence a day in beer alone," said Anthony.
+
+"Three times seven's twenty-one, ain't it?"
+
+Mr. Fleming said this, and let out his elbow in a small perplexity, as
+Anthony took him up: "And fifty-two times twenty-one?"
+
+"Well, that's, that's--how much is that, Mas' Gammon?" the farmer asked
+in a bellow.
+
+Master Gammon was laboriously and steadily engaged in tightening himself
+with dumpling.  He relaxed his exertions sufficiently to take this new
+burden on his brain, and immediately cast it off.
+
+"Ah never thinks when I feeds--Ah was al'ays a bad hand at 'counts.
+Gi'es it up."
+
+"Why, you're like a horse that never was rode!  Try again, old man," said
+the farmer.
+
+"If I drags a cart," Master Gammon replied, "that ain't no reason why I
+should leap a gate."
+
+The farmer felt that he was worsted as regarded the illustration, and
+with a bit of the boy's fear of the pedagogue, he fought Anthony off by
+still pressing the arithmetical problem upon Master Gammon; until the old
+man, goaded to exasperation, rolled out thunderingly,--
+
+"If I works fer ye, that ain't no reason why I should think fer ye,"
+which caused him to be left in peace.
+
+"Eh, Robert?" the farmer transferred the question; "Come! what is it?"
+
+Robert begged a minute's delay, while Anthony watched him with hawk eyes.
+
+"I tell you what it is--it's pounds," said Robert.
+
+This tickled Anthony, who let him escape, crying: "Capital!  Pounds it is
+in your pocket, sir, and you hit that neatly, I will say.  Let it be
+five.  You out with your five at interest, compound interest; soon comes
+another five; treat it the same: in ten years--eh? and then you get into
+figures; you swim in figures!"
+
+"I should think you did!" said the farmer, winking slyly.
+
+Anthony caught the smile, hesitated and looked shrewd, and then covered
+his confusion by holding his plate to Mrs. Sumfit for a help.  The
+manifest evasion and mute declaration that dumpling said "mum" on that
+head, gave the farmer a quiet glow.
+
+"When you are ready to tell me all about my darlin', sir," Mrs. Sumfit
+suggested, coaxingly.
+
+"After dinner, mother--after dinner," said the farmer.
+
+"And we're waitin', are we, till them dumplings is finished?" she
+exclaimed, piteously, with a glance at Master Gammon's plate.
+
+"After dinner we'll have a talk, mother."
+
+Mrs. Sumfit feared from this delay that there was queer news to be told
+of Dahlia's temper; but she longed for the narrative no whit the less,
+and again cast a sad eye on the leisurely proceedings of Master Gammon.
+The veteran was still calmly tightening.  His fork was on end, with a
+vast mouthful impaled on the prongs.  Master Gammon, a thoughtful eater,
+was always last at the meal, and a latent, deep-lying irritation at Mrs.
+Sumfit for her fidgetiness, day after day, toward the finish of the dish,
+added a relish to his engulfing of the monstrous morsel.  He looked at
+her steadily, like an ox of the fields, and consumed it, and then holding
+his plate out, in a remorseless way, said, "You make 'em so good, marm."
+
+Mrs. Sumfit, fretted as she was, was not impervious to the sound sense of
+the remark, as well as to the compliment.
+
+"I don't want to hurry you, Mas' Gammon," she said; "Lord knows, I like
+to see you and everybody eat his full and be thankful; but, all about my
+Dahly waitin',--I feel pricked wi' a pin all over, I do; and there's my
+blessed in London," she answered, "and we knowin' nothin' of her, and one
+close by to tell me!  I never did feel what slow things dumplin's was,
+afore now!"
+
+The kettle simmered gently on the hob.  Every other knife and fork was
+silent; so was every tongue.  Master Gammon ate and the kettle hummed.
+Twice Mrs. Sumfit sounded a despairing, "Oh, deary me!" but it was
+useless.  No human power had ever yet driven Master Gammon to a
+demonstration of haste or to any acceleration of the pace he had chosen
+for himself.  At last, she was not to be restrained from crying out,
+almost tearfully,--
+
+"When do you think you'll have done, Mas' Gammon?"
+
+Thus pointedly addressed, Master Gammon laid down his knife and fork.  He
+half raised his ponderous, curtaining eyelids, and replied,--
+
+"When I feels my buttons, marm."
+
+After which he deliberately fell to work again.
+
+Mrs. Sumfit dropped back in her chair as from a blow.
+
+But even dumplings, though they resist so doggedly for a space, do
+ultimately submit to the majestic march of Time, and move.  Master Gammon
+cleared his plate.  There stood in the dish still half a dumpling.  The
+farmer and Rhoda, deeming that there had been a show of inhospitality,
+pressed him to make away with this forlorn remainder.
+
+The vindictive old man, who was as tight as dumpling and buttons could
+make him, refused it in a drooping tone, and went forth, looking at none.
+Mrs. Sumfit turned to all parties, and begged them to say what more, to
+please Master Gammon, she could have done?  When Anthony was ready to
+speak of her Dahlia, she obtruded this question in utter dolefulness.
+Robert was kindly asked by the farmer to take a pipe among them.  Rhoda
+put a chair for him, but he thanked them both, and said he could not
+neglect some work to be done in the fields.  She thought that he feared
+pain from hearing Dahlia's name, and followed him with her eyes
+commiseratingly.
+
+"Does that young fellow attend to business?" said Anthony.
+
+The farmer praised Robert as a rare hand, but one affected with bees in
+his nightcap,--who had ideas of his own about farming, and was obstinate
+with them; "pays you due respect, but's got a notion as how his way of
+thinking's better 'n his seniors.  It's the style now with all young
+folks.  Makes a butt of old Mas' Gammon; laughs at the old man.  It ain't
+respectful t' age, I say.  Gammon don't understand nothing about new
+feeds for sheep, and dam nonsense about growing such things as melons,
+fiddle-faddle, for 'em.  Robert's a beginner.  What he knows, I taught
+the young fellow.  Then, my question is, where's his ideas come from, if
+they're contrary to mine?  If they're contrary to mine, they're contrary
+to my teaching.  Well, then, what are they worth?  He can't see that.
+He's a good one at work--I'll say so much for him."
+
+Old Anthony gave Rhoda a pat on the shoulder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+"Pipes in the middle of the day's regular revelry," ejaculated Anthony,
+whose way of holding the curved pipe-stem displayed a mind bent on
+reckless enjoyment, and said as much as a label issuing from his mouth,
+like a figure in a comic woodcut of the old style:--"that's," he pursued,
+"that's if you haven't got to look up at the clock every two minutes, as
+if the devil was after you.  But, sitting here, you know, the afternoon's
+a long evening; nobody's your master.  You can on wi' your slippers, up
+wi' your legs, talk, or go for'ard, counting, twicing, and three-
+timesing; by George!  I should take to drinking beer if I had my
+afternoons to myself in the city, just for the sake of sitting and doing
+sums in a tap-room; if it's a big tap-room, with pew sort o' places, and
+dark red curtains, a fire, and a smell of sawdust; ale, and tobacco, and
+a boy going by outside whistling a tune of the day.  Somebody comes in.
+"Ah, there's an idle old chap," he says to himself, (meaning me), and
+where, I should like to ask him, 'd his head be if he sat there dividing
+two hundred and fifty thousand by forty-five and a half!"
+
+The farmer nodded encouragingly.  He thought it not improbable that a
+short operation with these numbers would give the sum in Anthony's
+possession, the exact calculation of his secret hoard, and he set to work
+to stamp them on his brain, which rendered him absent in manner, while
+Mrs. Sumfit mixed liquor with hot water, and pushed at his knee, doubling
+in her enduring lips, and lengthening her eyes to aim a side-glance of
+reprehension at Anthony's wandering loquacity.
+
+Rhoda could bear it no more.
+
+"Now let me hear of my sister, uncle," she said.
+
+"I'll tell you what," Anthony responded, "she hasn't got such a pretty
+sort of a sweet blackbirdy voice as you've got."
+
+The girl blushed scarlet.
+
+"Oh, she can mount them colours, too," said Anthony.
+
+His way of speaking of Dahlia indicated that he and she had enough of one
+another; but of the peculiar object of his extraordinary visit not even
+the farmer had received a hint.  Mrs. Sumfit ventured to think aloud that
+his grog was not stiff enough, but he took a gulp under her eyes, and
+smacked his lips after it in a most convincing manner.
+
+"Ah! that stuff wouldn't do for me in London, half-holiday or no
+half-holiday," said Anthony.
+
+"Why not?" the farmer asked.
+
+"I should be speculating--deep--couldn't hold myself in: Mexicans,
+Peroovians, Venzeshoolians, Spaniards, at 'em I should go.  I see bonds
+in all sorts of colours, Spaniards in black and white, Peruvians--orange,
+Mexicans--red as the British army.  Well, it's just my whim.  If I like
+red, I go at red.  I ain't a bit of reason.  What's more, I never
+speculate."
+
+"Why, that's safest, brother Tony," said the farmer.
+
+"And safe's my game--always was, always will be!  Do you think"--Anthony
+sucked his grog to the sugar-dregs, till the spoon settled on his nose--
+"do you think I should hold the position I do hold, be trusted as I am
+trusted?  Ah! you don't know much about that.  Should I have money placed
+in my hands, do you think--and it's thousands at a time, gold, and notes,
+and cheques--if I was a risky chap?  I'm known to be thoroughly
+respectable.  Five and forty years I've been in Boyne's Bank, and thank
+ye, ma'am, grog don't do no harm down here.  And I will take another
+glass.  'When the heart of a man!'--but I'm no singer."
+
+Mrs. Sumfit simpered, "Hem; it's the heart of a woman, too: and she have
+one, and it's dying to hear of her darlin' blessed in town, and of who
+cuts her hair, and where she gets her gownds, and whose pills--"
+
+The farmer interrupted her irritably.
+
+"Divide a couple o' hundred thousand and more by forty-five and a half,"
+he said.  "Do wait, mother; all in good time.  Forty-five and a-half,
+brother Tony; that was your sum--ah!--you mentioned it some time back--
+half of what?  Is that half a fraction, as they call it?  I haven't
+forgot fractions, and logareems, and practice, and so on to algebrae,
+where it always seems to me to blow hard, for, whizz goes my head in a
+jiffy, as soon as I've mounted the ladder to look into that country.  How
+'bout that forty-five and a half, brother Tony, if you don't mind
+condescending to explain?"
+
+"Forty-five and a half?" muttered Anthony, mystified.
+
+"Oh, never mind, you know, if you don't like to say, brother Tony."  The
+farmer touched him up with his pipe-stem.
+
+"Five and a half," Anthony speculated.  "That's a fraction you got hold
+of, brother William John,--I remember the parson calling out those names
+at your wedding: 'I, William John, take thee, Susan;' yes, that's a
+fraction, but what's the good of it?"
+
+"What I mean is, it ain't forty-five and half of forty-five.  Half of
+one, eh?  That's identical with a fraction.  One--a stroke--and two under
+it."
+
+"You've got it correct," Anthony assented.
+
+"How many thousand divide it by?"
+
+"Divide what by, brother William John?  I'm beat."
+
+"Ah! out comes the keys: lockup everything; it's time!" the farmer
+laughed, rather proud of his brother-in-law's perfect wakefulness after
+two stiff tumblers.  He saw that Anthony was determined with all due
+friendly feeling to let no one know the sum in his possession.
+
+"If it's four o'clock, it is time to lock up," said Anthony, "and bang to
+go the doors, and there's the money for thieves to dream of--they can't
+get a-nigh it, let them dream as they like.  What's the hour, ma'am?"
+
+"Not three, it ain't," returned Mrs. Sumfit; "and do be good creatures,
+and begin about my Dahly, and where she got that Bumptious gownd, and the
+bonnet with blue flowers lyin' by on the table: now, do!"
+
+Rhoda coughed.
+
+"And she wears lavender gloves like a lady," Mrs. Sumfit was continuing.
+
+Rhoda stamped on her foot.
+
+"Oh! cruel!" the comfortable old woman snapped in pain, as she applied
+her hand to the inconsolable fat foot, and nursed it.  "What's roused ye,
+you tiger girl?  I shan't be able to get about, I shan't, and then who's
+to cook for ye all?  For you're as ignorant as a raw kitchen wench, and
+knows nothing."
+
+"Come, Dody, you're careless," the farmer spoke chidingly through Mrs.
+Sumfit's lamentations.
+
+"She stops uncle Anthony when he's just ready, father," said Rhoda.
+
+"Do you want to know?" Anthony set his small eyes on her: "do you want to
+know, my dear?"  He paused, fingering his glass, and went on: "I, Susan,
+take thee, William John, and you've come of it.  Says I to myself, when I
+hung sheepish by your mother and by your father, my dear, says I to
+myself, I ain't a marrying man: and if these two, says I, if any progeny
+comes to 'em--to bless them, some people'd say, but I know what life is,
+and what young ones are--if--where was I?  Liquor makes you talk, brother
+William John, but where's your ideas?  Gone, like hard cash!  What I
+meant was, I felt I might some day come for'ard and help the issue of
+your wife's weddin', and wasn't such a shady object among you, after all.
+My pipe's out."
+
+Rhoda stood up, and filled the pipe, and lit it in silence.  She divined
+that the old man must be allowed to run on in his own way, and for a long
+time he rambled, gave a picture of the wedding, and of a robbery of
+Boyne's Bank: the firm of Boyne, Burt, Hamble, and Company.  At last, he
+touched on Dahlia.
+
+"What she wants, I can't make out," he said; "and what that good lady
+there, or somebody, made mention of--how she manages to dress as she do!
+I can understand a little goin' a great way, if you're clever in any way;
+but I'm at my tea"--Anthony laid his hand out as to exhibit a picture.
+"I ain't a complaining man, and be young, if you can, I say, and walk
+about and look at shops; but, I'm at my tea: I come home rather tired
+there's the tea-things, sure enough, and tea's made, and, maybe, there's
+a shrimp or two; she attends to your creature comforts.  When
+everything's locked up and tight and right, I'm gay, and ask for a bit of
+society: well, I'm at my tea: I hear her foot thumping up and down her
+bed-room overhead: I know the meaning of that: I'd rather hear nothing:
+down she runs: I'm at my tea, and in she bursts."--Here followed a
+dramatic account of Dahlia's manner of provocation, which was closed by
+the extinction of his pipe.
+
+The farmer, while his mind still hung about thousands of pounds and a
+certain incomprehensible division of them to produce a distinct
+intelligible total, and set before him the sum of Anthony's riches, could
+see that his elder daughter was behaving flightily and neglecting the
+true interests of the family, and he was chagrined.  But Anthony, before
+he entered the house, had assured him that Dahlia was well, and that
+nothing was wrong with her.  So he looked at Mrs. Sumfit, who now took
+upon herself to plead for Dahlia: a young thing, and such a handsome
+creature! and we were all young some time or other; and would heaven have
+mercy on us, if we were hard upon the young, do you think?  The motto of
+a truly religious man said, try 'em again.  And, maybe, people had been a
+little hard upon Dahlia, and the girl was apt to take offence.  In
+conclusion, she appealed to Rhoda to speak up for her sister.  Rhoda sat
+in quiet reserve.
+
+She was sure her sister must be justified in all she did but the picture
+of the old man coming from his work every night to take his tea quite
+alone made her sad.  She found herself unable to speak, and as she did
+not, Mrs. Sumfit had an acute twinge from her recently trodden foot, and
+called her some bitter names; which was not an unusual case, for the kind
+old woman could be querulous, and belonged to the list of those whose
+hearts are as scales, so that they love not one person devotedly without
+a corresponding spirit of opposition to another.  Rhoda merely smiled.
+
+By-and-by, the women left the two men alone.
+
+Anthony turned and struck the farmer's knee.
+
+"You've got a jewel in that gal, brother William John."
+
+"Eh! she's a good enough lass.  Not much of a manager, brother Tony.  Too
+much of a thinker, I reckon.  She's got a temper of her own too.  I'm a
+bit hurt, brother Tony, about that other girl.  She must leave London, if
+she don't alter.  It's flightiness; that's all.  You mustn't think ill of
+poor Dahly.  She was always the pretty one, and when they know it, they
+act up to it: she was her mother's favourite."
+
+"Ah! poor Susan! an upright woman before the Lord."
+
+"She was," said the farmer, bowing his head.
+
+"And a good wife," Anthony interjected.
+
+"None better--never a better; and I wish she was living to look after her
+girls."
+
+"I came through the churchyard, hard by," said Anthony; "and I read that
+writing on her tombstone.  It went like a choke in my throat.  The first
+person I saw next was her child, this young gal you call Rhoda; and,
+thinks I to myself, you might ask me, I'd do anything for ye--that I
+could, of course."
+
+The farmer's eye had lit up, but became overshadowed by the
+characteristic reservation.
+
+"Nobody'd ask you to do more than you could," he remarked, rather coldly.
+
+"It'll never be much," sighed Anthony.
+
+"Well, the world's nothing, if you come to look at it close," the farmer
+adopted a similar tone.
+
+"What's money!" said Anthony.
+
+The farmer immediately resumed his this-worldliness:
+
+"Well, it's fine to go about asking us poor devils to answer ye that," he
+said, and chuckled, conceiving that he had nailed Anthony down to a
+partial confession of his ownership of some worldly goods.
+
+"What do you call having money?" observed the latter, clearly in the
+trap.  "Fifty thousand?"
+
+"Whew!" went the farmer, as at a big draught of powerful stuff.
+
+"Ten thousand?"
+
+Mr. Fleming took this second gulp almost contemptuously, but still
+kindly.
+
+"Come," quoth Anthony, "ten thousand's not so mean, you know.  You're a
+gentleman on ten thousand.  So, on five.  I'll tell ye, many a
+gentleman'd be glad to own it.  Lor' bless you!  But, you know nothing of
+the world, brother William John.  Some of 'em haven't one--ain't so rich
+as you!"
+
+"Or you, brother Tony?"  The farmer made a grasp at his will-o'-the-wisp.
+
+"Oh! me!" Anthony sniggered.  "I'm a scraper of odds and ends.  I pick up
+things in the gutter.  Mind you, those Jews ain't such fools, though a
+curse is on 'em, to wander forth.  They know the meaning of the
+multiplication table.  They can turn fractions into whole numbers.  No;
+I'm not to be compared to gentlemen.  My property's my respectability.  I
+said that at the beginning, and I say it now.  But, I'll tell you what,
+brother William John, it's an emotion when you've got bags of thousands
+of pounds in your arms."
+
+Ordinarily, the farmer was a sensible man, as straight on the level of
+dull intelligence as other men; but so credulous was he in regard to the
+riches possessed by his wife's brother, that a very little tempted him to
+childish exaggeration of the probable amount.  Now that Anthony himself
+furnished the incitement, he was quite lifted from the earth.  He had,
+besides, taken more of the strong mixture than he was ever accustomed to
+take in the middle of the day; and as it seemed to him that Anthony was
+really about to be seduced into a particular statement of the extent of
+the property which formed his respectability (as Anthony had chosen to
+put it), he got up a little game in his head by guessing how much the
+amount might positively be, so that he could subsequently compare his
+shrewd reckoning with the avowed fact.  He tamed his wild ideas as much
+as possible; thought over what his wife used to say of Anthony's saving
+ways from boyhood, thought of the dark hints of the Funds, of many bold
+strokes for money made by sagacious persons; of Anthony's close style of
+living, and of the lives of celebrated misers; this done, he resolved to
+make a sure guess, and therefore aimed below the mark.
+
+Money, when the imagination deals with it thus, has no substantial
+relation to mortal affairs.  It is a tricksy thing, distending and
+contracting as it dances in the mind, like sunlight on the ceiling cast
+from a morning tea-cup, if a forced simile will aid the conception.  The
+farmer struck on thirty thousand and some odd hundred pounds--outlying
+debts, or so, excluded--as what Anthony's will, in all likelihood, would
+be sworn under: say, thirty thousand, or, safer, say, twenty thousand.
+Bequeathed--how?  To him and to his children.  But to the children in
+reversion after his decease?  Or how?  In any case, they might make
+capital marriages; and the farm estate should go to whichever of the two
+young husbands he liked the best.  Farmer Fleming asked not for any life
+of ease and splendour, though thirty thousand pounds was a fortune; or
+even twenty thousand.  Noblemen have stooped to marry heiresses owning no
+more than that!  The idea of their having done so actually shot across
+him, and his heart sent up a warm spring of tenderness toward the
+patient, good, grubbing old fellow, sitting beside him, who had lived and
+died to enrich and elevate the family.  At the same time, he could not
+refrain from thinking that Anthony, broad-shouldered as he was, though
+bent, sound on his legs, and well-coloured for a Londoner, would be
+accepted by any Life Insurance office, at a moderate rate, considering
+his age.  The farmer thought of his own health, and it was with a pang
+that he fancied himself being probed by the civil-speaking Life Insurance
+doctor (a gentleman who seems to issue upon us applicants from out the
+muffled folding doors of Hades; taps us on the chest, once, twice, and
+forthwith writes down our fateful dates).  Probably, Anthony would not
+have to pay a higher rate of interest than he.
+
+"Are you insured, brother Tony?" the question escaped him.
+
+"No, I ain't, brother William John;" Anthony went on nodding like an
+automaton set in motion.  "There's two sides to that.  I'm a long-lived
+man.  Long-lived men don't insure; that is, unless they're fools.  That's
+how the Offices thrive."
+
+"Case of accident?" the farmer suggested.
+
+"Oh! nothing happens to me," replied Anthony.
+
+The farmer jumped on his legs, and yawned.
+
+"Shall we take a turn in the garden, brother Tony?"
+
+"With all my heart, brother William John."
+
+The farmer had conscience to be ashamed of the fit of irritable vexation
+which had seized on him; and it was not till Anthony being asked the date
+of his birth, had declared himself twelve years his senior, that the
+farmer felt his speculations to be justified.  Anthony was nearly a
+generation ahead.  They walked about, and were seen from the windows
+touching one another on the shoulder in a brotherly way.  When they came
+back to the women, and tea, the farmer's mind was cooler, and all his
+reckonings had gone to mist.  He was dejected over his tea.
+
+"What is the matter, father?" said Rhoda.
+
+"I'll tell you, my dear," Anthony replied for him.  "He's envying me some
+one I want to ask me that question when I'm at my tea in London."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Mr. Fleming kept his forehead from his daughter's good-night kiss until
+the room was cleared, after supper, and then embracing her very heartily,
+he informed her that her uncle had offered to pay her expenses on a visit
+to London, by which he contrived to hint that a golden path had opened to
+his girl, and at the same time entreated her to think nothing of it; to
+dismiss all expectations and dreams of impossible sums from her mind, and
+simply to endeavour to please her uncle, who had a right to his own, and
+a right to do what he liked with his own, though it were forty, fifty
+times as much as he possessed--and what that might amount to no one knew.
+In fact, as is the way with many experienced persons, in his attempt to
+give advice to another, he was very impressive in lecturing himself, and
+warned that other not to succumb to a temptation principally by
+indicating the natural basis of the allurement.  Happily for young and
+for old, the intense insight of the young has much to distract or soften
+it.  Rhoda thanked her father, and chose to think that she had listened
+to good and wise things.
+
+"Your sister," he said--"but we won't speak of her.  If I could part with
+you, my lass, I'd rather she was the one to come back."
+
+"Dahlia would be killed by our quiet life now," said Rhoda.
+
+"Ay," the farmer mused.  "If she'd got to pay six men every Saturday
+night, she wouldn't complain o' the quiet.  But, there--you neither of
+you ever took to farming or to housekeeping; but any gentleman might be
+proud to have one of you for a wife.  I said so when you was girls.  And
+if, you've been dull, my dear, what's the good o' society?  Tea-cakes
+mayn't seem to cost money, nor a glass o' grog to neighbours; but once
+open the door to that sort o' thing and your reckoning goes.  And what I
+said to your poor mother's true.  I said: Our girls, they're mayhap not
+equals of the Hollands, the Nashaws, the Perrets, and the others about
+here--no; they're not equals, because the others are not equals o' them,
+maybe."
+
+The yeoman's pride struggled out in this obscure way to vindicate his
+unneighbourliness and the seclusion of his daughters from the society of
+girls of their age and condition; nor was it hard for Rhoda to assure
+him, as she earnestly did, that he had acted rightly.
+
+Rhoda, assisted by Mrs. Sumfit, was late in the night looking up what
+poor decorations she possessed wherewith to enter London, and be worthy
+of her sister's embrace, so that she might not shock the lady Dahlia had
+become.
+
+"Depend you on it, my dear," said Mrs. Sumfit, "my Dahly's grown above
+him.  That's nettles to your uncle, my dear.  He can't abide it.  Don't
+you see he can't?  Some men's like that.  Others 'd see you dressed like
+a princess, and not be satisfied.  They vary so, the teasin' creatures!
+But one and all, whether they likes it or not, owns a woman's the better
+for bein' dressed in the fashion.  What do grieve me to my insidest
+heart, it is your bonnet.  What a bonnet that was lying beside her dear
+round arm in the po'trait, and her finger up making a dimple in her
+cheek, as if she was thinking of us in a sorrowful way.  That's the arts
+o' being lady-like--look sad-like.  How could we get a bonnet for you?"
+
+"My own must do," said Rhoda.
+
+"Yes, and you to look like lady and servant-gal a-goin' out for an
+airin'; and she to feel it!  Pretty, that'd be!"
+
+"She won't be ashamed of me," Rhoda faltered; and then hummed a little
+tune, and said firmly--"It's no use my trying to look like what I'm not."
+
+"No, truly;" Mrs. Sumfit assented.  "But it's your bein' behind the
+fashions what hurt me.  As well you might be an old thing like me, for
+any pleasant looks you'll git.  Now, the country--you're like in a
+coalhole for the matter o' that.  While London, my dear, its pavement and
+gutter, and omnibus traffic; and if you're not in the fashion, the little
+wicked boys of the streets themselves 'll let you know it; they've got
+such eyes for fashions, they have.  And I don't want my Dahly's sister to
+be laughed at, and called 'coal-scuttle,' as happened to me, my dear,
+believe it or not--and shoved aside, and said to--'Who are you?'  For she
+reely is nice-looking.  Your uncle Anthony and Mr.  Robert agreed upon
+that."
+
+Rhoda coloured, and said, after a  time, "It would please me if people
+didn't speak about my looks."
+
+The looking-glass probably told her no more than that she was nice to the
+eye, but a young man who sees anything should not see like a mirror, and
+a girl's instinct whispers to her, that her image has not been taken to
+heart when she is accurately and impartially described by him.
+
+The key to Rhoda at this period was a desire to be made warm with praise
+of her person.  She beheld her face at times, and shivered.  The face was
+so strange with its dark thick eyebrows, and peculiarly straight-gazing
+brown eyes; the level long red under-lip and curved upper; and the chin
+and nose, so unlike Dahlia's, whose nose was, after a little dip from the
+forehead, one soft line to its extremity, and whose chin seemed shaped to
+a cup.  Rhoda's outlines were harder.  There was a suspicion of a
+heavenward turn to her nose, and of squareness to her chin.  Her face,
+when studied, inspired in its owner's mind a doubt of her being even nice
+to the eye, though she knew that in exercise, and when smitten by a
+blush, brightness and colour aided her claims.  She knew also that her
+head was easily poised on her neck; and that her figure was reasonably
+good; but all this was unconfirmed knowledge, quickly shadowed by the
+doubt.  As the sun is wanted to glorify the right features of a
+landscape, this girl thirsted for a dose of golden flattery.  She felt,
+without envy of her sister, that Dahlia eclipsed her: and all she prayed
+for was that she might not be quite so much in the background and
+obscure.
+
+But great, powerful London--the new universe to her spirit--was opening
+its arms to her.  In her half sleep that night she heard the mighty
+thunder of the city, crashing, tumults of disordered harmonies, and the
+splendour of the lamp-lighted city appeared to hang up under a dark-blue
+heaven, removed from earth, like a fresh planet to which she was being
+beckoned.
+
+At breakfast on the Sunday morning, her departure was necessarily spoken
+of in public.  Robert talked to her exactly as he had talked to Dahlia,
+on the like occasion.  He mentioned, as she remembered in one or two
+instances, the names of the same streets, and professed a similar anxiety
+as regarded driving her to the station and catching the train.  "That's a
+thing which makes a man feel his strength's nothing," he said.  "You
+can't stop it.  I fancy I could stop a four-in-hand at full gallop.
+Mind, I only fancy I could; but when you come to do with iron and steam,
+I feel like a baby.  You can't stop trains."
+
+"You can trip 'em," said Anthony, a remark that called forth general
+laughter, and increased the impression that he was a man of resources.
+
+Rhoda was vexed by Robert's devotion to his strength.  She was going, and
+wished to go, but she wished to be regretted as well; and she looked at
+him more.  He, on the contrary, scarcely looked at her at all.  He threw
+verbal turnips, oats, oxen, poultry, and every possible melancholy
+matter-of-fact thing, about the table, described the farm and his
+fondness for it and the neighbourhood; said a farmer's life was best, and
+gave Rhoda a week in which to be tired of London.
+
+She sneered in her soul, thinking "how little he knows of the constancy
+in the nature of women!" adding, "when they form attachments."
+
+Anthony was shown at church, in spite of a feeble intimation he
+expressed, that it would be agreeable to him to walk about in the March
+sunshine, and see the grounds and the wild flowers, which never gave
+trouble, nor cost a penny, and were always pretty, and worth twenty of
+your artificial contrivances.
+
+"Same as I say to Miss Dahly," he took occasion to remark; "but no!--no
+good.  I don't believe women hear ye, when you talk sense of that kind.
+'Look,' says I, 'at a violet.'  'Look,' says she, 'at a rose.'  Well,
+what can ye say after that?  She swears the rose looks best.  You swear
+the violet costs least.  Then there you have a battle between what it
+costs and how it looks."
+
+Robert pronounced a conventional affirmative, when called on for it by a
+look from Anthony.  Whereupon Rhoda cried out,--
+
+"Dahlia was right--she was right, uncle."
+
+"She was right, my dear, if she was a ten-thousander.  She wasn't right
+as a farmer's daughter with poor expectations.--I'd say humble, if humble
+she were.  As a farmer's daughter, she should choose the violet side.
+That's clear as day.  One thing's good, I admit; she tells me she makes
+her own bonnets, and they're as good as milliners', and that's a proud
+matter to say of your own niece.  And to buy dresses for herself, I
+suppose, she's sat down and she made dresses for fine ladies.  I've found
+her at it.  Save the money for the work, says I.  What does she reply--
+she always has a reply: 'Uncle, I know the value of money better.  'You
+mean, you spend it,' I says to her.  'I buy more than it's worth,' says
+she.  And I'll tell you what, Mr. Robert Armstrong, as I find your name
+to be, sir; if you beat women at talking, my lord! you're a clever chap."
+
+Robert laughed.  "I give in at the first mile."
+
+"Don't think much of women--is that it, sir?"
+
+"I'm glad to say I don't think of them at all."
+
+"Do you think of one woman, now, Mr. Robert Armstrong?"
+
+"I'd much rather think of two."
+
+"And why, may I ask?"
+
+"It's safer."
+
+"Now, I don't exactly see that," said Anthony.
+
+"You set one to tear the other," Robert explained.
+
+"You're a Grand Turk Mogul in your reasonings of women, Mr.  Robert
+Armstrong.  I hope as your morals are sound, sir?"
+
+They were on the road to church, but Robert could not restrain a swinging
+outburst.
+
+He observed that he hoped likewise that his morals were sound.
+
+"Because," said Anthony, "do you see, sir, two wives--"
+
+"No, no; one wife," interposed Robert.  "You said 'think about;' I'd
+'think about' any number of women, if I was idle.  But the woman you mean
+to make your wife, you go to at once, and don't 'think about' her or the
+question either."
+
+"You make sure of her, do you, sir?"
+
+"No: I try my luck; that is all."
+
+"Suppose she won't have ye?"
+
+"Then I wait for her."
+
+"Suppose she gets married to somebody else?"
+
+"Well, you know, I shouldn't cast eye on a woman who was a fool."
+
+"Well, upon my--"  Anthony checked his exclamation, returning to the
+charge with, "Just suppose, for the sake of supposing--supposing she was
+a fool, and gone and got married, and you thrown back'ard on one leg,
+starin' at the other, stupified-like?"
+
+"I don't mind supposing it," said Robert.  "Say, she's a fool.  Her being
+a fool argues that I was one in making a fool's choice.  So, she jilts
+me, and I get a pistol, or I get a neat bit of rope, or I take a clean
+header with a cannon-ball at my heels, or I go to the chemist's and ask
+for stuff to poison rats,--anything a fool'd do under the circumstances,
+it don't matter what."
+
+Old Anthony waited for Rhoda to jump over a stile, and said to her,--
+
+"He laughs at the whole lot of ye."
+
+"Who?" she asked, with betraying cheeks.
+
+"This Mr. Robert Armstrong of yours."
+
+"Of mine, uncle!"
+
+"He don't seem to care a snap o' the finger for any of ye."
+
+"Then, none of us must care for him, uncle."
+
+"Now, just the contrary.  That always shows a young fellow who's
+attending to his business.  If he'd seen you boil potatoes, make
+dumplings, beds, tea, all that, you'd have had a chance.  He'd have
+marched up to ye before you was off to London."
+
+"Saying, 'You are the woman.'"  Rhoda was too desperately tickled by the
+idea to refrain from uttering it, though she was angry, and suffering
+internal discontent.  "Or else, 'You are the cook,'" she muttered, and
+shut, with the word, steel bars across her heart, calling him, mentally,
+names not justified by anything he had said or done--such as mercenary,
+tyrannical, and such like.
+
+Robert was attentive to her in church.  Once she caught him with his eyes
+on her face; but he betrayed no confusion, and looked away at the
+clergyman.  When the text was given out, he found the place in his Bible,
+and handed it to her pointedly--"There shall be snares and traps unto
+you;" a line from Joshua.  She received the act as a polite pawing
+civility; but when she was coming out of church, Robert saw that a blush
+swept over her face, and wondered what thoughts could be rising within
+her, unaware that girls catch certain meanings late, and suffer a fiery
+torture when these meanings are clear to them.  Rhoda called up the pride
+of her womanhood that she might despise the man who had dared to distrust
+her.  She kept her poppy colour throughout the day, so sensitive was this
+pride.  But most she was angered, after reflection, by the doubts which
+Robert appeared to cast on Dahlia, in setting his finger upon that
+burning line of Scripture.  It opened a whole black kingdom to her
+imagination, and first touched her visionary life with shade.  She was
+sincere in her ignorance that the doubts were her own, but they lay deep
+in unawakened recesses of the soul; it was by a natural action of her
+reason that she transferred and forced them upon him who had chanced to
+make them visible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+When young minds are set upon a distant object, they scarcely live for
+anything about them.  The drive to the station and the parting with
+Robert, the journey to London, which had latterly seemed to her secretly-
+distressed anticipation like a sunken city--a place of wonder with the
+waters over it--all passed by smoothly; and then it became necessary to
+call a cabman, for whom, as he did her the service to lift her box, Rhoda
+felt a gracious respect, until a quarrel ensued between him and her uncle
+concerning sixpence;--a poor sum, as she thought; but representing, as
+Anthony impressed upon her understanding during the conflict of hard
+words, a principle.  Those who can persuade themselves that they are
+fighting for a principle, fight strenuously, and maybe reckoned upon to
+overmatch combatants on behalf of a miserable small coin; so the cabman
+went away discomfited.  He used such bad language that Rhoda had no pity
+for him, and hearing her uncle style it "the London tongue," she thought
+dispiritedly of Dahlia's having had to listen to it through so long a
+season.  Dahlia was not at home; but Mrs.  Wicklow, Anthony's landlady,
+undertook to make Rhoda comfortable, which operation she began by
+praising dark young ladies over fair ones, at the same time shaking
+Rhoda's arm that she might not fail to see a compliment was intended.
+"This is our London way," she said.  But Rhoda was most disconcerted when
+she heard Mrs.  Wicklow relate that her daughter and Dahlia were out
+together, and say, that she had no doubt they had found some pleasant and
+attentive gentleman for a companion, if they had not gone purposely to
+meet one.  Her thoughts of her sister were perplexed, and London seemed a
+gigantic net around them both.
+
+"Yes, that's the habit with the girls up here," said Anthony; "that's
+what fine bonnets mean."
+
+Rhoda dropped into a bitter depth of brooding.  The savage nature of her
+virgin pride was such that it gave her great suffering even to suppose
+that a strange gentleman would dare to address her sister.  She
+half-fashioned the words on her lips that she had dreamed of a false
+Zion, and was being righteously punished.  By-and-by the landlady's
+daughter returned home alone, saying, with a dreadful laugh, that Dahlia
+had sent her for her Bible; but she would give no explanation of the
+singular mission which had been entrusted to her, and she showed no
+willingness to attempt to fulfil it, merely repeating, "Her Bible!" with
+a vulgar exhibition of simulated scorn that caused Rhoda to shrink from
+her, though she would gladly have poured out a multitude of questions in
+the ear of one who had last been with her beloved.  After a while, Mrs.
+Wicklow looked at the clock, and instantly became overclouded with an
+extreme gravity.
+
+"Eleven! and she sent Mary Ann home for her Bible.  This looks bad.  I
+call it hypocritical, the idea of mentioning the Bible.  Now, if she had
+said to Mary Ann, go and fetch any other book but a Bible!"
+
+"It was mother's Bible," interposed Rhoda.
+
+Mrs. Wicklow replied: "And I wish all young women to be as innocent as
+you, my dear.  You'll get you to bed.  You're a dear, mild, sweet, good
+young woman.  I'm never deceived in character."
+
+Vaunting her penetration, she accompanied Rhoda to Dahlia's chamber,
+bidding her sleep speedily, or that when her sister came they would be
+talking till the cock crowed hoarse.
+
+"There's a poultry-yard close to us?" said Rhoda; feeling less at home
+when she heard that there was not.
+
+The night was quiet and clear.  She leaned her head out of the window,
+and heard the mellow Sunday evening roar of the city as of a sea at ebb.
+And Dahlia was out on the sea.  Rhoda thought of it as she looked at the
+row of lamps, and listened to the noise remote, until the sight of stars
+was pleasant as the faces of friends.  "People are kind here," she
+reflected, for her short experience of the landlady was good, and a young
+gentleman who had hailed a cab for her at the station, had a nice voice.
+He was fair.  "I am dark," came a spontaneous reflection.  She undressed,
+and half dozing over her beating heart in bed, heard the street door
+open, and leaped to think that her sister approached, jumping up in her
+bed to give ear to the door and the stairs, that were conducting her joy
+to her: but she quickly recomposed herself, and feigned sleep, for the
+delight of revelling in her sister's first wonderment.  The door was
+flung wide, and Rhoda heard her name called by Dahlia's voice, and then
+there was a delicious silence, and she felt that Dahlia was coming up to
+her on tiptoe, and waited for her head to be stooped near, that she might
+fling out her arms, and draw the dear head to her bosom.  But Dahlia came
+only to the bedside, without leaning over, and spoke of her looks, which
+held the girl quiet.
+
+"How she sleeps!  It's a country sleep!" Dahlia murmured.  "She's
+changed, but it's all for the better.  She's quite a woman; she's a
+perfect brunette; and the nose I used to laugh at suits her face and
+those black, thick eyebrows of hers; my pet!  Oh, why is she here?
+What's meant by it?  I knew nothing of her coming.  Is she sent on
+purpose?"
+
+Rhoda did not stir.  The tone of Dahlia's speaking, low and almost awful
+to her, laid a flat hand on her, and kept her still.
+
+"I came for my Bible," she heard Dahlia say.  "I promised mother--oh, my
+poor darling mother!  And Dody lying in my bed!  Who would have thought
+of such things?  Perhaps heaven does look after us and interfere.  What
+will become of me?  Oh, you pretty innocent in your sleep!  I lie for
+hours, and can't sleep.  She binds her hair in a knot on the pillow, just
+as she used to in the old farm days!"
+
+Rhoda knew that her sister was bending over her now, but she was almost
+frigid, and could not move.
+
+Dahlia went to the looking-glass.  "How flushed I am!" she murmured.
+"No; I'm pale, quite white.  I've lost my strength.  What can I do?  How
+could I take mother's Bible, and run from my pretty one, who expects me,
+and dreams she'll wake with me beside her in the morning!  I can't--I
+can't  If you love me, Edward, you won't wish it."
+
+She fell into a chair, crying wildly, and muffling her sobs.  Rhoda's
+eyelids grew moist, but wonder and the cold anguish of senseless sympathy
+held her still frost-bound.  All at once she heard the window open.  Some
+one spoke in the street below; some one uttered Dahlia's name.  A deep
+bell swung a note of midnight.
+
+"Go!" cried Dahlia.
+
+The window was instantly shut.
+
+The vibration of Dahlia's voice went through Rhoda like the heavy shaking
+of the bell after it had struck, and the room seemed to spin and hum.  It
+was to her but another minute before her sister slid softly into the bed,
+and they were locked together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Boyne's bank was of the order of those old and firmly fixed
+establishments which have taken root with the fortunes of the country--
+are honourable as England's name, solid as her prosperity, and even as
+the flourishing green tree to shareholders: a granite house.  Boyne
+himself had been disembodied for more than a century: Burt and Hamble
+were still of the flesh; but a greater than Burt or Hamble was Blancove-
+-the Sir William Blancove, Baronet, of city feasts and charities, who,
+besides being a wealthy merchant, possessed of a very acute head for
+banking, was a scholarly gentleman, worthy of riches.  His brother was
+Squire Blancove, of Wrexby; but between these two close relatives there
+existed no stronger feeling than what was expressed by open contempt of a
+mind dedicated to business on the one side, and quiet contempt of a life
+devoted to indolence on the other.  Nevertheless, Squire Blancove, though
+everybody knew how deeply he despised his junior for his city-gained
+title and commercial occupation, sent him his son Algernon, to get the
+youth into sound discipline, if possible.  This was after the elastic
+Algernon had, on the paternal intimation of his colonel, relinquished his
+cornetcy and military service.  Sir William received the hopeful young
+fellow much in the spirit with which he listened to the tales of his
+brother's comments on his own line of conduct; that is to say, as homage
+to his intellectual superiority.  Mr. Algernon was installed in the Bank,
+and sat down for a long career of groaning at the desk, with more
+complacency than was expected from him.  Sir William forwarded excellent
+accounts to his brother of the behaviour of the heir to his estates.  It
+was his way of rebuking the squire, and in return for it the squire,
+though somewhat comforted, despised his clerkly son, and lived to learn
+how very unjustly he did so.  Adolescents, who have the taste for running
+into excesses, enjoy the breath of change as another form of excitement:
+change is a sort of debauch to them.  They will delight infinitely in a
+simple country round of existence, in propriety and church-going, in the
+sensation of feeling innocent.  There is little that does not enrapture
+them, if you tie them down to nothing, and let them try all.  Sir William
+was deceived by his nephew.  He would have taken him into his town-house;
+but his own son, Edward, who was studying for the Law, had chambers in
+the Temple, and Algernon, receiving an invitation from Edward, declared a
+gentle preference for the abode of his cousin.  His allowance from his
+father was properly contracted to keep him from excesses, as the genius
+of his senior devised, and Sir William saw no objection to the scheme,
+and made none.  The two dined with him about twice in the month.
+
+Edward Blancove was three-and-twenty years old, a student by fits, and a
+young man given to be moody.  He had powers of gaiety far eclipsing
+Algernon's, but he was not the same easy tripping sinner and flippant
+soul.  He was in that yeasty condition of his years when action and
+reflection alternately usurp the mind; remorse succeeded dissipation, and
+indulgences offered the soporific to remorse.  The friends of the two
+imagined that Algernon was, or would become, his evil genius.  In
+reality, Edward was the perilous companion.  He was composed of better
+stuff.  Algernon was but an airy animal nature, the soul within him being
+an effervescence lightly let loose.  Edward had a fatally serious spirit,
+and one of some strength.  What he gave himself up to, he could believe
+to be correct, in the teeth of an opposing world, until he tired of it,
+when he sided as heartily with the world against his quondam self.
+Algernon might mislead, or point his cousin's passions for a time; yet if
+they continued their courses together, there was danger that Algernon
+would degenerate into a reckless subordinate--a minister, a valet, and be
+tempted unknowingly to do things in earnest, which is nothing less than
+perdition to this sort of creature.
+
+But the key to young men is the ambition, or, in the place of it, the
+romantic sentiment nourished by them.  Edward aspired to become
+Attorney-General of these realms, not a judge, you observe; for a judge
+is to the imagination of youthful minds a stationary being, venerable,
+but not active; whereas, your Attorney-General is always in the fray, and
+fights commonly on the winning side,--a point that renders his position
+attractive to sagacious youth.  Algernon had other views.  Civilization
+had tried him, and found him wanting; so he condemned it.  Moreover,
+sitting now all day at a desk, he was civilization's drudge.  No wonder,
+then, that his dream was of prairies, and primeval forests, and
+Australian wilds.  He believed in his heart that he would be a man new
+made over there, and always looked forward to savage life as to a bath
+that would cleanse him, so that it did not much matter his being unclean
+for the present.
+
+The young men had a fair cousin by marriage, a Mrs. Margaret Lovell, a
+widow.  At seventeen she had gone with her husband to India, where Harry
+Lovell encountered the sword of a Sikh Sirdar, and tried the last of his
+much-vaunted swordsmanship, which, with his skill at the pistols, had
+served him better in two antecedent duels, for the vindication of his
+lovely and terrible young wife.  He perished on the field, critically
+admiring the stroke to which he owed his death.  A week after Harry's
+burial his widow was asked in marriage by his colonel.  Captains, and a
+giddy subaltern likewise, disputed claims to possess her.  She, however,
+decided to arrest further bloodshed by quitting the regiment.  She always
+said that she left India to save her complexion; "and people don't know
+how very candid I am," she added, for the colonel above-mentioned was
+wealthy,--a man expectant of a title, and a good match, and she was
+laughed at when she thus assigned trivial reasons for momentous
+resolutions.  It is a luxury to be candid; and perfect candour can do
+more for us than a dark disguise.
+
+Mrs. Lovell's complexion was worth saving from the ravages of an Indian
+climate, and the persecution of claimants to her hand.  She was golden
+and white, like an autumnal birch-tree--yellow hair, with warm-toned
+streaks in it, shading a fabulously fair skin.  Then, too, she was tall,
+of a nervous build, supple and proud in motion, a brilliant horsewoman,
+and a most distinguished sitter in an easy drawing-room chair, which is,
+let me impress upon you, no mean quality.  After riding out for hours
+with a sweet comrade, who has thrown the mantle of dignity half-way off
+her shoulders, it is perplexing, and mixed strangely of humiliation and
+ecstasy, to come upon her clouded majesty where she reclines as upon
+rose-hued clouds, in a mystic circle of restriction (she who laughed at
+your jokes, and capped them, two hours ago) a queen.
+
+Between Margaret Lovell and Edward there was a misunderstanding, of which
+no one knew the nature, for they spoke in public very respectfully one of
+the other.  It had been supposed that they were lovers once; but when
+lovers quarrel, they snarl, they bite, they worry; their eyes are indeed
+unveiled, and their mouths unmuzzled.  Now Margaret said of Edward: "He
+is sure to rise; he has such good principles."  Edward said of Margaret:
+"She only wants a husband who will keep her well in hand."  These
+sentences scarcely carried actual compliments when you knew the speakers;
+but outraged lovers cannot talk in that style after they have broken
+apart.  It is possible that Margaret and Edward conveyed to one another
+as sharp a sting as envenomed lovers attempt.  Gossip had once betrothed
+them, but was now at fault.  The lady had a small jointure, and lived
+partly with her uncle, Lord Elling, partly with Squire Blancove, her
+aunt's husband, and a little by herself, which was when she counted money
+in her purse, and chose to assert her independence.  She had a name in
+the world.  There is a fate attached to some women, from Helen of Troy
+downward, that blood is to be shed for them.  One duel on behalf of a
+woman is a reputation to her for life; two are notoriety.  If she is very
+young, can they be attributable to her?  We charge them naturally to her
+overpowering beauty.  It happened that Mrs. Lovell was beautiful.  Under
+the light of the two duels her beauty shone as from an illumination of
+black flame.  Boys adored Mrs. Lovell.  These are moths.  But more, the
+birds of air, nay, grave owls (who stand in this metaphor for whiskered
+experience) thronged, dashing at the apparition of terrible splendour.
+Was it her fault that she had a name in the world?
+
+Mrs. Margaret Lovell's portrait hung in Edward's room.  It was a
+photograph exquisitely coloured, and was on the left of a dark Judith,
+dark with a serenity of sternness.  On the right hung another coloured
+photograph of a young lady, also fair; and it was a point of taste to
+choose between them.  Do you like the hollowed lily's cheeks, or the
+plump rose's?  Do you like a thinnish fall of golden hair, or an abundant
+cluster of nut-brown?  Do you like your blonde with limpid blue eyes, or
+prefer an endowment of sunny hazel?  Finally, are you taken by an air of
+artistic innocence winding serpentine about your heart's fibres; or is
+blushing simplicity sweeter to you?  Mrs. Lovell's eyebrows were the
+faintly-marked trace of a perfect arch.  The other young person's were
+thickish, more level; a full brown colour.  She looked as if she had not
+yet attained to any sense of her being a professed beauty: but the fair
+widow was clearly bent upon winning you, and had a shy, playful
+intentness of aspect.  Her pure white skin was flat on the bone; the lips
+came forward in a soft curve, and, if they were not artistically stained,
+were triumphantly fresh.  Here, in any case, she beat her rival, whose
+mouth had the plebeian beauty's fault of being too straight in a line,
+and was not trained, apparently, to tricks of dainty pouting.
+
+It was morning, and the cousins having sponged in pleasant cold water,
+arranged themselves for exercise, and came out simultaneously into the
+sitting-room, slippered, and in flannels.  They nodded and went through
+certain curt greetings, and then Algernon stepped to a cupboard and
+tossed out the leather gloves.  The room was large and they had a
+tolerable space for the work, when the breakfast-table had been drawn a
+little on one side.  You saw at a glance which was the likelier man of
+the two, when they stood opposed.  Algernon's rounded features, full lips
+and falling chin, were not a match, though he was quick on his feet, for
+the wary, prompt eyes, set mouth, and hardness of Edward.  Both had stout
+muscle, but in Edward there was vigour of brain as well, which seemed to
+knit and inform his shape without which, in fact, a man is as a ship
+under no command.  Both looked their best; as, when sparring, men always
+do look.
+
+"Now, then," said Algernon, squaring up to his cousin in good style,
+"now's the time for that unwholesome old boy underneath to commence
+groaning."
+
+"Step as light as you can," replied Edward, meeting him with the pretty
+motion of the gloves.
+
+"I'll step as light as a French dancing-master.  Let's go to Paris and
+learn the savate, Ned.  It must be a new sensation to stand on one leg
+and knock a fellow's hat off with the other."
+
+"Stick to your fists."
+
+"Hang it! I wish your fists wouldn't stick to me so."
+
+"You talk too much."
+
+"Gad, I don't get puffy half so soon as you."
+
+"I want country air."
+
+"You said you were going out, old Ned."
+
+"I changed my mind."
+
+Saying which, Edward shut his teeth, and talked for two or three hot
+minutes wholly with his fists.  The room shook under Algernon's boundings
+to right and left till a blow sent him back on the breakfast-table,
+shattered a cup on the floor, and bespattered his close flannel shirt
+with a funereal coffee-tinge.
+
+"What the deuce I said to bring that on myself, I don't know," Algernon
+remarked as he rose.  "Anything connected with the country disagreeable
+to you, Ned?  Come! a bout of quiet scientific boxing, and none of these
+beastly rushes, as if you were singling me out of a crowd of magsmen.
+Did you go to church yesterday, Ned?  Confound it, you're on me again,
+are you?"
+
+And Algernon went on spouting unintelligible talk under a torrent of
+blows.  He lost his temper and fought out at them; but as it speedily
+became evident to him that the loss laid him open to punishment, he
+prudently recovered it, sparred, danced about, and contrived to shake the
+room in a manner that caused Edward to drop his arms, in consideration
+for the distracted occupant of the chambers below.  Algernon accepted the
+truce, and made it peace by casting off one glove.
+
+"There! that's a pleasant morning breather," he said, and sauntered to
+the window to look at the river.  "I always feel the want of it when I
+don't get it.  I could take a thrashing rather than not on with the
+gloves to begin the day.  Look at those boats!  Fancy my having to go
+down to the city.  It makes me feel like my blood circulating the wrong
+way.  My father'll suffer some day, for keeping me at this low ebb of
+cash, by jingo!"
+
+He uttered this with a prophetic fierceness.
+
+"I cannot even scrape together enough for entrance money to a Club.  It's
+sickening!  I wonder whether I shall ever get used to banking work?
+There's an old clerk in our office who says he should feel ill if he
+missed a day.  And the old porter beats him--bangs him to fits.  I
+believe he'd die off if he didn't see the house open to the minute.  They
+say that old boy's got a pretty niece; but he don't bring her to the
+office now.  Reward of merit!--Mr. Anthony Hackbut is going to receive
+ten pounds a year extra.  That's for his honesty.  I wonder whether I
+could earn a reputation for the sake of a prospect of ten extra pounds to
+my salary.  I've got a salary! hurrah!  But if they keep me to my hundred
+and fifty per annum, don't let them trust me every day with the bags, as
+they do that old fellow.  Some of the men say he's good to lend fifty
+pounds at a pinch.--Are the chops coming, Ned?"
+
+"The chops are coming," said Edward, who had thrown on a boating-coat and
+plunged into a book, and spoke echoing.
+
+"Here's little Peggy Lovell."  Algernon faced this portrait.  "It don't
+do her justice.  She's got more life, more change in her, more fire.
+She's starting for town, I hear."
+
+"She is starting for town," said Edward.
+
+"How do you know that?" Algernon swung about to ask.
+
+Edward looked round to him.  "By the fact of your not having fished for a
+holiday this week.  How did you leave her yesterday, Algy?  Quite well, I
+hope."
+
+The ingenuous face of the young gentleman crimsoned.
+
+"Oh, she was well," he said.  "Ha! I see there can be some attraction in
+your dark women."
+
+"You mean that Judith?  Yes, she's a good diversion."  Edward gave a
+two-edged response.  "What train did you come up by last night?"
+
+"The last from Wrexby.  That reminds me: I saw a young Judith just as I
+got out.  She wanted a cab.  I called it for her.  She belongs to old
+Hackbut of the Bank--the old porter, you know.  If it wasn't that there's
+always something about dark women which makes me think they're going to
+have a moustache, I should take to that girl's face."
+
+Edward launched forth an invective against fair women.
+
+"What have they done to you-what have they done?" said Algernon.
+
+"My good fellow, they're nothing but colour.  They've no conscience.  If
+they swear a thing to you one moment, they break it the next.  They can't
+help doing it.  You don't ask a gilt weathercock to keep faith with
+anything but the wind, do you?  It's an ass that trusts a fair woman at
+all, or has anything to do with the confounded set.  Cleopatra was fair;
+so was Delilah; so is the Devil's wife.  Reach me that book of Reports."
+
+"By jingo!" cried Algernon, "my stomach reports that if provision doesn't
+soon approach----why don't you keep a French cook here, Ned?  Let's give
+up the women, and take to a French cook."
+
+Edward yawned horribly.  "All in good time.  It's what we come to.  It's
+philosophy--your French cook!  I wish I had it, or him.  I'm afraid a
+fellow can't anticipate his years--not so lucky!"
+
+"By Jove! we shall have to be philosophers before we breakfast!" Algernon
+exclaimed.  "It's nine.  I've to be tied to the stake at ten, chained and
+muzzled--a leetle-a dawg!  I wish I hadn't had to leave the service.  It
+was a vile conspiracy against me there, Ned.  Hang all tradesmen!  I sit
+on a stool, and add up figures.  I work harder than a nigger in the
+office.  That's my life: but I must feed.  It's no use going to the
+office in a rage."
+
+"Will you try on the gloves again?" was Edward's mild suggestion.
+
+Algernon thanked him, and replied that he knew him.  Edward hit hard when
+he was empty.
+
+They now affected patience, as far as silence went to make up an element
+of that sublime quality.  The chops arriving, they disdained the mask.
+Algernon fired his glove just over the waiter's head, and Edward put the
+ease to the man's conscience; after which they sat and ate, talking
+little.  The difference between them was, that Edward knew the state of
+Algernon's mind and what was working within it, while the latter stared
+at a blank wall as regarded Edward's.
+
+"Going out after breakfast, Ned?" said Algernon.  "We'll walk to the city
+together, if you like."
+
+Edward fixed one of his intent looks upon his cousin.  "You're not going
+to the city to-day?"
+
+"The deuce, I'm not!"
+
+"You're going to dance attendance on Mrs. Lovell, whom it's your pleasure
+to call Peggy, when you're some leagues out of her hearing."
+
+Algernon failed to command his countenance.  He glanced at one of the
+portraits, and said, "Who is that girl up there?  Tell us her name.
+Talking of Mrs. Lovell, has she ever seen it?"
+
+"If you'll put on your coat, my dear Algy, I will talk to you about Mrs.
+Lovell."  Edward kept his penetrative eyes on Algernon.  "Listen to me:
+you'll get into a mess there."
+
+"If I must listen, Ned, I'll listen in my shirt-sleeves, with all respect
+to the lady."
+
+"Very well.  The shirt-sleeves help the air of bravado.  Now, you know
+that I've what they call 'knelt at her feet.'  She's handsome.  Don't cry
+out.  She's dashing, and as near being a devil as any woman I ever met.
+Do you know why we broke?  I'll tell you.  Plainly, because I refused to
+believe that one of her men had insulted her.  You understand what that
+means.  I declined to be a chief party in a scandal."
+
+"Declined to fight the fellow?" interposed Algernon.  "More shame to
+you!"
+
+"I think you're a year younger than I am, Algy.  You have the privilege
+of speaking with that year's simplicity.  Mrs. Lovell will play you as
+she played me.  I acknowledge her power, and I keep out of her way.  I
+don't bet; I don't care to waltz; I can't keep horses; so I don't lose
+much by the privation to which I subject myself."
+
+"I bet, I waltz, and I ride.  So," said Algernon, "I should lose
+tremendously."
+
+"You will lose, mark my words."
+
+"Is the lecture of my year's senior concluded?" said Algernon.
+
+"Yes; I've done," Edward answered.
+
+"Then I'll put on my coat, Ned, and I'll smoke in it.  That'll give you
+assurance I'm not going near Mrs. Lovell, if anything will."
+
+"That gives me assurance that Mrs. Lovell tolerates in you what she
+detests," said Edward, relentless in his insight; "and, consequently,
+gives me assurance that she finds you of particular service to her at
+present."
+
+Algernon had a lighted match in his hand.  He flung it into the fire.
+"I'm hanged if I don't think you have the confounded vanity to suppose
+she sets me as a spy upon you!"
+
+A smile ran along Edward's lips.  "I don't think you'd know it, if she
+did."
+
+"Oh, you're ten years older; you're twenty," bawled Algernon, in an
+extremity of disgust.  "Don't I know what game you're following up?
+Isn't it clear as day you've got another woman in your eye?"
+
+"It's as clear as day, my good Algy, that you see a portrait hanging in
+my chambers, and you have heard Mrs. Lovell's opinion of the fact.  So
+much is perfectly clear.  There's my hand.  I don't blame you.  She's a
+clever woman, and like many of the sort, shrewd at guessing the worst.
+Come, take my hand.  I tell you, I don't blame you.  I've been little dog
+to her myself, and fetched and carried, and wagged my tail.  It's
+charming while it lasts.  Will you shake it?"
+
+"Your tail, man?" Algernon roared in pretended amazement.
+
+Edward eased him back to friendliness by laughing.  "No; my hand."
+
+They shook hands.
+
+"All right," said Algernon.  "You mean well.  It's very well for you to
+preach virtue to a poor devil; you've got loose, or you're regularly in
+love."
+
+"Virtue! by heaven!" Edward cried; "I wish I were entitled to preach it
+to any man on earth."
+
+His face flushed.  "There, good-bye, old fellow," he added.
+
+"Go to the city.  I'll dine with you to-night, if you like; come and dine
+with me at my Club.  I shall be disengaged."
+
+Algernon mumbled a flexible assent to an appointment at Edward's Club,
+dressed himself with care, borrowed a sovereign, for which he nodded his
+acceptance, and left him.
+
+Edward set his brain upon a book of law.
+
+It may have been two hours after he had sat thus in his Cistercian
+stillness, when a letter was delivered to him by one of the Inn porters.
+Edward read the superscription, and asked the porter who it was that
+brought it.  Two young ladies, the porter said.
+
+These were the contents:--
+
+"I am not sure that you will ever forgive me.  I cannot forgive myself
+when I think of that one word I was obliged to speak to you in the cold
+street, and nothing to explain why, and how much I love, you.  Oh! how I
+love you!  I cry while I write.  I cannot help it.  I was a sop of tears
+all night long, and oh! if you had seen my face in the morning.  I am
+thankful you did not.  Mother's Bible brought me home.  It must have been
+guidance, for in my bed there lay my sister, and I could not leave her, I
+love her so.  I could not have got down stairs again after seeing her
+there; and I had to say that cold word and shut the window on you.  May I
+call you Edward still?  Oh, dear Edward, do make allowance for me.  Write
+kindly to me.  Say you forgive me.  I feel like a ghost to-day.  My life
+seems quite behind me somewhere, and I hardly feel anything I touch.  I
+declare to you, dearest one, I had no idea my sister was here.  I was
+surprised when I heard her name mentioned by my landlady, and looked on
+the bed; suddenly my strength was gone, and it changed all that I was
+thinking.  I never knew before that women were so weak, but now I see
+they are, and I only know I am at my Edward's mercy, and am stupid!  Oh,
+so wretched and stupid.  I shall not touch food till I hear from you.
+Oh, if, you are angry, write so; but do write.  My suspense would make
+you pity me.  I know I deserve your anger.  It was not that I do not
+trust you, Edward.  My mother in heaven sees my heart and that I trust, I
+trust my heart and everything I am and have to you.  I would almost wish
+and wait to see you to-day in the Gardens, but my crying has made me such
+a streaked thing to look at.  If I had rubbed my face with a
+scrubbing-brush, I could not look worse, and I cannot risk your seeing
+me.  It would excuse you for hating me.  Do you?  Does he hate her?  She
+loves you.  She would die for you, dear Edward.  Oh! I feel that if I was
+told to-day that I should die for you to-morrow, it would be happiness.
+I am dying--yes, I am dying till I hear from you.
+
+                         "Believe me,
+                    "Your tender, loving, broken-hearted,
+
+                                   "Dahlia."
+
+     There was a postscript:--
+
+     "May I still go to lessons?"
+
+Edward finished the letter with a calmly perusing eye.  He had winced
+triflingly at one or two expressions contained in it; forcible, perhaps,
+but not such as Mrs. Lovell smiling from the wall yonder would have used.
+
+"The poor child threatens to eat no dinner, if I don't write to her," he
+said; and replied in a kind and magnanimous spirit, concluding--"Go to
+lessons, by all means."
+
+Having accomplished this, he stood up, and by hazard fell to comparing
+the rival portraits; a melancholy and a comic thing to do, as you will
+find if you put two painted heads side by side, and set their merits
+contesting, and reflect on the contest, and to what advantages, personal,
+or of the artist's, the winner owes the victory.  Dahlia had been
+admirably dealt with by the artist; the charm of pure ingenuousness
+without rusticity was visible in her face and figure.  Hanging there on
+the wall, she was a match for Mrs. Lovell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Rhoda returned home the heavier for a secret that she bore with her.  All
+through the first night of her sleeping in London, Dahlia's sobs, and
+tender hugs, and self-reproaches, had penetrated her dreams, and when the
+morning came she had scarcely to learn that Dahlia loved some one.  The
+confession was made; but his name was reserved.  Dahlia spoke of him with
+such sacredness of respect that she seemed lost in him, and like a
+creature kissing his feet.  With tears rolling down her cheeks, and with
+moans of anguish, she spoke of the deliciousness of loving: of knowing
+one to whom she abandoned her will and her destiny, until, seeing how
+beautiful a bloom love threw upon the tearful worn face of her sister,
+Rhoda was impressed by a mystical veneration for this man, and readily
+believed him to be above all other men, if not superhuman: for she was of
+an age and an imagination to conceive a spiritual pre-eminence over the
+weakness of mortality.  She thought that one who could so transform her
+sister, touch her with awe, and give her gracefulness and humility, must
+be what Dahlia said he was.  She asked shyly for his Christian name; but
+even so little Dahlia withheld.  It was his wish that Dahlia should keep
+silence concerning him.
+
+"Have you sworn an oath?" said Rhoda, wonderingly.
+
+"No, dear love," Dahlia replied; "he only mentioned what he desired."
+
+Rhoda was ashamed of herself for thinking it strange, and she surrendered
+her judgement to be stamped by the one who knew him well.
+
+As regarded her uncle, Dahlia admitted that she had behaved forgetfully
+and unkindly, and promised amendment.  She talked of the Farm as of an
+old ruin, with nothing but a thin shade of memory threading its walls,
+and appeared to marvel vaguely that it stood yet.  "Father shall not
+always want money," she said.  She was particular in prescribing books
+for Rhoda to read; good authors, she emphasized, and named books of
+history, and poets, and quoted their verses.  "For my darling will some
+day have a dear husband, and he must not look down on her."  Rhoda shook
+her head, full sure that she could never be brought to utter such musical
+words naturally.  "Yes, dearest, when you know what love is," said
+Dahlia, in an underbreath.
+
+Could Robert inspire her with the power?  Rhoda looked upon that poor
+homely young man half-curiously when she returned, and quite dismissed
+the notion.  Besides she had no feeling for herself.  Her passion was
+fixed upon her sister, whose record of emotions in the letters from
+London placed her beyond dull days and nights.  The letters struck many
+chords.  A less subservient reader would have set them down as variations
+of the language of infatuation; but Rhoda was responsive to every word
+and change of mood, from the, "I am unworthy, degraded, wretched," to "I
+am blest above the angels."  If one letter said, "We met yesterday,"
+Rhoda's heart beat on to the question, "Shall I see him again to-morrow?"
+And will she see him?--has she seen him?--agitated her and absorbed her
+thoughts.
+
+So humbly did she follow her sister, without daring to forecast a
+prospect for her, or dream of an issue, that when on a summer morning a
+letter was brought in at the breakfast-table, marked "urgent and
+private," she opened it, and the first line dazzled her eyes--the
+surprise was a shock to her brain.  She rose from her unfinished meal,
+and walked out into the wide air, feeling as if she walked on thunder.
+
+The letter ran thus:--
+
+"My Own Innocent!--I am married.  We leave England to-day.  I must not
+love you too much, for I have all my love to give to my Edward, my own
+now, and I am his trustingly for ever.  But he will let me give you some
+of it--and Rhoda is never jealous.  She shall have a great deal.  Only I
+am frightened when I think how immense my love is for him, so that
+anything--everything he thinks right is right to me.  I am not afraid to
+think so.  If I were to try, a cloud would come over me--it does, if only
+I fancy for half a moment I am rash, and a straw.  I cannot exist except
+through him.  So I must belong to him, and his will is my law.  My prayer
+at my bedside every night is that I may die for him.  We used to think
+the idea of death so terrible!  Do you remember how we used to shudder
+together at night when we thought of people lying in the grave?  And now,
+when I think that perhaps I may some day die for him, I feel like a
+crying in my heart with joy.
+
+"I have left a letter--sent it, I mean--enclosed to uncle for father.  He
+will see Edward by-and-by.  Oh! may heaven spare him from any grief.
+Rhoda will comfort him.  Tell him how devoted I am.  I am like drowned to
+everybody but one.
+
+"We are looking on the sea.  In half an hour I shall have forgotten the
+tread of English earth.  I do not know that I breathe.  All I know is a
+fear that I am flying, and my strength will not continue.  That is when I
+am not touching his hand.  There is France opposite.  I shut my eyes and
+see the whole country, but it is like what I feel for Edward--all in dark
+moonlight.  Oh! I trust him so!  I bleed for him.  I could make all my
+veins bleed out at a sad thought about him.  And from France to
+Switzerland and Italy.  The sea sparkles just as if it said "Come to the
+sun;" and I am going.  Edward calls.  Shall I be punished for so much
+happiness?  I am too happy, I am too happy.
+
+"God bless my beloved at home!  That is my chief prayer now.  I shall
+think of her when I am in the cathedrals.
+
+"Oh, my Father in heaven! bless them all! bless Rhoda! forgive me!
+
+"I can hear the steam of the steamer at the pier.  Here
+is Edward.  He says I may send his love to you.
+
+"Address:--
+
+          "Mrs. Edward Ayrton,
+               "Poste Restante,
+                    "Lausanne,
+                         "Switzerland.
+
+"P.S.--Lausanne is where--but another time, and I will always tell you
+the history of the places to instruct you, poor heart in dull England.
+Adieu!  Good-bye and God bless my innocent at home, my dear sister.  I
+love her.  I never can forget her.  The day is so lovely.  It seems on
+purpose for us.  Be sure you write on thin paper to Lausanne.  It is on a
+blue lake; you see snow mountains, and now there is a bell ringing--
+kisses from me! we start.  I must sign.
+
+                         "Dahlia."
+
+By the reading of this letter, Rhoda was caught vividly to the shore, and
+saw her sister borne away in the boat to the strange countries; she
+travelled with her, following her with gliding speed through a
+multiplicity of shifting scenes, opal landscapes, full of fire and
+dreams, and in all of them a great bell towered.  "Oh, my sweet! my own
+beauty!" she cried in Dahlia's language.  Meeting Mrs. Sumfit, she called
+her "Mother Dumpling," as Dahlia did of old, affectionately, and kissed
+her, and ran on to Master Gammon, who was tramping leisurely on to the
+oatfield lying on toward the millholms.
+
+"My sister sends you her love," she said brightly to the old man.  Master
+Gammon responded with no remarkable flash of his eyes, and merely opened
+his mouth and shut it, as when a duck divides its bill, but fails to emit
+the customary quack.
+
+"And to you, little pigs; and to you, Mulberry; and you, Dapple; and you,
+and you, and you."
+
+Rhoda nodded round to all the citizens of the farmyard; and so eased her
+heart of its laughing bubbles.  After which, she fell to a meditative
+walk of demurer joy, and had a regret.  It was simply that Dahlia's hurry
+in signing the letter, had robbed her of the delight of seeing "Dahlia
+Ayrton" written proudly out, with its wonderful signification of the
+change in her life.
+
+That was a trifling matter; yet Rhoda felt the letter was not complete in
+the absence of the bridal name.  She fancied Dahlia to have meant,
+perhaps, that she was Dahlia to her as of old, and not a stranger.
+"Dahlia ever; Dahlia nothing else for you," she heard her sister say.
+But how delicious and mournful, how terrible and sweet with meaning would
+"Dahlia Ayrton," the new name in the dear handwriting, have looked!  "And
+I have a brother-in-law," she thought, and her cheeks tingled.  The banks
+of fern and foxglove, and the green young oaks fringing the copse, grew
+rich in colour, as she reflected that this beloved unknown husband of her
+sister embraced her and her father as well; even the old bent beggarman
+on the sandy ridge, though he had a starved frame and carried pitiless
+faggots, stood illumined in a soft warmth.  Rhoda could not go back to
+the house.
+
+It chanced that the farmer that morning had been smitten with the virtue
+of his wife's opinion of Robert, and her parting recommendation
+concerning him.
+
+"Have you a mind to either one of my two girls?" he put the question
+bluntly, finding himself alone with Robert.
+
+Robert took a quick breath, and replied, "I have."
+
+"Then make your choice," said the farmer, and tried to go about his
+business, but hung near Robert in the fields till he had asked: "Which
+one is it, my boy?"
+
+Robert turned a blade of wheat in his mouth.
+
+"I think I shall leave her to tell that," was his answer.
+
+"Why, don't ye know which one you prefer to choose, man?" quoth Mr.
+Fleming.
+
+"I mayn't know whether she prefers to choose me," said Robert.
+
+The farmer smiled.
+
+"You never can exactly reckon about them; that's true."
+
+He was led to think: "Dahlia's the lass;" seeing that Robert had not had
+many opportunities of speaking with her.
+
+"When my girls are wives, they'll do their work in the house," he
+pursued.  "They may have a little bit o' property in land, ye know, and
+they may have a share in--in gold.  That's not to be reckoned on.  We're
+an old family, Robert, and I suppose we've our pride somewhere down.
+Anyhow, you can't look on my girls and not own they're superior girls.
+I've no notion of forcing them to clean, and dish up, and do dairying, if
+it's not to their turn.  They're handy with th' needle.  They dress
+conformably, and do the millinery themselves.  And I know they say their
+prayers of a night.  That I know, if that's a comfort to ye, and it
+should be, Robert.  For pray, and you can't go far wrong; and it's
+particularly good for girls.  I'll say no more."
+
+At the dinner-table, Rhoda was not present.  Mr. Fleming fidgeted, blamed
+her and excused her, but as Robert appeared indifferent about her
+absence, he was confirmed in his idea that Dahlia attracted his fancy.
+
+They had finished dinner, and Master Gammon had risen, when a voice
+immediately recognized as the voice of Anthony Hackbut was heard in the
+front part of the house.  Mr. Fleming went round to him with a dismayed
+face.
+
+"Lord!" said Mrs. Sumfit, "how I tremble!"
+
+Robert, too, looked grave, and got away from the house.  The dread of
+evil news of Dahlia was common to them all; yet none had mentioned it,
+Robert conceiving that it would be impertinence on his part to do so; the
+farmer, that the policy of permitting Dahlia's continued residence in
+London concealed the peril; while Mrs. Sumfit flatly defied the
+threatening of a mischance to one so sweet and fair, and her favourite.
+It is the insincerity of persons of their class; but one need not lay
+stress on the wilfulness of uneducated minds.  Robert walked across the
+fields, walking like a man with an object in view.  As he dropped into
+one of the close lanes which led up to Wrexby Hall, he saw Rhoda standing
+under an oak, her white morning-dress covered with sun-spots.  His
+impulse was to turn back, the problem, how to speak to her, not being
+settled within him.  But the next moment his blood chilled; for he had
+perceived, though he had not felt simultaneously, that two gentlemen were
+standing near her, addressing her.  And it was likewise manifest that she
+listened to them.  These presently raised their hats and disappeared.
+Rhoda came on toward Robert.
+
+"You have forgotten your dinner," he said, with a queer sense of shame at
+dragging in the mention of that meal.
+
+"I have been too happy to eat," Rhoda replied.
+
+Robert glanced up the lane, but she gave no heed to this indication, and
+asked: "Has uncle come?"
+
+"Did you expect him?"
+
+"I thought he would come."
+
+"What has made you happy?"
+
+"You will hear from uncle."
+
+"Shall I go and hear what those--"
+
+Robert checked himself, but it would have been better had he spoken out.
+Rhoda's face, from a light of interrogation, lowered its look to
+contempt.
+
+She did not affect the feminine simplicity which can so prettily
+misunderstand and put by an implied accusation of that nature.  Doubtless
+her sharp instinct served her by telling her that her contempt would hurt
+him shrewdly now.  The foolishness of a man having much to say to a
+woman, and not knowing how or where the beginning of it might be, was
+perceptible about him.  A shout from her father at the open garden-gate,
+hurried on Rhoda to meet him.  Old Anthony was at Mr. Fleming's elbow.
+
+"You know it?  You have her letter, father?" said Rhoda, gaily, beneath
+the shadow of his forehead.
+
+"And a Queen of the Egyptians is what you might have been," said Anthony,
+with a speculating eye upon Rhoda's dark bright face.
+
+Rhoda put out her hand to him, but kept her gaze on her father.
+
+William Fleeting relaxed the knot of his brows and lifted the letter.
+
+"Listen all!  This is from a daughter to her father."
+
+And he read, oddly accentuating the first syllables of the sentences:--
+
+     Dear Father,--
+
+     "My husband will bring me to see you when I return to dear England.
+     I ought to have concealed nothing, I know.  Try to forgive me.  I
+     hope you will.  I shall always think of you.  God bless you!
+
+                              "I am,
+                    "Ever with respect,
+                         "Your dearly loving Daughter,
+
+                                   "Dahlia."
+
+"Dahlia Blank!" said the farmer, turning his look from face to face.
+
+A deep fire of emotion was evidently agitating him, for the letter
+rustled in his hand, and his voice was uneven.  Of this, no sign was
+given by his inexpressive features.  The round brown eyes and the ruddy
+varnish on his cheeks were a mask upon grief, if not also upon joy.
+
+"Dahlia--what?  What's her name?" he resumed.  "Here--'my husband will
+bring me to see you'--who's her husband?  Has he got a name?  And a blank
+envelope to her uncle here, who's kept her in comfort for so long!  And
+this is all she writes to me!  Will any one spell out the meaning of it?"
+
+"Dahlia was in great haste, father," said Rhoda.
+
+"Oh, ay, you!--you're the one, I know," returned the farmer.  "It's
+sister and sister, with you."
+
+"But she was very, very hurried, father.  I have a letter from her, and I
+have only 'Dahlia' written at the end--no other name."
+
+"And you suspect no harm of your sister."
+
+"Father, how can I imagine any kind of harm?"
+
+"That letter, my girl, sticks to my skull, as though it meant to say,
+'You've not understood me yet.'  I've read it a matter of twenty times,
+and I'm no nearer to the truth of it.  But, if she's lying, here in this
+letter, what's she walking on?  How long are we to wait for to hear?  I
+give you my word, Robert, I'm feeling for you as I am for myself.  Or,
+wasn't it that one?  Is it this one?"  He levelled his finger at Rhoda.
+"In any case, Robert, you'll feel for me as a father.  I'm shut in a dark
+room with the candle blown out.  I've heard of a sort of fear you have in
+that dilemmer, lest you should lay your fingers on edges of sharp knives,
+and if I think a step--if I go thinking a step, and feel my way, I do cut
+myself, and I bleed, I do.  Robert, just take and say, it wasn't that
+one."
+
+Such a statement would carry with it the confession that it was this one
+for whom he cared this scornful one, this jilt, this brazen girl who
+could make appointments with gentlemen, or suffer them to speak to her,
+and subsequently look at him with innocence and with anger.
+
+"Believe me, Mr. Fleming, I feel for you as much as a man can," he said,
+uneasily, swaying half round as he spoke.
+
+"Do you suspect anything bad?"  The farmer repeated the question, like
+one who only wanted a confirmation of his own suspicions to see the fact
+built up.  "Robert, does this look like the letter of a married woman?
+Is it daughter-like--eh, man?  Help another:
+I can't think for myself--she ties my hands.  Speak out."
+
+Robert set his eyes on Rhoda.  He would have given much to have been able
+to utter, "I do."  Her face was like an eager flower straining for light;
+the very beauty of it swelled his jealous passion, and he flattered
+himself with his incapacity to speak an abject lie to propitiate her.
+
+"She says she is married.  We're bound to accept what she says."
+
+That was his answer.
+
+"Is she married?" thundered the farmer.  "Has she been and disgraced her
+mother in her grave?  What am I to think?  She's my flesh and blood.  Is
+she--"
+
+"Oh, hush, father!"  Rhoda laid her hand on his arm.  "What doubt can
+there be of Dahlia?  You have forgotten that she is always truthful.
+Come away.  It is shameful to stand here and listen to unmanly things."
+
+She turned a face of ashes upon Robert.
+
+"Come away, father.  She is our own.  She is my sister.  A doubt of her
+is an insult to us."
+
+"But Robert don't doubt her--eh?"  The farmer was already half distracted
+from his suspicions.  "Have you any real doubt about the girl, Robert?"
+
+"I don't trust myself to doubt anybody," said Robert.
+
+"You don't cast us off, my boy?"
+
+"I'm a labourer on the farm," said Robert, and walked away.
+
+"He's got reason to feel this more 'n the rest of us, poor lad!  It's a
+blow to him."  With which the farmer struck his hand on Rhoda's shoulder.
+
+"I wish he'd set his heart on a safer young woman."
+
+Rhoda's shudder of revulsion was visible as she put her mouth up to kiss
+her father's cheek.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+That is Wrexby Hall, upon the hill between Fenhurst and Wrexby: the white
+square mansion, with the lower drawing-room windows one full bow of glass
+against the sunlight, and great single trees spotting the distant green
+slopes.  From Queen Anne's Farm you could read the hour by the stretching
+of their shadows.  Squire Blancove, who lived there, was an irascible,
+gouty man, out of humour with his time, and beginning, alas for him! to
+lose all true faith in his Port, though, to do him justice, he wrestled
+hard with this great heresy.  His friends perceived the decay in his
+belief sooner than he did himself.  He was sour in the evening as in the
+morning.  There was no chirp in him when the bottle went round.  He had
+never one hour of a humane mood to be reckoned on now.  The day, indeed,
+is sad when we see the skeleton of the mistress by whom we suffer, but
+cannot abandon her.  The squire drank, knowing that the issue would be
+the terrific, curse-begetting twinge in his foot; but, as he said, he was
+a man who stuck to his habits.  It was over his Port that he had
+quarrelled with his rector on the subject of hopeful Algernon, and the
+system he adopted with that young man.  This incident has something to do
+with Rhoda's story, for it was the reason why Mrs. Lovell went to Wrexby
+Church, the spirit of that lady leading her to follow her own impulses,
+which were mostly in opposition.  So, when perchance she visited the
+Hall, she chose not to accompany the squire and his subservient guests to
+Fenhurst, but made a point of going down to the unoccupied Wrexby pew.
+She was a beauty, and therefore powerful; otherwise her act of
+nonconformity would have produced bad blood between her and the squire.
+
+It was enough to have done so in any case; for now, instead of sitting at
+home comfortably, and reading off the week's chronicle of sport while he
+nursed his leg, the unfortunate gentleman had to be up and away to
+Fenhurst every Sunday morning, or who would have known that the old cause
+of his general abstention from Sabbath services lay in the detestable
+doctrine of Wrexby's rector?
+
+Mrs. Lovell was now at the Hall, and it was Sunday morning after
+breakfast.  The lady stood like a rival head among the other guests,
+listening, gloved and bonneted, to the bells of Wrexby, West of the
+hills, and of Fenhurst, Northeast.  The squire came in to them, groaning
+over his boots, cross with his fragile wife, and in every mood for
+satire, except to receive it.
+
+"How difficult it is to be gouty and good!" murmured Mrs. Lovell to the
+person next her.
+
+"Well," said the squire, singling out his enemy, "you're going to that
+fellow, I suppose, as usual--eh?"
+
+"Not 'as usual,'" replied Mrs. Lovell, sweetly; "I wish it were!"
+
+"Wish it were, do you?--you find him so entertaining?  Has he got to
+talking of the fashions?"
+
+"He talks properly; I don't ask for more."  Mrs. Lovell assumed an air of
+meekness under persecution.
+
+"I thought you were Low Church."
+
+"Lowly of the Church, I trust you thought," she corrected him.  "But, for
+that matter, any discourse, plainly delivered, will suit me."
+
+"His elocution's perfect," said the squire; "that is, before dinner."
+
+"I have only to do with him before dinner, you know."
+
+"Well, I've ordered a carriage out for you."
+
+"That is very honourable and kind."
+
+"It would be kinder if I contrived to keep you away from the fellow."
+
+"Would it not be kinder to yourself," Mrs. Lovell swam forward to him in
+all tenderness, taking his hands, and fixing the swimming blue of her
+soft eyes upon him pathetically, "if you took your paper and your
+slippers, and awaited our return?"
+
+The squire felt the circulating smile about the room.  He rebuked the
+woman's audacity with a frown; "Tis my duty to set an example," he said,
+his gouty foot and irritable temper now meeting in a common fire.
+
+"Since you are setting an example," rejoined the exquisite widow, "I have
+nothing more to say."
+
+The squire looked what he dared not speak.  A woman has half, a beauty
+has all, the world with her when she is self-contained, and holds her
+place; and it was evident that Mrs. Lovell was not one to abandon her
+advantages.
+
+He snapped round for a victim, trying his wife first.  Then his eyes
+rested upon Algernon.
+
+"Well, here we are; which of us will you take?" he asked Mrs. Lovell in
+blank irony.
+
+"I have engaged my cavalier, who is waiting, and will be as devout as
+possible." Mrs. Lovell gave Algernon a smile.
+
+"I thought I hit upon the man," growled the squire.  "You're going in to
+Wrexby, sir!  Oh, go, by all means, and I shan't be astonished at what
+comes of it.  Like teacher, like pupil!"
+
+"There!"  Mrs. Lovell gave Algernon another smile.  "You have to bear the
+sins of your rector, as well as your own.  Can you support it?"
+
+The flimsy fine dialogue was a little above Algernon's level in the
+society of ladies; but he muttered, bowing, that he would endeavour to
+support it, with Mrs. Lovell's help, and this did well enough; after
+which, the slight strain on the intellects of the assemblage relaxed, and
+ordinary topics were discussed.  The carriages came round to the door;
+gloves, parasols, and scent-bottles were securely grasped; whereupon the
+squire, standing bare-headed on the steps, insisted upon seeing the party
+of the opposition off first, and waited to hand Mrs. Lovell into her
+carriage, an ironic gallantry accepted by the lady with serenity
+befitting the sacred hour.
+
+"Ah! my pencil, to mark the text for you, squire," she said, taking her
+seat; and Algernon turned back at her bidding, to get a pencil; and she,
+presenting a most harmonious aspect in the lovely landscape, reclined in
+the carriage as if, like the sweet summer air, she too were quieted by
+those holy bells, while the squire stood, fuming, bareheaded, and with
+boiling blood, just within the bounds of decorum on the steps.  She was
+more than his match.
+
+She was more than a match for most; and it was not a secret.  Algernon
+knew it as well as Edward, or any one.  She was a terror to the soul of
+the youth, and an attraction.  Her smile was the richest flattery he
+could feel; the richer, perhaps, from his feeling it to be a thing
+impossible to fix.  He had heard tales of her; he remembered Edward's
+warning; but he was very humbly sitting with her now, and very happy.
+
+"I'm in for it," he said to his fair companion; "no cheque for me next
+quarter, and no chance of an increase.  He'll tell me I've got a salary.
+A salary!  Good Lord! what a man comes to!  I've done for myself with the
+squire for a year."
+
+"You must think whether you have compensation," said the lady, and he
+received it in a cousinly squeeze of his hand.
+
+He was about to raise the lank white hand to his lips.
+
+"Ah!" she said, "there would be no compensation to me, if that were
+seen;" and her dainty hand was withdrawn.  "Now, tell me," she changed
+her tone.  "How do the loves prosper?"
+
+Algernon begged her not to call them 'loves.'  She nodded and smiled.
+
+"Your artistic admirations," she observed.  "I am to see her in church,
+am I not?  Only, my dear Algy, don't go too far.  Rustic beauties are as
+dangerous as Court Princesses.  Where was it you saw her first?"
+
+"At the Bank," said Algernon.
+
+"Really! at the Bank!  So your time there is not absolutely wasted.  What
+brought her to London, I wonder?"
+
+"Well, she has an old uncle, a queer old fellow, and he's a sort of
+porter--money porter--in the Bank, awfully honest, or he might half break
+it some fine day, if he chose to cut and run.  She's got a sister,
+prettier than this girl, the fellows say; I've never seen her.  I expect
+I've seen a portrait of her, though."
+
+"Ah!" Mrs. Lovell musically drew him on.  "Was she dark, too?"
+
+"No, she's fair.  At least, she is in her portrait."
+
+"Brown hair; hazel eyes?"
+
+"Oh--oh!  You guess, do you?"
+
+"I guess nothing, though it seems profitable.  That Yankee betting man
+'guesses,' and what heaps of money he makes by it!"
+
+"I wish I did," Algernon sighed.  "All my guessing and reckoning goes
+wrong.  I'm safe for next Spring, that's one comfort.  I shall make
+twenty thousand next Spring."
+
+"On Templemore?"
+
+"That's the horse.  I've got a little on Tenpenny Nail as well.  But I'm
+quite safe on Templemore; unless the Evil Principle comes into the
+field."
+
+"Is he so sure to be against you, if he does appear?" said Mrs. Lovell.
+
+"Certain!" ejaculated Algernon, in honest indignation.
+
+"Well, Algy, I don't like to have him on my side.  Perhaps I will take a
+share in your luck, to make it--? to make it?"--She played prettily as a
+mistress teasing her lap-dog to jump for a morsel; adding: "Oh! Algy, you
+are not a Frenchman.  To make it divine, sir! you have missed your
+chance."
+
+"There's one chance I shouldn't like to miss," said the youth.
+
+"Then, do not mention it," she counselled him.  "And, seriously, I will
+take a part of your risk.  I fear I am lucky, which is ruinous.  We will
+settle that, by-and-by.  Do you know, Algy, the most expensive position
+in the world is a widow's."
+
+"You needn't be one very long," growled he.
+
+"I'm so wretchedly fastidious, don't you see?  And it's best not to sigh
+when we're talking of business, if you'll take me for a guide.  So, the
+old man brought this pretty rustic Miss Rhoda to the Bank?"
+
+"Once," said Algernon.  "Just as he did with her sister.  He's proud of
+his nieces; shows them and then hides them.  The fellows at the Bank
+never saw her again."
+
+"Her name is--?"
+
+"Dahlia."
+
+"Ah, yes!--Dahlia.  Extremely pretty.  There are brown dahlias--dahlias
+of all colours.  And the portrait of this fair creature hangs up in your
+chambers in town?"
+
+"Don't call them my chambers," Algernon protested.
+
+"Your cousin's, if you like.  Probably Edward happened to be at the Bank
+when fair Dahlia paid her visit.  Once seems to have been enough for both
+of you."
+
+Algernon was unread in the hearts of women, and imagined that Edward's
+defection from Mrs. Lovell's sway had deprived him of the lady's sympathy
+and interest in his fortunes.
+
+"Poor old Ned's in some scrape, I think," he said.
+
+"Where is he?" the lady asked, languidly.
+
+"Paris."
+
+"Paris?  How very odd!  And out of the season, in this hot weather.  It's
+enough to lead me to dream that he has gone over--one cannot realize
+why."
+
+"Upon my honour!"  Algernon thumped on his knee; "by jingo!" he adopted a
+less compromising interjection; "Ned's fool enough.  My idea is, he's
+gone and got married."
+
+Mrs. Lovell was lying back with the neglectful grace of incontestable
+beauty; not a line to wrinkle her smooth soft features.  For one sharp
+instant her face was all edged and puckered, like the face of a fair
+witch.  She sat upright.
+
+"Married!  But how can that be when we none of us have heard a word of
+it?"
+
+"I daresay you haven't," said Algernon; "and not likely to.  Ned's the
+closest fellow of my acquaintance.  He hasn't taken me into his
+confidence, you maybe sure; he knows I'm too leaky.  There's no bore like
+a secret!  I've come to my conclusion in this affair by putting together
+a lot of little incidents and adding them up.  First, I believe he was at
+the Bank when that fair girl was seen there.  Secondly, from the
+description the fellows give of her, I should take her to be the original
+of the portrait.  Next, I know that Rhoda has a fair sister who has run
+for it.  And last, Rhoda has had a letter from her sister, to say she's
+away to the Continent and is married.  Ned's in Paris.  Those are my
+facts, and I give you my reckoning of them."
+
+Mrs. Lovell gazed at Algernon for one long meditative moment.
+
+"Impossible," she exclaimed.  "Edward has more brains than heart."  And
+now the lady's face was scarlet.  "How did this Rhoda, with her absurd
+name, think of meeting you to tell you such stuff?  Indeed, there's a
+simplicity in some of these young women--"  She said the remainder to
+herself.
+
+"She's really very innocent and good," Algernon defended Rhoda.  "she is.
+There isn't a particle of nonsense in her.  I first met her in town, as I
+stated, at the Bank; just on the steps, and we remembered I had called a
+cab for her a little before; and I met her again by accident yesterday."
+
+"You are only a boy in their hands, my cousin Algy!" said Mrs. Lovell.
+
+Algernon nodded with a self-defensive knowingness.  "I fancy there's no
+doubt her sister has written to her that she's married.  It's certain she
+has.  She's a blunt sort of girl; not one to lie, not even for a sister
+or a lover, unless she had previously made up her mind to it.  In that
+case, she wouldn't stick at much."
+
+"But, do you know," said Mrs. Lovell--"do you know that Edward's father
+would be worse than yours over such an act of folly?  He would call it an
+offence against common sense, and have no mercy for it.  He would be
+vindictive on principle.  This story of yours cannot be true.  Nothing
+reconciles it."
+
+"Oh, Sir Billy will be rusty; that stands to reason," Algernon assented.
+"It mayn't be true.  I hope it isn't.  But Ned has a madness for fair
+women.  He'd do anything on earth for them.  He loses his head entirely."
+
+"That he may have been imprudent--"  Mrs. Lovell thus blushingly hinted
+at the lesser sin of his deceiving and ruining the girl.
+
+"Oh, it needn't be true," said Algernon; and with meaning, "Who's to
+blame if it is?"
+
+Mrs. Lovell again reddened.  She touched Algernon's fingers.
+
+"His friends mustn't forsake him, in any case."
+
+"By Jove! you are the right sort of woman," cried Algernon.
+
+It was beyond his faculties to divine that her not forsaking of Edward
+might haply come to mean something disastrous to him.  The touch of Mrs.
+Lovell's hand made him forget Rhoda in a twinkling.  He detained it,
+audaciously, even until she frowned with petulance and stamped her foot.
+
+There was over her bosom a large cameo-brooch, representing a tomb under
+a palm-tree, and the figure of a veiled woman with her head bowed upon
+the tomb.  This brooch was falling, when Algernon caught it.  The pin
+tore his finger, and in the energy of pain he dashed the brooch to her
+feet, with immediate outcries of violent disgust at himself and
+exclamations for pardon.  He picked up the brooch.  It was open.  A
+strange, discoloured, folded substance lay on the floor of the carriage.
+Mrs. Lovell gazed down at it, and then at him, ghastly pale.  He lifted
+it by one corner, and the diminutive folded squares came out, revealing a
+strip of red-stained handkerchief.
+
+Mrs. Lovell grasped it, and thrust it out of sight.
+
+She spoke as they approached the church-door: "Mention nothing of this to
+a soul, or you forfeit my friendship for ever."
+
+When they alighted, she was smiling in her old affable manner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Some consideration for Robert, after all, as being the man who loved her,
+sufficed to give him rank as a more elevated kind of criminal in Rhoda's
+sight, and exquisite torture of the highest form was administered to him.
+Her faith in her sister was so sure that she could half pardon him for
+the momentary harm he had done to Dahlia with her father; but, judging
+him by the lofty standard of one who craved to be her husband, she could
+not pardon his unmanly hesitation and manner of speech.  The old and deep
+grievance in her heart as to what men thought of women, and as to the
+harshness of men, was stirred constantly by the remembrance of his
+irresolute looks, and his not having dared to speak nobly for Dahlia,
+even though he might have had, the knavery to think evil.  As the case
+stood, there was still mischief to counteract.  Her father had willingly
+swallowed a drug, but his suspicions only slumbered, and she could not
+instil her own vivid hopefulness and trust into him.  Letters from Dahlia
+came regularly.  The first, from Lausanne, favoured Rhoda's conception of
+her as of a happy spirit resting at celestial stages of her ascent upward
+through spheres of ecstacy.  Dahlia could see the snow-mountains in a
+flying glimpse; and again, peacefully seated, she could see the
+snow-mountains reflected in clear blue waters from her window, which,
+Rhoda thought, must be like heaven.  On these inspired occasions, Robert
+presented the form of a malignant serpent in her ideas.  Then Dahlia made
+excursions upon glaciers with her beloved, her helpmate, and had
+slippings and tumblings--little earthly casualties which gave a charming
+sense of reality to her otherwise miraculous flight.  The Alps were
+crossed: Italy was beheld.  A profusion of "Oh's!" described Dahlia's
+impressions of Italy; and "Oh! the heat!" showed her to be mortal,
+notwithstanding the sublime exclamations.  Como received the blissful
+couple.  Dahlia wrote from Como:--
+
+     "Tell father that gentlemen in my Edward's position cannot always
+     immediately proclaim their marriage to the world.  There are
+     reasons.  I hope he has been very angry with me: then it will be
+     soon over, and we shall be--but I cannot look back.  I shall not
+     look back till we reach Venice.  At Venice, I know I shall see you
+     all as clear as day; but I cannot even remember the features of my
+     darling here."
+
+Her Christian name was still her only signature.
+
+The thin blue-and-pink paper, and the foreign postmarks--testifications
+to Dahlia's journey not being a fictitious event, had a singular
+deliciousness for the solitary girl at the Farm.  At times, as she turned
+them over, she was startled by the intoxication of her sentiments, for
+the wild thought would come, that many, many whose passionate hearts she
+could feel as her own, were ready to abandon principle and the bondage to
+the hereafter, for such a long delicious gulp of divine life.  Rhoda
+found herself more than once brooding on the possible case that Dahlia
+had done this thing.
+
+The fit of languor came on her unawares, probing at her weakness, and
+blinding her to the laws and duties of earth, until her conscious
+womanhood checked it, and she sprang from the vision in a spasm of
+terror, not knowing how far she had fallen.
+
+After such personal experiences, she suffered great longings to be with
+her sister, that the touch of her hand, the gaze of her eyes, the tone of
+Dahlia's voice, might make her sure of her sister's safety.
+
+Rhoda's devotions in church were frequently distracted by the occupants
+of the Blancove pew.  Mrs. Lovell had the habit of looking at her with an
+extraordinary directness, an expressionless dissecting scrutiny, that was
+bewildering and confusing to the country damsel.  Algernon likewise
+bestowed marked attention on her.  Some curious hints had been thrown out
+to her by this young gentleman on the day when he ventured to speak to
+her in the lane, which led her to fancy distantly that he had some
+acquaintance with Dahlia's husband, or that he had heard of Dahlia.
+
+It was clear to Rhoda that Algernon sought another interview.  He
+appeared in the neighbourhood of the farm on Saturdays, and on Sundays he
+was present in the church, sometimes with Mrs. Lovell, and sometimes
+without a companion.  His appearance sent her quick wits travelling
+through many scales of possible conduct: and they struck one ringing
+note:--she thought that by the aid of this gentleman a lesson might be
+given to Robert's mean nature.  It was part of Robert's punishment to see
+that she was not unconscious of Algernon's admiration.
+
+The first letter from Venice consisted of a series of interjections in
+praise of the poetry of gondolas, varied by allusions to the sad smell of
+the low tide water, and the amazing quality of the heat; and then Dahlia
+wrote more composedly:--
+
+"Titian the painter lived here, and painted ladies, who sat to him
+without a bit of garment on, and indeed, my darling, I often think it was
+more comfortable for the model than for the artist.  Even modesty seems
+too hot a covering for human creatures here.  The sun strikes me down.  I
+am ceasing to have a complexion.  It is pleasant to know that my Edward
+is still proud of me.  He has made acquaintance with some of the officers
+here, and seems pleased at the compliments they pay me.
+
+"They have nice manners, and white uniforms that fit them like a kid
+glove.  I am Edward's 'resplendent wife.'  A colonel of one of the
+regiments invited him to dinner (speaking English), 'with your
+resplendent wife.'  Edward has no mercy for errors of language, and he
+would not take me.  Ah! who knows how strange men are!  Never think of
+being happy unless you can always be blind.  I see you all at home--
+Mother Dumpling and all--as I thought I should when I was to come to
+Venice.
+
+"Persuade--do persuade father that everything will be well.  Some persons
+are to be trusted.  Make him feel it.  I know that I am life itself to
+Edward.  He has lived as men do, and he can judge, and he knows that
+there never was a wife who brought a heart to her husband like mine to
+him.  He wants to think, or he wants to smoke, and he leaves me; but, oh!
+when he returns, he can scarcely believe that he has me, his joy is so
+great.  He looks like a glad thankful child, and he has the manliest of
+faces.  It is generally thoughtful; you might think it hard, at first
+sight.
+
+"But you must be beautiful to please some men.  You will laugh--I have
+really got the habit of talking to my face and all myself in the glass.
+Rhoda would think me cracked.  And it is really true that I was never so
+humble about my good looks.  You used to spoil me at home--you and that
+wicked old Mother Dumpling, and our own dear mother, Rhoda--oh! mother,
+mother!  I wish I had always thought of you looking down on me!  You made
+me so vain--much more vain than I let you see I was.  There were times
+when it is quite true I thought myself a princess.  I am not worse-
+looking now, but I suppose I desire to be so beautiful that nothing
+satisfies me.
+
+"A spot on my neck gives me a dreadful fright.  If my hair comes out much
+when I comb it, it sets my heart beating; and it is a daily misery to me
+that my hands are larger than they should be, belonging to Edward's
+'resplendent wife.'  I thank heaven that you and I always saw the
+necessity of being careful of our fingernails.  My feet are of moderate
+size, though they are not French feet, as Edward says.  No: I shall never
+dance.  He sent me to the dancing-master in London, but it was too late.
+But I have been complimented on my walking, and that seems to please
+Edward.  He does not dance (or mind dancing) himself, only he does not
+like me to miss one perfection.  It is his love.  Oh! if I have seemed to
+let you suppose he does not love me as ever, do not think it.  He is most
+tender and true to me.  Addio!  I am signora, you are signorina.
+
+"They have such pretty manners to us over here.  Edward says they think
+less of women: I say they think more.  But I feel he must be right.  Oh,
+my dear, cold, loving, innocent sister! put out your arms; I shall feel
+them round me, and kiss you, kiss you for ever!"
+
+Onward from city to city, like a radiation of light from the old
+farm-house, where so little of it was, Dahlia continued her journey; and
+then, without a warning, with only a word to say that she neared Rome,
+the letters ceased.  A chord snapped in Rhoda's bosom.  While she was
+hearing from her sister almost weekly, her confidence was buoyed on a
+summer sea.  In the silence it fell upon a dread.  She had no answer in
+her mind for her father's unspoken dissatisfaction, and she had to
+conceal her cruel anxiety.  There was an interval of two months: a blank
+fell charged with apprehension that was like the humming of a toneless
+wind before storm; worse than the storm, for any human thing to bear.
+
+Rhoda was unaware that Robert, who rarely looked at her, and never sought
+to speak a word to her when by chance they met and were alone, studied
+each change in her face, and read its signs.  He was left to his own
+interpretation of them, but the signs he knew accurately.  He knew that
+her pride had sunk, and that her heart was desolate.  He believed that
+she had discovered her sister's misery.
+
+One day a letter arrived that gave her no joyful colouring, though it
+sent colour to her cheeks.  She opened it, evidently not knowing the
+handwriting; her eyes ran down the lines hurriedly.  After a time she
+went upstairs for her bonnet.
+
+At the stile leading into that lane where Robert had previously seen her,
+she was stopped by him.
+
+"No farther," was all that he said, and he was one who could have
+interdicted men from advancing.
+
+"Why may I not go by you?" said Rhoda, with a woman's affected
+humbleness.
+
+Robert joined his hands.  "You go no farther, Miss Rhoda, unless you take
+me with you."
+
+"I shall not do that, Mr. Robert."
+
+"Then you had better return home."
+
+"Will you let me know what reasons you have for behaving in this manner
+to me?"
+
+"I'll let you know by-and-by," said Robert.  "At present, You'll let the
+stronger of the two have his way."
+
+He had always been so meek and gentle and inoffensive, that her contempt
+had enjoyed free play, and had never risen to anger; but violent anger
+now surged against him, and she cried, "Do you dare to touch me?" trying
+to force her passage by.
+
+Robert caught her softly by the wrist.  There stood at the same time a
+full-statured strength of will in his eyes, under which her own fainted.
+
+"Go back," he said; and she turned that he might not see her tears of
+irritation and shame.  He was treating her as a child; but it was to
+herself alone that she could defend herself.  She marvelled that when she
+thought of an outspoken complaint against him, her conscience gave her no
+support.
+
+"Is there no freedom for a woman at all in this world?" Rhoda framed the
+bitter question.
+
+Rhoda went back as she had come.  Algernon Blancove did the same.
+Between them stood Robert, thinking, "Now I have made that girl hate me
+for life."
+
+It was in November that a letter, dated from London, reached the farm,
+quickening Rhoda's blood anew.  "I am alive," said Dahlia; and she said
+little more, except that she was waiting to see her sister, and bade her
+urgently to travel up alone.  Her father consented to her doing so.
+After a consultation with Robert, however, he determined to accompany
+her.
+
+"She can't object to see me too," said the farmer; and Rhoda answered
+"No."  But her face was bronze to Robert when they took their departure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Old Anthony was expecting them in London.  It was now winter, and the
+season for theatres; so, to show his brother-in-law the fun of a theatre
+was one part of his projected hospitality, if Mr. Fleming should haply
+take the hint that he must pay for himself.
+
+Anthony had laid out money to welcome the farmer, and was shy and fidgety
+as a girl who anticipates the visit of a promising youth, over his fat
+goose for next day's dinner, and his shrimps for this day's tea, and his
+red slice of strong cheese, called of Cheshire by the reckless butter-
+man, for supper.
+
+He knew that both Dahlia and Rhoda must have told the farmer that he was
+not high up in Boyne's Bank, and it fretted him to think that the
+mysterious respect entertained for his wealth by the farmer, which
+delighted him with a novel emotion, might be dashed by what the farmer
+would behold.
+
+During his last visit to the farm, Anthony had talked of the Funds more
+suggestively than usual.  He had alluded to his own dealings in them, and
+to what he would do and would not do under certain contingencies; thus
+shadowing out, dimly luminous and immense, what he could do, if his
+sagacity prompted the adventure.  The farmer had listened through the
+buzzing of his uncertain grief, only sighing for answer.  "If ever you
+come up to London, brother William John," said Anthony, "you mind you go
+about arm-in-arm with me, or you'll be judging by appearances, and says
+you, 'Lor', what a thousander fellow this is!' and 'What a millioner
+fellow that is!'  You'll be giving your millions and your thousands to
+the wrong people, when they haven't got a penny.  All London 'll be
+topsy-turvy to you, unless you've got a guide, and he'll show you a
+shabby-coated, head-in-the-gutter old man 'll buy up the lot.  Everybody
+that doesn't know him says--look at him! but they that knows him--hats
+off, I can tell you.  And talk about lords!  We don't mind their coming
+into the city, but they know the scent of cash.  I've had a lord take off
+his hat to me.  It's a fact, I have."
+
+In spite of the caution Anthony had impressed upon his country relative,
+that he should not judge by appearances, he was nevertheless under an
+apprehension that the farmer's opinion of him, and the luxurious, almost
+voluptuous, enjoyment he had of it, were in peril.  When he had purchased
+the well-probed fat goose, the shrimps, and the cheese, he was only
+half-satisfied.  His ideas shot boldly at a bottle of wine, and he
+employed a summer-lighted evening in going a round of wine-merchants'
+placards, and looking out for the cheapest bottle he could buy.  And he
+would have bought one--he had sealing-wax of his own and could have
+stamped it with the office-stamp of Boyne's Bank for that matter, to make
+it as dignified and costly as the vaunted red seals and green seals of
+the placards--he would have bought one, had he not, by one of his lucky
+mental illuminations, recollected that it was within his power to procure
+an order to taste wine at the Docks, where you may get as much wine as
+you like out of big sixpenny glasses, and try cask after cask, walking
+down gas-lit paths between the huge bellies of wine which groan to be
+tapped and tried, that men may know them.  The idea of paying two
+shillings and sixpence for one miserable bottle vanished at the
+richly-coloured prospect.  "That'll show him something of what London
+is," thought Anthony; and a companion thought told him in addition that
+the farmer, with a skinful of wine, would emerge into the open air
+imagining no small things of the man who could gain admittance into those
+marvellous caverns.  "By George! it's like a boy's story-book," cried
+Anthony, in his soul, and he chuckled over the vision of the farmer's
+amazement--acted it with his arms extended, and his hat unseated, and
+plunged into wheezy fits of laughter.
+
+He met his guests at the station.  Mr. Fleming was soberly attired in
+what, to Anthony's London eye, was a curiosity costume; but the broad
+brim of the hat, the square cut of the brown coat, and the leggings,
+struck him as being very respectable, and worthy of a presentation at any
+Bank in London.
+
+"You stick to a leather purse, brother William John?" he inquired, with
+an artistic sentiment for things in keeping.
+
+"I do," said the farmer, feeling seriously at the button over it.
+
+"All right; I shan't ask ye to show it in the street," Anthony rejoined,
+and smote Rhoda's hand as it hung.
+
+"Glad to see your old uncle--are ye?"
+
+Rhoda replied quietly that she was, but had come with the principal
+object of seeing her sister.
+
+"There!" cried Anthony, "you never get a compliment out of this gal.  She
+gives ye the nut, and you're to crack it, and there maybe, or there
+mayn't be, a kernel inside--she don't care."
+
+"But there ain't much in it!" the farmer ejaculated, withdrawing his
+fingers from the button they had been teasing for security since
+Anthony's question about the purse.
+
+"Not much--eh! brother William John?" Anthony threw up a puzzled look.
+"Not much baggage--I see that--" he exclaimed; "and, Lord be thanked! no
+trunks.  Aha, my dear"--he turned to Rhoda--"you remember your lesson, do
+ye?  Now, mark me--I'll remember you for it.  Do you know, my dear," he
+said to Rhoda confidentially, "that sixpenn'orth of chaff which I made
+the cabman pay for--there was the cream of it!--that was better than
+Peruvian bark to my constitution.  It was as good to me as a sniff of
+sea-breeze and no excursion expenses.  I'd like another, just to feel
+young again, when I'd have backed myself to beat--cabmen?  Ah! I've stood
+up, when I was a young 'un, and shut up a Cheap Jack at a fair.
+Circulation's the soul o' chaff.  That's why I don't mind tackling
+cabmen--they sit all day, and all they've got to say is 'rat-tat,' and
+they've done.  But I let the boys roar.  I know what I was when a boy
+myself.  I've got devil in me--never you fear--but it's all on the side
+of the law.  Now, let's off, for the gentlemen are starin' at you, which
+won't hurt ye, ye know, but makes me jealous."
+
+Before the party moved away from the platform, a sharp tussle took place
+between Anthony and the farmer as to the porterage of the bulky bag; but
+it being only half-earnest, the farmer did not put out his strength, and
+Anthony had his way.
+
+"I rather astonished you, brother William John," he said, when they were
+in the street.
+
+The farmer admitted that he was stronger than he looked.
+
+"Don't you judge by appearances, that's all," Anthony remarked, setting
+down the bag to lay his finger on one side of his nose for
+impressiveness.
+
+"Now, there we leave London Bridge to the right, and we should away to
+the left, and quiet parts."  He seized the bag anew.  "Just listen.
+That's the roaring of cataracts of gold you hear, brother William John.
+It's a good notion, ain't it?  Hark!--I got that notion from one of your
+penny papers.  You can buy any amount for a penny, now-a-days--poetry up
+in a corner, stories, tales o' temptation--one fellow cut his lucky with
+his master's cash, dashed away to Australia, made millions, fit to be a
+lord, and there he was! liable to the law! and everybody bowing their
+hats and their heads off to him, and his knees knocking at the sight of a
+policeman--a man of a red complexion, full habit of body, enjoyed his
+dinner and his wine, and on account of his turning white so often, they
+called him--'sealing-wax and Parchment' was one name; 'Carrots and
+turnips' was another; 'Blumonge and something,' and so on.  Fancy his
+having to pay half his income in pensions to chaps who could have had him
+out of his town or country mansion and popped into gaol in a jiffy.  And
+found out at last!  Them tales set you thinking.  Once I was an idle
+young scaramouch.  But you can buy every idea that's useful to you for a
+penny.  I tried the halfpenny journals.  Cheapness ain't always
+profitable.  The moral is, Make your money, and you may buy all the
+rest."
+
+Discoursing thus by the way, and resisting the farmer's occasional
+efforts to relieve him of the bag, with the observation that appearances
+were deceiving, and that he intended, please his Maker, to live and turn
+over a little more interest yet, Anthony brought them to Mrs. Wicklow's
+house.  Mrs.  Wicklow promised to put them into the track of the
+omnibuses running toward Dahlia's abode in the Southwest, and Mary Ann
+Wicklow, who had a burning desire in her bosom to behold even the outside
+shell of her friend's new grandeur, undertook very disinterestedly to
+accompany them.  Anthony's strict injunction held them due at a lamp-post
+outside Boyne's Bank, at half-past three o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+"My love to Dahly," he said.  "She was always a head and shoulders over
+my size.  Tell her, when she rolls by in her carriage, not to mind me.  I
+got my own notions of value.  And if that Mr. Ayrton of hers 'll bank at
+Boyne's, I'll behave to him like a customer.  This here's the girl for my
+money."  He touched Rhoda's arm, and so disappeared.
+
+The farmer chided her for her cold manner to her uncle, murmuring aside
+to her: "You heard what he said."  Rhoda was frozen with her heart's
+expectation, and insensible to hints or reproof.  The people who entered
+the omnibus seemed to her stale phantoms bearing a likeness to every one
+she had known, save to her beloved whom she was about to meet, after long
+separation.
+
+She marvelled pityingly at the sort of madness which kept the streets so
+lively for no reasonable purpose.  When she was on her feet again, she
+felt for the first time, that she was nearing the sister for whom she
+hungered, and the sensation beset her that she had landed in a foreign
+country.  Mary Ann Wicklow chattered all the while to the general ear.
+It was her pride to be the discoverer of Dahlia's terrace.
+
+"Not for worlds would she enter the house," she said, in a general tone;
+she knowing better than to present herself where downright entreaty did
+not invite her.
+
+Rhoda left her to count the numbers along the terrace-walk, and stood out
+in the road that her heart might select Dahlia's habitation from the
+other hueless residences.  She fixed upon one, but she was wrong, and her
+heart sank.  The fair Mary Ann fought her and beat her by means of a
+careful reckoning, as she remarked,--
+
+"I keep my eyes open; Number 15 is the corner house, the bow-window, to a
+certainty."
+
+Gardens were in front of the houses; or, to speak more correctly, strips
+of garden walks.  A cab was drawn up close by the shrub-covered iron gate
+leading up to No. 15.  Mary Ann hurried them on, declaring that they
+might be too late even now at a couple of dozen paces distant, seeing
+that London cabs, crawlers as they usually were, could, when required,
+and paid for it, do their business like lightning.  Her observation was
+illustrated the moment after they had left her in the rear; for a
+gentleman suddenly sprang across the pavement, jumped into a cab, and was
+whirled away, with as much apparent magic to provincial eyes, as if a
+pantomimic trick had been performed.  Rhoda pressed forward a step in
+advance of her father.
+
+"It may have been her husband," she thought, and trembled.  The curtains
+up in the drawing-room were moved as by a hand; but where was Dahlia's
+face?  Dahlia knew that they were coming, and she was not on the look-out
+for them!--a strange conflict of facts, over which Rhoda knitted her
+black brows, so that she looked menacing to the maid opening the door,
+whose "Oh, if you please, Miss," came in contact with "My sister--Mrs.--,
+she expects me.  I mean, Mrs.--" but no other name than "Dahlia" would
+fit itself to Rhoda's mouth.
+
+"Ayrton," said the maid, and recommenced, "Oh, if you please, Miss, and
+you are the young lady, Mrs. Ayrton is very sorry, and have left word,
+would you call again to-morrow, as she have made a pressing appointment,
+and was sure you would excuse her, but her husband was very anxious for
+her to go, and could not put it off, and was very sorry, but would you
+call again to-morrow at twelve o'clock? and punctually she would be
+here."
+
+The maid smiled as one who had fairly accomplished the recital of her
+lesson.  Rhoda was stunned.
+
+"Is Mrs. Ayrton at home?--Not at home?" she said.
+
+"No: don't ye hear?" quoth the farmer, sternly.
+
+"She had my letter--do you know?" Rhoda appealed to the maid.
+
+"Oh, yes, Miss.  A letter from the country."
+
+"This morning?"
+
+"Yes, Miss; this morning."
+
+"And she has gone out?  What time did she go out?  When will she be in?"
+
+Her father plucked at her dress.  "Best not go making the young woman
+repeat herself.  She says, nobody's at home to ask us in.  There's no
+more, then, to trouble her for."
+
+"At twelve o'clock to-morrow?" Rhoda faltered.
+
+"Would you, if you please, call again at twelve o'clock to-morrow, and
+punctually she would be here," said the maid.
+
+The farmer hung his head and turned.  Rhoda followed him from the garden.
+She was immediately plied with queries and interjections of wonderment by
+Miss Wicklow, and it was not until she said: "You saw him go out, didn't
+you?--into the cab?" that Rhoda awakened to a meaning in her gabble.
+
+Was it Dahlia's husband whom they had seen?  And if so, why was Dahlia
+away from her husband?  She questioned in her heart, but not for an
+answer, for she allowed no suspicions to live.  The farmer led on with
+his plodding country step, burdened shoulders, and ruddy-fowled, serious
+face, not speaking to Rhoda, who had no desire to hear a word from him,
+and let him be.  Mary Ann steered him and called from behind the turnings
+he was to take, while she speculated aloud to Rhoda upon the nature of
+the business that had torn Dahlia from the house so inopportunely.  At
+last she announced that she knew what it was, but Rhoda failed to express
+curiosity.  Mary Ann was driven to whisper something about strange things
+in the way of purchases.  At that moment the farmer threw up his
+umbrella, shouting for a cab, and Rhoda ran up to him,--
+
+"Oh, father, why do we want to ride?"
+
+"Yes, I tell ye!" said the farmer, chafing against his coat-collar.
+
+"It is an expense, when we can walk, father."
+
+"What do I care for th' expense?  I shall ride."  He roared again for a
+cab, and one came that took them in; after which, the farmer, not being
+spoken to, became gravely placid as before.  They were put down at
+Boyne's Bank.  Anthony was on the look-out, and signalled them to stand
+away some paces from the door.  They were kept about a quarter of an hour
+waiting between two tides of wayfarers, which hustled them one way and
+another, when out, at last, came the old, broad, bent figure, with little
+finicking steps, and hurried past them head foremost, his arms narrowed
+across a bulgy breast.  He stopped to make sure that they were following,
+beckoned with his chin, and proceeded at a mighty rate.  Marvellous was
+his rounding of corners, his threading of obstructions, his skilful
+diplomacy with passengers.  Presently they lost sight of him, and stood
+bewildered; but while they were deliberating they heard his voice.  He
+was above them, having issued from two swinging bright doors; and he
+laughed and nodded, as he ran down the steps, and made signs, by which
+they were to understand that he was relieved of a weight.
+
+"I've done that twenty year of my life, brother William John," he said.
+"Eh? Perhaps you didn't guess I was worth some thousands when I got away
+from you just now?  Let any chap try to stop me!  They may just as well
+try to stop a railway train.  Steam's up, and I'm off."
+
+He laughed and wiped his forehead.  Slightly vexed at the small amount of
+discoverable astonishment on the farmer's face, he continued,--
+
+"You don't think much of it.  Why, there ain't another man but myself
+Boyne's Bank would trust.  They've trusted me thirty year:--why shouldn't
+they go on trusting me another thirty year?  A good character, brother
+William John, goes on compound-interesting, just like good coin.  Didn't
+you feel a sort of heat as I brushed by you--eh?  That was a matter of
+one-two-three-four" Anthony watched the farmer as his voice swelled up on
+the heightening numbers: "five-six-six thousand pounds, brother William
+John.  People must think something of a man to trust him with that sum
+pretty near every day of their lives, Sundays excepted--eh? don't you
+think so?"
+
+He dwelt upon the immense confidence reposed in him, and the terrible
+temptation it would be to some men, and how they ought to thank their
+stars that they were never thrown in the way of such a temptation, of
+which he really thought nothing at all--nothing! until the farmer's
+countenance was lightened of its air of oppression, for a puzzle was
+dissolved in his brain.  It was now manifest to him that Anthony was
+trusted in this extraordinary manner because the heads and managers of
+Boyne's Bank knew the old man to be possessed of a certain very
+respectable sum: in all probability they held it in their coffers for
+safety and credited him with the amount.  Nay, more; it was fair to
+imagine that the guileless old fellow, who conceived himself to be so
+deep, had let them get it all into their hands without any suspicion of
+their prominent object in doing so.
+
+Mr. Fleming said, "Ah, yes, surely."
+
+He almost looked shrewd as he smiled over Anthony's hat.  The healthy
+exercise of his wits relieved his apprehensive paternal heart; and when
+he mentioned that Dahlia had not been at home when he called, he at the
+same time sounded his hearer for excuses to be raised on her behalf,
+himself clumsily suggesting one or two, as to show that he was willing to
+swallow a very little for comfort.
+
+"Oh, of course!" said Anthony, jeeringly.  "Out?  If you catch her in,
+these next three or four days, you'll be lucky.  Ah, brother William
+John!"
+
+The farmer, half frightened by Anthony's dolorous shake of his head,
+exclaimed: "What's the matter, man?"
+
+"How proud I should be if only you was in a way to bank at Boyne's!"
+
+"Ah!" went the farmer in his turn, and he plunged his chin deep in his
+neckerchief.
+
+"Perhaps some of your family will, some day, brother William John."
+
+"Happen, some of my family do, brother Anthony!"
+
+"Will is what I said, brother William John; if good gals, and civil, and
+marry decently--eh?" and he faced about to Rhoda who was walking with
+Miss Wicklow.  "What does she look so down about, my dear?  Never be
+down.  I don't mind you telling your young man, whoever he is; and I'd
+like him to be a strapping young six-footer I've got in my eye, who
+farms.  What does he farm with to make farming answer now-a-days?  Why,
+he farms with brains.  You'll find that in my last week's Journal,
+brother William John, and thinks I, as I conned it--the farmer ought to
+read that!  You may tell any young man you like, my dear, that your old
+uncle's fond of ye."
+
+On their arrival home, Mrs. Wicklow met them with a letter in her hand.
+It was for Rhoda from Dahlia, saying that Dahlia was grieved to the heart
+to have missed her dear father and her darling sister.  But her husband
+had insisted upon her going out to make particular purchases, and do a
+dozen things; and he was extremely sorry to have been obliged to take her
+away, but she hoped to see her dear sister and her father very, very
+soon.  She wished she were her own mistress that she might run to them,
+but men when they are husbands require so much waiting on that she could
+never call five minutes her own.  She would entreat them to call
+tomorrow, only she would then be moving to her new lodgings.  "But, oh!
+my dear, my blessed Rhoda!" the letter concluded, "do keep fast in your
+heart that I do love you so, and pray that we may meet soon, as I pray it
+every night and all day long.  Beg father to stop till we meet.  Things
+will soon be arranged.  They must.  Oh! oh, my Rhoda, love! how handsome
+you have grown.  It is very well to be fair for a time, but the brunettes
+have the happiest lot.  They last, and when we blonde ones cry or grow
+thin, oh! what objects we become!"
+
+There were some final affectionate words, but no further explanations.
+
+The wrinkles again settled on the farmer's mild, uncomplaining forehead.
+
+Rhoda said: "Let us wait, father."
+
+When alone, she locked the letter against her heart, as to suck the
+secret meaning out of it.  Thinking over it was useless; except for this
+one thought: how did her sister know she had grown very handsome?
+Perhaps the housemaid had prattled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Dahlia, the perplexity to her sister's heart, lay stretched at full
+length upon the sofa of a pleasantly furnished London drawing-room,
+sobbing to herself, with her handkerchief across her eyes.  She had cried
+passion out, and sobbed now for comfort.
+
+She lay in her rich silken dress like the wreck of a joyful creature,
+while the large red Winter sun rounded to evening, and threw
+deep-coloured beams against the wall above her head.  They touched the
+nut-brown hair to vivid threads of fire: but she lay faceless.  Utter
+languor and the dread of looking at her eyelids in the glass kept her
+prostrate.
+
+So, the darkness closed her about; the sickly gas-lamps of the street
+showing her as a shrouded body.
+
+A girl came in to spread the cloth for dinner, and went through her
+duties with the stolidity of the London lodging-house maidservant, poking
+a clogged fire to perdition, and repressing a songful spirit.
+
+Dahlia knew well what was being done; she would have given much to have
+saved her nostrils from the smell of dinner; it was a great immediate
+evil to her sickened senses; but she had no energy to call out, nor will
+of any kind.  The odours floated to her, and passively she combated them.
+
+At first she was nearly vanquished; the meat smelt so acrid, the potatoes
+so sour; each afflicting vegetable asserted itself peculiarly; and the
+bread, the salt even, on the wings of her morbid fancy, came steaming
+about her, subtle, penetrating, thick, and hateful, like the pressure of
+a cloud out of which disease is shot.
+
+Such it seemed to her, till she could have shrieked; but only a few fresh
+tears started down her cheeks, and she lay enduring it.
+
+Dead silence and stillness hung over the dinner-service, when the outer
+door below was opened, and a light foot sprang up the stairs.
+
+There entered a young gentleman in evening dress, with a loose black
+wrapper drooping from his shoulders.
+
+He looked on the table, and then glancing at the sofa, said:
+
+"Oh, there she is!" and went to the window and whistled.
+
+After a minute of great patience, he turned his face back to the room
+again, and commenced tapping his foot on the carpet.
+
+"Well?" he said, finding these indications of exemplary self-command
+unheeded.  His voice was equally powerless to provoke a sign of
+animation.  He now displaced his hat, and said, "Dahlia!"
+
+She did not move.
+
+"I am here to very little purpose, then," he remarked.
+
+A guttering fall of her bosom was perceptible.
+
+"For heaven's sake, take away that handkerchief, my good child!  Why
+have you let your dinner get cold?  Here," he lifted a cover; "here's
+roast-beef.  You like it--why don't you eat it?  That's only a small
+piece of the general inconsistency, I know.  And why haven't they put
+champagne on the table for you?  You lose your spirits without it.  If
+you took it when these moody fits came on--but there's no advising a
+woman to do anything for her own good.  Dahlia, will you do me the favour
+to speak two or three words with me before I go?  I would have dined
+here, but I have a man to meet me at the Club.  Of what mortal service is
+it shamming the insensible?  You've produced the required effect, I am as
+uncomfortable as I need be.  Absolutely!
+
+"Well," seeing that words were of no avail, he summed up expostulation
+and reproach in this sigh of resigned philosophy: "I am going.  Let me
+see--I have my Temple keys?--yes!  I am afraid that even when you are
+inclined to be gracious and look at me, I shall not, be visible to you
+for some days.  I start for Lord Elling's to-morrow morning at five.  I
+meet my father there by appointment.  I'm afraid we shall have to stay
+over Christmas.  Good-bye." He paused.  "Good-bye, my dear."
+
+Two or three steps nearer the door, he said, "By the way, do you want
+anything?  Money?--do you happen to want any money?  I will send a blank
+cheque tomorrow.  I have sufficient for both of us.  I shall tell the
+landlady to order your Christmas dinner.  How about wine?  There is
+champagne, I know, and bottled ale.  Sherry?  I'll drop a letter to my
+wine-merchant; I think the sherry's running dry."
+
+Her sense of hearing was now afflicted in as gross a manner as had been
+her sense of smell.  She could not have spoken, though her vitality had
+pressed for speech.  It would have astonished him to hear that his
+solicitude concerning provender for her during his absence was not
+esteemed a kindness; for surely it is a kindly thing to think of it; and
+for whom but for one for whom he cared would he be counting the bottles
+to be left at her disposal, insomuch that the paucity of the bottles of
+sherry in the establishment distressed his mental faculties?
+
+"Well, good-bye," he said, finally.  The door closed.
+
+Had Dahlia's misery been in any degree simulated, her eyes now, as well
+as her ears, would have taken positive assurance of his departure.  But
+with the removal of her handkerchief, the loathsome sight of the
+dinner-table would have saluted her, and it had already caused her
+suffering enough.  She chose to remain as she was, saying to herself,
+"I am dead;" and softly revelling in that corpse-like sentiment.
+She scarcely knew that the door had opened again.
+
+"Dahlia!"
+
+She heard her name pronounced, and more entreatingly, and closer to her.
+
+"Dahlia, my poor girl!"  Her hand was pressed.  It gave her no shudders.
+
+"I am dead," she mentally repeated, for the touch did not run up to her
+heart and stir it.
+
+"Dahlia, do be reasonable!  I can't leave you like this.  We shall be
+separated for some time.  And what a miserable fire you've got here!  You
+have agreed with me that we are acting for the best.  It's very hard on
+me  I try what I can to make you comf--happy; and really, to see you
+leaving your dinner to get cold!  Your hands are like ice.  The meat
+won't be eatable.  You know I'm not my own master.  Come, Dahly, my
+darling!"
+
+He gently put his hand to her chin, and then drew away the handkerchief.
+
+Dahlia moaned at the exposure of her tear-stained face, she turned it
+languidly to the wall.
+
+"Are you ill, my dear?" he asked.
+
+Men are so considerately practical!  He begged urgently to be allowed to
+send for a doctor.
+
+But women, when they choose to be unhappy, will not accept of practical
+consolations!  She moaned a refusal to see the doctor.
+
+Then what can I do for her? he naturally thought, and he naturally
+uttered it.
+
+"Say good-bye to me," he whispered.  "And my pretty one will write to me.
+I shall reply so punctually!  I don't like to leave her at Christmas; and
+she will give me a line of Italian, and a little French--mind her
+accents, though!--and she needn't attempt any of the nasty German-
+-kshrra-kouzzra-kratz!--which her pretty lips can't do, and won't do; but
+only French and Italian.  Why, she learnt to speak Italian!  "La dolcezza
+ancor dentro me suona."  Don't you remember, and made such fun of it at
+first?  'Amo zoo;' 'no amo me?' my sweet!"
+
+This was a specimen of the baby-lover talk, which is charming in its
+season, and maybe pleasantly cajoling to a loving woman at all times,
+save when she is in Dahlia's condition.  It will serve even then, or she
+will pass it forgivingly, as not the food she for a moment requires; but
+it must be purely simple in its utterance, otherwise she detects the poor
+chicanery, and resents the meanness of it.  She resents it with
+unutterable sickness of soul, for it is the language of what were to her
+the holiest hours of her existence, which is thus hypocritically used to
+blind and rock her in a cradle of deception.  If corrupt, she maybe
+brought to answer to it all the same, and she will do her part of the
+play, and babble words, and fret and pout deliciously; and the old days
+will seem to be revived, when both know they are dead; and she will
+thereby gain any advantage she is seeking.
+
+But Dahlia's sorrow was deep: her heart was sound.  She did not even
+perceive the opportunity offered to her for a wily performance.  She felt
+the hollowness of his speech, and no more; and she said, "Good-bye,
+Edward."
+
+He had been on one knee.  Springing cheerfully to his feet, "Good-bye,
+darling," he said.  "But I must see her sit to table first.  Such a
+wretched dinner for her!" and he mumbled, "By Jove, I suppose I shan't
+get any at all myself!"  His watch confirmed it to him that any dinner
+which had been provided for him at the Club would be spoilt.
+
+"Never mind," he said aloud, and examined the roast-beef ruefully,
+thinking that, doubtless, it being more than an hour behind the appointed
+dinner-time at the Club, his guest must now be gone.
+
+For a minute or so he gazed at the mournful spectacle.  The potatoes
+looked as if they had committed suicide in their own steam.  There were
+mashed turnips, with a glazed surface, like the bright bottom of a tin
+pan.  One block of bread was by the lonely plate.  Neither hot nor cold,
+the whole aspect of the dinner-table resisted and repelled the gaze, and
+made no pretensions to allure it.
+
+The thought of partaking of this repast endowed him with a critical
+appreciation of its character, and a gush of charitable emotion for the
+poor girl who had such miserable dishes awaiting her, arrested the
+philosophic reproof which he could have administered to one that knew so
+little how a dinner of any sort should be treated.  He strode to the
+windows, pulled down the blind he had previously raised, rang the bell,
+and said,--
+
+"Dahlia, there--I'm going to dine with you, my love.  I've rung the bell
+for more candles.  The room shivers.  That girl will see you, if you
+don't take care.  Where is the key of the cupboard?  We must have some
+wine out.  The champagne, at all events, won't be flat."
+
+He commenced humming the song of complacent resignation.  Dahlia was
+still inanimate, but as the door was about to open, she rose quickly and
+sat in a tremble on the sofa, concealing her face.
+
+An order was given for additional candles, coals, and wood.  When the
+maid had disappeared Dahlia got on her feet, and steadied herself by the
+wall, tottering away to her chamber.
+
+"Ah, poor thing!" ejaculated the young man, not without an idea that the
+demonstration was unnecessary.  For what is decidedly disagreeable is, in
+a young man's calculation concerning women, not necessary at all,--quite
+the reverse.  Are not women the flowers which decorate sublunary life?
+It is really irritating to discover them to be pieces of machinery, that
+for want of proper oiling, creak, stick, threaten convulsions, and are
+tragic and stir us the wrong way.  However, champagne does them good: an
+admirable wine--a sure specific for the sex!
+
+He searched around for the keys to get at a bottle and uncork it
+forthwith.  The keys were on the mantelpiece a bad comment on Dahlia's
+housekeeping qualities; but in the hurry of action let it pass.  He
+welcomed the candles gladly, and soon had all the cupboards in the room
+royally open.
+
+Bustle is instinctively adopted by the human race as the substitute of
+comfort.  He called for more lights, more plates, more knives and forks.
+He sent for ice the maid observed that it was not to be had save at a
+distant street: "Jump into a cab--champagne's nothing without ice, even
+in Winter," he said, and rang for her as she was leaving the house, to
+name a famous fishmonger who was sure to supply the ice.
+
+The establishment soon understood that Mr. Ayrton intended dining within
+those walls.  Fresh potatoes were put on to boil.  The landlady came up
+herself to arouse the fire.  The maid was for a quarter of an hour
+hovering between the order to get ice and the execution of immediate
+commands.  One was that she should take a glass of champagne to Mrs.
+Ayrton in her room.  He drank off one himself.  Mrs. Ayrton's glass being
+brought back untouched, he drank that off likewise, and as he became more
+exhilarated, was more considerate for her, to such a degree, that when
+she appeared he seized her hands and only jestingly scolded her for her
+contempt of sound medicine, declaring, in spite of her protestations,
+that she was looking lovely, and so they sat down to their dinner, she
+with an anguished glance at the looking-glass as she sank in her chair.
+
+"It's not bad, after all," said he, drenching his tasteless mouthful of
+half-cold meat with champagne.  "The truth is, that Clubs spoil us.  This
+is Spartan fare.  Come, drink with me, my dearest.  One sip."
+
+She was coaxed by degrees to empty a glass.  She had a gentle heart, and
+could not hold out long against a visible lively kindliness.  It pleased
+him that she should bow to him over fresh bubbles; and they went formally
+through the ceremony, and she smiled.  He joked and laughed and talked,
+and she eyed him a faint sweetness.  He perceived now that she required
+nothing more than the restoration of her personal pride, and setting
+bright eyes on her, hazarded a bold compliment.
+
+Dahlia drooped like a yacht with idle sails struck by a sudden blast,
+that dips them in the salt; but she raised her face with the full bloom
+of a blush: and all was plain sailing afterward.
+
+"Has my darling seen her sister?" he asked softly.
+
+Dahlia answered, "No," in the same tone.
+
+Both looked away.
+
+"She won't leave town without seeing you?"
+
+"I hope--I don't know.  She--she has called at our last lodgings twice."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"Yes; I think so."
+
+Dahlia kept her head down, replying; and his observation of her wavered
+uneasily.
+
+"Why not write to her, then?"
+
+"She will bring father."
+
+The sob thickened in her throat; but, alas for him who had at first,
+while she was on the sofa, affected to try all measures to revive her,
+that I must declare him to know well how certain was his mastery over
+her, when his manner was thoroughly kind.  He had not much fear of her
+relapsing at present.
+
+"You can't see your father?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But, do.  It's best."
+
+"I can't."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Not--" she hesitated, and clasped her hands in her lap.
+
+"Yes, yes; I know," said he; "but still!  You could surely see him.  You
+rouse suspicions that need not exist.  Try another glass, my dear."
+
+"No more."
+
+"Well; as I was saying, you force him to think--and there is no necessity
+for it.  He maybe as hard on this point as you say; but now and then a
+little innocent deception maybe practised.  We only require to gain time.
+You place me in a very hard position.  I have a father too.  He has his
+own idea of things.  He's a proud man, as I've told you; tremendously
+ambitious, and he wants to push me, not only at the bar, but in the money
+market matrimonial.  All these notions I have to contend against.  Things
+can't be done at once.  If I give him a shock--well, we'll drop any
+consideration of the consequences.  Write to your sister to tell her to
+bring your father.  If they make particular inquiries--very unlikely I
+think--but, if they do, put them at their ease."
+
+She sighed.
+
+"Why was my poor darling so upset, when I came in?" said he.
+
+There was a difficulty in her speaking.  He waited with much patient
+twiddling of bread crumbs; and at last she said:
+
+"My sister called twice at my--our old lodgings.  The second time, she
+burst into tears.  The girl told me so."
+
+"But women cry so often, and for almost anything, Dahlia."
+
+"Rhoda cries with her hands closed hard, and her eyelids too."
+
+"Well, that maybe her way."
+
+"I have only seen her cry once, and that was when mother was dying, and
+asked her to fetch a rose from the garden.  I met her on the stairs.  She
+was like wood.  She hates crying.  She loves me so."
+
+The sympathetic tears rolled down Dahlia's cheeks.
+
+"So, you quite refuse to see your father?" he asked.
+
+"Not yet!"
+
+"Not yet," he repeated.
+
+At the touch of scorn in his voice, she exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, Edward! not yet, I cannot.  I know I am weak.  I can't meet him now.
+If my Rhoda had come alone, as I hoped--! but he is with her.  Don't
+blame me, Edward.  I can't explain.  I only know that I really have not
+the power to see him."
+
+Edward nodded.  "The sentiment some women put into things is
+inexplicable," he said.  "Your sister and father will return home.  They
+will have formed their ideas.  You know how unjust they will be.  Since,
+however, the taste is for being a victim--eh?"
+
+London lodging-house rooms in Winter when the blinds are down, and a
+cheerless fire is in the grate, or when blinds are up and street-lamps
+salute the inhabitants with uncordial rays, are not entertaining places
+of residence for restless spirits.  Edward paced about the room.  He lit
+a cigar and puffed at it fretfully.
+
+"Will you come and try one of the theatres for an hour?" he asked.
+
+She rose submissively, afraid to say that she thought she should look ill
+in the staring lights; but he, with great quickness of perception,
+rendered her task easier by naming the dress she was to wear, the jewels,
+and the colour of the opera cloak.  Thus prompted, Dahlia went to her
+chamber, and passively attired herself, thankful to have been spared the
+pathetic troubles of a selection of garments from her wardrobe.  When she
+came forth, Edward thought her marvellously beautiful.
+
+Pity that she had no strength of character whatever, nor any pointed
+liveliness of mind to match and wrestle with his own, and cheer the
+domestic hearth!  But she was certainly beautiful.  Edward kissed her
+hand in commendation.  Though it was practically annoying that she should
+be sad, the hue and spirit of sadness came home to her aspect.  Sorrow
+visited her tenderly falling eyelids like a sister.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+But great, powerful London--the new universe to her spirit
+But the key to young men is the ambition, or, in the place of it.....
+But you must be beautiful to please some men
+Dahlia, the perplexity to her sister's heart, lay stretched....
+Developing stiff, solid, unobtrusive men, and very personable women
+It was her prayer to heaven that she might save a doctor's bill
+Mrs. Fleming, of Queen Anne's Farm, was the wife of a yeoman
+My plain story is of two Kentish damsels
+The idea of love upon the lips of ordinary men, provoked Dahlia's irony
+The kindest of men can be cruel
+William John Fleming was simply a poor farmer
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Rhoda Fleming, v1
+by George Meredith
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RHODA FLEMING
+
+By GEORGE MEREDITH
+
+1897
+
+
+
+BOOK 2
+
+XII.      AT THE THEATRE.
+XIII.     THE FARMER SPEAKS
+XIV.      BETWEEN RHODA AND ROBERT
+XV.       A VISIT TO WREXBY HALL
+XVI.      AT FAIRLY PARK
+XVII.     A YEOMAN OF THE OLD BREED
+XVIII.    AN ASSEMBLY AT THE PILOT INN
+XIX.      ROBERT SMITTEN LOW
+XX.       MRS. LOVELL SHOWS A TAME BRUTE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Edward's engagement at his Club had been with his unfortunate cousin
+Algernon; who not only wanted a dinner but 'five pounds or so' (the hazy
+margin which may extend illimitably, or miserably contract, at the
+lender's pleasure, and the necessity for which shows the borrower to be
+dancing on Fortune's tight-rope above the old abyss).
+
+"Over claret," was to have been the time for the asking; and Algernon
+waited dinnerless until the healthy-going minutes distended and swelled
+monstrous and horrible as viper-bitten bodies, and the venerable Signior,
+Time, became of unhealthy hue. For this was the first dinner which,
+during the whole course of the young man's career, had ever been failing
+to him.  Reflect upon the mournful gap!  He could scarcely believe in his
+ill-luck.  He suggested it to himself with an inane grin, as one of the
+far-away freaks of circumstances that had struck him--and was it not
+comical?
+
+He waited from the hour of six till the hour of seven.  He compared
+clocks in the hall and the room.  He changed the posture of his legs
+fifty times.  For a while he wrestled right gallantly with the apparent
+menace of the Fates that he was to get no dinner at all that day; it
+seemed incredibly derisive, for, as I must repeat, it had never happened
+to him by any accident before. "You are born--you dine."  Such appeared
+to him to be the positive regulation of affairs, and a most proper one,
+--of the matters of course following the birth of a young being.
+
+By what frightful mischance, then, does he miss his dinner?  By placing
+the smallest confidence in the gentlemanly feeling of another man!
+Algernon deduced this reply accurately from his own experience, and
+whether it can be said by other "undined" mortals, does not matter in the
+least.  But we have nothing to do with the constitutionally luckless: the
+calamitous history of a simple empty stomach is enough. Here the tragedy
+is palpable. Indeed, too sadly so, and I dare apply but a flash of the
+microscope to the rageing dilemmas of this animalcule.  Five and twenty
+minutes had signalled their departure from the hour of seven, when
+Algernon pronounced his final verdict upon Edward's conduct by leaving
+the Club.  He returned to it a quarter of an hour later, and lingered on
+in desperate mood till eight.
+
+He had neither watch in his pocket, nor ring on his finger, nor
+disposable stud in his shirt.  The sum of twenty-one pence was in his
+possession, and, I ask you, as he asked himself, how is a gentleman to
+dine upon that?  He laughed at the notion.  The irony of Providence sent
+him by a cook's shop, where the mingled steam of meats and puddings
+rushed out upon the wayfarer like ambushed bandits, and seized him and
+dragged him in, or sent him qualmish and humbled on his way.
+
+Two little boys had flattened their noses to the whiteness of winkles
+against the jealously misty windows.  Algernon knew himself to be
+accounted a generous fellow, and remembering his reputation, he, as to
+hint at what Fortune might do in his case, tossed some coppers to the
+urchins, who ducked to the pavement and slid before the counter, in a
+flash, with never a "thank ye" or the thought of it.
+
+Algernon was incapable of appreciating this childish faith in the
+beneficence of the unseen Powers who feed us, which, I must say for him,
+he had shared in a very similar manner only two hours ago.  He laughed
+scornfully: "The little beggars!" considering in his soul that of such is
+humanity composed: as many a dinnerless man has said before, and will
+again, to point the speech of fools.  He continued strolling on,
+comparing the cramped misty London aspect of things with his visionary
+free dream of the glorious prairies, where his other life was: the
+forests, the mountains, the endless expanses; the horses, the flocks, the
+slipshod ease of language and attire; and the grog-shops.  Aha!  There
+could be no mistake about him as a gentleman and a scholar out there!
+Nor would Nature shut up her pocket and demand innumerable things of him,
+as civilization did. This he thought in the vengefulness of his outraged
+mind.
+
+Not only had Algernon never failed to dine every day of his life:
+he had no recollection of having ever dined without drinking wine.  His
+conception did not embrace the idea of a dinner lacking wine.  Possibly
+he had some embodied understanding that wine did not fall to the lot of
+every fellow upon earth: he had heard of gullets unrefreshed even by
+beer: but at any rate he himself was accustomed to better things, and he
+did not choose to excavate facts from the mass of his knowledge in order
+to reconcile himself to the miserable chop he saw for his dinner in the
+distance--a spot of meat in the arctic circle of a plate, not shone upon
+by any rosy-warming sun of a decanter!
+
+But metaphorical language, though nothing other will convey the extremity
+of his misery, or the form of his thoughts, must be put aside.
+
+"Egad, and every friend I have is out of town!" he exclaimed, quite
+willing to think it part of the plot.
+
+He stuck his hands in his pockets, and felt vagabond-like and reckless.
+The streets were revelling in their winter muck.  The carriages rolling
+by insulted him with their display of wealth.
+
+He had democratic sentiments regarding them.  Oh for a horse upon the
+boundless plains! he sighed to his heart.  He remembered bitterly how he
+had that day ridden his stool at the bank, dreaming of his wilds, where
+bailiff never ran, nor duns obscured the firmament.
+
+And then there were theatres here--huge extravagant places! Algernon went
+over to an entrance of one, to amuse his mind, cynically criticizing the
+bill.  A play was going forward within, that enjoyed great popular
+esteem, "The Holly Berries."  Seeing that the pit was crammed, Algernon
+made application to learn the state of the boxes, but hearing that one
+box was empty, he lost his interest in the performance.
+
+As he was strolling forth, his attention was taken by a noise at the
+pit-doors, which swung open, and out tumbled a tough little old man with
+a younger one grasping his coat-collar, who proclaimed that he would
+sicken him of pushing past him at the end of every act.
+
+"You're precious fond of plays," sneered the junior.
+
+"I'm fond of everything I pay for, young fellow," replied the shaken
+senior; "and that's a bit of enjoyment you've got to learn--ain't it?"
+
+"Well, don't you knock by me again, that's all," cried the choleric
+youth.
+
+"You don't think I'm likely to stop in your company, do you?"
+
+"Whose expense have you been drinking at?"
+
+"My country's, young fellow; and mind you don't soon feed at the table.
+Let me go."
+
+Algernon's hunger was appeased by the prospect of some excitement, and
+seeing a vicious shake administered to the old man by the young one, he
+cried, "Hands off!" and undertook policeman's duty; but as he was not in
+blue, his authoritative mandate obtained no respect until he had
+interposed his fist.
+
+When he had done so, he recognized the porter at Boyne's Bank, whose
+enemy retired upon the threat that there should be no more pushing past
+him to get back to seats for the next act.
+
+"I paid," said Anthony; "and you're a ticketer, and you ticketers sha'
+n't stop me.  I'm worth a thousand of you. Holloa, sir," he cried to
+Algernon; "I didn't know you.  I'm much obliged.  These chaps get tickets
+given 'm, and grow as cocky in a theatre as men who pay.  He never had
+such wine in him as I've got.  That I'd swear.  Ha! ha! I come out for an
+airing after every act, and there's a whole pitfall of ticketers yelling
+and tearing, and I chaff my way through and back clean as a red-hot
+poker."
+
+Anthony laughed, and rolled somewhat as he laughed.
+
+"Come along, sir, into the street," he said, boring on to the pavement.
+"It's after office hours.  And, ha! ha! what do you think?  There's old
+farmer in there, afraid to move off his seat, and the girl with him,
+sticking to him tight, and a good girl too.  She thinks we've had too
+much.  We been to the Docks, wine-tasting: Port--Sherry: Sherry--Port!
+and, ha! ha! 'what a lot of wine!' says farmer, never thinking how much
+he's taking on board.  "I guessed it was night," says farmer, as we got
+into the air, and to see him go on blinking, and stumbling, and saying to
+me, 'You stand wine, brother Tony!'  I'm blest if I ain't bottled
+laughter. So, says I, 'come and see "The Holly Berries," brother William
+John; it's the best play in London, and a suitable winter piece.'  'Is
+there a rascal hanged in the piece?' says he.  'Oh, yes!' I let him fancy
+there was, and he--ha! ha! old farmer's sticking to his seat, solemn as a
+judge, waiting for the gallows to come on the stage."
+
+A thought quickened Algernon's spirit. It was a notorious secret among
+the young gentlemen who assisted in maintaining the prosperity of Boyne's
+Bank, that the old porter--the "Old Ant," as he was called--possessed
+money, and had no objection to put out small sums for a certain interest.
+Algernon mentioned casually that he had left his purse at home; and "by
+the way," said he, "have you got a few sovereigns in your pocket?"
+
+"What! and come through that crush, sir?"  Anthony negatived the question
+decisively with a reference to his general knowingness.
+
+Algernon pressed him; saying at last, "Well, have you got one?"
+
+"I don't think I've been such a fool," said Anthony, feeling slowly about
+his person, and muttering as to the changes that might possibly have been
+produced in him by the Docks.
+
+"Confound it, I haven't dined!" exclaimed Algernon, to hasten his
+proceedings; but at this, Anthony eyed him queerly. "What have you been
+about then, sir?"
+
+"Don't you see I'm in evening dress?  I had an appointment to dine with a
+friend.  He didn't keep it.  I find I've left my purse in my other
+clothes."
+
+"That's a bad habit, sir," was Anthony's comment.  "You don't care much
+for your purse."
+
+"Much for my purse, be hanged!" interjected Algernon.
+
+"You'd have felt it, or you'd have heard it, if there 'd been any weight
+in it," Anthony remarked.
+
+"How can you hear paper?"
+
+"Oh, paper's another thing. You keep paper in your mind, don't you--eh?
+Forget pound notes?  Leave pound notes in a purse?  And you Sir William's
+nephew, sir, who'd let you bank with him and put down everything in a
+book, so that you couldn't forget, or if you did, he'd remember for you;
+and you might change your clothes as often as not, and no fear of your
+losing a penny."
+
+Algernon shrugged disgustedly, and was giving the old man up as a bad
+business, when Anthony altered his manner. "Oh! well, sir, I don't mind
+letting you have what I've got.  I'm out for fun. Bother affairs!"
+
+The sum of twenty shillings was handed to Algernon, after he had
+submitted to the indignity of going into a public-house, and writing his
+I.O.U. for twenty-three to Anthony Hackbut, which included interest.
+Algernon remonstrated against so needless a formality; but Anthony put
+the startling supposition to him, that he might die that night.  He
+signed the document, and was soon feeding and drinking his wine.  This
+being accomplished, he took some hasty puffs of tobacco, and returned to
+the theatre, in the hope that the dark girl Rhoda was to be seen there;
+for now that he had dined, Anthony's communication with regard to the
+farmer and his daughter became his uppermost thought, and a young man's
+uppermost thought is usually the propelling engine to his actions.
+
+By good chance, and the aid of a fee, he obtained a front seat,
+commanding an excellent side-view of the pit, which sat wrapt in
+contemplation of a Christmas scene snow, ice, bare twigs, a desolate
+house, and a woman shivering--one of man's victims.
+
+It is a good public, that of Britain, and will bear anything, so long as
+villany is punished, of which there was ripe promise in the oracular
+utterances of a rolling, stout, stage-sailor, whose nose, to say nothing
+of his frankness on the subject, proclaimed him his own worst enemy, and
+whose joke, by dint of repetition, had almost become the joke of the
+audience too; for whenever he appeared, there was agitation in pit and
+gallery, which subsided only on his jovial thundering of the familiar
+sentence; whereupon laughter ensued, and a quieting hum of satisfaction.
+
+It was a play that had been favoured with a great run.  Critics had once
+objected to it, that it was made to subsist on scenery, a song, and a
+stupid piece of cockneyism pretending to be a jest, that was really no
+more than a form of slapping the public on the back.  But the public
+likes to have its back slapped, and critics, frozen by the Medusa-head of
+Success, were soon taught manners.  The office of critic is now, in fact,
+virtually extinct; the taste for tickling and slapping is universal and
+imperative; classic appeals to the intellect, and passions not purely
+domestic, have grown obsolete. There are captains of the legions, but no
+critics. The mass is lord.
+
+And behold our friend the sailor of the boards, whose walk is even as two
+meeting billows, appears upon the lonely moor, and salts that uninhabited
+region with nautical interjections.  Loose are his hose in one part,
+tight in another, and he smacks them. It is cold; so let that be his
+excuse for showing the bottom of his bottle to the glittering spheres.
+He takes perhaps a sturdier pull at the liquor than becomes a manifest
+instrument of Providence, whose services may be immediately required; but
+he informs us that his ship was never known not to right itself when
+called upon.
+
+He is alone in the world, he tells us likewise.  If his one friend, the
+uplifted flask, is his enemy, why then he feels bound to treat his enemy
+as his friend.  This, with a pathetic allusion to his interior economy,
+which was applauded, and the remark "Ain't that Christian?" which was
+just a trifle risky; so he secured pit and gallery at a stroke by a
+surpassingly shrewd blow at the bishops of our Church, who are, it can
+barely be contested, in foul esteem with the multitude--none can say
+exactly, for what reason--and must submit to be occasionally offered up
+as propitiatory sacrifices.
+
+This good sailor was not always alone in the world.  A sweet girl, whom
+he describes as reaching to his kneecap, and pathetically believes still
+to be of the same height, once called him brother Jack.  To hear that
+name again from her lips, and a particular song!--he attempts it
+ludicrously, yet touchingly withal.
+
+Hark!  Is it an echo from a spirit in the frigid air?
+
+The song trembled with a silver ring to the remotest corners of the
+house.
+
+At that moment the breathless hush of the audience was flurried by
+hearing "Dahlia" called from the pit.
+
+Algernon had been spying among the close-packed faces for a sight of
+Rhoda.  Rhoda was now standing up amid gathering hisses and outcries.
+Her eyes were bent on a particular box, across which a curtain was
+hastily being drawn.  "My sister!" she sent out a voice of anguish, and
+remained with clasped hands and twisted eyebrows, looking toward that one
+spot, as if she would have flown to it.  She was wedged in the mass, and
+could not move.
+
+The exclamation heard had belonged to brother Jack, on the stage, whose
+burst of fraternal surprise and rapture fell flat after it, to the
+disgust of numbers keenly awakened for the sentiment of this scene.
+
+Roaring accusations that she was drunk; that she had just escaped from
+Bedlam for an evening; that she should be gagged and turned headlong out,
+surrounded her; but she stood like a sculptured figure, vital in her eyes
+alone.  The farmer put his arm about his girl's waist.  The instant,
+however, that Anthony's head uprose on the other side of her, the evil
+reputation he had been gaining for himself all through the evening
+produced a general clamour, over which the gallery played, miauling, and
+yelping like dogs that are never to be divorced from a noise. Algernon
+feared mischief.  He quitted his seat, and ran out into the lobby.
+
+Half-a-dozen steps, and he came in contact with some one, and they were
+mutually drenched with water by the shock.  It was his cousin Edward,
+bearing a glass in his hand.
+
+Algernon's wrath at the sight of this offender was stimulated by the cold
+bath; but Edward cut him short.
+
+"Go in there;" he pointed to a box-door.  "A lady has fainted. Hold her
+up till I come."
+
+No time was allowed for explanation.  Algernon passed into the box, and
+was alone with an inanimate shape in blue bournous.  The uproar in the
+theatre raged; the whole pit was on its legs and shouting.  He lifted the
+pallid head over one arm, miserably helpless and perplexed, but his
+anxiety concerning Rhoda's personal safety in that sea of strife prompted
+him to draw back the curtain a little, and he stood exposed.  Rhoda
+perceived him. She motioned with both her hands in dumb supplication.  In
+a moment the curtain closed between them.  Edward's sharp white face
+cursed him mutely for his folly, while he turned and put the water to
+Dahlia's lips, and touched her forehead with it.
+
+"What's the matter?" whispered Algernon.
+
+"We must get her out as quick as we can. This is the way with women!
+Come! she's recovering."  Edward nursed her sternly as he spoke.
+
+"If she doesn't, pretty soon, we shall have the pit in upon us," said
+Algernon.  "Is she that girl's sister?"
+
+"Don't ask damned questions."
+
+Dahlia opened her eyes, staring placidly.
+
+"Now you can stand up, my dear.  Dahlia! all's well.  Try," said Edward.
+
+She sighed, murmuring, "What is the time?" and again, "What noise is it?"
+
+Edward coughed in a vexed attempt at tenderness, using all his force to
+be gentle with her as he brought her to her feet.  The task was difficult
+amid the threatening storm in the theatre, and cries of "Show the young
+woman her sister!" for Rhoda had won a party in the humane public.
+
+"Dahlia, in God's name give me your help!" Edward called in her ear.
+
+The fair girl's eyelids blinked wretchedly in protestation of her
+weakness.  She had no will either way, and suffered herself to be led out
+of the box, supported by the two young men.
+
+"Run for a cab," said Edward; and Algernon went ahead.
+
+He had one waiting for them as they came out.  They placed Dahlia on a
+seat with care, and Edward, jumping in, drew an arm tightly about her.
+"I can't cry," she moaned.
+
+The cab was driving off as a crowd of people burst from the pit-doors,
+and Algernon heard the voice of Farmer Fleming, very hoarse.  He had
+discretion enough to retire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Robert was to drive to the station to meet Rhoda and her father returning
+from London, on a specified day.  He was eager to be asking cheerful
+questions of Dahlia's health and happiness, so that he might dispel the
+absurd general belief that he had ever loved the girl, and was now
+regretting her absence; but one look at Rhoda's face when she stepped
+from the railway carriage kept him from uttering a word on that subject,
+and the farmer's heavier droop and acceptance of a helping hand into the
+cart, were signs of bad import.
+
+Mr. Fleming made no show of grief, like one who nursed it.  He took it to
+all appearance as patiently as an old worn horse would do, although such
+an outward submissiveness will not always indicate a placid spirit in
+men.  He talked at stale intervals of the weather and the state of the
+ground along the line of rail down home, and pointed in contempt or
+approval to a field here and there; but it was as one who no longer had
+any professional interest in the tilling of the land.
+
+Doubtless he was trained to have no understanding of a good to be derived
+by his communicating what he felt and getting sympathy. Once, when he was
+uncertain, and a secret pride in Dahlia's beauty and accomplishments had
+whispered to him that her flight was possibly the opening of her road to
+a higher fortune, he made a noise for comfort, believing in his heart
+that she was still to be forgiven.  He knew better now.  By holding his
+peace he locked out the sense of shame which speech would have stirred
+within him.
+
+"Got on pretty smooth with old Mas' Gammon?" he expressed his hope; and
+Robert said, "Capitally.  We shall make something out of the old man yet,
+never fear."
+
+Master Gammon was condemned to serve at the ready-set tea-table as a butt
+for banter; otherwise it was apprehended well that Mrs. Sumfit would have
+scorched the ears of all present, save the happy veteran of the furrows,
+with repetitions of Dahlia's name, and wailings about her darling, of
+whom no one spoke.  They suffered from her in spite of every precaution.
+
+"Well, then, if I'm not to hear anything dooring meals--as if I'd swallow
+it and take it into my stomach!--I'll wait again for what ye've got to
+tell," she said, and finished her cup at a gulp, smoothing her apron.
+
+The farmer then lifted his head.
+
+"Mother, if you've done, you'll oblige me by going to bed," he said.  "We
+want the kitchen."
+
+"A-bed?" cried Mrs. Sumfit, with instantly ruffled lap.
+
+"Upstairs, mother; when you've done--not before."
+
+"Then bad's the noos!  Something have happened, William.  You 'm not
+going to push me out?  And my place is by the tea-pot, which I cling to,
+rememberin' how I seen her curly head grow by inches up above the table
+and the cups.  Mas' Gammon," she appealed to the sturdy feeder, "five
+cups is your number?"
+
+Her hope was reduced to the prolonging of the service of tea, with Master
+Gammon's kind assistance.
+
+"Four, marm," said her inveterate antagonist, as he finished that amount,
+and consequently put the spoon in his cup.
+
+Mrs. Sumfit rolled in her chair.
+
+"O Lord, Mas' Gammon!  Five, I say; and never a cup less so long as here
+you've been."
+
+"Four, marm. I don't know," said Master Gammon, with a slow nod of his
+head, "that ever I took five cups of tea at a stretch. Not runnin'."
+
+"I do know, Mas' Gammon. And ought to: for don't I pour out to ye?  It's
+five you take, and please, your cup, if you'll hand it over."
+
+"Four's my number, marm," Master Gammon reiterated resolutely.  He sat
+like a rock.
+
+"If they was dumplins," moaned Mrs. Sumfit, "not four, no, nor five, 'd
+do till enough you'd had, and here we might stick to our chairs, but
+you'd go on and on; you know you would."
+
+"That's eatin', marm;" Master Gammon condescended to explain the nature
+of his habits.  "I'm reg'lar in my drinkin'."
+
+Mrs. Sumfit smote her hands together.  "O Lord, Mas' Gammon, the
+wearisomest old man I ever come across is you.  More tea's in the pot,
+and it ain't watery, and you won't be comfortable.  May you get
+forgiveness from above! is all I say, and I say no more.  Mr. Robert,
+perhaps you'll be so good as let me help you, sir?  It's good tea; and my
+Dody," she added, cajolingly, "my home girl 'll tell us what she saw.
+I'm pinched and starved to hear."
+
+"By-and-by, mother," interposed the farmer; "tomorrow."  He spoke gently,
+but frowned.
+
+Both Rhoda and Robert perceived that they were peculiarly implicated in
+the business which was to be discussed without Mrs. Sumfit's assistance.
+Her father's manner forbade Rhoda from making any proposal for the relief
+of the forlorn old woman.
+
+"And me not to hear to-night about your play-going!" sighed Mrs. Sumfit.
+"Oh, it's hard on me. I do call it cruel.  And how my sweet was dressed--
+like as for a Ball."
+
+She saw the farmer move his foot impatiently.
+
+"Then, if nobody drinks this remaining cup, I will," she pursued.
+
+No voice save her own was heard till the cup was emptied, upon which
+Master Gammon, according to his wont, departed for bed to avoid the
+seduction of suppers, which he shunned as apoplectic, and Mrs. Sumfit
+prepared, in a desolate way, to wash the tea-things, but the farmer,
+saying that it could be done in the morning, went to the door and opened
+it for her.
+
+She fetched a great sigh and folded her hands resignedly.  As she was
+passing him to make her miserable enforced exit, the heavy severity of
+his face afflicted her with a deep alarm; she fell on her knees, crying,--
+
+"Oh, William! it ain't for sake of hearin' talk; but you, that went to
+see our Dahly, the blossom, 've come back streaky under the eyes, and you
+make the house feel as if we neighboured Judgement Day.  Down to tea you
+set the first moment, and me alone with none of you, and my love for my
+girl known well to you.  And now to be marched off!  How can I go a-bed
+and sleep, and my heart jumps so?  It ain't Christian to ask me to.  I
+got a heart, dear, I have.  Do give a bit of comfort to it.  Only a word
+of my Dahly to me."
+
+The farmer replied: "Mother, let's have no woman's nonsense.  What we've
+got to bear, let us bear.  And you go on your knees to the Lord, and
+don't be a heathen woman, I say.  Get up.  There's a Bible in your
+bedroom.  Find you out comfort in that."
+
+"No, William, no!" she sobbed, still kneeling: "there ain't a dose o'
+comfort there when poor souls is in the dark, and haven't got patience
+for passages.  And me and my Bible!--how can I read it, and not know my
+ailing, and a'stract one good word, William? It'll seem only the devil's
+shootin' black lightnings across the page, as poor blessed granny used to
+say, and she believed witches could do it to you in her time, when they
+was evil-minded.  No!  To-night I look on the binding of the Holy Book,
+and I don't, and I won't, I sha' n't open it."
+
+This violent end to her petition was wrought by the farmer grasping her
+arm to bring her to her feet.
+
+"Go to bed, mother."
+
+"I shan't open it," she repeated, defiantly.  "And it ain't," she
+gathered up her comfortable fat person to assist the words "it ain't
+good--no, not the best pious ones--I shall, and will say it! as is al'ays
+ready to smack your face with the Bible."
+
+"Now, don't ye be angry," said the farmer.
+
+She softened instantly.
+
+"William, dear, I got fifty-seven pounds sterling, and odd shillings, in
+a Savings-bank, and that I meant to go to Dahly, and not to yond' dark
+thing sitting there so sullen, and me in my misery; I'd give it to you
+now for news of my darlin'.  Yes, William; and my poor husband's cottage,
+in Sussex--seventeen pound per annum.  That, if you'll be goodness
+itself, and let me hear a word."
+
+"Take her upstairs," said the farmer to Rhoda, and Rhoda went by her and
+took her hands, and by dint of pushing from behind and dragging in front,
+Mrs. Sumfit, as near on a shriek as one so fat and sleek could be, was
+ejected.  The farmer and Robert heard her struggles and exclamations
+along the passage, but her resistance subsided very suddenly.
+
+"There's power in that girl," said the farmer, standing by the shut door.
+
+Robert thought so, too.  It affected his imagination, and his heart began
+to beat sickeningly.
+
+"Perhaps she promised to speak--what has happened, whatever that may be,"
+he suggested.
+
+"Not she; not she.  She respects my wishes."
+
+Robert did not ask what had happened.
+
+Mr. Fleming remained by the door, and shut his mouth from a further word
+till he heard Rhoda's returning footstep.  He closed the door again
+behind her, and went up to the square deal table, leaned his body forward
+on the knuckles of his trembling fist, and said, "We're pretty well
+broken up, as it is.  I've lost my taste for life."
+
+There he paused.  Save by the shining of a wet forehead, his face
+betrayed nothing of the anguish he suffered.  He looked at neither of
+them, but sent his gaze straight away under labouring brows to an arm of
+the fireside chair, while his shoulders drooped on the wavering support
+of his hard-shut hands.  Rhoda's eyes, ox-like, as were her father's,
+smote full upon Robert's, as in a pang of apprehension of what was about
+to be uttered.
+
+It was a quick blaze of light, wherein he saw that the girl's spirit was
+not with him.  He would have stopped the farmer at once, but he had not
+the heart to do it, even had he felt in himself strength to attract an
+intelligent response from that strange, grave, bovine fixity of look,
+over which the human misery sat as a thing not yet taken into the dull
+brain.
+
+"My taste for life," the old man resumed, "that's gone.  I didn't bargain
+at set-out to go on fighting agen the world.  It's too much for a man o'
+my years.  Here's the farm.  Shall 't go to pieces?--I'm a farmer of
+thirty year back--thirty year back, and more: I'm about no better'n a
+farm labourer in our time, which is to-day.  I don't cost much.  I ask to
+be fed, and to work for it, and to see my poor bit o' property safe, as
+handed to me by my father.  Not for myself, 't ain't; though perhaps
+there's a bottom of pride there too, as in most things.  Say it's for the
+name.  My father seems to demand of me out loud, 'What ha' ye done with
+Queen Anne's Farm, William?' and there's a holler echo in my ears.  Well;
+God wasn't merciful to give me a son.  He give me daughters."
+
+Mr. Fleming bowed his head as to the very weapon of chastisement.
+
+"Daughters!"  He bent lower.
+
+His hearers might have imagined his headless address to them to be also
+without a distinct termination, for he seemed to have ended as abruptly
+as he had begun; so long was the pause before, with a wearied lifting of
+his body, he pursued, in a sterner voice:
+
+"Don't let none interrupt me."  His hand was raised as toward where Rhoda
+stood, but he sent no look with it; the direction was wide of her.
+
+The aspect of the blank blind hand motioning to the wall away from her,
+smote an awe through her soul that kept her dumb, though his next words
+were like thrusts of a dagger in her side.
+
+"My first girl--she's brought disgrace on this house.  She's got a mother
+in heaven, and that mother's got to blush for her.  My first girl's gone
+to harlotry in London."
+
+It was Scriptural severity of speech.  Robert glanced quick with intense
+commiseration at Rhoda.  He saw her hands travel upward till they fixed
+in at her temples with crossed fingers, making the pressure of an iron
+band for her head, while her lips parted, and her teeth, and cheeks, and
+eyeballs were all of one whiteness.  Her tragic, even, in and out
+breathing, where there was no fall of the breast, but the air was taken
+and given, as it were the square blade of a sharp-edged sword, was
+dreadful to see.  She had the look of a risen corpse, recalling some one
+of the bloody ends of life.
+
+The farmer went on,--
+
+"Bury her!  Now you here know the worst.  There's my second girl. She's
+got no stain on her; if people 'll take her for what she is herself.
+She's idle.  But I believe the flesh on her bones she'd wear away for any
+one that touched her heart.  She's a temper. But she's clean both in body
+and in spirit, as I believe, and say before my God.  I--what I'd pray for
+is, to see this girl safe. All I have shall go to her.  That is, to the
+man who will--won't be ashamed--marry her, I mean!"
+
+The tide of his harshness failed him here, and he began to pick his
+words, now feeble, now emphatic, but alike wanting in natural expression,
+for he had reached a point of emotion upon the limits of his nature, and
+he was now wilfully forcing for misery and humiliation right and left, in
+part to show what a black star Providence had been over him.
+
+"She'll be grateful.  I shall be gone.  What disgrace I bring to their
+union, as father of the other one also, will, I'm bound to hope, be
+buried with me in my grave; so that this girl's husband shan't have to
+complain that her character and her working for him ain't enough to cover
+any harm he's like to think o' the connexion.  And he won't be troubled
+by relationships after that.
+
+"I used to think Pride a bad thing.  I thank God we've all got it in our
+blood--the Flemings.  I thank God for that now, I do.  We don't face
+again them as we offend.  Not, that is, with the hand out.  We go.  We're
+seen no more.  And she'll be seen no more.  On that, rely.
+
+"I want my girl here not to keep me in the fear of death.  For I fear
+death while she's not safe in somebody's hands--kind, if I can get him
+for her.  Somebody--young or old!"
+
+The farmer lifted his head for the first time, and stared vacantly at
+Robert.
+
+"I'd marry her," he said, "if I was knowing myself dying now or to-morrow
+morning, I'd marry her, rather than leave her alone--I'd marry her to
+that old man, old Gammon."
+
+The farmer pointed to the ceiling.  His sombre seriousness cloaked and
+carried even that suggestive indication to the possible bridegroom's age
+and habits, and all things associated with him, through the gates of
+ridicule; and there was no laughter, and no thought of it.
+
+"It stands to reason for me to prefer a young man for her husband.  He'll
+farm the estate, and won't sell it; so that it goes to our blood, if not
+to a Fleming.  If, I mean, he's content to farm soberly, and not play
+Jack o' Lantern tricks across his own acres.  Right in one thing's right,
+I grant; but don't argue right in all.  It's right only in one thing.
+Young men, when they've made a true hit or so, they're ready to think
+it's themselves that's right."
+
+This was of course a reminder of the old feud with Robert, and
+sufficiently showed whom the farmer had in view for a husband to Rhoda,
+if any doubt existed previously.
+
+Having raised his eyes, his unwonted power of speech abandoned him, and
+he concluded, wavering in look and in tone,--
+
+"I'd half forgotten her uncle.  I've reckoned his riches when I cared for
+riches.  I can't say th' amount; but, all--I've had his word for it--all
+goes to this--God knows how much!--girl.  And he don't hesitate to say
+she's worth a young man's fancying.  May be so.  It depends upon ideas
+mainly, that does.  All goes to her. And this farm.--I wish ye
+good-night."
+
+He gave them no other sign, but walked in his oppressed way quietly to
+the inner door, and forth, leaving the rest to them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+The two were together, and all preliminary difficulties had been cleared
+for Robert to say what he had to say, in a manner to make the saying of
+it well-nigh impossible.  And yet silence might be misinterpreted by her.
+He would have drawn her to his heart at one sign of tenderness.  There
+came none.  The girl was frightfully torn with a great wound of shame.
+She was the first to speak.
+
+"Do you believe what father says of my sister?"
+
+"That she--?"  Robert swallowed the words.  "No!" and he made a thunder
+with his fist.
+
+"No!"  She drank up the word.  "You do not?  No!  You know that Dahlia is
+innocent?"
+
+Rhoda was trembling with a look for the asseveration; her pale face eager
+as a cry for life; but the answer did not come at once hotly as her
+passion for it demanded.  She grew rigid, murmuring faintly: "speak!  Do
+speak!"
+
+His eyes fell away from hers.  Sweet love would have wrought in him to
+think as she thought, but she kept her heart closed from him, and he
+stood sadly judicial, with a conscience of his own, that would not permit
+him to declare Dahlia innocent, for he had long been imagining the
+reverse.
+
+Rhoda pressed her hands convulsively, moaning, "Oh!" down a short deep
+breath.
+
+"Tell me what has happened?" said Robert, made mad by that reproachful
+agony of her voice.  "I'm in the dark.  I'm not equal to you all.  If
+Dahlia's sister wants one to stand up for her, and defend her, whatever
+she has done or not done, ask me.  Ask me, and I'll revenge her.  Here am
+I, and I know nothing, and you despise me because--don't think me rude or
+unkind.  This hand is yours, if you will.  Come, Rhoda.  Or, let me hear
+the case, and I'll satisfy you as best I can.  Feel for her?  I feel for
+her as you do.  You don't want me to stand a liar to your question?  How
+can I speak?"
+
+A woman's instinct at red heat pierces the partial disingenuousness which
+Robert could only have avoided by declaring the doubts he entertained.
+Rhoda desired simply to be supported by his conviction of her sister's
+innocence, and she had scorn of one who would not chivalrously advance
+upon the risks of right and wrong, and rank himself prime champion of a
+woman belied, absent, and so helpless.  Besides, there was but one virtue
+possible in Rhoda's ideas, as regarded Dahlia: to oppose facts, if
+necessary, and have her innocent perforce, and fight to the death them
+that dared cast slander on the beloved head.
+
+Her keen instinct served her so far.
+
+His was alive when she refused to tell him what had taken place during
+their visit to London.
+
+She felt that a man would judge evil of the circumstances. Her father and
+her uncle had done so: she felt that Robert would. Love for him would
+have prompted her to confide in him absolutely.  She was not softened by
+love; there was no fire on her side to melt and make them run in one
+stream, and they could not meet.
+
+"Then, if you will not tell me," said Robert, "say what you think of your
+father's proposal?  He meant that I may ask you to be my wife.  He used
+to fancy I cared for your sister.  That's false.  I care for her--yes; as
+my sister too; and here is my hand to do my utmost for her, but I love
+you, and I've loved you for some time.  I'd be proud to marry you and
+help on with the old farm. You don't love me yet--which is a pretty hard
+thing for me to see to be certain of.  But I love you, and I trust you.
+I like the stuff you're made of--and nice stuff I'm talking to a young
+woman," he added, wiping his forehead at the idea of the fair and
+flattering addresses young women expect when they are being wooed.
+
+As it was, Rhoda listened with savage contempt of his idle talk. Her
+brain was beating at the mystery and misery wherein Dahlia lay engulfed.
+She had no understanding for Robert's sentimentality, or her father's
+requisition.  Some answer had to be given, and she said,--
+
+"I'm not likely to marry a man who supposes he has anything to pardon."
+
+"I don't suppose it," cried Robert.
+
+"You heard what father said."
+
+"I heard what he said, but I don't think the same.  What has Dahlia to do
+with you?"
+
+He was proceeding to rectify this unlucky sentence.  All her covert
+hostility burst out on it.
+
+"My sister?--what has my sister to do with me?--you mean!--you mean--you
+can only mean that we are to be separated and thought of as two people;
+and we are one, and will be till we die.  I feel my sister's hand in
+mine, though she's away and lost.  She is my darling for ever and ever.
+We're one!"
+
+A spasm of anguish checked the girl.
+
+"I mean," Robert resumed steadily, "that her conduct, good or bad,
+doesn't touch you.  If it did, it'd be the same to me.  I ask you to take
+me for your husband.  Just reflect on what your father said, Rhoda."
+
+The horrible utterance her father's lips had been guilty of flashed
+through her, filling her with mastering vindictiveness, now that she had
+a victim.
+
+"Yes!  I'm to take a husband to remind me of what he said."
+
+Robert eyed her sharpened mouth admiringly; her defence of her sister had
+excited his esteem, wilfully though she rebutted his straightforward
+earnestness and he had a feeling also for the easy turns of her neck, and
+the confident poise of her figure.
+
+"Ha! well!" he interjected, with his eyebrows queerly raised, so that she
+could make nothing of his look.  It seemed half maniacal, it was so
+ridged with bright eagerness.
+
+"By heaven! the task of taming you--that's the blessing I'd beg for in my
+prayers!  Though you were as wild as a cat of the woods, by heaven!  I'd
+rather have the taming of you than go about with a leash of quiet"--he
+checked himself--"companions."
+
+Such was the sudden roll of his tongue, that she was lost in the
+astounding lead he had taken, and stared.
+
+"You're the beauty to my taste, and devil is what I want in a woman!  I
+can make something out of a girl with a temper like yours.  You don't
+know me, Miss Rhoda.  I'm what you reckon a good young man.  Isn't that
+it?"
+
+Robert drew up with a very hard smile.
+
+"I would to God I were!  Mind, I feel for you about your sister. I like
+you the better for holding to her through thick and thin. But my
+sheepishness has gone, and I tell you I'll have you whether you will or
+no.  I can help you and you can help me.  I've lived here as if I had no
+more fire in me than old Gammon snoring on his pillow up aloft; and who
+kept me to it?  Did you see I never touched liquor?  What did you guess
+from that?--that I was a mild sort of fellow?  So I am: but I haven't got
+that reputation in other parts.  Your father 'd like me to marry you, and
+I'm ready.  Who kept me to work, so that I might learn to farm, and be a
+man, and be able to take a wife?  I came here--I'll tell you how.  I was
+a useless dog.  I ran from home and served as a trooper.  An old aunt of
+mine left me a little money, which just woke me up and gave me a lift of
+what conscience I had, and I bought myself out.
+
+"I chanced to see your father's advertisement--came, looked at you all,
+and liked you--brought my traps and settled among you, and lived like a
+good young man.  I like peace and orderliness, I find.  I always thought
+I did, when I was dancing like mad to hell.  I know I do now, and you're
+the girl to keep me to it.  I've learnt that much by degrees.  With any
+other, I should have been playing the fool, and going my old ways, long
+ago.  I should have wrecked her, and drunk to forget.  You're my match.
+By-and-by you'll know, me yours!  You never gave me, or anybody else that
+I've seen, sly sidelooks.
+
+"Come!  I'll speak out now I'm at work.  I thought you at some girl's
+games in the Summer.  You went out one day to meet a young gentleman.
+Offence or no offence, I speak and you listen.  You did go out.  I was in
+love with you then, too.  I saw London had been doing its mischief.  I
+was down about it.  I felt that he would make nothing of you, but I chose
+to take the care of you, and you've hated me ever since.
+
+"That Mr. Algernon Blancove's a rascal.  Stop!  You'll say as much as you
+like presently.  I give you a warning--the man's a rascal.  I didn't play
+spy on your acts, but your looks.  I can read a face like yours, and it's
+my home, my home!--by heaven, it is.  Now, Rhoda, you know a little more
+of me.  Perhaps I'm more of a man than you thought.  Marry another, if
+you will; but I'm the man for you, and I know it, and you'll go wrong if
+you don't too.  Come! let your father sleep well.  Give me your hand."
+
+All through this surprising speech of Robert's, which was a revelation of
+one who had been previously dark to her, she had steeled her spirit as
+she felt herself being borne upon unexpected rapids, and she marvelled
+when she found her hand in his.
+
+Dismayed, as if caught in a trap, she said,--
+
+"You know I've no love for you at all."
+
+"None--no doubt," he answered.
+
+The fit of verbal energy was expended, and he had become listless, though
+he looked frankly at her and assumed the cheerfulness which was failing
+within him.
+
+"I wish to remain as I am," she faltered, surprised again by the equally
+astonishing recurrence of humility, and more spiritually subdued by it.
+"I've no heart for a change.  Father will understand.  I am safe."
+
+She ended with a cry: "Oh! my dear, my own sister!  I wish you were safe.
+Get her here to me and I'll do what I can, if you're not hard on her.
+She's so beautiful, she can't do wrong.  My Dahlia's in some trouble.
+Mr. Robert, you might really be her friend?"
+
+"Drop the Mister," said Robert.
+
+"Father will listen to you," she pleaded.  "You won't leave us? Tell him
+you know I am safe.  But I haven't a feeling of any kind while my
+sister's away.  I will call you Robert, if you like."  She reached her
+hand forth.
+
+"That's right," he said, taking it with a show of heartiness: "that's a
+beginning, I suppose."
+
+She shrank a little in his sensitive touch, and he added: "Oh never fear.
+I've spoken out, and don't do the thing too often. Now you know me,
+that's enough.  I trust you, so trust me.  I'll talk to your father.
+I've got a dad of my own, who isn't so easily managed.  You and I,
+Rhoda--we're about the right size for a couple.  There--don't be
+frightened!  I was only thinking--I'll let go your hand in a minute.  If
+Dahlia's to be found, I'll find her.  Thank you for that squeeze.  You'd
+wake a dead man to life, if you wanted to.  To-morrow I set about the
+business.  That's settled.  Now your hand's loose.  Are you going to say
+good night?  You must give me your hand again for that.  What a rough
+fellow I must seem to you!  Different from the man you thought I was?
+I'm just what you choose to make me, Rhoda; remember that.  By heaven! go
+at once, for you're an armful--"
+
+She took a candle and started for the door.
+
+"Aha! you can look fearful as a doe.  Out! make haste!"
+
+In her hurry at his speeding gestures, the candle dropped; she was going
+to pick it up, but as he approached, she stood away frightened.
+
+"One kiss, my girl," he said.  "Don't keep me jealous as fire. One! and
+I'm a plighted man.  One!--or I shall swear you know what kisses are.
+Why did you go out to meet that fellow?  Do you think there's no danger
+in it?  Doesn't he go about boasting of it now, and saying--that girl!
+But kiss me and I'll forget it; I'll forgive you.  Kiss me only once, and
+I shall be certain you don't care for him.  That's the thought maddens me
+outright.  I can't bear it now I've seen you look soft.  I'm stronger
+than you, mind."  He caught her by the waist.
+
+"Yes," Rhoda gasped, "you are.  You are only a brute."
+
+"A brute's a lucky dog, then, for I've got you!"
+
+"Will you touch me?"
+
+"You're in my power."
+
+"It's a miserable thing, Robert."
+
+"Why don't you struggle, my girl?  I shall kiss you in a minute."
+
+"You're never my friend again."
+
+"I'm not a gentleman, I suppose!"
+
+"Never! after this."
+
+"It isn't done.  And first you're like a white rose, and next you're like
+a red.  Will you submit?"
+
+"Oh! shame!" Rhoda uttered.
+
+"Because I'm not a gentleman?"
+
+"You are not."
+
+"So, if I could make you a lady--eh? the lips 'd be ready in a trice.
+You think of being made a lady--a lady!"
+
+His arm relaxed in the clutch of her figure.
+
+She got herself free, and said: "We saw Mr. Blancove at the theatre with
+Dahlia."
+
+It was her way of meeting his accusation that she had cherished an
+ambitious feminine dream.
+
+He, to hide a confusion that had come upon him, was righting the fallen
+candle.
+
+"Now I know you can be relied on; you can defend yourself," he said, and
+handed it to her, lighted.  "You keep your kisses for this or that young
+gentleman.  Quite right.  You really can defend yourself.  That's all I
+was up to.  So let us hear that you forgive me.  The door's open.  You
+won't be bothered by me any more; and don't hate me overmuch."
+
+"You might have learned to trust me without insulting me, Robert," she
+said.
+
+"Do you fancy I'd take such a world of trouble for a kiss of your lips,
+sweet as they are?"
+
+His blusterous beginning ended in a speculating glance at her mouth.
+
+She saw it would be wise to accept him in his present mood, and go; and
+with a gentle "Good night," that might sound like pardon, she passed
+through the doorway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Next day, while Squire Blancove was superintending the laying down of
+lines for a new carriage drive in his park, as he walked slowly up the
+green slope he perceived Farmer Fleming, supported by a tall young man;
+and when the pair were nearer, he had the gratification of noting
+likewise that the worthy yeoman was very much bent, as with an acute
+attack of his well-known chronic malady of a want of money.
+
+The squire greatly coveted the freehold of Queen Anne's Farm.  He had
+made offers to purchase it till he was tired, and had gained for himself
+the credit of being at the bottom of numerous hypothetical cabals to
+injure and oust the farmer from his possession.  But if Naboth came with
+his vineyard in his hand, not even Wrexby's rector (his quarrel with whom
+haunted every turn in his life) could quote Scripture against him for
+taking it at a proper valuation.
+
+The squire had employed his leisure time during service in church to
+discover a text that might be used against him in the event of the
+farmer's reduction to a state of distress, and his, the squire's, making
+the most of it.  On the contrary, according to his heathenish reading of
+some of the patriarchal doings, there was more to be said in his favour
+than not, if he increased his territorial property: nor could he,
+throughout the Old Testament, hit on one sentence that looked like a
+personal foe to his projects, likely to fit into the mouth of the rector
+of Wrexby.
+
+"Well, farmer," he said, with cheerful familiarity, "winter crops looking
+well?  There's a good show of green in the fields from my windows, as
+good as that land of yours will allow in heavy seasons."
+
+To this the farmer replied, "I've not heart or will to be round about,
+squire.  If you'll listen to me--here, or where you give command."
+
+"Has it anything to do with pen and paper, Fleming?  In that case you'd
+better be in my study," said the squire.
+
+"I don't know that it have.  I don't know that it have."  The farmer
+sought Robert's face.
+
+"Best where there's no chance of interruption," Robert counselled, and
+lifted his hat to the squire.
+
+"Eh?  Well, you see I'm busy."  The latter affected a particular
+indifference, that in such cases, when well acted (as lords of money can
+do--squires equally with usurers), may be valued at hundreds of pounds in
+the pocket.  "Can't you put it off?  Come again to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow's a day too late," said the farmer, gravely.  Whereto
+replying, "Oh! well, come along in, then," the squire led the way.
+
+"You're two to one, if it's a transaction," he said, nodding to Robert to
+close the library door.  "Take seats.  Now then, what is it?  And if I
+make a face, just oblige me by thinking nothing about it, for my gout's
+beginning to settle in the leg again, and shoots like an electric
+telegraph from purgatory."
+
+He wheezed and lowered himself into his arm-chair; but the farmer and
+Robert remained standing, and the farmer spoke:--
+
+"My words are going to be few, squire.  I've got a fact to bring to your
+knowledge, and a question to ask."
+
+Surprise, exaggerated on his face by a pain he had anticipated, made the
+squire glare hideously.
+
+"Confound it, that's what they say to a prisoner in the box. Here's a
+murder committed:--Are you the guilty person?  Fact and question!  Well,
+out with 'em, both together."
+
+"A father ain't responsible for the sins of his children," said the
+farmer.
+
+"Well, that's a fact," the squire emphasized.  "I've always maintained
+it; but, if you go to your church, farmer--small blame to you if you
+don't; that fellow who preaches there--I forget his name--stands out for
+just the other way.  You are responsible, he swears.  Pay your son's
+debts, and don't groan over it:--He spent the money, and you're the chief
+debtor; that's his teaching. Well: go on.  What's your question?"
+
+"A father's not to be held responsible for the sins of his children,
+squire.  My daughter's left me.  She's away.  I saw my daughter at the
+theatre in London.  She saw me, and saw her sister with me.  She
+disappeared.  It's a hard thing for a man to be saying of his own flesh
+and blood.  She disappeared.  She went, knowing her father's arms open to
+her.  She was in company with your son."
+
+The squire was thrumming on the arm of his chair.  He looked up vaguely,
+as if waiting for the question to follow, but meeting the farmer's
+settled eyes, he cried, irritably, "Well, what's that to me?"
+
+"What's that to you, squire?"
+
+"Are you going to make me out responsible for my son's conduct? My son's
+a rascal--everybody knows that.  I paid his debts once, and I've finished
+with him.  Don't come to me about the fellow. If there's a greater curse
+than the gout, it's a son."
+
+"My girl," said the farmer, "she's my flesh and blood, and I must find
+her, and I'm here to ask you to make your son tell me where she's to be
+found.  Leave me to deal with that young man--leave you me! but I want my
+girl."
+
+"But I can't give her to you," roared the squire, afflicted by his two
+great curses at once.  "Why do you come to me?  I'm not responsible for
+the doings of the dog.  I'm sorry for you, if that's what you want to
+know.  Do you mean to say that my son took her away from your house?"
+
+"I don't do so, Mr. Blancove.  I'm seeking for my daughter, and I see her
+in company with your son."
+
+"Very well, very well," said the squire; "that shows his habits; I can't
+say more.  But what has it got to do with me?"
+
+The farmer looked helplessly at Robert.
+
+"No, no," the squire sung out, "no interlopers, no interpreting here.  I
+listen to you.  My son--your daughter.  I understand that, so far.  It's
+between us two.  You've got a daughter who's gone wrong somehow: I'm
+sorry to hear it.  I've got a son who never went right; and it's no
+comfort to me, upon my word.  If you were to see the bills and the
+letters I receive! but I don't carry my grievances to my neighbours.  I
+should think, Fleming, you'd do best, if it's advice you're seeking, to
+keep it quiet.  Don't make a noise about it.  Neighbours' gossip I find
+pretty well the worst thing a man has to bear, who's unfortunate enough
+to own children."
+
+The farmer bowed his head with that bitter humbleness which characterized
+his reception of the dealings of Providence toward him.
+
+"My neighbours 'll soon be none at all," he said.  "Let 'em talk.  I'm
+not abusing you, Mr. Blancove.  I'm a broken man: but I want my poor lost
+girl, and, by God, responsible for your son or not, you must help me to
+find her.  She may be married, as she says.  She mayn't be.  But I must
+find her."
+
+The squire hastily seized a scrap of paper on the table and wrote on it.
+
+"There!" he handed the paper to the farmer; "that's my son's address,
+'Boyne's Bank, City, London.'  Go to him there, and you'll find him
+perched on a stool, and a good drubbing won't hurt him.  You've my hearty
+permission, I can assure you: you may say so.  'Boyne's Bank.'  Anybody
+will show you the place.  He's a rascally clerk in the office, and
+precious useful, I dare swear.  Thrash him, if you think fit."
+
+"Ay," said the farmer, "Boyne's Bank.  I've been there already. He's
+absent from work, on a visit down into Hampshire, one of the young
+gentlemen informed me; Fairly Park was the name of the place: but I came
+to you, Mr. Blancove; for you're his father."
+
+"Well now, my good Fleming, I hope you think I'm properly punished for
+that fact."  The squire stood up with horrid contortions.
+
+Robert stepped in advance of the farmer.
+
+"Pardon me, sir," he said, though the squire met his voice with a
+prodigious frown; "this would be an ugly business to talk about, as you
+observe.  It would hurt Mr. Fleming in these parts of the country, and he
+would leave it, if he thought fit; but you can't separate your name from
+your son's--begging you to excuse the liberty I take in mentioning it--
+not in public: and your son has the misfortune to be well known in one or
+two places where he was quartered when in the cavalry.  That matter of
+the jeweller--"
+
+"Hulloa," the squire exclaimed, in a perturbation.
+
+"Why, sir, I know all about it, because I was a trooper in the regiment
+your son, Mr. Algernon Blancove, quitted: and his name, if I may take
+leave to remark so, won't bear printing.  How far he's guilty before Mr.
+Fleming we can't tell as yet; but if Mr. Fleming holds him guilty of an
+offence, your son 'll bear the consequences, and what's done will be done
+thoroughly.  Proper counsel will be taken, as needn't be said.  Mr.
+Fleming applied to you first, partly for your sake as well as his own.
+He can find friends, both to advise and to aid him."
+
+"You mean, sir," thundered the squire, "that he can find enemies of mine,
+like that infernal fellow who goes by the title of Reverend, down below
+there.  That'll do, that will do; there's some extortion at the bottom of
+this.  You're putting on a screw."
+
+"We're putting on a screw, sir," said Robert, coolly.
+
+"Not a penny will you get by it."
+
+Robert flushed with heat of blood.
+
+"You don't wish you were a young man half so much as I do just now," he
+remarked, and immediately they were in collision, for the squire made a
+rush to the bell-rope, and Robert stopped him. "We're going," he said;
+"we don't want man-servants to show us the way out.  Now mark me, Mr.
+Blancove, you've insulted an old man in his misery: you shall suffer for
+it, and so shall your son, whom I know to be a rascal worthy of
+transportation.  You think Mr. Fleming came to you for money.  Look at
+this old man, whose only fault is that he's too full of kindness; he came
+to you just for help to find his daughter, with whom your rascal of a son
+was last seen, and you swear he's come to rob you of money. Don't you
+know yourself a fattened cur, squire though you be, and called gentleman?
+England's a good place, but you make England a hell to men of spirit.
+Sit in your chair, and don't ever you, or any of you cross my path; and
+speak a word to your servants before we're out of the house, and I stand
+in the hall and give 'em your son's history, and make Wrexby stink in
+your nostril, till you're glad enough to fly out of it.  Now, Mr.
+Fleming, there's no more to be done here; the game lies elsewhere."
+
+Robert took the farmer by the arm, and was marching out of the enemy's
+territory in good order, when the squire, who had presented many
+changeing aspects of astonishment and rage, arrested them with a call.
+He began to say that he spoke to Mr. Fleming, and not to the young
+ruffian of a bully whom the farmer had brought there: and then asked in a
+very reasonable manner what he could do--what measures he could adopt to
+aid the farmer in finding his child.  Robert hung modestly in the
+background while the farmer laboured on with a few sentences to explain
+the case, and finally the squire said, that his foot permitting (it was
+an almost pathetic reference to the weakness of flesh), he would go down
+to Fairly on the day following and have a personal interview with his
+son, and set things right, as far as it lay in his power, though he was
+by no means answerable for a young man's follies.
+
+He was a little frightened by the farmer's having said that Dahlia,
+according to her own declaration was married, and therefore himself the
+more anxious to see Mr. Algernon, and hear the truth from his estimable
+offspring, whom he again stigmatized as a curse terrible to him as his
+gouty foot, but nevertheless just as little to be left to his own
+devices.  The farmer bowed to these observations; as also when the squire
+counselled him, for his own sake, not to talk of his misfortune all over
+the parish.
+
+"I'm not a likely man for that, squire; but there's no telling where
+gossips get their crumbs.  It's about.  It's about."
+
+"About my son?" cried the squire.
+
+"My daughter!"
+
+"Oh, well, good-day," the squire resumed more cheerfully.  "I'll go down
+to Fairly, and you can't ask more than that."
+
+When the farmer was out of the house and out of hearing, he rebuked
+Robert for the inconsiderate rashness of his behaviour, and pointed out
+how he, the farmer, by being patient and peaceful, had attained to the
+object of his visit.  Robert laughed without defending himself.
+
+"I shouldn't ha' known ye," the farmer repeated frequently; "I shouldn't
+ha' known ye, Robert."
+
+"No, I'm a trifle changed, may be," Robert agreed.  "I'm going to claim a
+holiday of you.  I've told Rhoda that if Dahlia's to be found, I'll find
+her, and I can't do it by sticking here.  Give me three weeks.  The
+land's asleep.  Old Gammon can hardly turn a furrow the wrong way.
+There's nothing to do, which is his busiest occupation, when he's not
+interrupted at it."
+
+"Mas' Gammon's a rare old man," said the farmer, emphatically.
+
+"So I say.  Else, how would you see so many farms flourishing!"
+
+"Come, Robert: you hit th' old man hard; you should learn to forgive."
+
+"So I do, and a telling blow's a man's best road to charity.  I'd forgive
+the squire and many another, if I had them within two feet of my fist."
+
+"Do you forgive my girl Rhoda for putting of you off?"
+
+Robert screwed in his cheek.
+
+"Well, yes, I do," he said.  "Only it makes me feel thirsty, that's all."
+
+The farmer remembered this when they had entered the farm.
+
+"Our beer's so poor, Robert," he made apology; "but Rhoda shall get you
+some for you to try, if you like.  Rhoda, Robert's solemn thirsty."
+
+"Shall I?" said Rhoda, and she stood awaiting his bidding.
+
+"I'm not a thirsty subject," replied Robert.  "You know I've avoided
+drink of any kind since I set foot on this floor.  But when I drink," he
+pitched his voice to a hard, sparkling heartiness, "I drink a lot, and
+the stuff must be strong.  I'm very much obliged to you, Miss Rhoda, for
+what you're so kind as to offer to satisfy my thirst, and you can't give
+better, and don't suppose that I'm complaining; but your father's right,
+it is rather weak, and wouldn't break the tooth of my thirst if I drank
+at it till Gammon left off thinking about his dinner."
+
+With that he announced his approaching departure.
+
+The farmer dropped into his fireside chair, dumb and spiritless. A shadow
+was over the house, and the inhabitants moved about their domestic
+occupations silent as things that feel the thunder-cloud.  Before sunset
+Robert was gone on his long walk to the station, and Rhoda felt a woman's
+great envy of the liberty of a man, who has not, if it pleases him not,
+to sit and eat grief among familiar images, in a home that furnishes its
+altar-flame.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Fairly, Lord Elling's seat in Hampshire, lay over the Warbeach river; a
+white mansion among great oaks, in view of the summer sails and winter
+masts of the yachting squadron.  The house was ruled, during the
+congregation of the Christmas guests, by charming Mrs. Lovell, who
+relieved the invalid Lady of the house of the many serious cares
+attending the reception of visitors, and did it all with ease.  Under her
+sovereignty the place was delightful, and if it was by repute pleasanter
+to young men than to any other class, it will be admitted that she
+satisfied those who are loudest in giving tongue to praise.
+
+Edward and Algernon journeyed down to Fairly together, after the
+confidence which the astute young lawyer had been compelled to repose in
+his cousin.  Sir William Blancove was to be at Fairly, and it was at his
+father's pointed request that Edward had accepted Mrs. Lovell's
+invitation.  Half in doubt as to the lady's disposition toward him,
+Edward eased his heart with sneers at the soft, sanguinary graciousness
+they were to expect, and racked mythology for spiteful comparisons; while
+Algernon vehemently defended her with a battering fire of British
+adjectives in superlative.  He as much as hinted, under instigation, that
+he was entitled to defend her; and his claim being by-and-by yawningly
+allowed by Edward, and presuming that he now had Edward in his power and
+need not fear him, he exhibited his weakness in the guise of a costly
+gem, that he intended to present to Mrs. Lovell--an opal set in a cross
+pendant from a necklace; a really fine opal, coquetting with the lights
+of every gem that is known: it shot succinct red flashes, and green, and
+yellow; the emerald, the amethyst, the topaz lived in it, and a remote
+ruby; it was veined with lightning hues, and at times it slept in a milky
+cloud, innocent of fire, quite maidenlike.
+
+"That will suit her," was Edward's remark.
+
+"I didn't want to get anything common," said Algernon, making the gem
+play before his eyes.
+
+"A pretty stone," said Edward.
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Very pretty indeed."
+
+"Harlequin pattern."
+
+"To be presented to Columbine!"
+
+"The Harlequin pattern is of the best sort, you know.  Perhaps you like
+the watery ones best?  This is fresh from Russia.  There's a set I've my
+eye on.  I shall complete it in time.  I want Peggy Lovell to wear the
+jolliest opals in the world.  It's rather nice, isn't it?"
+
+"It's a splendid opal," said Edward.
+
+"She likes opals," said Algernon.
+
+"She'll take your meaning at once," said Edward.
+
+"How?  I'll be hanged if I know what my meaning is, Ned."
+
+"Don't you know the signification of your gift?"
+
+"Not a bit."
+
+"Oh! you'll be Oriental when you present it."
+
+"The deuce I shall!"
+
+"It means, 'You're the prettiest widow in the world.'"
+
+"So she is.  I'll be right there, old boy."
+
+"And, 'You're a rank, right-down widow, and no mistake; you're everything
+to everybody; not half so innocent as you look: you're green as jealousy,
+red as murder, yellow as jaundice, and put on the whiteness of a virgin
+when you ought to be blushing like a penitent.'  In short, 'You have no
+heart of your own, and you pretend to possess half a dozen: you're devoid
+of one steady beam, and play tricks with every scale of colour: you're an
+arrant widow, and that's what you are.'  An eloquent gift, Algy."
+
+"Gad, if it means all that, it'll be rather creditable to me," said
+Algernon.  "Do opals mean widows?"
+
+"Of course," was the answer.
+
+"Well, she is a widow, and I suppose she's going to remain one, for she's
+had lots of offers.  If I marry a girl I shall never like her half as
+much as Peggy Lovell.  She's done me up for every other woman living.
+She never lets me feel a fool with her; and she has a way, by Jove, of
+looking at me, and letting me know she's up to my thoughts and isn't
+angry.  What's the use of my thinking of her at all?  She'd never go to
+the Colonies, and live in a log but and make cheeses, while I tore about
+on horseback gathering cattle."
+
+"I don't think she would," observed Edward, emphatically; "I don't think
+she would."
+
+"And I shall never have money.  Confound stingy parents!  It's a question
+whether I shall get Wrexby: there's no entail.  I'm heir to the
+governor's temper and his gout, I dare say.  He'll do as he likes with
+the estate.  I call it beastly unfair."
+
+Edward asked how much the opal had cost.
+
+"Oh, nothing," said Algernon; "that is, I never pay for jewellery."
+
+Edward was curious to know how he managed to obtain it.
+
+"Why, you see," Algernon explained, "they, the jewellers--I've got two or
+three in hand--the fellows are acquainted with my position, and they
+speculate on my expectations.  There is no harm in that if they like it.
+I look at their trinkets, and say, 'I've no money;' and they say, 'Never
+mind;' and I don't mind much.  The understanding is, that I pay them when
+I inherit."
+
+"In gout and bad temper?"
+
+"Gad, if I inherit nothing else, they'll have lots of that for
+indemnification.  It's a good system, Ned; it enables a young fellow like
+me to get through the best years of his life--which I take to be his
+youth--without that squalid poverty bothering him. You can make presents,
+and wear a pin or a ring, if it takes your eye.  You look well, and you
+make yourself agreeable; and I see nothing to complain of in that."
+
+"The jewellers, then, have established an institution to correct one of
+the errors of Providence."
+
+"Oh! put it in your long-winded way, if you like," said Algernon; "all I
+know is, that I should often have wanted a five-pound note, if--that is,
+if I hadn't happened to be dressed like a gentleman.  With your
+prospects, Ned, I should propose to charming Peggy tomorrow morning
+early.  We mustn't let her go out of the family.  If I can't have her,
+I'd rather you would."
+
+"You forget the incumbrances on one side," said Edward, his face
+darkening.
+
+"Oh! that's all to be managed," Algernon rallied him.  "Why, Ned, you'll
+have twenty thousand a-year, if you have a penny; and you'll go into
+Parliament, and give dinners, and a woman like Peggy Lovell 'd intrigue
+for you like the deuce."
+
+"A great deal too like," Edward muttered.
+
+"As for that pretty girl," continued Algernon; but Edward peremptorily
+stopped all speech regarding Dahlia.  His desire was, while he made
+holiday, to shut the past behind a brazen gate; which being communicated
+sympathetically to his cousin, the latter chimed to it in boisterous
+shouts of anticipated careless jollity at Fairly Park, crying out how
+they would hunt and snap fingers at Jews, and all mortal sorrows, and
+have a fortnight, or three weeks, perhaps a full month, of the finest
+life possible to man, with good horses, good dinners, good wines, good
+society, at command, and a queen of a woman to rule and order everything.
+Edward affected a disdainful smile at the prospect; but was in reality
+the weaker of the two in his thirst for it.
+
+They arrived at Fairly in time to dress for dinner, and in the
+drawing-room Mrs. Lovell sat to receive them.  She looked up to Edward's
+face an imperceptible half-second longer than the ordinary form of
+welcome accords--one of the looks which are nothing at all when there is
+no spiritual apprehension between young people, and are so much when
+there is.  To Algernon, who was gazing opals on her, she simply gave her
+fingers.  At her right hand, was Sir John Capes, her antique devotee; a
+pure milky-white old gentleman, with sparkling fingers, who played Apollo
+to his Daphne, and was out of breath.  Lord Suckling, a boy with a
+boisterous constitution, and a guardsman, had his place near her left
+hand, as if ready to seize it at the first whisper of encouragement or
+opportunity.  A very little lady of seventeen, Miss Adeline Gosling,
+trembling with shyness under a cover of demureness, fell to Edward's lot
+to conduct down to dinner, where he neglected her disgracefully.  His
+father, Sir William, was present at the table, and Lord Elling, with whom
+he was in repute as a talker and a wit.  Quickened with his host's
+renowned good wine (and the bare renown of a wine is inspiriting), Edward
+pressed to be brilliant.  He had an epigrammatic turn, and though his
+mind was prosaic when it ran alone, he could appear inventive and
+fanciful with the rub of other minds.  Now, at a table where good talking
+is cared for, the triumphs of the excelling tongue are not for a moment
+to be despised, even by the huge appetite of the monster Vanity.  For a
+year, Edward had abjured this feast.  Before the birds appeared and the
+champagne had ceased to make its circle, he felt that he was now at home
+again, and that the term of his wandering away from society was one of
+folly.  He felt the joy and vigour of a creature returned to his element.
+Why had he ever quitted it? Already he looked back upon Dahlia from a
+prodigious distance.  He knew that there was something to be smoothed
+over; something written in the book of facts which had to be smeared out,
+and he seemed to do it, while he drank the babbling wine and heard
+himself talk.  Not one man at that table, as he reflected, would consider
+the bond which held him in any serious degree binding.  A lady is one
+thing, and a girl of the class Dahlia had sprung from altogether another.
+He could not help imagining the sort of appearance she would make there;
+and the thought even was a momentary clog upon his tongue.  How he used
+to despise these people!  Especially he had despised the young men as
+brainless cowards in regard to their views of women and conduct toward
+them.  All that was changed.  He fancied now that they, on the contrary,
+would despise him, if only they could be aware of the lingering sense he
+entertained of his being in bondage under a sacred obligation to a
+farmer's daughter.
+
+But he had one thing to discover, and that was, why Sir William had made
+it a peculiar request that he should come to meet him here.  Could the
+desire possibly be to reconcile him with Mrs. Lovell?  His common sense
+rejected the idea at once: Sir William boasted of her wit and tact, and
+admired her beauty, but Edward remembered his having responded tacitly to
+his estimate of her character, and Sir William was not the man to court
+the alliance of his son with a woman like Mrs. Lovell.  He perceived that
+his father and the fair widow frequently took counsel together. Edward
+laughed at the notion that the grave senior had himself become
+fascinated, but without utterly scouting it, until he found that the
+little lady whom he had led to dinner the first day, was an heiress; and
+from that, and other indications, he exactly divined the nature of his
+father's provident wishes.  But this revelation rendered Mrs. Lovell's
+behaviour yet more extraordinary.  Could it be credited that she was
+abetting Sir William's schemes with all her woman's craft?  "Has she,"
+thought Edward, "become so indifferent to me as to care for my welfare?"
+He determined to put her to the test.  He made love to Adeline Gosling.
+Nothing that he did disturbed the impenetrable complacency of Mrs.
+Lovell.  She threw them together as she shuffled the guests.  She really
+seemed to him quite indifferent enough to care for his welfare.  It was a
+point in the mysterious ways of women, or of widows, that Edward's
+experience had not yet come across.  All the parties immediately
+concerned were apparently so desperately acquiescing in his suit, that he
+soon grew uneasy.  Mrs. Lovell not only shuffled him into places with the
+raw heiress, but with the child's mother; of whom he spoke to Algernon as
+of one too strongly breathing of matrimony to appease the cravings of an
+eclectic mind.
+
+"Make the path clear for me, then," said Algernon, "if you don't like the
+girl.  Pitch her tales about me.  Say, I've got a lot in me, though I
+don't let it out.  The game's up between you and Peggy Lovell, that's
+clear.  She don't forgive you, my boy."
+
+"Ass!" muttered Edward, seeing by the light of his perception, that he
+was too thoroughly forgiven.
+
+A principal charm of the life at Fairly to him was that there was no one
+complaining.  No one looked reproach at him.  If a lady was pale and
+reserved, she did not seem to accuse him, and to require coaxing.  All
+faces here were as light as the flying moment, and did not carry the
+shadowy weariness of years, like that burdensome fair face in the London
+lodging-house, to which the Fates had terribly attached themselves.  So,
+he was gay.  He closed, as it were, a black volume, and opened a new and
+a bright one.  Young men easily fancy that they may do this, and that
+when the black volume is shut the tide is stopped.  Saying, "I was a
+fool," they believe they have put an end to the foolishness.  What father
+teaches them that a human act once set in motion flows on for ever to the
+great account?  Our deathlessness is in what we do, not in what we are.
+Comfortable Youth thinks otherwise.
+
+The days at a well-ordered country-house, where a divining lady rules,
+speed to the measure of a waltz, in harmonious circles, dropping like
+crystals into the gulfs of Time, and appearing to write nothing in his
+book.  Not a single hinge of existence is heard to creak.  There is no
+after-dinner bill.  You are waited on, without being elbowed by the
+humanity of your attendants.  It is a civilized Arcadia.  Only, do not
+desire, that you may not envy.  Accept humbly what rights of citizenship
+are accorded to you upon entering.  Discard the passions when you cross
+the threshold.  To breathe and to swallow merely, are the duties which
+should prescribe your conduct; or, such is the swollen condition of the
+animal in this enchanted region, that the spirit of man becomes
+dangerously beset.
+
+Edward breathed and swallowed, and never went beyond the prescription,
+save by talking.  No other junior could enter the library, without
+encountering the scorn of his elders; so he enjoyed the privilege of
+hearing all the scandal, and his natural cynicism was plentifully fed.
+It was more of a school to him than he knew.
+
+These veterans, in their arm-chairs, stripped the bloom from life, and
+showed it to be bare bones: They took their wisdom for an experience of
+the past: they were but giving their sensations in the present.  Not to
+perceive this, is Youth's, error when it hears old gentlemen talking at
+their ease.
+
+On the third morning of their stay at Fairly, Algernon came into Edward's
+room with a letter in his hand.
+
+"There! read that!" he said.  "It isn't ill-luck; it's infernal
+persecution!  What, on earth!--why, I took a close cab to the station.
+You saw me get out of it.  I'll swear no creditor of mine knew I was
+leaving London.  My belief is that the fellows who give credit have spies
+about at every railway terminus in the kingdom.  They won't give me three
+days' peace.  It's enough to disgust any man with civilized life; on my
+soul, it is!"
+
+Edward glanced at the superscription of the letter.  "Not posted," he
+remarked.
+
+"No; delivered by some confounded bailiff, who's been hounding me."
+
+"Bailiffs don't generally deal in warnings."
+
+"Will you read it!" Algernon shouted.
+
+The letter ran thus:--
+
+     "Mr. Algernon Blancove,--
+
+     "The writer of this intends taking the first opportunity of meeting
+     you, and gives you warning, you will have to answer his question
+     with a Yes or a No; and speak from your conscience.  The
+     respectfulness of his behaviour to you as a gentleman will depend
+     upon that."
+
+Algernon followed his cousin's eye down to the last letter in the page.
+
+"What do you think of it?" he asked eagerly.
+
+Edward's broad thin-lined brows were drawn down in gloom. Mastering some
+black meditation in his brain, he answered Algernon's yells for an
+opinion,--
+
+"I think--well, I think bailiffs have improved in their manners, and show
+you they are determined to belong to the social march in an age of
+universal progress.  Nothing can be more comforting."
+
+"But, suppose this fellow comes across me?"
+
+"Don't know him."
+
+"Suppose he insists on knowing me?"
+
+"Don't know yourself."
+
+"Yes; but hang it! if he catches hold of me?"
+
+"Shake him off."
+
+"Suppose he won't let go?"
+
+"Cut him with your horsewhip."
+
+"You think it's about a debt, then?"
+
+"Intimidation, evidently."
+
+"I shall announce to him that the great Edward Blancove is not to be
+intimidated.  You'll let me borrow your name, old Ned.  I've stood by you
+in my time.  As for leaving Fairly, I tell you I can't.  It's too
+delightful to be near Peggy Lovell."
+
+Edward smiled with a peculiar friendliness, and Algernon went off, very
+well contented with his cousin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Within a mile of Fairly Park lay the farm of another yeoman; but he was
+of another character.  The Hampshireman was a farmer of renown in his
+profession; fifth of a family that had cultivated a small domain of one
+hundred and seventy acres with sterling profit, and in a style to make
+Sutton the model of a perfect farm throughout the country.  Royal eyes
+had inspected his pigs approvingly; Royal wits had taken hints from
+Jonathan Eccles in matters agricultural; and it was his comforting joke
+that he had taught his Prince good breeding.  In return for the service,
+his Prince had transformed a lusty Radical into a devoted Royalist.
+Framed on the walls of his parlours were letters from his Prince,
+thanking him for specimen seeds and worthy counsel: veritable autograph
+letters of the highest value.  The Prince had steamed up the salt river,
+upon which the Sutton harvests were mirrored, and landed on a spot marked
+in honour of the event by a broad grey stone; and from that day Jonathan
+Eccles stood on a pinnacle of pride, enabling him to see horizons of
+despondency hitherto unknown to him.  For he had a son, and the son was a
+riotous devil, a most wild young fellow, who had no taste for a farmer's
+life, and openly declared his determination not to perpetuate the Sutton
+farm in the hands of the Eccleses, by running off one day and entering
+the ranks of the British army.
+
+Those framed letters became melancholy objects for contemplation, when
+Jonathan thought that no posterity of his would point them out gloryingly
+in emulation.  Man's aim is to culminate; but it is the saddest thing in
+the world to feel that we have accomplished it.  Mr. Eccles shrugged with
+all the philosophy he could summon, and transferred his private
+disappointment to his country, whose agricultural day was, he said,
+doomed.  "We shall be beaten by those Yankees."  He gave Old England
+twenty years of continued pre-eminence (due to the impetus of the present
+generation of Englishmen), and then, said he, the Yankees will flood the
+market.  No more green pastures in Great Britain; no pretty clean-footed
+animals; no yellow harvests; but huge chimney pots everywhere; black
+earth under black vapour, and smoke-begrimed faces.  In twenty years'
+time, sooty England was to be a gigantic manufactory, until the Yankees
+beat us out of that field as well; beyond which Jonathan Eccles did not
+care to spread any distinct border of prophecy; merely thanking the Lord
+that he should then be under grass.  The decay of our glory was to be
+edged with blood; Jonathan admitted that there would be stuff in the
+fallen race to deliver a sturdy fight before they went to their doom.
+
+For this prodigious curse, England had to thank young Robert, the erratic
+son of Jonathan.
+
+It was now two years since Robert had inherited a small legacy of money
+from an aunt, and spent it in waste, as the farmer bitterly supposed.  He
+was looking at some immense seed-melons in his garden, lying about in
+morning sunshine--a new feed for sheep, of his own invention,--when the
+call of the wanderer saluted his ears, and he beheld his son Robert at
+the gate.
+
+"Here I am, sir," Robert sang out from the exterior.
+
+"Stay there, then," was his welcome.
+
+They were alike in their build and in their manner of speech.  The accost
+and the reply sounded like reports from the same pistol.  The old man was
+tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular--a grey edition of the son, upon
+whose disorderly attire he cast a glance, while speaking, with settled
+disgust.  Robert's necktie streamed loose; his hair was uncombed; a
+handkerchief dangled from his pocket.  He had the look of the prodigal,
+returned with impudence for his portion instead of repentance.
+
+"I can't see how you are, sir, from this distance," said Robert, boldly
+assuming his privilege to enter.
+
+"Are you drunk?" Jonathan asked, as Robert marched up to him.
+
+"Give me your hand, sir."
+
+"Give me an answer first.  Are you drunk?"
+
+Robert tried to force the complacent aspect of a mind unabashed, but felt
+that he made a stupid show before that clear-headed, virtuously-living
+old, man of iron nerves.  The alternative to flying into a passion, was
+the looking like a fool.
+
+"Come, father," he said, with a miserable snigger, like a yokel's smile;
+"here I am at last.  I don't say, kill the fatted calf, and take a lesson
+from Scripture, but give me your hand.  I've done no man harm but myself-
+-damned if I've done a mean thing anywhere! and there's no shame to you
+in shaking your son's hand after a long absence."
+
+Jonathan Eccles kept both hands firmly in his pockets.
+
+"Are you drunk?" he repeated.
+
+Robert controlled himself to answer, "I'm not."
+
+"Well, then, just tell me when you were drunk last."
+
+"This is a pleasant fatherly greeting!" Robert interjected.
+
+"You get no good by fighting shy of a simple question, Mr. Bob," said
+Jonathan.
+
+Robert cried querulously, "I don't want to fight shy of a simple
+question."
+
+"Well, then; when were you drunk last? answer me that."
+
+"Last night."
+
+Jonathan drew his hand from his pocket to thump his leg.
+
+"I'd have sworn it!"
+
+All Robert's assurance had vanished in a minute, and he stood like a
+convicted culprit before his father.
+
+"You know, sir, I don't tell lies.  I was drunk last night.  I couldn't
+help it."
+
+"No more could the little boy."
+
+"I was drunk last night.  Say, I'm a beast."
+
+"I shan't!" exclaimed Jonathan, making his voice sound as a defence to
+this vile charge against the brutish character.
+
+"Say, I'm worse than a beast, then," cried Robert, in exasperation.
+"Take my word that it hasn't happened to me to be in that state for a
+year and more.  Last night I was mad.  I can't give you any reasons.  I
+thought I was cured but I've trouble in my mind, and a tide swims you
+over the shallows--so I felt.  Come, sir--father, don't make me mad
+again."
+
+"Where did you get the liquor?" inquired Jonathan.
+
+"I drank at 'The Pilot.'"
+
+"Ha! there's talk there of 'that damned old Eccles' for a month to come--
+'the unnatural parent.'  How long have you been down here?"
+
+"Eight and twenty hours."
+
+"Eight and twenty hours.  When are you going?"
+
+"I want lodging for a night."
+
+"What else?"
+
+"The loan of a horse that'll take a fence."
+
+"Go on."
+
+"And twenty pounds."
+
+"Oh!" said Jonathan.  "If farming came as easy to you as face, you'd be a
+prime agriculturalist.  Just what I thought!  What's become of that money
+your aunt Jane was fool enough to bequeath to you?"
+
+"I've spent it."
+
+"Are you a Deserter?"
+
+For a moment Robert stood as if listening, and then white grew his face,
+and he swayed and struck his hands together.  His recent intoxication had
+unmanned him.
+
+"Go in--go in," said his father in some concern, though wrath was
+predominant.
+
+"Oh, make your mind quiet about me."  Robert dropped his arms. "I'm
+weakened somehow--damned weak, I am--I feel like a woman when my father
+asks me if I've been guilty of villany.  Desert?  I wouldn't desert from
+the hulks.  Hear the worst, and this is the worst: I've got no money--I
+don't owe a penny, but I haven't got one."
+
+"And I won't give you one," Jonathan appended; and they stood facing one
+another in silence.
+
+A squeaky voice was heard from the other side of the garden hedge of
+clipped yew.
+
+"Hi! farmer, is that the missing young man?" and presently a neighbour,
+by name John Sedgett, came trotting through the gate, and up the garden
+path.
+
+"I say," he remarked, "here's a rumpus.  Here's a bobbery up at Fairly.
+Oh! Bob Eccles!  Bob Eccles!  At it again!"
+
+Mr. Sedgett shook his wallet of gossip with an enjoying chuckle. He was a
+thin-faced creature, rheumy of eye, and drawing his breath as from a
+well; the ferret of the village for all underlying scandal and tattle,
+whose sole humanity was what he called pitifully 'a peakin' at his chest,
+and who had retired from his business of grocer in the village upon the
+fortune brought to him in the energy and capacity of a third wife to
+conduct affairs, while he wandered up and down and knitted people
+together--an estimable office in a land where your house is so grievously
+your castle.
+
+"What the devil have you got in you now?" Jonathan cried out to him.
+
+Mr. Sedgett was seized by his complaint and demanded commiseration, but,
+recovering, he chuckled again.
+
+"Oh, Bob Eccles!  Don't you never grow older?  And the first day down
+among us again, too.  Why, Bob, as a military man, you ought to
+acknowledge your superiors.  Why, Stephen Bilton, the huntsman, says,
+Bob, you pulled the young gentleman off his horse--you on foot, and him
+mounted.  I'd ha' given pounds to be there.  And ladies present!  Lord
+help us!  I'm glad you're returned, though.  These melons of the
+farmer's, they're a wonderful invention; people are speaking of 'em right
+and left, and says, says they, Farmer Eccles, he's best farmer going--
+Hampshire ought to be proud of him--he's worth two of any others: that
+they are fine ones!  And you're come back to keep 'em up, eh, Bob?  Are
+ye, though, my man?"
+
+"Well, here I am, Mr. Sedgett," said Robert, "and talking to my father."
+
+"Oh! I wouldn't be here to interrupt ye for the world."  Mr. Sedgett made
+a show of retiring, but Jonathan insisted upon his disburdening himself
+of his tale, saying: "Damn your raw beginnings, Sedgett!  What's been up?
+Nobody can hurt me."
+
+"That they can't, neighbour; nor Bob neither, as far as stand up man to
+man go.  I give him three to one--Bob Eccles!  He took 'em when a boy.
+He may, you know, he may have the law agin him, and by George! if he do--
+why, a man's no match for the law.  No use bein' a hero to the law.  The
+law masters every man alive; and there's law in everything, neighbour
+Eccles; eh, sir?  Your friend, the Prince, owns to it, as much as you or
+me.  But, of course, you know what Bob's been doing.  What I dropped in
+to ask was, why did ye do it, Bob?  Why pull the young gentleman off his
+horse?  I'd ha' given pounds to be there!"
+
+"Pounds o' tallow candles don't amount to much," quoth Robert.
+
+"That's awful bad brandy at 'The Pilot,'" said Mr. Sedgett, venomously.
+
+"Were you drunk when you committed this assault?" Jonathan asked his son.
+
+"I drank afterwards," Robert replied.
+
+"'Pilot' brandy's poor consolation," remarked Mr. Sedgett.
+
+Jonathan had half a mind to turn his son out of the gate, but the
+presence of Sedgett advised him that his doings were naked to the world.
+
+"You kicked up a shindy in the hunting-field--what about?  Who mounted
+ye?"
+
+Robert remarked that he had been on foot.
+
+"On foot--eh? on foot!" Jonathan speculated, unable to realize the image
+of his son as a foot-man in the hunting-field, or to comprehend the
+insolence of a pedestrian who should dare to attack a mounted huntsman.
+"You were on foot?  The devil you were on foot!  Foot?  And caught a man
+out of his saddle?"
+
+Jonathan gave up the puzzle. He laid out his fore finger decisively,--
+
+"If it's an assault, mind, you stand damages.  My land gives and my land
+takes my money, and no drunken dog lives on the produce. A row in the
+hunting-field's un-English, I call it."
+
+"So it is, sir," said Robert.
+
+"So it be, neighbour," said Mr. Sedgett.
+
+Whereupon Robert took his arm, and holding the scraggy wretch forward,
+commanded him to out with what he knew.
+
+"Oh, I don't know no more than what I've told you."  Mr. Sedgett twisted
+a feeble remonstrance of his bones, that were chiefly his being, at the
+gripe; "except that you got hold the horse by the bridle, and wouldn't
+let him go, because the young gentleman wouldn't speak as a gentleman,
+and--oh! don't squeeze so hard--"
+
+"Out with it!" cried Robert.
+
+"And you said, Steeve Bilton said, you said, 'Where is she?' you said,
+and he swore, and you swore, and a lady rode up, and you pulled, and she
+sang out, and off went the gentleman, and Steeve said she said, "For
+shame.""
+
+"And it was the truest word spoken that day!" Robert released him.  "You
+don't know much, Mr. Sedgett; but it's enough to make me explain the
+cause to my father, and, with your leave, I'll do so."
+
+Mr. Sedgett remarked: "By all means, do;" and rather preferred that his
+wits should be accused of want of brightness, than that he should miss a
+chance of hearing the rich history of the scandal and its origin.
+Something stronger than a hint sent him off at a trot, hugging in his
+elbows.
+
+"The postman won't do his business quicker than Sedgett 'll tap this tale
+upon every door in the parish," said Jonathan.
+
+"I can only say I'm sorry, for your sake;" Robert was expressing his
+contrition, when his father caught him up,--
+
+"Who can hurt me?--my sake?  Have I got the habits of a sot?--what you'd
+call 'a beast!' but I know the ways o' beasts, and if you did too, you
+wouldn't bring them in to bear your beastly sins.  Who can hurt me?--
+You've been quarrelling with this young gentleman about a woman--did you
+damage him?"
+
+"If knuckles could do it, I should have brained him, sir," said Robert.
+
+"You struck him, and you got the best of it?"
+
+"He got the worst of it any way, and will again."
+
+"Then the devil take you for a fool! why did you go and drink I could
+understand it if you got licked.  Drown your memory, then, if that filthy
+soaking's to your taste; but why, when you get the prize, we'll say, you
+go off headlong into a manure pond?--There!  except that you're a damned
+idiot!"  Jonathan struck the air, as to observe that it beat him, but for
+the foregoing elucidation: thundering afresh, "Why did you go and drink?"
+
+"I went, sir, I went--why did I go?" Robert slapped his hand despairingly
+to his forehead.  "What on earth did I go for?--because I'm at sea, I
+suppose.  Nobody cares for me.  I'm at sea, and no rudder to steer me.  I
+suppose that's it.  So, I drank.  I thought it best to take spirits on
+board.  No; this was the reason--I remember: that lady, whoever she was,
+said something that stung me.  I held the fellow under her eyes, and
+shook him, though she was begging me to let him off.  Says she--but I've
+drunk it clean out of my mind."
+
+"There, go in and look at yourself in the glass," said Jonathan.
+
+"Give me your hand first,"--Robert put his own out humbly.
+
+"I'll be hanged if I do," said Jonathan firmly.  "Bed and board you shall
+have while I'm alive, and a glass to look at yourself in; but my hand's
+for decent beasts.  Move one way or t' other: take your choice."
+
+Seeing Robert hesitate, he added, "I shall have a damned deal more
+respect for you if you toddle."  He waved his hand away from the
+premises.
+
+"I'm sorry you've taken so to swearing of late, sir," said Robert.
+
+"Two flints strike fire, my lad.  When you keep distant, I'm quiet enough
+in my talk to satisfy your aunt Anne."
+
+"Look here, sir; I want to make use of you, so I'll go in."
+
+"Of course you do," returned Jonathan, not a whit displeased by his son's
+bluntness; "what else is a father good for?  I let you know the limit,
+and that's a brick wall; jump it, if you can.  Don't fancy it's your aunt
+Jane you're going in to meet."
+
+Robert had never been a favourite with his aunt Anne, who was Jonathan's
+housekeeper.
+
+"No, poor old soul! and may God bless her in heaven!" he cried.
+
+"For leaving you what you turned into a thundering lot of liquor to
+consume--eh?"
+
+"For doing all in her power to make a man of me; and she was close on it-
+-kind, good old darling, that she was!  She got me with that money of
+hers to the best footing I've been on yet--bless her heart, or her
+memory, or whatever a poor devil on earth may bless an angel for!  But
+here I am."
+
+The fever in Robert blazed out under a pressure of extinguishing tears.
+
+"There, go along in," said Jonathan, who considered drunkenness to be the
+main source of water in a man's eyes.  "It's my belief you've been at it
+already this morning."
+
+Robert passed into the house in advance of his father, whom he quite
+understood and appreciated.  There was plenty of paternal love for him,
+and a hearty smack of the hand, and the inheritance of the farm, when he
+turned into the right way.  Meantime Jonathan was ready to fulfil his
+parental responsibility, by sheltering, feeding, and not publicly abusing
+his offspring, of whose spirit he would have had a higher opinion if
+Robert had preferred, since he must go to the deuce, to go without
+troubling any of his relatives; as it was, Jonathan submitted to the
+infliction gravely.  Neither in speech nor in tone did he solicit from
+the severe maiden, known as Aunt Anne, that snub for the wanderer whom he
+introduced, which, when two are agreed upon the infamous character of a
+third, through whom they are suffering, it is always agreeable to hear.
+He said, "Here, Anne; here's Robert.  He hasn't breakfasted."
+
+"He likes his cold bath beforehand," said Robert, presenting his cheek to
+the fleshless, semi-transparent woman.
+
+Aunt Anne divided her lips to pronounce a crisp, subdued "Ow!" to
+Jonathan after inspecting Robert; and she shuddered at sight of Robert,
+and said "Ow!" repeatedly, by way of an interjectory token of
+comprehension, to all that was uttered; but it was a horrified "No!" when
+Robert's cheek pushed nearer.
+
+"Then, see to getting some breakfast for him," said Jonathan. "You're not
+anyway bound to kiss a drunken--"
+
+"Dog's the word, sir," Robert helped him.  "Dogs can afford it.  I never
+saw one in that state; so they don't lose character."
+
+He spoke lightly, but dejection was in his attitude.  When his aunt Anne
+had left the room, he exclaimed,--
+
+"By jingo! women make you feel it, by some way that they have. She's a
+religious creature.  She smells the devil in me."
+
+"More like, the brandy," his father responded.
+
+"Well!  I'm on the road, I'm on the road!" Robert fetched a sigh.
+
+"I didn't make the road," said his father.
+
+"No, sir; you didn't.  Work hard: sleep sound that's happiness. I've
+known it for a year.  You're the man I'd imitate, if I could.  The devil
+came first the brandy's secondary.  I was quiet so long.  I thought
+myself a safe man."
+
+He sat down and sent his hair distraught with an effort at smoothing it.
+
+"Women brought the devil into the world first.  It's women who raise the
+devil in us, and why they--"
+
+He thumped the table just as his aunt Anne was preparing to spread the
+cloth.
+
+"Don't be frightened, woman," said Jonathan, seeing her start fearfully
+back.  "You take too many cups of tea, morning and night--hang the
+stuff!"
+
+"Never, never till now have you abused me, Jonathan," she whimpered,
+severely.
+
+"I don't tell you to love him; but wait on him.  That's all.  And I'll
+about my business.  Land and beasts--they answer to you."
+
+Robert looked up.
+
+"Land and beasts!  They sound like blessed things.  When next I go to
+church, I shall know what old Adam felt.  Go along, sir.  I shall break
+nothing in the house."
+
+"You won't go, Jonathan?" begged the trembling spinster.
+
+"Give him some of your tea, and strong, and as much of it as he can
+take--he wants bringing down," was Jonathan's answer; and casting a
+glance at one of the framed letters, he strode through the doorway, and
+Aunt Anne was alone with the flushed face and hurried eyes of her nephew,
+who was to her little better than a demon in the flesh.  But there was a
+Bible in the room.
+
+An hour later, Robert was mounted and riding to the meet of hounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A single night at the Pilot Inn had given life and vigour to Robert's old
+reputation in Warbeach village, as the stoutest of drinkers and dear
+rascals throughout a sailor-breeding district, where Dibdin was still
+thundered in the ale-house, and manhood in a great degree measured by the
+capacity to take liquor on board, as a ship takes ballast.  There was a
+profound affectation of deploring the sad fact that he drank as hard as
+ever, among the men, and genuine pity expressed for him by the women of
+Warbeach; but his fame was fresh again.  As the Spring brings back its
+flowers, Robert's presence revived his youthful deeds.  There had not
+been a boxer in the neighbourhood like Robert Eccles, nor such a champion
+in all games, nor, when he set himself to it, such an invincible drinker.
+It was he who thrashed the brute, Nic Sedgett, for stabbing with his
+clasp-knife Harry Boulby, son of the landlady of the Pilot Inn; thrashed
+him publicly, to the comfort of all Warbeach.  He had rescued old Dame
+Garble from her burning cottage, and made his father house the old
+creature, and worked at farming, though he hated it, to pay for her
+subsistence.  He vindicated the honour of Warbeach by drinking a match
+against a Yorkshire skipper till four o'clock in the morning, when it was
+a gallant sight, my boys, to see Hampshire steadying the defeated
+North-countryman on his astonished zigzag to his flattish-bottomed
+billyboy, all in the cheery sunrise on the river--yo-ho! ahoy!
+
+Glorious Robert had tried, first the sea, and then soldiering. Now let us
+hope he'll settle to farming, and follow his rare old father's ways, and
+be back among his own people for good.  So chimed the younger ones, and
+many of the elder.
+
+Danish blood had settled round Warbeach.  To be a really popular hero
+anywhere in Britain, a lad must still, I fear, have something of a
+Scandinavian gullet; and if, in addition to his being a powerful drinker,
+he is pleasant in his cups, and can sing, and forgive, be freehanded, and
+roll out the grand risky phrases of a fired brain, he stamps himself, in
+the apprehension of his associates, a king.
+
+Much of the stuff was required to deal King Robert of Warbeach the
+capital stroke, and commonly he could hold on till a puff of cold air
+from the outer door, like an admonitory messenger, reminded him that he
+was, in the greatness of his soul, a king of swine; after which his way
+of walking off, without a word to anybody, hoisting his whole stature,
+while others were staggering, or roaring foul rhymes, or feeling
+consciously mortal in their sensation of feverishness, became a theme for
+admiration; ay, and he was fresh as an orchard apple in the morning!
+there lay his commandership convincingly.  What was proved overnight was
+confirmed at dawn.
+
+Mr. Robert had his contrast in Sedgett's son, Nicodemus Sedgett, whose
+unlucky Christian name had assisted the wits of Warbeach in bestowing on
+him a darkly-luminous relationship.  Young Nic loved also to steep his
+spirit in the bowl; but, in addition to his never paying for his luxury,
+he drank as if in emulation of the colour of his reputed patron, and
+neighbourhood to Nic Sedgett was not liked when that young man became
+thoughtful over his glass.
+
+The episode of his stabbing the landlady's son Harry clung to him
+fatally.  The wound was in the thigh, and nothing serious.  Harry was up
+and off to sea before Nic had ceased to show the marks of Robert's
+vengeance upon him; but blood-shedding, even on a small scale, is so
+detested by Englishmen, that Nic never got back to his right hue in the
+eyes of Warbeach.  None felt to him as to a countryman, and it may be
+supposed that his face was seen no more in the house of gathering, the
+Pilot Inn.
+
+He rented one of the Fairly farms, known as the Three-Tree Farm,
+subsisting there, men fancied, by the aid of his housekeeper's money.
+For he was of those evil fellows who disconcert all righteous prophecy,
+and it was vain for Mrs. Boulby and Warbeach village to declare that no
+good could come to him, when Fortune manifestly kept him going.
+
+He possessed the rogue's most serviceable art: in spite of a countenance
+that was not attractive, this fellow could, as was proved by evidence,
+make himself pleasing to women.  "The truth of it is," said Mrs. Boulby,
+at a loss for any other explanation, and with a woman's love of sharp
+generalization, "it's because my sex is fools."
+
+He had one day no money to pay his rent, and forthwith (using for the
+purpose his last five shillings, it was said) advertized for a
+housekeeper; and before Warbeach had done chuckling over his folly, an
+agreeable woman of about thirty-five was making purchases in his name;
+she made tea, and the evening brew for such friends as he could collect,
+and apparently paid his rent for him, after a time; the distress was not
+in the house three days.  It seemed to Warbeach an erratic proceeding on
+the part of Providence, that Nic should ever be helped to swim; but our
+modern prophets have small patience, and summon Destiny to strike without
+a preparation of her weapons or a warning to the victim.
+
+More than Robert's old occasional vice was at the bottom of his
+popularity, as I need not say.  Let those who generalize upon ethnology
+determine whether the ancient opposition of Saxon and Norman be at an
+end; but it is certain, to my thinking, that when a hero of the people
+can be got from the common popular stock, he is doubly dear.  A
+gentleman, however gallant and familiar, will hardly ever be as much
+beloved, until he dies to inform a legend or a ballad: seeing that death
+only can remove the peculiar distinctions and distances which the people
+feel to exist between themselves and the gentleman-class, and which, not
+to credit them with preternatural discernment, they are carefully taught
+to feel.  Dead Britons are all Britons, but live Britons are not quite
+brothers.
+
+It was as the son of a yeoman, showing comprehensible accomplishments,
+that Robert took his lead.  He was a very brave, a sweet-hearted, and a
+handsome young man, and he had very chivalrous views of life, that were
+understood by a sufficient number under the influence of ale or brandy,
+and by a few in default of that material aid; and they had a family pride
+in him. The pride was mixed with fear, which threw over it a tender
+light, like a mother's dream of her child.  The people, I have said, are
+not so lost in self-contempt as to undervalue their best men, but it must
+be admitted that they rarely produce young fellows wearing the undeniable
+chieftain's stamp, and the rarity of one like Robert lent a hue of
+sadness to him in their thoughts.
+
+Fortune, moreover, the favourer of Nic Sedgett, blew foul whichever the
+way Robert set his sails.  He would not look to his own advantage; and
+the belief that man should set his little traps for the liberal hand of
+his God, if he wishes to prosper, rather than strive to be merely
+honourable in his Maker's eye, is almost as general among poor people as
+it is with the moneyed classes, who survey them from their height.
+
+When jolly Butcher Billing, who was one of the limited company which had
+sat with Robert at the Pilot last night, reported that he had quitted the
+army, he was hearkened to dolefully, and the feeling was universal that
+glorious Robert had cut himself off from his pension and his hospital.
+
+But when gossip Sedgett went his rounds, telling that Robert was down
+among them again upon the darkest expedition their minds could conceive,
+and rode out every morning for the purpose of encountering one of the
+gentlemen up at Fairly, and had already pulled him off his horse and laid
+him in the mud, calling him scoundrel and challenging him either to yield
+his secret or to fight; and that he followed him, and was out after him
+publicly, and matched himself against that gentleman, who had all the
+other gentlemen, and the earl, and the law to back him, the little place
+buzzed with wonder and alarm.  Faint hearts declared that Robert was now
+done for.  All felt that he had gone miles beyond the mark.  Those were
+the misty days when fogs rolled up the salt river from the winter sea,
+and the sun lived but an hour in the clotted sky, extinguished near the
+noon.
+
+Robert was seen riding out, and the tramp of his horse was heard as he
+returned homeward.  He called no more at the Pilot. Darkness and mystery
+enveloped him.  There were nightly meetings under Mrs. Boulby's roof, in
+the belief that he could not withstand her temptations; nor did she
+imprudently discourage them; but the woman at last overcame the landlady
+within her, and she wailed: "He won't come because of the drink.  Oh! why
+was I made to sell liquor, which he says sends him to the devil, poor
+blessed boy? and I can't help begging him to take one little drop.  I
+did, the first night he was down, forgetting his ways; he looked so
+desperate, he did, and it went on and went on, till he was primed, and me
+proud to see him get out of his misery.  And now he hates the thought of
+me."
+
+In her despair she encouraged Sedgett to visit her bar and parlour, and
+he became everywhere a most important man.
+
+Farmer Eccles's habits of seclusion (his pride, some said), and more
+especially the dreaded austere Aunt Anne, who ruled that household, kept
+people distant from the Warbeach farm-house, all excepting Sedgett, who
+related that every night on his return, she read a chapter from the Bible
+to Robert, sitting up for him patiently to fulfil her duty; and that the
+farmer's words to his son had been: "Rest here; eat and drink, and ride
+my horse; but not a penny of my money do you have."
+
+By the help of Steeve Bilton, the Fairly huntsman, Sedgett was enabled to
+relate that there was a combination of the gentlemen against Robert,
+whose behaviour none could absolutely approve, save the landlady and
+jolly Butcher Billing, who stuck to him with a hearty blind faith.
+
+"Did he ever," asked the latter, "did Bob Eccles ever conduct himself
+disrespectful to his superiors?  Wasn't he always found out at his
+wildest for to be right--to a sensible man's way of thinking?--though
+not, I grant ye, to his own interests--there's another tale."  And Mr.
+Billing's staunch adherence to the hero of the village was cried out to
+his credit when Sedgett stated, on Stephen Bilton's authority, that
+Robert's errand was the defence of a girl who had been wronged, and whose
+whereabout, that she might be restored to her parents, was all he wanted
+to know.  This story passed from mouth to mouth, receiving much ornament
+in the passage.  The girl in question became a lady; for it is required
+of a mere common girl that she should display remarkable character before
+she can be accepted as the fitting companion of a popular hero.  She
+became a young lady of fortune, in love with Robert, and concealed by the
+artifice of the offending gentleman whom Robert had challenged.  Sedgett
+told this for truth, being instigated to boldness of invention by
+pertinacious inquiries, and the dignified sense which the whole story
+hung upon him.
+
+Mrs. Boulby, who, as a towering woman, despised Sedgett's weak frame, had
+been willing to listen till she perceived him to be but a man of fiction,
+and then she gave him a flat contradiction, having no esteem for his
+custom.
+
+"Eh! but, Missis, I can tell you his name--the gentleman's name," said
+Sedgett, placably.  "He's a Mr. Algernon Blancove, and a cousin by
+marriage, or something, of Mrs. Lovell."
+
+"I reckon you're right about that, goodman," replied Mrs. Boulby, with
+intuitive discernment of the true from the false, mingled with a desire
+to show that she was under no obligation for the news.  "All t' other's a
+tale of your own, and you know it, and no more true than your rigmaroles
+about my brandy, which is French; it is, as sure as my blood's British."
+
+"Oh! Missis," quoth Sedgett, maliciously, "as to tales, you've got
+witnesses enough it crassed chann'l.  Aha! Don't bring 'em into the box.
+Don't you bring 'em into ne'er a box."
+
+"You mean to say, Mr. Sedgett, they won't swear?"
+
+"No, Missis; they'll swear, fast and safe, if you teach 'em. Dashed if
+they won't run the Pilot on a rock with their swearin'.  It ain't a good
+habit."
+
+"Well, Mr. Sedgett, the next time you drink my brandy and find the
+consequences bad, you let me hear of it."
+
+"And what'll you do, Missis, may be?"
+
+Listeners were by, and Mrs. Boulby cruelly retorted; "I won't send you
+home to your wife;" which created a roar against this hen-pecked man.
+
+"As to consequences, Missis, it's for your sake I'm looking at them,"
+Sedgett said, when he had recovered from the blow.
+
+"You say that to the Excise, Mr. Sedgett; it, belike, 'll make 'em
+sorry."
+
+"Brandy's your weak point, it appears, Missis."
+
+"A little in you would stiffen your back, Mr. Sedgett."
+
+"Poor Bob Eccles didn't want no stiffening when he come down first,"
+Sedgett interjected.
+
+At which, flushing enraged, Mrs. Boulby cried: "Mention him, indeed!  And
+him and you, and that son of your'n--the shame of your cheeks if people
+say he's like his father.  Is it your son, Nic Sedgett, thinks to inform
+against me, as once he swore to, and to get his wage that he may step out
+of a second bankruptcy? and he a farmer!  You let him know that he isn't
+feared by me, Sedgett, and there's one here to give him a second dose,
+without waiting for him to use clasp-knives on harmless innocents."
+
+"Pacify yourself, ma'am, pacify yourself," remarked Sedgett, hardened
+against words abroad by his endurance of blows at home. "Bob Eccles, he's
+got his hands full, and he, maybe, 'll reach the hulks before my Nic do,
+yet.  And how 'm I answerable for Nic, I ask you?"
+
+"More luck to you not to be, I say; and either, Sedgett, you does woman's
+work, gossipin' about like a cracked bell-clapper, or men's the biggest
+gossips of all, which I believe; for there's no beating you at your work,
+and one can't wish ill to you, knowing what you catch."
+
+"In a friendly way, Missis,"--Sedgett fixed on the compliment to his
+power of propagating news--"in a friendly way.  You can't accuse me of
+leavin' out the "l" in your name, now, can you?  I make that
+observation,"--the venomous tattler screwed himself up to the widow
+insinuatingly, as if her understanding could only be seized at close
+quarters, "I make that observation, because poor Dick Boulby, your
+lamented husband--eh! poor Dick!  You see, Missis, it ain't the tough
+ones last longest: he'd sing, 'I'm a Sea Booby,' to the song, 'I'm a
+green Mermaid:' poor Dick! 'a-shinin' upon the sea-deeps.'  He kept the
+liquor from his head, but didn't mean it to stop down in his leg."
+
+"Have you done, Mr. Sedgett?" said the widow, blandly.
+
+"You ain't angry, Missis?"
+
+"Not a bit, Mr. Sedgett; and if I knock you over with the flat o' my
+hand, don't you think so."
+
+Sedgett threw up the wizened skin of his forehead, and retreated from the
+bar.  At a safe distance, he called: "Bad news that about Bob Eccles
+swallowing a blow yesterday!"
+
+Mrs. Boulby faced him complacently till he retired, and then observed to
+those of his sex surrounding her, "Don't "woman-and-dog-and-walnut-tree"
+me!  Some of you men 'd be the better for a drubbing every day of your
+lives.  Sedgett yond' 'd be as big a villain as his son, only for what he
+gets at home."
+
+That was her way of replying to the Parthian arrow; but the barb was
+poisoned.  The village was at fever heat concerning Robert, and this
+assertion that he had swallowed a blow, produced almost as great a
+consternation as if a fleet of the enemy had been reported off Sandy
+Point.
+
+Mrs. Boulby went into her parlour and wrote a letter to Robert, which she
+despatched by one of the loungers about the bar, who brought back news
+that three of the gentlemen of Fairly were on horseback, talking to
+Farmer Eccles at his garden gate.  Affairs were waxing hot.  The
+gentlemen had only to threaten Farmer Eccles, to make him side with his
+son, right or wrong.  In the evening, Stephen Bilton, the huntsman,
+presented himself at the door of the long parlour of the Pilot, and loud
+cheers were his greeting from a full company.
+
+"Gentlemen all," said Stephen, with dapper modesty; and acted as if no
+excitement were current, and he had nothing to tell.
+
+"Well, Steeve?" said one, to encourage him.
+
+"How about Bob, to-day?" said another.
+
+Before Stephen had spoken, it was clear to the apprehension of the whole
+room that he did not share the popular view of Robert. He declined to
+understand who was meant by "Bob."  He played the questions off; and then
+shrugged, with, "Oh, let's have a quiet evening."
+
+It ended in his saying, "About Bob Eccles?  There, that's summed up
+pretty quick--he's mad."
+
+"Mad!" shouted Warbeach.
+
+"That's a lie," said Mrs. Boulby, from the doorway.
+
+"Well, mum, I let a lady have her own opinion."  Stephen nodded to her.
+"There ain't a doubt as t' what the doctors 'd bring him in I ain't
+speaking my ideas alone.  It's written like the capital letters in a
+newspaper.  Lunatic's the word!  And I'll take a glass of something warm,
+Mrs. Boulby.  We had a stiff run to-day."
+
+"Where did ye kill, Steeve?" asked a dispirited voice.
+
+"We didn't kill at all: he was one of those "longshore dog-foxes, and got
+away home on the cliff."  Stephen thumped his knee.  "It's my belief the
+smell o' sea gives 'em extra cunning."
+
+"The beggar seems to have put ye out rether--eh, Steeve?"
+
+So it was generally presumed: and yet the charge of madness was very
+staggering; madness being, in the first place, indefensible, and
+everybody's enemy when at large; and Robert's behaviour looked extremely
+like it.  It had already been as a black shadow haunting enthusiastic
+minds in the village, and there fell a short silence, during which
+Stephen made his preparations for filling and lighting a pipe.
+
+"Come; how do you make out he's mad?"
+
+Jolly Butcher Billing spoke; but with none of the irony of confidence.
+
+"Oh!" Stephen merely clapped both elbows against his sides.
+
+Several pairs of eyes were studying him.  He glanced over them in turn,
+and commenced leisurely the puff contemplative.
+
+"Don't happen to have a grudge of e'er a kind against old Bob, Steeve?"
+
+"Not I!"
+
+Mrs. Boulby herself brought his glass to Stephen, and, retreating, left
+the parlour-door open.
+
+"What causes you for to think him mad, Steeve?"
+
+A second "Oh!" as from the heights dominating argument, sounded from
+Stephen's throat, half like a grunt.  This time he condescended to add,--
+
+"How do you know when a dog's gone mad?  Well, Robert Eccles, he's gone
+in like manner.  If you don't judge a man by his actions, you've got no
+means of reckoning.  He comes and attacks gentlemen, and swears he'll go
+on doing it."
+
+"Well, and what does that prove?" said jolly Butcher Billing.
+
+Mr. William Moody, boatbuilder, a liver-complexioned citizen, undertook
+to reply.
+
+"What does that prove?  What does that prove when the midshipmite was
+found with his head in the mixedpickle jar?  It proved that his head was
+lean, and t' other part was rounder."
+
+The illustration appeared forcible, but not direct, and nothing more was
+understood from it than that Moody, and two or three others who had been
+struck by the image of the infatuated young naval officer, were going
+over to the enemy.  The stamp of madness upon Robert's acts certainly
+saved perplexity, and was the easiest side of the argument.  By this time
+Stephen had finished his glass, and the effect was seen.
+
+"Hang it!" he exclaimed, "I don't agree he deserves shooting.  And he may
+have had harm done to him.  In that case, let him fight.  And I say, too,
+let the gentleman give him satisfaction."
+
+"Hear! hear!" cried several.
+
+"And if the gentleman refuse to give him satisfaction in a fair stand-up
+fight, I say he ain't a gentleman, and deserves to be treated as such.
+My objection's personal.  I don't like any man who spoils sport, and
+ne'er a rascally vulpeci' spoils sport as he do, since he's been down in
+our parts again.  I'll take another brimmer, Mrs. Boulby."
+
+"To be sure you will, Stephen," said Mrs. Boulby, bending as in a curtsey
+to the glass; and so soft with him that foolish fellows thought her cowed
+by the accusation thrown at her favourite.
+
+"There's two questions about they valpecies, Master Stephen," said Farmer
+Wainsby, a farmer with a grievance, fixing his elbow on his knee for
+serious utterance.  "There's to ask, and t' ask again.  Sport, I grant
+ye.  All in doo season.  But," he performed a circle with his pipe stem,
+and darted it as from the centre thereof toward Stephen's breast, with
+the poser, "do we s'pport thieves at public expense for them to keep
+thievin'--black, white, or brown--no matter, eh?  Well, then, if the
+public wunt bear it, dang me if I can see why individles shud bear it.
+It ent no manner o' reason, net as I can see; let gentlemen have their
+opinion, or let 'em not.  Foxes be hanged!"
+
+Much slow winking was interchanged.  In a general sense, Farmer Wainsby's
+remarks were held to be un-English, though he was pardoned for them as
+one having peculiar interests at stake.
+
+"Ay, ay! we know all about that," said Stephen, taking succour from the
+eyes surrounding him.
+
+"And so, may be, do we," said Wainsby.
+
+"Fox-hunting 'll go on when your great-grandfather's your youngest son,
+farmer; or t' other way."
+
+"I reckon it'll be a stuffed fox your chil'ern 'll hunt, Mr. Steeve; more
+straw in 'em than bow'ls."
+
+"If the country," Stephen thumped the table, "were what you'd make of it,
+hang me if my name 'd long be Englishman!"
+
+"Hear, hear, Steeve!" was shouted in support of the Conservative
+principle enunciated by him.
+
+"What I say is, flesh and blood afore foxes!"
+
+Thus did Farmer Wainsby likewise attempt a rallying-cry; but Stephen's
+retort, "Ain't foxes flesh and blood?" convicted him of clumsiness, and,
+buoyed on the uproar of cheers, Stephen pursued, "They are; to kill 'em
+in cold blood's beast-murder, so it is. What do we do?  We give 'em a
+fair field--a fair field and no favour!  We let 'em trust to the
+instincts Nature, she's given 'em; and don't the old woman know best?  If
+they cap, get away, they win the day.  All's open, and honest, and
+aboveboard.  Kill your rats and kill your rabbits, but leave foxes to
+your betters. Foxes are gentlemen.  You don't understand?  Be hanged if
+they ain't!  I like the old fox, and I don't like to see him murdered and
+exterminated, but die the death of a gentleman, at the hands of
+gentlemen--"
+
+"And ladies," sneered the farmer.
+
+All the room was with Stephen, and would have backed him uproariously,
+had he not reached his sounding period without knowing it, and thus
+allowed his opponent to slip in that abominable addition.
+
+"Ay, and ladies," cried the huntsman, keen at recovery.  "Why shouldn't
+they?  I hate a field without a woman in it; don't you? and you? and you?
+And you, too, Mrs. Boulby?  There you are, and the room looks better for
+you--don't it, lads?  Hurrah!"
+
+The cheering was now aroused, and Stephen had his glass filled again in
+triumph, while the farmer meditated thickly over the ruin of his argument
+from that fatal effort at fortifying it by throwing a hint to the
+discredit of the sex, as many another man has meditated before.
+
+"Eh! poor old Bob!" Stephen sighed and sipped.  "I can cry that with any
+of you.  It's worse for me to see than for you to hear of him.  Wasn't I
+always a friend of his, and said he was worthy to be a gentleman, many a
+time?  He's got the manners of a gentleman now; offs with his hat, if
+there's a lady present, and such a neat way of speaking.  But there,
+acting's the thing, and his behaviour's beastly bad!  You can't call it
+no other.  There's two Mr. Blancoves up at Fairly, relations of Mrs.
+Lovell's--whom I'll take the liberty of calling My Beauty, and no offence
+meant: and it's before her that Bob only yesterday rode up--one of the
+gentlemen being Mr. Algernon, free of hand and a good seat in the saddle,
+t' other's Mr. Edward; but Mr. Algernon, he's Robert Eccles's man--up
+rides Bob, just as we was tying Mr. Reenard's brush to the pommel of the
+lady's saddle, down in Ditley Marsh; and he bows to the lady.  Says he--
+but he's mad, stark mad!"
+
+Stephen resumed his pipe amid a din of disappointment that made the walls
+ring and the glasses leap.
+
+"A little more sugar, Stephen?" said Mrs. Boulby, moving in lightly from
+the doorway.
+
+"Thank ye, mum; you're the best hostess that ever breathed."
+
+"So she be; but how about Bob?" cried her guests--some asking whether he
+carried a pistol or flourished a stick.
+
+"Ne'er a blessed twig, to save his soul; and there's the madness written
+on him;" Stephen roared as loud as any of them.  "And me to see him
+riding in the ring there, and knowing what the gentleman had sworn to do
+if he came across the hunt; and feeling that he was in the wrong!  I
+haven't got a oath to swear how mad I was.  Fancy yourselves in my place.
+I love old Bob.  I've drunk with him; I owe him obligations from since I
+was a boy up'ard; I don't know a better than Bob in all England.  And
+there he was: and says to Mr. Algernon, 'You know what I'm come for.'  I
+never did behold a gentleman so pale--shot all over his cheeks as he was,
+and pinkish under the eyes; if you've ever noticed a chap laid hands on
+by detectives in plain clothes.  Smack at Bob went Mr. Edward's whip."
+
+"Mr. Algernon's," Stephen was corrected.
+
+"Mr. Edward's, I tell ye--the cousin.  And right across the face. My
+Lord! it made my blood tingle."
+
+A sound like the swish of a whip expressed the sentiments of that
+assemblage at the Pilot.
+
+"Bob swallowed it?"
+
+"What else could he do, the fool?  He had nothing to help him but his
+hand.  Says he, 'That's a poor way of trying to stop me.  My business is
+with this gentleman;' and Bob set his horse at Mr. Algernon, and Mrs.
+Lovell rode across him with her hand raised; and just at that moment up
+jogged the old gentleman, Squire Blancove, of Wrexby: and Robert Eccles
+says to him, 'You might have saved your son something by keeping your
+word.'  It appears according to Bob, that the squire had promised to see
+his son, and settle matters.  All Mrs. Lovell could do was hardly enough
+to hold back Mr. Edward from laying out at Bob.  He was like a white
+devil, and speaking calm and polite all the time.  Says Bob, 'I'm willing
+to take one when I've done with the other;' and the squire began talking
+to his son, Mrs. Lovell to Mr. Edward, and the rest of the gentlemen all
+round poor dear old Bob, rather bullying--like for my blood; till Bob
+couldn't help being nettled, and cried out, 'Gentlemen, I hold him in my
+power, and I'm silent so long as there's a chance of my getting him to
+behave like a man with human feelings.'  If they'd gone at him then, I
+don't think I could have let him stand alone: an opinion's one thing, but
+blood's another, and I'm distantly related to Bob; and a man who's always
+thinking of the value of his place, he ain't worth it.  But Mrs. Lovell,
+she settled the case--a lady, Farmer Wainsby, with your leave.  There's
+the good of having a lady present on the field.  That's due to a lady!"
+
+"Happen she was at the bottom of it," the farmer returned Stephen's nod
+grumpily.
+
+"How did it end, Stephen, my lad?" said Butcher Billing, indicating a
+"never mind him."
+
+"It ended, my boy, it ended like my glass here--hot and strong stuff,
+with sugar at the bottom.  And I don't see this, so glad as I saw that,
+my word of honour on it!  Boys all!" Stephen drank the dregs.
+
+Mrs. Boulby was still in attendance.  The talk over the circumstances was
+sweeter than the bare facts, and the replenished glass enabled Stephen to
+add the picturesque bits of the affray, unspurred by a surrounding
+eagerness of his listeners--too exciting for imaginative effort.  In
+particular, he dwelt on Robert's dropping the reins and riding with his
+heels at Algernon, when Mrs. Lovell put her horse in his way, and the
+pair of horses rose like waves at sea, and both riders showed their
+horsemanship, and Robert an adroit courtesy, for which the lady thanked
+him with a bow of her head.
+
+"I got among the hounds, pretending to pacify them, and call 'em
+together," said Stephen, "and I heard her say--just before all was over,
+and he turned off--I heard her say: 'Trust this to me: I will meet you.'
+I'll swear to them exact words, though there was more, and a 'where' in
+the bargain, and that I didn't hear.  Aha! by George! thinks I, old Bob,
+you're a lucky beggar, and be hanged if I wouldn't go mad too for a
+minute or so of short, sweet, private talk with a lovely young widow lady
+as ever the sun did shine upon so boldly--oho!
+
+          You've seen a yacht upon the sea,
+          She dances and she dances, O!
+          As fair is my wild maid to me...
+
+Something about 'prances, O!' on her horse, you know, or you're a hem'd
+fool if you don't.  I never could sing; wish I could!  It's the joy of
+life!  It's utterance!  Hey for harmony!"
+
+"Eh! brayvo! now you're a man, Steeve! and welcomer and welcomest; yi--
+yi, O!" jolly Butcher Billing sang out sharp.  "Life wants watering.
+Here's a health to Robert Eccles, wheresoever and whatsoever! and ne'er a
+man shall say of me I didn't stick by a friend like Bob.  Cheers, my
+lads!"
+
+Robert's health was drunk in a thunder, and praises of the purity of the
+brandy followed the grand roar.  Mrs. Boulby received her compliments on
+that head.
+
+"'Pends upon the tide, Missis, don't it?" one remarked with a grin broad
+enough to make the slyness written on it easy reading.
+
+"Ah! first a flow and then a ebb," said another.
+
+         "It's many a keg I plant i' the mud,
+          Coastguardsman, come! and I'll have your blood!"
+
+Instigation cried, "Cut along;" but the defiant smuggler was deficient in
+memory, and like Steeve Bilton, was reduced to scatter his concluding
+rhymes in prose, as "something about;" whereat jolly Butcher Billing, a
+reader of song-books from a literary delight in their contents, scraped
+his head, and then, as if he had touched a spring, carolled,--
+
+         "In spite of all you Gov'ment pack,
+          I'll land my kegs of the good Cognyac"--
+
+"though," he took occasion to observe when the chorus and a sort of
+cracker of irrelevant rhymes had ceased to explode; "I'm for none of them
+games.  Honesty!--there's the sugar o' my grog."
+
+"Ay, but you like to be cock-sure of the stuff you drink, if e'er a man
+did," said the boatbuilder, whose eye blazed yellow in this frothing
+season of song and fun.
+
+"Right so, Will Moody!" returned the jolly butcher: "which means--not
+wrong this time!"
+
+"Then, what's understood by your sticking prongs into your hostess here
+concerning of her brandy?  Here it is--which is enough, except for
+discontented fellows."
+
+"Eh, Missus?" the jolly butcher appealed to her, and pointed at Moody's
+complexion for proof.
+
+It was quite a fiction that kegs of the good cognac were sown at low
+water, and reaped at high, near the river-gate of the old Pilot Inn
+garden; but it was greatly to Mrs. Boulby's interest to encourage the
+delusion which imaged her brandy thus arising straight from the very
+source, without villanous contact with excisemen and corrupting dealers;
+and as, perhaps, in her husband's time, the thing had happened, and still
+did, at rare intervals, she complacently gathered the profitable fame of
+her brandy being the best in the district.
+
+"I'm sure I hope you're satisfied, Mr. Billing," she said.
+
+The jolly butcher asked whether Will Moody was satisfied, and Mr. William
+Moody declaring himself thoroughly satisfied, "then I'm satisfied too!"
+said the jolly butcher; upon which the boatbuilder heightened the laugh
+by saying he was not satisfied at all; and to escape from the execrations
+of the majority, pleaded that it was because his glass was empty: thus
+making his peace with them.  Every glass in the room was filled again.
+
+The young fellows now loosened tongue; and Dick Curtis, the promising
+cricketer of Hampshire, cried, "Mr. Moody, my hearty!  that's your fourth
+glass, so don't quarrel with me, now!"
+
+"You!" Moody fired up in a bilious frenzy, and called him a this and that
+and t' other young vagabond; for which the company, feeling the ominous
+truth contained in Dick Curtis's remark more than its impertinence, fined
+Mr. Moody in a song. He gave the--
+
+         "So many young Captains have walked o'er my pate,
+          It's no wonder you see me quite bald, sir,"
+
+with emphatic bitterness, and the company thanked him. Seeing him stand
+up as to depart, however, a storm of contempt was hurled at him; some
+said he was like old Sedgett, and was afraid of his wife; and some, that
+he was like Nic Sedgett, and drank blue.
+
+          "You're a bag of blue devils, oh dear! oh dear!"
+
+sang Dick to the tune of "The Campbells are coming."
+
+"I ask e'er a man present," Mr. Moody put out his fist, "is that to be
+borne?  Didn't you," he addressed Dick Curtis,--"didn't you sing into my
+chorus--"
+
+          'It's no wonder to hear how you squall'd, sir?'
+
+"You did!"
+
+"Don't he,"--Dick addressed the company, "make Mrs. Boulby's brandy look
+ashamed of itself in his face?  I ask e'er a gentleman present."
+
+Accusation and retort were interchanged, in the course of which, Dick
+called Mr. Moody Nic Sedgett's friend; and a sort of criminal inquiry was
+held.  It was proved that Moody had been seen with Nic Sedgett; and then
+three or four began to say that Nic Sedgett was thick with some of the
+gentlemen up at Fairly;--just like his luck!  Stephen let it be known
+that he could confirm this fact; he having seen Mr. Algernon Blancove
+stop Nic on the road and talk to him.
+
+"In that case," said Butcher Billing, "there's mischief in a state of
+fermentation.  Did ever anybody see Nic and the devil together?"
+
+"I saw Nic and Mr. Moody together," said Dick Curtis.  "Well, I'm only
+stating a fact," he exclaimed, as Moody rose, apparently to commence an
+engagement, for which the company quietly prepared, by putting chairs out
+of his way: but the recreant took his advantage from the error, and got
+away to the door, pursued.
+
+"Here's an example of what we lose in having no President," sighed the
+jolly butcher.  "There never was a man built for the chair like Bob
+Eccles I say!  Our evening's broke up, and I, for one, 'd ha' made it
+morning.  Hark, outside; By Gearge! they're snowballing."
+
+An adjournment to the front door brought them in view of a white and
+silent earth under keen stars, and Dick Curtis and the bilious
+boatbuilder, foot to foot, snowball in hand.  A bout of the smart
+exercise made Mr. Moody laugh again, and all parted merrily, delivering
+final shots as they went their several ways.
+
+"Thanks be to heaven for snowing," said Mrs. Boulby; "or when I should
+have got to my bed, Goodness only can tell!"  With which, she closed the
+door upon the empty inn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+The night was warm with the new-fallen snow, though the stars sparkled
+coldly.  A fleet of South-westerly rainclouds had been met in mid-sky by
+a sharp puff from due North, and the moisture had descended like a woven
+shroud, covering all the land, the house-tops, and the trees.
+
+Young Harry Boulby was at sea, and this still weather was just what a
+mother's heart wished for him.  The widow looked through her bed-room
+window and listened, as if the absolute stillness must beget a sudden
+cry.  The thought of her boy made her heart revert to Robert.  She was
+thinking of Robert when the muffled sound of a horse at speed caused her
+to look up the street, and she saw one coming--a horse without a rider.
+The next minute he was out of sight.
+
+Mrs. Boulby stood terrified.  The silence of the night hanging everywhere
+seemed to call on her for proof that she had beheld a real earthly
+spectacle, and the dead thump of the hooves on the snow-floor in passing
+struck a chill through her as being phantom-like.  But she had seen a
+saddle on the horse, and the stirrups flying, and the horse looked
+affrighted.  The scene was too earthly in its suggestion of a tale of
+blood.  What if the horse were Robert's?  She tried to laugh at her
+womanly fearfulness, and had almost to suppress a scream in doing so.
+There was no help for it but to believe her brandy as good and
+efficacious as her guests did, so she went downstairs and took a
+fortifying draught; after which her blood travelled faster, and the event
+galloped swiftly into the recesses of time, and she slept.
+
+While the morning was still black, and the streets without a sign of
+life, she was aroused by a dream of some one knocking at her grave-stone.
+"Ah, that brandy!" she sighed.  "This is what a poor woman has to pay for
+custom!"  Which we may interpret as the remorseful morning confession of
+a guilt she had been the victim of over night.  She knew that good brandy
+did not give bad dreams, and was self-convicted.  Strange were her
+sensations when the knocking continued; and presently she heard a voice
+in the naked street below call in a moan, "Mother!"
+
+"My darling!" she answered, divided in her guess at its being Harry or
+Robert.
+
+A glance from the open window showed Robert leaning in the quaint old
+porch, with his head bound by a handkerchief; but he had no strength to
+reply to a question at that distance, and when she let him in he made two
+steps and dropped forward on the floor.
+
+Lying there, he plucked at her skirts.  She was shouting for help, but
+with her ready apprehension of the pride in his character, she knew what
+was meant by his broken whisper before she put her ear to his lips, and
+she was silent, miserable sight as was his feeble efforts to rise on an
+elbow that would not straighten.
+
+His head was streaming with blood, and the stain was on his neck and
+chest.  He had one helpless arm; his clothes were torn as from a fierce
+struggle.
+
+"I'm quite sensible," he kept repeating, lest she should relapse into
+screams.
+
+"Lord love you for your spirit!" exclaimed the widow, and there they
+remained, he like a winged eagle, striving to raise himself from time to
+time, and fighting with his desperate weakness.  His face was to the
+ground; after a while he was still.  In alarm the widow stooped over him:
+she feared that he had given up his last breath; but the candle-light
+showed him shaken by a sob, as it seemed to her, though she could scarce
+believe it of this manly fellow.  Yet it proved true; she saw the very
+tears.  He was crying at his helplessness.
+
+"Oh, my darling boy!" she burst out; "what have they done to ye? the
+cowards they are! but do now have pity on a woman, and let me get some
+creature to lift you to a bed, dear.  And don't flap at me with your hand
+like a bird that's shot.  You're quite, quite sensible, I know; quite
+sensible, dear; but for my sake, Robert, my Harry's good friend, only for
+my sake, let yourself be a carried to a clean, nice bed, till I get Dr.
+Bean to you.  Do, do."
+
+Her entreaties brought on a succession of the efforts to rise, and at
+last, getting round on his back, and being assisted by the widow, he sat
+up against the wall.  The change of posture stupified him with a
+dizziness.  He tried to utter the old phrase, that he was sensible, but
+his hand beat at his forehead before the words could be shaped.
+
+"What pride is when it's a man!" the widow thought, as he recommenced the
+grievous struggle to rise on his feet; now feeling them up to the knee
+with a questioning hand, and pausing as if in a reflective wonder, and
+then planting them for a spring that failed wretchedly; groaning and
+leaning backward, lost in a fit of despair, and again beginning, patient
+as an insect imprisoned in a circle.
+
+The widow bore with his man's pride, until her nerves became afflicted by
+the character of his movements, which, as her sensations conceived them,
+were like those of a dry door jarring loose.  She caught him in her arms:
+"It's let my back break, but you shan't fret to death there, under my
+eyes, proud or humble, poor dear," she said, and with a great pull she
+got him upright.  He fell across her shoulder with so stiff a groan that
+for a moment she thought she had done him mortal injury.
+
+"Good old mother," he said boyishly, to reassure her.
+
+"Yes; and you'll behave to me like a son," she coaxed him.
+
+They talked as by slow degrees the stairs were ascended.
+
+"A crack o' the head, mother--a crack o' the head," said he.
+
+"Was it the horse, my dear?"
+
+"A crack o' the head, mother."
+
+"What have they done to my boy Robert?"
+
+"They've,"--he swung about humorously, weak as he was and throbbing with
+pain--"they've let out some of your brandy, mother...got into my head."
+
+"Who've done it, my dear?"
+
+"They've done it, mother."
+
+"Oh, take care o' that nail at your foot; and oh, that beam to your poor
+poll--poor soul! he's been and hurt himself again.  And did they do it to
+him? and what was it for?" she resumed in soft cajolery.
+
+"They did it, because--"
+
+"Yes, my dear; the reason for it?"
+
+"Because, mother, they had a turn that way."
+
+"Thanks be to Above for leaving your cunning in you, my dear," said the
+baffled woman, with sincere admiration.  "And Lord be thanked, if you're
+not hurt bad, that they haven't spoilt his handsome face," she added.
+
+In the bedroom, he let her partially undress him, refusing all doctor's
+aid, and commanding her to make no noise about him.  and then he lay down
+and shut his eyes, for the pain was terrible--galloped him and threw him
+with a shock--and galloped him and threw him again, whenever his thoughts
+got free for a moment from the dizzy aching.
+
+"My dear," she whispered, "I'm going to get a little brandy."
+
+She hastened away upon this mission.
+
+He was in the same posture when she returned with bottle and glass.
+
+She poured out some, and made much of it as a specific, and of the great
+things brandy would do; but he motioned his hand from it feebly, till she
+reproached him tenderly as perverse and unkind.
+
+"Now, my dearest boy, for my sake--only for my sake.  Will you? Yes, you
+will, my Robert!"
+
+"No brandy, mother."
+
+"Only one small thimbleful?"
+
+"No more brandy for me!"
+
+"See, dear, how seriously you take it, and all because you want the
+comfort."
+
+"No brandy," was all he could say.
+
+She looked at the label on the bottle.  Alas! she knew whence it came,
+and what its quality.  She could cheat herself about it when herself only
+was concerned--but she wavered at the thought of forcing it upon Robert
+as trusty medicine, though it had a pleasant taste, and was really, as
+she conceived, good enough for customers.
+
+She tried him faintly with arguments in its favour; but his resolution
+was manifested by a deaf ear.
+
+With a perfect faith in it she would, and she was conscious that she
+could, have raised his head and poured it down his throat. The crucial
+test of her love for Robert forbade the attempt.  She burst into an
+uncontrollable fit of crying.
+
+"Halloa! mother," said Robert, opening his eyes to the sad candlelight
+surrounding them.
+
+"My darling boy! whom I do love so; and not to be able to help you!  What
+shall I do--what shall I do!"
+
+With a start, he cried, "Where's the horse!"
+
+"The horse?"
+
+"The old dad 'll be asking for the horse to-morrow."
+
+"I saw a horse, my dear, afore I turned to my prayers at my bedside,
+coming down the street without his rider.  He came like a rumble of
+deafness in my ears.  Oh, my boy, I thought, Is it Robert's horse?--
+knowing you've got enemies, as there's no brave man has not got 'em
+--which is our only hope in the God of heaven!"
+
+"Mother, punch my ribs."
+
+He stretched himself flat for the operation, and shut his mouth.
+
+"Hard, mother!--and quick!--I can't hold out long."
+
+"Oh! Robert," moaned the petrified woman "strike you?"
+
+"Straight in the ribs.  Shut your fist and do it--quick."
+
+My dear!--my boy!--I haven't the heart to do it!"
+
+"Ah!" Robert's chest dropped in; but tightening his muscles again, he
+said, "now do it--do it!"
+
+"Oh! a poke at a poor fire puts it out, dear.  And make a murderess of
+me, you call mother!  Oh! as I love the name, I'll obey you, Robert.
+But!--there!"
+
+"Harder, mother."
+
+"There!--goodness forgive me!"
+
+"Hard as you can--all's right."
+
+"There!--and there!--oh!--mercy!"
+
+"Press in at my stomach."
+
+She nerved herself to do his bidding, and, following his orders, took his
+head in her hands, and felt about it.  The anguish of the touch wrung a
+stifled scream from him, at which she screamed responsive.  He laughed,
+while twisting with the pain.
+
+"You cruel boy, to laugh at your mother," she said, delighted by the
+sound of safety in that sweet human laughter.  "Hey! don't ye shake your
+brain; it ought to lie quiet.  And here's the spot of the wicked blow--
+and him in love--as I know he is!  What would she say if she saw him now?
+But an old woman's the best nurse--ne'er a doubt of it."
+
+She felt him heavy on her arm, and knew that he had fainted. Quelling her
+first impulse to scream, she dropped him gently on the pillow, and rapped
+to rouse up her maid.
+
+The two soon produced a fire and hot water, bandages, vinegar in a basin,
+and every crude appliance that could be thought of, the maid followed her
+mistress's directions with a consoling awe, for Mrs. Boulby had told her
+no more than that a man was hurt.
+
+"I do hope, if it's anybody, it's that ther' Moody," said the maid.
+
+"A pretty sort of a Christian you think yourself, I dare say," Mrs.
+Boulby replied.
+
+"Christian or not, one can't help longin' for a choice, mum.  We ain't
+all hands and knees."
+
+"Better for you if you was," said the widow.  "It's tongues, you're to
+remember, you're not to be.  Now come you up after me--and you'll not
+utter a word.  You'll stand behind the door to do what I tell you.
+You're a soldier's daughter, Susan, and haven't a claim to be excitable."
+
+"My mother was given to faints," Susan protested on behalf of her
+possible weakness.
+
+"You may peep."  Thus Mrs. Boulby tossed a sop to her frail woman's
+nature.
+
+But for her having been appeased by the sagacious accordance of this
+privilege, the maid would never have endured to hear Robert's voice in
+agony, and to think that it was really Robert, the beloved of Warbeach,
+who had come to harm.  Her apprehensions not being so lively as her
+mistress's, by reason of her love being smaller, she was more terrified
+than comforted by Robert's jokes during the process of washing off the
+blood, cutting the hair from the wound, bandaging and binding up the
+head.
+
+His levity seemed ghastly; and his refusal upon any persuasion to see a
+doctor quite heathenish, and a sign of one foredoomed.
+
+She believed that his arm was broken, and smarted with wrath at her
+mistress for so easily taking his word to the contrary.  More than all,
+his abjuration of brandy now when it would do him good to take it, struck
+her as an instance of that masculine insanity in the comprehension of
+which all women must learn to fortify themselves.  There was much
+whispering in the room, inarticulate to her, before Mrs. Boulby came out;
+enjoining a rigorous silence, and stating that the patient would drink
+nothing but tea.
+
+"He begged," she said half to herself, "to have the window blinds up in
+the morning, if the sun wasn't strong, for him to look on our river
+opening down to the ships."
+
+"That looks as if he meant to live," Susan remarked.
+
+"He!" cried the widow, "it's Robert Eccles.  He'd stand on his last
+inch."
+
+"Would he, now!" ejaculated Susan, marvelling at him, with no question as
+to what footing that might be.
+
+"Leastways," the widow hastened to add, "if he thought it was only devils
+against him.  I've heard him say, 'It's a fool that holds out against
+God, and a coward as gives in to the devil;' and there's my Robert
+painted by his own hand."
+
+"But don't that bring him to this so often, Mum?" Susan ruefully
+inquired, joining teapot and kettle.
+
+"I do believe he's protected," said the widow.
+
+With the first morning light Mrs. Boulby was down at Warbeach Farm, and
+being directed to Farmer Eccles in the stables, she found the sturdy
+yeoman himself engaged in grooming Robert's horse.
+
+"Well, Missis," he said, nodding to her; "you win, you see.  I thought
+you would; I'd have sworn you would.  Brandy's stronger than blood, with
+some of our young fellows."
+
+"If you please, Mr. Eccles," she replied, "Robert's sending of me was to
+know if the horse was unhurt and safe."
+
+"Won't his legs carry him yet, Missis?"
+
+"His legs have been graciously spared, Mr. Eccles; it's his head."
+
+"That's where the liquor flies, I'm told."
+
+"Pray, Mr. Eccles, believe me when I declare he hasn't touched a drop of
+anything but tea in my house this past night."
+
+"I'm sorry for that; I'd rather have him go to you.  If he takes it, let
+him take it good; and I'm given to understand that you've a reputation
+that way.  Just tell him from me, he's at liberty to play the devil with
+himself, but not with my beasts."
+
+The farmer continued his labour.
+
+"No, you ain't a hard man, surely," cried the widow.  "Not when I say he
+was sober, Mr. Eccles; and was thrown, and made insensible?"
+
+"Never knew such a thing to happen to him, Missis, and, what's more, I
+don't believe it.  Mayhap you're come for his things: his Aunt Anne's
+indoors, and she'll give 'em up, and gladly.  And my compliments to
+Robert, and the next time he fancies visiting Warbeach, he'd best forward
+a letter to that effect."
+
+Mrs. Boulby curtseyed humbly.  "You think bad of me, sir, for keeping a
+public; but I love your son as my own, and if I might presume to say so,
+Mr. Eccles, you will be proud of him too before you die.  I know no more
+than you how he fell yesterday, but I do know he'd not been drinking, and
+have got bitter bad enemies."
+
+"And that's not astonishing, Missis."
+
+"No, Mr. Eccles; and a man who's brave besides being good soon learns
+that."
+
+"Well spoken, Missis."
+
+"Is Robert to hear he's denied his father's house?"
+
+"I never said that, Mrs. Boulby.  Here's my principle--My house is open
+to my blood, so long as he don't bring downright disgrace on it, and then
+any one may claim him that likes I won't give him money, because I know
+of a better use for it; and he shan't ride my beasts, because he don't
+know how to treat 'em.  That's all."
+
+"And so you keep within the line of your duty, sir," the widow summed his
+speech.
+
+"So I hope to," said the farmer.
+
+"There's comfort in that," she replied.
+
+"As much as there's needed," said he.
+
+The widow curtseyed again.  "It's not to trouble you, sir, I called.
+Robert--thanks be to Above!--is not hurt serious, though severe."
+
+"Where's he hurt?" the farmer asked rather hurriedly.
+
+"In the head, it is."
+
+"What have you come for?"
+
+"First, his best hat."
+
+"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the farmer.  "Well, if that 'll mend his head
+it's at his service, I'm sure."
+
+Sick at his heartlessness, the widow scattered emphasis over her
+concluding remarks.  "First, his best hat, he wants; and his coat and
+clean shirt; and they mend the looks of a man, Mr. Eccles; and it's to
+look well is his object: for he's not one to make a moan of himself, and
+doctors may starve before he'd go to any of them.  And my begging prayer
+to you is, that when you see your son, you'll not tell him I let you know
+his head or any part of him was hurt.  I wish you good morning, Mr.
+Eccles."
+
+"Good morning to you, Mrs. Boulby.  You're a respectable woman."
+
+"Not to be soaped," she murmured to herself in a heat.
+
+The apparently medicinal articles of attire were obtained from Aunt Anne,
+without a word of speech on the part of that pale spinster.  The
+deferential hostility between the two women acknowledged an intervening
+chasm.  Aunt Anne produced a bundle, and placed the hat on it, upon which
+she had neatly pinned a tract, "The Drunkard's Awakening!"  Mrs. Boulby
+glanced her eye in wrath across this superscription, thinking to herself,
+"Oh, you good people! how you make us long in our hearts for trouble with
+you."  She controlled the impulse, and mollified her spirit on her way
+home by distributing stray leaves of the tract to the outlying heaps of
+rubbish, and to one inquisitive pig, who was looking up from a
+badly-smelling sty for what the heavens might send him.
+
+She found Robert with his arm doubled over a basin, and Susan sponging
+cold water on it.
+
+"No bones broken, mother!" he sang out.  "I'm sound; all right again.
+Six hours have done it this time.  Is it a thaw?  You needn't tell me
+what the old dad has been saying.  I shall be ready to breakfast in half
+an hour."
+
+"Lord, what a big arm it is!" exclaimed the widow.  "And no wonder, or
+how would you be a terror to men?  You naughty boy, to think of stirring!
+Here you'll lie."
+
+"Ah, will I?" said Robert: and he gave a spring, and sat upright in the
+bed, rather white with the effort, which seemed to affect his mind, for
+he asked dubiously, "What do I look like, mother?"
+
+She brought him the looking-glass, and Susan being dismissed, he examined
+his features.
+
+"Dear!" said the widow, sitting down on the bed; "it ain't much for me to
+guess you've got an appointment."
+
+"At twelve o'clock, mother."
+
+"With her?" she uttered softly.
+
+"It's with a lady, mother."
+
+"And so many enemies prowling about, Robert, my dear!  Don't tell me they
+didn't fall upon you last night.  I said nothing, but I'd swear it on the
+Book.  Do you think you can go?"
+
+"Why, mother, I go by my feelings, and there's no need to think at all,
+or God knows what I should think."
+
+The widow shook her head.  "Nothing 'll stop you, I suppose?"
+
+"Nothing inside of me will, mother."
+
+"Doesn't she but never mind.  I've no right to ask, Robert; and if I have
+curiosity, it's about last night, and why you should let villains escape.
+But there's no accounting for a man's notions; only, this I say, and I do
+say it, Nic Sedgett, he's at the bottom of any mischief brewed against
+you down here.  And last night Stephen Bilton, or somebody, declared that
+Nic Sedgett had been seen up at Fairly."
+
+"Selling eggs, mother.  Why shouldn't he?  We mustn't complain of his
+getting an honest livelihood."
+
+"He's black-blooded, Robert; and I never can understand why the Lord did
+not make him a beast in face.  I'm told that creature's found pleasing by
+the girls."
+
+"Ugh, mother, I'm not."
+
+"She won't have you, Robert?"
+
+He laughed. "We shall see to-day."
+
+"You deceiving boy!" cried the widow; "and me not know it's Mrs. Lovell
+you're going to meet! and would to heaven she'd see the worth of ye, for
+it's a born lady you ought to marry."
+
+"Just feel in my pockets, mother, and you won't be so ready with your
+talk of my marrying.  And now I'll get up.  I feel as if my legs had to
+learn over again how to bear me.  The old dad, bless his heart! gave me
+sound wind and limb to begin upon, so I'm not easily stumped, you see,
+though I've been near on it once or twice in my life."
+
+Mrs. Boulby murmured, "Ah! are you still going to be at war with those
+gentlemen, Robert?"
+
+He looked at her steadily, while a shrewd smile wrought over his face,
+and then taking her hand, he said, "I'll tell you a little; you deserve
+it, and won't tattle.  My curse is, I'm ashamed to talk about my
+feelings; but there's no shame in being fond of a girl, even if she
+refuses to have anything to say to you, is there?  No, there isn't.  I
+went with my dear old aunt's money to a farmer in Kent, and learnt
+farming; clear of the army first, by--But I must stop that burst of
+swearing.  Half the time I've been away, I was there.  The farmer's a
+good, sober, downhearted man--a sort of beaten Englishman, who don't know
+it, tough, and always backing.  He has two daughters: one went to London,
+and came to harm, of a kind.  The other I'd prick this vein for and bleed
+to death, singing; and she hates me!  I wish she did.  She thought me
+such a good young man!  I never drank; went to bed early, was up at work
+with the birds.  Mr. Robert Armstrong!  That changeing of my name was
+like a lead cap on my head.  I was never myself with it, felt hang-dog--
+it was impossible a girl could care for such a fellow as I was.  Mother,
+just listen: she's dark as a gipsy.  She's the faithfullest,
+stoutest-hearted creature in the world.  She has black hair, large brown
+eyes; see her once!  She's my mate.  I could say to her, 'Stand there;
+take guard of a thing;' and I could be dead certain of her--she'd perish
+at her post.  Is the door locked?  Lock the door; I won't be seen when I
+speak of her.  Well, never mind whether she's handsome or not.  She isn't
+a lady; but she's my lady; she's the woman I could be proud of.  She
+sends me to the devil!  I believe a woman 'd fall in love with her
+cheeks, they are so round and soft and kindly coloured.  Think me a fool;
+I am.  And here am I, away from her, and I feel that any day harm may
+come to her, and she 'll melt, and be as if the devils of hell were
+mocking me.  Who's to keep harm from her when I'm away?  What can I do
+but drink and forget?  Only now, when I wake up from it, I'm a crawling
+wretch at her feet.  If I had her feet to kiss!  I've never kissed her-
+-never!  And no man has kissed her.  Damn my head! here's the ache coming
+on.  That's my last oath, mother.  I wish there was a Bible handy, but
+I'll try and stick to it without.  My God! when I think of her, I fancy
+everything on earth hangs still and doubts what's to happen.  I'm like a
+wheel, and go on spinning.  Feel my pulse now.  Why is it I can't stop
+it?  But there she is, and I could crack up this old world to know what's
+coming.  I was mild as milk all those days I was near her.  My comfort
+is, she don't know me.  And that's my curse too!  If she did, she'd know
+as clear as day I'm her mate, her match, the man for her.  I am, by
+heaven!--that's an oath permitted.  To see the very soul I want, and to
+miss her!  I'm down here, mother; she loves her sister, and I must learn
+where her sister's to be found.  One of those gentlemen up at Fairly's
+the guilty man.  I don't say which; perhaps I don't know.  But oh, what a
+lot of lightnings I see in the back of my head!"
+
+Robert fell back on the pillow.  Mrs. Boulby wiped her eyes.  Her
+feelings were overwhelmed with mournful devotion to the passionate young
+man; and she expressed them practically: "A rump-steak would never digest
+in his poor stomach!"
+
+He seemed to be of that opinion too, for when, after lying till eleven,
+he rose and appeared at the breakfast-table, he ate nothing but crumbs of
+dry bread.  It was curious to see his precise attention to the neatness
+of his hat and coat, and the nervous eye he cast upon the clock, while
+brushing and accurately fixing these garments.  The hat would not sit as
+he was accustomed to have it, owing to the bruise on his head, and he
+stood like a woman petulant with her milliner before the glass; now
+pressing the hat down till the pain was insufferable, and again trying
+whether it presented him acceptably in the enforced style of his wearing
+it.  He persisted in this, till Mrs. Boulby's exclamation of wonder
+admonished him of the ideas received by other eyes than his own.  When we
+appear most incongruous, we are often exposing the key to our characters;
+and how much his vanity, wounded by Rhoda, had to do with his proceedings
+down at Warbeach, it were unfair to measure just yet, lest his finer
+qualities be cast into shade, but to what degree it affected him will be
+seen.
+
+Mrs. Boulby's persuasions induced him to take a stout silver-topped
+walking-stick of her husband's, a relic shaped from the wood of the Royal
+George; leaning upon which rather more like a Naval pensioner than he
+would have cared to know, he went forth to his appointment with the lady.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+The park-sward of Fairly, white with snow, rolled down in long sweeps to
+the salt water: and under the last sloping oak of the park there was a
+gorse-bushed lane, green in Summer, but now bearing cumbrous blossom--
+like burdens of the crisp snow-fall. Mrs. Lovell sat on horseback here,
+and alone, with her gauntleted hand at her waist, charmingly habited in
+tone with the landscape. She expected a cavalier, and did not perceive
+the approach of a pedestrian, but bowed quietly when Robert lifted his
+hat.
+
+"They say you are mad.  You see, I trust myself to you."
+
+"I wish I could thank you for your kindness, madam."
+
+"Are you ill?"
+
+"I had a fall last night, madam."
+
+The lady patted her horse's neck.
+
+"I haven't time to inquire about it.  You understand that I cannot give
+you more than a minute."
+
+She glanced at her watch.
+
+"Let us say five exactly.  To begin: I can't affect to be ignorant of the
+business which brings you down here.  I won't pretend to lecture you
+about the course you have taken; but, let me distinctly assure you, that
+the gentleman you have chosen to attack in this extraordinary manner, has
+done no wrong to you or to any one.  It is, therefore, disgracefully
+unjust to single him out.  You know he cannot possibly fight you.  I
+speak plainly."
+
+"Yes, madam," said Robert.  "I'll answer plainly.  He can't fight a man
+like me.  I know it.  I bear him no ill-will.  I believe he's innocent
+enough in this matter, as far as acts go."
+
+"That makes your behaviour to him worse!"
+
+Robert looked up into her eyes.
+
+"You are a lady.  You won't be shocked at what I tell you."
+
+"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Lovell, hastily: "I have learnt--I am aware of the
+tale.  Some one has been injured or, you think so.  I don't accuse you of
+madness, but, good heavens! what means have you been pursuing!  Indeed,
+sir, let your feelings be as deeply engaged as possible, you have gone
+altogether the wrong way to work."
+
+"Not if I have got your help by it, madam."
+
+"Gallantly spoken."
+
+She smiled with a simple grace.  The next moment she consulted her watch.
+
+"Time has gone faster than I anticipated.  I must leave you.  Let this be
+our stipulation"
+
+She lowered her voice.
+
+"You shall have the address you require.  I will undertake to see her
+myself, when next I am in London.  It will be soon.  In return, sir,
+favour me with your word of honour not to molest this gentleman any
+further.  Will you do that?  You may trust me."
+
+"I do, madam, with all my soul!" said Robert.
+
+"That's sufficient.  I ask no more.  Good morning."
+
+Her parting bow remained with him like a vision.  Her voice was like the
+tinkling of harp-strings about his ears.  The colour of her riding-habit
+this day, harmonious with the snow-faced earth, as well as the gentle
+mission she had taken upon herself, strengthened his vivid fancy in
+blessing her as something quite divine.
+
+He thought for the first time in his life bitterly of the great fortune
+which fell to gentlemen in meeting and holding equal converse with so
+adorable a creature; and he thought of Rhoda as being harshly earthly;
+repulsive in her coldness as that black belt of water contrasted against
+the snow on the shores.
+
+He walked some paces in the track of Mrs. Lovell's horse, till his doing
+so seemed too presumptuous, though to turn the other way and retrace his
+steps was downright hateful: and he stood apparently in profound
+contemplation of a ship of war and the trees of the forest behind the
+masts.  Either the fatigue of standing, or emotion, caused his head to
+throb, so that he heard nothing, not even men's laughter; but looking up
+suddenly, he beheld, as in a picture, Mrs. Lovell with some gentlemen
+walking their horses toward him.  The lady gazed softly over his head,
+letting her eyes drop a quiet recognition in passing; one or two of the
+younger gentlemen stared mockingly.
+
+Edward Blancove was by Mrs. Lovell's side.  His eyes fixed upon Robert
+with steady scrutiny, and Robert gave him a similar inspection, though
+not knowing why.  It was like a child's open look, and he was feeling
+childish, as if his brain had ceased to act.  One of the older gentlemen,
+with a military aspect, squared his shoulders, and touching an end of his
+moustache, said, half challengingly,--
+
+"You are dismounted to-day?"
+
+"I have only one horse," Robert simply replied.
+
+Algernon Blancove came last.  He neither spoke nor looked at his enemy,
+but warily clutched his whip.  All went by, riding into line some paces
+distant; and again they laughed as they bent forward to the lady,
+shouting.
+
+"Odd, to have out the horses on a day like this," Robert thought, and
+resumed his musing as before.  The lady's track now led him homeward, for
+he had no will of his own.  Rounding the lane, he was surprised to see
+Mrs. Boulby by the hedge.  She bobbed like a beggar woman, with a rueful
+face.
+
+"My dear," she said, in apology for her presence, "I shouldn't ha'
+interfered, if there was fair play.  I'm Englishwoman enough for that.
+I'd have stood by, as if you was a stranger.  Gentlemen always give fair
+play before a woman.  That's why I come, lest this appointment should ha'
+proved a pitfall to you. Now you'll come home, won't you; and forgive
+me?"
+
+"I'll come to the old Pilot now, mother," said Robert, pressing her hand.
+
+"That's right; and ain't angry with me for following of you?"
+
+"Follow your own game, mother."
+
+"I did, Robert; and nice and vexed I am, if I'm correct in what I heard
+say, as that lady and her folk passed, never heeding an old woman's ears.
+They made a bet of you, dear, they did."
+
+"I hope the lady won," said Robert, scarce hearing.
+
+"And it was she who won, dear.  She was to get you to meet her, and give
+up, and be beaten like, as far as I could understand their chatter;
+gentlefolks laugh so when they talk; and they can afford to laugh, for
+they has the best of it.  But I'm vexed; just as if I'd felt big and had
+burst.  I want you to be peaceful, of course I do; but I don't like my
+boy made a bet of."
+
+"Oh, tush, mother," said Robert impatiently.
+
+"I heard 'em, my dear; and complimenting the lady they was, as they
+passed me.  If it vexes you my thinking it, I won't, dear; I reelly
+won't.  I see it lowers you, for there you are at your hat again.  It is
+lowering, to be made a bet of.  I've that spirit, that if you was well
+and sound, I'd rather have you fighting 'em. She's a pleasant enough lady
+to look at, not a doubt; small-boned, and slim, and fair."
+
+Robert asked which way they had gone.
+
+"Back to the stables, my dear; I heard 'em say so, because one gentleman
+said that the spectacle was over, and the lady had gained the day; and
+the snow was balling in the horses' feet; and go they'd better, before my
+lord saw them out.  And another said, you were a wild man she'd tamed;
+and they said, you ought to wear a collar, with Mrs. Lovell's, her name,
+graved on it.  But don't you be vexed; you may guess they're not my
+Robert's friends.  And, I do assure you, Robert, your hat's neat, if
+you'd only let it be comfortable: such fidgeting worries the brim. You're
+best in appearance--and I always said it--when stripped for boxing.  Hats
+are gentlemen's things, and becomes them like as if a title to their
+heads; though you'd bear being Sir Robert, that you would; and for that
+matter, your hat is agreeable to behold, and not like the run of our
+Sunday hats; only you don't seem easy in it.  Oh, oh! my tongue's a yard
+too long.  It's the poor head aching, and me to forget it.  It's because
+you never will act invalidy; and I remember how handsome you were one day
+in the field behind our house, when you boxed a wager with Simon Billet,
+the waterman; and you was made a bet of then, for my husband betted on
+you; and that's what made me think of comparisons of you out of your hat
+and you in it."
+
+Thus did Mrs. Boulby chatter along the way.  There was an eminence a
+little out of the road, overlooking the Fairly stables.  Robert left her
+and went to this point, from whence he beheld the horsemen with the
+grooms at the horses' heads.
+
+"Thank God, I've only been a fool for five minutes!" he summed up his
+sensations at the sight.  He shut his eyes, praying with all his might
+never to meet Mrs. Lovell more.  It was impossible for him to combat the
+suggestion that she had befooled him; yet his chivalrous faith in women
+led him to believe, that as she knew Dahlia's history, she would
+certainly do her best for the poor girl, and keep her word to him.
+The throbbing of his head stopped all further thought.  It had become
+violent.  He tried to gather his ideas, but the effort was like that of
+a light dreamer to catch the sequence of a dream, when blackness follows
+close up, devouring all that is said and done.  In despair, he thought
+with kindness of Mrs. Boulby's brandy.
+
+"Mother," he said, rejoining her, "I've got a notion brandy can't hurt a
+man when he's in bed.  I'll go to bed, and you shall brew me some; and
+you'll let no one come nigh me; and if I talk light-headed, it's blank
+paper and scribble, mind that."
+
+The widow promised devoutly to obey all his directions; but he had begun
+to talk light-headed before he was undressed.  He called on the name of a
+Major Waring, of whom Mrs. Boulby had heard him speak tenderly as a
+gentleman not ashamed to be his friend; first reproaching him for not
+being by, and then by the name of Percy, calling to him endearingly, and
+reproaching himself for not having written to him.
+
+"Two to one, and in the dark!" he kept moaning "and I one to twenty,
+Percy, all in broad day.  Was it fair, I ask?"
+
+Robert's outcries became anything but "blank paper and scribble" to the
+widow, when he mentioned Nic Sedgett's name, and said: "Look over his
+right temple he's got my mark a second time."
+
+Hanging by his bedside, Mrs. Boulby strung together, bit by bit, the
+history of that base midnight attack, which had sent her glorious boy
+bleeding to her.  Nic Sedgett; she could understand, was the accomplice
+of one of the Fairly gentlemen; but of which one, she could not discover,
+and consequently set him down as Mr. Algernon Blancove.
+
+By diligent inquiry, she heard that Algernon had been seen in company
+with the infamous Nic, and likewise that the countenance of Nicodemus was
+reduced to accept the consolation of a poultice, which was confirmation
+sufficient.  By nightfall Robert was in the doctor's hands, unconscious
+of Mrs. Boulby's breach of agreement.  His father and his aunt were
+informed of his condition, and prepared, both of them, to bow their heads
+to the close of an ungodly career.  It was known over Warbeach, that
+Robert lay in danger, and believed that he was dying.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+A fleet of South-westerly rainclouds had been met in mid-sky
+Borrower to be dancing on Fortune's tight-rope above the old abyss
+Childish faith in the beneficence of the unseen Powers who feed us
+Dead Britons are all Britons, but live Britons are not quite brothers
+He had no recollection of having ever dined without drinking wine
+He tried to gather his ideas, but the effort was like that of a light dreamer
+Land and beasts!  They sound like blessed things
+My first girl--she's brought disgrace on this house
+Then, if you will not tell me
+To be a really popular hero anywhere in Britain (must be a drinker)
+You're a rank, right-down widow, and no mistake
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Rhoda Fleming, v2
+by George Meredith
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RHODA FLEMING
+
+By GEORGE MEREDITH
+
+1897
+
+
+
+BOOK 3
+
+
+XXI.      GIVES A GLIMPSE OF WHAT POOR VILLANIES THE STORY CONTAINS
+XXII.     EDWARD TAKES HIS COURSE
+XXIII.    MAJOR PERCY WARING
+XXIV.     WARBEACH VILLAGE CHURCH
+XXV.      OF THE FEARFUL TEMPTATION WHICH CAME UPON ANTHONY HACKBUT, AND
+          OF HIS MEETING WITH DAHLIA
+XXVI.     IN THE PARK
+XXVII.    CONTAINS A STUDY OF A FOOL IN TROUBLE
+XXVIII.   EDWARD'S LETTER
+XXIX.     FURTHERMORE OF THE FOOL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Mrs. Boulby's ears had not deceived her; it had been a bet: and the day
+would have gone disastrously with Robert, if Mrs. Lovell had not won her
+bet.  What was heroism to Warbeach, appeared very outrageous
+blackguardism up at Fairly.  It was there believed by the gentlemen,
+though rather against evidence, that the man was a sturdy ruffian, and an
+infuriated sot.  The first suggestion was to drag him before the
+magistrates; but against this Algernon protested, declaring his readiness
+to defend himself, with so vehement a magnanimity, that it was clearly
+seen the man had a claim on him.  Lord Elling, however, when he was told
+of these systematic assaults upon one of his guests, announced his
+resolve to bring the law into operation.  Algernon heard it as the knell
+to his visit.
+
+He was too happy, to go away willingly; and the great Jew City of London
+was exceedingly hot for him at that period; but to stay and risk an
+exposure of his extinct military career, was not possible.  In his
+despair, he took Mrs. Lovell entirely into his confidence; in doing
+which, he only filled up the outlines of what she already knew concerning
+Edward.  He was too useful to the lady for her to afford to let him go.
+No other youth called her "angel" for listening complacently to strange
+stories of men and their dilemmas; no one fetched and carried for her
+like Algernon; and she was a woman who cherished dog-like adoration, and
+could not part with it.  She had also the will to reward it.
+
+At her intercession, Robert was spared an introduction to the
+magistrates.  She made light of his misdemeanours, assuring everybody
+that so splendid a horseman deserved to be dealt with differently from
+other offenders.  The gentlemen who waited upon Farmer Eccles went in
+obedience to her orders.
+
+Then came the scene on Ditley Marsh, described to that assembly at the
+Pilot, by Stephen Bilton, when she perceived that Robert was manageable
+in silken trammels, and made a bet that she would show him tamed.  She
+won her bet, and saved the gentlemen from soiling their hands, for which
+they had conceived a pressing necessity, and they thanked her, and paid
+their money over to Algernon, whom she constituted her treasurer.  She
+was called "the man-tamer," gracefully acknowledging the compliment.
+Colonel Barclay, the moustachioed horseman, who had spoken the few words
+to Robert in passing, now remarked that there was an end of the military
+profession.
+
+"I surrender my sword," he said gallantly.
+
+Another declared that ladies would now act in lieu of causing an appeal
+to arms.
+
+"Similia similibus, &c.," said Edward. "They can, apparently, cure what
+they originate."
+
+"Ah, the poor sex!" Mrs. Lovell sighed.  "When we bring the millennium to
+you, I believe you will still have a word against Eve."
+
+The whole parade back to the stables was marked by pretty speeches.
+
+"By Jove! but he ought to have gone down on his knees, like a horse when
+you've tamed him," said Lord Suckling, the young guardsman.
+
+"I would mark a distinction between a horse and a brave man, Lord
+Suckling," said the lady; and such was Mrs. Lovell's dignity when an
+allusion to Robert was forced on her, and her wit and ease were so
+admirable, that none of those who rode with her thought of sitting in
+judgement on her conduct.  Women can make for themselves new spheres, new
+laws, if they will assume their right to be eccentric as an
+unquestionable thing, and always reserve a season for showing forth like
+the conventional women of society.
+
+The evening was Mrs. Lovell's time for this important re-establishment of
+her position; and many a silly youth who had sailed pleasantly with her
+all the day, was wrecked when he tried to carry on the topics where she
+reigned the lady of the drawing-room.  Moreover, not being eccentric from
+vanity, but simply to accommodate what had once been her tastes, and were
+now her necessities, she avoided slang, and all the insignia of
+eccentricity.
+
+Thus she mastered the secret of keeping the young men respectfully
+enthusiastic; so that their irrepressible praises did not (as is usual
+when these are in acclamation) drag her to their level; and the female
+world, with which she was perfectly feminine, and as silkenly insipid
+every evening of her life as was needed to restore her reputation,
+admitted that she belonged to it, which is everything to an adventurous
+spirit of that sex: indeed, the sole secure basis of operations.
+
+You are aware that men's faith in a woman whom her sisters
+discountenance, and partially repudiate, is uneasy, however deeply they
+may be charmed.  On the other hand, she maybe guilty of prodigious
+oddities without much disturbing their reverence, while she is in the
+feminine circle.
+
+But what fatal breath was it coming from Mrs. Lovell that was always
+inflaming men to mutual animosity?  What encouragement had she given to
+Algernon, that Lord Suckling should be jealous of him?  And what to Lord
+Suckling, that Algernon should loathe the sight of the young lord?  And
+why was each desirous of showing his manhood in combat before an eminent
+peacemaker?
+
+Edward laughed--"Ah-ha!" and rubbed his hands as at a special
+confirmation of his prophecy, when Algernon came into his room and said,
+"I shall fight that fellow Suckling.  Hang me if I can stand his
+impudence!  I want to have a shot at a man of my own set, just to let
+Peggy Lovell see!  I know what she thinks."
+
+"Just to let Mrs. Lovell see!" Edward echoed.  "She has seen it lots of
+times, my dear Algy.  Come; this looks lively.  I was sure she would soon
+be sick of the water-gruel of peace."
+
+"I tell you she's got nothing to do with it, Ned.  Don't be confoundedly
+unjust.  She didn't tell me to go and seek him.  How can she help his
+whispering to her?  And then she looks over at me, and I swear I'm not
+going to be defended by a woman.  She must fancy I haven't got the pluck
+of a flea.  I know what her idea of young fellows is.  Why, she said to
+me, when Suckling went off from her, the other day, "These are our
+Guards."  I shall fight him."
+
+"Do," said Edward.
+
+"Will you take a challenge?"
+
+"I'm a lawyer, Mr. Mars."
+
+"You won't take a challenge for a friend, when he's insulted?"
+
+"I reply again, I am a lawyer.  But this is what I'll do, if you like.
+I'll go to Mrs. Lovely and inform her that it is your desire to gain her
+esteem by fighting with pistols.  That will accomplish the purpose you
+seek.  It will possibly disappoint her, for she will have to stop the
+affair; but women are born to be disappointed--they want so much."
+
+"I'll fight him some way or other," said Algernon, glowering; and then
+his face became bright: "I say, didn't she manage that business
+beautifully this morning?  Not another woman in the world could have done
+it."
+
+"Oh, Una and the Lion!  Mrs. Valentine and Orson!  Did you bet with the
+rest?" his cousin asked.
+
+"I lost my tenner; but what's that!"
+
+"There will be an additional five to hand over to the man Sedgett.
+What's that!"
+
+"No, hang it!" Algernon shouted.
+
+"You've paid your ten for the shadow cheerfully.  Pay your five for the
+substance."
+
+"Do you mean to say that Sedgett--" Algernon stared.
+
+"Miracles, if you come to examine them, Algy, have generally had a
+pathway prepared for them; and the miracle of the power of female
+persuasion exhibited this morning was not quite independent of the
+preliminary agency of a scoundrel."
+
+"So that's why you didn't bet."  Algernon signified the opening of his
+intelligence with his eyelids, pronouncing "by jingos" and "by Joves," to
+ease the sudden rush of ideas within him.  "You might have let me into
+the secret, Ned.  I'd lose any number of tens to Peggy Lovell, but a
+fellow don't like to be in the dark."
+
+"Except, Algy, that when you carry light, you're a general illuminator.
+Let the matter drop.  Sedgett has saved you from annoyance.  Take him his
+five pounds."
+
+"Annoyance be hanged, my good Ned!" Algernon was aroused to reply.  "I
+don't complain, and I've done my best to stand in front of you; and as
+you've settled the fellow, I say nothing; but, between us two, who's the
+guilty party, and who's the victim?"
+
+"Didn't he tell you he had you in his power?"
+
+"I don't remember that he did."
+
+"Well, I heard him.  The sturdy cur refused to be bribed, so there was
+only one way of quieting him; and you see what a thrashing does for that
+sort of beast.  I, Algy, never abandon a friend; mark that.  Take the
+five pounds to Sedgett."
+
+Algernon strode about the room.  "First of all, you stick me up in a
+theatre, so that I'm seen with a girl; and then you get behind me, and
+let me be pelted," he began grumbling.  "And ask a fellow for money, who
+hasn't a farthing!  I shan't literally have a farthing till that horse
+'Templemore' runs; and then, by George! I'll pay my debts.  Jews are
+awful things!"
+
+"How much do you require at present?" said Edward, provoking his appetite
+for a loan.
+
+"Oh, fifty--that is, just now.  More like a thousand when I get to town.
+And where it's to come from! but never mind.  'Pon my soul, I pity the
+fox I run down here.  I feel I'm exactly in his case in London.  However,
+if I can do you any service, Ned--"
+
+Edward laughed.  "You might have done me the service of not excusing
+yourself to the squire when he came here, in such a way as to implicate
+me."
+
+"But I was so tremendously badgered, Ned."
+
+"You had a sort of gratification in letting the squire crow over his
+brother.  And he did crow for a time."
+
+"On my honour, Ned, as to crowing! he went away cursing at me.  Peggy
+Lovell managed it somehow for you.  I was really awfully badgered."
+
+"Yes; but you know what a man my father is.  He hasn't the squire's
+philosophy in those affairs."
+
+"'Pon my soul, Mr. Ned, I never guessed it before; but I rather fancy you
+got clear with Sir Billy the banker by washing in my basin--eh, did you?"
+
+Edward looked straight at his cousin, saying, "You deserved worse than
+that.  You were treacherous.  You proved you were not to be trusted; and
+yet, you see, I trust you.  Call it my folly.  Of course (and I don't
+mind telling you) I used my wits to turn the point of the attack.  I may
+be what they call unscrupulous when I'm surprised.  I have to look to
+money as well as you; and if my father thought it went in a--what he
+considers--wrong direction, the source would be choked by paternal
+morality.  You betrayed me.  Listen."
+
+"I tell you, Ned, I merely said to my governor--"
+
+"Listen to me.  You betrayed me.  I defended myself; that is, I've
+managed so that I may still be of service to you.  It was a near shave;
+but you now see the value of having a character with one's father.  Just
+open my writing-desk there, and toss out the cheque-book.  I confess I
+can't see why you should have objected--but let that pass.  How much do
+you want?  Fifty?  Say forty-five, and five I'll give you to pay to
+Sedgett--making fifty.  Eighty before, and fifty--one hundred and thirty.
+Write that you owe me that sum, on a piece of paper.  I can't see why you
+should wish to appear so uncommonly virtuous."
+
+Algernon scribbled the written acknowledgment, which he despised himself
+for giving, and the receiver for taking, but was always ready to give for
+the money, and said, as he put the cheque in his purse: "It was this
+infernal fellow completely upset me.  If you were worried by a bull-dog,
+by Jove, Ned, you'd lose your coolness.  He bothered my head off.  Ask me
+now, and I'll do anything on earth for you.  My back's broad.  Sir Billy
+can't think worse of me than he does.  Do you want to break positively
+with that pretty rival to Peggy L.?  I've got a scheme to relieve you, my
+poor old Ned, and make everybody happy.  I'll lay the foundations of a
+fresh and brilliant reputation for myself."
+
+Algernon took a chair.  Edward was fathoms deep in his book.
+
+The former continued: "I'd touch on the money-question last, with any
+other fellow than you; but you always know that money's the hinge, and
+nothing else lifts a man out of a scrape.  It costs a stiff pull on your
+banker, and that reminds me, you couldn't go to Sir Billy for it; you'd
+have to draw in advance, by degrees anyhow, look here:--There are lots of
+young farmers who want to emigrate and want wives and money.  I know one.
+It's no use going into particulars, but it's worth thinking over.  Life
+is made up of mutual help, Ned.  You can help another fellow better than
+yourself.  As for me, when I'm in a hobble, I give you my word of honour,
+I'm just like a baby, and haven't an idea at my own disposal.  The same
+with others.  You can't manage without somebody's assistance.  What do
+you say, old boy?"
+
+Edward raised his head from his book.  "Some views of life deduced from
+your private experience?" he observed; and Algernon cursed at book-worms,
+who would never take hints, and left him.
+
+But when he was by himself, Edward pitched his book upon the floor and
+sat reflecting.  The sweat started on his forehead.  He was compelled to
+look into his black volume and study it.  His desire was to act humanely
+and generously; but the question inevitably recurred: "How can I utterly
+dash my prospects in the world?"  It would be impossible to bring Dahlia
+to great houses; and he liked great houses and the charm of mixing among
+delicately-bred women.  On the other hand, lawyers have married beneath
+them--married cooks, housemaids, governesses, and so forth.  And what has
+a lawyer to do with a dainty lady, who will constantly distract him with
+finicking civilities and speculations in unprofitable regions?  What he
+does want is a woman amiable as a surface of parchment, serviceable as
+his inkstand; one who will be like the wig in which he closes his
+forensic term, disreputable from overwear, but suited to the purpose.
+
+"Ah! if I meant to be nothing but a lawyer!"  Edward stopped the flow of
+this current in Dahlia's favour.  His passion for her was silent.  Was it
+dead?  It was certainly silent.  Since Robert had come down to play his
+wild game of persecution at Fairly, the simple idea of Dahlia had been
+Edward's fever.  He detested brute force, with a finely-witted man's full
+loathing; and Dahlia's obnoxious champion had grown to be associated in
+his mind with Dahlia.  He swept them both from his recollection
+abhorrently, for in his recollection he could not divorce them.  He
+pretended to suppose that Dahlia, whose only reproach to him was her
+suffering, participated in the scheme to worry him.  He could even forget
+her beauty--forget all, save the unholy fetters binding him.  She seemed
+to imprison him in bare walls.  He meditated on her character.  She had
+no strength.  She was timid, comfort-loving, fond of luxury, credulous,
+preposterously conventional; that is, desirous more than the ordinary run
+of women of being hedged about and guarded by ceremonies--"mere
+ceremonies," said Edward, forgetting the notion he entertained of women
+not so protected.  But it may be, that in playing the part of fool and
+coward, we cease to be mindful of the absolute necessity for sheltering
+the weak from that monstrous allied army, the cowards and the fools.  He
+admitted even to himself that he had deceived her, at the same time
+denouncing her unheard-of capacity of belief, which had placed him in a
+miserable hobble, and that was the truth.
+
+Now, men confessing themselves in a miserable hobble, and knowing they
+are guilty of the state of things lamented by them, intend to drown that
+part of their nature which disturbs them by its outcry.  The submission
+to a tangle that could be cut through instantaneously by any exertion of
+a noble will, convicts them.  They had better not confide, even to their
+secret hearts, that they are afflicted by their conscience and the
+generosity of their sentiments, for it will be only to say that these
+high qualities are on the failing side.  Their inclination, under the
+circumstances, is generally base, and no less a counsellor than
+uncorrupted common sense, when they are in such a hobble, will sometimes
+advise them to be base.  But, in admitting the plea which common sense
+puts forward on their behalf, we may fairly ask them to be masculine in
+their baseness.  Or, in other words, since they must be selfish, let them
+be so without the poltroonery of selfishness.  Edward's wish was to be
+perfectly just, as far as he could be now--just to himself as well; for
+how was he to prove of worth and aid to any one depending on him, if he
+stood crippled?  Just, also, to his family; to his possible posterity;
+and just to Dahlia.  His task was to reconcile the variety of justness
+due upon all sides.  The struggle, we will assume, was severe, for he
+thought so; he thought of going to Dahlia and speaking the word of
+separation; of going to her family and stating his offence, without
+personal exculpation; thus masculine in baseness, he was in idea; but
+poltroonery triumphed, the picture of himself facing his sin and its
+victims dismayed him, and his struggle ended in his considering as to the
+fit employment of one thousand pounds in his possession, the remainder of
+a small legacy, hitherto much cherished.
+
+A day later, Mrs. Lovell said to him: "Have you heard of that unfortunate
+young man?  I am told that he lies in great danger from a blow on the
+back of his head.  He looked ill when I saw him, and however mad he may
+be, I'm sorry harm should have come to one who is really brave.  Gentle
+means are surely best.  It is so with horses, it must be so with men.  As
+to women, I don't pretend to unriddle them."
+
+"Gentle means are decidedly best," said Edward, perceiving that her
+little dog Algy had carried news to her, and that she was setting herself
+to fathom him.  "You gave an eminent example of it yesterday.  I was so
+sure of the result that I didn't bet against you."
+
+"Why not have backed me?"
+
+The hard young legal face withstood the attack of her soft blue eyes, out
+of which a thousand needles flew, seeking a weak point in the mask.
+
+"The compliment was, to incite you to a superhuman effort."
+
+"Then why not pay the compliment?"
+
+"I never pay compliments to transparent merit; I do not hold candles to
+lamps."
+
+"True," said she.
+
+"And as gentle means are so admirable, it would be as well to stop
+incision and imbruing between those two boys."
+
+"Which?" she asked innocently.
+
+"Suckling and Algy."
+
+"Is it possible?  They are such boys."
+
+"Exactly of the kind to do it.  Don't you know?" and Edward explained
+elaborately and cruelly the character of the boys who rushed into
+conflicts.  Colour deep as evening red confused her cheeks, and she
+said, "We must stop them."
+
+"Alas!" he shook his head; "if it's not too late."
+
+"It never is too late."
+
+"Perhaps not, when the embodiment of gentle means is so determined."
+
+"Come; I believe they are in the billiard room now, and you shall see,"
+she said.
+
+The pair were found in the billiard room, even as a pair of terriers that
+remember a bone.  Mrs. Lovell proposed a game, and offered herself for
+partner to Lord Suckling.
+
+"Till total defeat do us part," the young nobleman acquiesced; and total
+defeat befell them.  During the play of the balls, Mrs. Lovell threw a
+jealous intentness of observation upon all the strokes made by Algernon;
+saying nothing, but just looking at him when he did a successful thing.
+She winked at some quiet stately betting that went on between him and
+Lord Suckling.
+
+They were at first preternaturally polite and formal toward one another;
+by degrees, the influence at work upon them was manifested in a thaw of
+their stiff demeanour, and they fell into curt dialogues, which Mrs.
+Lovell gave herself no concern to encourage too early.
+
+Edward saw, and was astonished himself to feel that she had ceased to
+breathe that fatal inciting breath, which made men vindictively emulous
+of her favour, and mad to match themselves for a claim to the chief
+smile.  No perceptible change was displayed.  She was Mrs. Lovell still;
+vivacious and soft; flame-coloured, with the arrowy eyelashes; a pleasant
+companion, who did not play the woman obtrusively among men, and show a
+thirst for homage.  All the difference appeared to be, that there was an
+absence as of some evil spiritual emanation.
+
+And here a thought crossed him--one of the memorable little evanescent
+thoughts which sway us by our chance weakness; "Does she think me wanting
+in physical courage?"
+
+Now, though the difference between them had been owing to a scornful
+remark that she had permitted herself to utter, on his refusal to accept
+a quarrel with one of her numerous satellites, his knowledge of her
+worship of brains, and his pride in his possession of the burdensome
+weight, had quite precluded his guessing that she might haply suppose him
+to be deficient in personal bravery.  He was astounded by the reflection
+that she had thus misjudged him.  It was distracting; sober-thoughted as
+he was by nature.  He watched the fair simplicity of her new manner with
+a jealous eye.  Her management of the two youths was exquisite; but to
+him, Edward, she had never condescended to show herself thus mediating
+and amiable.  Why?  Clearly, because she conceived that he had no virile
+fire in his composition.  Did the detestable little devil think silly
+duelling a display of valour? Did the fair seraph think him anything less
+than a man?
+
+How beautifully hung the yellow loop of her hair as she leaned over the
+board!  How gracious she was and like a Goddess with these boys, as he
+called them!  She rallied her partner, not letting him forget that he had
+the honour of being her partner; while she appeared envious of Algernon's
+skill, and talked to both and got them upon common topics, and laughed,
+and was like a fair English flower of womanhood; nothing deadly.
+
+"There, Algy; you have beaten us.  I don't think I'll have Lord Suckling
+for my partner any more," she said, putting up her wand, and pouting.
+
+"You don't bear malice?" said Algernon, revived.
+
+"There is my hand.  Now you must play a game alone with Lord Suckling,
+and beat him; mind you beat him, or it will redound to my discredit."
+
+With which, she and Edward left them.
+
+"Algy was a little crestfallen, and no wonder," she said.  "He is soon
+set up again.  They will be good friends now."
+
+"Isn't it odd, that they should be ready to risk their lives for
+trifles?"
+
+Thus Edward tempted her to discuss the subject which he had in his mind.
+
+She felt intuitively the trap in his voice.
+
+"Ah, yes," she replied; "it must be because they know their lives are not
+precious."
+
+So utterly at her mercy had he fallen, that her pronunciation of that
+word "precious" carried a severe sting to him, and it was not spoken with
+peculiar emphasis; on the contrary, she wished to indicate that she was
+of his way of thinking, as regarded this decayed method of settling
+disputes.  He turned to leave her.
+
+"You go to your Adeline, I presume," she said.
+
+"Ah! that reminds me.  I have never thanked you."
+
+"For my good services? such as they are.  Sir William will be very happy,
+and it was for him, a little more than for you, that I went out of my way
+to be a matchmaker."
+
+"It was her character, of course, that struck you as being so eminently
+suited to mine."
+
+"Can I tell what is the character of a girl?  She is mild and shy, and
+extremely gentle.  In all probability she has a passion for battles and
+bloodshed.  I judged from your father's point of view.  She has money,
+and you are to have money; and the union of money and money is supposed
+to be a good thing.  And besides, you are variable, and off to-morrow
+what you are on to-day; is it not so? and heiresses are never jilted.
+Colonel Barclay is only awaiting your retirement.  Le roi est mort; vive
+le roi!  Heiresses may cry it like kingdoms."
+
+"I thought," said Edward, meaningly, "the colonel had better taste."
+
+"Do you not know that my friends are my friends because they are not
+allowed to dream they will do anything else?  If they are taken poorly, I
+commend them to a sea-voyage--Africa, the North-West Passage, the source
+of the Nile.  Men with their vanity wounded may discover wonders!  They
+return friendly as before, whether they have done the Geographical
+Society a service or not.  That is, they generally do."
+
+"Then I begin to fancy I must try those latitudes."
+
+"Oh! you are my relative."
+
+He scarcely knew that he had uttered "Margaret."
+
+She replied to it frankly, "Yes, Cousin Ned.  You have made the voyage,
+you see, and have come back friends with me.  The variability of opals!
+Ah! Sir John, you join us in season.  We were talking of opals.  Is the
+opal a gem that stands to represent women?"
+
+Sir John Capes smoothed his knuckles with silken palms, and with
+courteous antique grin, responded, "It is a gem I would never dare to
+offer to a lady's acceptance."
+
+"It is by repute unlucky; so you never can have done so.
+
+"Exquisite!" exclaimed the veteran in smiles, "if what you deign to imply
+were only true!"
+
+They entered the drawing-room among the ladies.
+
+Edward whispered in Mrs. Lovell's ear, "He is in need of the voyage."
+
+"He is very near it," she answered in the same key, and swam into general
+conversation.
+
+Her cold wit, Satanic as the gleam of it struck through his mind, gave
+him a throb of desire to gain possession of her, and crush her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+The writing of a letter to Dahlia had previously been attempted and
+abandoned as a sickening task.  Like an idle boy with his holiday
+imposition, Edward shelved it among the nightmares, saying, "How can I
+sit down and lie to her!" and thinking that silence would prepare her
+bosom for the coming truth.
+
+Silence is commonly the slow poison used by those who mean to murder
+love.  There is nothing violent about it; no shock is given; Hope is not
+abruptly strangled, but merely dreams of evil, and fights with gradually
+stifling shadows.  When the last convulsions come they are not terrific;
+the frame has been weakened for dissolution; love dies like natural
+decay.  It seems the kindest way of doing a cruel thing.  But Dahlia
+wrote, crying out her agony at the torture.  Possibly your nervously
+organized natures require a modification of the method.
+
+Edward now found himself able to conduct a correspondence.  He despatched
+the following:--
+
+     "My Dear Dahlia,--Of course I cannot expect you to be aware of the
+     bewildering occupations of a country house, where a man has
+     literally not five minutes' time to call his own; so I pass by your
+     reproaches.  My father has gone at last.  He has manifested an
+     extraordinary liking for my society, and I am to join him elsewhere
+     --perhaps run over to Paris (your city)--but at present for a few
+     days I am my own master, and the first thing I do is to attend to
+     your demands: not to write 'two lines,' but to give you a good long
+     letter.
+
+     "What on earth makes you fancy me unwell?  You know I am never
+     unwell.  And as to your nursing me--when has there ever been any
+     need for it?
+
+     "You must positively learn patience.  I have been absent a week or
+     so, and you talk of coming down here and haunting the house!  Such
+     ghosts as you meet with strange treatment when they go about
+     unprotected, let me give you warning.  You have my full permission
+     to walk out in the Parks for exercise.  I think you are bound to do
+     it, for your health's sake.
+
+     "Pray discontinue that talk about the alteration in your looks.  You
+     must learn that you are no longer a child.  Cease to write like a
+     child.  If people stare at you, as you say, you are very well aware
+     it is not because you are becoming plain.  You do not mean it, I
+     know; but there is a disingenuousness in remarks of this sort that
+     is to me exceedingly distasteful.  Avoid the shadow of hypocrisy.
+     Women are subject to it--and it is quite innocent, no doubt.  I
+     won't lecture you.
+
+     "My cousin Algernon is here with me.  He has not spoken of your
+     sister.  Your fears in that direction are quite unnecessary.  He is
+     attached to a female cousin of ours, a very handsome person, witty,
+     and highly sensible, who dresses as well as the lady you talk about
+     having seen one day in Wrexby Church.  Her lady's-maid is a
+     Frenchwoman, which accounts for it.  You have not forgotten the
+     boulevards?
+
+     "I wish you to go on with your lessons in French.  Educate yourself,
+     and you will rise superior to these distressing complaints.  I
+     recommend you to read the newspapers daily.  Buy nice picture-books,
+     if the papers are too matter-of-fact for you.  By looking eternally
+     inward, you teach yourself to fret, and the consequence is, or will
+     be, that you wither.  No constitution can stand it.  All the ladies
+     here take an interest in Parliamentary affairs.  They can talk to
+     men upon men's themes.  It is impossible to explain to you how
+     wearisome an everlasting nursery prattle becomes.  The idea that men
+     ought never to tire of it is founded on some queer belief that they
+     are not mortal.
+
+     "Parliament opens in February.  My father wishes me to stand for
+     Selborough.  If he or some one will do the talking to the tradesmen,
+     and provide the beer and the bribes, I have no objection.  In that
+     case my Law goes to the winds.  I'm bound to make a show of
+     obedience, for he has scarcely got over my summer's trip.  He holds
+     me a prisoner to him for heaven knows how long--it may be months.
+
+     "As for the heiress whom he has here to make a match for me, he and
+     I must have a pitched battle about her by and by.  At present my
+     purse insists upon my not offending him.  When will old men
+     understand young ones?  I burn your letters, and beg you to follow
+     the example.  Old letters are the dreariest ghosts in the world, and
+     you cannot keep more treacherous rubbish in your possession.  A
+     discovery would exactly ruin me.
+
+     "Your purchase of a black-velvet bonnet with pink ribands, was very
+     suitable.  Or did you write 'blue' ribands?  But your complexion can
+     bear anything.
+
+     "You talk of being annoyed when you walk out.  Remember, that no
+     woman who knows at all how to conduct herself need for one moment
+     suffer annoyance.
+
+     "What is the 'feeling' you speak of?  I cannot conceive any
+     'feeling' that should make you helpless when you consider that you
+     are insulted.  There are women who have natural dignity, and women
+     who have none.
+
+     "You ask the names of the gentlemen here:--Lord Carey, Lord Wippern
+     (both leave to-morrow), Sir John Capes, Colonel Barclay, Lord
+     Suckling.  The ladies:--Mrs. Gosling, Miss Gosling, Lady Carey.
+     Mrs. Anybody--to any extent.
+
+     "They pluck hen's feathers all day and half the night.  I see them
+     out, and make my bow to the next batch of visitors, and then I don't
+     know where I am.
+
+     "Read poetry, if it makes up for my absence, as you say.  Repeat it
+     aloud, minding the pulsation of feet.  Go to the theatre now and
+     then, and take your landlady with you.  If she's a cat, fit one of
+     your dresses on the servant-girl, and take her.  You only want a
+     companion--a dummy will do.  Take a box and sit behind the curtain,
+     back to the audience.
+
+     "I wrote to my wine-merchant to send Champagne and Sherry.  I hope
+     he did: the Champagne in pints and half-pints; if not, return them
+     instantly.  I know how Economy, sitting solitary, poor thing, would
+     not dare to let the froth of a whole pint bottle fly out.
+
+     "Be an obedient girl and please me.
+
+                    "Your stern tutor,
+
+                         "Edward the First."
+
+He read this epistle twice over to satisfy himself that it was a warm
+effusion, and not too tender; and it satisfied him.  By a stretch of
+imagination, he could feel that it represented him to her as in a higher
+atmosphere, considerate for her, and not so intimate that she could deem
+her spirit to be sharing it.  Another dose of silence succeeded this
+discreet administration of speech.
+
+Dahlia replied with letter upon letter; blindly impassioned, and again
+singularly cold; but with no reproaches.  She was studying, she said.
+Her head ached a little; only a little.  She walked; she read poetry; she
+begged him to pardon her for not drinking wine.  She was glad that he
+burnt her letters, which were so foolish that if she could have the
+courage to look at them after they were written, they would never be
+sent.  He was slightly revolted by one exclamation: "How ambitious you
+are!"
+
+"Because I cannot sit down for life in a London lodging-house!" he
+thought, and eyed her distantly as a poor good creature who had already
+accepted her distinctive residence in another sphere than his.  From such
+a perception of her humanity, it was natural that his livelier sense of
+it should diminish.  He felt that he had awakened; and he shook her off.
+
+And now he set to work to subdue Mrs. Lovell.  His own subjugation was
+the first fruit of his effort.  It was quite unacknowledged by him: but
+when two are at this game, the question arises--"Which can live without
+the other?" and horrid pangs smote him to hear her telling musically of
+the places she was journeying to, the men she would see, and the chances
+of their meeting again before he was married to the heiress Adeline.
+
+"I have yet to learn that I am engaged to her," he said.  Mrs. Lovell
+gave him a fixed look,--
+
+"She has a half-brother."
+
+He stepped away in a fury.
+
+"Devil!" he muttered, absolutely muttered it, knowing that he fooled and
+frowned like a stage-hero in stagey heroics.  "You think to hound me into
+this brutal stupidity of fighting, do you?  Upon my honour," he added in
+his natural manner, "I believe she does, though!"
+
+But the look became his companion.  It touched and called up great vanity
+in his breast, and not till then could he placably confront the look.  He
+tried a course of reading.  Every morning he was down in the library,
+looking old in an arm-chair over his book; an intent abstracted figure.
+
+Mrs. Lovell would enter and eye him carelessly; utter little commonplaces
+and go forth.  The silly words struck on his brain.  The book seemed
+hollow; sounded hollow as he shut it.  This woman breathed of active
+striving life.  She was a spur to black energies; a plumed glory;
+impulsive to chivalry.  Everything she said and did held men in scales,
+and approved or rejected them.
+
+Intoxication followed this new conception of her.  He lost altogether his
+right judgement; even the cooler after-thoughts were lost.  What sort of
+man had Harry been, her first husband?  A dashing soldier, a quarrelsome
+duellist, a dull dog.  But, dull to her?  She, at least, was reverential
+to the memory of him.
+
+She lisped now and then of "my husband," very prettily, and with intense
+provocation; and yet she worshipped brains.  Evidently she thirsted for
+that rare union of brains and bravery in a man, and would never surrender
+till she had discovered it.  Perhaps she fancied it did not exist.  It
+might be that she took Edward as the type of brains, and Harry of
+bravery, and supposed that the two qualities were not to be had actually
+in conjunction.
+
+Her admiration of his (Edward's) wit, therefore, only strengthened the
+idea she entertained of his deficiency in that other companion manly
+virtue.
+
+Edward must have been possessed, for he ground his teeth villanously in
+supposing himself the victim of this outrageous suspicion.  And how to
+prove it false?  How to prove it false in a civilized age, among sober-
+living men and women, with whom the violent assertion of bravery would
+certainly imperil his claim to brains?  His head was like a stew-pan over
+the fire, bubbling endlessly.
+
+He railed at her to Algernon, and astonished the youth, who thought them
+in a fair way to make an alliance.  "Milk and capsicums," he called her,
+and compared her to bloody mustard-haired Saxon Queens of history, and
+was childishly spiteful.  And Mrs. Lovell had it all reported to her, as
+he was-quite aware.
+
+"The woman seeking for an anomaly wants a master."
+
+With this pompous aphorism, he finished his reading of the fair Enigma.
+
+Words big in the mouth serve their turn when there is no way of
+satisfying the intelligence.
+
+To be her master, however, one must not begin by writhing as her slave.
+
+The attempt to read an inscrutable woman allows her to dominate us too
+commandingly.  So the lordly mind takes her in a hard grasp, cracks the
+shell, and drawing forth the kernel, says, "This was all the puzzle."
+
+Doubtless it is the fate which women like Mrs. Lovell provoke.  The truth
+was, that she could read a character when it was under her eyes; but its
+yesterday and to-morrow were a blank.  She had no imaginative hold on
+anything.  For which reason she was always requiring tangible signs of
+virtues that she esteemed.
+
+The thirst for the shows of valour and wit was insane with her; but she
+asked for nothing that she herself did not give in abundance, and with
+beauty super-added.  Her propensity to bet sprang of her passion for
+combat; she was not greedy of money, or reckless in using it; but a
+difference of opinion arising, her instinct forcibly prompted her to back
+her own.  If the stake was the risk of a lover's life, she was ready to
+put down the stake, and would have marvelled contemptuously at the lover
+complaining.  "Sheep! sheep!" she thought of those who dared not fight,
+and had a wavering tendency to affix the epithet to those who simply did
+not fight.
+
+Withal, Mrs. Lovell was a sensible person; clearheaded and shrewd;
+logical, too, more than the run of her sex: I may say, profoundly
+practical.  So much so, that she systematically reserved the after-years
+for enlightenment upon two or three doubts of herself, which struck her
+in the calm of her spirit, from time to time.
+
+"France," Edward called her, in one of their colloquies.
+
+It was an illuminating title.  She liked the French (though no one was
+keener for the honour of her own country in opposition to them), she
+liked their splendid boyishness, their unequalled devotion, their
+merciless intellects; the oneness of the nation when the sword is bare
+and pointing to chivalrous enterprise.
+
+She liked their fine varnish of sentiment, which appears so much on the
+surface that Englishmen suppose it to have nowhere any depth; as if the
+outer coating must necessarily exhaust the stock, or as if what is at the
+source of our being can never be made visible.
+
+She had her imagination of them as of a streaming banner in the jaws of
+storm, with snows among the cloud-rents and lightning in the chasms:--
+which image may be accounted for by the fact that when a girl she had in
+adoration kissed the feet of Napoleon, the giant of the later ghosts of
+history.
+
+It was a princely compliment.  She received it curtseying, and disarmed
+the intended irony.  In reply, she called him "Great Britain."  I regret
+to say that he stood less proudly for his nation.  Indeed, he flushed.
+He remembered articles girding at the policy of peace at any price, and
+half felt that Mrs. Lovell had meant to crown him with a Quaker's hat.
+His title fell speedily into disuse; but, "Yes, France," and "No,
+France," continued, his effort being to fix the epithet to frivolous
+allusions, from which her ingenuity rescued it honourably.
+
+Had she ever been in love?  He asked her the question.  She stabbed him
+with so straightforward an affirmative that he could not conceal the
+wound.
+
+"Have I not been married?" she said.
+
+He began to experience the fretful craving to see the antecedents of the
+torturing woman spread out before him.  He conceived a passion for her
+girlhood.  He begged for portraits of her as a girl.  She showed him the
+portrait of Harry Lovell in a locket.  He held the locket between his
+fingers.  Dead Harry was kept very warm.  Could brains ever touch her
+emotions as bravery had done?
+
+"Where are the brains I boast of?" he groaned, in the midst of these
+sensational extravagances.
+
+The lull of action was soon to be disturbed.  A letter was brought to
+him.
+
+He opened it and read--
+
+     "Mr. Edward Blancove,--When you rode by me under Fairly Park, I did
+     not know you.  I can give you a medical certificate that since then
+     I have been in the doctor's hands.  I know you now.  I call upon you
+     to meet me, with what weapons you like best, to prove that you are
+     not a midnight assassin.  The place shall be where you choose to
+     appoint.  If you decline I will make you publicly acknowledge what
+     you have done.  If you answer, that I am not a gentleman and you are
+     one, I say that you have attacked me in the dark, when I was on
+     horseback, and you are now my equal, if I like to think so.  You
+     will not talk about the law after that night.  The man you employed
+     I may punish or I may leave, though he struck the blow.  But I will
+     meet you.  To-morrow, a friend of mine, who is a major in the army,
+     will be down here, and will call on you from me; or on any friend of
+     yours you are pleased to name.  I will not let you escape.  Whether
+     I shall face a guilty man in you, God knows; but I know I have a
+     right to call upon you to face me.
+
+                    "I am, Sir,
+                         "Yours truly,
+
+                              "Robert Eccles."
+
+Edward's face grew signally white over the contents of this unprecedented
+challenge.  The letter had been brought in to him at the breakfast table.
+"Read it, read it," said Mrs. Lovell, seeing him put it by; and he had
+read it with her eyes on him.
+
+The man seemed to him a man of claws, who clutched like a demon.  Would
+nothing quiet him?  Edward thought of bribes for the sake of peace; but a
+second glance at the letter assured his sagacious mind that bribes were
+powerless in this man's case; neither bribes nor sticks were of service.
+Departure from Fairly would avail as little: the tenacious devil would
+follow him to London; and what was worse, as a hound from Dahlia's family
+he was now on the right scent, and appeared to know that he was.  How was
+a scandal to be avoided?  By leaving Fairly instantly for any place on
+earth, he could not avoid leaving the man behind; and if the man saw Mrs.
+Lovell again, her instincts as a woman of her class were not to be
+trusted.  As likely as not she would side with the ruffian; that is, she
+would think he had been wronged--perhaps think that he ought to have been
+met.  There is the democratic virus secret in every woman; it was
+predominant in Mrs. Lovell, according to Edward's observation of the
+lady.  The rights of individual manhood were, as he angrily perceived,
+likely to be recognized by her spirit, if only they were stoutly
+asserted; and that in defiance of station, of reason, of all the ideas
+inculcated by education and society.
+
+"I believe she'll expect me to fight him," he exclaimed.  At least, he
+knew she would despise him if he avoided the brutal challenge without
+some show of dignity.
+
+On rising from the table, he drew Algernon aside.  It was an insufferable
+thought that he was compelled to take his brainless cousin into his
+confidence, even to the extent of soliciting his counsel, but there was
+no help for it.  In vain Edward asked himself why he had been such an
+idiot as to stain his hands with the affair at all.  He attributed it to
+his regard for Algernon.  Having commonly the sway of his passions, he
+was in the habit of forgetting that he ever lost control of them; and the
+fierce black mood, engendered by Robert's audacious persecution, had
+passed from his memory, though it was now recalled in full force.
+
+"See what a mess you drag a man into," he said.
+
+Algernon read a line of the letter.  "Oh, confound this infernal fellow!"
+he shouted, in sickly wonderment; and snapped sharp, "drag you into the
+mess?  Upon my honour, your coolness, Ned, is the biggest part about you,
+if it isn't the best."
+
+Edward's grip fixed on him, for they were only just out of earshot of
+Mrs. Lovell.  They went upstairs, and Algernon read the letter through.
+
+"'Midnight assassin,'" he repeated; "by Jove! how beastly that sounds.
+It's a lie that you attacked him in the dark, Ned--eh?"
+
+"I did not attack him at all," said Edward.  "He behaved like a ruffian
+to you, and deserved shooting like a mad dog."
+
+"Did you, though," Algernon persisted in questioning, despite his
+cousin's manifest shyness of the subject "did you really go out with that
+man Sedgett, and stop this fellow on horseback?  He speaks of a blow.
+You didn't strike him, did you, Ned?  I mean, not a hit, except in
+self-defence?"
+
+Edward bit his lip, and shot a level reflective side-look, peculiar to
+him when meditating.  He wished his cousin to propose that Mrs. Lovell
+should see the letter.  He felt that by consulting with her, he could
+bring her to apprehend the common sense of the position, and be so far
+responsible for what he might do, that she would not dare to let her
+heart be rebellious toward him subsequently.  If he himself went to her
+it would look too much like pleading for her intercession.  The subtle
+directness of the woman's spirit had to be guarded against at every
+point.
+
+He replied to Algernon,--
+
+"What I did was on your behalf.  Oblige me by not interrogating me.  I
+give you my positive assurance that I encouraged no unmanly assault on
+him."
+
+"That'll do, that'll do," said Algernon, eager not to hear more, lest
+there should come an explanation of what he had heard.  "Of course, then,
+this fellow has no right--the devil's in him!  If we could only make him
+murder Sedgett and get hanged for it!  He's got a friend who's a major in
+the army?  Oh, come, I say; this is pitching it too stiff.  I shall
+insist upon seeing his commission.  Really, Ned, I can't advise.  I'll
+stand by you, that you may be sure of--stand by you; but what the deuce
+to say to help you!  Go before the magistrate....  Get Lord Elling to
+issue a warrant to prevent a breach of the peace.  No; that won't do.
+This quack of a major in the army's to call to-morrow.  I don't mind, if
+he shows his credentials all clear, amusing him in any manner he likes.
+I can't see the best scheme.  Hang it, Ned, it's very hard upon me to ask
+me to do the thinking.  I always go to Peggy Lovell when I'm bothered.
+There--Mrs. Lovell!  Mistress Lovell!  Madame! my Princess Lovell, if you
+want me to pronounce respectable titles to her name.  You're too proud to
+ask a woman to help you, ain't you, Ned?"
+
+"No," said Edward, mildly.  "In some cases their wits are keen enough.
+One doesn't like to drag her into such a business."
+
+"Hm," went Algernon.  "I don't think she's so innocent of it as you
+fancy."
+
+"She's very clever," said Edward.
+
+"She's awfully clever!" cried Algernon.  He paused to give room for more
+praises of her, and then pursued:
+
+"She's so kind.  That's what you don't credit her for.  I'll go and
+consult her, if positively you don't mind.  Trust her for keeping it
+quiet.  Come, Ned, she's sure to hit upon the right thing.  May I go?"
+
+"It's your affair, more than mine," said Edward.
+
+"Have it so, if you like," returned the good-natured fellow.  "It's worth
+while consulting her, just to see how neatly she'll take it.  Bless your
+heart, she won't know a bit more than you want her to know.  I'm off to
+her now."  He carried away the letter.
+
+Edward's own practical judgement would have advised his instantly sending
+a short reply to Robert, explaining that he was simply in conversation
+with the man Sedgett, when Robert, the old enemy of the latter, rode by,
+and, that while regretting Sedgett's proceedings, he could not be held
+accountable for them.  But it was useless to think of acting in
+accordance with his reason.  Mrs. Lovell was queen, and sat in reason's
+place.  It was absolutely necessary to conciliate her approbation of his
+conduct in this dilemma, by submitting to the decided unpleasantness of
+talking with her on a subject that fevered him, and of allowing her to
+suppose he required the help of her sagacity.  Such was the humiliation
+imposed upon him.  Further than this he had nothing to fear, for no woman
+could fail to be overborne by the masculine force of his brain in an
+argument.  The humiliation was bad enough, and half tempted him to think
+that his old dream of working as a hard student, with fair and gentle
+Dahlia ministering to his comforts, and too happy to call herself his,
+was best.  Was it not, after one particular step had been taken, the
+manliest life he could have shaped out?  Or did he imagine it so at this
+moment, because he was a coward, and because pride, and vanity, and
+ferocity alternately had to screw him up to meet the consequences of his
+acts, instead of the great heart?
+
+If a coward, Dahlia was his home, his refuge, his sanctuary.  Mrs. Lovell
+was perdition and its scorching fires to a man with a taint of cowardice
+in him.
+
+Whatever he was, Edward's vanity would not permit him to acknowledge
+himself that.  Still, he did not call on his heart to play inspiriting
+music.  His ideas turned to subterfuge.  His aim was to keep the good
+opinion of Mrs. Lovell while he quieted Robert; and he entered
+straightway upon that very perilous course, the attempt, for the sake of
+winning her, to bewilder and deceive a woman's instincts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Over a fire in one of the upper sitting-rooms of the Pilot Inn, Robert
+sat with his friend, the beloved friend of whom he used to speak to
+Dahlia and Rhoda, too proudly not to seem betraying the weaker point of
+pride.  This friend had accepted the title from a private soldier of his
+regiment; to be capable of doing which, a man must be both officer and
+gentleman in a sterner and less liberal sense than is expressed by that
+everlasting phrase in the mouth of the military parrot.  Major Percy
+Waring, the son of a clergyman, was a working soldier, a slayer, if you
+will, from pure love of the profession of arms, and all the while the
+sweetest and gentlest of men.  I call him a working soldier in opposition
+to the parading soldier, the, coxcomb in uniform, the hero by accident,
+and the martial boys of wealth and station, who are of the army of
+England.  He studied war when the trumpet slumbered, and had no place but
+in the field when it sounded.  To him the honour of England was as a babe
+in his arms: he hugged it like a mother.  He knew the military history of
+every regiment in the service.  Disasters even of old date brought groans
+from him.  This enthusiastic face was singularly soft when the large dark
+eyes were set musing.  The cast of it being such, sometimes in speaking
+of a happy play of artillery upon congregated masses, an odd effect was
+produced.  Ordinarily, the clear features were reflective almost to
+sadness, in the absence of animation; but an exulting energy for action
+would now and then light them up.  Hilarity of spirit did not belong to
+him.  He was, nevertheless, a cheerful talker, as could be seen in the
+glad ear given to him by Robert.  Between them it was "Robert" and
+"Percy."  Robert had rescued him from drowning on the East Anglian shore,
+and the friendship which ensued was one chief reason for Robert's
+quitting the post of trooper and buying himself out.  It was against
+Percy's advice, who wanted to purchase a commission for him; but the
+humbler man had the sturdy scruples of his rank regarding money, and his
+romantic illusions being dispersed by an experience of the absolute
+class-distinctions in the service, Robert; that he might prevent his
+friend from violating them, made use of his aunt's legacy to obtain
+release.  Since that date they had not met; but their friendship was
+fast.  Percy had recently paid a visit to Queen Anne's Farm, where he had
+seen Rhoda and heard of Robert's departure.  Knowing Robert's birthplace,
+he had come on to Warbeach, and had seen Jonathan Eccles, who referred
+him to Mrs. Boulby, licenced seller of brandy, if he wished to enjoy an
+interview with Robert Eccles.
+
+"The old man sent up regularly every day to inquire how his son was
+faring on the road to the next world," said Robert, laughing.  "He's
+tough old English oak.  I'm just to him what I appear at the time.  It's
+better having him like that than one of your jerky fathers, who seem to
+belong to the stage of a theatre.  Everybody respects my old dad, and I
+can laugh at what he thinks of me.  I've only to let him know I've served
+an apprenticeship in farming, and can make use of some of his ideas-
+-sound! every one of 'em; every one of 'em sound!  And that I say of my
+own father."
+
+"Why don't you tell him?" Percy asked.
+
+"I want to forget all about Kent and drown the county," said Robert.
+"And I'm going to, as far as my memory's concerned."
+
+Percy waited for some seconds.  He comprehended perfectly this state of
+wilfulness in an uneducated sensitive man.
+
+"She has a steadfast look in her face, Robert.  She doesn't look as if
+she trifled.  I've really never seen a finer, franker girl in my life, if
+faces are to be trusted."
+
+"It's t' other way.  There's no trifling in her case.  She's frank.  She
+fires at you point blank."
+
+"You never mentioned her in your letters to me, Robert."
+
+"No.  I had a suspicion from the first I was going to be a fool about the
+girl."
+
+Percy struck his hand.
+
+"You didn't do quite right."
+
+"Do you say that?"
+
+Robert silenced him with this question, for there was a woman in Percy's
+antecedent history.
+
+The subject being dismissed, they talked more freely.  Robert related the
+tale of Dahlia, and of his doings at Fairly.
+
+"Oh! we agree," he said, noting a curious smile that Percy could not
+smooth out of sight.  "I know it was odd conduct.  I do respect my
+superiors; but, believe me or not, Percy, injury done to a girl makes me
+mad, and I can't hold back; and she's the sister of the girl you saw.  By
+heaven! if it weren't for my head getting blind now when my blood boils,
+I've the mind to walk straight up to the house and screw the secret out
+of one of them.  What I say is--Is there a God up aloft?  Then, he sees
+all, and society is vapour, and while I feel the spirit in me to do it, I
+go straight at my aim."
+
+"If, at the same time, there's no brandy in you," said Percy, "which
+would stop your seeing clear or going straight."
+
+The suggestion was a cruel shock.  Robert nodded.  "That's true.  I
+suppose it's my bad education that won't let me keep cool.  I'm ashamed
+of myself after it.  I shout and thunder, and the end of it is, I go away
+and think about the same of Robert Eccles that I've frightened other
+people into thinking.  Perhaps you'll think me to blame in this case?
+One of those Mr. Blancoves--not the one you've heard of--struck me on the
+field before a lady.  I bore it.  It was part of what I'd gone out to
+meet.  I was riding home late at night, and he stood at the corner of the
+lane, with an old enemy of mine, and a sad cur that is!  Sedgett's his
+name--Nic, the Christian part of it.  There'd just come a sharp snowfall
+from the north, and the moonlight shot over the flying edge of the
+rear-cloud; and I saw Sedgett with a stick in his hand; but the gentleman
+had no stick.  I'll give Mr. Edward Blancove credit for not meaning to be
+active in a dastardly assault.
+
+"But why was he in consultation with my enemy?  And he let my enemy--by
+the way, Percy, you dislike that sort of talk of 'my enemy,' I know.  You
+like it put plain and simple: but down in these old parts again, I catch
+at old habits; and I'm always a worse man when I haven't seen you for a
+time.  Sedgett, say.  Sedgett, as I passed, made a sweep at my horse's
+knees, and took them a little over the fetlock.  The beast reared.  While
+I was holding on he swung a blow at me, and took me here."
+
+Robert touched his head.  "I dropped like a horse-chestnut from the tree.
+When I recovered, I was lying in the lane.  I think I was there flat,
+face to the ground, for half an hour, quite sensible, looking at the
+pretty colour of my blood on the snow.  The horse was gone.  I just
+managed to reel along to this place, where there's always a home for me.
+Now, will you believe it possible?  I went out next day: I saw Mr. Edward
+Blancove, and I might have seen a baby and felt the same to it.  I didn't
+know him a bit.  Yesterday morning your letter was sent up from Sutton
+farm.  Somehow, the moment I'd read it, I remembered his face.  I sent
+him word there was a matter to be settled between us.  You think I was
+wrong?"
+
+Major Waring had set a deliberately calculating eye on him.
+
+"I want to hear more," he said.
+
+"You think I have no claim to challenge a man in his position?"
+
+"Answer me first, Robert.  You think this Mr. Blancove helped, or
+instigated this man Sedgett in his attack upon you?"
+
+"I haven't a doubt that he did."
+
+"It's not plain evidence."
+
+"It's good circumstantial evidence."
+
+"At any rate, you are perhaps justified in thinking him capable of this:
+though the rule is, to believe nothing against a gentleman until it is
+flatly proved--when we drum him out of the ranks.  But, if you can fancy
+it true, would you put yourself upon an equal footing with him?"
+
+"I would," said Robert.
+
+"Then you accept his code of morals."
+
+"That's too shrewd for me: but men who preach against duelling, or any
+kind of man-to-man in hot earnest, always fence in that way."
+
+"I detest duelling," Major Waring remarked.  "I don't like a system that
+permits knaves and fools to exercise a claim to imperil the lives of
+useful men.  Let me observe, that I am not a preacher against it.  I
+think you know my opinions; and they are not quite those of the English
+magistrate, and other mild persons who are wrathful at the practice upon
+any pretence.  Keep to the other discussion.  You challenge a man--you
+admit him your equal.  But why do I argue with you?  I know your mind as
+well as my own.  You have some other idea in the background."
+
+"I feel that he's the guilty man," said Robert.
+
+"You feel called upon to punish him."
+
+"No.  Wait: he will not fight; but I have him and I'll hold him.  I feel
+he's the man who has injured this girl, by every witness of facts that I
+can bring together; and as for the other young fellow I led such a dog's
+life down here, I could beg his pardon.  This one's eye met mine.  I saw
+it wouldn't have stopped short of murder--opportunity given.  Why?
+Because I pressed on the right spring.  I'm like a woman in seeing some
+things.  He shall repent.  By--!  Slap me on the face, Percy.  I've taken
+to brandy and to swearing.  Damn the girl who made me forget good
+lessons!  Bless her heart, I mean.  She saw you, did she?  Did she colour
+when she heard your name?"
+
+"Very much," said Major Waring.
+
+"Was dressed in--?"
+
+"Black, with a crimson ribbon round the collar."
+
+Robert waved the image from his eyes.
+
+"I'm not going to dream of her.  Peace, and babies, and farming, and
+pride in myself with a woman by my side--there!  You've seen her--all
+that's gone.  I might as well ask the East wind to blow West.  Her face
+is set the other way.  Of course, the nature and value of a man is shown
+by how he takes this sort of pain; and hark at me!  I'm yelling.  I
+thought I was cured.  I looked up into the eyes of a lady ten times
+sweeter--when?--somewhen!  I've lost dates.  But here's the girl at me
+again.  She cuddles into me--slips her hand into my breast and tugs at
+strings there.  I can't help talking to you about her, now we've got over
+the first step.  I'll soon give it up.
+
+"She wore a red ribbon?  If it had been Spring, you'd have seen roses.
+Oh! what a stanch heart that girl has.  Where she sets it, mind!  Her
+life where that creature sets her heart!  But, for me, not a penny of
+comfort!  Now for a whole week of her, day and night, in that black dress
+with the coloured ribbon.  On she goes: walking to church; sitting at
+table; looking out of the window!
+
+"Will you believe I thought those thick eyebrows of hers ugly once--a
+tremendous long time ago.  Yes; but what eyes she has under them!  And if
+she looks tender, one corner of her mouth goes quivering; and the eyes
+are steady, so that it looks like some wonderful bit of mercy.
+
+"I think of that true-hearted creature praying and longing for her
+sister, and fearing there's shame--that's why she hates me.  I wouldn't
+say I was certain her sister had not fallen into a pit.  I couldn't.  I
+was an idiot.  I thought I wouldn't be a hypocrite.  I might have said I
+believed as she did.  There she stood ready to be taken--ready to have
+given herself to me, if I had only spoken a word!  It was a moment of
+heaven, and God the Father could not give it to me twice  The chance has
+gone.
+
+"Oh! what a miserable mad dog I am to gabble on in this way.--Come in!
+come in, mother."
+
+Mrs. Boulby entered, with soft footsteps, bearing a letter.
+
+"From the Park," she said, and commenced chiding Robert gently, to
+establish her right to do it with solemnity.
+
+"He will talk, sir.  He's one o' them that either they talk or they hang
+silent, and no middle way will they take; and the doctor's their foe, and
+health they despise; and since this cruel blow, obstinacy do seem to have
+been knocked like a nail into his head so fast, persuasion have not a
+atom o' power over him."
+
+"There must be talking when friends meet, ma'am," said Major Waring.
+
+"Ah!" returned the widow, "if it wouldn't be all on one side."
+
+"I've done now, mother," said Robert.
+
+Mrs. Boulby retired, and Robert opened the letter.
+
+It ran thus:--
+
+     "Sir, I am glad you have done me the favour of addressing me
+     temperately, so that I am permitted to clear myself of an unjust and
+     most unpleasant imputation.  I will, if you please, see you, or your
+     friend; to whom perhaps I shall better be able to certify how
+     unfounded is the charge you bring against me.  I will call upon you
+     at the Pilot Inn, where I hear that you are staying; or, if you
+     prefer it, I will attend to any appointment you may choose to direct
+     elsewhere.  But it must be immediate, as the term of my residence in
+     this neighbourhood is limited.
+
+                              "I am,
+                                   "Sir,
+                              "Yours obediently,
+
+                                        "Edward Blancove."
+
+Major Waning read the lines with a critical attention.
+
+"It seems fair and open," was his remark.
+
+"Here," Robert struck his breast, "here's what answers him.  What shall I
+do?  Shall I tell him to come?"
+
+"Write to say that your friend will meet him at a stated place."
+
+Robert saw his prey escaping.  "I'm not to see him?"
+
+"No.  The decent is the right way in such cases.  You must leave it to
+me.  This will be the proper method between gentlemen."
+
+"It appears to my idea," said Robert, "that gentlemen are always,
+somehow, stopped from taking the straight-ahead measure."
+
+"You," Percy rejoined, "are like a civilian before a fortress.  Either he
+finds it so easy that he can walk into it, or he gives it up in despair
+as unassailable.  You have followed your own devices, and what have you
+accomplished?"
+
+"He will lie to you smoothly."
+
+"Smoothly or not, if I discover that he has spoken falsely, he is
+answerable to me."
+
+"To me, Percy."
+
+"No; to me.  He can elude you; and will be acquitted by the general
+verdict.  But when he becomes answerable to me, his honour, in the
+conventional, which is here the practical, sense, is at stake, and I have
+him."
+
+"I see that.  Yes; he can refuse to fight me," Robert sighed.  "Hey,
+Lord! it's a heavy world when we come to methods.  But will you, Percy,
+will you put it to him at the end of your fist--'Did you deceive the
+girl, and do you know where the girl now is?'  Why, great heaven! we only
+ask to know where she is.  She may have been murdered.  She's hidden from
+her family.  Let him confess, and let him go."
+
+Major Waring shook his head.  "You see like a woman perhaps, Robert.  You
+certainly talk like a woman.  I will state your suspicions.  When I have
+done so, I am bound to accept his reply.  If we discover it to have been
+false, I have my remedy."
+
+"Won't you perceive, that it isn't my object to punish him by and by, but
+to tear the secret out of him on the spot--now--instantly," Robert cried.
+
+"I perceive your object, and you have experienced some of the results of
+your system.  It's the primitive action of an appeal to the god of
+combats, that is exploded in these days.  You have no course but to take
+his word."
+
+"She said"--Robert struck his knee--"she said I should have the girl's
+address.  She said she would see her.  She pledged that to me.  I'm
+speaking of the lady up at Fairly.  Come! things get clearer.  If she
+knows where Dahlia is, who told her?  This Mr. Algernon--not Edward
+Blancove--was seen with Dahlia in a box at the Playhouse.  He was there
+with Dahlia, yet I don't think him the guilty man.  There's a finger of
+light upon that other."
+
+"Who is this lady?" Major Waring asked, with lifted eyebrows.
+
+"Mrs. Lovell."
+
+At the name, Major Waring sat stricken.
+
+"Lovell!" he repeated, under his breath.  "Lovell!  Was she ever in
+India?"
+
+"I don't know, indeed."
+
+"Is she a widow?"
+
+"Ay; that I've heard."
+
+"Describe her."
+
+Robert entered upon the task with a dozen headlong exclamations, and very
+justly concluded by saying that he could give no idea of her; but his
+friend apparently had gleaned sufficient.
+
+Major Waring's face was touched by a strange pallor, and his smile had
+vanished.  He ran his fingers through his hair, clutching it in a knot,
+as he sat eyeing the red chasm in the fire, where the light of old days
+and wild memories hangs as in a crumbling world.
+
+Robert was aware of there being a sadness in Percy's life, and that he
+had loved a woman and awakened from his passion.  Her name was unknown to
+him.  In that matter, his natural delicacy and his deference to Percy had
+always checked him from sounding the subject closely.  He might be, as he
+had said, keen as a woman where his own instincts were in action; but
+they were ineffective in guessing at the cause for Percy's sudden
+depression.
+
+"She said--this lady, Mrs. Lovell, whoever she may be--she said you
+should have the girl's address:--gave you that pledge of her word?" Percy
+spoke, half meditating.  "How did this happen?  When did you see her?"
+
+Robert related the incident of his meeting with her, and her effort to be
+a peacemaker, but made no allusion to Mrs. Boulby's tale of the bet.
+
+"A peacemaker!" Percy interjected.  "She rides well?"
+
+"Best horsewoman I ever saw in my life," was Robert's ready answer.
+
+Major Waring brushed at his forehead, as in impatience of thought.
+
+"You must write two letters: one to this Mrs. Lovell.  Say, you are
+about to leave the place, and remind her of her promise.  It's
+incomprehensible; but never mind.  Write that first.  Then to the man.
+Say that your friend--by the way, this Mrs. Lovell has small hands, has
+she?  I mean, peculiarly small?  Did you notice, or not?  I may know her.
+Never mind.  Write to the man.  Say--don't write down my name--say that I
+will meet him."  Percy spoke on as in a dream.  "Appoint any place and
+hour.  To-morrow at ten, down by the river--the bridge.  Write briefly.
+Thank him for his offer to afford you explanations.  Don't argue it with
+me any more.  Write both the letters straight off."
+
+His back was to Robert as he uttered the injunction.  Robert took pen and
+paper, and did as he was bidden, with all the punctilious obedience of a
+man who consents perforce to see a better scheme abandoned.
+
+One effect of the equality existing between these two of diverse rank in
+life and perfect delicacy of heart, was, that the moment Percy assumed
+the lead, Robert never disputed it.  Muttering simply that he was
+incapable of writing except when he was in a passion, he managed to
+produce what, in Percy's eyes, were satisfactory epistles, though Robert
+had horrible misgivings in regard to his letter to Mrs. Lovell--the
+wording of it, the cast of the sentences, even down to the character of
+the handwriting.  These missives were despatched immediately.
+
+"You are sure she said that?" Major Waring inquired more than once during
+the afternoon, and Robert assured him that Mrs. Lovell had given him her
+word.  He grew very positive, and put it on his honour that she had said
+it.
+
+"You may have heard incorrectly."
+
+"I've got the words burning inside me," said Robert.
+
+They walked together, before dark, to Sutton Farm, but Jonathan Eccles
+was abroad in his fields, and their welcome was from Mistress Anne, whom
+Major Waring had not power to melt; the moment he began speaking praise
+of Robert, she closed her mouth tight and crossed her wrists meekly.
+
+"I see," said Major Waring, as they left the farm, "your aunt is of the
+godly who have no forgiveness."
+
+"I'm afraid so," cried Robert.  "Cold blood never will come to an
+understanding with hot blood, and the old lady's is like frozen milk.
+She's right in her way, I dare say.  I don't blame her.  Her piety's
+right enough, take it as you find it."
+
+Mrs. Boulby had a sagacious notion that gentlemen always dined well every
+day of their lives, and claimed that much from Providence as their due.
+She had exerted herself to spread a neat little repast for Major Waring,
+and waited on the friends herself; grieving considerably to observe that
+the major failed in his duty as a gentleman, as far as the relish of
+eating was concerned.
+
+"But," she said below at her bar, "he smokes the beautifullest--smelling
+cigars, and drinks coffee made in his own way.  He's very particular."
+Which was reckoned to be in Major Waring's favour.
+
+The hour was near midnight when she came into the room, bearing another
+letter from the Park.  She thumped it on the table, ruffling and making
+that pretence at the controlling of her bosom which precedes a feminine
+storm.  Her indignation was caused by a communication delivered by Dick
+Curtis, in the parlour underneath, to the effect that Nicodemus Sedgett
+was not to be heard of in the neighbourhood.
+
+Robert laughed at her, and called her Hebrew woman--eye-for-eye and
+tooth-for-tooth woman.
+
+"Leave real rascals to the Lord above, mother.  He's safe to punish them.
+They've stepped outside the chances.  That's my idea.  I wouldn't go out
+of my way to kick them--not I!  It's the half-and-half villains we've got
+to dispose of.  They're the mischief, old lady."
+
+Percy, however, asked some questions about Sedgett, and seemed to think
+his disappearance singular.  He had been examining the handwriting of the
+superscription to the letter.  His face was flushed as he tossed it for
+Robert to open.  Mrs. Boulby dropped her departing curtsey, and Robert
+read out, with odd pauses and puzzled emphasis:
+
+     "Mrs. Lovell has received the letter which Mr. Robert Eccles has
+     addressed to her, and regrets that a misconception should have
+     arisen from anything that was uttered during their interview.  The
+     allusions are obscure, and Mrs. Lovell can only remark, that she is
+     pained if she at all misled Mr. Eccles in what she either spoke or
+     promised.  She is not aware that she can be of any service to him.
+     Should such an occasion present itself, Mr. Eccles may rest assured
+     that she will not fail to avail herself of it, and do her utmost to
+     redeem a pledge to which he has apparently attached a meaning she
+     can in no way account for or comprehend."
+
+When Robert had finished, "It's like a female lawyer," he said.  "That
+woman speaking, and that woman writing, they're two different creatures--
+upon my soul, they are!  Quick, sharp, to the point, when she speaks; and
+read this!  Can I venture to say of a lady, she's a liar?"
+
+"Perhaps you had better not," said Major Waring, who took the letter in
+his hand and seemed to study it.  After which he transferred it to his
+pocket.
+
+"To-morrow?  To-morrow's Sunday," he observed.  "We will go to church
+to-morrow."  His eyes glittered.
+
+"Why, I'm hardly in the mood," Robert protested.  "I haven't had the
+habit latterly."
+
+"Keep up the habit," said Percy.  "It's a good thing for men like you."
+
+"But what sort of a fellow am I to be showing myself there among all the
+people who've been talking about me--and the people up at Fairly!" Robert
+burst out in horror of the prospect.  "I shall be a sight among the
+people.  Percy, upon my honour, I don't think I well can.  I'll read the
+Bible at home if you like."
+
+"No; you'll do penance," said Major Waring.
+
+"Are you meaning it?"
+
+"The penance will be ten times greater on my part, believe me."
+
+Robert fancied him to be referring to some idea of mocking the
+interposition of religion.
+
+"Then we'll go to Upton Church," he said.  "I don't mind it at Upton."
+
+"I intend to go to the church attended by 'The Family,' as we say in our
+parts; and you must come with me to Warbeach."
+
+Clasping one hand across his forehead, Robert cried, "You couldn't ask me
+to do a thing I hate so much.  Go, and sit, and look sheepish, and sing
+hymns with the people I've been badgering; and everybody seeing me!  How
+can it be anything to you like what it is to me?"
+
+"You have only to take my word for it that it is, and far more," said
+Major Waring, sinking his voice.  "Come; it won't do you any harm to make
+an appointment to meet your conscience now and then.  You will never be
+ruled by reason, and your feelings have to teach you what you learn.  At
+any rate, it's my request."
+
+This terminated the colloquy upon that topic.  Robert looked forward to a
+penitential Sabbath-day.
+
+"She is a widow still," thought Major Waring, as he stood alone in his
+bed-room, and, drawing aside the curtains of his window, looked up at the
+white moon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+When the sun takes to shining in winter, and the Southwest to blowing,
+the corners of the earth cannot hide from him--the mornings are like
+halls full of light.  Robert had spent his hopes upon a wet day that
+would have kept the congregation sparse and the guests at Fairly absent
+from public devotions.
+
+He perceived at once that he was doomed to be under everybody's eyes when
+he walked down the aisle, for everybody would attend the service on such
+a morning as this.
+
+Already he had met his conscience, in so far as that he shunned asking
+Percy again what was the reason for their going to church, and he had not
+the courage to petition to go in the afternoon instead of the morning.
+
+The question, "Are you ashamed of yourself, then?" sang in his ears as a
+retort ready made.
+
+There was no help for it; so he set about assisting his ingenuity to make
+the best appearance possible--brushing his hat and coat with
+extraordinary care.
+
+Percy got him to point out the spot designated for the meeting, and
+telling him to wait in the Warbeach churchyard, or within sight of it,
+strolled off in the direction of the river.  His simple neatness and
+quiet gentlemanly air abashed Robert, and lured him from his intense
+conception of abstract right and wrong, which had hitherto encouraged and
+incited him, so that he became more than ever crestfallen at the prospect
+of meeting the eyes of the church people, and with the trembling
+sensitiveness of a woman who weighs the merits of a lover when passion is
+having one of its fatal pauses, he looked at himself, and compared
+himself with the class of persons he had outraged, and tried to think
+better of himself, and to justify himself, and sturdily reject
+comparisons.  They would not be beaten back.  His enemies had never
+suggested them, but they were forced on him by the aspect of his friend.
+
+Any man who takes the law into his own hands, and chooses to stand
+against what is conventionally deemed fitting:--against the world, as we
+say, is open to these moods of degrading humility.  Robert waited for the
+sound of the bells with the emotions of a common culprit.  Could he have
+been driven to the church and deposited suddenly in his pew, his mind
+would have been easier.
+
+It was the walking there, the walking down the aisle, the sense of his
+being the fellow who had matched himself against those well-attired
+gentlemen, which entirely confused him.  And not exactly for his own
+sake--for Percy's partly.  He sickened at the thought of being seen by
+Major Waring's side.  His best suit and his hat were good enough, as far
+as they went, only he did not feel that he wore them--he could not divine
+how it was--with a proper air, an air of signal comfort.  In fact, the
+graceful negligence of an English gentleman's manner had been
+unexpectedly revealed to him; and it was strange, he reflected, that
+Percy never appeared to observe how deficient he was, and could still
+treat him as an equal, call him by his Christian name, and not object to
+be seen with him in public.
+
+Robert did not think at the same time that illness had impoverished his
+blood.  Your sensational beings must keep a strong and a good flow of
+blood in their veins to be always on a level with the occasion which they
+provoke.  He remembered wonderingly that he had used to be easy in gait
+and ready of wit when walking from Queen Anne's Farm to Wrexby village
+church.  Why was he a different creature now?  He could not answer the
+question.
+
+Two or three of his Warbeach acquaintances passed him in the lanes.  They
+gave him good day, and spoke kindly, and with pleasant friendly looks.
+
+Their impression when they left him was that he was growing proud.
+
+The jolly butcher of Warbeach, who had a hearty affection for him,
+insisted upon clapping his hand, and showing him to Mrs. Billing, and
+showing their two young ones to Robert.  With a kiss to the children, and
+a nod, Robert let them pass.
+
+Here and there, he was hailed by young fellows who wore their hats on one
+side, and jaunty-fashioned coats--Sunday being their own bright day of
+exhibition.  He took no notice of the greetings.
+
+He tried to feel an interest in the robins and twittering wrens, and
+called to mind verses about little birds, and kept repeating them, behind
+a face that chilled every friendly man who knew him.
+
+Moody the boat-builder asked him, with a stare, if he was going to
+church, and on Robert's replying that perhaps he was, said "I'm dashed!"
+and it was especially discouraging to one in Robert's condition.
+
+Further to inspirit him, he met Jonathan Eccles, who put the same
+question to him, and getting the same answer, turned sharp round and
+walked homeward.
+
+Robert had a great feeling of relief when the bells were silent, and
+sauntered with a superior composure round the holly and laurel bushes
+concealing the church.  Not once did he ponder on the meeting between
+Major Waring and Mr. Edward Blancove, until he beheld the former standing
+alone by the churchyard gate, and then he thought more of the empty
+churchyard and the absence of carriages, proclaiming the dreadful
+admonition that he must immediately consider as to the best way of
+comporting himself before an observant and censorious congregation.
+
+Major Waring remarked, "You are late."
+
+"Have I kept you waiting?" said Robert.
+
+"Not long.  They are reading the lessons."
+
+"Is it full inside?"
+
+"I dare say it is."
+
+"You have seen him, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh yes; I have seen him."
+
+Percy was short in his speech, and pale as Robert had never seen him
+before.  He requested hastily to be told the situation of Lord Elling's
+pew.
+
+"Don't you think of going into the gallery?" said Robert, but received no
+answer, and with an inward moan of "Good God!  they'll think I've come
+here in a sort of repentance," he found himself walking down the aisle;
+and presently, to his amazement, settled in front of the Fairly pew, and
+with his eyes on Mrs. Lovell.
+
+What was the matter with her?  Was she ill?  Robert forgot his own
+tribulation in an instant.  Her face was like marble, and as she stood
+with the prayer-book in her hand, her head swayed over it: her lips made
+a faint effort at smiling, and she sat quietly down, and was concealed.
+Algernon and Sir John Capes were in the pew beside her, as well as Lady
+Elling, who, with a backward-turned hand and disregarding countenance,
+reached out her smelling-bottle.
+
+"Is this because she fancies I know of her having made a bet of me?"
+thought Robert, and it was not his vanity prompted the supposition,
+though his vanity was awakened by it.  "Or is she ashamed of her
+falsehood?" he thought again, and forgave her at the sight of her sweet
+pale face.  The singing of the hymns made her evident suffering seem holy
+as a martyr's.  He scarce had the power to conduct himself reverently, so
+intense was his longing to show her his sympathy.
+
+"That is Mrs. Lovell--did you see her just now?" he whispered.
+
+"Ah?" said Major Waring.
+
+"I'm afraid she has fainted."
+
+"Possibly."
+
+But Mrs. Lovell had not fainted.  She rose when the time for rising came
+again, and fixing her eyes with a grave devotional collectedness upon the
+vicar at his reading-desk, looked quite mistress of herself--but mistress
+of herself only when she kept them so fixed.  When they moved, it was as
+if they had relinquished some pillar of support, and they wavered; livid
+shades chased her face, like the rain-clouds on a grey lake-water.  Some
+one fronting her weighed on her eyelids.  This was evident.  Robert
+thought her a miracle of beauty.  She was in colour like days he had
+noted thoughtfully: days with purple storm, and with golden horizon
+edges.  She had on a bonnet of black velvet, with a delicate array of
+white lace, that was not suffered to disturb the contrast to her warm
+yellow hair.  Her little gloved hands were both holding the book; at
+times she perused it, or, the oppression becoming unendurable, turned her
+gaze toward the corner of the chancel, and thence once more to her book.
+Robert rejected all idea of his being in any way the cause of her strange
+perturbation.  He cast a glance at his friend.  He had begun to nourish a
+slight suspicion; but it was too slight to bear up against Percy's
+self-possession; for, as he understood the story, Percy had been the
+sufferer, and the lady had escaped without a wound.  How, then, if such
+were the case, would she be showing emotion thus deep, while he stood
+before her with perfect self-command?
+
+Robert believed that if he might look upon that adorable face for many
+days together, he could thrust Rhoda's from his memory.  The sermon was
+not long enough for him; and he was angry with Percy for rising before
+there was any movement for departure in the Fairly pew.  In the doorway
+of the church Percy took his arm, and asked him to point out the family
+tombstone.  They stood by it, when Lady Elling and Mrs. Lovell came forth
+and walked to the carriage, receiving respectful salutes from the people
+of Warbeach.
+
+"How lovely she is!" said Robert.
+
+"Do you think her handsome?" said Major Waring.
+
+"I can't understand such a creature dying."  Robert stepped over an open
+grave.
+
+The expression of Percy's eyes was bitter.
+
+"I should imagine she thinks it just as impossible."
+
+The Warbeach villagers waited for Lady Elling's carriage to roll away,
+and with a last glance at Robert, they too went off in gossiping groups.
+Robert's penance was over, and he could not refrain from asking what good
+his coming to church had done.
+
+"I can't assist you," said Percy.  "By the way, Mr. Blancove denies
+everything.  He thinks you mad.  He promises, now that you have adopted
+reasonable measures, to speak to his cousin, and help, as far as he can,
+to discover the address you are in search of."
+
+"That's all?" cried Robert.
+
+"That is all."
+
+"Then where am I a bit farther than when I began?"
+
+"You are only at the head of another road, and a better one."
+
+"Oh, why do I ever give up trusting to my right hand--" Robert muttered.
+
+But the evening brought a note to him from Algernon Blancove.  It
+contained a dignified condemnation of Robert's previous insane behaviour,
+and closed by giving Dahlia's address in London.
+
+"How on earth was this brought about?" Robert now questioned.
+
+"It's singular, is it not?" said Major blaring; "but if you want a dog to
+follow you, you don't pull it by the collar; and if you want a potato
+from the earth, you plant the potato before you begin digging.  You are a
+soldier by instinct, my good Robert: your first appeal is to force.  I,
+you see, am a civilian: I invariably try the milder methods.  Do you
+start for London tonight?  I remain.  I wish to look at the
+neighbourhood."
+
+Robert postponed his journey to the morrow, partly in dread of his
+approaching interview with Dahlia, but chiefly to continue a little
+longer by the side of him whose gracious friendship gladdened his life.
+They paid a second visit to Sutton Farm.  Robert doggedly refused to let
+a word be said to his father about his having taken to farming, and
+Jonathan listened to all Major Waring said of his son like a man
+deferential to the accomplishment of speaking, but too far off to hear
+more than a chance word.  He talked, in reply, quite cheerfully of the
+weather and the state of the ground; observed that the soil was a
+perpetual study, but he knew something of horses and dogs, and
+Yorkshiremen were like Jews in the trouble they took to over-reach in a
+bargain.  "Walloping men is poor work, if you come to compare it with
+walloping Nature," he said, and explained that, according to his opinion,
+"to best a man at buying and selling was as wholesome an occupation as
+frowzlin' along the gutters for parings and strays."  He himself
+preferred to go to the heart of things: "Nature makes you rich, if your
+object is to do the same for her.  Yorkshire fellows never think except
+of making theirselves rich by fattening on your blood, like sheep-ticks."
+In fine, Jonathan spoke sensibly, and abused Yorkshire, without
+hesitating to confess that a certain Yorkshireman, against whom he had
+matched his wits in a purchase of horseflesh, had given him a lively
+recollection of the encounter.
+
+Percy asked him what he thought of his country.  "I'll tell you," said
+Jonathan; "Englishmen's business is to go to war with the elements, and
+so long as we fight them, we're in the right academy for learnin' how the
+game goes.  Our vulnerability commences when we think we'll sit down and
+eat the fruits, and if I don't see signs o' that, set me mole-tunnelling.
+Self-indulgence is the ruin of our time."
+
+This was the closest remark he made to his relations with Robert, who
+informed him that he was going to London on the following day.  Jonathan
+shook his hand heartily, without troubling himself about any inquiries.
+
+"There's so much of that old man in me," said Robert, when Percy praised
+him, on their return, "that I daren't call him a Prince of an old boy:
+and never a spot of rancour in his soul.  Have a claim on him--and
+there's your seat at his table: take and offend him--there's your seat
+still.  Eat and drink, but you don't get near his heart.  I'll surprise
+him some day.  He fancies he's past surprises."
+
+"Well," said Percy, "you're younger than I am, and may think the future
+belongs to you."
+
+Early next morning they parted.  Robert was in town by noon.  He lost no
+time in hurrying to the Western suburb.  As he neared the house where he
+was to believe Dahlia to be residing, he saw a man pass through the
+leafless black shrubs by the iron gate; and when he came to the gate
+himself the man was at the door.  The door opened and closed on this man.
+It was Nicodemus Sedgett, or Robert's eyes did him traitorous service.
+He knocked at the door violently, and had to knock a second and a third
+time.  Dahlia was denied to him.  He was told that Mrs. Ayrton had lived
+there, but had left, and her present address was unknown.  He asked to be
+allowed to speak a word to the man who had just entered the house.  No
+one had entered for the last two hours, was the reply.  Robert had an
+impulse to rush by the stolid little female liar, but Percy's recent
+lesson to him acted as a restraint; though, had it been a brawny woman or
+a lacquey in his path, he would certainly have followed his natural
+counsel.  He turned away, lingering outside till it was dusk and the
+bruise on his head gave great throbs, and then he footed desolately
+farther and farther from the house.  To combat with evil in his own
+country village had seemed a simple thing enough, but it appeared a
+superhuman task in giant London.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+It requires, happily, many years of an ordinary man's life to teach him
+to believe in the exceeding variety and quantity of things money can buy:
+yet, when ingenuous minds have fully comprehended the potent character of
+the metal, they are likely enough to suppose that it will buy everything:
+after which comes the groaning anxiety to possess it.
+
+This stage of experience is a sublime development in the great souls of
+misers.  It is their awakening moment, and it is their first real sense
+of a harvest being in their hands.  They have begun under the influence
+of the passion for hoarding, which is but a blind passion of the
+finger-ends.  The idea that they have got together, bit by bit, a power,
+travels slowly up to their heavy brains.  Once let it be grasped,
+however, and they clutch a god.  They feed on everybody's hunger for it.
+And, let us confess, they have in that a mighty feast.
+
+Anthony Hackbut was not a miser.  He was merely a saving old man.  His
+vanity was, to be thought a miser, envied as a miser.  He lived in daily
+hearing of the sweet chink of gold, and loved the sound, but with a
+poetical love, rather than with the sordid desire to amass gold pieces.
+Though a saving old man, he had his comforts; and if they haunted him and
+reproached him subsequently, for indulging wayward appetites for herrings
+and whelks and other sea-dainties that render up no account to you when
+they have disappeared, he put by copper and silver continually, weekly
+and monthly, and was master of a sum.
+
+He knew the breadth of this sum with accuracy, and what it would expand
+to this day come a year, and probably this day come five years.  He knew
+it only too well.  The sum took no grand leaps.  It increased, but did
+not seem to multiply.  And he was breathing in the heart of the place, of
+all places in the world, where money did multiply.
+
+He was the possessor of twelve hundred pounds, solid, and in haven; that
+is, the greater part in the Bank of England, and a portion in Boyne's
+Bank.  He had besides a few skirmishing securities, and some such bits of
+paper as Algernon had given him in the public-house on that remarkable
+night of his visit to the theatre.
+
+These, when the borrowers were defaulters in their payments and pleaded
+for an extension of time, inspired him with sentiments of grandeur that
+the solid property could not impart.  Nevertheless, the anti-poetical
+tendency within him which warred with the poetical, and set him reducing
+whatsoever he claimed to plain figures, made it but a fitful hour of
+satisfaction.
+
+He had only to fix his mind upon Farmer Fleming's conception of his
+wealth, to feel the miserable smallness of what seemed legitimately his
+own; and he felt it with so poignant an emotion that at times his fears
+of death were excited by the knowledge of a dead man's impotence to
+suggest hazy margins in the final exposure of his property.  There it
+would lie, dead as himself!  contracted, coffined, contemptible!
+
+What would the farmer think when he came to hear that his brother Tony's
+estate was not able to buy up Queen Anne's Farm?--when, in point of fact,
+he found that he had all along been the richer man of the two!
+
+Anthony's comfort was in the unfaltering strength of his constitution.
+He permitted his estimate of it to hint at the probability of his
+outlasting his brother William John, to whom he wished no earthly ill,
+but only that he should not live with a mitigated veneration for him.  He
+was really nourished by the farmer's gluttonous delight in his supposed
+piles of wealth.  Sometimes, for weeks, he had the gift of thinking
+himself one of the Bank with which he had been so long connected; and
+afterward a wretched reaction set in.
+
+It was then that his touch upon Bank money began to intoxicate him
+strangely.  He had at times thousands hugged against his bosom, and his
+heart swelled to the money-bags immense.  He was a dispirited, but a
+grateful creature, after he had delivered them up.  The delirium came by
+fits, as if a devil lurked to surprise him.
+
+"With this money," said the demon, "you might speculate, and in two days
+make ten times the amount."
+
+To which Anthony answered: "My character's worth fifty times the amount."
+
+Such was his reply, but he did not think it.  He was honest, and his
+honesty had become a habit; but the money was the only thing which acted
+on his imagination; his character had attained to no sacred halo, and was
+just worth his annual income and the respect of the law for his person.
+The money fired his brain!
+
+"Ah! if it was mine!" he sighed.  "If I could call it mine for just forty
+or fifty hours!  But it ain't, and I can't."
+
+He fought dogged battles with the tempter, and beat him off again and
+again.  One day he made a truce with him by saying that if ever the
+farmer should be in town of an afternoon he would steal ten minutes or
+so, and make an appointment with him somewhere and show him the
+money-bags without a word: let him weigh and eye them: and then the plan
+was for Anthony to talk of politics, while the farmer's mind was in a
+ferment.
+
+With this arrangement the infernal Power appeared to be content, and
+Anthony was temporarily relieved of his trouble.  In other words, the
+intermittent fever of a sort of harmless rascality was afflicting this
+old creature.  He never entertained the notion of running clear away with
+the money entrusted to him.
+
+Whither could an aged man fly?  He thought of foreign places as of spots
+that gave him a shivering sense of its being necessary for him to be born
+again in nakedness and helplessness, if ever he was to see them and set
+foot on them.
+
+London was his home, and clothed him about warmly and honourably, and so
+he said to the demon in their next colloquy.
+
+Anthony had become guilty of the imprudence of admitting him to
+conferences and arguing with him upon equal terms.  They tell us, that
+this is the imprudence of women under temptation; and perhaps Anthony was
+pushed to the verge of the abyss from causes somewhat similar to those
+which imperil them, and employed the same kind of efforts in his
+resistance.
+
+In consequence of this compromise, the demon by degrees took seat at his
+breakfast-table, when Mrs. Wicklow, his landlady, could hear Anthony
+talking in the tone of voice of one who was pushed to his sturdiest
+arguments.  She conceived that the old man's head was softening.
+
+He was making one of his hurried rushes with the porterage of money on an
+afternoon in Spring, when a young female plucked at his coat, and his
+wrath at offenders against the law kindled in a minute into fury.
+
+"Hands off, minx!" he cried.  "You shall be given in charge.  Where's a
+policeman?"
+
+"Uncle!" she said.
+
+"You precious swindler in petticoats!" Anthony fumed.
+
+But he had a queer recollection of her face, and when she repeated
+piteously: "Uncle!" he peered at her features, saying,--
+
+"No!" in wonderment, several times.
+
+Her hair was cut like a boy's.  She was in common garments, with a
+close-shaped skull-cap and a black straw bonnet on her head; not gloved,
+of ill complexion, and with deep dark lines slanting down from the
+corners of her eyes.  Yet the inspection convinced him that he beheld
+Dahlia, his remembering the niece.  He was amazed; but speedily priceless
+trust in his arms, and the wickedness of the streets, he bade her follow
+him.  She did so with some difficulty, for he ran, and dodged, and
+treated the world as his enemy, suddenly vanished, and appeared again
+breathing freely.
+
+"Why, my girl?" he said: "Why, Dahl--Mrs. What's-your-name?  Why, who'd
+have known you?  Is that"--he got his eyes close to her hair; "is that
+the ladies' fashion now?  'Cause, if it is, our young street scamps has
+only got to buy bonnets, and--I say, you don't look the Pomp.  Not as you
+used to, Miss Ma'am, I mean--no, that you don't.  Well, what's the news?
+How's your husband?"
+
+"Uncle," said Dahlia; "will you, please, let me speak to you somewhere?"
+
+"Ain't we standing together?"
+
+"Oh! pray, out of the crowd!"
+
+"Come home with me, if my lodgings ain't too poor for you," said Anthony.
+
+"Uncle, I can't.  I have been unwell.  I cannot walk far.  Will you take
+me to some quiet place?"
+
+"Will you treat me to a cab?" Anthony sneered vehemently.
+
+"I have left off riding, uncle."
+
+"What!  Hulloa!" Anthony sang out.  "Cash is down in the mouth at home,
+is it?  Tell me that, now?"
+
+Dahlia dropped her eyelids, and then entreated him once more to conduct
+her to a quiet place where they might sit together, away from noise.  She
+was very earnest and very sad, not seeming to have much strength.
+
+"Do you mind taking my arm?" said Anthony.
+
+She leaned her hand on his arm, and he dived across the road with her,
+among omnibuses and cabs, shouting to them through the roar,--
+
+"We're the Independence on two legs, warranted sound, and no
+competition;" and saying to Dahlia: "Lor' bless you! there's no retort in
+'em, or I'd say something worth hearing.  It's like poking lions in cages
+with raw meat, afore you get a chaffing-match out o' them.  Some of 'em
+know me.  They'd be good at it, those fellows.  I've heard of good things
+said by 'em.  But there they sit, and they've got no circulation--ain't
+ready, except at old women, or when they catch you in a mess, and getting
+the worst of it.  Let me tell you; you'll never get manly chaff out of
+big bundles o' fellows with ne'er an atom o' circulation.  The river's
+the place for that.  I've heard uncommon good things on the river--not of
+'em, but heard 'em.  T'  other's most part invention.  And, they tell me,
+horseback's a prime thing for chaff.  Circulation, again.  Sharp and
+lively, I mean; not bawl, and answer over your back--most part impudence,
+and nothing else--and then out of hearing.  That sort o' chaff's
+cowardly.  Boys are stiff young parties--circulation--and I don't tackle
+them pretty often, 'xcept when I'm going like a ball among nine-pins.
+It's all a matter o' circulation.  I say, my dear," Anthony addressed her
+seriously, "you should never lay hold o' my arm when you see me going my
+pace of an afternoon.  I took you for a thief, and worse--I did.
+That I did.  Had you been waiting to see me?"
+
+"A little," Dahlia replied, breathless.
+
+"You have been ill?"
+
+"A little," she said.
+
+"You've written to the farm?  O' course you have!"
+
+"Oh! uncle, wait," moaned Dahlia.
+
+"But, ha' you been sick, and not written home?"
+
+"Wait; please, wait," she entreated him.
+
+"I'll wait," said Anthony; "but that's no improvement to queerness; and
+'queer''s your motto.  Now we cross London Bridge.  There's the Tower
+that lived in times when no man was safe of keeping his own money, 'cause
+of grasping kings--all claws and crown.  I'm Republican as far as 'none
+o' them'--goes.  There's the ships.  The sun rises behind 'em, and sets
+afore 'em, and you may fancy, if you like, there's always gold in their
+rigging.  Gals o' your sort think I say, come! tell me, if you are a
+lady?"
+
+"No, uncle, no!" Dahlia cried, and then drawing in her breath, added:
+"not to you."
+
+"Last time I crossed this bridge with a young woman hanging on my arm, it
+was your sister; they say she called on you, and you wouldn't see her;
+and a gal so good and a gal so true ain't to be got for a sister every
+day in the year!  What are you pulling me for?"
+
+Dahlia said nothing, but clung to him with a drooping head, and so they
+hurried along, until Anthony stopped in front of a shop displaying cups
+and muffins at the window, and leprous-looking strips of bacon, and
+sausages that had angled for appetites till they had become pallid sodden
+things, like washed-out bait.
+
+Into this shop he led her, and they took possession of a compartment, and
+ordered tea and muffins.
+
+The shop was empty.
+
+"It's one of the expenses of relationship," Anthony sighed, after probing
+Dahlia unsatisfactorily to see whether she intended to pay for both, or
+at least for herself; and finding that she had no pride at all.  "My
+sister marries your father, and, in consequence--well! a muffin now and
+then ain't so very much.  We'll forget it, though it is a breach, mind,
+in counting up afterwards, and two-pences every day's equal to a good big
+cannonball in the castle-wall at the end of the year.  Have you written
+home?"
+
+Dahlia's face showed the bright anguish of unshed tears.
+
+"Uncle-oh! speak low.  I have been near death.  I have been ill for so
+long a time.  I have come to you to hear about them--my father and Rhoda.
+Tell me what they are doing, and do they sleep and eat well, and are not
+in trouble?  I could not write.  I was helpless.  I could not hold a pen.
+Be kind, dear uncle, and do not reproach me.  Please, tell me that they
+have not been sorrowful."
+
+A keenness shot from Anthony's eyes.  "Then, where's your husband?" he
+asked.
+
+She made a sad attempt at smiling.  "He is abroad."
+
+"How about his relations?  Ain't there one among 'em to write for you
+when you're ill?"
+
+"He...  Yes, he has relatives.  I could not ask them.  Oh! I am not
+strong, uncle; if you will only leave following me so with questions; but
+tell me, tell me what I want to know."
+
+"Well, then, you tell me where your husband banks," returned Anthony.
+
+"Indeed, I cannot say."
+
+"Do you," Anthony stretched out alternative fingers, "do you get money
+from him to make payments in gold, or, do you get it in paper?"
+
+She stared as in terror of a pit-fall.  "Paper," she said at a venture.
+
+"Well, then, name your Bank."
+
+There was no cunning in her eye as she answered: "I don't know any bank,
+except the Bank of England."
+
+"Why the deuce didn't you say so at once--eh?" cried Anthony.  "He gives
+you bank-notes.  Nothing better in the world.  And he a'n't been givin'
+you many lately--is that it?  What's his profession, or business?"
+
+"He is...he is no profession."
+
+"Then, what is he?  Is he a gentleman?"
+
+"Yes," she breathed plaintively.
+
+"Your husband's a gentleman.  Eh?--and lost his money?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How did he lose it?"
+
+The poor victim of this pertinacious interrogatory now beat about within
+herself for succour.  "I must not say," she replied.
+
+"You're going to try to keep a secret, are ye?" said Anthony; and she, in
+her relief at the pause to her torment, said: "I am," with a little
+infantile, withering half-smile.
+
+"Well, you've been and kept yourself pretty secret," the old man pursued.
+"I suppose your husband's proud?  He's proud, ain't he? He's of a family,
+I'll be bound.  Is he of a family?  How did he like your dressing up like
+a mill'ner gal to come down in the City and see me?"
+
+Dahlia's guile was not ready.  "He didn't mind," she said.
+
+"He didn't mind, didn't he?  He don't mind your cutting of your hair so?-
+-didn't mind that?"
+
+She shook her head.  "No."
+
+Anthony was down upon her like a hawk.
+
+"Why, he's abroad!"
+
+"Yes; I mean, he did not see me."
+
+With which, in a minute, she was out of his grasp; but her heart beat
+thick, her lips were dry, and her thoughts were in disorder.
+
+"Then, he don't know you've been and got shaved, and a poll like a
+turnip-head of a thief?  That's something for him to learn, is it?"
+
+The picture of her beauty gone, seared her eyes like heated brass.  She
+caught Anthony's arm with one firm hand to hold him silent, and with the
+other hand covered her sight and let the fit of weeping pass.
+
+When the tears had spent themselves, she relinquished her hold of the
+astonished old man, who leaned over the table to her, and dominated by
+the spirit of her touch, whispered, like one who had accepted a bond of
+secresy: "Th' old farmer's well.  So's Rhoda--my darkie lass.  They've
+taken on a bit.  And then they took to religion for comfort.  Th' old
+farmer attends Methody meetin's, and quotes Scriptur' as if he was fixed
+like a pump to the Book, and couldn't fetch a breath without quotin'.
+Rhoda's oftenest along with your rector's wife down there, and does works
+o' charity, sicknussin', readin'--old farmer does the preachin'.  Old
+mother Sumfit's fat as ever, and says her money's for you.  Old Gammon
+goes on eatin' of the dumplins.  Hey! what a queer old ancient he is.  He
+seems to me to belong to a time afore ever money was.  That Mr. Robert's
+off...never been down there since he left, 'cause my darkie lass thought
+herself too good for him.  So she is!--too good for anybody.  They're
+going to leave the farm; sell, and come to London."
+
+"Oh, no!" exclaimed Dahlia; "not going to leave the dear old farm, and
+our lane, and the old oaks, leading up to the heath.  Are they?  Father
+will miss it.  Rhoda will mourn so.  No place will ever be like that to
+them.  I love it better than any place on earth."
+
+"That's queer," said Anthony.  "Why do you refuse to go, or won't let
+your husband take you down there; if you like the place that raving-like?
+But 'queer''s your motto.  The truth is this--you just listen.  Hear me--
+hush!  I won't speak in a bawl.  You're a reasonable being, and you
+don't--that's to say, you do understand, the old farmer feels it
+uncomfortable--"
+
+"But I never helped him when I was there," said Dahlia, suddenly
+shrinking in a perceptible tremble of acute divination.  "I was no use.
+I never helped him--not at all.  I was no--no use!"
+
+Anthony blinked his eyes, not knowing how it was that he had thus been
+thrown out of his direct road.  He began again, in his circumlocutory
+delicacy: "Never mind; help or no help, what th' old farmer feels is--and
+quite nat'ral.  There's sensations as a father, and sensations as a man;
+and what th' old farmer feels is--"
+
+"But Rhoda has always been more to father than I have," Dahlia cried, now
+stretching forward with desperate courage to confront her uncle, distract
+his speech, and avert the saying of the horrible thing she dreaded.
+"Rhoda was everything to him.  Mother perhaps took to me--my mother!"
+
+The line of her long underlie drawn sharp to check her tears, stopped her
+speaking.
+
+"All very well about Rhoda," said Anthony.  "She's everything to me,
+too."
+
+"Every--everybody loves her!" Dahlia took him up.
+
+"Let 'em, so long as they don't do no harm to her," was Anthony's remark.
+There was an idea in this that he had said, and the light of it led off
+his fancy.  It was some time before he returned to the attack.
+
+"Neighbours gossip a good deal.  O' course you know that."
+
+"I never listen to them," said Dahlia, who now felt bare at any instant
+for the stab she saw coming.
+
+"No, not in London; but country's different, and a man hearing of his
+child 'it's very odd!' and 'keepin' away like that!' and 'what's become
+of her?' and that sort of thing, he gets upset."
+
+Dahlia swallowed in her throat, as in perfect quietude of spirit, and
+pretended to see no meaning for herself in Anthony's words.
+
+But she said, inadvertently, "Dear father!" and it gave Anthony his
+opening.
+
+"There it is.  No doubt you're fond of him.  You're fond o' th' old
+farmer, who's your father.  Then, why not make a entry into the village,
+and show 'em?  I loves my father, says you.  I can or I can't bring my
+husband, you seems to say; but I'm come to see my old father.  Will you
+go down to-morrow wi' me?"
+
+"Oh!" Dahlia recoiled and abandoned all defence in a moan: "I can't--I
+can't!"
+
+"There," said Anthony, "you can't.  You confess you can't; and there's
+reason for what's in your father's mind.  And he hearin' neighbours'
+gossip, and it comes to him by a sort of extractin'--'Where's her
+husband?' bein' the question; and 'She ain't got one,' the answer--it's
+nat'ral for him to leave the place.  I never can tell him how you went
+off, or who's the man, lucky or not.  You went off sudden, on a morning,
+after kissin' me at breakfast; and no more Dahly visible.  And he
+suspects--he more'n suspects.  Farm's up for sale.  Th' old farmer thinks
+it's unbrotherly of me not to go and buy, and I can't make him see I
+don't understand land: it's about like changeing sovereigns for lumps o'
+clay, in my notions; and that ain't my taste.  Long and the short is--
+people down there at Wrexby and all round say you ain't married.  He
+ain't got a answer for 'em; it's cruel to hear, and crueller to think:
+he's got no answer, poor old farmer!  and he's obliged to go inter exile.
+Farm's up for sale."
+
+Anthony thumped with his foot conclusively.
+
+"Say I'm not married!" said Dahlia, and a bad colour flushed her
+countenance.  "They say--I'm not married.  I am--I am.  It's false.  It's
+cruel of father to listen to them--wicked people!  base--base people!  I
+am married, uncle.  Tell father so, and don't let him sell the farm.
+Tell him, I said I was married.  I am.  I'm respected.  I have only a
+little trouble, and I'm sure others have too.  We all have.  Tell father
+not to leave.  It breaks my heart.  Oh! uncle, tell him that from me."
+
+Dahlia gathered her shawl close, and set an irresolute hand upon her
+bonnet strings, that moved as if it had forgotten its purpose.  She could
+say no more.  She could only watch her uncle's face, to mark the effect
+of what she had said.
+
+Anthony nodded at vacancy.  His eyebrows were up, and did not descend
+from their elevation.  "You see, your father wants assurances; he wants
+facts.  They're easy to give, if give 'em you can.  Ah, there's a weddin'
+ring on your finger, sure enough.  Plain gold--and, Lord! how bony your
+fingers ha' got, Dahly.  If you are a sinner, you're a bony one now, and
+that don't seem so bad to me. I don't accuse you, my dear.  Perhaps I'd
+like to see your husband's banker's book.  But what your father hears,
+is--You've gone wrong."
+
+Dahlia smiled in a consummate simulation of scorn.
+
+"And your father thinks that's true."
+
+She smiled with an equal simulation of saddest pity.
+
+"And he says this: 'Proof,' he says, 'proof's what I want, that she's an
+honest woman.'  He asks for you to clear yourself.  He says, 'It's hard
+for an old man'--these are his words 'it's hard for an old man to hear
+his daughter called...'"
+
+Anthony smacked his hand tight on his open mouth.
+
+He was guiltless of any intended cruelty, and Dahlia's first impulse when
+she had got her breath, was to soothe him.  She took his hand.  "Dear
+father! poor father!  Dear, dear father!" she kept saying.
+
+"Rhoda don't think it," Anthony assured her.
+
+"No?" and Dahlia's bosom exulted up to higher pain.
+
+"Rhoda declares you are married.  To hear that gal fight for you--there's
+ne'er a one in Wrexby dares so much as hint a word within a mile of her."
+
+"My Rhoda! my sister!" Dahlia gasped, and the tears came pouring down her
+face.
+
+In vain Anthony lifted her tea-cup and the muffin-plate to her for
+consolation.  His hushings and soothings were louder than her weeping.
+Incapable of resisting such a protest of innocence, he said, "And I don't
+think it, neither."
+
+She pressed his fingers, and begged him to pay the people of the shop: at
+which sign of her being probably moneyless, Anthony could not help
+mumbling, "Though I can't make out about your husband, and why he lets ye
+be cropped--that he can't help, may be--but lets ye go about dressed like
+a mill'ner gal, and not afford cabs.  Is he very poor?"
+
+She bowed her head.
+
+"Poor?"
+
+"He is very poor."
+
+"Is he, or ain't he, a gentleman?"
+
+Dahlia seemed torn by a new anguish.
+
+"I see," said Anthony.  "He goes and persuades you he is, and you've been
+and found out he's nothin' o' the sort--eh?  That'd be a way of
+accounting for your queerness, more or less.  Was it that fellow that
+Wicklow gal saw ye with?"
+
+Dahlia signified vehemently, "No."
+
+"Then, I've guessed right; he turns out not to be a gentleman--eh, Dahly?
+Go on noddin', if ye like.  Never mind the shop people; we're
+well-conducted, and that's all they care for.  I say, Dahly, he ain't a
+gentleman?  You speak out or nod your head.  You thought you'd caught a
+gentleman and 'taint the case.  Gentlemen ain't caught so easy.  They all
+of 'em goes to school, and that makes 'em knowin'.  Come; he ain't a
+gentleman?"
+
+Dahlia's voice issued, from a terrible inward conflict, like a voice of
+the tombs.  "No," she said.
+
+"Then, will you show him to me?  Let me have a look at him."
+
+Pushed from misery to misery, she struggled within herself again, and
+again in the same hollow manner said, "Yes."
+
+"You will?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Seein's believin'.  If you'll show him to me, or me to him..."
+
+"Oh! don't talk of it."  Dahlia struck her fingers in a tight lock.
+
+"I only want to set eye on him, my gal.  Whereabouts does he live?"
+
+"Down--down a great--very great way in the West."
+
+Anthony stared.
+
+She replied to the look: "In the West of London--a long way down."
+
+"That's where he is?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I thought--hum!" went the old man suspiciously.  When am I to see him?
+Some day?"
+
+"Yes; some day."
+
+"Didn't I say, Sunday?"
+
+"Next Sunday?"--Dahlia gave a muffled cry.
+
+"Yes, next Sunday.  Day after to-morrow.  And I'll write off to-morrow,
+and ease th' old farmer's heart, and Rhoda 'll be proud for you.  She
+don't care about gentleman--or no gentleman.  More do th' old farmer.
+It's let us, live and die respectable, and not disgrace father nor
+mother.  Old-fashioned's best-fashioned about them things, I think.
+Come, you bring him--your husband--to me on Sunday, if you object to my
+callin' on you.  Make up your mind to."
+
+"Not next Sunday--the Sunday after," Dahlia pleaded.  "He is not here
+now."
+
+"Where is he?" Anthony asked.
+
+"He's in the country."
+
+Anthony pounced on her, as he had done previously.
+
+"You said to me he was abroad."
+
+"In the country--abroad.  Not--not in the great cities.  I could not make
+known your wishes to him."
+
+She gave this cool explanation with her eyelids fluttering timorously,
+and rose as she uttered it, but with faint and ill-supporting limbs, for
+during the past hour she had gone through the sharpest trial of her life,
+and had decided for the course of her life.  Anthony was witless thereof,
+and was mystified by his incapability of perceiving where and how he had
+been deluded; but he had eaten all the muffin on the plate, and her
+rising proclaimed that she had no intention of making him call for
+another; which was satisfactory.  He drank off her cup of tea at a gulp.
+
+The waitress named the sum he was to pay, and receiving a meditative look
+in return for her air of expectancy after the amount had been laid on the
+table, at once accelerated their passage from the shop by opening the
+door.
+
+"If ever I did give pennies, I'd give 'em to you," said Anthony, when he
+was out of her hearing.  "Women beat men in guessing at a man by his
+face.  Says she--you're honourable--you're legal--but prodigal ain't your
+portion.  That's what she says, without the words, unless she's a reader.
+Now, then, Dahly, my lass, you take my arm.  Buckle to.  We'll to the
+West.  Don't th' old farmer pronounce like 'toe' the West?  We'll 'toe'
+the West.  I can afford to laugh at them big houses up there.
+
+"Where's the foundation, if one of them's sound?  Why, in the City.
+
+"I'll take you by our governor's house.  You know--you know--don't ye,
+Dahly, know we been suspecting his nephew? 'cause we saw him with you at
+the theatre.
+
+"I didn't suspect.  I knew he found you there by chance, somehow.  And I
+noticed your dress there.  No wonder your husband's poor.  He wanted to
+make you cut a figure as one of the handsomes, and that's as ruinous as
+cabs--ha! ha!"
+
+Anthony laughed, but did not reveal what had struck him.
+
+"Sir William Blancove's house is a first-rater.  I've been in it.  He
+lives in the library.  All the other rooms--enter 'em, and if 'taint like
+a sort of, a social sepulchre!  Dashed if he can get his son to live with
+him; though they're friends, and his son'll get all the money, and go
+into Parliament, and cut a shine, never fear.
+
+"By the way, I've seen Robert, too.  He called on me at the Bank.  Asked
+after you.
+
+"'Seen her?' says he.
+
+"'No,' I says.
+
+"'Ever see Mr. Edward Blancove here?' he says.
+
+"I told him, I'd heard say, Mr. Edward was Continentalling.  And then
+Robert goes off.  His opinion is you ain't in England; 'cause a policeman
+he spoke to can't find you nowhere.
+
+"'Come," says I, 'let's keep our detectives to catch thieves, and not go
+distracting of 'em about a parcel o' women.'
+
+"He's awfully down about Rhoda.  She might do worse than take him.  I
+don't think he's got a ounce of a chance now Religion's set in, though
+he's the mildest big 'un I ever come across.  I forgot to haul him over
+about what he 'd got to say about Mr. Edward.  I did remark, I thought-
+-ain't I right?--Mr. Algernon's not the man?--eh?  How come you in the
+theatre with him?"
+
+Dahlia spoke huskily.  "He saw me.  He had seen me at home.  It was an
+accident."
+
+"Exactly how I put it to Robert.  And he agreed with me.  There's sense
+in that young man.  Your husband wouldn't let you come to us there--eh?
+because he...why was that?"
+
+Dahlia had it on her lips to say it "Because he was poorer than I
+thought;" but in the intensity of her torment, the wretchedness of this
+lie, revolted her.  "Oh! for God's sake, uncle, give me peace about
+that."
+
+The old man murmured: "Ay, ay;" and thought it natural that she should
+shun an allusion to the circumstance.
+
+They crossed one of the bridges, and Dahlia stopped and said: "Kiss me,
+uncle."
+
+"I ain't ashamed," said Anthony.
+
+This being over, she insisted on his not accompanying her farther.
+
+Anthony made her pledge her word of honour as a married woman, to bring
+her husband to the identical spot where they stood at three o'clock in
+the afternoon of Sunday week.  She promised it.
+
+"I'll write home to th' old farmer--a penny," said Anthony, showing that
+he had considered the outlay and was prepared for it.
+
+"And uncle," she stipulated in turn, "they are not to see me yet.  Very
+soon; but not yet.  Be true to me, and come alone, or it will be your
+fault--I shall not appear.  Now, mind.  And beg them not to leave the
+farm.  It will kill father.  Can you not," she said, in the faded
+sweetness of her speech, "could you not buy it, and let father be your
+tenant, uncle?  He would pay you regularly."
+
+Anthony turned a rough shoulder on her.
+
+"Good-bye, Dahly.  You be a good girl, and all 'll go right.  Old farmer
+talks about praying.  If he didn't make it look so dark to a chap, I'd be
+ready to fancy something in that.  You try it.  You try, Dahly.  Say a
+bit of a prayer to-night."
+
+"I pray every night," Dahlia answered.
+
+Her look of meek despair was hauntingly sad with Anthony on his way home.
+
+He tracked her sorrowfulness to the want of money; and another of his
+terrific vague struggles with the money-demon set in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Sir William Blancove did business at his Bank till the hour of three in
+the afternoon, when his carriage conveyed him to a mews near the park of
+Fashion, where he mounted horse and obeyed the bidding of his doctor for
+a space, by cantering in a pleasant, portly, cock-horsey style, up and
+down the Row.
+
+It was the day of the great race on Epsom Downs, and elderly gentlemen
+pricked by the doctors were in the ascendant in all London congregations
+on horseback.
+
+Like Achilles (if the bilious Shade will permit the impudent comparison),
+they dragged their enemy, Gout, at their horses' heels for a term, and
+vengeance being accomplished went to their dinners and revived him.
+
+Sir William was disturbed by his son's absence from England.  A youth to
+whom a baronetcy and wealth are to be bequeathed is an important
+organism; and Sir William, though his faith reposed in his son, was
+averse to his inexplicably prolonged residence in the French metropolis,
+which, a school for many things, is not a school for the study of our
+Parliamentary system, and still less for that connubial career Sir
+William wished him to commence.
+
+Edward's delightful cynical wit--the worldly man's profundity--and his
+apt quotations of the wit of others, would have continued to exercise
+their charm, if Sir William had not wanted to have him on the spot that
+he might answer certain questions pertinaciously put by Mama Gosling on
+behalf of her daughter.
+
+"There is no engagement," Edward wrote; "let the maiden wait and discern
+her choice: let her ripen;" and he quoted Horace up to a point.
+
+Nor could his father help smiling and completing the lines.  He laughed,
+too, as he read the jog of a verse: "Were I to marry the Gosling, pray,
+which would be the goose?"
+
+He laughed, but with a shade of disappointment in the fancy that he
+perceived a wearing away of the robust mental energy which had
+characterized his son: and Sir William knew the danger of wit, and how
+the sharp blade cuts the shoots of the sapling.  He had thought that
+Edward was veritable tough oak, and had hitherto encouraged his light
+play with the weapon.
+
+It became a question with him now, whether Wit and Ambition may dwell
+together harmoniously in a young man: whether they will not give such
+manifestation of their social habits as two robins shut in a cage will
+do: of which pretty birds one will presently be discovered with a
+slightly ruffled bosom amid the feathers of his defunct associate.
+
+Thus painfully revolving matters of fact and feeling, Sir William
+cantered, and, like a cropped billow blown against by the wind, drew up
+in front of Mrs. Lovell, and entered into conversation with that lady,
+for the fine needles of whose brain he had the perfect deference of an
+experienced senior.  She, however, did not give him comfort.  She
+informed him that something was wrong with Edward; she could not tell
+what.  She spoke of him languidly, as if his letters contained wearisome
+trifling.
+
+"He strains to be Frenchy," she said.  "It may be a good compliment for
+them to receive: it's a bad one for him to pay."
+
+"Alcibiades is not the best of models," murmured Sir William.  "He
+doesn't mention Miss Gosling."
+
+"Oh dear, yes.  I have a French acrostic on her name."
+
+"An acrostic!"
+
+A more contemptible form of mental exercise was not to be found,
+according to Sir William's judgement.
+
+"An acrostic!" he made it guttural.  "Well!"
+
+"He writes word that he hears Moliere every other night.  That can't harm
+him.  His reading is principally Memoirs, which I think I have heard you
+call 'The backstairs of history.'  We are dull here, and I should not
+imagine it to be a healthy place to dwell in, if the absence of friends
+and the presence of sunshine conspire to dullness.  Algy, of course, is
+deep in accounts to-day?"
+
+Sir William remarked that he had not seen the young man at the office,
+and had not looked for him; but the mention of Algernon brought something
+to his mind, and he said,--
+
+"I hear he is continually sending messengers from the office to you
+during the day.  You rule him with a rod of iron.  Make him discontinue
+that practice.  I hear that he despatched our old porter to you yesterday
+with a letter marked 'urgent.'"
+
+Mrs. Lovell laughed pleadingly for Algernon.
+
+"No; he shall not do it again.  It occurred yesterday, and on no other
+occasion that I am aware of.  He presumes that I am as excited as he is
+himself about the race--"
+
+The lady bowed to a passing cavalier; a smarting blush dyed her face.
+
+"He bets, does he!" said Sir William.  "A young man, whose income, at the
+extreme limit, is two hundred pounds a year."
+
+"May not the smallness of the amount in some degree account for the
+betting?" she asked whimsically.  "You know, I bet a little--just a
+little.  If I have but a small sum, I already regard it as a stake; I am
+tempted to bid it fly."
+
+"In his case, such conduct puts him on the high road to rascality," said
+Sir William severely.  "He is doing no good."
+
+"Then the squire is answerable for such conduct, I think."
+
+"You presume to say that he is so because he allows his son very little
+money to squander?  How many young men have to contain their expenses
+within two hundred pounds a year!"
+
+"Not sons of squires and nephews of baronets," said Mrs. Lovell.  "Adieu!
+I think I see a carrier-pigeon flying overhead, and, as you may suppose,
+I am all anxiety."
+
+Sir William nodded to her.  He disliked certain of her ways; but they
+were transparent bits of audacity and restlessness pertaining to a
+youthful widow, full of natural dash; and she was so sweetly mistress of
+herself in all she did, that he never supposed her to be needing caution
+against excesses.  Old gentlemen have their pets, and Mrs. Lovell was a
+pet of Sir William's.
+
+She was on the present occasion quite mistress of herself, though the
+stake was large.  She was mistress of herself when Lord Suckling, who had
+driven from the Downs and brushed all save a spot of white dust out of
+his baby moustache to make himself presentable, rode up to her to say
+that the horse Templemore was beaten, and that his sagacity in always
+betting against favourites would, in this last instance, transfer a "pot
+of money" from alien pockets to his own.
+
+"Algy Blancove's in for five hundred to me," he said; adding with energy,
+"I hope you haven't lost?  No, don't go and dash my jolly feeling by
+saying you have.  It was a fine heat; neck-and-neck past the Stand.  Have
+you?"
+
+"A little," she confessed.  "It's a failing of mine to like favourites.
+I'm sorry for Algy."
+
+"I'm afraid he's awfully hit."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"He took it so awfully cool."
+
+"That may mean the reverse."
+
+"It don't with him.  But, Mrs. Lovell, do tell me you haven't lost.  Not
+much, is it?  Because, I know there's no guessing, when you are
+concerned."
+
+The lady trifled with her bridle-rein.
+
+"I really can't tell you yet.  I may have lost.  I haven't won.  I'm not
+cool-blooded enough to bet against favourites.  Addio, son of Fortune!
+I'm at the Opera to-night."
+
+As she turned her horse from Lord Suckling, the cavalier who had saluted
+her when she was with Sir William passed again.  She made a signal to her
+groom, and sent the man flying in pursuit of him, while she turned and
+cantered.  She was soon overtaken.
+
+"Madam, you have done me the honour."
+
+"I wish to know why it is your pleasure to avoid me, Major Waring?"
+
+"In this place?"
+
+"Wherever we may chance to meet."
+
+"I must protest."
+
+"Do not.  The thing is evident."
+
+They rode together silently.
+
+Her face was toward the sunset.  The light smote her yellow hair, and
+struck out her grave and offended look, as in a picture.
+
+"To be condemned without a hearing!" she said.  "The most dastardly
+criminal gets that.  Is it imagined that I have no common feelings?  Is
+it manly to follow me with studied insult?  I can bear the hatred of
+fools.  Contempt I have not deserved.  Dead!  I should be dead, if my
+conscience had once reproached me.  I am a mark for slander, and brave
+men should beware of herding with despicable slanderers."
+
+She spoke, gazing frontward all the while.  The pace she maintained in no
+degree impeded the concentrated passion of her utterance.
+
+But it was a more difficult task for him, going at that pace, to make
+explanations, and she was exquisitely fair to behold!  The falling beams
+touched her with a mellow sweetness that kindled bleeding memories.
+
+"If I defend myself?" he said.
+
+"No.  All I ask is that you should Accuse me.  Let me know what I have
+done--done, that I have not been bitterly punished for?  What is it? what
+is it?  Why do you inflict a torture on me whenever you see me?  Not by
+word, not by look.  You are too subtle in your cruelty to give me
+anything I can grasp.  You know how you wound me.  And I am alone."
+
+"That is supposed to account for my behaviour?"
+
+She turned her face to him.  "Oh, Major blaring! say nothing unworthy of
+yourself.  That would be a new pain to me."
+
+He bowed.  In spite of a prepossessing anger, some little softness crept
+through his heart.
+
+"You may conceive that I have dropped my pride," she said.  "That is the
+case, or my pride is of a better sort."
+
+"Madam, I fully hope and trust," said he.
+
+"And believe," she added, twisting his words to the ironic tongue.  "You
+certainly must believe that my pride has sunk low.  Did I ever speak to
+you in this manner before?"
+
+"Not in this manner, I can attest."
+
+"Did I speak at all, when I was hurt?"  She betrayed that he had planted
+a fresh sting.
+
+"If my recollection serves me," said he, "your self-command was
+remarkable."
+
+Mrs. Lovell slackened her pace.
+
+"Your recollection serves you too well, Major Waring.  I was a girl.  You
+judged the acts of a woman.  I was a girl, and you chose to put your own
+interpretation on whatever I did.  You scourged me before the whole army.
+Was not that enough?  I mean, enough for you?  For me, perhaps not, for I
+have suffered since, and may have been set apart to suffer.  I saw you in
+that little church at Warbeach; I met you in the lanes; I met you on the
+steamer; on the railway platform; at the review.  Everywhere you kept up
+the look of my judge.  You! and I have been 'Margaret' to you.  Major
+Waring, how many a woman in my place would attribute your relentless
+condemnation of her to injured vanity or vengeance?  In those days I
+trifled with everybody.  I played with fire.  I was ignorant of life.  I
+was true to my husband; and because I was true, and because I was
+ignorant, I was plunged into tragedies I never suspected.  This is to be
+what you call a coquette.  Stamping a name saves thinking.  Could I read
+my husband's temper?  Would not a coquette have played her cards
+differently?  There never was need for me to push my husband to a
+contest.  I never had the power to restrain him.  Now I am wiser; and now
+is too late; and now you sit in judgement on me.  Why?  It is not fair;
+it is unkind."
+
+Tears were in her voice, though not in her eyes.
+
+Major Waring tried to study her with the coolness of a man who has learnt
+to doubt the truth of women; but he had once yearned in a young man's
+frenzy of love to take that delicate shape in his arms, and he was not
+proof against the sedate sweet face and keen sad ring of the voice.
+
+He spoke earnestly.
+
+"You honour me by caring for my opinion.  The past is buried.  I have
+some forgiveness to ask.  Much, when I think of it--very much.  I did you
+a public wrong.  From a man to a woman it was unpardonable.  It is a blot
+on my career.  I beg you humbly to believe that I repent it."
+
+The sun was flaming with great wings red among the vapours; and in the
+recollection of the two, as they rode onward facing it, arose that day of
+the forlorn charge of English horse in the Indian jungle, the thunder and
+the dust, the fire and the dense knot of the struggle.  And like a ghost
+sweeping across her eyeballs, Mrs. Lovell beheld, part in his English
+freshness, part ensanguined, the image of the gallant boy who had ridden
+to perish at the spur of her mad whim.  She forgot all present
+surroundings.
+
+"Percy!" she said.
+
+"Madam?"
+
+"Percy!"
+
+"Margaret?"
+
+"Oh, what an undying day, Percy!"
+
+And then she was speechless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+The Park had been empty, but the opera-house was full; and in the
+brilliance of the lights and divine soaring of the music, the genius of
+Champagne luncheons discussed the fate of the horse Templemore; some, as
+a matter of remote history; some, as another delusion in horse-flesh the
+greater number, however, with a determination to stand by the beaten
+favourite, though he had fallen, and proclaim him the best of racers and
+an animal foully mishandled on the course.  There were whispers, and
+hints, and assertions; now implicating the jockey, now the owner of
+Templemore.  The Manchester party, and the Yorkshire party, and their
+diverse villanous tricks, came under review.  Several offered to back
+Templemore at double the money they had lost, against the winner.  A
+favourite on whom money has been staked, not only has friends, but in
+adversity he is still believed in; nor could it well be otherwise, for
+the money, no doubt, stands for faith, or it would never have been put up
+to the risks of a forfeit.
+
+Foremost and wildest among the excited young men who animated the stalls,
+and rushed about the lobby, was Algernon.  He was the genius of Champagne
+luncheon incarnate.  On him devolves, for a time, the movement of this
+story, and we shall do well to contemplate him, though he may seem
+possibly to be worthless.  What is worthless, if it be well looked at?
+Nay, the most worthless creatures are most serviceable for examination,
+when the microscope is applied to them, as a simple study of human
+mechanism.  This youth is one of great Nature's tom-fools: an elegant
+young gentleman outwardly, of the very large class who are simply the
+engines of their appetites, and, to the philosophic eye, still run wild
+in woods, as did the primitive nobleman that made a noise in the earlier
+world.
+
+Algernon had this day lost ten times more than he could hope to be in a
+position to pay within ten years, at the least, if his father continued
+to argue the matter against Providence, and live.  He had lost, and might
+speedily expect to be posted in all good betting circles as something not
+pleasantly odoriferous for circles where there is no betting.
+Nevertheless, the youth was surcharged with gaiety.  The soul of mingled
+chicken and wine illumined his cheeks and eyes.  He laughed and joked
+about the horse--his horse, as he called Templemore--and meeting Lord
+Suckling, won five sovereigns of him by betting that the colours of one
+of the beaten horses, Benloo, were distinguished by a chocolate bar.  The
+bet was referred to a dignified umpire, who, a Frenchman, drew his right
+hand down an imperial tuft of hair dependent from his chin, and gave a
+decision in Algernon's favour.  Lord Suckling paid the money on the spot,
+and Algernon pocketed it exulting.  He had the idea that it was the first
+start in his making head against the flood.  The next instant he could
+have pitched himself upon the floor and bellowed.  For, a soul of chicken
+and wine, lightly elated, is easily dashed; and if he had but said to
+Lord Suckling that, it might as well be deferred, the thing would have
+become a precedent, and his own debt might have been held back.  He went
+on saying, as he rushed forward alone: "Never mind, Suckling.  Oh, hang
+it! put it in your pocket;" and the imperative necessity for talking, and
+fancying what was adverse to fact, enabled him to feel for a time as if
+he had really acted according to the prompting of his wisdom.  It amazed
+him to see people sitting and listening.  The more he tried it, the more
+unendurable it became.  Those sitters and loungers appeared like absurd
+petrifactions to him.  If he abstained from activity for ever so short a
+term, he was tormented by a sense of emptiness; and, as he said to
+himself, a man who has eaten a chicken, and part of a game-pie, and drunk
+thereto Champagne all day, until the popping of the corks has become as
+familiar as minute-guns, he can hardly be empty.  It was peculiar.  He
+stood, just for the sake of investigating the circumstance--it was so
+extraordinary.  The music rose in a triumphant swell.  And now he was
+sure that he was not to be blamed for thinking this form of entertainment
+detestable.  How could people pretend to like it?  "Upon my honour!" he
+said aloud.  The hypocritical nonsense of pretending to like opera-music
+disgusted him.
+
+"Where is it, Algy?" a friend of his and Suckling's asked, with a languid
+laugh.
+
+"Where's what?"
+
+"Your honour."
+
+"My honour?  Do you doubt my honour?" Algernon stared defiantly at the
+inoffensive little fellow.
+
+"Not in the slightest.  Very sorry to, seeing that I have you down in my
+book."
+
+"Latters?  Ah, yes," said Algernon, musically, and letting his under-lip
+hang that he might restrain the impulse to bite it.  "Fifty, or a
+hundred, is it?  I lost my book on the Downs."
+
+"Fifty; but wait till settling-day, my good fellow, and don't fiddle at
+your pockets as if I'd been touching you up for the money.  Come and sup
+with me to-night."
+
+Algernon muttered a queer reply in a good-tempered tone, and escaped him.
+
+He was sobered by that naming of settling-day.  He could now listen to
+the music with attention, if not with satisfaction.  As he did so, the
+head of drowned memory rose slowly up through the wine-bubbles in his
+brain, and he flung out a far thought for relief: "How, if I were to
+leave England with that dark girl Rhoda at Wrexby, marry her like a man,
+and live a wild ramping life in the colonies?"  A curtain closed on the
+prospect, but if memory was resolved that it would not be drowned, he had
+at any rate dosed it with something fresh to occupy its digestion.
+
+His opera-glass had been scouring the house for a sight of Mrs. Lovell,
+and at last she appeared in Lord Elling's box.
+
+"I can give you two minutes, Algy," she said, as he entered and found her
+opportunely alone.  "We have lost, I hear.  No interjection, pray.  Let
+it be, fors l'honneur, with us.  Come to me to-morrow.  You have tossed
+trinkets into my lap.  They were marks of esteem, my cousin.  Take them
+in the same light back from me.  Turn them into money, and pay what is
+most pressing.  Then go to Lord Suckling.  He is a good boy, and won't
+distress you; but you must speak openly to him at once.  Perhaps he will
+help you.  I will do my best, though whether I can, I have yet to learn."
+
+"Dear Mrs. Lovell!" Algernon burst out, and the corners of his mouth
+played nervously.
+
+He liked her kindness, and he was wroth at the projected return of his
+gifts.  A man's gifts are an exhibition of the royalty of his soul, and
+they are the last things which should be mentioned to him as matters to
+be blotted out when he is struggling against ruin.  The lady had blunt
+insight just then.  She attributed his emotion to gratitude.
+
+"The door may be opened at any minute," she warned him.
+
+"It's not about myself," he said; "it's you.  I believe I tempted you to
+back the beastly horse.  And he would have won--a fair race, and he would
+have won easy.  He was winning.  He passed the stand a head ahead.  He
+did win.  It's a scandal to the Turf.  There's an end of racing in
+England.  It's up.  They've done for themselves to-day.  There's a gang.
+It's in the hands of confederates."
+
+"Think so, if it consoles you," said Mrs. Lovell, "don't mention your
+thoughts, that is all."
+
+"I do think so.  Why should we submit to a robbery?  It's a sold affair.
+That Frenchman, Baron Vistocq, says we can't lift our heads after it."
+
+"He conducts himself with decency, I hope."
+
+"Why, he's won!"
+
+"Imitate him."
+
+Mrs. Lovell scanned the stalls.
+
+"Always imitate the behaviour of the winners when you lose," she resumed.
+"To speak of other things: I have had no letter of late from Edward.  He
+should be anxious to return.  I went this morning to see that unhappy
+girl.  She consents."
+
+"Poor creature," murmured Algernon; and added "Everybody wants money."
+
+"She decides wisely; for it is the best she can do.  She deserves pity,
+for she has been basely used."
+
+"Poor old Ned didn't mean," Algernon began pleading on his cousin's
+behalf, when Mrs. Lovell's scornful eye checked the feeble attempt.
+
+"I am a woman, and, in certain cases, I side with my sex."
+
+"Wasn't it for you?"
+
+"That he betrayed her?  If that were so, I should be sitting in ashes."
+
+Algernon's look plainly declared that he thought her a mystery.
+
+The simplicity of his bewilderment made her smile.
+
+"I think your colonies are the right place for you, Algy, if you can get
+an appointment; which must be managed by-and-by.  Call on me to-morrow,
+as I said."
+
+Algernon signified positively that he would not, and doggedly refused to
+explain why.
+
+"Then I will call on you," said Mrs. Lovell.
+
+He was going to say something angrily, when Mrs. Lovell checked him:
+"Hush! she is singing."
+
+Algernon listened to the prima donna in loathing; he had so much to
+inquire about, and so much to relate: such a desire to torment and be
+comforted!
+
+Before he could utter a word further, the door opened, and Major Waring
+appeared, and he beheld Mrs. Lovell blush strangely.  Soon after, Lord
+Elling came in, and spoke the ordinary sentence or two concerning the
+day's topic--the horse Templemore.  Algernon quitted the box.  His ears
+were surcharged with sound entirely foreign to his emotions, and he
+strolled out of the house and off to his dingy chambers, now tenanted by
+himself alone, and there faced the sealed letters addressed to Edward,
+which had, by order, not been forwarded.  No less than six were in
+Dahlia's handwriting.  He had imagination sufficient to conceive the
+lamentations they contained, and the reproach they were to his own
+subserviency in not sending them.  He looked at the postmarks.  The last
+one was dated two months back.
+
+"How can she have cared a hang for Ned, if she's ready to go and marry a
+yokel, for the sake of a home and respectability?" he thought, rather in
+scorn; and, having established this contemptuous opinion of one of the
+sex, he felt justified in despising all.  "Just like women!  They--no!
+Peggy Lovell isn't.  She's a trump card, and she's a coquette--can't help
+being one.  It's in the blood.  I never saw her look so confoundedly
+lovely as when that fellow came into the box.  One up, one down.  Ned's
+away, and it's this fellow's turn.  Why the deuce does she always think
+I'm a boy? or else, she pretends to.  But I must give my mind to
+business."
+
+He drew forth the betting-book which his lively fancy had lost on the
+Downs.  Prompted by an afterthought, he went to the letter-box, saying,--
+
+"Who knows?  Wait till the day's ended before you curse your luck."
+
+There was a foreign letter in it from Edward, addressed to him, and
+another addressed to "Mr. Blancuv," that he tore open and read with
+disgusted laughter.  It was signed "N. Sedgett." Algernon read it twice
+over, for the enjoyment of his critical detection of the vile grammar,
+with many "Oh! by Joves!" and a concluding, "This is a curiosity!"
+
+It was a countryman's letter, ill-spelt, involved, and of a character to
+give Algernon a fine scholarly sense of superiority altogether novel.
+Everybody abused Algernon for his abuse of common Queen's English in his
+epistles: but here was a letter in comparison with which his own were
+doctorial, and accordingly he fell upon it with an acrimonious rapture of
+pedantry known to dull wits that have by extraordinary hazard pounced on
+a duller.
+
+"You're 'willing to forgeit and forgeive,' are you, you dog!" he
+exclaimed, half dancing.  "You'd forge anything, you rascal, if you could
+disguise your hand--that, I don't doubt.  You 'expeck the thousand pound
+to be paid down the day of my marriage,' do you, you impudent ruffian!
+'acording to agremint.'  What a mercenary vagabond this is!"
+
+Algernon reflected a minute.  The money was to pass through his hands.
+He compressed a desire to dispute with Sedgett that latter point about
+the agreement, and opened Edward's letter.
+
+It contained an order on a firm of attorneys to sell out so much Bank
+Stock and pay over one thousand pounds to Mr. A. Blancove.
+
+The beautiful concision of style in this document gave Algernon a feeling
+of profound deference toward the law and its officers.
+
+"Now, that's the way to Write!" he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+Accompanying this pleasant, pregnant bit of paper, possessed of such
+admirable literary excellence, were the following flimsy lines from
+Edward's self, to Algernon incomprehensible.
+
+As there is a man to be seen behind these lines in the dull unconscious
+process of transformation from something very like a villain to something
+by a few degrees more estimable, we may as well look at the letter in
+full.
+
+It begins with a neat display of consideration for the person addressed,
+common to letters that are dictated by overpowering egoism:--
+
+
+     "Dear Algy,--I hope you are working and attending regularly to
+     office business.  Look to that and to your health at present.
+     Depend upon it, there is nothing like work.  Fix your teeth in it.
+     Work is medicine.  A truism!  Truisms, whether they lie in the
+     depths of thought, or on the surface, are at any rate the pearls of
+     experience.
+
+     "I am coming home.  Let me know the instant this affair is over.  I
+     can't tell why I wait here.  I fall into lethargies.  I write to no
+     one but to you.  Your supposition that I am one of the hangers-on of
+     the coquette of her time, and that it is for her I am seeking to get
+     free, is conceived with your usual discrimination.  For Margaret
+     Lovell?  Do you imagine that I desire to be all my life kicking the
+     beam, weighed in capricious scales, appraised to the direct nicety,
+     petulantly taken up, probed for my weakest point, and then flung
+     into the grate like a child's toy?  That's the fate of the several
+     asses who put on the long-eared Lovell-livery.
+
+     "All women are the same.  Know one, know all.  Aware of this, and
+     too wise to let us study them successfully, Nature pretty language
+     this is for you, Algy!  I can do nothing but write nonsense.  I am
+     sick of life.  I feel choked.  After a month, Paris is sweet
+     biscuit.
+
+     "I have sent you the order for the money.  If it were two, or
+     twenty, thousand pounds, it would be the same to me.
+
+     "I swear to heaven that my lowest cynical ideas of women, and the
+     loathing with which their simply animal vagaries inspires a
+     thoughtful man, are distanced and made to seem a benevolent
+     criticism, by the actualities of my experience.  I say that you
+     cannot put faith in a woman.  Even now, I do not--it's against
+     reason--I do not believe that she--this Dahlia--means to go through
+     with it.  She is trying me.  I have told her that she was my wife.
+     Her self-respect--everything that keeps a woman's head up--must have
+     induced her to think so.  Why, she is not a fool!  How can she mean
+     to give herself to an ignorant country donkey? She does not: mark
+     me.  For her, who is a really--I may say, the most refined nature I
+     have ever met, to affect this, and think of deceiving me, does not
+     do credit to her wits--and she is not without her share.
+
+     "I did once mean that she should be honourably allied to me.  It's
+     comforting that the act is not the wife of the intention, or I
+     should now be yoked to a mere thing of the seasons and the hours--a
+     creature whose 'No' to-day is the 'Yes' of to-morrow.  Women of this
+     cast are sure to end comfortably for themselves, they are so
+     obedient to the whips of Providence.
+
+     "But I tell you candidly, Algy, I believe she's pushing me, that she
+     may see how far I will let her go.  I do not permit her to play at
+     this game with me."  The difficulty is in teaching women that we are
+     not constituted as they are, and that we are wilfully earnest, while
+     they, who never can be so save under compulsion, carry it on with
+     us, expecting that at a certain crisis a curtain will drop, and we
+     shall take a deep breath, join hands, and exclaim, 'What an exciting
+     play!'--weeping luxuriously.  The actualities of life must be
+     branded on their backs--you can't get their brains to apprehend
+     them.
+
+     "Poor things! they need pity.  I am ready to confess I did not keep
+     my promise to her.  I am very sorry she has been ill.  Of course,
+     having no brains--nothing but sensations wherewith to combat every
+     new revolution of fortune, she can't but fall ill.  But I think of
+     her; and I wish to God I did not.  She is going to enter her own
+     sphere--though, mark me, it will turn out as I say, that, when it
+     comes to the crisis, there will be shrieks and astonishment that the
+     curtain doesn't fall and the whole resolve itself to what they call
+     a dream in our language, a farce.
+
+     "I am astonished that there should be no letters for me.  I can
+     understand her not writing at first; but apparently she cherishes
+     rancour.  It is not like her.  I can't help thinking there must be
+     one letter from her, and that you keep it back.  I remember that I
+     told you when I left England I desired to have no letter forwarded
+     to me, but I have repeatedly asked you since if there was a letter,
+     and it appears to me that you have shuffled in your answer.  I
+     merely wish to know if there is a letter; because I am at present
+     out in my study of her character.  It seems monstrous that she
+     should never have written!  Don't you view it in that light?  To be
+     ready to break with me, without one good-bye!--it's gratifying, but
+     I am astonished; for so gentle and tender a creature, such as I knew
+     her, never existed to compare with her.  Ce qui est bien la preuve
+     que je ne la connaissais pas!  I thought I did, which was my error.
+     I have a fatal habit of trusting to my observation less than to my
+     divining wit; and La Rochefoucauld is right: 'on est quelquefois un
+     sot avec de l'esprit; mais on ne Pest jamais avec du jugement.'
+     Well!  better be deceived in a character than doubt it.
+
+     "This will soon be over.  Then back to the dear old dusky chambers,
+     with the pick and the axe in the mine of law, till I strike a gold
+     vein, and follow it to the woolsack.  I want peace.  I begin to hate
+     pleading.  I hope to meet Death full-wigged.  By my troth, I will
+     look as grimly at him as he at me.  Meantime, during a vacation, I
+     will give you holiday (or better, in the February days, if I can
+     spare time and Equity is dispensed without my aid), dine you, and
+     put you in the whirl of Paris.  You deserve a holiday.  Nunc est
+     bibendum!  You shall sing it.  Tell me what you think of her
+     behaviour.  You are a judge of women.  I think I am developing
+     nerves.  In fact, work is what I need--a file to bite.  And send me
+     also the name of this man who has made the bargain--who is to be her
+     husband.  Give me a description of him.  It is my duty to see that
+     he has principle; at least we're bound to investigate his character,
+     if it's really to go on.  I wonder whether you will ever perceive
+     the comedy of, life.  I doubt whether a man is happier when he does
+     perceive it.  Perhaps the fact is, that he has by that time lost his
+     power of laughter; except in the case of here and there a very
+     tremendous philosopher.
+
+     "I believe that we comic creatures suffer more than your tragic
+     personages.  We, do you see, are always looking to be happy and
+     comfortable; but in a tragedy, the doomed wretches are
+     liver-complexioned from the opening act.  Their laughter is the owl:
+     their broadest smile is twilight.  All the menacing horrors of an
+     eclipse are ours, for we have a sun over us; but they are born in
+     shades, with the tuck of a curtain showing light, and little can be
+     taken from them; so that they find scarce any terrors in the
+     inevitable final stroke.  No; the comedy is painfullest.  You and I,
+     Algy, old bachelors, will earn the right just to chuckle.  We will
+     take the point of view of science, be the stage carpenters, and let
+     the actors move on and off.  By this, we shall learn to take a
+     certain pride in the machinery.  To become stage carpenter, is to
+     attain to the highest rank within the reach of intellectual man.
+     But your own machinery must be sound, or you can't look after that
+     of the theatre.  Don't over-tax thy stomach, O youth!
+
+     "And now, farewell, my worthy ass!  You have been thinking me one
+     through a fair half of this my letter, so I hasten to be in advance
+     of you, by calling you one.  You are one: I likewise am one.  We are
+     all one.  The universal language is hee-haw, done in a grievous
+     yawn.
+
+                                   "Yours,
+
+                                        "Edward B.
+
+     "P.S.--Don't fail to send a letter by the next post; then, go and
+     see her; write again exactly what she says, and let me know the
+     man's name.  You will not lose a minute.  Also, don't waste ink in
+     putting Mrs. Lovell's name to paper: I desire not to hear anything
+     of the woman."
+
+Algernon read this letter in a profound mystification, marvelling how it
+could possibly be that Edward and Mrs. Lovell had quarrelled once more,
+and without meeting.
+
+They had parted, he knew or supposed that he knew, under an engagement to
+arrange the preliminaries of an alliance, when Edward should return from
+France; in other words, when Edward had thrown grave-dust on a naughty
+portion of his past; severing an unwise connection.  Such had certainly
+been Edward's view of the matter.  But Mrs. Lovell had never spoken to
+Algernon on that subject.  She had spoken willingly and in deep sympathy
+of Dahlia.  She had visited her, pitied her, comforted her; and Algernon
+remembered that she had looked very keen and pinched about the mouth in
+alluding to Dahlia; but how she and Edward had managed to arrive at
+another misunderstanding was a prodigious puzzle to him; and why, if
+their engagement had snapped, each consented to let Dahlia's marriage
+(which was evidently distasteful to both) go on to the conclusion of the
+ceremony, he could not comprehend.  There were, however, so many things
+in the world that he could not comprehend, and he had grown so
+accustomed, after an effort to master a difficulty, to lean his head back
+upon downy ignorance, that he treated this significant letter of Edward's
+like a tough lesson, and quietly put it by, together with every
+recommendation it contained.  For all that was practical in it, it might
+just as well not have been written.
+
+The value of the letter lies in the exhibition it presents of a rather
+mark-worthy young man, who has passed through the hands of a--(what I
+must call her; and in doing so, I ask pardon of all the Jack Cades of
+Letters, who, in the absence of a grammatical king and a government, sit
+as lords upon the English tongue) a crucible woman.  She may be
+inexcusable herself; but you for you to be base, for you to be cowardly,
+even to betray a weakness, though it be on her behalf,--though you can
+plead that all you have done is for her, yea, was partly instigated by
+her,--it will cause her to dismiss you with the inexorable contempt of
+Nature, when she has tried one of her creatures and found him wanting.
+
+Margaret Lovell was of this description: a woman fashioned to do both
+harm and good, and more of harm than of good; but never to sanction a
+scheme of evil or blink at it in alliance with another: a woman, in
+contact with whom you were soon resolved to your component elements.
+Separated from a certain fascination that there was for her in Edward's
+acerb wit, she saw that he was doing a dastardly thing in cold blood.  We
+need not examine their correspondence.  In a few weeks she had contrived
+to put a chasm between them as lovers.  Had he remained in England,
+boldly facing his own evil actions, she would have been subjugated, for
+however keenly she might pierce to the true character of a man, the show
+of an unflinching courage dominated her; but his departure, leaving all
+the brutality to be done for him behind his back, filled this woman with
+a cutting spleen.  It is sufficient for some men to know that they are
+seen through, in order to turn away in loathing from her whom they have
+desired; and when they do thus turn away, they not uncommonly turn with a
+rush of old affection to those who have generously trusted them in the
+days past, and blindly thought them estimable beings.
+
+Algernon was by no means gifted to perceive whether this was the case
+with his cousin in Paris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+So long as the fool has his being in the world, he will be a part of
+every history, nor can I keep him from his place in a narrative that is
+made to revolve more or less upon its own wheels.  Algernon went to bed,
+completely forgetting Edward and his own misfortunes, under the influence
+of the opiate of the order for one thousand pounds, to be delivered to
+him upon application.  The morning found him calmly cheerful, until a
+little parcel was brought to his door, together with a note from Mrs.
+Lovell, explaining that the parcel contained those jewels, his precious
+gifts of what she had insultingly chosen to call "esteem" for her.
+
+Algernon took it in his hand, and thought of flinging it through the
+window; but as the window happened to be open, he checked the impulse,
+and sent it with great force into a corner of the room: a perfectly
+fool-like proceeding, for the fool is, after his fashion, prudent, and
+will never, if he can help it, do himself thorough damage, that he may
+learn by it and be wiser.
+
+"I never stand insult," he uttered, self-approvingly, and felt manlier.
+"No; not even from you, ma'am," he apostrophized Mrs. Lovell's portrait,
+that had no rival now upon the wall, and that gave him a sharp fight for
+the preservation of his anger, so bewitching she was to see.  Her not
+sending up word that she wished him to come to her rendered his battle
+easier.
+
+"It looks rather like a break between us," he said.  "If so, you won't
+find me so obedient to your caprices, Mrs. Margaret L.; though you are a
+pretty woman, and know it.  Smile away.  I prefer a staunch, true sort of
+a woman, after all.  And the colonies it must be, I begin to suspect."
+This set him conjuring before his eyes the image of Rhoda, until he
+cried, "I'll be hanged if the girl doesn't haunt me!" and considered the
+matter with some curiosity.
+
+He was quickly away, and across the square of Lincoln's Inn Fields to the
+attorney's firm, where apparently his coming was expected, and he was
+told that the money would be placed in his hands on the following day.
+He then communicated with Edward, in the brief Caesarian tongue of the
+telegraph: "All right.  Stay.  Ceremony arranged."  After which, he
+hailed a skimming cab, and pronouncing the word "Epsom," sank back in it,
+and felt in his breast-pocket for his cigar-case, without casting one
+glance of interest at the deep fit of cogitation the cabman had been
+thrown into by the suddenness of the order.
+
+"Dash'd if it ain't the very thing I went and gone and dreamed last
+night," said the cabman, as he made his dispositions to commence the
+journey.
+
+Certain boys advised him to whip it away as hard as he could, and he
+would come in the winner.
+
+"Where shall I grub, sir?" the cabman asked through the little door
+above, to get some knowledge of the quality of his fare.
+
+"Eat your 'grub' on the course," said Algernon.
+
+"Ne'er a hamper to take up nowheres, is there, sir?"
+
+"Do you like the sight of one?"
+
+"Well, it ain't what I object to."
+
+"Then go fast, my man, and you will soon see plenty."
+
+"If you took to chaffin' a bit later in the day, it'd impart more
+confidence to my bosom," said the cabman; but this he said to that bosom
+alone.
+
+"Ain't no particular colours you'd like me to wear, is there? I'll get a
+rosette, if you like, sir, and enter in triumph.  Gives ye something to
+stand by.  That's always my remark, founded on observation."
+
+"Go to the deuce!  Drive on," Algernon sang out.  "Red, yellow, and
+green."
+
+"Lobster, ale, and salad!" said the cabman, flicking his whip; "and good
+colours too.  Tenpenny Nail's the horse.  He's the colours I stick to."
+And off he drove, envied of London urchins, as mortals would have envied
+a charioteer driving visibly for Olympus.
+
+Algernon crossed his arms, with the frown of one looking all inward.
+
+At school this youth had hated sums.  All arithmetical difficulties had
+confused and sickened him.  But now he worked with indefatigable industry
+on an imaginary slate; put his postulate, counted probabilities, allowed
+for chances, added, deducted, multiplied, and unknowingly performed
+algebraic feats, till his brows were stiff with frowning, and his brain
+craved for stimulant.
+
+This necessity sent his hand to his purse, for the calling of the cab had
+not been a premeditated matter.  He discovered therein some half-crowns
+and a sixpence, the latter of which he tossed in contempt at some boys
+who were cheering the vehicles on their gallant career.
+
+There was something desperately amusing to him in the thought that he had
+not even money enough to pay the cabman, or provide for a repast.  He
+rollicked in his present poverty.  Yesterday he had run down with a party
+of young guardsmen in a very royal manner; and yesterday he had lost.
+To-day he journeyed to the course poorer than many of the beggars he
+would find there; and by a natural deduction, to-day he was to win.
+
+He whistled mad waltzes to the measure of the wheels.  He believed that
+he had a star.  He pitched his half-crowns to the turnpike-men, and
+sought to propitiate Fortune by displaying a signal indifference to small
+change; in which method of courting her he was perfectly serious.  He
+absolutely rejected coppers.  They "crossed his luck."  Nor can we say
+that he is not an authority on this point: the Goddess certainly does not
+deal in coppers.
+
+Anxious efforts at recollection perplexed him.  He could not remember
+whether he had "turned his money" on looking at the last new moon.  When
+had he seen the last new moon, and where?  A cloud obscured it; he had
+forgotten.  He consoled himself by cursing superstition.  Tenpenny Nail
+was to gain the day in spite of fortune.  Algernon said this, and
+entrenched his fluttering spirit behind common sense, but he found it a
+cold corner.  The longing for Champagne stimulant increased in fervour.
+Arithmetic languished.
+
+As he was going up the hill, the wheels were still for a moment, and
+hearing "Tenpenny Nail" shouted, he put forth his head, and asked what
+the cry was, concerning that horse.
+
+"Gone lame," was the answer.
+
+It hit the centre of his nerves, without reaching his comprehension, and
+all Englishmen being equal on Epsom Downs, his stare at the man who had
+spoken, and his sickly colour, exposed him to pungent remarks.
+
+"Hullos! here's another Ninepenny--a penny short!" and similar specimens
+of Epsom wit, encouraged by the winks and retorts of his driver,
+surrounded him; but it was empty clamour outside.  A rage of emotions
+drowned every idea in his head, and when he got one clear from the mass,
+it took the form of a bitter sneer at Providence, for cutting off his
+last chance of reforming his conduct and becoming good.  What would he
+not have accomplished, that was brilliant, and beautiful, and soothing,
+but for this dead set against him!
+
+It was clear that Providence cared "not a rap," whether he won or lost
+--was good or bad.  One might just as well be a heathen; why not?
+
+He jumped out of the cab (tearing his coat in the acts minor evil, but
+"all of a piece," as he said), and made his way to the Ring.  The
+bee-swarm was thick as ever on the golden bough.  Algernon heard no
+curses, and began to nourish hope again, as he advanced.  He began to
+hope wildly that this rumour about the horse was a falsity, for there was
+no commotion, no one declaiming.
+
+He pushed to enter the roaring circle, which the demand for an
+entrance-fee warned him was a privilege, and he stammered, and forgot the
+gentlemanly coolness commonly distinguishing him, under one of the acuter
+twinges of his veteran complaint of impecuniosity.  And then the cabman
+made himself heard: a civil cabman, but without directions, and uncertain
+of his dinner and his pay, tolerably hot, also, from threading a crowd
+after a deaf gentleman.  His half-injured look restored to Algernon his
+self-possession.
+
+"Ah! there you are:--scurry away and fetch my purse out of the bottom of
+the cab.  I've dropped it."
+
+On this errand, the confiding cabman retired.  Holding to a gentleman's
+purse is even securer than holding to a gentleman.
+
+While Algernon was working his forefinger in his waistcoat-pocket
+reflectively, a man at his elbow said, with a show of familiar
+deference,--
+
+"If it's any convenience to you, sir," and showed the rim of a gold piece
+'twixt finger and thumb.
+
+"All right," Algernon replied readily, and felt that he was known, but
+tried to keep his eyes from looking at the man's face; which was a vain
+effort.  He took the money, nodded curtly, and passed in.
+
+Once through the barrier, he had no time to be ashamed.  He was in the
+atmosphere of challenges.  He heard voices, and saw men whom not to
+challenge, or try a result with, was to acknowledge oneself mean, and to
+abandon the manliness of life.  Algernon's betting-book was soon out and
+in operation.  While thus engaged, he beheld faces passing and repassing
+that were the promise of luncheon and a loan; and so comfortable was the
+assurance thereof to him, that he laid the thought of it aside, quite in
+the background, and went on betting with an easy mind.
+
+Small, senseless bets, they merely occupied him; and winning them was
+really less satisfactory than losing, which, at all events, had the merit
+of adding to the bulk of his accusation against the ruling Powers unseen.
+
+Algernon was too savage for betting when the great race was run.  He
+refused both at taunts and cajoleries; but Lord Suckling coming by, said
+"Name your horse," and, caught unawares, Algernon named Little John, one
+of the ruck, at a hazard.  Lord Suckling gave him fair odds, asking: "In
+tens?--fifties?"
+
+"Silver," shrugged Algernon, implacable toward Fortune; and the kindly
+young nobleman nodded, and made allowance for his ill-temper and want of
+spirit, knowing the stake he had laid on the favourite.
+
+Little John startled the field by coming in first at a canter.
+
+"Men have committed suicide for less than this" said Algernon within his
+lips, and a modest expression of submission to fate settled on his
+countenance.  He stuck to the Ring till he was haggard with fatigue.  His
+whole nature cried out for Champagne, and now he burst away from that
+devilish circle, looking about for Lord Suckling and a hamper.  Food and
+a frothing drink were all that he asked from Fortune.  It seemed to him
+that the concourse on the downs shifted in a restless way.
+
+"What's doing, I wonder?" he thought aloud.
+
+"Why, sir, the last race ain't generally fashionable," said his cabman,
+appearing from behind his shoulder.  "Don't you happen to be peckish,
+sir?--'cause, luck or no luck, that's my case.  I couldn't see, your
+purse, nowheres."
+
+"Confound you! how you hang about me!  What do you want?" Algernon cried;
+and answered his own question, by speeding the cabman to a booth with
+what money remained to him, and appointing a place of meeting for the
+return.  After which he glanced round furtively to make sure that he was
+not in view of the man who had lent him the sovereign.  It became evident
+that the Downs were flowing back to London.
+
+He hurried along the lines of carriages, all getting into motion.  The
+ghastly conviction overtook him that he was left friendless, to starve.
+Wherever he turned, he saw strangers and empty hampers, bottles, straw,
+waste paper--the ruins of the feast: Fate's irony meantime besetting him
+with beggars, who swallowed his imprecations as the earnest of coming
+charity in such places.
+
+At last, he was brought almost to sigh that he might see the man who had
+lent him the sovereign, and his wish was hardly formed, when Nicodemus
+Sedgett approached, waving a hat encircled by preposterous wooden
+figures, a trifle less lightly attired than the ladies of the ballet, and
+as bold in the matter of leg as the female fashion of the period.
+
+Algernon eyed the lumpy-headed, heavy-browed rascal with what disgust he
+had left in him, for one who came as an instrument of the Fates to help
+him to some poor refreshment.  Sedgett informed him that he had never had
+such fun in his life.
+
+"Just 'fore matrimony," he communicated in a dull whisper, "a fellow
+ought to see a bit o' the world, I says--don't you, sir? and this has
+been rare sport, that it has!  Did ye find your purse, sir?  Never mind
+'bout that ther' pound.  I'll lend you another, if ye like.  How sh'll it
+be?  Say the word."
+
+Algernon was meditating, apparently on a remote subject.  He nodded
+sharply.
+
+"Yes.  Call at my chambers to-morrow."
+
+Another sovereign was transferred to him: but Sedgett would not be shaken
+off.
+
+"I just wanted t' have a bit of a talk with you," he spoke low.
+
+"Hang it!  I haven't eaten all day," snapped the irritable young
+gentleman, fearful now of being seen in the rascal's company.
+
+"You come along to the jolliest booth--I'll show it to you," said
+Sedgett, and lifted one leg in dancing attitude.  "Come along, sir: the
+jolliest booth I ever was in, dang me if it ain't!  Ale and music--them's
+my darlings!" the wretch vented his slang.  "And I must have a talk with
+you.  I'll stick to you.  I'm social when I'm jolly, that I be: and I
+don't know a chap on these here downs.  Here's the pint: Is all square?
+Am I t' have the cash in cash counted down, I asks?  And is it to be
+before, or is it to be after, the ceremony?  There! bang out! say, yes or
+no."
+
+Algernon sent him to perdition with infinite heartiness, but he was dry,
+dispirited, and weak, and he walked on, Sedgett accompanying him.  He
+entered a booth, and partook of ale and ham, feeling that he was in the
+dregs of calamity.  Though the ale did some service in reviving, it did
+not cheer him, and he had a fit of moral objection to Sedgett's
+discourse.
+
+Sedgett took his bluntness as a matter to be endured for the honour of
+hob-a-nobbing with a gentleman.  Several times he recurred to the theme
+which he wanted, as he said, to have a talk upon.
+
+He related how he had courted the young woman, "bashful-like," and had
+been so; for she was a splendid young woman; not so handsome now, as she
+used to be when he had seen her in the winter: but her illness had pulled
+her down and made her humble: they had cut her hair during the fever,
+which had taken her pride clean out of her; and when he had put the
+question to her on the evening of last Sunday, she had gone into a sort
+of faint, and he walked away with her affirmative locked up in his
+breast-pocket, and was resolved always to treat her well--which he swore
+to.
+
+"Married, and got the money, and the lease o' my farm disposed of, I'm
+off to Australia and leave old England behind me, and thank ye, mother,
+thank ye! and we shan't meet again in a hurry.  And what sort o' song I'm
+to sing for 'England is my nation, ain't come across me yet.  Australia's
+such a precious big world; but that'll come easy in time.  And there'll I
+farm, and damn all you gentlemen, if you come anigh me."
+
+The eyes of the fellow were fierce as he uttered this; they were rendered
+fierce by a peculiar blackish flush that came on his brows and
+cheek-bones; otherwise, the yellow about the little brown dot in the
+centre of the eyeball had not changed; but the look was unmistakably
+savage, animal, and bad.  He closed the lids on them, and gave a sort of
+churlish smile immediately afterward.
+
+"Harmony's the game.  You act fair, I act fair.  I've kept to the
+condition.  She don't know anything of my whereabouts--res'dence, I mean;
+and thinks I met you in her room for the first time.  That's the truth,
+Mr. Blancove.  And thinks me a sheepish chap, and I'm that, when I'm
+along wi' her.  She can't make out how I come to call at her house and
+know her first.  Gives up guessing, I suppose, for she's quiet about it;
+and I pitch her tales about Australia, and life out there.  I've got her
+to smile, once or twice.  She'll turn her hand to making cheeses, never
+you fear.  Only, this I say.  I must have the money.  It's a thousand and
+a bargain.  No thousand, and no wife for me.  Not that I don't stand by
+the agreement.  I'm solid."
+
+Algernon had no power of encountering a human eye steadily, or he would
+have shown the man with a look how repulsive he was to a gentleman.  His
+sensations grew remorseful, as if he were guilty of handing a victim to
+the wretch.
+
+But the woman followed her own inclination, did she not?  There was no
+compulsion: she accepted this man.  And if she could do that, pity was
+wasted on her!
+
+So thought he: and so the world would think of the poor forlorn soul
+striving to expiate her fault, that her father and sister might be at
+peace, without shame.
+
+Algernon signified to Sedgett that the agreement was fixed and
+irrevocable on his part.
+
+Sedgett gulped some ale.
+
+"Hands on it," he said, and laid his huge hand open across the table.
+
+This was too much.
+
+"My word must satisfy you," said Algernon, rising.
+
+"So it shall.  So it do," returned Sedgett, rising with him.  "Will you
+give it in writing?"
+
+"I won't."
+
+"That's blunt.  Will you come and have a look at a sparring-match in
+yond' brown booth, sir?"
+
+"I am going back to London."
+
+"London and the theayter that's the fun, now, ain't it!" Sedgett laughed.
+
+Algernon discerned his cabman and the conveyance ready, and beckoned him.
+
+"Perhaps, sir," said Sedgett, "if I might make so bold--I don't want to
+speak o' them sovereigns--but I've got to get back too, and cash is run
+low.  D' ye mind, sir?  Are you kind-hearted?"
+
+A constitutional habit of servility to his creditor when present before
+him signalized Algernon.  He detested the man, but his feebleness was
+seized by the latter question, and he fancied he might, on the road to
+London, convey to Sedgett's mind that it would be well to split that
+thousand, as he had previously devised.
+
+"Jump in," he said.
+
+When Sedgett was seated, Algernon would have been glad to walk the
+distance to London to escape from the unwholesome proximity.  He took the
+vacant place, in horror of it.  The man had hitherto appeared respectful;
+and in Dahlia's presence he had seemed a gentle big fellow with a
+reverent, affectionate heart.  Sedgett rallied him.
+
+"You've had bad luck--that's wrote on your hatband.  Now, if you was a
+woman, I'd say, tak' and go and have a peroose o' your Bible.  That's
+what my young woman does; and by George! it's just like medicine to her--
+that 'tis!  I've read out to her till I could ha' swallowed two quart o'
+beer at a gulp--I was that mortal thirsty.  It don't somehow seem to
+improve men.  It didn't do me no good.  There was I, cursin' at the
+bother, down in my boots, like, and she with her hands in a knot,
+staring the fire out o' count'nance.  They're weak, poor sort o' things."
+
+The intolerable talk of the ruffian prompted Algernon to cry out, for
+relief,--
+
+"A scoundrel like you must be past any good to be got from reading his
+Bible."
+
+Sedgett turned his dull brown eyes on him, the thick and hateful flush of
+evil blood informing them with detestable malignity.
+
+"Come; you be civil, if you're going to be my companion," he said.
+"I don't like bad words; they don't go down my windpipe.  'Scoundrel 's
+a name I've got a retort for, and if it hadn't been you, and you a
+gentleman, you'd have had it spanking hot from the end o' my fist.
+Perhaps you don't know what sort of a arm I've got?  Just you feel
+that ther' muscle."
+
+He doubled his arm, the knuckles of the fist toward Algernon's face.
+
+"Down with it, you dog!" cried Algernon, crushing his hat as he started
+up.
+
+"It'll come on your nose, if I downs with it, my lord," said Sedgett.
+"You've what they Londoners calls 'bonneted yourself.'"
+
+He pulled Algernon by the coat-tail into his seat.
+
+"Stop!" Algernon shouted to the cabman.
+
+"Drive ahead!" roared Sedgett.
+
+This signal of a dissension was heard along the main street of Epsom, and
+re-awakened the flagging hilarity of the road.
+
+Algernon shrieked his commands; Sedgett thundered his.  They tussled, and
+each having inflicted an unpleasant squeeze on the other, they came apart
+by mutual consent, and exchanged half-length blows.  Overhead, the
+cabman--not merely a cabman, but an individual--flicked the flanks of his
+horse, and cocked his eye and head in answer to gesticulations from shop-
+doors and pavement.
+
+"Let 'em fight it out, I'm impartial," he remarked; and having lifted his
+little observing door, and given one glance, parrot-wise, below, he shut
+away the troubled prospect of those mortals, and drove along benignly.
+
+Epsom permitted it; but Ewell contained a sturdy citizen, who, smoking
+his pipe under his eaves, contemplative of passers-by, saw strife rushing
+on like a meteor.  He raised the waxed end of his pipe, and with an
+authoritative motion of his head at the same time, pointed out the case
+to a man in a donkey-cart, who looked behind, saw pugnacity upon wheels,
+and manoeuvred a docile and wonderfully pretty-stepping little donkey in
+such a manner that the cabman was fain to pull up.
+
+The combatants jumped into the road.
+
+"That's right, gentlemen; I don't want to spile sport," said the donkey's
+man.  "O' course you ends your Epsom-day with spirit."
+
+"There's sunset on their faces," said the cabman.  "Would you try a
+by-lane, gentlemen?"
+
+But now the donkey's man had inspected the figures of the antagonistic
+couple.
+
+"Taint fair play," he said to Sedgett.  "You leave that gentleman alone,
+you, sir?"
+
+The man with the pipe came up.
+
+"No fighting," he observed.  "We ain't going to have our roads disgraced.
+It shan't be said Englishmen don't know how to enjoy themselves without
+getting drunk and disorderly.  You drop your fists."
+
+The separation had to be accomplished by violence, for Algernon's blood
+was up.
+
+A crowd was not long in collecting, which caused a stoppage of vehicles
+of every description.
+
+A gentleman leaned from an open carriage to look at the fray critically,
+and his companion stretching his neck to do likewise, "Sedgett!" burst
+from his lips involuntarily.
+
+The pair of original disputants (for there were many by this time) turned
+their heads simultaneously toward the carriage.
+
+"Will you come on?" Sedgett roared, but whether to Algernon, or to one of
+the gentlemen, or one of the crowd, was indefinite.  None responding, he
+shook with ox-like wrath, pushed among shoulders, and plunged back to his
+seat, making the cabman above bound and sway, and the cab-horse to start
+and antic.
+
+Greatly to the amazement of the spectators, the manifest gentleman (by
+comparison) who had recently been at a pummelling match with him, and
+bore the stains of it, hung his head, stepped on the cab, and suffered
+himself to be driven away.
+
+"Sort of a 'man-and-wife' quarrel," was the donkey's man's comment.
+"There's something as corks 'em up, and something uncorks 'em; but what
+that something is, I ain't, nor you ain't, man enough to inform the
+company."
+
+He rubbed his little donkey's nose affectionately.
+
+"Any gentleman open to a bet I don't overtake that ere Hansom within
+three miles o' Ewell?" he asked, as he took the rein.
+
+But his little donkey's quality was famous in the neighbourhood.
+
+"Come on, then," he said; "and show what you can do, without emilation,
+Master Tom."
+
+Away the little donkey trotted.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+All women are the same--Know one, know all
+Exceeding variety and quantity of things money can buy
+He will be a part of every history (the fool)
+I never pay compliments to transparent merit
+I haven't got the pluck of a flea
+Love dies like natural decay
+Pleasant companion, who did not play the woman obtrusively among men
+Silence is commonly the slow poison used by those who mean to murder love
+The woman seeking for an anomaly wants a master
+The backstairs of history (Memoirs)
+To be her master, however, one must not begin by writhing as her slave
+Wait till the day's ended before you curse your luck
+With this money, said the demon,  you might speculate
+Work is medicine
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Rhoda Fleming, v3
+by George Meredith
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RHODA FLEMING
+
+By GEORGE MEREDITH
+
+1897
+
+
+
+BOOK 4.
+
+XXX.      THE EXPIATION
+XXXI.     THE MELTING OF THE THOUSAND
+XXXII.    LA QUESTION D'ARGENT
+XXXIII.   EDWARD'S RETURN
+XXXIV.    FATHER AND SON
+XXXV.     THE NIGHT BEFORE
+XXXVI.    EDWARD MEETS HIS MATCH
+XXXVII.   EDWARD TRIES HIS ELOQUENCE
+XXXVIII.  TOO LATE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+Those two in the open carriage, one of whom had called out Sedgett's
+name, were Robert and Major Waring.  When the cab had flown by, they fell
+back into their seats, and smoked; the original stipulation for the day
+having been that no harassing matter should be spoken of till nightfall.
+
+True to this, Robert tried to think hard on the scene of his recent
+enjoyment.  Horses were to him what music is to a poet, and the glory of
+the Races he had witnessed was still quick in heart, and partly
+counteracted his astonishment at the sight of his old village enemy in
+company with Algernon Blancove.
+
+It was not astonishing at all to him that they should have quarrelled and
+come to blows; for he knew Sedgett well, and the imperative necessity for
+fighting him, if only to preserve a man's self-respect and the fair
+division of peace, when once he had been allowed to get upon terms
+sufficiently close to assert his black nature; but how had it come about?
+How was it that a gentleman could consent to appear publicly with such a
+fellow?  He decided that it meant something, and something ominous--but
+what?  Whom could it affect?  Was Algernon Blancove such a poor creature
+that, feeling himself bound by certain dark dealings with Sedgett to keep
+him quiet, he permitted the bullying dog to hang to his coat-tail?  It
+seemed improbable that any young gentleman should be so weak, but it
+might be the case; and "if so," thought Robert, "and I let him know I
+bear him no ill-will for setting Sedgett upon me, I may be doing him a
+service."
+
+He remembered with pain Algernon's glance of savage humiliation upward,
+just before he turned to follow Sedgett into the cab; and considered that
+he ought in kindness to see him and make him comfortable by apologizing,
+as if he himself had no complaint to make.
+
+He resolved to do it when the opportunity should come.  Meantime, what on
+earth brought them together?
+
+"How white the hedges are!" he said.
+
+"There's a good deal of dust," Major Waring replied.
+
+"I wasn't aware that cabs came to the races."
+
+"They do, you see."
+
+Robert perceived that Percy meant to fool him if he attempted a breach of
+the bond; but he longed so much for Percy's opinion of the strange
+alliance between Sedgett and Algernon Blancove, that at any cost he was
+compelled to say, "I can't get to the bottom of that."
+
+"That squabble in the road?" said Percy.  "We shall see two or three more
+before we reach home."
+
+"No.  What's the meaning of a gentleman consorting with a blackguard?"
+Robert persisted.
+
+"One or the other has discovered an assimilation, I suppose," Percy gave
+answer.  "That's an odd remark on returning from Epsom.  Those who jump
+into the same pond generally come out the same colour."
+
+Robert spoke low.
+
+"Has it anything to do with the poor girl, do you think?"
+
+"I told you I declined to think till we were home again.  Confound it,
+man, have you no idea of a holiday?"
+
+Robert puffed his tobacco-smoke.
+
+"Let's talk of Mrs. Lovell," he said.
+
+"That's not a holiday for me," Percy murmured but Robert's mind was too
+preoccupied to observe the tone, and he asked,--
+
+"Is she to be trusted to keep her word faithfully this time?"
+
+"Come," said Percy, "we haven't betted to-day.  I'll bet you she will, if
+you like.  Will you bet against it?"
+
+"I won't.  I can't nibble at anything.  Betting's like drinking."
+
+"But you can take a glass of wine.  This sort of bet is much the same.
+However, don't; for you would lose."
+
+"There," said Robert; "I've heard of being angry with women for
+fickleness, changeableness, and all sorts of other things.  She's a lady
+I couldn't understand being downright angry with, and here's the reason--
+it ain't a matter of reason at all--she fascinates me.  I do, I declare,
+clean forget Rhoda; I forget the girl, if only I see Mrs. Lovell at a
+distance.  How's that?  I'm not a fool, with nonsensical fancies of any
+kind.  I know what loving a woman is; and a man in my position might be
+ass enough to--all sorts of things.  It isn't that; it's fascination.
+I'm afraid of her.  If she talks to me, I feel something like having
+gulped a bottle of wine.  Some women you have a respect for; some you
+like or you love; some you despise: with her, I just feel I'm
+intoxicated."
+
+Major Waring eyed him steadily.  He said: "I'll unriddle it, if I can, to
+your comprehension.  She admires you for what you are, and she lets you
+see it; I dare say she's not unwilling that you should see it.  She has a
+worship for bravery: it's a deadly passion with her."
+
+Robert put up a protesting blush of modesty, as became him.  "Then why,
+if she does me the honour to think anything of me, does she turn against
+me?"
+
+"Ah! now you go deeper.  She is giving you what assistance she can; at
+present: be thankful, if you can be satisfied with her present doings.
+Perhaps I'll answer the other question by-and-by.  Now we enter London,
+and our day is over.  How did you like it?"
+
+Robert's imagination rushed back to the downs.
+
+"The race was glorious.  I wish we could go at that pace in life; I
+should have a certainty of winning.  How miserably dull the streets look;
+and the people creep along--they creep, and seem to like it.  Horseback's
+my element."
+
+They drove up to Robert's lodgings, where, since the Winter, he had been
+living austerely and recklessly; exiled by his sensitiveness from his two
+homes, Warbeach and Wrexby; and seeking over London for Dahlia--a
+pensioner on his friend's bounty; and therein had lain the degrading
+misery to a man of his composition.  Often had he thought of enlisting
+again, and getting drafted to a foreign station.  Nothing but the
+consciousness that he was subsisting on money not his own would have kept
+him from his vice.  As it was, he had lived through the months between
+Winter and Spring, like one threading his way through the tortuous
+lengths of a cavern; never coming to the light, but coming upon absurd
+mishaps in his effort to reach it.  His adventures in London partook
+somewhat of the character of those in Warbeach, minus the victim; for
+whom two or three gentlemen in public thoroughfares had been taken.
+These misdemeanours, in the face of civil society, Robert made no mention
+of in his letters to Percy.
+
+But there was light now, though at first it gave but a faint glimmer, in
+a lady's coloured envelope, lying on the sitting-room table.  Robert
+opened it hurriedly, and read it; seized Dahlia's address, with a brain
+on fire, and said:
+
+"It's signed 'Margaret Lovell.'  This time she calls me 'Dear Sir.'"
+
+"She could hardly do less," Percy remarked.
+
+"I know: but there is a change in her.  There's a summer in her writing
+now.  She has kept her word, Percy.  She's the dearest lady in the world.
+I don't ask why she didn't help me before."
+
+"You acknowledge the policy of mild measures," said Major Waring.
+
+"She's the dearest lady in the world," Robert repeated.  He checked his
+enthusiasm.  "Lord in heaven! what an evening I shall have."
+
+The thought of his approaching interview with Dahlia kept him dumb.
+
+As they were parting in the street, Major Waring said, "I will be here at
+twelve.  Let me tell you this, Robert: she is going to be married; say
+nothing to dissuade her; it's the best she can do; take a manly view of
+it.  Good-bye."
+
+Robert was but slightly affected by the intelligence.  His thoughts were
+on Dahlia as he had first seen her, when in her bloom, and the sister of
+his darling; now miserable; a thing trampled to earth!  With him, pity
+for a victim soon became lost in rage at the author of the wrong, and as
+he walked along he reflected contemptuously on his feeble efforts to
+avenge her at Warbeach.  She lived in a poor row of cottages, striking
+off from one of the main South-western suburb roads, not very distant
+from his own lodgings, at which he marvelled, as at a cruel irony.  He
+could not discern the numbers, and had to turn up several of the dusky
+little strips of garden to read the numbers on the doors.  A faint smell
+of lilac recalled the country and old days, and some church bells began
+ringing.  The number of the house where he was to find Dahlia was seven.
+He was at the door of the house next to it, when he heard voices in the
+garden beside him.
+
+A man said, "Then I have your answer?"
+
+A woman said, "Yes; yes."
+
+"You will not trust to my pledged honour?"
+
+"Pardon me; not that.  I will not live in disgrace."
+
+"When I promise, on my soul, that the moment I am free I will set you
+right before the world?"
+
+"Oh! pardon me."
+
+"You will?"
+
+"No; no! I cannot."
+
+"You choose to give yourself to an obscure dog, who'll ill-treat you, and
+for whom you don't care a pin's-head; and why? that you may be fenced
+from gossip, and nothing more.  I thought you were a woman above that
+kind of meanness.  And this is a common countryman.  How will you endure
+that kind of life?  You were made for elegance and happiness: you shall
+have it.  I met you before your illness, when you would not listen to me:
+I met you after.  I knew you at once.  Am I changed?  I swear to you I
+have dreamed of you ever since, and love you.  Be as faded as you like;
+be hideous, if you like; but come with me.  You know my name, and what I
+am.  Twice I have followed you, and found your name and address; twice I
+have written to you, and made the same proposal.  And you won't trust to
+my honour?  When I tell you I love you tenderly?  When I give you my
+solemn assurance that you shall not regret it?  You have been deceived by
+one man: why punish me?  I know--I feel you are innocent and good.  This
+is the third time that you have permitted me to speak to you: let it be
+final.  Say you will trust yourself to me--trust in my honour.  Say it
+shall be to-morrow.  Yes; say the word.  To-morrow.  My sweet creature--
+do!"
+
+The man spoke earnestly, but a third person and extraneous hearer could
+hardly avoid being struck by the bathetic conclusion.  At least, in tone
+it bordered on a fall; but the woman did not feel it so.
+
+She replied: "You mean kindly to me, sir.  I thank you indeed, for I am
+very friendless.  Oh! pardon me: I am quite--quite determined.  Go--pray,
+forget me."
+
+This was Dahlia's voice.
+
+Robert was unconscious of having previously suspected it.  Heartily
+ashamed of letting his ears be filled with secret talk, he went from the
+garden and crossed the street.
+
+He knew this to be one of the temptations of young women in London.
+
+Shortly after, the man came through the iron gateway of the garden.  He
+passed under lamplight, and Robert perceived him to be a gentleman in
+garb.
+
+A light appeared in the windows of the house.  Now that he had heard her
+voice, the terrors of his interview were dispersed, and he had only plain
+sadness to encounter.  He knocked at the door quietly.  There was a long
+delay after he had sent in his name; but finally admission was given.
+
+"If I had loved her!" groaned Robert, before he looked on her; but when
+he did look on her, affectionate pity washed the selfish man out of him.
+All these false sensations, peculiar to men, concerning the soiled purity
+of woman, the lost innocence; the brand of shame upon her, which are
+commonly the foul sentimentalism of such as can be too eager in the chase
+of corruption when occasion suits, and are another side of pruriency, not
+absolutely foreign to the best of us in our youth--all passed away from
+him in Dahlia's presence.
+
+The young man who can look on them we call fallen women with a noble eye,
+is to my mind he that is most nobly begotten of the race, and likeliest
+to be the sire of a noble line.  Robert was less than he; but Dahlia's
+aspect helped him to his rightful manliness.  He saw that her worth
+survived.
+
+The creature's soul had put no gloss upon her sin.  She had sinned, and
+her suffering was manifest.
+
+She had chosen to stand up and take the scourge of God; after which the
+stones cast by men are not painful.
+
+By this I mean that she had voluntarily stripped her spirit bare of
+evasion, and seen herself for what she was; pleading no excuse.  His
+scourge is the Truth, and she had faced it.
+
+Innumerable fanciful thoughts, few of them definite, beset the mind at
+interviews such as these; but Robert was distinctly impressed by her
+look.  It was as that of one upon the yonder shore.  Though they stood
+close together, he had the thought of their being separate--a gulf
+between.
+
+The colourlessness of her features helped to it, and the odd little
+close-fitting white linen cap which she wore to conceal the
+stubborn-twisting clipped curls of her shorn head, made her unlike women
+of our world.  She was dressed in black up to the throat.  Her eyes were
+still luminously blue, and she let them dwell on Robert one gentle
+instant, giving him her hand humbly.
+
+"Dahlia!--my dear sister, I wish I could say; but the luck's against me,"
+Robert began.
+
+She sat, with her fingers locked together in her lap, gazing forward on
+the floor, her head a little sideways bent.
+
+"I believe," he went on--"I haven't heard, but I believe Rhoda is well."
+
+"She and father are well, I know," said Dahlia.
+
+Robert started: "Are you in communication with them?"
+
+She shook her head.  "At the end of some days I shall see them."
+
+"And then perhaps you'll plead my cause, and make me thankful to you for
+life, Dahlia?"
+
+"Rhoda does not love you."
+
+"That's the fact, if a young woman's to be trusted to know her own mind,
+in the first place, and to speak it, in the second."
+
+Dahlia, closed her lips.  The long-lined underlip was no more very red.
+Her heart knew that it was not to speak of himself that he had come; but
+she was poor-witted, through weakness of her blood, and out of her own
+immediate line of thought could think neither far nor deep.  He
+entertained her with talk of his notions of Rhoda, finishing:
+
+"But at the end of a week you will see her, and I dare say she'll give
+you her notions of me.  Dahlia! how happy this'll make them.  I do say
+thank God! from my soul, for this."
+
+She pressed her hands in her lap, trembling.  "If you will, please, not
+speak of it, Mr. Robert."
+
+"Say only you do mean it, Dahlia.  You mean to let them see you?"
+
+She shivered out a "Yes."
+
+"That's right.  Because, a father and a sister--haven't they a claim?
+Think a while.  They've had a terrible time.  And it's true that you've
+consented to a husband, Dahlia?  I'm glad, if it is; and he's good and
+kind.  Right soul-glad I am."
+
+While he was speaking, her eyelids lifted and her eyes became fixed on
+him in a stony light of terror, like a creature in anguish before her
+executioner.  Then again her eyelids dropped.  She had not moved from her
+still posture.
+
+"You love him?" he asked, in some wonderment.
+
+She gave no answer.
+
+"Don't you care for him?"
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Because, Dahlia, if you do not I know I have no right to fancy you do
+not.  How is it?  Tell me.  Marriage is an awful thing, where there's no
+love.  And this man, whoever he is--is he in good circumstances?  I
+wouldn't speak of him; but, you see, I must, as your friend--and I'm
+that.  Come: he loves you?  Of course he does.  He has said so.  I
+believe it.  And he's a man you can honour and esteem?  You wouldn't
+consent without, I'm sure.  What makes me anxious--I look on you as my
+sister, whether Rhoda will have it so or not; I'm anxious because--I'm
+anxious it should be over, for then Rhoda will be proud of the faith she
+had in you, and it will lighten the old man's heart."
+
+Once more the inexplicable frozen look struck over him from her opened
+eyes, as if one of the minutes of Time had yawned to show him its deep,
+mute, tragic abyss, and was extinguished.
+
+"When does it take place, Dahlia?"
+
+Her long underlip, white almost as the row of teeth it revealed, hung
+loose.
+
+"When?" he asked, leaning forward to hear, and the word was "Saturday,"
+uttered with a feeble harshness, not like the gentle voice of Dahlia.
+
+"This coming Saturday?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Saturday week?"
+
+She fell into a visible trembling.
+
+"You named the day?"
+
+He pushed for an indication of cheerful consent to the act she was about
+to commit, or of reluctance.
+
+Possibly she saw this, for now she answered, "I did."  The sound was deep
+in her throat.
+
+"Saturday week," said Robert.  "I feel to the man as a brother, already.
+Do you live--you'll live in the country?"
+
+"Abroad."
+
+"Not in Old England?  I'm sorry for that.  But--well!  Things must be as
+they're ordered.  Heigho!  I've got to learn it."
+
+Dahlia smiled kindly.
+
+"Rhoda will love you.  She is firm when she loves."
+
+"When she loves.  Where's the consolation to me?"
+
+"Do you think she loves me as much--as much"
+
+"As much as ever?  She loves her sister with all her heart--all, for I
+haven't a bit of it."
+
+"It is because," said Dahlia slowly, "it is because she thinks I am--"
+
+Here the poor creature's bosom heaved piteously.
+
+"What has she said of me?  I wish her to have blamed me--it is less
+pain."
+
+"Listen," said Robert.  "She does not, and couldn't blame you, for it's a
+sort of religion with her to believe no wrong of you.  And the reason why
+she hates me is, that I, knowing something more of the world, suspected,
+and chose to let her know it--I said it, in fact--that you had been
+deceived by a--But this isn't the time to abuse others.  She would have
+had me, if I had thought proper to think as she thinks, or play
+hypocrite, and pretend to.  I'll tell you openly, Dahlia; your father
+thinks the worst.  Ah! you look the ghost again.  It's hard for you to
+hear, but you give me a notion of having got strength to hear it.  It's
+your father's way to think the worst.  Now, when you can show him your
+husband, my dear, he'll lift his head.  He's old English.  He won't dream
+of asking questions.  He'll see a brave and honest young man who must
+love you, or--he does love you, that's settled.  Your father'll shake his
+hand, and as for Rhoda, she'll triumph.  The only person to speak out to,
+is the man who marries you, and that you've done."
+
+Robert looked the interrogation he did not utter.
+
+"I have," said Dahlia.
+
+"Good: if I may call him brother, some day, all the better for me.  Now,
+you won't leave England the day you're married."
+
+"Soon.  I pray that it may be soon."
+
+"Yes; well, on that morning, I'll have your father and Rhoda at my
+lodgings, not wide from here: if I'd only known it earlier!--and you and
+your husband shall come there and join us.  It'll be a happy meeting at
+last."
+
+Dahlia stopped her breathing.
+
+"Will you see Rhoda?"
+
+"I'll go to her to-morrow, if you like."
+
+"If I might see her, just as I am leaving England! not before."
+
+"That's not generous," said Robert.
+
+"Isn't it?" she asked like a child.
+
+"Fancy!--to see you she's been longing for, and the ship that takes you
+off, perhaps everlastingly, as far as this world's concerned!"
+
+"Mr. Robert, I do not wish to deceive my sister.  Father need not be
+distressed.  Rhoda shall know.  I will not be guilty of falsehoods any
+more--no more!  Will you go to her?  Tell her--tell Rhoda what I am.  Say
+I have been ill.  It will save her from a great shock."
+
+She covered her eyes.
+
+"I said in all my letters that my husband was a gentleman."
+
+It was her first openly penitential utterance in his presence, and her
+cheeks were faintly reddened.  It may have been this motion of her blood
+which aroused the sunken humanity within her; her heart leaped, and she
+cried "I can see her as I am, I can.  I thought it impossible.  Oh! I
+can.  Will she come to me?  My sister is a Christian and forgives.  Oh!
+let me see her.  And go to her, dear Mr. Robert, and ask her--tell her
+all, and ask her if I may be spared, and may work at something--anything,
+for my livelihood near my sister.  It is difficult for women to earn
+money, but I think I can.  I have done so since my illness.  I have been
+in the hospital with brain fever.  He was lodging in the house with me
+before.  He found me at the hospital.  When I came out, he walked with me
+to support me: I was very weak.  He read to me, and then asked me to
+marry him.  He asked again.  I lay in bed one night, and with my eyes
+open, I saw the dangers of women, and the trouble of my father and
+sister; and pits of wickedness.  I saw like places full of snakes.  I had
+such a yearning for protection.  I gave him my word I would be his wife,
+if he was not ashamed of a wife like me.  I wished to look once in
+father's face.  I had fancied that Rhoda would spurn me, when she
+discovered my falsehood.  She--sweet dear! would she ever?  Go to her.
+Say, I do not love any man.  I am heart-dead.  I have no heart except for
+her.  I cannot love a husband.  He is good, and it is kind: but, oh! let
+me be spared.  His face!--"
+
+She pressed her hands tight into the hollow of her eyes.
+
+"No; it can't be meant.  Am I very ungrateful?  This does not seem to be
+what God orders.  Only if this must be! only if it must be!  If my sister
+cannot look on me without!  He is good, and it is unselfish to take a
+moneyless, disgraced creature: but, my misery!--If my sister will see me,
+without my doing this!--Go to her, Mr. Robert.  Say, Dahlia was false,
+and repents, and has worked with her needle to subsist, and can, and
+will, for her soul strives to be clean.  Try to make her understand.
+If Rhoda could love you, she would know.  She is locked up--she is only
+ideas.  My sweet is so proud.  I love her for her pride, if she will only
+let me creep to her feet, kiss her feet.  Dear Mr. Robert, help me! help
+me!  I will do anything she says.  If she says I am to marry him, I will.
+Don't mind my tears--they mean nothing now.  Tell my dear, I will obey
+her.  I will not be false any more to her.  I wish to be quite stripped.
+And Rhoda may know me, and forgive me, if she can.  And--Oh! if she
+thinks, for father's sake, I ought, I will submit and speak the words;
+I will; I am ready.  I pray for mercy."
+
+Robert sat with his fist at his temples, in a frowning meditation.
+
+Had she declared her reluctance to take the step, in the first moments of
+their interview, he might have been ready to support her: but a project
+fairly launched becomes a reality in the brain--a thing once spoken of
+attracts like a living creature, and does not die voluntarily.  Robert
+now beheld all that was in its favour, and saw nothing but flighty flimsy
+objections to it.  He was hardly moved by her unexpected outburst.
+
+Besides, there was his own position in the case.  Rhoda would smile on
+him, if he brought Dahlia to her, and brought her happy in the world's
+eye.  It will act as a sort of signal for general happiness.  But if he
+had to go and explain matters base and mournful to her, there would be no
+smile on her face, and not much gratitude in her breast.  There would be
+none for a time, certainly.  Proximity to her faded sister made him
+conceive her attainable, and thrice precious by contrast.
+
+He fixed his gaze on Dahlia, and the perfect refinement of her simplicity
+caused him to think that she might be aware of an inappropriateness in
+the contemplated union.
+
+"Is he a clumsy fellow?  I mean, do you read straight off that he has no
+pretension to any manners of a gentleman--nothing near it?"
+
+To this question, put with hesitation by Robert, Dahlia made answer, "I
+respect him."
+
+She would not strengthen her prayer by drawing the man's portrait.
+Speedily she forgot how the doing so would in any way have strengthened
+her prayer.  The excitement had left her brain dull.  She did little more
+than stare mildly, and absently bend her head, while Robert said that he
+would go to Rhoda on the morrow, and speak seriously with her.
+
+"But I think I can reckon her ideas will side with mine, that it is to
+your interest, my dear, to make your feelings come round warm to a man
+you can respect, and who offers you a clear path," he said.
+
+Whereat Dahlia quietly blinked her eyes.
+
+When he stood up, she rose likewise.
+
+"Am I to take a kiss to Rhoda?" he said, and seeing her answer, bent his
+forehead, to which she put her lips.
+
+"And now I must think all night long about the method of transferring it.
+Good-bye, Dahlia.  You shall hear from your sister the morning after
+to-morrow.  Good-bye!"
+
+He pressed her hand, and went to the door.
+
+"There's nothing I can do for you, Dahlia?"
+
+"Not anything."
+
+"God bless you, my dear!"
+
+Robert breathed with the pleasant sense of breathing, when he was again
+in the street.  Amazement, that what he had dreaded so much should be so
+easily over, set him thinking, in his fashion, on the marvels of life,
+and the naturalness in the aspect of all earthly things when you look at
+them with your eyes.
+
+But in the depths of his heart there was disquiet.
+
+"It's the best she can do; she can do no better," he said; and said it
+more frequently than it needed by a mind established in the conviction.
+Gradually he began to feel that certain things seen with the eyes,
+natural as they may then appear and little terrible, leave distinct,
+solid, and grave impressions.  Something of what our human tragedy may
+show before high heaven possessed him.  He saw it bare of any sentiment,
+in the person of the girl Dahlia.  He could neither put a halo of
+imagination about her, nor could he conceive one degraded thought of the
+creature.  She stood a naked sorrow, haunting his brain.
+
+And still he continued saying, "It's the best she can do: it's best for
+all.  She can do nothing better."
+
+He said it, unaware that he said it in self-defence.
+
+The pale nun-like ghostly face hung before him, stronger in outline the
+farther time widened between him and that suffering flesh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+The thousand pounds were in Algernon's hands at last.  He had made his
+escape from Boyne's Bank early in the afternoon, that he might obtain the
+cheque and feel the money in his pocket before that day's sun was
+extinguished.  There was a note for five hundred; four notes for a
+hundred severally; and two fifties.  And all had come to him through the
+mere writing down of his name as a recipient of the sum!
+
+It was enough to make one in love with civilization.  Money, when it is
+once in your pocket, seems to have come there easily, even if you have
+worked for it; but if you have done no labour whatever, and still find it
+there, your sensations (supposing you to be a butterfly youth--the
+typical child of a wealthy country) exult marvellously, and soar above
+the conditions of earth.
+
+He knew the very features of the notes.  That gallant old Five Hundred,
+who might have been a Thousand, but that he had nobly split himself into
+centurions and skirmishers, stood in his imaginative contemplation like a
+grand white-headed warrior, clean from the slaughter and in
+court-ruffles--say, Blucher at the court of the Waterloo Regent.  The
+Hundreds were his Generals; the Fifties his captains; and each one was
+possessed of unlimited power of splitting himself into serviceable
+regiments, at the call of his lord, Algernon.
+
+He scarcely liked to make the secret confession that it was the largest
+sum he had ever as yet carried about; but, as it heightened his pleasure,
+he did confess it for half an instant.  Five Hundred in the bulk he had
+never attained to.  He felt it as a fortification against every mishap in
+life.
+
+To a young man commonly in difficulties with regard to the paying of his
+cabman, and latterly the getting of his dinner, the sense of elevation
+imparted by the sum was intoxicating.  But, thinking too much of the Five
+Hundred waxed dangerous for the fifties; it dwarfed them to such
+insignificance that it made them lose their self-respect.  So, Algernon,
+pursuing excellent tactics, set his mind upon some stray shillings that
+he had a remainder of five pounds borrowed from old Anthony, when he
+endeavoured to obtain repayment of the one pound and interest dating from
+the night at the theatre.  Algernon had stopped his mouth on that point,
+as well as concerning his acquaintance with Dahlia, by immediately
+attempting to borrow further, whenever Anthony led the way for a word in
+private.  A one-pound creditor had no particular terrors for him, and he
+manoeuvred the old man neatly, saying, as previously, "Really, I don't
+know the young person you allude to: I happened to meet her, or some one
+like her, casually," and dropping his voice, "I'm rather short--what do
+you think?  Could you?--a trifling accommodation?" from which Anthony
+fled.
+
+But on the day closing the Epsom week he beckoned Anthony secretly to
+follow him out of the office, and volunteered to give news that he had
+just heard of Dahlia.
+
+"Oh," said Anthony, "I've seen her."
+
+"I haven't," said Algernon, "upon my honour."
+
+"Yes, I've seen her, sir, and sorry to hear her husband's fallen a bit
+low."  Anthony touched his pocket.  "What they calls 'nip' tides, ain't
+it?"
+
+Algernon sprang a compliment under him, which sent the vain old fellow
+up, whether he would or not, to the effect that Anthony's tides were not
+subject to lunar influence.
+
+"Now, Mr. Blancove, you must change them notions o' me.  I don't say I
+shouldn't be richer if I'd got what's owing to me."
+
+"You'd have to be protected; you'd be Bullion on two legs," said
+Algernon, always shrewd in detecting a weakness.  "You'd have to go about
+with sentries on each side, and sleep in an iron safe!"
+
+The end of the interview was a visit to the public-house, and the
+transferring of another legal instrument from Algernon to Anthony.  The
+latter departed moaning over his five pounds ten shillings in paper; the
+former rejoicing at his five pounds in gold.  That day was Saturday.  On
+Monday, only a few shillings of the five pounds remained; but they were
+sufficient to command a cab, and, if modesty in dining was among the
+prescriptions for the day, a dinner.  Algernon was driven to the West.
+
+He remembered when he had plunged in the midst of the fashionable
+whirlpool, having felt reckless there formerly, but he had become
+remarkably sedate when he stepped along the walks.  A certain equipage,
+or horse, was to his taste, and once he would have said: "That's the
+thing for me;" being penniless.  Now, on the contrary, he reckoned the
+possible cost, grudgingly, saying "Eh?" to himself, and responding "No,"
+faintly, and then more positively, "Won't do."
+
+He was by no means acting as one on a footing of equality with the people
+he beholds.  A man who is ready to wager a thousand pounds that no other
+man present has that amount in his pocket, can hardly feel unequal to his
+company.
+
+Charming ladies on horseback cantered past.  "Let them go," he thought.
+Yesterday, the sight of one would have set him dreaming on grand
+alliances.  When you can afford to be a bachelor, the case is otherwise.
+Presently, who should ride by but Mrs. Lovell!  She was talking more
+earnestly than was becoming, to that easy-mannered dark-eyed fellow; the
+man who had made him savage by entering the opera-box.
+
+"Poor old Ned!" said Algernon; "I must put him on his guard."  But, even
+the lifting of a finger--a hint on paper--would bring Edward over from
+Paris, as he knew; and that was not in his scheme; so he only determined
+to write to his cousin.
+
+A flood of evening gold lay over the Western park.
+
+"The glory of this place," Algernon said to himself, "is, that you're
+sure of meeting none but gentlemen here;" and he contrasted it with Epsom
+Downs.
+
+A superstitious horror seized him when, casting his eyes ahead, he
+perceived Sedgett among the tasteful groups--as discordant a figure as
+could well be seen, and clumsily aware of it, for he could neither step
+nor look like a man at ease.  Algernon swung round and retraced his way;
+but Sedgett had long sight.
+
+"I'd heard of London"--Algernon soon had the hated voice in his ears,--
+"and I've bin up to London b'fore; I came here to have a wink at the
+fash'nables--hang me, if ever I see such a scrumptious lot.  It's worth a
+walk up and down for a hour or more.  D' you come heer often, sir?"
+
+"Eh?  Who are you?  Oh!" said Algernon, half mad with rage.  "Excuse me;"
+and he walked faster.
+
+"Fifty times over," Sedgett responded cheerfully.  "I'd pace you for a
+match up and down this place if you liked.  Ain't the horses a spectacle?
+I'd rather be heer than there at they Races.  As for the ladies, I'll
+tell you what: ladies or no ladies, give my young woman time for her hair
+to grow; and her colour to come, by George! if she wouldn't shine against
+e'er a one--smite me stone blind, if she wouldn't!  So she shall!
+Australia'll see.  I owe you my thanks for interdoocin' me, and never
+fear my not remembering."
+
+Where there was a crowd, Algernon could elude his persecutor by threading
+his way rapidly; but the open spaces condemned him to merciless exposure,
+and he flew before eyes that his imagination exaggerated to a stretch of
+supernatural astonishment.  The tips of his fingers, the roots of his
+hair, pricked with vexation, and still, manoeuvre as he might, Sedgett
+followed him.
+
+"Call at my chambers," he said sternly.
+
+"You're never at home, sir."
+
+"Call to-morrow morning, at ten."
+
+"And see a great big black door, and kick at it till my toe comes through
+my boot.  Thank ye."
+
+"I tell you, I won't have you annoying me in public; once for all."
+
+"Why, sir; I thought we parted friends, last time.  Didn't you shake my
+hand, now, didn't you shake my hand, sir?  I ask you, whether you shook
+my hand, or whether you didn't?  A plain answer.  We had a bit of a
+scrimmage, coming home.  I admit we had; but shaking hands, means
+'friends again we are.'  I know you're a gentleman, and a man like me
+shouldn't be so bold as fur to strike his betters.  Only, don't you see,
+sir, Full-o'-Beer's a hasty chap, and up in a minute; and he's sorry for
+it after."
+
+Algernon conceived a brilliant notion.  Drawing five shillings from his
+pocket, he held them over to Sedgett, and told him to drive down to his
+chambers, and await his coming.  Sedgett took the money; but it was five
+shillings lost.  He made no exhibition of receiving orders, and it was
+impossible to address him imperiously without provoking observations of
+an animated kind from the elegant groups parading and sitting.
+
+Young Harry Latters caught Algernon's eye; never was youth more joyfully
+greeted.  Harry spoke of the Friday's race, and the defection of the
+horse Tenpenny Nail.  A man passed with a nod and "How d' ye do?" for
+which he received in reply a cool stare.
+
+"Who's that?" Algernon asked.
+
+"The son of a high dignitary," said Harry.
+
+"You cut him."
+
+"I can do the thing, you see, when it's a public duty."
+
+"What's the matter with him?"
+
+"Merely a black-leg, a grec, a cheat, swindler, or whatever name you
+like," said Harry.  "We none of us nod to the professionals in this line;
+and I won't exchange salutes with an amateur.  I'm peculiar.  He chose to
+be absent on the right day last year; so from that date; I consider him
+absent in toto; "none of your rrrrr--m reckonings, let's have the rrrrr--
+m toto;"--you remember Suckling's story of the Yankee fellow?  Bye-bye;
+shall see you the day after to-morrow.  You dine with me and Suckling at
+the club."
+
+Latters was hailed by other friends.  Algernon was forced to let him go.
+He dipped under the iron rail, and crossed the row at a run; an
+indecorous proceeding; he could not help it.  The hope was that Sedgett
+would not have the like audacity, or might be stopped, and Algernon's
+reward for so just a calculation was, that on looking round, he found
+himself free.  He slipped with all haste out of the Park.  Sedgett's
+presence had the deadening power of the torpedo on the thousand pounds.
+
+For the last quarter of an hour, Algernon had not felt a motion of it.  A
+cab, to make his escape certain, was suggested to his mind; and he would
+have called a cab, had not the novel apparition of economy, which now
+haunted him, suggested that he had recently tossed five shillings into
+the gutter.  A man might dine on four shillings and sixpence, enjoying a
+modest half-pint of wine, and he possessed that sum.  To pinch himself
+and deserve well of Providence, he resolved not to drink wine, but beer,
+that day.  He named the beverage; a pint-bottle of ale; and laughed, as a
+royal economist may, who punishes himself to please himself.
+
+"Mighty jolly, ain't it, sir?" said Sedgett, at his elbow.
+
+Algernon faced about, and swore an oath from his boots upward; so
+vehement was his disgust, and all-pervading his amazement.
+
+"I'll wallop you at that game," said Sedgett.
+
+"You infernal scoundrel!"
+
+"If you begin swearing," Sedgett warned him.
+
+"What do you want with me?"
+
+"I'll tell you, sir.  I don't want to go to ne'er a cock-fight, nor
+betting hole."
+
+"Here, come up this street," said Algernon, leading the way into a dusky
+defile from a main parade of fashion.  "Now, what's your business,
+confound you!"
+
+"Well, sir, I ain't goin' to be confounded: that, I'll--I'll swear to.
+The long and the short is, I must have some money 'fore the week's out."
+
+"You won't have a penny from me."
+
+"That's blunt, though it ain't in my pocket," said Sedgett, grinning.  "I
+say, sir, respectful as you like, I must.  I've got to pay for
+passengerin' over the sea, self and wife; and quick it must be.  There's
+things to buy on both sides.  A small advance and you won't be bothered.
+Say, fifty.  Fifty, and you don't see me till Saturday, when, accordin'
+to agreement, you hand to me the cash, outside the church door; and then
+we parts to meet no more.  Oh! let us be joyful--I'll sing."
+
+Algernon's loathing of the coarseness and profanity of villany increased
+almost to the depth of a sentiment as he listened to Sedgett.
+
+"I do nothing of the sort," he said.  "You shall not have a farthing.  Be
+off.  If you follow me, I give you into custody of a policeman."
+
+"You durst n't."  Sedgett eyed him warily.
+
+He could spy a physical weakness, by affinity of cowardice, as quickly as
+Algernon a moral weakness, by the same sort of relationship to it.
+
+"You don't dare," Sedgett pursued.  "And why should you, sir?  there's
+ne'er a reason why.  I'm civil.  I asks for my own: no more 'n my own, it
+ain't.  I call the bargain good: why sh'd I want fur to break it?  I want
+the money bad.  I'm sick o' this country.  I'd like to be off in the
+first ship that sails.  Can't you let me have ten till to-morrow?  then
+t' other forty.  I've got a mortal need for it, that I have.  Come, it's
+no use your walking at that rate; my legs are's good as yours."
+
+Algernon had turned back to the great thoroughfare.  He was afraid that
+ten pounds must be forfeited to this worrying demon in the flesh, and
+sought the countenance of his well-dressed fellows to encourage him in
+resisting.  He could think of no subterfuge; menace was clearly useless:
+and yet the idea of changeing one of the notes and for so infamous a
+creature, caused pangs that helped him further to endure his dogging feet
+and filthy tongue.  This continued until he saw a woman's hand waving
+from a cab.  Presuming that such a signal, objectionable as it was, must
+be addressed to himself, he considered whether he should lift his hat, or
+simply smile as a favoured, but not too deeply flattered, man.  The cab
+drew up, and the woman said, "Sedgett."  She was a well-looking woman,
+strongly coloured, brown-eyed, and hearty in appearance.
+
+"What a brute you are, Sedgett, not to be at home when you brought me up
+to London with all the boxes and bedding--my goodness!  It's a Providence
+I caught you in my eye, or I should have been driving down to the docks,
+and seeing about the ship.  You are a brute.  Come in, at once."
+
+"If you're up to calling names, I've got one or two for you," Sedgett
+growled.
+
+Algernon had heard enough.  Sure that he had left Sedgett in hands not
+likely to relinquish him, he passed on with elastic step.  Wine was
+greatly desired, after his torments.  Where was credit to be had?  True,
+he looked contemptuously on the blooming land of credit now, but an entry
+to it by one of the back doors would have been convenient, so that he
+might be nourished and restored by a benevolent dinner, while he kept his
+Thousand intact.  However, he dismissed the contemplation of credit and
+its transient charms.  "I won't dine at all," he said.
+
+A beggar woman stretched out her hand--he dropped a shilling in it.
+
+"Hang me, if I shall be able to," was his next reflection; and with the
+remaining three and sixpence, he crossed the threshold of a tobacconist's
+shop and bought cigars, to save himself from excesses in charity.  After
+gravely reproaching the tobacconist for the growing costliness of cigars,
+he came into the air, feeling extraordinarily empty.  Of this he soon
+understood the cause, and it amused him.  Accustomed to the smell of
+tobacco always when he came from his dinner, it seemed, as the fumes of
+the shop took his nostril, that demands were being made within him by an
+inquisitive spirit, and dissatisfaction expressed at the vacancy there.
+
+"What's the use?  I can't dine," he uttered argumentatively.  "I'm not
+going to change a note, and I won't dine.  I've no Club.  There's not a
+fellow I can see who'll ask me to dine.  I'll lounge along home.  There
+is some Sherry there."
+
+But Algernon bore vividly in mind that he did not approve of that Sherry.
+
+"I've heard of fellows frying sausages at home, and living on something
+like two shillings a day," he remarked in meditation; and then it struck
+him that Mrs. Lovell's parcel of returned jewels lay in one of his
+drawers at home--that is, if the laundress had left the parcel untouched.
+
+In an agony of alarm, he called a cab, and drove hotly to the Temple.
+Finding the packet safe, he put a couple of rings and the necklace with
+the opal in his waistcoat pocket.  The cabman must be paid, of course; so
+a jewel must be pawned.  Which shall it be? diamond or opal?  Change a
+dozen times and let it be the trinket in the right hand--the opal; let it
+be the opal.  How much would the opal fetch?  The pawnbroker can best
+inform us upon that point.  So he drove to the pawnbroker; one whom he
+knew.  The pawnbroker offered him five-and-twenty pounds on the security
+of the opal.
+
+"What on earth is it that people think disgraceful in your entering a
+pawnbroker's shop?" Algernon asked himself when, taking his ticket and
+the five-and-twenty pounds, he repelled the stare of a man behind a
+neighbouring partition.
+
+"There are not many of that sort in the kingdom," he said to the
+pawnbroker, who was loftily fondling the unlucky opal.
+
+"Well--h'm; perhaps there's not;" the pawnbroker was ready to admit it,
+now that the arrangement had been settled.
+
+"I shan't be able to let you keep it long."
+
+"As quick back as you like, sir."
+
+Algernon noticed as he turned away that the man behind the partition, who
+had more the look of a dapper young shopman than of a needy petitioner
+for loans or securities, stretched over the counter to look at the opal;
+and he certainly heard his name pronounced.  It enraged him; but policy
+counselled a quiet behaviour in this place, and no quarrelling with his
+pawnbroker.  Besides, his whole nature cried out for dinner.  He dined
+and had his wine; as good, he ventured to assert, as any man could get
+for the money; for he knew the hotels with the venerable cellars.
+
+"I should have made a first-rate courier to a millionaire," he said, with
+scornful candour, but without abusing the disposition of things which had
+ordered his being a gentleman.  Subsequently, from his having sat so long
+over his wine without moving a leg, he indulged in the belief that he had
+reflected profoundly; out of which depths he started, very much like a
+man who has dozed, and felt a discomfort in his limbs and head.
+
+"I must forget myself," he said.  Nor was any grave mentor by, to assure
+him that his tragic state was the issue of an evil digestion of his
+dinner and wine.  "I must forget myself.  I'm under some doom.  I see it
+now.  Nobody cares for me.  I don't know what happiness is.  I was born
+under a bad star.  My fate's written."  Following his youthful wisdom,
+this wounded hart dragged his slow limbs toward the halls of brandy and
+song.
+
+One learns to have compassion for fools, by studying them: and the fool,
+though Nature is wise, is next door to Nature.  He is naked in his
+simplicity; he can tell us much, and suggest more.  My excuse for
+dwelling upon him is, that he holds the link of my story.  Where fools
+are numerous, one of them must be prominent now and then in a veracious
+narration.  There comes an hour when the veil drops on him, he not being
+always clean to the discreeter touch.
+
+Algernon was late at the Bank next day, and not cheerful, though he
+received his customary reprimand with submission.  This day was after the
+pattern of the day preceding, except that he did not visit the Park; the
+night likewise.
+
+On Wednesday morning, he arose with the conviction that England was no
+place for him to dwell in.  What if Rhoda were to accompany him to one of
+the colonies?  The idea had been gradually taking shape in his mind from
+the moment that he had possessed the Thousand.  Could she not make butter
+and cheeses capitally, while he rode on horseback through space?  She was
+a strong girl, a loyal girl, and would be a grateful wife.
+
+"I'll marry her," he said; and hesitated.  "Yes, I'll marry her."  But it
+must be done immediately.
+
+He resolved to run down to Wrexby, rejoice her with a declaration of
+love, astound her with a proposal of marriage, bewilder her little brain
+with hurrying adjectives, whisk her up to London, and in little more than
+a week be sailing on the high seas, new born; nothing of civilization
+about him, save a few last very first-rate cigars which he projected to
+smoke on the poop of the vessel, and so dream of the world he left
+behind.
+
+He went down to the Bank in better spirits, and there wrote off a
+straightforward demand of an interview, to Rhoda, hinting at the purpose
+of it.  While at his work, he thought of Harry Latters and Lord Suckling,
+and the folly of his dining with men in his present position.
+Settling-day, it or yesterday might be, but a colonist is not supposed to
+know anything of those arrangements.  One of his fellow-clerks reminded
+him of a loan he had contracted, and showed him his name written under
+obligatory initials.  He paid it, ostentatiously drawing out one of his
+fifties.  Up came another, with a similar strip of paper.  "You don't
+want me to change this, do you?" said Algernon; and heard a tale of
+domestic needs--and a grappling landlady.  He groaned inwardly: "Odd that
+I must pay for his landlady being a vixen!"  The note was changed; the
+debt liquidated.  On the door-step, as he was going to lunch, old Anthony
+waylaid him, and was almost noisily persistent in demanding his one pound
+three and his five pound ten.  Algernon paid the sums, ready to believe
+that there was a suspicion abroad of his intention to become a colonist.
+
+He employed the luncheon hour in a visit to a colonial shipping office,
+and nearly ran straight upon Sedgett at the office-door.  The woman who
+had hailed him from the cab, was in Sedgett's company, but Sedgett saw no
+one.  His head hung and his sullen brows were drawn moodily.  Algernon
+escaped from observation.  His first inquiry at the office was as to the
+business of the preceding couple, and he was satisfied by hearing that
+Sedgett wanted berths for himself and wife.
+
+"Who's the woman, I wonder!" Algernon thought, and forgot her.
+
+He obtained some particular information, and returning to the Bank, was
+called before his uncle, who curtly reckoned up his merits in a
+contemptuous rebuke, and confirmed him in his resolution to incur this
+sort of thing no longer.  In consequence, he promised Sir William that he
+would amend his ways, and these were the first hopeful words that Sir
+William had ever heard from him.
+
+Algernon's design was to dress, that evening, in the uniform of society,
+so that, in the event of his meeting Harry Latters, he might assure him
+he was coming to his Club, and had been compelled to dine elsewhere with
+his uncle, or anybody.  When he reached the door of his chambers, a man
+was standing there, who said,--
+
+"Mr. Algernon Blancove?"
+
+"Yes," Algernon prolonged an affirmative, to diminish the confidence it
+might inspire, if possible.
+
+"May I speak with you, sir?"
+
+Algernon told him to follow in.  The man was tall and large-featured,
+with an immense blank expression of face.
+
+"I've come from Mr. Samuels, sir," he said, deferentially.
+
+Mr. Samuels was Algernon's chief jeweller.
+
+"Oh," Algernon remarked.  "Well, I don't want anything; and let me say, I
+don't approve of this touting for custom.  I thought Mr. Samuels was
+above it."
+
+The man bowed.  "My business is not that, sir.  Ahem! I dare say you
+remember an opal you had from our house.  It was set in a necklace."
+
+"All right; I remember it, perfectly," said Algernon; cool, but not of
+the collected colour.
+
+"The cost of it was fifty-five pounds, sir."
+
+"Was it?  Well, I've forgotten."
+
+"We find that it has been pawned for five-and-twenty."
+
+"A little less than half," said Algernon.  "Pawnbrokers are simply
+cheats."
+
+"They mayn't be worse than others," the man observed.
+
+Algernon was exactly in the position where righteous anger is the proper
+weapon, if not the sole resource.  He flushed, but was not sure of his
+opportunity for the explosion.  The man read the flush.
+
+"May I ask you, did you pawn it, sir?  I'm obliged to ask the question."
+
+"I?--I really don't--I don't choose to answer impudent questions.  What
+do you mean by coming here?"
+
+"I may as well be open with you, sir, to prevent misunderstandings.  One
+of the young men was present when you pawned it.  He saw the thing done."
+
+"Suppose he did?"
+
+"He would be a witness."
+
+"Against me?  I've dealt with Samuels for three-four years."
+
+"Yes, sir; but you have never yet paid any account; and I believe I am
+right in saying that this opal is not the first thing coming from our
+house that has been pledged--I can't say you did it on the other
+occasions."
+
+"You had better not," rejoined Algernon.
+
+He broke an unpleasant silence by asking, "What further?"
+
+"My master has sent you his bill."
+
+Algernon glanced at the prodigious figures.
+
+"Five hun--!" he gasped, recoiling; and added, "Well, I can't pay it on
+the spot."
+
+"Let me tell you, you're liable to proceedings you'd better avoid, sir,
+for the sake of your relations."
+
+"You dare to threaten to expose me to my relatives?" Algernon said
+haughtily, and immediately perceived that indignation at this point was a
+clever stroke; for the man, while deprecating the idea of doing so,
+showed his more established belief in the possible virtue of such a
+threat.
+
+"Not at all, sir; but you know that pledging things not paid for is
+illegal, and subject to penalties.  No tradesman likes it; they can't
+allow it.  I may as well let you know that Mr. Samuels--"
+
+"There, stop!" cried Algernon, laughing, as he thought, heartily.  "Mr.
+Samuels is a very tolerable Jew; but he doesn't seem to understand
+dealing with gentlemen.  Pressure comes;" he waved his hand swimmingly;
+"one wants money, and gets it how one can.  Mr. Samuels shall not go to
+bed thinking he has been defrauded.  I will teach Mr. Samuels to think
+better of us Gentiles.  Write me a receipt."
+
+"For what amount, sir?" said the man, briskly.
+
+"For the value of the opal--that is to say, for the value put upon it by
+Mr. Samuels.  Con! hang! never mind.  Write the receipt."
+
+He cast a fluttering fifty and a fluttering five on the table, and pushed
+paper to the man for a receipt.
+
+The man reflected, and refused to take them.
+
+"I don't think, sir," he said, "that less than two-thirds of the bill
+will make Mr. Samuels easy.  You see, this opal was in a necklace.  It
+wasn't like a ring you might have taken off your finger.  It's a lady's
+ornament; and soon after you obtain it from us; you make use of it by
+turning it into cash.  It's a case for a criminal prosecution, which, for
+the sake of your relations, Mr. Samuels wouldn't willingly bring on.  The
+criminal box is no place for you, sir; but Mr. Samuels must have his own.
+His mind is not easy.  I shouldn't like, sir, to call a policeman."
+
+"Hey!" shouted Algernon; "you'd have to get a warrant."
+
+"It's out, sir."
+
+Though inclined toward small villanies, he had not studied law, and
+judging from his own affrighted sensations, and the man's impassive face,
+Algernon supposed that warrants were as lightly granted as writs of
+summons.
+
+He tightened his muscles.  In his time he had talked glibly of Perdition;
+but this was hot experience.  He and the man measured the force of their
+eyes.  Algernon let his chest fall.
+
+"Do you mean?" he murmured.
+
+"Why, sir, it's no use doing things by halves.  When a tradesman says he
+must have his money, he takes his precautions."
+
+"Are you in Mr. Samuels' shop?"
+
+"Not exactly, sir."
+
+"You're a detective?"
+
+"I have been in the service, sir."
+
+"Ah! now I understand."  Algernon raised his head with a strain at
+haughtiness.  "If Mr. Samuels had accompanied you, I would have
+discharged the debt: It's only fair that I should insist upon having a
+receipt from him personally, and for the whole amount."
+
+With this, he drew forth his purse and displayed the notable Five
+hundred.
+
+His glow of victory was short.  The impassive man likewise had something
+to exhibit.
+
+"I assure you, sir," he said, "Mr. Samuels does know how to deal with
+gentlemen.  If you will do me the honour, sir, to run up with me to Mr.
+Samuels' shop?  Or, very well, sir; to save you that annoyance here is
+his receipt to the bill."
+
+Algernon mechanically crumpled up his note.
+
+"Samuels?" ejaculated the unhappy fellow.  "Why, my mother dealt with
+Samuels.  My aunt dealt with Samuels.  All my family have dealt with him
+for years; and he talks of proceeding against me, because--upon my soul,
+it's too absurd!  Sending a policeman, too!  I'll tell you what--the
+exposure would damage Mister Samuels most materially.  Of course, my
+father would have to settle the matter; but Mister--Mister Samuels would
+not recover so easily.  He'd be glad to refund the five hundred--what is
+it?--and twenty-five--why not, 'and sixpence three farthings?'  I tell
+you, I shall let my father pay.  Mr. Samuels had better serve me with a
+common writ.  I tell you, I'm not going to denude myself of money
+altogether.  I haven't examined the bill.  Leave it here.  You can tear
+off the receipt.  Leave it here."
+
+The man indulged in a slight demonstration of dissent.
+
+"No, sir, that won't do."
+
+"Half the bill," roared Algernon; "half the bill, I wouldn't mind
+paying."
+
+"About two-thirds, sir, is what Mr. Samuels asked for, and he'll stop,
+and go on as before."
+
+"He'll stop and he'll go on, will he?  Mr. Samuels is amazingly like one
+of his own watches," Algernon sneered vehemently.  "Well," he pursued, in
+fancied security, "I'll pay two-thirds."
+
+"Three hundred, sir."
+
+"Ay, three hundred.  Tell him to send a receipt for the three hundred,
+and he shall have it.  As to my entering his shop again, that I shall
+have to think over."
+
+"That's what gentlemen in Mr. Samuels' position have to run risk of,
+sir," said the man.
+
+Algernon, more in astonishment than trepidation, observed him feeling at
+his breast-pocket.  The action resulted in an exhibition of a second
+bill, with a legal receipt attached to it, for three hundred pounds.
+
+"Mr. Samuels is anxious to accommodate you in every way, sir.  It isn't
+the full sum he wants; it's a portion.  He thought you might prefer to
+discharge a portion."
+
+After this exhibition of foresight on the part of the jeweller, there was
+no more fight in Algernon beyond a strenuous "Faugh!" of uttermost
+disgust.
+
+He examined the bill and receipt in the man's hand with great apparent
+scrupulousness; not, in reality, seeing a clear syllable.
+
+"Take it and change it," he threw his Five hundred down, but recovered it
+from the enemy's grasp; and with a "one, two, three," banged his hundreds
+on the table: for which he had the loathsome receipt handed to him.
+
+"How," he asked, chokingly, "did Mr. Samuels know I could--I had money?"
+
+"Why, sir, you see," the man, as one who throws off a mask, smiled
+cordially, after buttoning up the notes; "credit 'd soon give up the
+ghost, if it hadn't its own dodges,' as I may say.  This is only a feeler
+on Mr. Samuels' part.  He heard of his things going to pledge.  Halloa!
+he sings out.  And tradesmen are human, sir.  Between us, I side with
+gentlemen, in most cases.  Hows'-ever, I'm, so to speak, in Mr. Samuels'
+pay.  A young gentleman in debt, give him a good fright, out comes his
+money, if he's got any.  Sending of a bill receipted's a good trying
+touch.  It's a compliment to him to suppose he can pay.  Mr. Samuels,
+sir, wouldn't go issuing a warrant: if he could, he wouldn't.  You named
+a warrant; that set me up to it.  I shouldn't have dreamed of a gentleman
+supposing it otherwise.  Didn't you notice me show a wall of a face?  I
+shouldn't ha' dared to have tried that on an old hand--begging your
+pardon; I mean a real--a scoundrel.  The regular ones must see features:
+we mustn't be too cunning with them, else they grow suspicious: they're
+keen as animals; they are.  Good afternoon to you, sir."
+
+Algernon heard the door shut.  He reeled into a chair, and muffling his
+head in his two arms on the table, sobbed desperately; seeing himself
+very distinctly reflected in one of the many facets of folly.  Daylight
+became undesireable to him.  He went to bed.
+
+A man who can, in such extremities of despair, go premeditatingly to his
+pillow, obeys an animal instinct in pursuit of oblivion, that will
+befriend his nerves.  Algernon awoke in deep darkness, with a delicious
+sensation of hunger.  He jumped up.  Six hundred and fifty pounds of the
+money remained intact; and he was joyful.  He struck a light to look at
+his watch: the watch had stopped;--that was a bad sign.  He could not
+forget it.  Why had his watch stopped?  A chilling thought as to whether
+predestination did not govern the world, allayed all tumult in his mind.
+He dressed carefully, and soon heard a great City bell, with horrid gulfs
+between the strokes, tell him that the hour was eleven toward midnight.
+"Not late," he said.
+
+"Who'd have thought it?" cried a voice on the landing of the stairs, as
+he went forth.
+
+It was Sedgett.
+
+Algernon had one inclination to strangle, and another to mollify the
+wretch.
+
+"Why, sir, I've been lurking heer for your return from your larks.  Never
+guessed you was in."
+
+"It's no use," Algernon began.
+
+"Ay; but it is, though," said Sedgett, and forced his way into the room.
+"Now, just listen.  I've got a young woman I want to pack out o' the
+country.  I must do it, while I'm a--a bachelor boy.  She must go, or we
+shall be having shindies.  You saw how she caught me out of a cab.  She's
+sure to be in the place where she ain't wanted.  She goes to America.
+I've got to pay her passage, and mine too.  Here's the truth: she thinks
+I'm off with her.  She knows I'm bankrup' at home.  So I am.  All the
+more reason for her thinking me her companion.  I get her away by train
+to the vessel, and on board, and there I give her the slip.
+
+"Ship's steaming away by this time t'morrow night.  I've paid for her--
+and myself too, she thinks.  Leave it to me.  I'll manage all that neatly
+enough.  But heer's the truth: I'm stumped.  I must, and I will have
+fifty; I don't want to utter ne'er a threat.  I want the money, and if
+you don't give it, I break off; and you mind this, Mr. Blancove: you
+don't come off s' easy, if I do break off, mind.  I know all about your
+relations, and by--!  I'll let 'em know all about you.  Why, you're as
+quiet heer, sir, as if you was miles away, in a wood cottage, and ne'er a
+dog near."
+
+So Algernon was thinking; and without a light, save the gas lamp in the
+square, moreover.
+
+They wrangled for an hour.  When Algernon went forth a second time, he
+was by fifty pounds poorer.  He consoled himself by thinking that the
+money had only anticipated its destination as arranged, and it became a
+partial gratification to him to reflect that he had, at any rate, paid so
+much of the sum, according to his bond in assuming possession of it.
+
+And what were to be his proceedings?  They were so manifestly in the
+hands of fate, that he declined to be troubled on that head.
+
+Next morning came the usual short impatient scrawl on thin blue paper
+from Edward, scarce worthy of a passing thought.  In a postscript, he
+asked: "Are there, on your oath, no letters for me?  If there are, send
+them immediately--every one, bills as well.  Don't fail.  I must have
+them."
+
+Algernon was at last persuaded to pack up Dahlia's letters, saying: "I
+suppose they can't do any harm now."  The expense of the postage
+afflicted him; but "women always cost a dozen to our one," he remarked.
+On his way to the City, he had to decide whether he would go to the Bank,
+or take the train leading to Wrexby.  He chose the latter course, until,
+feeling that he was about to embark in a serious undertaking, he said to
+himself, "No! duty first;" and postponed the expedition for the day
+following.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+Squire Blancove, having business in town, called on his brother at the
+Bank, asking whether Sir William was at home, with sarcastic emphasis on
+the title, which smelt to him of commerce.  Sir William invited him to
+dine and sleep at his house that night.
+
+"You will meet Mrs. Lovell, and a Major Waring, a friend of hers, who
+knew her and her husband in India," said the baronet.
+
+"The deuce I shall," said the squire, and accepted maliciously.
+
+Where the squire dined, he drank, defying ladies and the new-fangled
+subserviency to those flustering teabodies.  This was understood; so,
+when the Claret and Port had made a few rounds, Major Waring was
+permitted to follow Mrs. Lovell, and the squire and his brother settled
+to conversation; beginning upon gout.  Sir William had recently had a
+touch of the family complaint, and spoke of it in terms which gave the
+squire some fraternal sentiment.  From that, they fell to talking
+politics, and differed.  The breach was healed by a divergence to their
+sons.  The squire knew his own to be a scamp.
+
+"You'll never do anything with him," he said.
+
+"I don't think I shall," Sir William admitted.
+
+"Didn't I tell you so?"
+
+"You did.  But, the point is, what will you do with him?"
+
+"Send him to Jericho to ride wild jackasses.  That's all he's fit for."
+
+The superior complacency of Sir William's smile caught the squire's
+attention.
+
+"What do you mean to do with Ned?" he asked.
+
+"I hope," was the answer, "to have him married before the year is out."
+
+"To the widow?"
+
+"The widow?" Sir William raised his eyebrows.
+
+"Mrs. Lovell, I mean."
+
+"What gives you that idea?"
+
+"Why, Ned has made her an offer.  Don't you know that?"
+
+"I know nothing of the sort."
+
+"And don't believe it?  He has.  He's only waiting now, over there in
+Paris, to get comfortably out of a scrape--you remember what I told you
+at Fairly--and then Mrs. Lovell's going to have him--as he thinks; but,
+by George, it strikes me this major you've got here, knows how to follow
+petticoats and get in his harvest in the enemy's absence."
+
+"I think you're quite under a delusion, in both respects," observed Sir
+William.
+
+"What makes you think that?"
+
+"I have Edward's word."
+
+"He lies as naturally as an infant sucks."
+
+"Pardon me; this is my son you are speaking of."
+
+"And this is your Port I'm drinking; so I'll say no more."
+
+The squire emptied his glass, and Sir William thrummed on the table.
+
+"Now, my dog has got his name," the squire resumed.  "I'm not ambitious
+about him.  You are, about yours; and you ought to know him.  He spends
+or he don't spend.  It's not the question whether he gets into debt, but
+whether he does mischief with what he spends.  If Algy's a bad fish,
+Ned's a bit of a serpent; damned clever, no doubt.  I suppose, you
+wouldn't let him marry old Fleming's daughter, now, if he wanted to?"
+
+"Who is Fleming?" Sir William thundered out.
+
+"Fleming's the father of the girl.  I'm sorry for him.  He sells his
+farm-land which I've been looking at for years; so I profit by it; but I
+don't like to see a man like that broken up.  Algy, I said before, 's a
+bad fish.  Hang me, if I think he'd have behaved like Ned.  If he had,
+I'd have compelled him to marry her, and shipped them both off, clean out
+of the country, to try their luck elsewhere.
+
+"You're proud; I'm practical.  I don't expect you to do the same.  I'm up
+in London now to raise money to buy the farm--Queen's Anne's Farm; it's
+advertized for sale, I see.  Fleeting won't sell it to me privately,
+because my name's Blancove, and I'm the father of my son, and he fancies
+Algy's the man.  Why? he saw Algy at the theatre in London with this girl
+of his;--we were all young fellows once!--and the rascal took Ned's
+burden on his shoulders.  So, I shall have to compete with other buyers,
+and pay, I dare say, a couple of hundred extra for the property.  Do you
+believe what I tell you now?"
+
+"Not a word of it," said Sir William blandly.
+
+The squire seized the decanter and drank in a fury.
+
+"I had it from Algy."
+
+"That would all the less induce me to believe it."
+
+"H'm!" the squire frowned.  "Let me tell you--he's a dog--but it's a
+damned hard thing to hear one's own flesh and blood abused.  Look here:
+there's a couple.  One of them has made a fool of a girl.  It can't be my
+rascal--stop a minute--he isn't the man, because she'd have been sure to
+have made a fool of him, that's certain.  He's a soft-hearted dog.  He'd
+aim at a cock-sparrow, and be glad if he missed.  There you have him.  He
+was one of your good boys.  I used to tell his poor mother, 'When you
+leave off thinking for him, he'll go to the first handy villain--and
+that's the devil.'  And he's done it.  But, here's the difference.  He
+goes himself; he don't send another.  I'll tell you what: if you don't
+know about Mr. Ned's tricks, you ought.  And you ought to make him marry
+the girl, and be off to New Zealand, or any of the upside-down places,
+where he might begin by farming, and soon, with his abilities, be cock o'
+the walk.  He would, perhaps, be sending us a letter to say that he
+preferred to break away from the mother country and establish a republic.
+He's got the same political opinions as you.  Oh! he'll do well enough
+over here; of course he will.  He's the very fellow to do well.  Knock at
+him, he's hard as nails, and 'll stick anywhere.  You wouldn't listen to
+me, when I told you about this at Fairly, where some old sweetheart of
+the girl mistook that poor devil of a scapegoat, Algy, for him, and went
+pegging at him like a madman."
+
+"No," said Sir William; "No, I would not.  Nor do I now.  At least," he
+struck out his right hand deprecatingly, "I listen."
+
+"Can you tell me what he was doing when he went to Italy?"
+
+"He went partly at my suggestion."
+
+"Turns you round his little finger!  He went off with this girl: wanted
+to educate her, or some nonsense of the sort.  That was Mr. Ned's
+business.  Upon my soul, I'm sorry for old Fleming.  I'm told he takes it
+to heart.  It's done him up.  Now, if it should turn out to be Ned, would
+you let him right the girl by marrying her?  You wouldn't!"
+
+"The principle of examining your hypothesis before you proceed to decide
+by it, is probably unknown to you," Sir William observed, after bestowing
+a considerate smile on his brother, who muffled himself up from the
+chilling sententiousness, and drank.
+
+Sir William, in the pride of superior intellect, had heard as good as
+nothing of the charge against his son.
+
+"Well," said the squire, "think as you like, act as you like; all's one
+to me.  You're satisfied; that's clear; and I'm some hundred of pounds
+out of pocket.  This major's paying court to the widow, is he?"
+
+"I can't say that he is."
+
+"It would be a good thing for her to get married."
+
+"I should be glad."
+
+"A good thing for her, I say."
+
+"A good thing for him, let us hope."
+
+"If he can pay her debts."
+
+Sir William was silent, and sipped his wine.
+
+"And if he can keep a tight hand on the reins.  That's wanted," said the
+squire.
+
+The gentleman whose road to happiness was thus prescribed stood by Mrs.
+Lovell's chair, in the drawing-room.  He held a letter in his hand, for
+which her own was pleadingly extended.
+
+"I know you to be the soul of truth, Percy," she was saying.
+
+"The question is not that; but whether you can bear the truth."
+
+"Can I not?  Who would live without it?"
+
+"Pardon me; there's more.  You say, you admire this friend of mine; no
+doubt you do.  Mind, I am going to give you the letter.  I wish you
+simply to ask yourself now, whether you are satisfied at my making a
+confidant of a man in Robert Eccles's position, and think it natural and
+just--you do?"
+
+"Quite just," said Mrs. Lovell; "and natural?  Yes, natural; though not
+common.  Eccentric; which only means, hors du commun; and can be natural.
+It is natural.  I was convinced he was a noble fellow, before I knew that
+you had made a friend of him.  I am sure of it now.  And did he not save
+your life, Percy?"
+
+"I have warned you that you are partly the subject of the letter."
+
+"Do you forget that I am a woman, and want it all the more impatiently?"
+
+Major Waring suffered the letter to be snatched from his hand, and stood
+like one who is submitting to a test, or watching the effect of a potent
+drug.
+
+"It is his second letter to you," Mrs. Lovell murmured.  "I see; it is a
+reply to yours."
+
+She read a few lines, and glanced up, blushing.  "Am I not made to bear
+more than I deserve?"
+
+"If you can do such mischief, without meaning any, to a man who is in
+love with another woman--," said Percy.
+
+"Yes," she nodded, "I perceive the deduction; but inferences are like
+shadows on the wall--they are thrown from an object, and are monstrous
+distortions of it.  That is why you misjudge women.  You infer one thing
+from another, and are ruled by the inference."
+
+He simply bowed.  Edward would have answered her in a bright strain, and
+led her on to say brilliant things, and then have shown her, as by a
+sudden light, that she had lost herself, and reduced her to feel the
+strength and safety of his hard intellect.  That was the idea in her
+brain.  The next moment her heart ejected it.
+
+"Petty, when I asked permission to look at this letter, I was not aware
+how great a compliment it would be to me if I was permitted to see it.
+It betrays your friend."
+
+"It betrays something more," said he.
+
+Mrs. Lovell cast down her eyes and read, without further comment.
+
+These were the contents:--
+
+     "My Dear Percy,--Now that I see her every day again, I am worse than
+     ever; and I remember thinking once or twice that Mrs. L.  had cured
+     me.  I am a sort of man who would jump to reach the top of a
+     mountain.  I understand how superior Mrs. L. is to every woman in
+     the world I have seen; but Rhoda cures me on that head.  Mrs. Lovell
+     makes men mad and happy, and Rhoda makes them sensible and
+     miserable.  I have had the talk with Rhoda.  It is all over.  I have
+     felt like being in a big room with one candle alight ever since.
+     She has not looked at me, and does nothing but get by her father
+     whenever she can, and takes his hand and holds it.  I see where the
+     blow has struck her: it has killed her pride; and Rhoda is almost
+     all pride.  I suppose she thinks our plan is the best.  She has not
+     said she does, and does not mention her sister.  She is going to
+     die, or she turns nun, or marries a gentleman.  I shall never get
+     her.  She will not forgive me for bringing this news to her.  I told
+     you how she coloured, the first day I came; which has all gone now.
+     She just opens her lips to me.  You remember Corporal Thwaites--you
+     caught his horse, when he had his foot near wrenched off, going
+     through the gate--and his way of breathing through the under-row of
+     his teeth--the poor creature was in such pain--that's just how she
+     takes her breath.  It makes her look sometimes like that woman's
+     head with the snakes for her hair.  This bothers me--how is it you
+     and Mrs. Lovell manage to talk together of such things?  Why, two
+     men rather hang their heads a bit.  My notion is, that women--
+     ladies, in especial, ought never to hear of sad things of this sort.
+     Of course, I mean, if they do, it cannot harm them.  It only upsets
+     me.  Why are ladies less particular than girls in Rhoda's place?"
+
+     ("Shame being a virtue," was Mrs. Lovell's running comment.)
+
+     "She comes up to town with her father to-morrow.  The farm is
+     ruined.  The poor old man had to ask me for a loan to pay the
+     journey.  Luckily, Rhoda has saved enough with her pennies and two-
+     pences.  Ever since I left the farm, it has been in the hands of an
+     old donkey here, who has worked it his own way.  What is in the
+     ground will stop there, and may as well.
+
+     "I leave off writing, I write such stuff; and if I go on
+     writing to you, I shall be putting these things ' -!--!--!'  The way
+     you write about Mrs. Lovell, convinces me you are not in my scrape,
+     or else gentlemen are just as different from their inferiors as
+     ladies are from theirs.  That's the question.  What is the meaning
+     of your 'not being able to leave her for a day, for fear she should
+     fall under other influences'?  Then, I copy your words, you say,
+     'She is all things to everybody, and cannot help it.'  In that case,
+     I would seize my opportunity and her waist, and tell her she was
+     locked up from anybody else.  Friendship with men--but I cannot
+     understand friendship with women, and watching them to keep them
+     right, which must mean that you do not think much of them."
+
+Mrs. Lovell, at this point, raised her eyes abruptly from the letter and
+returned it.
+
+"You discuss me very freely with your friend," she said.
+
+Percy drooped to her.  "I warned you when you wished to read it."
+
+"But, you see, you have bewildered him.  It was scarcely wise to write
+other than plain facts.  Men of that class."  She stopped.
+
+"Of that class?" said he.
+
+"Men of any class, then: you yourself: if any one wrote to you such
+things, what would you think?  It is very unfair.  I have the honour of
+seeing you daily, because you cannot trust me out of your sight?  What is
+there inexplicable about me?  Do you wonder that I talk openly of women
+who are betrayed, and do my best to help them?".
+
+"On the contrary; you command my esteem," said Percy.
+
+"But you think me a puppet?"
+
+"Fond of them, perhaps?" his tone of voice queried in a manner that made
+her smile.
+
+"I hate them," she said, and her face expressed it.
+
+"But you make them."
+
+"How?  You torment me."
+
+"How can I explain the magic?  Are you not making one of me now, where I
+stand?"
+
+"Then, sit."
+
+"Or kneel?"
+
+"Oh, Percy! do nothing ridiculous."
+
+Inveterate insight was a characteristic of Major Waring; but he was not
+the less in Mrs. Lovell's net.  He knew it to be a charm that she
+exercised almost unknowingly.  She was simply a sweet instrument for
+those who could play on it, and therein lay her mighty fascination.
+Robert's blunt advice that he should seize the chance, take her and make
+her his own, was powerful with him.  He checked the particular
+appropriating action suggested by Robert.
+
+"I owe you an explanation," he said.  "Margaret, my friend."
+
+"You can think of me as a friend, Percy?"
+
+"If I can call you my friend, what would I not call you besides?  I did
+you a great and shameful wrong when you were younger.  Hush! you did not
+deserve that.  Judge of yourself as you will; but I know now what my
+feelings were then.  The sublime executioner was no more than a spiteful
+man.  You give me your pardon, do you not?  Your hand?"
+
+She had reached her hand to him, but withdrew it quickly.
+
+"Not your hand, Margaret?  But, you must give it to some one.  You will
+be ruined, if you do not."
+
+She looked at him with full eyes.  "You know it then?" she said slowly;
+but the gaze diminished as he went on.
+
+"I know, by what I know of you, that you of all women should owe a direct
+allegiance.  Come; I will assume privileges.  Are you free?"
+
+"Would you talk to me so, if you thought otherwise?" she asked.
+
+"I think I would," said Percy.  "A little depends upon the person.  Are
+you pledged at all to Mr. Edward Blancove?"
+
+"Do you suppose me one to pledge myself?"
+
+"He is doing a base thing."
+
+"Then, Percy, let an assurance of my knowledge of that be my answer."
+
+"You do not love the man?"
+
+Despise him, say!"
+
+"Is he aware of it?"
+
+"If clear writing can make him."
+
+"You have told him as much?"
+
+"To his apprehension, certainly."
+
+"Further, Margaret, I must speak:--did he act with your concurrence, or
+knowledge of it at all, in acting as he has done?"
+
+"Heavens! Percy, you question me like a husband."
+
+"It is what I mean to be, if I may."
+
+The frame of the fair lady quivered as from a blow, and then her eyes
+rose tenderly.
+
+"I thought you knew me.  This is not possible."
+
+"You will not be mine?  Why is it not possible?"
+
+"I think I could say, because I respect you too much."
+
+"Because you find you have not the courage?"
+
+"For what?"
+
+"To confess that you were under bad influence, and were not the Margaret
+I can make of you.  Put that aside.  If you remain as you are, think of
+the snares.  If you marry one you despise, look at the pit.  Yes; you
+will be mine!  Half my love of my country and my profession is love of
+you.  Margaret is fire in my blood.  I used to pray for opportunities,
+that Margaret might hear of me.  I knew that gallant actions touched her;
+I would have fallen gladly; I was sure her heart would leap when she
+heard of me.  Let it beat against mine.  Speak!"
+
+"I will," said Mrs. Lovell, and she suppressed the throbs of her bosom.
+Her voice was harsh and her face bloodless.  "How much money have you,
+Percy?"
+
+This sudden sluicing of cold water on his heat of passion petrified him.
+
+"Money," he said, with a strange frigid scrutiny of her features.  As in
+the flash of a mirror, he beheld her bony, worn, sordid, unacceptable.
+But he was fain to admit it to be an eminently proper demand for
+enlightenment.
+
+He said deliberately, "I possess an income of five hundred a year,
+extraneous, and in addition to my pay as major in Her Majesty's service."
+
+Then he paused, and the silence was like a growing chasm between them.
+
+She broke it by saying, "Have you any expectations?"
+
+This was crueller still, though no longer astonishing.  He complained in
+his heart merely that her voice had become so unpleasant.
+
+With emotionless precision, he replied, "At my mother's death--"
+
+She interposed a soft exclamation.
+
+"At my mother's death there will come to me by reversion, five or six
+thousand pounds.  When my father dies, he may possibly bequeath his
+property to me.  On that I cannot count."
+
+Veritable tears were in her eyes.  Was she affecting to weep
+sympathetically in view of these remote contingencies?
+
+"You will not pretend that you know me now, Percy," she said, trying to
+smile; and she had recovered the natural feminine key of her voice.  "I
+am mercenary, you see; not a mercenary friend.  So, keep me as a friend--
+say you will be my friend."
+
+"Nay, you had a right to know," he protested.
+
+"It was disgraceful--horrible; but it was necessary for me to know."
+
+"And now that you do know?"
+
+"Now that I know, I have only to say--be as merciful in your idea of me
+as you can."
+
+She dropped her hand in his, and it was with a thrill of dismay that he
+felt the rush of passion reanimating his frozen veins.
+
+"Be mercenary, but be mine!  I will give you something better to live for
+than this absurd life of fashion.  You reckon on what our expenditure
+will be by that standard.  It's comparative poverty; but--but you can
+have some luxuries.  You can have a carriage, a horse to ride.  Active
+service may come: I may rise.  Give yourself to me, and you must love me,
+and regret nothing."
+
+"Nothing!  I should regret nothing.  I don't want carriages, or horses,
+or luxuries.  I could live with you on a subaltern's pay.  I can't marry
+you, Percy, and for the very reason which would make me wish to marry
+you."
+
+"Charade?" said he; and the contempt of the utterance brought her head
+close under his.
+
+"Dearest friend, you have not to learn how to punish me."
+
+The little reproach, added to the wound to his pride, required a healing
+medicament; she put her lips to his fingers.
+
+Assuredly the comedy would not have ended there, but it was stopped by an
+intrusion of the squire, followed by Sir William, who, while the squire--
+full of wine and vindictive humours--went on humming, "Ah! h'm--m--m!
+Soh!" said in the doorway to some one behind him: "And if you have lost
+your key, and Algernon is away, of what use is it to drive down to the
+Temple for a bed?  I make it an especial request that you sleep here
+tonight.  I wish it.  I have to speak with you."
+
+Mrs. Lovell was informed that the baronet had been addressing his son,
+who was fresh from Paris, and not, in his own modest opinion, presentable
+before a lady.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+Once more Farmer Fleming and Rhoda prepared for their melancholy journey
+up to London.  A light cart was at the gateway, near which Robert stood
+with the farmer, who, in his stiff brown overcoat, that reached to his
+ankles, and broad country-hat, kept his posture of dumb expectation like
+a stalled ox, and nodded to Robert's remarks on the care which the garden
+had been receiving latterly, the many roses clean in bud, and the trim
+blue and white and red garden beds.  Every word was a blow to him; but he
+took it, as well as Rhoda's apparent dilatoriness, among the things to be
+submitted to by a man cut away by the roots from the home of his labour
+and old associations.  Above his bowed head there was a board proclaiming
+that Queen Anne's Farm, and all belonging thereunto, was for sale.  His
+prospect in the vague wilderness of the future, was to seek for
+acceptance as a common labourer on some kind gentleman's property.  The
+phrase "kind gentleman" was adopted by his deliberate irony of the fate
+which cast him out.  Robert was stamping fretfully for Rhoda to come.  At
+times, Mrs. Sumfit showed her head from the window of her bed-room,
+crying, "D'rectly!" and disappearing.
+
+The still aspect of the house on the shining May afternoon was otherwise
+undisturbed.  Besides Rhoda, Master Gammon was being waited for; on whom
+would devolve the driving of the cart back from the station.  Robert
+heaped his vexed exclamations upon this old man.  The farmer restrained
+his voice in Master Gammon's defence, thinking of the comparison he could
+make between him and Robert: for Master Gammon had never run away from
+the farm and kept absent, leaving it to take care of itself.  Gammon,
+slow as he might be, was faithful, and it was not he who had made it
+necessary for the farm to be sold.  Gammon was obstinate, but it was not
+he who, after taking a lead, and making the farm dependent on his lead,
+had absconded with the brains and energy of the establishment.  Such
+reflections passed through the farmer's mind.
+
+Rhoda and Mrs. Sumfit came together down the trim pathway; and Robert now
+had a clear charge against Master Gammon.  He recommended an immediate
+departure.
+
+"The horse 'll bring himself home quite as well and as fast as Gammon
+will," he said.
+
+"But for the shakin' and the joltin', which tells o' sovereigns and
+silver," Mrs. Sumfit was observing to Rhoda, "you might carry the box--
+and who would have guessed how stout it was, and me to hit it with a
+poker and not break it, I couldn't, nor get a single one through the
+slit;--the sight I was, with a poker in my hand!  I do declare I felt
+azactly like a housebreaker;--and no soul to notice what you carries.
+Where you hear the gold, my dear, go so"--Mrs. Sumfit performed a
+methodical "Ahem!" and noised the sole of her shoe on the gravel
+"so, and folks 'll think it's a mistake they made."
+
+"What's that?"--the farmer pointed at a projection under Rhoda's shawl.
+
+"It is a present, father, for my sister," said Rhoda.
+
+"What is it?" the farmer questioned again.
+
+Mrs. Sumfit fawned before him penitently--"Ah! William, she's poor, and
+she do want a little to spend, or she will be so nipped and like a
+frost-bitten body, she will.  And, perhaps, dear, haven't money in her
+sight for next day's dinner, which is--oh, such a panic for a young wife!
+for it ain't her hunger, dear William--her husband, she thinks of.  And
+her cookery at a stand-still!  Thinks she, 'he will charge it on the
+kitchen;' so unreasonable's men.  Yes," she added, in answer to the rigid
+dejection of his look, "I said true to you.  I know I said, 'Not a penny
+can I get, William,' when you asked me for loans; and how could I get it?
+I can't get it now.  See here, dear!"
+
+She took the box from under Rhoda's shawl, and rattled it with a down
+turn and an up turn.
+
+"You didn't ask me, dear William, whether I had a money-box.  I'd ha'
+told you so at once, had ye but asked me.  And had you said, "Gi' me your
+money-box," it was yours, only for your asking.  You do see, you can't
+get any of it out.  So, when you asked for money I was right to say, I'd
+got none."
+
+The farmer bore with her dreary rattling of the box in demonstration of
+its retentive capacities.  The mere force of the show stopped him from
+retorting; but when, to excuse Master Gammon for his tardiness, she
+related that he also had a money-box, and was in search of it, the farmer
+threw up his head with the vigour of a young man, and thundered for
+Master Gammon, by name, vehemently wrathful at the combined hypocrisy of
+the pair.  He called twice, and his face was purple and red as he turned
+toward the cart, saying,--
+
+"We'll go without the old man."
+
+Mrs. Sumfit then intertwisted her fingers, and related how that she and
+Master Gammon had one day, six years distant, talked on a lonely evening
+over the mischances which befel poor people when they grew infirm, or met
+with accident, and what "useless clays" they were; and yet they had their
+feelings.  It was a long and confidential talk on a summer evening; and,
+at the end of it, Master Gammon walked into Wrexby, and paid a visit to
+Mr. Hammond, the carpenter, who produced two strong saving-boxes
+excellently manufactured by his own hand, without a lid to them, or lock
+and key: so that there would be no getting at the contents until the
+boxes were full, or a pressing occasion counselled the destruction of the
+boxes.  A constant subject of jest between Mrs. Sumfit and Master Gammon
+was, as to which first of them would be overpowered by curiosity to know
+the amount of their respective savings; and their confessions of mutual
+weakness and futile endeavours to extract one piece of gold from the
+hoard.
+
+"And now, think it or not," said Mrs. Sumfit, "I got that power over him,
+from doctorin' him, and cookin' for him, I persuaded him to help my poor
+Dahly in my blessed's need.  I'd like him to do it by halves, but he
+can't."
+
+Master Gammon appeared round a corner of the house, his box, draped by
+his handkerchief, under his arm.  The farmer and Robert knew, when he was
+in sight, that gestures and shouts expressing extremities of the need for
+haste, would fail to accelerate his steps, so they allowed him to come on
+at his own equal pace, steady as Time, with the peculiar lopping bend of
+knees which jerked the moveless trunk regularly upward, and the ancient
+round eyes fixed contemplatively forward.  There was an affectingness in
+this view of the mechanical old man bearing his poor hoard to bestow it.
+
+Robert said out, unawares, "He mustn't be let to part with h' old
+pennies."
+
+"No; the farmer took him up; "nor I won't let him."
+
+"Yes, father!" Rhoda intercepted his address to Master Gammon.  "Yes,
+father!" she hardened her accent.  "It is for my sister.  He does a good
+thing.  Let him do it."
+
+"Mas' Gammon, what ha' ye got there?" the farmer sung out.
+
+But Master Gammon knew that he was about his own business.  He was a
+difficult old man when he served the farmer; he was quite unmanageable in
+his private affairs.
+
+Without replying, he said to Mrs. Sumfit,--
+
+"I'd gummed it."
+
+The side of the box showed that it had been made adhesive, for the sake
+of security, to another substance.
+
+"That's what's caused ye to be so long, Mas' Gammon?"
+
+The veteran of the fields responded with a grin, designed to show a
+lively cunning.
+
+"Deary me, Mas' Gammon, I'd give a fortnight's work to know how much
+you'm saved, now, I would.  And, there!  Your comfort's in your heart.
+And it shall be paid to you.  I do pray heaven in mercy to forgive me,"
+she whimpered, "if ever knowin'ly I hasted you at a meal, or did deceive
+you when you looked for the pickings of fresh-killed pig.  But if you
+only knew how--to cookit spoils the temper of a woman!  I'd a aunt was
+cook in a gentleman's fam'ly, and daily he dirtied his thirteen plates--
+never more nor never less; and one day--was ever a woman punished so! her
+best black silk dress she greased from the top to the bottom, and he sent
+down nine clean plates, and no word vouchsafed of explanation.  For
+gentlefolks, they won't teach themselves how it do hang together with
+cooks in a kitchen--"
+
+"Jump up, Mas' Gammon," cried the farmer, wrathful at having been
+deceived by two members of his household, who had sworn to him, both,
+that they had no money, and had disregarded his necessity.  Such being
+human nature!
+
+Mrs. Sumfit confided the termination of her story to Rhoda; or suggested
+rather, at what distant point it might end; and then, giving Master
+Gammon's box to her custody, with directions for Dahlia to take the boxes
+to a carpenter's shop--not attempting the power of pokers upon them--and
+count and make a mental note of the amount of the rival hoards, she sent
+Dahlia all her messages of smirking reproof, and delighted love, and
+hoped that they would soon meet and know happiness.
+
+Rhoda, as usual, had no emotion to spare.  She took possession of the
+second box, and thus laden, suffered Robert to lift her into  the cart.
+They drove across the green, past the mill and its flashing waters, and
+into the road, where the waving of Mrs. Sumfit's desolate handkerchief
+was latest seen.
+
+A horseman rode by, whom Rhoda recognized, and she blushed and had a
+boding shiver.  Robert marked him, and the blush as well.
+
+It was Algernon, upon a livery-stable hack.  His countenance expressed a
+mighty disappointment.
+
+The farmer saw no one.  The ingratitude and treachery of Robert, and of
+Mrs. Sumfit and Master Gammon, kept him brooding in sombre disgust of
+life.  He remarked that the cart jolted a good deal.
+
+"If you goes in a cart, wi' company o' four, you expects to be jolted,"
+said Master Gammon.
+
+"You seem to like it," Robert observed to the latter.
+
+"It don't disturb my in'ards," quoth the serenest of mankind.
+
+"Gammon," the farmer addressed him from the front seat, without turning
+his head: "you'll take and look about for a new place."
+
+Master Gammon digested the recommendation in silence.  On its being
+repeated, with, "D' ye hear?" he replied that he heard well enough.
+
+"Well, then, look about ye sharp, or maybe, you'll be out in the cold,"
+said the farmer.
+
+"Na," returned Master Gammon, "ah never frets till I'm pinched."
+
+"I've given ye notice," said the farmer.
+
+"No, you ha'n't," said Master Gammon.
+
+"I give ye notice now."
+
+"No, you don't."
+
+"How d' ye mean?"
+
+"Cause I don't take ne'er a notice."
+
+"Then you'll be kicked out, old man."
+
+"Hey! there y' have me," said Master Gammon.  "I growed at the farm, and
+you don't go and tell ne'er a tree t' walk."
+
+Rhoda laid her fingers in the veteran's palm.
+
+"You're a long-lived family, aren't you, Master Gammon?" said Robert,
+eyeing Rhoda's action enviously.
+
+Master Gammon bade him go to a certain churchyard in Sussex, and inspect
+a particular tombstone, upon which the ages of his ancestry were written.
+They were more like the ages of oaks than of men.
+
+"It's the heart kills," said Robert.
+
+"It's damned misfortune," murmured the farmer.
+
+"It is the wickedness in the world," thought Rhoda.
+
+"It's a poor stomach, I reckon," Master Gammon ruminated.
+
+They took leave of him at the station, from which eminence it was a
+notable thing to see him in the road beneath, making preparations for his
+return, like a conqueror of the hours.  Others might run, and stew, if
+they liked: Master Gammon had chosen his pace, and was not of a mind to
+change it for anybody or anything.  It was his boast that he had never
+ridden by railway: "nor ever means to, if I can help it," he would say.
+He was very much in harmony with universal nature, if to be that is the
+secret of human life.
+
+Meantime, Algernon retraced his way to the station in profound chagrin:
+arriving there just as the train was visible.  He caught sight of the
+cart with Master Gammon in it, and asked him whether all his people were
+going up to London; but the reply was evidently a mile distant, and had
+not started; so putting a sovereign in Master Gammon's hand, together
+with the reins of his horse, Algernon bade the old man conduct the animal
+to the White Bear Inn, and thus violently pushing him off the tramways of
+his intelligence, left him stranded.
+
+He had taken a first-class return-ticket, of course, being a gentleman.
+In the desperate hope that he might jump into a carriage with Rhoda, he
+entered one of the second-class compartments; a fact not only foreign to
+his tastes and his habits, but somewhat disgraceful, as he thought.  His
+trust was, that the ignoble of this earth alone had beheld him: at any
+rate, his ticket was first class, as the guard would instantly and
+respectfully perceive, and if he had the discomforts, he had also some of
+the consolations of virtue.
+
+Once on his way, the hard seat and the contemptible society surrounding
+him, assured his reflective spirit that he loved: otherwise, was it in
+reason that he should endure these hardships?  "I really love the girl,"
+he said, fidgeting for cushions.
+
+He was hot, and wanted the window up, to which his fellow-travellers
+assented.  Then, the atmosphere becoming loaded with offence to his
+morbid sense of smell, he wanted the windows down; and again they
+assented.  "By Jove! I must love the girl," ejaculated Algernon inwardly,
+as cramp, cold, and afflicted nostrils combined to astonish his physical
+sensations.  Nor was it displeasing to him to evince that he was
+unaccustomed to bare boards.
+
+"We're a rich country," said a man to his neighbour; "but, if you don't
+pay for it, you must take your luck, and they'll make you as
+uncomfortable as they can."
+
+"Ay," said the other.  "I've travelled on the Continent.  The
+second-class carriages there are fit for anybody to travel in.  This is
+what comes of the worship of money--the individual is not respected.
+Pounds alone!"
+
+"These," thought Algernon, "are beastly democrats."
+
+Their remarks had been sympathetic with his manifestations, which had
+probably suggested them.  He glowered out of the window in an exceedingly
+foreign manner.  A plainly dressed woman requested that the window should
+be closed.  One of the men immediately proceeded to close it.  Algernon
+stopped him.
+
+"Pardon me, sir," said the man; "it's a lady wants it done;" and he did
+it.
+
+A lady!  Algernon determined that these were the sort of people he should
+hate for life.  "Go among them and then see what they are," he addressed
+an imaginary assembly of anti-democrats, as from a senatorial chair set
+in the after days.  Cramp, cold, ill-ordered smells, and eternal hatred
+of his fellow-passengers, convinced him, in their aggregation, that he
+surmounted not a little for love of Rhoda.
+
+The train arrived in London at dusk.  Algernon saw Rhoda step from a
+carriage near the engine, assisted by Robert; and old Anthony was on the
+platform to welcome her; and Anthony seized her bag, and the troop of
+passengers moved away.  It may be supposed that Algernon had angry
+sensations at sight of Robert; and to a certain extent this was the case;
+but he was a mercurial youth, and one who had satisfactorily proved
+superior strength enjoyed a portion of his respect.  Besides, if Robert
+perchance should be courting Rhoda, he and Robert would enter into
+another field of controversy; and Robert might be taught a lesson.
+
+He followed the party on foot until they reached Anthony's dwelling-
+place, noted the house, and sped to the Temple.  There, he found
+a telegraphic message from Edward, that had been awaiting him since
+the morning.
+
+"Stop It," were the sole words of the communication brief, and if one
+preferred to think so, enigmatic.
+
+"What on earth does he mean?" cried Algernon, and affected again and
+again to see what Edward meant, without success.  "Stop it?--stop what?--
+Stop the train?  Stop my watch?  Stop the universe?  Oh! this is rank
+humbug."  He flung the paper down, and fell to counting the money in his
+possession.  The more it dwindled, the more imperative it became that he
+should depart from his country.
+
+Behind the figures, he calculated that, in all probability, Rhoda would
+visit her sister this night.  "I can't stop that," he said: and hearing a
+clock strike, "nor that" a knock sounded on the door; "nor that."  The
+reflection inspired him with fatalistic views.
+
+Sedgett appeared, and was welcome.  Algernon had to check the impulse of
+his hand to stretch out to the fellow, so welcome was he: Sedgett stated
+that everything stood ready for the morrow.  He had accomplished all that
+had to be done.
+
+"And it's more than many'd reckon," he said, and rubbed his hands, and
+laughed.  "I was aboard ship in Liverpool this morning, that I was.  That
+ere young woman's woke up from her dream", (he lengthened the word
+inexpressibly) "by this time, that she is.  I had to pay for my passage,
+though;" at which recollection he swore.  "That's money gone.  Never
+mind: there's worse gone with it.  Ain't it nasty--don't you think, sir--
+to get tired of a young woman you've been keepin' company with, and have
+to be her companion, whether you will, or whether you won't?  She's sick
+enough now.  We travelled all night.  I got her on board; got her to go
+to her bed; and, says I, I'll arrange about the luggage.  I packs myself
+down into a boat, and saw the ship steam away a good'n.  Hanged if I
+didn't catch myself singin'.  And haven't touched a drop o' drink, nor
+will, till tomorrow's over.  Don't you think "Daehli"'s a very pretty
+name, sir?  I run back to her as hard as rail 'd carry me.  She's had a
+letter from her sister, recommending o' her to marry me: 'a noble man,'
+she calls me--ha, ha! that's good.  'And what do you think, my dear?'
+says I; and, bother me, if I can screw either a compliment or a kiss out
+of her.  She's got fine lady airs of her own.  But I'm fond of her, that
+I am.  Well, sir, at the church door, after the ceremony, you settle our
+business, honour bright--that's it, en't it?"
+
+Algernon nodded.  Sedgett's talk always produced discomfort in his
+ingenuous bosom.
+
+"By the way, what politics are you?" he asked.
+
+Sedgett replied, staring, that he was a Tory, and Algernon nodded again,
+but with brows perturbed at the thought of this ruffian being of the same
+political persuasion as himself.
+
+"Eh?" cried Sedgett; "I don't want any of your hustings pledges, though.
+You'll be at the door tomorrow, or I'll have a row--mind that.  A
+bargain's a bargain.  I like the young woman, but I must have the money.
+Why not hand it over now?"
+
+"Not till the deed's done," said Algernon, very reasonably.
+
+Sedgett studied his features, and as a result remarked: "You put me up to
+this: I'll do it, and trust you so far, but if I'm played on, I throw the
+young woman over and expose you out and out.  But you mean honourable?"
+
+"I do," Algernon said of his meaning.
+
+Another knock sounded on the door.  It proved to be a footman in Sir
+William's livery, bearing a letter from Edward; an amplification of the
+telegram
+
+     "Dear Algy, Stop it.  I'm back, and have to see
+     my father.  I may be down about two, or three, or four,
+     in the morning.  No key; so, keep in.  I want to see
+     you.  My whole life is changed.  I must see her.  Did
+     you get my telegram?  Answer, by messenger; I shall
+     come to you the moment my father has finished his
+     lecture.
+                              "Yours,
+                                   "E.B."
+
+Algernon told Sedgett to wait while he dressed in evening uniform, and
+gave him a cigar to smoke.
+
+He wrote:--
+
+     "Dear Ned, Stop what?  Of course, I suppose there's only one thing,
+     and how can I stop it?  What for?  You ridiculous old boy!  What a
+     changeable old fellow you are!--Off, to see what I can do. After
+     eleven o'clock to-morrow, you'll feel comfortable.--If the Governor
+     is sweet, speak a word for the Old Brown; and bring two dozen in a
+     cab, if you can.  There's no encouragement to keep at home in this
+     place.  Put that to him.  I, in your place, could do it.  Tell him
+     it's a matter of markets.  If I get better wine at hotels, I go to
+     hotels, and I spend twice--ten times the money.  And say, we intend
+     to make the laundress cook our dinners in chambers, as a rule.  Old
+     B. an inducement.
+
+                                        "Yours aff.
+                                             "A.B."
+
+This epistle he dispatched by the footman, and groaned to think that if,
+perchance, the Old Brown Sherry should come, he would, in all
+probability, barely drink more than half-a-dozen bottles of that prime
+vintage.  He and Sedgett, soon after, were driving down to Dahlia's poor
+lodgings in the West.  On the way, an idea struck him:
+
+Would not Sedgett be a noisier claimant for the thousand than Edward?  If
+he obeyed Edward's direction and stopped the marriage, he could hand back
+a goodly number of hundreds, and leave it to be supposed that he had
+advanced the remainder to Sedgett.  How to do it?  Sedgett happened to
+say: "If you won't hand the money now, I must have it when I've married
+her.  Swear you'll be in the vestry when we're signing.  I know all about
+marriages.  You swear, or I tell you, if I find I'm cheated, I will throw
+the young woman over slap."
+
+Algernon nodded: "I shall be there," he said, and thought that he
+certainly would not.  The thought cleared an oppression in his head,
+though it obscured the pretty prospect of a colonial but and horse, with
+Rhoda cooking for him, far from cares.  He did his best to resolve that
+he would stop the business, if he could.  But, if it is permitted to the
+fool to create entanglements and set calamity in motion, to arrest its
+course is the last thing the Gods allow of his doing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+In the shadowy library light, when there was dawn out of doors, Edward
+sat with his father, and both were silent, for Edward had opened his
+heart, and his father had breathed some of the dry stock of wisdom on it.
+Many times Edward rose to go; and Sir William signalled with his finger
+that he should stay: an impassive motion, not succeeded by speech.  And,
+in truth, the baronet was revolving such a problem as a long career of
+profitable banking refreshed by classical exercitations does not help us
+to solve.  There sat the son of his trust and his pride, whose sound and
+equal temperament, whose precocious worldly wit, whose precise and broad
+intelligence, had been the visionary comfort of his paternal days to
+come; and his son had told him, reiterating it in language special and
+exact as that of a Chancery barrister unfolding his case to the presiding
+judge, that he had deceived and wronged an under-bred girl of the humbler
+classes; and that, after a term of absence from her, he had discovered
+her to be a part of his existence, and designed "You would marry her?"
+Sir William asked, though less forcibly than if he could have put on a
+moral amazement.
+
+"That is my intention, sir, with your permission," Edward replied firmly,
+and his father understood that he had never known this young man, and
+dealt virtually with a stranger in his son--as shrewd a blow as the
+vanity which is in paternal nature may have to endure.
+
+He could not fashion the words, "Cerritus fuit," though he thought the
+thing in both tenses: Edward's wits had always been too clearly in order:
+and of what avail was it to repeat great and honoured prudential maxims
+to a hard-headed fellow, whose choice was to steer upon the rocks?  He
+did remark, in an undertone,--
+
+"The 'misce stultitiam' seems to be a piece of advice you have adopted
+too literally.  I quote what you have observed of some one else."
+
+"It is possible, sir," said Edward.  "I was not particularly sparing when
+I sat in the high seat.  'Non eadem est aetas, non mens."  I now think
+differently."
+
+"I must take your present conduct as the fruit of your premature
+sagacity, I suppose.  By the same rule, your cousin Algernon may prove to
+be some comfort to his father, in the end."
+
+"Let us hope he will, sir.  His father will not have deserved it so well
+as mine."
+
+"The time is morning," said Sir William, looking at his watch, and
+bestowing, in the bitterness of his reflections, a hue of triumph on the
+sleep of his brother upstairs.  "You are your own master, Edward.  I will
+detain you no more."
+
+Edward shook his limbs, rejoicing.
+
+"You prepare for a life of hard work," Sir William resumed, not without
+some instigation to sternness from this display of alacrity.  "I counsel
+you to try the Colonial Bar."
+
+Edward read in the first sentence, that his income would be restricted;
+and in the second, that his father's social sphere was no longer to be
+his.
+
+"Exactly, sir; I have entertained that notion myself," he said; and his
+breast narrowed and his features grew sharp.
+
+"And, if I may suggest such matters to you, I would advise you to see
+very little company for some years to come."
+
+"There, sir, you only anticipate my previously formed resolution.  With
+a knavery on my conscience, and a giddy-pated girl on my hands, and the
+doors of the London world open to me, I should scarcely have been capable
+of serious work.  The precious metal, which is Knowledge, sir, is only to
+be obtained by mining for it; and that excellent occupation necessarily
+sends a man out of sight for a number of years.  In the meantime, 'mea
+virtute me involvo.'"
+
+"You need not stop short," said his father, with a sardonic look for the
+concluding lines.
+
+"The continuation is becoming in the mouth of a hero; but humbler persons
+must content themselves not to boast the patent fact, I think."  Edward
+warmed as he spoke.  "I am ready to bear it.  I dislike poverty; but, as
+I say, I am ready to bear it.  Come, sir; you did me the honour once to
+let me talk to you as a friend, with the limits which I have never
+consciously overstepped; let me explain myself plainly and simply."
+
+Sir William signified, "Pray speak," from the arms of his chair!  and
+Edward, standing, went on: "After all, a woman's devotion is worth
+having, when one is not asked for the small change every ten minutes.
+I am aware of the philosophic truth, that we get nothing in life for which
+we don't pay.  The point is, to appreciate what we desire; and so we
+reach a level that makes the payment less--"  He laughed.  Sir William
+could hardly keep back the lines of an ironical smile from his lips.
+
+"This," pursued the orator, "is not the language for the Colonial Bar.
+I wish to show you that I shall understand the character of my vocation
+there.  No, sir; my deeper wish is that you may accept my view of the
+sole course left to a man whose sense of honour is of accord with the
+inclination of his heart, and not in hostility to his clearer judgement."
+
+"Extremely forensic," said Sir William, not displeased by the promise of
+the periods.
+
+"Well, sir, I need not remark to you that rhetoric, though it should fail
+to convey, does not extinguish, or imply the absence of emotion in the
+speaker; but rather that his imagination is excited by his theme, and
+that he addresses more presences than such as are visible.  It is, like
+the Roman mask, fashioned for large assemblages."
+
+"By a parity of reasoning, then,"--Sir William was seduced into
+colloquy,--"an eternal broad grin is not, in the instance of a dualogue,
+good comedy."
+
+"It may hide profound grief."  Edward made his eyes flash.  "I find I can
+laugh; it would be difficult for me to smile.  Sir, I pray that you will
+listen to me seriously, though my language is not of a kind to make you
+think me absolutely earnest in what I say, unless you know me."
+
+"Which, I must protest, I certainly do not," interposed Sir William.
+
+"I will do my best to instruct you, sir.  Until recently, I have not
+known myself.  I met this girl.  She trusted herself to me.  You are
+aware that I know a little of men and of women; and when I tell you that
+I respect her now even more than I did at first--much more--so
+thoroughly, that I would now put my honour in her hands, by the counsel
+of my experience, as she, prompted by her instinct and her faith in me,
+confided hers to mine,--perhaps, even if you persist in accusing me of
+rashness, you will allow that she must be in the possession of singularly
+feminine and estimable qualities.  I deceived her.  My object in doing so
+was to spare you.  Those consequences followed which can hardly fail to
+ensue, when, of two living together, the woman is at a disadvantage, and
+eats her heart without complaining.  I could have borne a shrewish tongue
+better, possibly because I could have answered it better.  It is worse to
+see a pale sad face with a smile of unalterable tenderness.  The very
+sweetness becomes repugnant."
+
+"As little boys requiring much medicine have anticipated you by noting in
+this world," observed Sir William.
+
+"I thank you for the illustration."  Edward bowed, but he smarted.  "A
+man so situated lives with the ghost of his conscience."
+
+"A doubtful figure of speech," Sir William broke in.  "I think you should
+establish the personality before you attempt to give a feature to the
+essence.  But, continue."
+
+Edward saw that by forfeiting simplicity, in order to catch his father's
+peculiar cast of mind, he had left him cold and in doubt as to the
+existence of the powerful impulse by which he was animated.  It is a
+prime error in the orator not to seize the emotions and subdue the
+humanity of his hearers first.  Edward perceived his mistake.  He had,
+however, done well in making a show of the unabated vigour of his wits.
+Contempt did not dwell in the baronet's tone.  On the contrary, they
+talked and fenced, and tripped one another as of old; and, considering
+the breach he had been compelled to explode between his father and
+himself, Edward understood that this was a real gain.
+
+He resumed: "All figures of speech must be inadequate--"
+
+"Ah, pardon me," said Sir William, pertinaciously; "the figure I alluded
+to was not inadequate.  A soap-bubble is not inadequate."
+
+"Plainly, sir, in God's name, hear me out," cried Edward.  "She--what
+shall I call her? my mistress, my sweetheart, if you like--let the name
+be anything 'wife' it should have been, and shall be--I left her, and
+have left her and have not looked on her for many months.  I thought I
+was tired of her--I was under odd influences--witchcraft, it seems.  I
+could believe in witchcraft now.  Brutal selfishness is the phrase for my
+conduct.  I have found out my villany.  I have not done a day's sensible
+work, or had a single clear thought, since I parted from her.  She has
+had brain-fever.  She has been in the hospital.  She is now prostrate
+with misery.  While she suffered, I--I can't look back on myself.  If I
+had to plead before you for more than manly consideration, I could touch
+you.  I am my own master, and am ready to subsist by my own efforts;
+there is no necessity for me to do more than say I abide by the choice I
+make, and my own actions.  In deciding to marry her, I do a good thing--I
+do a just thing.  I will prove to you that I have done a wise thing.
+
+"Let me call to your recollection what you did me the honour to remark of
+my letters from Italy.  Those were written with her by my side.  Every
+other woman vexed me.  This one alone gives me peace, and nerve to work.
+If I did not desire to work, should I venture to run the chances of an
+offence to you?  Your girls of society are tasteless to me.  And they
+don't makes wives to working barristers.  No, nor to working Members.
+
+"They are very ornamental and excellent, and, as I think you would call
+them, accomplished.  All England would leap to arms to defend their
+incontestible superiority to their mothers and their duties.  I have not
+the wish to stand opposed to my countrymen on any question, although I go
+to other shores, and may be called upon to make capital out of
+opposition.  They are admirable young persons, no doubt.  I do not offer
+you a drab for your daughter-in-law, sir.  If I rise, she will be equal
+to my station.  She has the manners of a lady; a lady, I say; not of the
+modern young lady; with whom, I am happy to think, she does not come into
+competition.  She has not been sedulously trained to pull her way, when
+she is to go into harness with a yokefellow.
+
+"But I am laying myself open to the charge of feeling my position weak,
+seeing that I abuse the contrary one.  Think what you will of me, sir,
+you will know that I have obeyed my best instinct and my soundest
+judgement in this matter; I need not be taught, that if it is my destiny
+to leave England I lose the association with him who must ever be my
+dearest friend.  And few young men can say as much of one standing in the
+relation of father."
+
+With this, Edward finished; not entirely to his satisfaction; for he had
+spoken with too distinct a sincerity to please his own critical taste,
+which had been educated to delight in acute antithesis and culminating
+sentences--the grand Biscayan billows of rhetorical utterance, in
+comparison wherewith his talk was like the little chopping waves of a
+wind-blown lake.  But he had, as he could see, produced an impression.
+His father stood up.
+
+"We shall be always friends; I hope," Sir William said.  "As regards a
+provision for you, suitable to your estate, that will be arranged.  You
+must have what comforts you have been taught to look to.  At the same
+time, I claim a personal freedom for my own actions."
+
+"Certainly, sir," said Edward, not conceiving any new development in
+these.
+
+"You have an esteem for Mrs. Lovell, have you not?"
+
+Edward flushed.  "I should have a very perfect esteem for her, if--" he
+laughed slightly--"you will think I want everybody to be married and in
+the traces now; she will never be manageable till she is married."
+
+"I am also of that opinion," said Sir William.  "I will detain you no
+longer.  It is a quarter to five in the morning.  You will sleep here, of
+course."
+
+"No, I must go to the Temple.  By the way, Algy prefers a petition for
+Sherry.  He is beginning to discern good wine from bad, which may be a
+hopeful augury."
+
+"I will order Holmes to send some down to him when he has done a week's
+real duty at the Bank."
+
+"Sooner or later, then.  Good morning, sir."
+
+"Good morning."  Sir William shook his son's hand.
+
+A minute after, Edward had quitted the house.  "That's over!" he said,
+sniffing the morning air gratefully, and eyeing certain tinted wisps of
+cloud that were in a line of the fresh blue sky.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+A shy and humble entreaty had been sent by Dahlia through Robert to
+Rhoda, saying that she wished not to be seen until the ceremony was at an
+end; but Rhoda had become mentally stern toward her sister, and as much
+to uphold her in the cleansing step she was about to take, as in the
+desire to have the dear lost head upon her bosom, she disregarded
+Dahlia's foolish prayer, and found it was well that she had done so; for,
+to her great amazement, Dahlia, worn, shorn, sickened, and reduced to be
+a mark for the scorn of the cowardice which is in the world, through the
+selfishness of a lying man, loved the man still, and wavered, or rather
+shrank with a pitiful fleshly terror from the noble husband who would
+wipe the spot of shame from her forehead.
+
+When, after their long separation, the sisters met, Dahlia was mistress
+of herself, and pronounced Rhoda's name softly, as she moved up to kiss
+her.  Rhoda could not speak.  Oppressed by the strangeness of the white
+face which had passed through fire, she gave a mute kiss and a single
+groan, while Dahlia gently caressed her on the shoulder.  The frail touch
+of her hand was harder to bear than the dreary vision had been, and
+seemed not so real as many a dream of it.  Rhoda sat by her, overcome by
+the awfulness of an actual sorrow, never imagined closely, though she had
+conjured up vague pictures of Dahlia's face.  She had imagined agony,
+tears, despair, but not the spectral change, the burnt-out look.  It was
+a face like a crystal lamp in which the flame has died.  The ghastly
+little skull-cap showed forth its wanness rigidly.  Rhoda wondered to
+hear her talk simply of home and the old life.  At each question, the
+then and the now struck her spirit with a lightning flash of opposing
+scenes.  But the talk deepened.  Dahlia's martyrdom was near, and their
+tongues were hurried into plain converse of the hour, and then Dahlia
+faltered and huddled herself up like a creature swept by the torrent;
+Rhoda learnt that, instead of hate or loathing of the devilish man who
+had deceived her, love survived.  Upon Dahlia's lips it was compassion
+and forgiveness; but Rhoda, in her contempt for the word, called it love.
+Dahlia submitted gladly to the torture of interrogation; "Do you, can you
+care for him still?" and sighed in shame and fear of her sister, not
+daring to say she thought her harsh, not daring to plead for escape, as
+she had done with Robert.
+
+"Why is there no place for the unhappy, who do not wish to live, and
+cannot die?" she moaned.
+
+And Rhoda cruelly fixed her to the marriage, making it seem irrevocable,
+and barring all the faint lights to the free outer world, by praise of
+her--passionate praise of her--when she confessed, that half inanimate
+after her recovery from the fever, and in the hope that she might thereby
+show herself to her father, she had consented to devote her life to the
+only creature who was then near her to be kind to her.  Rhoda made her
+relate how this man had seen her first, and how, by untiring diligence,
+he had followed her up and found her.  "He--he must love you," said
+Rhoda; and in proportion as she grew more conscious of her sister's
+weakness, and with every access of tenderness toward her, she felt that
+Dahlia must be thought for very much as if she were a child.
+
+Dahlia tried to float out some fretting words for mercy, on one or other
+of her heavy breathings; but her brain was under lead.  She had a thirst
+for Rhoda's praise in her desolation; it was sweet, though the price of
+it was her doing an abhorred thing.  Abhorred?  She did not realize the
+consequences of the act, or strength would have come to her to wrestle
+with the coil: a stir of her blood would have endued her with womanly
+counsel and womanly frenzy; nor could Rhoda have opposed any real
+vehemence of distaste to the union on Dahlia's part.  But Dahlia's blood
+was frozen, her brain was under lead.  She clung to the poor delight in
+her sister's praise, and shuddered and thirsted.  She caught at the
+minutes, and saw them slip from her.  All the health of her thoughts went
+to establish a sort of blind belief that God; having punished her enough,
+would not permit a second great misery to befall her.  She expected a
+sudden intervention, even though at the altar.  She argued to herself
+that misery, which follows sin, cannot surely afflict us further when we
+are penitent, and seek to do right: her thought being, that perchance if
+she refrained from striving against the current, and if she suffered her
+body to be borne along, God would be the more merciful.  With the small
+cunning of an enfeebled spirit, she put on a mute submissiveness, and
+deceived herself by it sufficiently to let the minutes pass with a
+lessened horror and alarm.
+
+This was in the first quarter of the night.  The dawn was wearing near.
+Sedgett had been seen by Rhoda; a quiet interview; a few words on either
+side, attention paid to them by neither.  But the girl doated on his
+ugliness; she took it for plain proof of his worthiness; proof too that
+her sister must needs have seen the latter very distinctly, or else she
+could not have submitted.
+
+Dahlia looked at the window-blinds and at the candlelight.  The little
+which had been spoken between her and her sister in such a chasm of time,
+gave a terrible swiftness to the hours.  Half shrieking, she dropped her
+head in Rhoda's lap.  Rhoda, thinking that with this demonstration she
+renounced the project finally, prepared to say what she had to say, and
+to yield.  But, as was natural after a paroxysm of weakness, Dahlia's
+frenzy left no courage behind it.
+
+Dahlia said, as she swept her brows, "I am still subject to nervous
+attacks."
+
+"They will soon leave you," said Rhoda, nursing her hand.
+
+Dahlia contracted her lips.  "Is father very unforgiving to women?"
+
+"Poor father!" Rhoda interjected for answer, and Dahlia's frame was taken
+with a convulsion.
+
+"Where shall I see him to-morrow?" she asked; and, glancing from the
+beamless candle to the window-blinds "Oh! it's day.  Why didn't I sleep!
+It's day! where am I to see him?"
+
+"At Robert's lodgings.  We all go there."
+
+"We all go?--he goes?"
+
+"Your husband will lead you there."
+
+"My heaven! my heaven!  I wish you had known what this is, a little--just
+a little."
+
+"I do know that it is a good and precious thing to do right," said Rhoda.
+
+"If you had only had an affection, dear!  Oh I how ungrateful I am to
+you."
+
+"It is only, darling, that I seem unkind to you," said Rhoda.
+
+"You think I must do this?  Must?  Why?"
+
+"Why?" Rhoda pressed her fingers.  "Why, when you were ill, did you not
+write to me, that I might have come to you?"
+
+"I was ashamed," said Dahlia.
+
+"You shall not be ashamed any more, my sister."
+
+Dahlia seized the window-blind with her trembling finger-tips, and looked
+out on the day.  As if it had smitten her eyeballs, she covered her face,
+giving dry sobs.
+
+"Oh!  I wish--I wish you had known what this is.  Must I do it?  His
+face!  Dear, I am very sorry to distress you.  Must I do it?  The doctor
+says I am so strong that nothing will break in me, and that I must live,
+if I am not killed.  But, if I might only be a servant in father's house-
+-I would give all my love to a little bed of flowers."
+
+"Father has no home now," said Rhoda.
+
+"I know--I know.  I am ready.  I will submit, and then father will not be
+ashamed to remain at the Farm.  I am ready.  Dear, I am ready.  Rhoda, I
+am ready.  It is not much."  She blew the candle out.  "See.  No one will
+do that for me.  We are not to live for ourselves.  I have done wrong,
+and I am going to be humble; yes, I am.  I never was when I was happy,
+and that proves I had no right to be happy.  All I ask is for another
+night with you.  Why did we not lie down together and sleep?  We can't
+sleep now--it's day."
+
+"Come and lie down with me for a few hours, my darling," said Rhoda.
+
+While she was speaking, Dahlia drew the window-blind aside, to look out
+once more upon the vacant, inexplicable daylight, and looked, and then
+her head bent like the first thrust forward of a hawk's sighting quarry;
+she spun round, her raised arms making a cramped, clapping motion.
+
+"He is there."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+At once Rhoda perceived that it was time for her to act.  The name of him
+who stood in the street below was written on her sister's face.  She
+started to her side, got possession of her hands, murmuring,--
+
+"Come with me.  You are to come with me.  Don't speak.  I know.  I will
+go down.  Yes; you are to obey, and do what I tell you."
+
+Dahlia's mouth opened, but like a child when it is warned not to cry, she
+uttered a faint inward wailing, lost her ideas, and was passive in a
+shuddering fit.
+
+"What am I to do?" she said supplicatingly, as Rhoda led her to her
+bedroom.
+
+"Rest here.  Be perfectly quiet.  Trust everything to me.  I am your
+sister."
+
+Leaving her under the spell of coldly-spoken words, Rhoda locked the door
+on her.  She was herself in great agitation, but nerved by deeper anger
+there was no faltering in her movements.  She went to the glass a minute,
+as she tied her bonnet-strings under her chin, and pinned her shawl.  A
+night's vigil had not chased the bloom from her cheek, or the swimming
+lustre from her dark eyes.  Content that her aspect should be seemly, she
+ran down the stairs, unfastened the bolts, and without hesitation closed
+the door behind her.  At the same instant, a gentleman crossed the road.
+He asked whether Mrs. Ayrton lived in that house?  Rhoda's vision danced
+across his features, but she knew him unerringly to be the cruel enemy.
+
+"My sister, Dahlia Fleming, lives there," she said.
+
+"Then, you are Rhoda?"
+
+"My name is Rhoda."
+
+"Mine--I fear it will not give you pleasure to hear it--is Edward
+Blancove.  I returned late last night from abroad."
+
+She walked to a distance, out of hearing and out of sight of the house,
+and he silently followed.  The streets were empty, save for the solitary
+footing of an early workman going to his labour.
+
+She stopped, and he said, "I hope your sister is well."
+
+"She is quite well."
+
+"Thank heaven for that!  I heard of some illness."
+
+"She has quite recovered."
+
+"Did she--tell me the truth--did she get a letter that I sent two days
+ago, to her?  It was addressed to 'Miss Fleming, Wrexby, Kent, England.'
+Did it reach her?"
+
+"I have not seen it."
+
+"I wrote," said Edward.
+
+His scrutiny of her features was not reassuring to him.  But he had a
+side-thought, prompted by admiration of her perfect build of figure, her
+succinct expression of countenance, and her equable manner of speech: to
+the effect, that the true English yeomanry can breed consummate women.
+Perhaps--who knows? even resolute human nature is the stronger for an
+added knot--it approved the resolution he had formed, or stamped with a
+justification the series of wild impulses, the remorse, and the returned
+tenderness and manliness which had brought him to that spot.
+
+"You know me, do you not?" he said.
+
+"Yes," she answered shortly.
+
+"I wish to see Dahlia."
+
+"You cannot."
+
+"Not immediately, of course.  But when she has risen later in the
+morning.  If she has received my letter, she will, she must see me."
+
+"No, not later; not at all," said Rhoda.
+
+"Not at all?  Why not?"
+
+Rhoda controlled the surging of her blood for a vehement reply; saying
+simply, "You will not see her."
+
+"My child, I must."
+
+"I am not a child, and I say what I mean."
+
+"But why am I not to see her?  Do you pretend that it is her wish not to
+see me?  You can't.  I know her perfectly.  She is gentleness itself."
+
+"Yes; you know that," said Rhoda, with a level flash of her eyes, and
+confronting him in a way so rarely distinguishing girls of her class,
+that he began to wonder and to ache with an apprehension.
+
+"She has not changed?  Rhoda--for we used to talk of you so often!  You
+will think better of me, by-and-by.
+
+"Naturally enough, you detest me at present.  I have been a brute.  I
+can't explain it, and I don't excuse myself.  I state the fact to you--
+her sister.  My desire is to make up for the past.  Will you take a
+message to her from me?"
+
+"I will not."
+
+"You are particularly positive."
+
+Remarks touching herself Rhoda passed by.
+
+"Why are you so decided?" he said more urgently.  "I know I have deeply
+offended and hurt you.  I wish, and intend to repair the wrong to the
+utmost of my power.  Surely it's mere silly vindictiveness on your part
+to seek to thwart me.  Go to her; say I am here.  At all events, let it
+be her choice not to see me, if I am to be rejected at the door.  She
+can't have had my letter.  Will you do that much?"
+
+"She knows that you are here; she has seen you."
+
+"Has seen me?" Edward drew in his breath sharply.  "Well? and she sends
+you out to me?"
+
+Rhoda did not answer.  She was strongly tempted to belie Dahlia's frame
+of mind.
+
+"She does send you to speak to me," Edward insisted.
+
+"She knows that I have come."
+
+"And you will not take one message in?"
+
+"I will take no message from you."
+
+"You hate me, do you not?"
+
+Again she controlled the violent shock of her heart to give him hard
+speech.  He went on:--
+
+"Whether you hate me or not is beside the matter.  It lies between Dahlia
+and me.  I will see her.  When I determine, I allow of no obstacles, not
+even of wrong-headed girls.  First, let me ask, is your father in
+London?"
+
+Rhoda threw a masculine meaning into her eyes.
+
+"Do not come before him, I advise you."
+
+"If," said Edward, with almost womanly softness, "you could know what I
+have passed through in the last eight-and-forty hours, you would
+understand that I am equal to any meeting; though, to speak truth, I
+would rather not see him until I have done what I mean to do.  Will you
+be persuaded?  Do you suppose that I have ceased to love your sister?"
+
+This, her execrated word, coming from his mouth, vanquished her
+self-possession.
+
+"Are you cold?" he said, seeing the ripple of a trembling run over her.
+
+"I am not cold.  I cannot remain here."  Rhoda tightened her
+intertwisting fingers across under her bosom.  "Don't try to kill my
+sister outright.  She's the ghost of what she was.  Be so good as to go.
+She will soon be out of your reach.  You will have to kill me first, if
+you get near her.  Never! you never shall.  You have lied to herbrought
+disgrace on her poor head.  We poor people read our Bibles, and find
+nothing that excuses you.  You are not punished, because there is no
+young man in our family.  Go."
+
+Edward gazed at her for some time.  "Well, I've deserved worse," he said,
+not sorry, now that he saw an opponent in her, that she should waste her
+concentrated antagonism in this fashion, and rejoiced by the testimony it
+gave him that he was certainly not too late.
+
+"You know, Rhoda, she loves me."
+
+"If she does, let her pray to God on her knees."
+
+"My good creature, be reasonable.  Why am I here?  To harm her?  You take
+me for a kind of monster.  You look at me very much, let me say, like a
+bristling cat.  Here are the streets getting full of people, and you
+ought not to be seen.  Go to Dahlia.  Tell her I am here.  Tell her I am
+come to claim her for good, and that her troubles are over.  This is a
+moment to use your reason.  Will you do what I ask?"
+
+"I would cut my tongue out, if it did you a service," said Rhoda.
+
+"Citoyenne Corday," thought Edward, and observed: "Then I will dispense
+with your assistance."
+
+He moved in the direction of the house.  Rhoda swiftly outstripped him.
+They reached the gates together.  She threw herself in the gateway.  He
+attempted to parley, but she was dumb to it.
+
+"I allow nothing to stand between her and me," he said, and seized her
+arm.  She glanced hurriedly to right and left.  At that moment Robert
+appeared round a corner of the street.  He made his voice heard, and,
+coming up at double quick, caught Edward Blancove by the collar, swinging
+him off.  Rhoda, with a sign, tempered him to muteness, and the three
+eyed one another.
+
+"It's you," said Robert, and, understanding immediately the tactics
+desired by Rhoda, requested Edward to move a step or two away in his
+company.
+
+Edward settled the disposition of his coat-collar, as a formula wherewith
+to regain composure of mind, and passed along beside Robert, Rhoda
+following.
+
+"What does this mean?" said Robert sternly.
+
+Edward's darker nature struggled for ascendancy within him.  It was this
+man's violence at Fairly which had sickened him, and irritated him
+against Dahlia, and instigated him, as he remembered well, more than Mrs.
+Lovell's witcheries, to the abhorrent scheme to be quit of her, and rid
+of all botheration, at any cost.
+
+"You're in some conspiracy to do her mischief, all of you," he cried.
+
+"If you mean Dahlia Fleming," said Robert, "it'd be a base creature that
+would think of doing harm to her now."
+
+He had a man's perception that Edward would hardly have been found in
+Dahlia's neighbourhood with evil intentions at this moment, though it was
+a thing impossible to guess.  Generous himself, he leaned to the more
+generous view.
+
+"I think your name is Eccles," said Edward.  "Mr. Eccles, my position
+here is a very sad one.  But first, let me acknowledge that I have done
+you personally a wrong.  I am ready to bear the burden of your
+reproaches, or what you will.  All that I beg is, that you will do me the
+favour to grant me five minutes in private.  It is imperative."
+
+Rhoda burst in--"No, Robert!"  But Robert said, "It is a reasonable
+request;" and, in spite of her angry eyes, he waved her back, and walked
+apart with Edward.
+
+She stood watching them, striving to divine their speech by their
+gestures, and letting her savage mood interpret the possible utterances.
+It went ill with Robert in her heart that he did not suddenly grapple and
+trample the man, and so break away from him.  She was outraged to see
+Robert's listening posture.  "Lies! lies!" she said to herself, "and he
+doesn't know them to be lies."  The window-blinds in Dahlia's
+sitting-room continued undisturbed; but she feared the agency of the
+servant of the house in helping to release her sister.  Time was flowing
+to dangerous strands.  At last Robert turned back singly.  Rhoda
+fortified her soul to resist.
+
+"He has fooled you," she murmured, inaudibly, before he spoke.
+
+"Perhaps, Rhoda, we ought not to stand in his way.  He wishes to do what
+a man can do in his case.  So he tells me, and I'm bound not to
+disbelieve him.  He says he repents--says the word; and gentlemen seem to
+mean it when they use it.  I respect the word, and them when they're up
+to that word.  He wrote to her that he could not marry her, and it did
+the mischief, and may well be repented of; but he wishes to be forgiven
+and make amends--well, such as he can.  He's been abroad, and only
+received Dahlia's letters within the last two or three days.  He seems to
+love her, and to be heartily wretched.  Just hear me out; you'll decide;
+but pray, pray don't be rash.  He wishes to marry her; says he has spoken
+to his father this very night; came straight over from France, after he
+had read her letters.  He says--and it seems fair--he only asks to see
+Dahlia for two minutes.  If she bids him go, he goes.  He's not a friend
+of mine, as I could prove to you; but I do think he ought to see her.  He
+says he looks on her as his wife; always meant her to be his wife, but
+things were against him when he wrote that letter.  Well, he says so; and
+it's true that gentlemen are situated--they can't always, or think they
+can't, behave quite like honest men.  They've got a hundred things to
+consider for our one.  That's my experience, and I know something of the
+best among 'em.  The question is about this poor young fellow who's to
+marry her to-day.  Mr. Blancove talks of giving him a handsome sum--a
+thousand pounds--and making him comfortable--"
+
+"There!" Rhoda exclaimed, with a lightning face.  "You don't see what he
+is, after that?  Oh!--"  She paused, revolted.
+
+"Will you let me run off to the young man, wherever he's to be found, and
+put the case to him--that is, from Dahlia?  And you know she doesn't like
+the marriage overmuch, Rhoda.  Perhaps he may think differently when he
+comes to hear of things.  As to Mr. Blancove, men change and change when
+they're young.  I mean, gentlemen.  We must learn to forgive.  Either
+he's as clever as the devil, or he's a man in earnest, and deserves pity.
+If you'd heard him!"
+
+"My poor sister!" sighed Rhoda.  The mentioning of money to be paid had
+sickened and weakened her, as with the very physical taste of
+degradation.
+
+Hearing the sigh, Robert thought she had become subdued.  Then Rhoda
+said: "We are bound to this young man who loves my sister--bound to him
+in honour: and Dahlia must esteem him, to have consented.  As for the
+other..."  She waved the thought of his claim on her sister aside with a
+quick shake of her head.  "I rely on you to do this:--I will speak to Mr.
+Blancove myself.  He shall not see her there."  She indicated the house.
+"Go to my sister; and lose no time in taking her to your lodgings.
+Father will not arrive till twelve.  Wait and comfort her till I come,
+and answer no questions.  Robert," she gave him her hand gently, and,
+looking sweetly, "if you will do this!"
+
+"If I will!" cried Robert, transported by the hopeful tenderness.  The
+servant girl of the house had just opened the front door, intent on
+scrubbing, and he passed in.  Rhoda walked on to Edward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+A profound belief in the efficacy of his eloquence, when he chose to
+expend it, was one of the principal supports of Edward's sense of
+mastery; a secret sense belonging to certain men in every station of
+life, and which is the staff of many an otherwise impressible and
+fluctuating intellect.  With this gift, if he trifled, or slid downward
+in any direction, he could right himself easily, as he satisfactorily
+conceived.  It is a gift that may now and then be the ruin of promising
+youths, though as a rule they find it helpful enough.  Edward had exerted
+it upon his father, and upon Robert.  Seeing Rhoda's approach, he thought
+of it as a victorious swordsman thinks of his weapon, and aimed his
+observation over her possible weak and strong points, studying her
+curiously even when she was close up to him.  With Robert, the
+representative of force, to aid her, she could no longer be regarded in
+the light of a despicable hindrance to his wishes.  Though inclined
+strongly to detest, he respected her.  She had decision, and a worthy
+bearing, and a marvellously blooming aspect, and a brain that worked
+withal.  When she spoke, desiring him to walk on by her side, he was
+pleased by her voice, and recognition of the laws of propriety, and
+thought it a thousand pities that she likewise should not become the wife
+of a gentleman.  By degrees, after tentative beginnings, he put his spell
+upon her ears, for she was attentive, and walked with a demure forward
+look upon the pavement; in reality taking small note of what things he
+said, until he quoted, as against himself, sentences from Dahlia's
+letters; and then she fixed her eyes on him, astonished that he should
+thus heap condemnation on his own head.  They were most pathetic scraps
+quoted by him, showing the wrestle of love with a petrifying conviction
+of its hopelessness, and with the stealing on of a malady of the blood.
+They gave such a picture of Dahlia's reverent love for this man, her long
+torture, her chastity of soul and simple innocence, and her gathering
+delirium of anguish, as Rhoda had never taken at all distinctly to her
+mind.  She tried to look out on him from a mist of tears.
+
+"How could you bear to read the letters?" she sobbed.
+
+"Could any human being read them and not break his heart for her?" said
+he.
+
+"How could you bear to read them and leave her to perish!"
+
+His voice deepened to an impressive hollow: "I read them for the first
+time yesterday morning, in France, and I am here!"
+
+It was undeniably, in its effect on Rhoda, a fine piece of pleading
+artifice.  It partially excused or accounted for his behaviour, while it
+filled her with emotions which she felt to be his likewise, and therefore
+she could not remain as an unsympathetic stranger by his side.
+
+With this, he flung all artifice away.  He told her the whole story,
+saving the one black episode of it--the one incomprehensible act of a
+desperate baseness that, blindly to get free, he had deliberately
+permitted, blinked at, and had so been guilty of.  He made a mental pause
+as he was speaking, to consider in amazement how and by what agency he
+had been reduced to shame his manhood, and he left it a marvel.
+Otherwise, he in no degree exonerated himself.  He dwelt sharply on his
+vice of ambition, and scorned it as a misleading light.  "Yet I have done
+little since I have been without her!"  And then, with a persuasive
+sincerity, he assured her that he could neither study nor live apart from
+Dahlia.  "She is the dearest soul to me on earth; she is the purest
+woman.  I have lived with her, I have lived apart from her, and I cannot
+live without her.  I love her with a husband's love.  Now, do you suppose
+I will consent to be separated from her?  I know that while her heart
+beats, it's mine.  Try to keep her from me--you kill her."
+
+"She did not die," said Rhoda.  It confounded his menaces.
+
+"This time she might," he could not refrain from murmuring.
+
+"Ah!" Rhoda drew off from him.
+
+"But I say," cried he, "that I will see her."
+
+"We say, that she shall do what is for her good."
+
+"You have a project?  Let me hear it.  You are mad, if you have."
+
+"It is not our doing, Mr. Blancove.  It was--it was by her own choice.
+She will not always be ashamed to look her father in the face.  She dare
+not see him before she is made worthy to see him.  I believe her to have
+been directed right."
+
+"And what is her choice?"
+
+"She has chosen for herself to marry a good and worthy man."
+
+Edward called out, "Have you seen him--the man?"
+
+Rhoda, thinking he wished to have the certainty of the stated fact
+established, replied, "I have."
+
+"A good and worthy man," muttered Edward.  "Illness, weakness, misery,
+have bewildered her senses.  She thinks him a good and worthy man?"
+
+"I think him so."
+
+"And you have seen him?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"Why, what monstrous delusion is this?  It can't be!  My good creature,
+you're oddly deceived, I imagine.  What is the man's name?  I can
+understand that she has lost her will and distinct sight; but you are
+clear-sighted, and can estimate.  What is the man's name?"
+
+"I can tell you," said Rhoda; "his name is Mr. Sedgett."
+
+"Mister--!" Edward gave one hollow stave of laughter.  "And you have seen
+him, and think him--"
+
+"I know he is not a gentleman," said Rhoda.  "He has been deeply good to
+my sister, and I thank him, and do respect him."
+
+"Deeply!" Edward echoed.  He was prompted to betray and confess himself:
+courage failed.
+
+They looked around simultaneously on hearing an advancing footstep.
+
+The very man appeared--in holiday attire, flushed, smiling, and with a
+nosegay of roses in his hand.  He studied the art of pleasing women.  His
+eye struck on Edward, and his smile vanished.  Rhoda gave him no word of
+recognition.  As he passed on, he was led to speculate from his having
+seen Mr. Edward instead of Mr. Algernon, and from the look of the former,
+that changes were in the air, possibly chicanery, and the proclaiming of
+himself as neatly diddled by the pair whom, with another, he heartily
+hoped to dupe.
+
+After he had gone by, Edward and Rhoda changed looks.  Both knew the
+destination of that lovely nosegay.  The common knowledge almost kindled
+an illuminating spark in her brain; but she was left in the dark, and
+thought him strangely divining, or only strange.  For him, a horror
+cramped his limbs.  He felt that he had raised a devil in that abominable
+smirking ruffian.  It may not, perhaps, be said that he had distinctly
+known Sedgett to be the man.  He had certainly suspected the possibility
+of his being the man.  It is out of the power of most wilful and selfish
+natures to imagine, so as to see accurately, the deeds they prompt or
+permit to be done.  They do not comprehend them until these black
+realities stand up before their eyes.
+
+Ejaculating "Great heaven!" Edward strode some steps away, and returned.
+
+"It's folly, Rhoda!--the uttermost madness ever conceived!  I do not
+believe--I know that Dahlia would never consent--first, to marry any man
+but myself; secondly, to marry a man who is not a perfect gentleman.  Her
+delicacy distinguishes her among women."
+
+"Mr. Blancove, my sister is nearly dead, only that she is so strong.  The
+disgrace has overwhelmed her, it has.  When she is married, she will
+thank and honour him, and see nothing but his love and kindness.  I will
+leave you now."
+
+"I am going to her," said Edward.
+
+"Do not."
+
+"There's an end of talking.  I trust no one will come in my path.  Where
+am I?"
+
+He looked up at the name of the street, and shot away from her.  Rhoda
+departed in another direction, firm, since she had seen Sedgett pass,
+that his nobleness should not meet with an ill reward.  She endowed him
+with fair moral qualities, which she contrasted against Edward Blancove's
+evil ones; and it was with a democratic fervour of contempt that she
+dismissed the superior dutward attractions of the gentleman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+This neighbourhood was unknown to Edward, and, after plunging about in
+one direction and another, he found that he had missed his way.  Down
+innumerable dusky streets of dwarfed houses, showing soiled silent
+window-blinds, he hurried and chafed; at one moment in sharp joy that he
+had got a resolution, and the next dismayed by the singular petty
+impediments which were tripping him.  "My dearest!" his heart cried to
+Dahlia, "did I wrong you so?  I will make all well.  It was the work of a
+fiend."  Now he turned to right, now to left, and the minutes flew.  They
+flew; and in the gathering heat of his brain he magnified things until
+the sacrifice of herself Dahlia was preparing for smote his imagination
+as with a blaze of the upper light, and stood sublime before him in the
+grandeur of old tragedy.  "She has blinded her eyes, stifled her senses,
+eaten her heart.  Oh! my beloved! my wife! my poor girl! and all to be
+free from shame in her father's sight!"  Who could have believed that a
+girl of Dahlia's class would at once have felt the shame so keenly, and
+risen to such pure heights of heroism?  The sacrifice flouted conception;
+it mocked the steady morning.  He refused to believe in it, but the short
+throbs of his blood were wiser.
+
+A whistling urchin became his guide.  The little lad was carelessly
+giving note to a popular opera tune, with happy disregard of concord.  It
+chanced that the tune was one which had taken Dahlia's ear, and,
+remembering it and her pretty humming of it in the old days, Edward's
+wrestling unbelief with the fatality of the hour sank, so entirely was he
+under the sovereignty of his sensations.  He gave the boy a big fee,
+desiring superstitiously to feel that one human creature could bless the
+hour.  The house was in view.  He knocked, and there came a strange
+murmur of some denial.  "She is here," he said, menacingly.
+
+"She was taken away, sir, ten minutes gone, by a gentleman," the servant
+tied to assure him.
+
+The landlady of the house, coming up the kitchen stairs, confirmed the
+statement.  In pity for his torpid incredulity she begged him to examine
+her house from top to bottom, and herself conducted him to Dahlia's room.
+
+"That bed has not been slept in," said the lawyer, pointing his finger to
+it.
+
+"No, sir; poor thing! she didn't sleep last night.  She's been wearying
+for weeks; and last night her sister came, and they hadn't met for very
+long.  Two whole candles they burnt out, or near upon it."
+
+"Where?--" Edward's articulation choked.
+
+"Where they're gone to, sir?  That I do not know.  Of course she will
+come back."
+
+The landlady begged him to wait; but to sit and see the minutes--the
+black emissaries of perdition--fly upon their business, was torture as
+big as to endure the tearing off of his flesh till the skeleton stood
+out.  Up to this point he had blamed himself; now he accused the just
+heavens.  Yea! is not a sinner their lawful quarry? and do they not slip
+the hounds with savage glee, and hunt him down from wrong to evil, from
+evil to infamy, from infamy to death, from death to woe everlasting?  And
+is this their righteousness?--He caught at the rusty garden rails to
+steady his feet.
+
+Algernon was employed in the comfortable degustation of his breakfast,
+meditating whether he should transfer a further slice of ham or of
+Yorkshire pie to his plate, or else have done with feeding and light a
+cigar, when Edward appeared before him.
+
+"Do you know where that man lives?"
+
+Algernon had a prompting to respond, "Now, really! what man?"  But
+passion stops the breath of fools.  He answered, "Yes."
+
+"Have you the thousand in your pocket?"
+
+Algernon nodded with a sickly grin.
+
+"Jump up!  Go to him.  Give it up to him!  Say, that if he leaves London
+on the instant, and lets you see him off--say, it shall be doubled.
+Stay, I'll write the promise, and put my signature.  Tell him he shall,
+on my word of honour, have another--another thousand pounds--as soon as I
+can possibly obtain it, if he holds his tongue, and goes with you; and
+see that he goes.  Don't talk to me on any other subject, or lose one
+minute."
+
+Algernon got his limbs slackly together, trying to think of the
+particular pocket in which he had left his cigar-case.  Edward wrote a
+line on a slip of note-paper, and signed his name beneath.  With this and
+an unsatisfied longing for tobacco Algernon departed, agreeing to meet
+his cousin in the street where Dahlia dwelt.
+
+"By Jove! two thousand!  It's an expensive thing not to know your own
+mind," he thought.
+
+"How am I to get out of this scrape?  That girl Rhoda doesn't care a
+button for me.  No colonies for me.  I should feel like a convict if I
+went alone.  What on earth am I to do?"
+
+It seemed preposterous to him that he should take a cab, when he had not
+settled upon a scheme.  The sight of a tobacconist's shop charmed one of
+his more immediate difficulties to sleep.  He was soon enabled to puff
+consoling smoke.
+
+"Ned's mad," he pursued his soliloquy.  "He's a weather-cock.  Do I ever
+act as he does?  And I'm the dog that gets the bad name.  The idea of
+giving this fellow two thousand--two thousand pounds! Why, he might live
+like a gentleman."
+
+And that when your friend proves himself to be distraught, the proper
+friendly thing to do is to think for him, became eminently clear in
+Algernon's mind.
+
+"Of course, it's Ned's money.  I'd give it if I had it, but I haven't;
+and the fellow won't take a farthing less; I know him.  However, it's my
+duty to try."
+
+He summoned a vehicle.  It was a boast of his proud youth that never in
+his life had he ridden in a close cab.  Flinging his shoulders back, he
+surveyed the world on foot.  "Odd faces one sees," he meditated.  "I
+suppose they've got feelings, like the rest; but a fellow can't help
+asking--what's the use of them?  If I inherit all right, as I ought to--
+why shouldn't I?--I'll squat down at old Wrexby, garden and farm, and
+drink my Port.  I hate London.  The squire's not so far wrong, I fancy."
+
+It struck him that his chance of inheriting was not so very obscure,
+after all.  Why had he ever considered it obscure?  It was decidedly next
+to certain, he being an only son.  And the squire's health was bad!
+
+While speculating in this wise he saw advancing, arm-in-arm, Lord
+Suckling and Harry Latters.  They looked at him, and evidently spoke
+together, but gave neither nod, nor smile, nor a word, in answer to his
+flying wave of the hand.  Furious, and aghast at this signal of exclusion
+from the world, just at the moment when he was returning to it almost
+cheerfully in spirit, he stopped the cab, jumped out, and ran after the
+pair.
+
+"I suppose I must say Mr. Latters," Algernon commenced.
+
+Harry deliberated a quiet second or two.  "Well, according to our laws of
+primogeniture, I don't come first, and therefore miss a better title," he
+said.
+
+"How are you?" Algernon nodded to Lord Suckling, who replied, "Very well,
+I thank you."
+
+Their legs were swinging forward concordantly.  Algernon plucked out his
+purse.  "I have to beg you to excuse me," he said, hurriedly; "my cousin
+Ned's in a mess, and I've been helping him as well as I can--bothered--
+not an hour my own.  Fifty, I think?" That amount he tendered to Harry
+Latters, who took it most coolly.
+
+"A thousand?" he queried of Lord Suckling.
+
+"Divided by two," replied the young nobleman, and the Blucher of
+bank-notes was proffered to him.  He smiled queerly, hesitating to take
+it.
+
+"I was looking for you at all the Clubs last night," said Algernon.
+
+Lord Suckling and Latters had been at theirs, playing whist till past
+midnight; yet is money, even when paid over in this egregious public
+manner by a nervous hand, such testimony to the sincerity of a man, that
+they shouted a simultaneous invitation for him to breakfast with them, in
+an hour, at the Club, or dine with them there that evening.  Algernon
+affected the nod of haste and acquiescence, and ran, lest they should
+hear him groan.  He told the cabman to drive Northward, instead of to the
+South-west.  The question of the thousand pounds had been decided for
+him--"by fate," he chose to affirm.  The consideration that one is
+pursued by fate, will not fail to impart a sense of dignity even to the
+meanest.  "After all, if I stop in England," said he, "I can't afford to
+lose my position in society; anything's better than that an unmitigated
+low scoundrel like Sedgett should bag the game."  Besides, is it not
+somewhat sceptical to suppose that when Fate decides, she has not weighed
+the scales, and decided for the best?  Meantime, the whole energy of his
+intellect was set reflecting on the sort of lie which Edward would, by
+nature and the occasion, be disposed to swallow.  He quitted the cab, and
+walked in the Park, and au diable to him there! the fool has done his
+work.
+
+It was now half-past ten.  Robert, with a most heavy heart, had
+accomplished Rhoda's commands upon him.  He had taken Dahlia to his
+lodgings, whither, when free from Edward, Rhoda proceeded in a mood of
+extreme sternness.  She neither thanked Robert, nor smiled upon her
+sister.  Dahlia sent one quivering look up at her, and cowered lower in
+her chair near the window.
+
+"Father comes at twelve?" Rhoda said.
+
+Robert replied: "He does."
+
+After which a silence too irritating for masculine nerves filled the
+room.
+
+"You will find, I hope, everything here that you may want," said Robert.
+"My landlady will attend to the bell.  She is very civil."
+
+"Thank you; we shall not want anything," said Rhoda.  "There is my
+sister's Bible at her lodgings."
+
+Robert gladly offered to fetch it, and left them with a sense of relief
+that was almost joy.  He waited a minute in the doorway, to hear whether
+Dahlia addressed him.  He waited on the threshold of the house, that he
+might be sure Dahlia did not call for his assistance.  Her cry of appeal
+would have fortified him to stand against Rhoda; but no cry was heard.
+He kept expecting it, pausing for it, hoping it would come to solve his
+intense perplexity.  The prolonged stillness terrified him; for, away
+from the sisters, he had power to read the anguish of Dahlia's heart, her
+frozen incapacity, and the great and remorseless mastery which lay in
+Rhoda's inexorable will.
+
+A few doors down the street he met Major blaring, on his way to him.
+"Here's five minutes' work going to be done, which we may all of us
+regret till the day of our deaths," Robert said, and related what had
+passed during the morning hours.
+
+Percy approved Rhoda, saying, "She must rescue her sister at all hazards.
+The case is too serious for her to listen to feelings, and regrets, and
+objections.  The world against one poor woman is unfair odds, Robert.  I
+come to tell you I leave England in a day or two.  Will you join me?"
+
+"How do I know what I shall or can do?" said Robert, mournfully: and they
+parted.
+
+Rhoda's unflickering determination to carry out, and to an end, this
+tragic struggle of duty against inclination; on her own sole
+responsibility forcing it on; acting like a Fate, in contempt of mere
+emotions,--seemed barely real to his mind: each moment that he conceived
+it vividly, he became more certain that she must break down.  Was it in
+her power to drag Dahlia to the steps of the altar?  And would not her
+heart melt when at last Dahlia did get her voice?  "This marriage can
+never take place!" he said, and was convinced of its being impossible.
+He forgot that while he was wasting energy at Fairly, Rhoda had sat
+hiving bitter strength in the loneliness of the Farm; with one vile
+epithet clapping on her ears, and nothing but unavailing wounded love for
+her absent unhappy sister to make music of her pulses.
+
+He found his way to Dahlia's room; he put her Bible under his arm, and
+looked about him sadly.  Time stood at a few minutes past eleven.
+Flinging himself into a chair, he thought of waiting in that place; but a
+crowd of undefinable sensations immediately beset him.  Seeing Edward
+Blancove in the street below, he threw up the window compassionately, and
+Edward, casting a glance to right and left, crossed the road.  Robert
+went down to him.
+
+"I am waiting for my cousin." Edward had his watch in his hand.  "I think
+I am fast.  Can you tell me the time exactly?"
+
+"Why, I'm rather slow," said Robert, comparing time with his own watch.
+"I make it four minutes past the hour."
+
+"I am at fourteen," said Edward.  "I fancy I must be fast."
+
+"About ten minutes past, is the time, I think."
+
+"So much as that!"
+
+"It may be a minute or so less."
+
+"I should like," said Edward, "to ascertain positively."
+
+"There's a clock down in the kitchen here, I suppose," said Robert.
+"Safer, there's a clock at the church, just in sight from here."
+
+"Thank you; I will go and look at that."
+
+Robert bethought himself suddenly that Edward had better not.  "I can
+tell you the time to a second," he said.  "It's now twelve minutes past
+eleven."
+
+Edward held his watch balancing.  "Twelve," he repeated; and, behind this
+mask of common-place dialogue, they watched one another--warily, and
+still with pity, on Robert's side.
+
+"You can't place any reliance on watches," said Edward.
+
+"None, I believe," Robert remarked.
+
+"If you could see the sun every day in this climate!" Edward looked up.
+
+"Ah, the sun's the best timepiece, when visible," Robert acquiesced.
+"Backwoodsmen in America don't need watches."
+
+"Unless it is to astonish the Indians with them."
+
+"Ah! yes!" hummed Robert.
+
+"Twelve--fifteen--it must be a quarter past.  Or, a three quarters to the
+next hour, as the Germans say."
+
+"Odd!" Robert ejaculated.  "Foreigners have the queerest ways in the
+world.  They mean no harm, but they make you laugh."
+
+"They think the same of us, and perhaps do the laughing more loudly."
+
+"Ah! let them," said Robert, not without contemptuous indignation, though
+his mind was far from the talk.
+
+The sweat was on Edward's forehead.  "In a few minutes it will be
+half-past--half-past eleven!  I expect a friend; that makes me impatient.
+Mr. Eccles"--Edward showed his singular, smallish, hard-cut and flashing
+features, clear as if he had blown off a mist--"you are too much of a man
+to bear malice.  Where is Dahlia?  Tell me at once.  Some one seems to be
+cruelly driving her.  Has she lost her senses?  She has:--or else she is
+coerced in an inexplicable and shameful manner."
+
+"Mr. Blancove," said Robert, "I bear you not a bit of malice--couldn't if
+I would.  I'm not sure I could have said guilty to the same sort of
+things, in order to tell an enemy of mine I was sorry for what I had
+done, and I respect you for your courage.  Dahlia was taken from here by
+me."
+
+Edward nodded, as if briefly assenting, while his features sharpened.
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"It was her sister's wish."
+
+"Has she no will of her own?"
+
+"Very little, I'm afraid, just now, sir."
+
+"A remarkable sister!  Are they of Puritan origin?"
+
+"Not that I am aware of."
+
+"And this father?"
+
+"Mr. Blancove, he is one of those sort--he can't lift up his head if he
+so much as suspects a reproach to his children."
+
+Edward brooded.  "I desire--as I told you, as I told her sister, as I
+told my father last night--I desire to make her my wife.  What can I do
+more?  Are they mad with some absurd country pride? Half-past eleven!--it
+will be murder if they force her to it!   Where is she?  To such a man as
+that!  Poor soul!  I can hardly fear it, for I can't imagine it.  Here--
+the time is going.  You know the man yourself."
+
+"I know the man?" said Robert.  "I've never set eyes on him--I've never
+set eyes on him, and never liked to ask much about him.  I had a sort of
+feeling.  Her sister says he is a good, and kind, honourable young
+fellow, and he must be."
+
+"Before it's too late," Edward muttered hurriedly--"you know him--his
+name is Sedgett."
+
+Robert hung swaying over him with a big voiceless chest.
+
+"That Sedgett?" he breathed huskily, and his look was hard to meet.
+
+Edward frowned, unable to raise his head.
+
+"Lord in heaven! some one has something to answer for!" cried Robert.
+"Come on; come to the church.  That foul dog?--Or you, stay where you
+are.  I'll go.  He to be Dahlia's husband!   They've seen him, and can't
+see what he is!--cunning with women as that?  How did they meet?  Do you
+know?--can't you guess?"
+
+He flung a lightning at Edward and ran off.  Bursting into the aisle, he
+saw the minister closing the Book at the altar, and three persons moving
+toward the vestry, of whom the last, and the one he discerned, was Rhoda.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Ashamed of letting his ears be filled with secret talk
+Full-o'-Beer's a hasty chap
+Gravely reproaching the tobacconist for the growing costliness of cigars
+He lies as naturally as an infant sucks
+I would cut my tongue out, if it did you a service
+Inferences are like shadows on the wall
+Marriage is an awful thing, where there's no love
+One learns to have compassion for fools, by studying them
+Principle of examining your hypothesis before you proceed to decide by it
+Rhoda will love you.  She is firm when she loves
+Sort of religion with her to believe no wrong of you
+The unhappy, who do not wish to live, and cannot die
+You choose to give yourself to an obscure dog
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Rhoda Fleming, v4
+by George Meredith
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RHODA FLEMING
+
+By GEORGE MEREDITH
+
+1897
+
+
+
+BOOK 5.
+
+
+XXXIX.    DAHLIA GOES HOME
+XL.       A FREAK OF THE MONEY-DEMON, THAT MAY HAVE BEEN ANTICIPATED
+XLI.      DAHLIA'S FRENZY
+XLII.     ANTHONY IN A COLLAPSE
+XLIII.    RHODA PLEDGES HER HAND
+XLIV.     THE ENEMY APPEARS
+XLV.      THE FARMER IS AWAKENED
+XLVI.     WHEN THE NIGHT IS DARKEST
+XLVII.    DAWN IS NEAR
+XLVIII.   CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+
+Late into the afternoon, Farmer Fleming was occupying a chair in Robert's
+lodgings, where he had sat since the hour of twelve, without a movement
+of his limbs or of his mind, and alone.  He showed no sign that he
+expected the approach of any one.  As mute and unremonstrant as a fallen
+tree, nearly as insensible, his eyes half closed, and his hands lying
+open, the great figure of the old man kept this attitude as of stiff
+decay through long sunny hours, and the noise of the London suburb.
+Although the wedding people were strangely late, it was unnoticed by him.
+When the door opened and Rhoda stepped into the room, he was unaware that
+he had been waiting, and only knew that the hours had somehow accumulated
+to a heavy burden upon him.
+
+"She is coming, father; Robert is bringing her up," Rhoda said.
+
+"Let her come," he answered.
+
+Robert's hold was tight under Dahlia's arm as they passed the doorway,
+and then the farmer stood.  Robert closed the door.
+
+For some few painful moments the farmer could not speak, and his hand was
+raised rejectingly.  The return of human animation to his heart made him
+look more sternly than he felt; but he had to rid himself of one terrible
+question before he satisfied his gradual desire to take his daughter to
+his breast.  It came at last like a short roll of drums, the words were
+heard,--
+
+"Is she an honest woman?"
+
+"She is," said Rhoda.
+
+The farmer was looking on Robert.
+
+Robert said it likewise in a murmur, but with steadfast look.
+
+Bending his eyes now upon Dahlia, a mist of affection grew in them.  He
+threw up his head, and with a choking, infantine cry, uttered, "Come."
+
+Robert placed her against her father's bosom.
+
+He moved to the window beside Rhoda, and whispered, and she answered, and
+they knew not what they said.  The joint moans of father and daughter--
+the unutterable communion of such a meeting--filled their ears.  Grief
+held aloof as much as joy. Neither joy nor grief were in those two hearts
+of parent and child; but the senseless contentment of hard, of infinite
+hard human craving.
+
+The old man released her, and Rhoda undid her hands from him, and led the
+pale Sacrifice to another room.
+
+"Where's...?" Mr. Fleming asked.
+
+Robert understood him.
+
+"Her husband will not come."
+
+It was interpreted by the farmer as her husband's pride.  Or, may be, the
+man who was her husband now had righted her at last, and then flung her
+off in spite for what he had been made to do.
+
+"I'm not being deceived, Robert?"
+
+"No, sir; upon my soul!"
+
+"I've got that here," the farmer struck his ribs.
+
+Rhoda came back.  "Sister is tired," she said.  "Dahlia is going down
+home with you, for...I hope, for a long stay."
+
+"All the better, while home we've got.  We mayn't lose time, my girl.
+Gammon's on 's way to the station now.  He'll wait.  He'll wait till
+midnight.  You may always reckon on a slow man like Gammon for waitin'.
+Robert comes too?"
+
+"Father, we have business to do.  Robert gives me his rooms here for a
+little time; his landlady is a kind woman, and will take care of me.  You
+will trust me to Robert."
+
+"I'll bring Rhoda down on Monday evening," Robert said to the farmer.
+"You may trust me, Mr. Fleming."
+
+"That I know.  That I'm sure of.  That's a certainty," said the farmer.
+"I'd do it for good, if for good was in the girl's heart, Robert.  There
+seems," he hesitated; "eh, Robert, there seems a something upon us all.
+There's a something to be done, is there?  But if I've got my flesh and
+blood, and none can spit on her, why should I be asking 'whats' and
+'whys'?  I bow my head; and God forgive me, if ever I complained.  And
+you will bring Rhoda to us on Monday?"
+
+"Yes; and try and help to make the farm look up again, if Gammon'll do
+the ordering about."
+
+"Poor old Mas' Gammon!  He's a rare old man.  Is he changed by adversity,
+Robert?  Though he's awful secret, that old man!  Do you consider a bit
+Gammon's faithfulness, Robert!"
+
+"Ay, he's above most men in that," Robert agreed.
+
+"On with Dahlia's bonnet--sharp!" the farmer gave command.  He felt, now
+that he was growing accustomed to the common observation of things, that
+the faces and voices around him were different from such as the day
+brings in its usual course.  "We're all as slow as Mas' Gammon, I
+reckon."
+
+"Father," said Rhoda, "she is weak.  She has been very unwell.  Do not
+trouble her with any questions.  Do not let any questions be asked of her
+at hone.  Any talking fatigues; it may be dangerous to her."
+
+The farmer stared.  "Ay, and about her hair....I'm beginning to remember.
+She wears a cap, and her hair's cut off like an oakum-picker's.  That's
+more gossip for neighbours!"
+
+"Mad people! will they listen to truth?" Rhoda flamed out in her dark
+fashion.  "We speak truth, nothing but truth.  She has had a brain fever.
+That makes her very weak, and every one must be silent at home.  Father,
+stop the sale of the farm, for Robert will work it into order.  He has
+promised to be our friend, and Dahlia will get her health there, and be
+near mother's grave."
+
+The farmer replied, as from a far thought, "There's money in my pocket to
+take down two."
+
+He continued: "But there's not money there to feed our family a week on;
+I leave it to the Lord.  I sow; I dig, and I sow, and when bread fails to
+us the land must go; and let it go, and no crying about it.  I'm
+astonishing easy at heart, though if I must sell, and do sell, I shan't
+help thinking of my father, and his father, and the father before him--
+mayhap, and in most likelihood, artfuller men 'n me--for what they was
+born to they made to flourish.  They'll cry in their graves.  A man's
+heart sticks to land, Robert; that you'll find, some day.  I thought I
+cared none but about land till that poor, weak, white thing put her arms
+on my neck."
+
+Rhoda had slipped away from them again.
+
+The farmer stooped to Robert's ear.  "Had a bit of a disagreement with
+her husband, is it?"
+
+Robert cleared his throat.  "Ay, that's it," he said.
+
+"Serious, at all?"
+
+"One can't tell, you know."
+
+"And not her fault--not my girl's fault, Robert?"
+
+"No; I can swear to that."
+
+"She's come to the right home, then.  She'll be near her mother and me.
+Let her pray at night, and she'll know she's always near her blessed
+mother.  Perhaps the women 'll want to take refreshment, if we may so far
+make free with your hospitality; but it must be quick, Robert--or will
+they?  They can't eat, and I can't eat."
+
+Soon afterward Mr. Fleming took his daughter Dahlia from the house and
+out of London.  The deeply-afflicted creature was, as the doctors had
+said of her, too strong for the ordinary modes of killing.  She could
+walk and still support herself, though the ordeal she had gone through
+this day was such as few women could have traversed.  The terror to
+follow the deed she had done was yet unseen by her; and for the hour she
+tasted, if not peace, the pause to suffering which is given by an act
+accomplished.
+
+Robert and Rhoda sat in different rooms till it was dusk.  When she
+appeared before him in the half light, the ravage of a past storm was
+visible on her face.  She sat down to make tea, and talked with singular
+self command.
+
+"Mr. Fleming mentioned the gossips down at Wrexby," said Robert: "are
+they very bad down there?"
+
+"Not worse than in other villages," said Rhoda.  "They have not been
+unkind.  They have spoken about us, but not unkindly--I mean, not
+spitefully."
+
+"And you forgive them?"
+
+"I do: they cannot hurt us now."
+
+Robert was but striving to master some comprehension of her character.
+
+"What are we to resolve, Rhoda?"
+
+"I must get the money promised to this man."
+
+"When he has flung off his wife at the church door?"
+
+"He married my sister for the money.  He said it.  Oh! he said it.  He
+shall not say that we have deceived him.  I told him he should have it.
+He married her for money!"
+
+"You should not have told him so, Rhoda."
+
+"I did, and I will not let my word be broken."
+
+"Pardon me if I ask you where you will get the money?  It's a large sum."
+
+"I will get it," Rhoda said firmly.
+
+"By the sale of the farm?"
+
+"No, not to hurt father."
+
+"But this man's a scoundrel.  I know him.  I've known him for years.  My
+fear is that he will be coming to claim his wife.  How was it I never
+insisted on seeing the man before--!  I did think of asking, but fancied-
+-a lot of things; that you didn't wish it and he was shy.  Ah, Lord! what
+miseries happen from our not looking straight at facts!  We can't deny
+she's his wife now."
+
+"Not if we give him the money."
+
+Rhoda spoke of "the money" as if she had taken heated metal into her
+mouth.
+
+"All the more likely," said Robert.  "Let him rest.  Had you your eyes on
+him when he saw me in the vestry?  For years that man has considered me
+his deadly enemy, because I punished him once.  What a scene!  I'd have
+given a limb, I'd have given my life, to have saved you from that scene,
+Rhoda."
+
+She replied: "If my sister could have been spared!  I ought to know what
+wickedness there is in the world.  It's ignorance that leads to the
+unhappiness of girls."
+
+"Do you know that I'm a drunkard?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He called me something like it; and he said something like the truth.
+There's the sting.  Set me adrift, and I drink hard.  He spoke a fact,
+and I couldn't answer him."
+
+"Yes, it's the truth that gives such pain," said Rhoda, shivering.  "How
+can girls know what men are?  I could not guess that you had any fault.
+This man was so respectful; he sat modestly in the room when I saw him
+last night--last night, was it?  I thought, 'he has been brought up with
+sisters and a mother.'  And he has been kind to my dear--and all we
+thought love for her, was--shameful! shameful!"
+
+She pressed her eyelids, continuing: "He shall have the money--he shall
+have it.  We will not be in debt to such a man.  He has saved my sister
+from one as bad--who offered it to be rid of her.  Oh, men!--you heard
+that?--and now pretends to love her.  I think I dream.  How could she
+ever have looked happily on that hateful face?"
+
+"He would be thought handsome," said Robert, marvelling how it was that
+Rhoda could have looked on Sedgett for an instant without reading his
+villanous nature.  "I don't wish you to regret anything you have done or
+you may do, Rhoda.  But this is what made me cry out when I looked on
+that man, and knew it was he who had come to be Dahlia's husband.  He'll
+be torture to her.  The man's temper, his habits--but you may well say
+you are ignorant of us men.  Keep so.  What I do with all my soul entreat
+of you is--to get a hiding-place for your sister.  Never let him take her
+off.  There's such a thing as hell upon earth.  If she goes away with him
+she'll know it.  His black temper won't last.  He will come for her, and
+claim her."
+
+"He shall have money."  Rhoda said no more.
+
+On a side-table in the room stood a remarkable pile, under cover of a
+shawl.  Robert lifted the shawl, and beheld the wooden boxes, one upon
+the other, containing Master Gammon's and Mrs. Sumfit's rival savings,
+which they had presented to Dahlia, in the belief that her husband was
+under a cloud of monetary misfortune that had kept her proud heart from
+her old friends.  The farmer had brought the boxes and left them there,
+forgetting them.
+
+"I fancy," said Robert, "we might open these."
+
+"It may be a little help," said Rhoda.
+
+"A very little," Robert thought; but, to relieve the oppression of the
+subject they had been discussing, he forthwith set about procuring tools,
+with which he split first the box which proved to be Mrs. Sumfit's, for
+it contained, amid six gold sovereigns and much silver and pence, a slip
+of paper, whereon was inscribed, in a handwriting identified by Rhoda as
+peculiar to the loving woman,--
+
+          "And sweetest love to her ever dear."
+
+Altogether the sum amounted to nine pounds, three shillings, and a
+farthing.
+
+"Now for Master Gammon--he's heavy," said Robert; and he made the savings
+of that unpretentious veteran bare.  Master Gammon had likewise written
+his word.  It was discovered on the blank space of a bit of newspaper,
+and looked much as if a fat lobworm had plunged himself into a bowl of
+ink, and in his literary delirium had twisted uneasily to the verge of
+the paper.  With difficulty they deciphered,--
+
+                    "Complemens."
+
+Robert sang, "Bravo, Gammon!" and counted the hoard.  All was in copper
+coinage, Lycurgan and severe, and reached the sum of one pound, seventeen
+shillings.  There were a number of farthings of Queen Anne's reign, and
+Robert supposed them to be of value.  "So that, as yet, we can't say
+who's the winner," he observed.
+
+Rhoda was in tears.
+
+"Be kind to him, please, when you see him," she whispered.  The smaller
+gift had touched her heart more tenderly.
+
+"Kind to the old man!" Robert laughed gently, and tied the two hoards in
+separate papers, which he stowed into one box, and fixed under string.
+"This amount, put all in one, doesn't go far, Rhoda."
+
+"No," said she: "I hope we may not need it."  She broke out: "Dear, good,
+humble friends!  The poor are God's own people.  Christ has said so.
+This is good, this is blessed money!" Rhoda's cheeks flushed to their
+orange-rounded swarthy red, and her dark eyes had the fervour of an
+exalted earnestness.  "They are my friends for ever.  They save me from
+impiety.  They help me, as if God had answered my prayer.  Poor pennies!
+and the old man not knowing where his days may end!  He gives all--he
+must have true faith in Providence.  May it come back to him multiplied a
+thousand fold!  While I have strength to work, the bread I earn shall be
+shared with him.  Old man, old man, I love you--how I love you!  You drag
+me out of deep ditches.  Oh, good and dear old man, if God takes me
+first, may I have some power to intercede for you, if you have ever
+sinned!  Everybody in the world is not wicked.  There are some who go the
+ways directed by the Bible.  I owe you more than I can ever pay."
+
+She sobbed, but told Robert it was not for sorrow.  He, longing to catch
+her in his arms, and punctilious not to overstep the duties of his post
+of guardian, could merely sit by listening, and reflecting on her as a
+strange Biblical girl, with Hebrew hardness of resolution, and Hebrew
+exaltation of soul; beautiful, too, as the dark women of the East.  He
+admitted to himself that he never could have taken it on his conscience
+to subdue a human creature's struggling will, as Rhoda had not hesitated
+to do with Dahlia, and to command her actions, and accept all imminent
+responsibilities; not quailing with any outcry, or abandonment of
+strength, when the shock of that revelation in the vestry came violently
+on her.  Rhoda, seeing there that it was a brute, and not a man, into
+whose hand she had perilously forced her sister's, stood steadying her
+nerves to act promptly with advantage; less like a woman, Robert thought,
+than a creature born for battle.  And she appeared to be still undaunted,
+full of her scheme, and could cry without fear of floods.  Something of
+the chivalrous restraint he put upon the motions of his heart, sprang
+from the shadowy awe which overhung that impressible organ.  This feeling
+likewise led him to place a blind reliance on her sagacity and sense of
+what was just, and what should be performed.
+
+"You promised this money to him," he said, half thinking it incredible.
+
+"On Monday," said Rhoda.
+
+"You must get a promise from him in return."
+
+She answered: "Why? when he could break it the instant he cared to, and a
+promise would tempt him to it.  He does not love her."
+
+"No; he does not love her," said Robert, meditating whether he could
+possibly convey an idea of the character of men to her innocent mind.
+
+"He flung her off.  Thank heaven for it!  I should have been punished too
+much--too much.  He has saved her from the perils of temptation.  He
+shall be paid for it.  To see her taken away by such a man!  Ah!" She
+shuddered as at sight of a hideous pit.
+
+But Robert said: "I know him, Rhoda.  That was his temper.  It'll last
+just four-and-twenty hours, and then we shall need all our strength and
+cunning.  My dear, it would be the death of Dahlia.  You've seen the man
+as he is.  Take it for a warning.  She belongs to him.  That's the law,
+human and divine."
+
+"Not when he has flung her off, Robert?" Rhoda cried piteously.
+
+"Let us take advantage of that.  He did fling her off, spat at us all,
+and showed the blackest hellish plot I ever in my life heard of.  He's
+not the worst sinner, scoundrel as he is.  Poor girl!  poor soul! a hard
+lot for women in this world!  Rhoda, I suppose I may breakfast with you
+in the morning?  I hear Major Waring's knock below.  I want a man to talk
+to."
+
+"Do come, Robert," Rhoda said, and gave him her hand.  He strove to
+comprehend why it was that her hand was merely a hand, and no more to him
+just then; squeezed the cold fingers, and left her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+So long as we do not know that we are performing any remarkable feat, we
+may walk upon the narrowest of planks between precipices with perfect
+security; but when we suffer our minds to eye the chasm underneath, we
+begin to be in danger, and we are in very great fear of losing our equal
+balance the moment we admit the insidious reflection that other men,
+placed as we are, would probably topple headlong over.  Anthony Hackbut,
+of Boyne's Bank, had been giving himself up latterly to this fatal
+comparison.  The hour when gold was entrusted to his charge found him
+feverish and irritable.  He asked himself whether he was a mere machine to
+transfer money from spot to spot, and he spurned at the pittance bestowed
+upon honesty in this life.  Where could Boyne's Bank discover again such
+an honest man as he?  And because he was honest he was poor!  The
+consideration that we alone are capable of doing the unparalleled thing
+may sometimes inspire us with fortitude; but this will depend largely
+upon the antecedent moral trials of a man.  It is a temptation when we
+look on what we accomplish at all in that light.  The temptation being
+inbred, is commonly a proof of internal corruption.  "If I take a step,
+suppose now, to the right, or to the left," Anthony had got into the
+habit of saying, while he made his course, and after he had deposited his
+charge he would wipe his moist forehead, in a state of wretched
+exultation over his renowned trustworthiness.
+
+He had done the thing for years.  And what did the people in the streets
+know about him?  Formerly, he had used to regard the people in the
+streets, and their opinions, with a voluptuous contempt; but he was no
+longer wrapped in sweet calculations of his savings, and his chances, and
+his connection with a mighty Bank.  The virtue had gone out of him.  Yet
+he had not the slightest appetite for other men's money; no hunger, nor
+any definite notion of enjoyment to be derived from money not his own.
+Imagination misled the old man.  There have been spotless reputations
+gained in the service of virtue before now; and chaste and beautiful
+persons have walked the narrow plank, envied and admired; and they have
+ultimately tottered and all but fallen; or they have quite fallen, from
+no worse an incitement than curiosity.  Cold curiosity, as the directors
+of our human constitution tell us, is, in the colder condition of our
+blood, a betraying vice, leading to sin at a period when the fruits of
+sin afford the smallest satisfaction.  It is, in fact, our last
+probation, and one of our latest delusions.  If that is passed
+successfully, we may really be pronounced as of some worth.  Anthony
+wished to give a light indulgence to his curiosity; say, by running away
+and over London Bridge on one side, and back on the other, hugging the
+money.  For two weeks, he thought of this absurd performance as a comical
+and agreeable diversion.  How would he feel when going in the direction
+of the Surrey hills?  And how, when returning, and when there was a
+prospect of the Bank, where the money was to be paid in, being shut?
+Supposing that he was a minute behind his time, would the Bank-doors
+remain open, in expectation of him?  And if the money was not paid in,
+what would be thought?  What would be thought at Boyne's, if, the next
+day, he was late in making his appearance?
+
+"Holloa!  Hackbut, how's this?"--"I'm a bit late, sir, morning."--"Late!
+you were late yesterday evening, weren't you?"--"Why, sir, the way the
+clerks at that Bank of Mortimer and Pennycuick's rush away from business
+and close the doors after 'em, as if their day began at four p.m., and
+business was botheration: it's a disgrace to the City o' London.  And I
+beg pardon for being late, but never sleeping a wink all night for fear
+about this money, I am late this morning, I humbly confess.  When I got
+to the Bank, the doors were shut.  Our clock's correct; that I know.  My
+belief, sir, is, the clerks at Mortimer and Pennycuick's put on the
+time."--"Oh! we must have this inquired into."
+
+Anthony dramatized the farcical scene which he imagined between himself
+and Mr. Sequin, the head clerk at Boyne's, with immense relish; and
+terminated it by establishing his reputation for honesty higher than ever
+at the Bank, after which violent exercise of his fancy, the old man sank
+into a dulness during several days.  The farmer slept at his lodgings for
+one night, and talked of money, and of selling his farm; and half hinted
+that it would be a brotherly proceeding on Anthony's part to buy it, and
+hold it, so as to keep it in the family.  The farmer's deep belief in the
+existence of his hoards always did Anthony peculiar mischief.  Anthony
+grew conscious of a giddiness, and all the next day he was scarcely fit
+for his work.  But the day following that he was calm and attentive.  Two
+bags of gold were placed in his hands, and he walked with caution down
+the steps of the Bank, turned the corner, and went straight on to the
+West, never once hesitating, or casting a thought behind upon Mortimer
+and Pennycuick's.  He had not, in truth, one that was loose to be cast.
+All his thoughts were boiling in his head, obfuscating him with a
+prodigious steam, through which he beheld the city surging, and the
+streets curving like lines in water, and the people mixing and passing
+into and out of one another in an astonishing manner--no face
+distinguishable; the whole thick multitude appearing to be stirred like
+glue in a gallipot.  The only distinct thought which he had sprang from a
+fear that the dishonest ruffians would try to steal his gold, and he
+hugged it, and groaned to see that villany was abroad.  Marvellous, too,
+that the clocks on the churches, all the way along the Westward
+thoroughfare, stuck at the hour when Banks are closed to business!  It
+was some time, or a pretence at some time, before the minute-hands
+surmounted that difficulty.  Having done so, they rushed ahead to the
+ensuing hour with the mad precipitation of pantomimic machinery.  The
+sight of them presently standing on the hour, like a sentinel presenting
+arms, was startling--laughable.  Anthony could not have flipped with his
+fingers fifty times in the interval; he was sure of it, "or not much
+more," he said.  So the City was shut to him behind iron bars.
+
+Up in the West there is not so much to be dreaded from the rapacity of
+men.  You do not hear of such alarming burglaries there every day; every
+hand is not at another's throat there, or in another's pocket; at least,
+not until after nightfall; and when the dark should come on, Anthony had
+determined to make for his own quarter with all speed.  Darkness is
+horrible in foreign places, but foreign places are not so accusing to you
+by daylight.
+
+The Park was vastly pleasant to the old man.
+
+"Ah!" he sniffed, "country air," and betook himself to a seat.
+"Extraordinary," he thought, "what little people they look on their
+horses and in their carriages!  That's the aristocracy, is it!"  The
+aristocracy appeared oddly diminutive to him.  He sneered at the
+aristocracy, but, beholding a policeman, became stolid of aspect.  The
+policeman was a connecting link with his City life, the true lord of his
+fearful soul.  Though the moneybags were under his arm, beneath his
+buttoned coat, it required a deep pause before he understood what he had
+done; and then the Park began to dance and curve like the streets, and
+there was a singular curtseying between the heavens and the earth.  He
+had to hold his money-bags tight, to keep them from plunging into
+monstrous gulfs.  "I don't remember that I've taken a drink of any sort,"
+he said, "since I and the old farmer took our turn down in the Docks.
+How's this?"  He seemed to rock.  He was near upon indulging in a fit of
+terror; but the impolicy of it withheld him from any demonstration, save
+an involuntary spasmodic ague.  When this had passed, his eyesight and
+sensations grew clearer, and he sat in a mental doze, looking at things
+with quiet animal observation.  His recollection of the state, after a
+lapse of minutes, was pleasurable.  The necessity for motion, however,
+set him on his feet, and off he went, still Westward, out of the Park,
+and into streets.  He trotted at a good pace.  Suddenly came a call of
+his name in his ear, and he threw up one arm in self-defence.
+
+"Uncle Anthony, don't you know me?"
+
+"Eh?  I do; to be sure I do," he answered, peering dimly upon Rhoda: "I'm
+always meeting one of you."
+
+"I've been down in the City, trying to find you all day, uncle.  I meet
+you--I might have missed!  It is direction from heaven, for I prayed."
+
+Anthony muttered, "I'm out for a holiday."
+
+"This"--Rhoda pointed to a house--"is where I am lodging."
+
+"Oh!" said Anthony; "and how's your family?"
+
+Rhoda perceived that he was rather distraught.  After great persuasion,
+she got him to go upstairs with her.
+
+"Only for two seconds," he stipulated.  "I can't sit."
+
+"You will have a cup of tea with me, uncle?"
+
+"No; I don't think I'm equal to tea."
+
+"Not with Rhoda?"
+
+"It's a name in Scripture," said Anthony, and he drew nearer to her.
+"You're comfortable and dark here, my dear.  How did you come here?
+What's happened?  You won't surprise me."
+
+"I'm only stopping for a day or two in London, uncle."
+
+"Ah! a wicked place; that it is.  No wickeder than other places, I'll be
+bound.  Well; I must be trotting.  I can't sit, I tell you.  You're as
+dark here as a gaol."
+
+"Let me ring for candles, uncle."
+
+"No; I'm going."
+
+She tried to touch him, to draw him to a chair.  The agile old man
+bounded away from her, and she had to pacify him submissively before he
+would consent to be seated.  The tea-service was brought, and Rhoda made
+tea, and filled a cup for him.  Anthony began to enjoy the repose of the
+room.  But it made the money-bags' alien to him, and serpents in his
+bosom.  Fretting--on his chair, he cried: "Well! well! what's to talk
+about?  We can't drink tea and not talk!"
+
+Rhoda deliberated, and then said: "Uncle, I think you have always loved
+me."
+
+It seemed to him a merit that he should have loved her.  He caught at the
+idea.
+
+"So I have, Rhoda, my dear; I have.  I do."
+
+"You do love me, dear uncle!"
+
+"Now I come to think of it, Rhoda--my Dody, I don't think ever I've loved
+anybody else.  Never loved e'er a young woman in my life.  As a young
+man."
+
+"Tell me, uncle; are you not very rich?"
+
+"No, I ain't; not 'very'; not at all."
+
+"You must not tell untruths, uncle."
+
+"I don't," said Anthony; only, too doggedly to instil conviction.
+
+"I have always felt, uncle, that you love money too much.  What is the
+value of money, except to give comfort, and help you to be a blessing to
+others in their trouble?  Does not God lend it you for that purpose?  It
+is most true!  And if you make a store of it, it will only be unhappiness
+to yourself.  Uncle, you love me.
+I am in great trouble for money."
+
+Anthony made a long arm over the projection of his coat, and clasped it
+securely; sullenly refusing to answer.  "Dear uncle; hear me out.  I come
+to you, because I know you are rich.  I was on my way to your lodgings
+when we met; we were thrown together.  You have more money than you know
+what to do with.  I am a beggar to you for money.  I have never asked
+before; I never shall ask again.  Now I pray for your help.  My life, and
+the life dearer to me than any other, depend on you.  Will you help me,
+Uncle Anthony?  Yes!"
+
+"No!" Anthony shouted.
+
+"Yes! yes!"
+
+"Yes, if I can.  No, if I can't.  And 'can't' it is.  So, it's 'No.'"
+
+Rhoda's bosom sank, but only as a wave in the sea-like energy of her
+spirit.
+
+"Uncle, you must."
+
+Anthony was restrained from jumping up and running away forthwith by the
+peace which was in the room, and the dread of being solitary after he had
+tasted of companionship.
+
+"You have money, uncle.  You are rich.  You must help me.  Don't you ever
+think what it is to be an old man, and no one to love you and be grateful
+to you?  Why do you cross your arms so close?"
+
+Anthony denied that he crossed his arms closely.
+
+Rhoda pointed to his arms in evidence; and he snarled out: "There, now;
+'cause I'm supposed to have saved a trifle, I ain't to sit as I like.
+It's downright too bad!  It's shocking!"
+
+But, seeing that he did not uncross his arms, and remained bunched up
+defiantly, Rhoda silently observed him.  She felt that money was in the
+room.
+
+"Don't let it be a curse to you," she said.  And her voice was hoarse
+with agitation.
+
+"What?" Anthony asked.  "What's a curse?"
+
+"That."
+
+Did she know?  Had she guessed?  Her finger was laid in a line at the
+bags.  Had she smelt the gold?
+
+"It will be a curse to you, uncle.  Death is coming.  What's money then?
+Uncle, uncross your arms.  You are afraid; you dare not.  You carry it
+about; you have no confidence anywhere.  It eats your heart.  Look at me.
+I have nothing to conceal.  Can you imitate me, and throw your hands out
+--so?  Why, uncle, will you let me be ashamed of you?  You have the money
+there.
+
+"You cannot deny it.  Me crying to you for help!  What have we talked
+together?--that we would sit in a country house, and I was to look to the
+flower-beds, and always have dishes of green peas for you-plenty, in
+June; and you were to let the village boys know what a tongue you have,
+if they made a clatter of their sticks along the garden-rails; and you
+were to drink your tea, looking on a green and the sunset.  Uncle!  Poor
+old, good old soul!  You mean kindly.  You must be kind.  A day will make
+it too late.  You have the money there.  You get older and older every
+minute with trying to refuse me.  You know that I can make you happy.  I
+have the power, and I have the will.  Help me, I say, in my great
+trouble.  That money is a burden.  You are forced to carry it about, for
+fear.  You look guilty as you go running in the streets, because you fear
+everybody.  Do good with it.  Let it be money with a blessing on it!  It
+will save us from horrid misery! from death! from torture and death!
+Think, uncle!  look, uncle!  You with the money--me wanting it.  I pray
+to heaven, and I meet you, and you have it.  Will you say that you refuse
+to give it, when I see--when I show you, you are led to meet me and help
+me?  Open;--put down that arm."
+
+Against this storm of mingled supplication and shadowy menace, Anthony
+held out with all outward firmness until, when bidding him to put down
+his arm, she touched the arm commandingly, and it fell paralyzed.
+
+Rhoda's eyes were not beautiful as they fixed on the object of her quest.
+In this they were of the character of her mission.  She was dealing with
+an evil thing, and had chosen to act according to her light, and by the
+counsel of her combative and forceful temper.  At each step new
+difficulties had to be encountered by fresh contrivances; and money now--
+money alone had become the specific for present use.  There was a
+limitation of her spiritual vision to aught save to money; and the money
+being bared to her eyes, a frightful gleam of eagerness shot from them.
+Her hands met Anthony's in a common grasp of the money-bags.
+
+"It's not mine!" Anthony cried, in desperation.
+
+"Whose money is it?" said Rhoda, and caught up her hands as from fire.
+
+"My Lord!" Anthony moaned, "if you don't speak like a Court o' Justice.
+Hear yourself!"
+
+"Is the money yours, uncle?"
+
+"It--is," and "isn't" hung in the balance.
+
+"It is not?" Rhoda dressed the question for him in the terror of
+contemptuous horror.
+
+"It is.  I--of course it is; how could it help being mine?  My money?
+Yes.  What sort o' thing's that to ask--whether what I've got's mine or
+yours, or somebody else's?  Ha!"
+
+"And you say you are not rich, uncle?"
+
+A charming congratulatory smile was addressed to him, and a shake of the
+head of tender reproach irresistible to his vanity.
+
+"Rich! with a lot o' calls on me; everybody wantin' to borrow--I'm rich!
+And now you coming to me!  You women can't bring a guess to bear upon the
+right nature o' money."
+
+"Uncle, you will decide to help me, I know."
+
+She said it with a staggering assurance of manner.
+
+"How do you know?" cried Anthony.
+
+"Why do you carry so much money about with you in bags, uncle?"
+
+"Hear it, my dear."  He simulated miser's joy.
+
+"Ain't that music?  Talk of operas!  Hear that; don't it talk?  don't it
+chink? don't it sing?"  He groaned "Oh, Lord!" and fell back.
+
+This transition from a state of intensest rapture to the depths of pain
+alarmed her.
+
+"Nothing; it's nothing."  Anthony anticipated her inquiries.  "They bags
+is so heavy."
+
+"Then why do you carry them about?"
+
+"Perhaps it's heart disease," said Anthony, and grinned, for he knew the
+soundness of his health.
+
+"You are very pale, uncle."
+
+"Eh? you don't say that?"
+
+"You are awfully white, dear uncle."
+
+"I'll look in the glass," said Anthony.  "No, I won't."  He sank back in
+his chair.  "Rhoda, we're all sinners, ain't we?  All--every man and
+woman of us, and baby, too.  That's a comfort; yes, it is a comfort.
+It's a tremendous comfort--shuts mouths.  I know what you're going to
+say--some bigger sinners than others.  If they're sorry for it, though,
+what then?  They can repent, can't they?"
+
+"They must undo any harm they may have done.  Sinners are not to repent
+only in words, uncle."
+
+"I've been feeling lately," he murmured.
+
+Rhoda expected a miser's confession.
+
+"I've been feeling, the last two or three days," he resumed.
+
+"What, uncle?"
+
+"Sort of taste of a tremendous nice lemon in my mouth, my dear, and liked
+it, till all of a sudden I swallowed it whole--such a gulp!  I felt it
+just now.  I'm all right."
+
+"No, uncle," said Rhoda: "you are not all right: this money makes you
+miserable.  It does; I can see that it does.  Now, put those bags in my
+hands.  For a minute, try; it will do you good.  Attend to me; it will.
+Or, let me have them.  They are poison to you.  You don't want them."
+
+"I don't," cried Anthony.  "Upon my soul, I don't.  I don't want 'em.
+I'd give--it is true, my dear, I don't want 'em.  They're poison."
+
+"They're poison to you," said Rhoda; "they're health, they're life to me.
+I said, 'My uncle Anthony will help me.  He is not--I know his heart--he
+is not a miser.'  Are you a miser, uncle?"
+
+Her hand was on one of his bags.  It was strenuously withheld: but while
+she continued speaking, reiterating the word "miser," the hold relaxed.
+She caught the heavy bag away, startled by its weight.
+
+He perceived the effect produced on her, and cried; "Aha! and I've been
+carrying two of 'em--two!"
+
+Rhoda panted in her excitement.
+
+"Now, give it up," said he.  She returned it.  He got it against his
+breast joylessly, and then bade her to try the weight of the two.  She
+did try them, and Anthony doated on the wonder of her face.
+
+"Uncle, see what riches do!  You fear everybody--you think there is no
+secure place--you have more?  Do you carry about all your money?"
+
+"No," he chuckled at her astonishment.  "I've...Yes.  I've got more of my
+own."  Her widened eyes intoxicated him.  "More.  I've saved.  I've put
+by.  Say, I'm an old sinner.  What'd th' old farmer say now?  Do you love
+your uncle Tony?  'Old Ant,' they call me down at--" "The Bank," he was
+on the point of uttering; but the vision of the Bank lay terrific in his
+recollection, and, summoned at last, would not be wiped away.  The
+unbearable picture swam blinking through accumulating clouds; remote and
+minute as the chief scene of our infancy, but commanding him with the
+present touch of a mighty arm thrown out.  "I'm honest," he cried.  "I
+always have been honest.  I'm known to be honest.  I want no man's money.
+I've got money of my own.  I hate sin.  I hate sinners.  I'm an honest
+man.  Ask them, down at--Rhoda, my dear!  I say, don't you hear me?
+Rhoda, you think I've a turn for misering.  It's a beastly mistake: poor
+savings, and such a trouble to keep honest when you're poor; and I've
+done it for years, spite o' temptation 't 'd send lots o' men to the
+hulks.  Safe into my hand, safe out o' my hands!  Slip once, and there
+ain't mercy in men.  And you say, 'I had a whirl of my head, and went
+round, and didn't know where I was for a minute, and forgot the place I'd
+to go to, and come away to think in a quiet part.'..."  He stopped
+abruptly in his ravings.  "You give me the money, Rhoda!"
+
+She handed him the money-bags.
+
+He seized them, and dashed them to the ground with the force of madness.
+Kneeling, he drew out his penknife, and slit the sides of the bags, and
+held them aloft, and let the gold pour out in torrents, insufferable to
+the sight; and uttering laughter that clamoured fierily in her ears for
+long minutes afterwards, the old man brandished the empty bags, and
+sprang out of the room.
+
+She sat dismayed in the centre of a heap of gold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+On the Monday evening, Master Gammon was at the station with the cart.
+Robert and Rhoda were a train later, but the old man seemed to be unaware
+of any delay, and mildly staring, received their apologies, and nodded.
+They asked him more than once whether all was well at the Farm; to which
+he replied that all was quite well, and that he was never otherwise.
+About half-an-hour after, on the road, a gradual dumb chuckle overcame
+his lower features.  He flicked the horse dubitatively, and turned his
+head, first to Robert, next to Rhoda; and then he chuckled aloud:
+
+"The last o' they mel'ns rotted yest'day afternoon!"
+
+"Did they?" said Robert.  "You'll have to get fresh seed, that's all."
+
+Master Gammon merely showed his spirit to be negative.
+
+"You've been playing the fool with the sheep," Robert accused him.
+
+It hit the old man in a very tender part.
+
+"I play the fool wi' ne'er a sheep alive, Mr. Robert.  Animals likes
+their 'customed food, and don't like no other.  I never changes my food,
+nor'd e'er a sheep, nor'd a cow, nor'd a bullock, if animals was masters.
+I'd as lief give a sheep beer, as offer him, free-handed--of my own will,
+that's to say--a mel'n.  They rots."
+
+Robert smiled, though he was angry.  The delicious unvexed country-talk
+soothed Rhoda, and she looked fondly on the old man, believing that he
+could not talk on in his sedate way, if all were not well at home.
+
+The hills of the beacon-ridge beyond her home, and the line of stunted
+firs, which she had named "the old bent beggarmen," were visible in the
+twilight.  Her eyes flew thoughtfully far over them, with the feeling
+that they had long known what would come to her and to those dear to her,
+and the intense hope that they knew no more, inasmuch as they bounded her
+sight.
+
+"If the sheep thrive," she ventured to remark, so that the comforting old
+themes might be kept up.
+
+"That's the particular 'if!'" said Robert, signifying something that had
+to be leaped over.
+
+Master Gammon performed the feat with agility.
+
+"Sheep never was heartier," he pronounced emphatically.
+
+"Lots of applications for melon-seed, Gammon?"
+
+To this the veteran's tardy answer was: "More fools 'n one about, I
+reckon"; and Robert allowed him the victory implied by silence.
+
+"And there's no news in Wrexby? none at all?" said Rhoda.
+
+A direct question inevitably plunged Master Gammon so deep amid the
+soundings of his reflectiveness, that it was the surest way of precluding
+a response from him; but on this occasion his honest deliberation bore
+fruit.
+
+"Squire Blancove, he's dead."
+
+The name caused Rhoda to shudder.
+
+"Found dead in 's bed, Sat'day morning," Master Gammon added, and, warmed
+upon the subject, went on: "He's that stiff, folks say, that stiff he is,
+he'll have to get into a rounded coffin: he's just like half a hoop.  He
+was all of a heap, like.  Had a fight with 's bolster, and got th' wust
+of it.  But, be 't the seizure, or be 't gout in 's belly, he's gone
+clean dead.  And he wunt buy th' Farm, nether.  Shutters is all shut up
+at the Hall.  He'll go burying about Wednesday.  Men that drinks don't
+keep."
+
+Rhoda struck at her brain to think in what way this death could work and
+show like a punishment of the heavens upon that one wrong-doer; but it
+was not manifest as a flame of wrath, and she laid herself open to the
+peace of the fields and the hedgeways stepping by.  The farm-house came
+in sight, and friendly old Adam and Eve turning from the moon.  She heard
+the sound of water.  Every sign of peace was around the farm.  The cows
+had been milked long since; the geese were quiet.  There was nothing but
+the white board above the garden-gate to speak of the history lying in
+her heart.
+
+They found the farmer sitting alone, shading his forehead.  Rhoda kissed
+his cheeks and whispered for tidings of Dahlia.
+
+"Go up to her," the farmer said.
+
+Rhoda grew very chill.  She went upstairs with apprehensive feet, and
+recognizing Mrs. Sumfit outside the door of Dahlia's room, embraced her,
+and heard her say that Dahlia had turned the key, and had been crying
+from mornings to nights.  "It can't last," Mrs. Sumfit sobbed: "lonesome
+hysterics, they's death to come.  She's falling into the trance.  I'll
+go, for the sight o' me shocks her."
+
+Rhoda knocked, waited patiently till her persistent repetition of her
+name gained her admission.  She beheld her sister indeed, but not the
+broken Dahlia from whom she had parted.  Dahlia was hard to her caress,
+and crying, "Has he come?" stood at bay, white-eyed, and looking like a
+thing strung with wires.
+
+"No, dearest; he will not trouble you.  Have no fear."
+
+"Are you full of deceit?" said Dahlia, stamping her foot.
+
+"I hope not, my sister."
+
+Dahlia let fall a long quivering breath.  She went to her bed, upon which
+her mother's Bible was lying, and taking it in her two hands, held it
+under Rhoda's lips.
+
+"Swear upon that?"
+
+"What am I to swear to, dearest?"
+
+"Swear that he is not in the house."
+
+"He is not, my own sister; believe me.  It is no deceit.  He is not.
+He will not trouble you.  See; I kiss the Book, and swear to you, my
+beloved!  I speak truth.  Come to me, dear."  Rhoda put her arms up
+entreatingly, but Dahlia stepped back.
+
+"You are not deceitful?  You are not cold?  You are not inhuman?
+Inhuman!  You are not?  You are not?  Oh, my God!  Look at her!"
+
+The toneless voice was as bitter for Rhoda to hear as the accusations.
+She replied, with a poor smile: "I am only not deceitful.  Come, and see.
+You will not be disturbed."
+
+"What am I tied to?" Dahlia struggled feebly as against a weight of
+chains.  "Oh! what am I tied to?  It's on me, tight like teeth.  I can't
+escape.  I can't breathe for it.  I was like a stone when he asked me--
+marry him!--loved me!  Some one preached--my duty!  I am lost, I am lost!
+Why? you girl!--why?--What did you do?  Why did you take my hand when I
+was asleep and hurry me so fast?  What have I done to you?  Why did you
+push me along?--I couldn't see where.  I heard the Church babble.  For
+you--inhuman! inhuman!  What have I done to you?  What have you to do
+with punishing sin?  It's not sin.  Let me be sinful, then.  I am.  I am
+sinful.  Hear me.  I love him; I love my lover, and," she screamed out,
+"he loves me!"
+
+Rhoda now thought her mad.
+
+She looked once at the rigid figure of her transformed sister, and
+sitting down, covered her eyes and wept.
+
+To Dahlia, the tears were at first an acrid joy; but being weak, she fell
+to the bed, and leaned against it, forgetting her frenzy for a time.
+
+"You deceived me," she murmured; and again, "You deceived me."  Rhoda did
+not answer.  In trying to understand why her sister should imagine it,
+she began to know that she had in truth deceived Dahlia.  The temptation
+to drive a frail human creature to do the thing which was right, had led
+her to speak falsely for a good purpose.  Was it not righteously
+executed?  Away from the tragic figure in the room, she might have
+thought so, but the horror in the eyes and voice of this awakened
+Sacrifice, struck away the support of theoretic justification.  Great
+pity for the poor enmeshed life, helpless there, and in a woman's worst
+peril,--looking either to madness, or to death, for an escape--drowned
+her reason in a heavy cloud of tears.  Long on toward the stroke of the
+hour, Dahlia heard her weep, and she murmured on, "You deceived me;" but
+it was no more to reproach; rather, it was an exculpation of her
+reproaches.  "You did deceive me, Rhoda."  Rhoda half lifted her head;
+the slight tone of a change to tenderness swelled the gulfs of pity, and
+she wept aloud.  Dahlia untwisted her feet, and staggered up to her, fell
+upon her shoulder, and called her, "My love!--good sister!"  For a great
+mute space they clung together.  Their lips met and they kissed
+convulsively.  But when Dahlia had close view of Rhoda's face, she drew
+back, saying in an under-breath,--
+
+"Don't cry.  I see my misery when you cry."
+
+Rhoda promised that she would check her tears, and they sat quietly, side
+by side, hand in hand.  Mrs. Sumfit, outside, had to be dismissed twice
+with her fresh brews of supplicating tea and toast, and the cakes which,
+when eaten warm with good country butter and a sprinkle of salt,
+reanimate (as she did her utmost to assure the sisters through the closed
+door) humanity's distressed spirit.  At times their hands interchanged a
+fervent pressure, their eyes were drawn to an equal gaze.
+
+In the middle of the night Dahlia said: "I found a letter from Edward
+when I came here."
+
+"Written--Oh, base man that he is!" Rhoda could not control the impulse
+to cry it out.
+
+"Written before," said Dahlia, divining her at once.  "I read it; did not
+cry.  I have no tears.  Will you see it?  It is very short-enough; it
+said enough, and written before--"  She crumpled her fingers in Rhoda's;
+Rhoda, to please her, saying "Yes," she went to the pillow of the bed,
+and drew the letter from underneath.
+
+"I know every word," she said; "I should die if I repeated it.  'My wife
+before heaven,' it begins.  So, I was his wife.  I must have broken his
+heart--broken my husband's."  Dahlia cast a fearful eye about her; her
+eyelids fluttered as from a savage sudden blow.  Hardening her mouth to
+utter defiant spite: "My lover's," she cried.  "He is.  If he loves me
+and I love him, he is my lover, my lover, my lover!  Nothing shall stop
+me from saying it--lover! and there is none to claim me but he.  Oh,
+loathsome!  What a serpent it is I've got round me!  And you tell me God
+put it.  Do you?  Answer that; for I want to know, and I don't know where
+I am.  I am lost!  I am lost!  I want to get to my lover.  Tell me,
+Rhoda, you would curse me if I did.  And listen to me.  Let him open his
+arms to me, I go; I follow him as far as my feet will bear me.  I would
+go if it lightened from heaven.  If I saw up there the warning, 'You
+shall not!' I would go.  But, look on me!" she smote contempt upon her
+bosom.  "He would not call to such a thing as me.  Me, now?  My skin is
+like a toad's to him.  I've become like something in the dust.  I could
+hiss like adders.  I am quite impenitent.  I pray by my bedside, my head
+on my Bible, but I only say, 'Yes, yes; that's done; that's deserved, if
+there's no mercy.'  Oh, if there is no mercy, that's deserved!  I say so
+now.  But this is what I say, Rhoda (I see nothing but blackness when I
+pray), and I say, 'Permit no worse!' I say, 'Permit no worse, or take the
+consequences.'  He calls me his wife.  I am his wife.  And if--"  Dahlia
+fell to speechless panting; her mouth was open; she made motion with her
+hands; horror, as of a blasphemy struggling to her lips, kept her dumb,
+but the prompting passion was indomitable....  "Read it," said her
+struggling voice; and Rhoda bent over the letter, reading and losing
+thought of each sentence as it passed.  To Dahlia, the vital words were
+visible like evanescent blue gravelights.  She saw them rolling through
+her sister's mind; and just upon the conclusion, she gave out, as in a
+chaunt: "And I who have sinned against my innocent darling, will ask her
+to pray with me that our future may be one, so that  may make good to her
+what she has suffered, and to the God whom we worship, the offence I have
+committed."
+
+Rhoda looked up at the pale penetrating eyes.
+
+"Read.  Have you read to the last?" said Dahlia.  "Speak it.  Let me hear
+you.  He writes it....  Yes? you will not? 'Husband,' he says," and then
+she took up the sentences of the letter backwards to the beginning,
+pausing upon each one with a short moan, and smiting her bosom.  "I found
+it here, Rhoda.  I found his letter here when I came..  I came a dead
+thing, and it made me spring up alive.  Oh, what bliss to be dead!  I've
+felt nothing...nothing, for months."  She flung herself on the bed,
+thrusting her handkerchief to her mouth to deaden the outcry.  "I'm
+punished.  I'm punished, because I did not trust to my darling.  No, not
+for one year!  Is it that since we parted?  I am an impatient creature,
+and he does not reproach me.  I tormented my own, my love, my dear, and
+he thought I--I was tired of our life together.  No; he does not accuse
+me," Dahlia replied to her sister's unspoken feeling, with the shrewd
+divination which is passion's breathing space.  "He accuses himself.  He
+says it--utters it--speaks it 'I sold my beloved.'  There is no guile in
+him.  Oh, be just to us, Rhoda!  Dearest," she came to Rhoda's side, "you
+did deceive me, did you not?  You are a deceiver, my love?"
+
+Rhoda trembled, and raising her eyelids, answered, "Yes."
+
+"You saw him in the street that morning?"
+
+Dahlia smiled a glittering tenderness too evidently deceitful in part,
+but quite subduing.
+
+"You saw him, my Rhoda, and he said he was true to me, and sorrowful; and
+you told him, dear one, that I had no heart for him, and wished to go to
+hell--did you not, gbod Rhoda?  Forgive me; I mean 'good;' my true, good
+Rhoda.  Yes, you hate sin; it is dreadful; but you should never speak
+falsely to sinners, for that does not teach them to repent.  Mind you
+never lie again.  Look at me.  I am chained, and I have no repentance in
+me.  See me.  I am nearer it...the other--sin, I mean.  If that man
+comes...will he?"
+
+"No--no!" Rhoda cried.
+
+"If that man comes--"
+
+"He will not come!"
+
+"He cast me off at the church door, and said he had been cheated.  Money!
+Oh, Edward!"
+
+Dahlia drooped her head.
+
+"He will keep away.  You are safe," said Rhoda.
+
+"Because, if no help comes, I am lost--I am lost for ever!"
+
+"But help will come.  I mean peace will come.  We will read; we will work
+in the garden.  You have lifted poor father up, my dear."
+
+"Ah! that old man!" Dahlia sighed.
+
+"He is our father."
+
+"Yes, poor old man!" and Dahlia whispered: "I have no pity for him.  If I
+am dragged away, I'm afraid I shall curse him.  He seems a stony old man.
+I don't understand fathers.  He would make me go away.  He talks the
+Scriptures when he is excited.  I'm afraid he would shut my Bible for me.
+Those old men know nothing of the hearts of women.  Now, darling, go to
+your room."
+
+Rhoda begged earnestly for permission to stay with her, but Dahlia said:
+"My nights are fevers.  I can't have arms about me."
+
+They shook hands when they separated, not kissing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+
+Three days passed quietly at the Farm, and each morning Dahlia came down
+to breakfast, and sat with the family at their meals; pale, with the
+mournful rim about her eyelids, but a patient figure.  No questions were
+asked.  The house was guarded from visitors, and on the surface the home
+was peaceful.  On the Wednesday Squire Blancove was buried, when Master
+Gammon, who seldom claimed a holiday or specified an enjoyment of which
+he would desire to partake, asked leave to be spared for a couple of
+hours, that he might attend the ceremonious interment of one to whom a
+sort of vagrant human sentiment of clanship had made him look up, as to
+the chief gentleman of the district, and therefore one having claims on
+his respect.  A burial had great interest for the old man.
+
+"I'll be home for dinner; it'll gi'e me an appetite," Master Gammon said
+solemnly, and he marched away in his serious Sunday hat and careful coat,
+blither than usual.
+
+After his departure, Mrs. Sumfit sat and discoursed on deaths and
+burials, the certain end of all: at least, she corrected herself, the
+deaths were.  The burials were not so certain.  Consequently, we might
+take the burials, as they were a favour, to be a blessing, except in the
+event of persons being buried alive.  She tried to make her hearers
+understand that the idea of this calamity had always seemed intolerable
+to her, and told of numerous cases which, the coffin having been opened,
+showed by the convulsed aspect of the corpse, or by spots of blood upon
+the shroud, that the poor creature had wakened up forlorn, "and not a
+kick allowed to him, my dears."
+
+"It happens to women, too, does it not, mother?" said Dahlia.
+
+"They're most subject to trances, my sweet.  From always imitatin' they
+imitates their deaths at last; and, oh!"  Mrs. Sumfit was taken with
+nervous chokings of alarm at the thought.  "Alone--all dark! and hard
+wood upon your chest, your elbows, your nose, your toes, and you under
+heaps o' gravel!  Not a breath for you, though you snap and catch for
+one--worse than a fish on land."
+
+"It's over very soon, mother," said Dahlia.
+
+"The coldness of you young women!  Yes; but it's the time--you feeling,
+trying for air; it's the horrid 'Oh, dear me!'  You set your mind on it!"
+
+"I do," said Dahlia.  "You see coffin-nails instead of stars.  You'd give
+the world to turn upon one side.  You can't think.  You can only hate
+those who put you there.  You see them taking tea, saying prayers,
+sleeping in bed, putting on bonnets, walking to church, kneading dough,
+eating--all at once, like the firing of a gun.  They're in one world;
+you're in another."
+
+"Why, my goodness, one'd say she'd gone through it herself," ejaculated
+Mrs. Sumfit, terrified.
+
+Dahlia sent her eyes at Rhoda.
+
+"I must go and see that poor man covered."  Mrs. Sumfit succumbed to a
+fit of resolution much under the pretence that it had long been forming.
+
+"Well, and mother," said Dahlia, checking her, "promise me.  Put a
+feather on my mouth; put a glass to my face, before you let them carry me
+out.  Will you?  Rhoda promises.  I have asked her."
+
+"Oh! the ideas of this girl!" Mrs. Sumfit burst out.  "And looking so, as
+she says it.  My love, you didn't mean to die?"
+
+Dahlia soothed her, and sent her off.
+
+"I am buried alive!" she said.  "I feel it all--the stifling!  the
+hopeless cramp!  Let us go and garden.  Rhoda, have you got laudanum in
+the house?"
+
+Rhoda shook her head, too sick at heart to speak.  They went into the
+garden, which was Dahlia's healthfullest place.  It seemed to her that
+her dead mother talked to her there.  That was not a figure of speech,
+when she said she felt buried alive.  She was in the state of sensational
+delusion.  There were times when she watched her own power of motion
+curiously: curiously stretched out her hands, and touched things, and
+moved them.  The sight was convincing, but the shudder came again.  In a
+frame less robust the brain would have given way.  It was the very
+soundness of the brain which, when her blood was a simple tide of life in
+her veins, and no vital force, had condemned her to see the wisdom and
+the righteousness of the act of sacrifice committed by her, and had urged
+her even up to the altar.  Then the sudden throwing off of the mask by
+that man to whom she had bound herself, and the reading of Edward's
+letter of penitence and love, thwarted reason, but without blinding or
+unsettling it.  Passion grew dominant; yet against such deadly matters on
+all sides had passion to strive, that, under a darkened sky, visibly
+chained, bound down, and hopeless, she felt between-whiles veritably that
+she was a living body buried.  Her senses had become semi-lunatic.
+
+She talked reasonably; and Rhoda, hearing her question and answer at
+meal-times like a sane woman, was in doubt whether her sister wilfully
+simulated a partial insanity when they were alone together.  Now, in the
+garden, Dahlia said: "All those flowers, my dear, have roots in mother
+and me.  She can't feel them, for her soul's in heaven.  But mine is down
+there.  The pain is the trying to get your soul loose.  It's the edge of
+a knife that won't cut through.  Do you know that?"
+
+Rhoda said, as acquiescingly as she could, "Yes."
+
+"Do you?" Dahlia whispered.  "It's what they call the 'agony.'  Only, to
+go through it in the dark, when you are all alone!  boarded round! you
+will never know that.  And there's an angel brings me one of mother's
+roses, and I smell it.  I see fields of snow; and it's warm there, and no
+labour for breath.  I see great beds of flowers; I pass them like a
+breeze.  I'm shot, and knock on the ground, and they bury me for dead
+again.  Indeed, dearest, it's true."
+
+She meant, true as regarded her sensations.  Rhoda could barely give a
+smile for response; and Dahlia's intelligence being supernaturally
+active, she read her sister's doubt, and cried out,--
+
+"Then let me talk of him!"
+
+It was the fiery sequence to her foregone speech, signifying that if her
+passion had liberty to express itself, she could clear understandings.
+But even a moment's free wing to passion renewed the blinding terror
+within her.  Rhoda steadied her along the walks, praying for the time to
+come when her friends, the rector and his wife, might help in the task of
+comforting this poor sister.  Detestation of the idea of love made her
+sympathy almost deficient, and when there was no active work to do in
+aid, she was nearly valueless, knowing that she also stood guilty of a
+wrong.
+
+The day was very soft and still.  The flowers gave light for light.  They
+heard through the noise of the mill-water the funeral bell sound.  It
+sank in Rhoda like the preaching of an end that was promise of a
+beginning, and girdled a distancing land of trouble.  The breeze that
+blew seemed mercy.  To live here in forgetfulness with Dahlia was the
+limit of her desires.  Perhaps, if Robert worked among them, she would
+gratefully give him her hand.  That is, if he said not a word of love.
+
+Master Gammon and Mrs. Sumfit were punctual in their return near the
+dinnerhour; and the business of releasing the dumplings and potatoes, and
+spreading out the cold meat and lettuces, restrained for some period the
+narrative of proceedings at the funeral.  Chief among the incidents was,
+that Mrs. Sumfit had really seen, and only wanted, by corroboration of
+Master Gammon, to be sure she had positively seen, Anthony Hackbut on the
+skirts of the funeral procession.  Master Gammon, however, was no
+supporter of conjecture.  What he had thought he had thought; but that
+was neither here nor there.  He would swear to nothing that he had not
+touched;--eyes deceived;--he was never a guesser.  He left Mrs. Sumfit to
+pledge herself in perturbation of spirit to an oath that her eyes had
+seen Anthony Hackbut; and more, which was, that after the close of the
+funeral service, the young squire had caught sight of Anthony crouching
+in a corner of the churchyard, and had sent a man to him, and they had
+disappeared together.  Mrs. Sumfit was heartily laughed at and rallied
+both by Robert and the farmer.  "Tony at a funeral! and train expenses!"
+the farmer interjected.  "D'ye think, mother, Tony'd come to Wrexby
+churchyard 'fore he come Queen Anne's Farm?  And where's he now, mayhap?"
+
+Mrs. Sumfit appealed in despair to Master Gammon, with entreaties, and a
+ready dumpling.
+
+"There, Mas' Gammon; and why you sh'd play at 'do believe' and at 'don't
+believe,' after that awesome scene, the solem'est of life's, when you did
+declare to me, sayin', it was a stride for boots out o' London this
+morning.  Your words, Mas' Gammon! and 'boots'-=it's true, if by that
+alone!  For, 'boots,' I says to myself--he thinks by 'boots,' there being
+a cord'er in his family on the mother's side; which you yourself told to
+me, as you did, Mas' Gammon, and now holds back, you did, like a bad
+horse."
+
+"Hey! does Gammon jib?" said the farmer, with the ghost of old laughter
+twinkling in his eyes.
+
+"He told me this tale," Mrs. Sumfit continued, daring her irresponsive
+enemy to contradict her, with a threatening gaze.  "He told me this tale,
+he did; and my belief's, his game 's, he gets me into a corner--there to
+be laughed at!  Mas' Gammon, if you're not a sly old man, you said, you
+did, he was drownded; your mother's brother's wife's brother; and he had
+a brother, and what he was to you--that brother--"  Mrs. Sumfit smote her
+hands--"Oh, my goodness, my poor head! but you shan't slip away, Mas'
+Gammon; no, try you ever so much.  Drownded he was, and eight days in the
+sea, which you told me over a warm mug of ale by the fire years back.
+And I do believe them dumplings makes ye obstinate; for worse you get,
+and that fond of 'em, I sh'll soon not have enough in our biggest pot.
+Yes, you said he was eight days in the sea, and as for face, you said,
+poor thing! he was like a rag of towel dipped in starch, was your own
+words, and all his likeness wiped out; and Joe, the other brother, a
+cord'er--bootmaker, you call 'em--looked down him, as he was stretched
+out on the shore of the sea, all along, and didn't know him till he come
+to the boots, and he says, 'It's Abner;' for there was his boots to know
+him by.  Now, will you deny, Mas' Gammon, you said, Mr. Hackbut's boots,
+and a long stride it was for 'em from London?  And I won't be laughed at
+through arts of any sly old man!"
+
+The circumstantial charge made no impression on Master Gammon, who was
+heard to mumble, as from the inmost recesses of tight-packed dumpling;
+but he left the vindication of his case to the farmer's laughter.  The
+mention of her uncle had started a growing agitation in Rhoda, to whom
+the indication of his eccentric behaviour was a stronger confirmation of
+his visit to the neighbourhood.  And wherefore had he journeyed down?
+Had he come to haunt her on account of the money he had poured into her
+lap?  Rhoda knew in a moment that she was near a great trial of her
+strength and truth.  She had more than once, I cannot tell you how
+distantly, conceived that the money had been money upon which the mildest
+word for "stolen" should be put to express the feeling she had got about
+it, after she had parted with the bulk of it to the man Sedgett.  Not
+"stolen," not "appropriated," but money that had perhaps been entrusted,
+and of which Anthony had forgotten the rightful ownership.  This idea of
+hers had burned with no intolerable fire; but, under a weight of all
+discountenancing appearances, feeble though it was, it had distressed
+her.  The dealing with money, and the necessity for it, had given Rhoda a
+better comprehension of its nature and value.  She had taught herself to
+think that her suspicion sprang from her uncle's wild demeanour, and the
+scene of the gold pieces scattered on the floor, as if a heart had burst
+at her feet.
+
+No sooner did she hear that Anthony had been, by supposition, seen, than
+the little light of secret dread flamed a panic through her veins.  She
+left the table before Master Gammon had finished, and went out of the
+house to look about for her uncle.  He was nowhere in the fields, nor in
+the graveyard.  She walked over the neighbourhood desolately, until her
+quickened apprehension was extinguished, and she returned home relieved,
+thinking it folly to have imagined her uncle was other than a man of
+hoarded wealth, and that he was here.  But, in the interval, she had
+experienced emotions which warned her of a struggle to come.  Who would
+be friendly to her, and an arm of might?  The thought of the storm she
+had sown upon all sides made her tremble foolishly.  When she placed her
+hand in Robert's, she gave his fingers a confiding pressure, and all but
+dropped her head upon his bosom, so sick she was with weakness.  It would
+have been a deceit toward him, and that restrained her; perhaps, yet
+more, she was restrained by the gloomy prospect of having to reply to any
+words of love, without an idea of what to say, and with a loathing of
+caresses.  She saw herself condemned to stand alone, and at a season when
+she was not strengthened by pure self-support.
+
+Rhoda had not surrendered the stern belief that she had done well by
+forcing Dahlia's hand to the marriage, though it had resulted evilly.  In
+reflecting on it, she had still a feeling of the harsh joy peculiar to
+those who have exercised command with a conscious righteousness upon
+wilful, sinful, and erring spirits, and have thwarted the wrongdoer.  She
+could only admit that there was sadness in the issue; hitherto, at least,
+nothing worse than sad disappointment.  The man who was her sister's
+husband could no longer complain that he had been the victim of an
+imposition.  She had bought his promise that he would leave the country,
+and she had rescued the honour of the family by paying him.  At what
+cost?  She asked herself that now, and then her self-support became
+uneven.  Could her uncle have parted with the great sum--have shed it
+upon her, merely beneficently, and because he loved her?  Was it possible
+that he had the habit of carrying his own riches through the streets of
+London?  She had to silence all questions imperiously, recalling exactly
+her ideas of him, and the value of money in the moment when money was an
+object of hunger--when she had seized it like a wolf, and its value was
+quite unknown, unguessed at.
+
+Rhoda threw up her window before she slept, that she might breathe the
+cool night air; and, as she leaned out, she heard steps moving away, and
+knew them to be Robert's, in whom that pressure of her hand had cruelly
+resuscitated his longing for her.  She drew back, wondering at the
+idleness of men--slaves while they want a woman's love, savages when they
+have won it.  She tried to pity him, but she had not an emotion to spare,
+save perhaps one of dull exultation, that she, alone of women, was free
+from that wretched mess called love; and upon it she slept.
+
+It was between the breakfast and dinner hours, at the farm, next day,
+when the young squire, accompanied by Anthony Hackbut, met farmer Fleming
+in the lane bordering one of the outermost fields of wheat.  Anthony gave
+little more than a blunt nod to his relative, and slouched on, leaving
+the farmer in amazement, while the young squire stopped him to speak with
+him.  Anthony made his way on to the house.  Shortly after, he was seen
+passing through the gates of the garden, accompanied by Rhoda.  At the
+dinner-hour, Robert was taken aside by the farmer.  Neither Rhoda nor
+Anthony presented themselves.  They did not appear till nightfall.  When
+Anthony came into the room, he took no greetings and gave none.  He sat
+down on the first chair by the door, shaking his head, with vacant eyes.
+Rhoda took off her bonnet, and sat as strangely silent.  In vain Mrs.
+Sumfit asked her; "Shall it be tea, dear, and a little cold meat?"  The
+two dumb figures were separately interrogated, but they had no answer.
+
+"Come! brother Tony?" the farmer tried to rally him.
+
+Dahlia was knitting some article of feminine gear.  Robert stood by the
+musk-pots at the window, looking at Rhoda fixedly.  Of this gaze she
+became conscious, and glanced from him to the clock.
+
+"It's late," she said, rising.
+
+"But you're empty, my dear.  And to think o' going to bed without a
+dinner, or your tea, and no supper!  You'll never say prayers, if you
+do," said Mrs. Sumfit.
+
+The remark engendered a notion in the farmer's head, that Anthony
+promised to be particularly prayerless.
+
+"You've been and spent a night at the young squire's, I hear, brother
+Tony.  All right and well.  No complaints on my part, I do assure ye.  If
+you're mixed up with that family, I won't bring it in you're anyways
+mixed up with this family; not so as to clash, do you see.  Only, man,
+now you are here, a word'd be civil, if you don't want a doctor."
+
+"I was right," murmured Mrs. Sumfit.  "At the funeral, he was; and Lord
+be thanked!  I thought my eyes was failin'.  Mas' Gammon, you'd ha' lost
+no character by sidin' wi' me."
+
+"Here's Dahlia, too," said the farmer.  "Brother Tony, don't you see her?
+She's beginning to be recognizable, if her hair'd grow a bit faster.
+She's...well, there she is."
+
+A quavering, tiny voice, that came from Anthony, said: "How d' ye do--how
+d' ye do;" sounding like the first effort of a fife.  But Anthony did not
+cast eye on Dahlia.
+
+"Will you eat, man?--will you smoke a pipe?--won't you talk a word?--will
+you go to bed?"
+
+These several questions, coming between pauses, elicited nothing from the
+staring oldman.
+
+"Is there a matter wrong at the Bank?" the farmer called out, and Anthony
+jumped in a heap.
+
+"Eh?" persisted the farmer.
+
+Rhoda interposed: "Uncle is tired; he is unwell.  Tomorrow he will talk
+to you."
+
+"No, but is there anything wrong up there, though?" the farmer asked with
+eager curiosity, and a fresh smile at the thought that those Banks and
+city folk were mortal, and could upset, notwithstanding their crashing
+wheels.  "Brother Tony, you speak out; has anybody been and broke?  Never
+mind a blow, so long, o' course, as they haven't swallowed your money.
+How is it?  Why, I never saw such a sight as you.  You come down from
+London; you play hide and seek about your relation's house; and here,
+when you do condescend to step in--eh? how is it?  You ain't, I hope,
+ruined, Tony, are ye?"
+
+Rhoda stood over her uncle to conceal him.
+
+"He shall not speak till he has had some rest.  And yes, mother, he shall
+have some warm tea upstairs in bed.  Boil some water.  Now, uncle, come
+with me."
+
+"Anybody broke?" Anthony rolled the words over, as Rhoda raised his arm.
+"I'm asked such a lot, my dear, I ain't equal to it.  You said here 'd be
+a quiet place.  I don't know about money.  Try my pockets.  Yes, mum, if
+you was forty policemen, I'm empty; you'd find it.  And no objection to
+nod to prayers; but never was taught one of my own.  Where am I going, my
+dear?"
+
+"Upstairs with me, uncle."
+
+Rhoda had succeeded in getting him on his feet.
+
+The farmer tapped at his forehead, as a signification to the others that
+Anthony had gone wrong in the head, which reminded him that he had
+prophesied as much.  He stiffened out his legs, and gave a manful spring,
+crying, "Hulloa, brother Tony! why, man, eh?  Look here.  What, goin' to
+bed?  What, you, Tony?  I say--I say--dear me!"  And during these
+exclamations intricate visions of tripping by means of gold wires danced
+before him.
+
+Rhoda hurried Anthony out.
+
+After the door had shut, the farmer said: "That comes of it; sooner or
+later, there it is!  You give your heart to money--you insure in a ship,
+and as much as say, here's a ship, and, blow and lighten, I defy you.
+Whereas we day-by-day people, if it do blow and if it do lighten, and the
+waves are avilanches, we've nothing to lose.  Poor old Tony--a smash, to
+a certainty.  There's been a smash, and he's gone under the harrow.  Any
+o' you here might ha' heard me say, things can't last for ever.  Ha'n't
+you, now?"
+
+The persons present meekly acquiesced in his prophetic spirit to this
+extent.  Mrs. Sumfit dolorously said, "Often, William dear," and accepted
+the incontestable truth in deep humiliation of mind.
+
+"Save," the farmer continued, "save and store, only don't put your heart
+in the box."
+
+"It's true, William;"  Mrs. Sumfit acted clerk to the sermon.
+
+Dahlia took her softly by the neck, and kissed her.
+
+"Is it love for the old woman?" Mrs. Sumfit murmured fondly; and Dahlia
+kissed her again.
+
+The farmer had by this time rounded to the thought of how he personally
+might be affected by Anthony's ill-luck, supposing; perchance, that
+Anthony was suffering from something more than a sentimental attachment
+to the Bank of his predilection: and such a reflection instantly diverted
+his tendency to moralize.
+
+"We shall hear to-morrow," he observed in conclusion; which, as it caused
+a desire for the morrow to spring within his bosom, sent his eyes at
+Master Gammon, who was half an hour behind his time for bed, and had
+dropped asleep in his chair.  This unusual display of public somnolence
+on Master Gammon's part, together with the veteran's reputation for
+slowness, made the farmer fret at him as being in some way an obstruction
+to the lively progress of the hours.
+
+"Hoy, Gammon!" he sang out, awakeningly to ordinary ears; but Master
+Gammon was not one who took the ordinary plunge into the gulf of sleep,
+and it was required to shake him and to bellow at him--to administer at
+once earthquake and thunder--before his lizard eyelids would lift over
+the great, old-world eyes; upon which, like a clayey monster refusing to
+be informed with heavenly fire, he rolled to the right of his chair and
+to the left, and pitched forward, and insisted upon being inanimate.
+Brought at last to a condition of stale consciousness, he looked at his
+master long, and uttered surprisingly "Farmer, there's queer things going
+on in this house," and then relapsed to a combat with Mrs. Sumfit,
+regarding the candle; she saying that it was not to be entrusted to him,
+and he sullenly contending that it was.
+
+"Here, we'll all go to bed," said the farmer.  "What with one person
+queer, and another person queer, I shall be in for a headache, if I take
+to thinking.  Gammon's a man sees in 's sleep what he misses awake.  Did
+you ever know," he addressed anybody, "such a thing as Tony Hackbut
+coming into a relation's house, and sitting there, and not a word for any
+of us?  It's, I call it, dumbfoundering.  And that's me: why didn't I go
+up and shake his hand, you ask.  Well, why not?  If he don't know he's
+welcome, without ceremony, he's no good.  Why, I've got matters t' occupy
+my mind, too, haven't I?  Every man has, and some more'n others, let
+alone crosses.  There's something wrong with my brother-in-law, Tony,
+that's settled.  Odd that we country people, who bide, and take the
+Lord's gifts--"   The farmer did not follow out this reflection, but
+raising his arms, shepherd-wise, he puffed as if blowing the two women
+before him to their beds, and then gave a shy look at Robert, and nodded
+good-night to him.  Robert nodded in reply.  He knew the cause of the
+farmer's uncommon blitheness.  Algernon Blancove, the young squire, had
+proposed for Rhoda's hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+Anthony had robbed the Bank.  The young squire was aware of the fact, and
+had offered to interpose for him, and to make good the money to the Bank,
+upon one condition.  So much, Rhoda had gathered from her uncle's
+babbling interjections throughout the day.  The farmer knew only of the
+young squire's proposal, which had been made direct to him; and he had
+left it to Robert to state the case to Rhoda, and plead for himself.  She
+believed fully, when she came downstairs into the room where Robert was
+awaiting her, that she had but to speak and a mine would be sprung; and
+shrinking from it, hoping for it, she entered, and tried to fasten her
+eyes upon Robert distinctly, telling him the tale.  Robert listened with
+a calculating seriousness of manner that quieted her physical dread of
+his passion.  She finished; and he said "It will, perhaps, save your
+uncle: I'm sure it will please your father."
+
+She sat down, feeling that a warmth had gone, and that she was very bare.
+
+"Must I consent, then?"
+
+"If you can, I suppose."
+
+Both being spirits formed for action, a perplexity found them weak as
+babes.  He, moreover, was stung to see her debating at all upon such a
+question; and he was in despair before complicated events which gave
+nothing for his hands and heart to do.  Stiff endurance seemed to him to
+be his lesson; and he made a show of having learnt it.
+
+"Were you going out, Robert?"
+
+"I usually make the rounds of the house, to be sure all's safe."
+
+His walking about the garden at night was not, then, for the purpose of
+looking at her window.  Rhoda coloured in all her dark crimson with shame
+for thinking that it had been so.
+
+"I must decide to-morrow morning."
+
+"They say, the pillow's the best counsellor."
+
+A reply that presumed she would sleep appeared to her as bitterly
+unfriendly.
+
+"Did father wish it?"
+
+"Not by what he spoke."
+
+"You suppose he does wish it?"
+
+"Where's the father who wouldn't?  Of course, he wishes it.  He's kind
+enough, but you may be certain he wishes it."
+
+"Oh! Dahlia, Dahlia!" Rhoda moaned, under a rush of new sensations,
+unfilial, akin to those which her sister had distressed her by speaking
+shamelessly out.
+
+"Ah! poor soul!" added Robert.
+
+"My darling must be brave: she must have great courage.  Dahlia cannot be
+a coward.  I begin to see."
+
+Rhoda threw up her face, and sat awhile as one who was reading old
+matters by a fresh light.
+
+"I can't think," she said, with a start.  "Have I been dreadfully cruel?
+Was I unsisterly?  I have such a horror of some things--disgrace.  And
+men are so hard on women; and father--I felt for him.  And I hated that
+base man.  It's his cousin and his name!  I could almost fancy this trial
+is brought round to me for punishment."
+
+An ironic devil prompted Robert to say, "You can't let harm come to your
+uncle."
+
+The thing implied was the farthest in his idea of any woman's possible
+duty.
+
+"Are you of that opinion?" Rhoda questioned with her eyes, but uttered
+nothing.
+
+Now, he had spoken almost in the ironical tone.  She should have noted
+that.  And how could a true-hearted girl suppose him capable of giving
+such counsel to her whom he loved?  It smote him with horror and anger;
+but he was much too manly to betray these actual sentiments, and
+continued to dissemble.  You see, he had not forgiven her for her
+indifference to him.
+
+"You are no longer your own mistress," he said, meaning exactly the
+reverse.
+
+This--that she was bound in generosity to sacrifice herself--was what
+Rhoda feared.  There was no forceful passion in her bosom to burst
+through the crowd of weak reasonings and vanities, to bid her be a woman,
+not a puppet; and the passion in him, for which she craved, that she
+might be taken up by it and whirled into forgetfulness, with a seal of
+betrothal upon her lips, was absent so that she thought herself loved no
+more by Robert.  She was weary of thinking and acting on her own
+responsibility, and would gladly have abandoned her will; yet her
+judgement, if she was still to exercise it, told her that the step she
+was bidden to take was one, the direct consequence and the fruit of her
+other resolute steps.  Pride whispered, "You could compel your sister to
+do that which she abhorred;" and Pity pleaded for her poor old uncle
+Anthony.  She looked back in imagination at that scene with him in
+London, amazed at her frenzy of power, and again, from that
+contemplation, amazed at her present nervelessness.
+
+"I am not fit to be my own mistress," she said.
+
+"Then, the sooner you decide the better," observed Robert, and the room
+became hot and narrow to him.
+
+"Very little time is given me," she murmured.  The sound was like a
+whimper; exasperating to one who had witnessed her remorseless energy.
+
+"I dare say you won't find the hardship so great," said he.
+
+"Because," she looked up quickly, "I went out one day to meet him?  Do
+you mean that, Robert?  I went to hear news of my sister.  I had received
+no letters from her.  And he wrote to say that he could tell me about
+her.  My uncle took me once to the Bank.  I saw him there first.  He
+spoke of Wrexby, and of my sister.  It is pleasant to inexperienced girls
+to hear themselves praised.  Since the day when you told me to turn back
+I have always respected you."
+
+Her eyelids lowered softly.
+
+Could she have humbled herself more?  But she had, at the same time,
+touched his old wound: and his rival then was the wooer now, rich, and a
+gentleman.  And this room, Robert thought as he looked about it, was the
+room in which she had refused him, when he first asked her to be his.
+
+"I think," he said, "I've never begged your pardon for the last occasion
+of our being alone here together.  I've had my arm round you.  Don't be
+frightened.  That's my marriage, and there was my wife.  And there's an
+end of my likings and my misconduct.  Forgive me for calling it to mind."
+
+"No, no, Robert," Rhoda lifted her hands, and, startled by the impulse,
+dropped them, saying: "What forgiveness?  Was I ever angry with you?"
+
+A look of tenderness accompanied the words, and grew into a dusky crimson
+rose under his eyes.
+
+"When you went into the wood, I saw you going: I knew it was for some
+good object," he said, and flushed equally.
+
+But, by the recurrence to that scene, he had checked her sensitive
+developing emotion.  She hung a moment in languor, and that oriental
+warmth of colour ebbed away from her cheeks.
+
+"You are very kind," said she.
+
+Then he perceived in dimmest fashion that possibly a chance had come to
+ripeness, withered, and fallen, within the late scoffing seconds of time.
+Enraged at his blindness, and careful, lest he had wrongly guessed, not
+to expose his regret (the man was a lover), he remarked, both truthfully
+and hypocritically: "I've always thought you were born to be a lady."
+(You had that ambition, young madam.)
+
+She answered: "That's what I don't understand."  (Your saying it, O my
+friend!)
+
+"You will soon take to your new duties."   (You have small objection to
+them even now.)
+
+"Yes, or my life won't be worth much." (Know, that you are driving me to
+it.)
+
+"And I wish you happiness, Rhoda."   (You are madly
+imperilling the prospect thereof.)
+
+To each of them the second meaning stood shadowy behind the utterances.
+And further,--
+
+"Thank you, Robert."   (I shall have to thank you for the issue.)
+
+"Now it's time to part."   (Do you not see that there's a danger for me
+in remaining?)
+
+"Good night."   (Behold, I am submissive.)
+
+"Good night, Rhoda."   (You were the first to give the signal of
+parting.)
+
+"Good night."   (I am simply submissive.)
+
+"Why not my name?  Are you hurt with me?"
+
+Rhoda choked.  The indirectness of speech had been a shelter to her,
+permitting her to hint at more than she dared clothe in words.
+
+Again the delicious dusky rose glowed beneath his eyes.
+
+But he had put his hand out to her, and she had not taken it.
+
+"What have I done to offend you?  I really don't know, Rhoda."
+
+"Nothing."   The flower had closed.
+
+He determined to believe that she was gladdened at heart by the prospect
+of a fine marriage, and now began to discourse of Anthony's delinquency,
+saying,--
+
+"It was not money taken for money's sake: any one can see that.  It was
+half clear to me, when you told me about it, that the money was not his
+to give, but I've got the habit of trusting you to be always correct."
+
+"And I never am," said Rhoda, vexed at him and at herself.
+
+"Women can't judge so well about money matters.  Has your uncle no
+account of his own at the Bank?  He was thought to be a bit of a miser."
+
+"What he is, or what he was, I can't guess.  He has not been near the
+Bank since that day; nor to his home.  He has wandered down on his way
+here, sleeping in cottages.  His heart seems broken.  I have still a
+great deal of the money.  I kept it, thinking it might be a protection
+for Dahlia.  Oh! my thoughts and what I have done!  Of course, I imagined
+him to be rich.  A thousand pounds seemed a great deal to me, and very
+little for one who was rich.  If I had reflected at all, I must have seen
+that Uncle Anthony would never have carried so much through the streets.
+I was like a fiend for money.  I must have been acting wrongly.  Such a
+craving as that is a sign of evil."
+
+"What evil there is, you're going to mend, Rhoda."
+
+"I sell myself, then."
+
+"Hardly so bad as that.  The money will come from you instead of from
+your uncle."
+
+Rhoda bent forward in her chair, with her elbows on her knees, like a man
+brooding.  Perhaps, it was right that the money should come from her.
+And how could she have hoped to get the money by any other means?  Here
+at least was a positive escape from perplexity.  It came at the right
+moment; was it a help divine?  What cowardice had been prompting her to
+evade it?  After all, could it be a dreadful step that she was required
+to take?
+
+Her eyes met Robert's, and he said startlingly: "Just like a woman!"
+
+"Why?" but she had caught the significance, and blushed with spite.
+
+"He was the first to praise you."
+
+"You are brutal to me, Robert."
+
+"My name at last!  You accused me of that sort of thing before, in this
+room."
+
+Rhoda stood up.  "I will wish you good night."
+
+"And now you take my hand."
+
+"Good night," they uttered simultaneously; but Robert did not give up the
+hand he had got in his own.  His eyes grew sharp, and he squeezed the
+fingers.
+
+"I'm bound," she cried.
+
+"Once!" Robert drew her nearer to him.
+
+"Let me go."
+
+"Once!" he reiterated.  "Rhoda, as I've never kissed you--once!"
+
+"No: don't anger me."
+
+"No one has ever kissed you?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Then, I--"   His force was compelling the straightened figure.
+
+Had he said, "Be mine!" she might have softened to his embrace; but there
+was no fire of divining love in her bosom to perceive her lover's
+meaning.  She read all his words as a placard on a board, and revolted
+from the outrage of submitting her lips to one who was not to be her
+husband.  His jealousy demanded that gratification foremost.  The "Be
+mine!" was ready enough to follow.
+
+"Let me go, Robert."
+
+She was released.  The cause for it was the opening of the door.  Anthony
+stood there.
+
+A more astounding resemblance to the phantasm of a dream was never
+presented.  He was clad in a manner to show forth the condition of his
+wits, in partial night and day attire: one of the farmer's nightcaps was
+on his head, surmounted by his hat.  A confused recollection of the
+necessity for trousers, had made him draw on those garments sufficiently
+to permit of the movement of his short legs, at which point their
+subserviency to the uses ended.  Wrinkled with incongruous clothing from
+head to foot, and dazed by the light, he peered on them, like a mouse
+magnified and petrified.
+
+"Dearest uncle!"  Rhoda went to him.
+
+Anthony nodded, pointing to the door leading out of the house.
+
+"I just want to go off--go off.  Never you mind me.  I'm only going off."
+
+"You must go to your bed, uncle."
+
+"Oh, Lord! no.  I'm going off, my dear.  I've had sleep enough for forty.
+I--" he turned his mouth to Rhoda's ear, "I don't want t' see th' old
+farmer."   And, as if he had given a conclusive reason for his departure,
+he bored towards the door, repeating it, and bawling additionally, "in
+the morning."
+
+"You have seen him, uncle.  You have seen him.  It's over," said Rhoda.
+
+Anthony whispered: "I don't want t' see th' old farmer."
+
+"But, you have seen him, uncle."
+
+"In the morning, my dear.  Not in the morning.  He'll be looking and
+asking, 'Where away, brother Tony?'  'Where's your banker's book, brother
+Tony?'  'How's money-market, brother Tony?'  I can't see th' old farmer."
+
+It was impossible to avoid smiling: his imitation of the farmer's country
+style was exact.
+
+She took his hands, and used every persuasion she could think of to
+induce him to return to his bed; nor was he insensible to argument, or
+superior to explanation.
+
+"Th' old farmer thinks I've got millions, my dear.  You can't satisfy
+him.  He...  I don't want t' see him in the morning.  He thinks I've got
+millions.  His mouth'll go down.  I don't want...  You don't want him to
+look...  And I can't count now; I can't count a bit.  And every post I
+see 's a policeman.  I ain't hiding.  Let 'em take the old man.  And he
+was a faithful servant, till one day he got up on a regular whirly-go-
+round, and ever since...such a little boy!  I'm frightened o' you,
+Rhoda."
+
+"I will do everything for you," said Rhoda, crying wretchedly.
+
+"Because, the young squire says," Anthony made his voice mysterious.
+
+"Yes, yes," Rhoda stopped him; "and I consent:" she gave a hurried
+half-glance behind her.  "Come, uncle.  Oh! pity! don't let me think your
+reason's gone.  I can get you the money, but if you go foolish, I cannot
+help you."
+
+Her energy had returned to her with the sense of sacrifice.  Anthony eyed
+her tears.  "We've sat on a bank and cried together, haven't we?" he
+said.  "And counted ants, we have.  Shall we sit in the sun together
+to-morrow?  Say, we shall.  Shall we?  A good long day in the sun and
+nobody looking at me 's my pleasure."
+
+Rhoda gave him the assurance, and he turned and went upstairs with her,
+docile at the prospect of hours to be passed in the sunlight.
+
+Yet, when morning came, he had disappeared.  Robert also was absent from
+the breakfast-table.  The farmer made no remarks, save that he reckoned
+Master Gammon was right--in allusion to the veteran's somnolent
+observation overnight; and strange things were acted before his eyes.
+
+There came by the morning delivery of letters one addressed to "Miss
+Fleming."   He beheld his daughters rise, put their hands out, and claim
+it, in a breath; and they gazed upon one another like the two women
+demanding the babe from the justice of the Wise King.  The letter was
+placed in Rhoda's hand; Dahlia laid hers on it.  Their mouths were shut;
+any one not looking at them would have been unaware that a supreme
+conflict was going on in the room.  It was a strenuous wrestle of their
+eyeballs, like the "give way" of athletes pausing.  But the delirious
+beat down the constitutional strength.  A hard bright smile ridged the
+hollow of Dahlia's cheeks.  Rhoda's dark eyes shut; she let go her hold,
+and Dahlia thrust the letter in against her bosom, snatched it out again,
+and dipped her face to roses in a jug, and kissing Mrs. Sumfit, ran from
+the room for a single minute; after which she came back smiling with
+gravely joyful eyes and showing a sedate readiness to eat and conclude
+the morning meal.
+
+What did this mean?  The farmer could have made allowance for Rhoda's
+behaving so, seeing that she notoriously possessed intellect; and he had
+the habit of charging all freaks and vagaries of manner upon intellect.
+
+But Dahlia was a soft creature, without this apology for extravagance,
+and what right had she to letters addressed to "Miss Fleming?"  The
+farmer prepared to ask a question, and was further instigated to it by
+seeing Mrs. Sumfit's eyes roll sympathetic under a burden of overpowering
+curiosity and bewilderment.  On the point of speaking, he remembered that
+he had pledged his word to ask no questions; he feared to--that was the
+secret; he had put his trust in Rhoda's assurance, and shrank from a
+spoken suspicion.  So, checking himself, he broke out upon Mrs. Sumfit:
+"Now, then, mother!" which caused her to fluster guiltily, she having
+likewise given her oath to be totally unquestioning, even as was Master
+Gammon, whom she watched with a deep envy.  Mrs. Sumfit excused the
+anxious expression of her face by saying that she was thinking of her
+dairy, whither, followed by the veteran, she retired.
+
+Rhoda stood eyeing Dahlia, nerved to battle against the contents of that
+letter, though in the first conflict she had been beaten.  "Oh, this
+curse of love!" she thought in her heart; and as Dahlia left the room,
+flushed, stupefied, and conscienceless, Rhoda the more readily told her
+father the determination which was the result of her interview with
+Robert.
+
+No sooner had she done so, than a strange fluttering desire to look on
+Robert awoke within her bosom.  She left the house, believing that she
+went abroad to seek her uncle, and walked up a small grass-knoll, a
+little beyond the farm-yard, from which she could see green corn-tracts
+and the pastures by the river, the river flowing oily under summer light,
+and the slow-footed cows, with their heads bent to the herbage; far-away
+sheep, and white hawthorn bushes, and deep hedge-ways bursting out of the
+trimness of the earlier season; and a nightingale sang among the hazels
+near by.
+
+This scene of unthrobbing peacefulness was beheld by Rhoda with her first
+conscious delight in it.  She gazed round on the farm, under a quick new
+impulse of affection for her old home.  And whose hand was it that could
+alone sustain the working of the farm, and had done so, without reward?
+Her eyes travelled up to Wrexby Hall, perfectly barren of any feeling
+that she was to enter the place, aware only that it was full of pain for
+her.  She accused herself, but could not accept the charge of her having
+ever hoped for transforming events that should twist and throw the dear
+old farm-life long back into the fields of memory.  Nor could she
+understand the reason of her continued coolness to Robert.  Enough of
+accurate reflection was given her to perceive that discontent with her
+station was the original cause of her discontent now.  What she had sown
+she was reaping:--and wretchedly colourless are these harvests of our
+dream!  The sun has not shone on them.  They may have a tragic blood-hue,
+as with Dahlia's; but they will never have any warm, and fresh, and
+nourishing sweetness--the juice which is in a single blade of grass.
+
+A longing came upon Rhoda to go and handle butter.  She wished to smell
+it as Mrs. Sumfit drubbed and patted and flattened and rounded it in the
+dairy; and she ran down the slope, meeting her father at the gate.  He
+was dressed in his brushed suit, going she knew whither, and when he
+asked if she had seen her uncle, she gave for answer a plain negative,
+and longed more keenly to be at work with her hands, and to smell the
+homely creamy air under the dairy-shed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+She watched her father as he went across the field and into the lane.
+Her breathing was suppressed till he appeared in view at different
+points, more and more distant, and then she sighed heavily, stopped her
+breathing, and hoped her unshaped hope again.  The last time he was in
+sight, she found herself calling to him with a voice like that of a
+burdened sleeper: her thought being, "How can you act so cruelly to
+Robert!"  He passed up Wrexby Heath, and over the black burnt patch where
+the fire had caught the furzes on a dry Maynight, and sank on the side of
+the Hall.
+
+When we have looked upon a picture of still green life with a troubled
+soul, and the blow falls on us, we accuse Nature of our own treachery to
+her.  Rhoda hurried from the dairy-door to shut herself up in her room
+and darken the light surrounding her.  She had turned the lock, and was
+about systematically to pull down the blind, when the marvel of beholding
+Dahlia stepping out of the garden made her for a moment less the creature
+of her sickened senses.  Dahlia was dressed for a walk, and she went very
+fast.  The same paralysis of motion afflicted Rhoda as when she was
+gazing after her father; but her hand stretched out instinctively for her
+bonnet when Dahlia had crossed the green and the mill-bridge, and was no
+more visible.  Rhoda drew her bonnet on, and caught her black silk mantle
+in her hand, and without strength to throw it across her shoulders,
+dropped before her bed, and uttered a strange prayer.  "Let her die
+rather than go back to disgrace, my God! my God!"
+
+She tried to rise, and failed in the effort, and superstitiously renewed
+her prayer.  "Send death to her rather!"--and Rhoda's vision under her
+shut eyes conjured up clouds and lightnings, and spheres in
+conflagration.
+
+There is nothing so indicative of fevered or of bad blood as the tendency
+to counsel the Almighty how he shall deal with his creatures.  The strain
+of a long uncertainty, and the late feverish weeks had distempered the
+fine blood of the girl, and her acts and words were becoming remoter
+exponents of her character.
+
+She bent her head in a blind doze that gave her strength to rise.  As
+swiftly as she could she went in the track of her sister.
+
+That morning, Robert had likewise received a letter.  It was from Major
+Waring, and contained a bank-note, and a summons to London, as also an
+enclosure from Mrs. Boulby of Warbeach; the nature of which was an
+advertisement cut out of the county paper, notifying to one Robert Eccles
+that his aunt Anne had died, and that there was a legacy for him, to be
+paid over upon application.  Robert crossed the fields, laughing madly at
+the ironical fate which favoured him a little and a little, and never
+enough, save just to keep him swimming.
+
+The letter from Major Waring said:--
+
+"I must see you immediately.  Be quick and come.  I begin to be of your
+opinion--there are some things which we must take into our own hands and
+deal summarily with."
+
+"Ay!--ay!" Robert gave tongue in the clear morning air, scenting
+excitement and eager for it as a hound.
+
+More was written, which he read subsequently
+
+     "I wrong," Percy's letter continued, "the best of women.  She was
+     driven to my door.  There is, it seems, some hope that Dahlia will
+     find herself free.  At any rate, keep guard over her, and don't
+     leave her.  Mrs. Lovell has herself been moving to make discoveries
+     down at Warbeach.  Mr. Blancove has nearly quitted this sphere.  She
+     nursed him--I was jealous!--the word's out.  Truth, courage, and
+     suffering touch Margaret's heart.
+
+                                   "Yours,
+
+                                             "Percy."
+
+Jumping over a bank, Robert came upon Anthony, who was unsteadily gazing
+at a donkey that cropped the grass by a gate.
+
+"Here you are," said Robert, and took his arm.
+
+Anthony struggled, though he knew the grasp was friendly; but he was led
+along: nor did Robert stop until they reached Greatham, five miles beyond
+Wrexby, where he entered the principal inn and called for wine.
+
+"You want spirit: you want life," said Robert.
+
+Anthony knew that he wanted no wine, whatever his needs might be.  Yet
+the tender ecstacy of being paid for was irresistible, and he drank,
+saying, "Just one glass, then."
+
+Robert pledged him.  They were in a private room, of which, having
+ordered up three bottles of sherry, Robert locked the door.  The devil
+was in him.  He compelled Anthony to drink an equal portion with himself,
+alternately frightening and cajoling the old man.
+
+"Drink, I tell you.  You've robbed me, and you shall drink!"
+
+"I haven't, I haven't," Anthony whined.
+
+"Drink, and be silent.  You've robbed me, and you shall drink!  and by
+heaven! if you resist, I'll hand you over to bluer imps than you've ever
+dreamed of, old gentleman!  You've robbed me, Mr. Hackbut.  Drink! I tell
+you."
+
+Anthony wept into his glass.
+
+"That's a trick I could never do," said Robert, eyeing the drip of the
+trembling old tear pitilessly.  "Your health, Mr. Hackbut.  You've robbed
+me of my sweetheart.  Never mind.  Life's but the pop of a gun.  Some of
+us flash in the pan, and they're the only ones that do no mischief.
+You're not one of them, sir; so you must drink, and let me see you
+cheerful."
+
+By degrees, the wine stirred Anthony's blood, and he chirped feebly, as
+one who half remembered that he ought to be miserable.  Robert listened
+to his maundering account of his adventure with the Bank money, sternly
+replenishing his glass.  His attention was taken by the sight of Dahlia
+stepping forth from a chemist's shop in the street nearly opposite to the
+inn.  "This is my medicine," said Robert; "and yours too," he addressed
+Anthony.
+
+The sun had passed its meridian when they went into the streets again.
+Robert's head was high as a cock's, and Anthony leaned on his arm;
+performing short half-circles headlong to the front, until the mighty arm
+checked and uplifted him.  They were soon in the fields leading to
+Wrexby.  Robert saw two female figures far ahead.  A man was hastening to
+join them.  The women started and turned suddenly: one threw up her
+hands, and darkened her face.  It was in the pathway of a broad meadow,
+deep with grass, wherein the red sorrel topped the yellow buttercup, like
+rust upon the season's gold.  Robert hastened on.  He scarce at the
+moment knew the man whose shoulder he seized, but he had recognised
+Dahlia and Rhoda, and he found himself face to face with Sedgett.
+
+"It's you!"
+
+"Perhaps you'll keep your hands off; before you make sure, another time."
+
+Robert said: "I really beg your pardon.  Step aside with me."
+
+"Not while I've a ha'p'orth o' brains in my noddle," replied Sedgett,
+drawling an imitation of his enemy's courteous tone.  "I've come for my
+wife.  I'm just down by train, and a bit out of my way, I reckon.  I'm
+come, and I'm in a hurry.  She shall get home, and have on her things--
+boxes packed, and we go."
+
+Robert waved Dahlia and Rhoda to speed homeward.  Anthony had fallen
+against the roots of a banking elm, and surveyed the scene with
+philosophic abstractedness.  Rhoda moved, taking Dahlia's hand.
+
+"Stop," cried Sedgett.  "Do you people here think me a fool?  Eccles, you
+know me better 'n that.  That young woman's my wife.  I've come for her,
+I tell ye."
+
+"You've no claim on her," Rhoda burst forth weakly, and quivered, and
+turned her eyes supplicatingly on Robert.  Dahlia was a statue of icy
+fright.
+
+"You've thrown her off, man, and sold what rights you had," said Robert,
+spying for the point of his person where he might grasp the wretch and
+keep him off.
+
+"That don't hold in law," Sedgett nodded.  "A man may get in a passion,
+when he finds he's been cheated, mayn't he?"
+
+"I have your word of honour," said Rhoda; muttering, "Oh! devil come to
+wrong us!"
+
+"Then, you shouldn't ha' run ferreting down in my part o' the country.
+You, or Eccles--I don't care who 'tis--you've been at my servants to get
+at my secrets.  Some of you have.  You've declared war.  You've been
+trying to undermine me.  That's a breach, I call it.  Anyhow, I've come
+for my wife.  I'll have her."
+
+"None of us, none of us; no one has been to your house," said Rhoda,
+vehemently.  "You live in Hampshire, sir, I think; I don't know any more.
+I don't know where.  I have not asked my sister.  Oh! spare us, and go."
+
+"No one has been down into your part of the country," said Robert, with
+perfect mildness.
+
+To which Sedgett answered bluffly, "There ye lie, Bob Eccles;" and he was
+immediately felled by a tremendous blow.  Robert strode over him, and
+taking Dahlia by the elbow, walked three paces on, as to set her in
+motion.  "Off!" he cried to Rhoda, whose eyelids cowered under the blaze
+of his face.
+
+It was best that her sister should be away, and she turned and walked
+swiftly, hurrying Dahlia, and touching her.  "Oh! don't touch my arm,"
+Dahlia said, quailing in the fall of her breath.  They footed together,
+speechless; taking the woman's quickest gliding step.  At the last stile
+of the fields, Rhoda saw that they were not followed.  She stopped,
+panting: her heart and eyes were so full of that flaming creature who was
+her lover.  Dahlia took from her bosom the letter she had won in the
+morning, and held it open in both hands to read it.  The pause was short.
+Dahlia struck the letter into her bosom again, and her starved features
+had some of the bloom of life.  She kept her right hand in her pocket,
+and Rhoda presently asked,--
+
+"What have you there?"
+
+"You are my enemy, dear, in some things," Dahlia replied, a muscular
+shiver passing over her.
+
+"I think," said Rhoda, "I could get a little money to send you away.
+Will you go?  I am full of grief for what I have done.  God forgive me."
+
+"Pray, don't speak so; don't let us talk," said Dahlia.
+
+Scorched as she felt both in soul and body, a touch or a word was a wound
+to her.  Yet she was the first to resume: "I think I shall be saved.  I
+can't quite feel I am lost.  I have not been so wicked as that."
+
+Rhoda gave a loving answer, and again Dahlia shrank from the miserable
+comfort of words.
+
+As they came upon the green fronting the iron gateway, Rhoda perceived
+that the board proclaiming the sale of Queen Anne's Farm had been
+removed, and now she understood her father's readiness to go up to Wrexby
+Hall.  "He would sell me to save the farm."   She reproached herself for
+the thought, but she could not be just; she had the image of her father
+plodding relentlessly over the burnt heath to the Hall, as conceived by
+her agonized sensations in the morning, too vividly to be just, though
+still she knew that her own indecision was to blame.
+
+Master Gammon met them in the garden.
+
+Pointing aloft, over the gateway, "That's down," he remarked, and the
+three green front teeth of his quiet grin were stamped on the
+impressionable vision of the girls in such a way that they looked at one
+another with a bare bitter smile.  Once it would have been mirth.
+
+"Tell father," Dahlia said, when they were at the back doorway, and her
+eyes sparkled piteously, and she bit on her underlip.  Rhoda tried to
+detain her; but Dahlia repeated, "Tell father," and in strength and in
+will had become more than a match for her sister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+Rhoda spoke to her father from the doorway, with her hand upon the lock
+of the door.
+
+At first he paid little attention to her, and, when he did so, began by
+saying that he hoped she knew that she was bound to have the young
+squire, and did not intend to be prankish and wilful; because the young
+squire was eager to settle affairs, that he might be settled himself.  "I
+don't deny it's honour to us, and it's a comfort," said the farmer.
+"This is the first morning I've thought easily in my chair for years.
+I'm sorry about Robert, who's a twice unlucky 'un; but you aimed at
+something higher, I suppose."
+
+Rhoda was prompted to say a word in self-defence, but refrained, and
+again she told Dahlia's story, wondering that her father showed no
+excitement of any kind.  On the contrary, there was the dimple of one of
+his voiceless chuckles moving about the hollow of one cheek, indicating
+some slow contemplative action that was not unpleasant within.  He said:
+"Ah! well, it's very sad;--that is, if 'tis so," and no more, for a time.
+
+She discovered that he was referring to her uncle Anthony, concerning
+whose fortunate position in the world, he was beginning to entertain some
+doubts.  "Or else," said the farmer, with a tap on his forehead, "he's
+going here.  It 'd be odd after all, if commercially, as he 'd call it,
+his despised brother-in-law--and I say it in all kindness--should turn
+out worth, not exactly millions, but worth a trifle."
+
+The farmer nodded with an air of deprecating satisfaction.
+
+Rhoda did not gain his ear until, as by an instinct, she perceived what
+interest the story of her uncle and the money-bags would have for him.
+She related it, and he was roused.  Then, for the third time, she told
+him of Dahlia.
+
+Rhoda saw her father's chest grow large, while his eyes quickened with
+light.  He looked on her with quite a strange face.  Wrath, and a revived
+apprehension, and a fixed will were expressed in it, and as he catechized
+her for each particular of the truth which had been concealed from him,
+she felt a respectfulness that was new in her personal sensations toward
+her father, but it was at the expense of her love.
+
+When he had heard and comprehended all, he said, "Send the girl down to
+me."
+
+But Rhoda pleaded, "She is too worn, she is tottering.  She cannot endure
+a word on this; not even of kindness and help."
+
+"Then, you," said the farmer, "you tell her she's got a duty's her first
+duty now.  Obedience to her husband!  Do you hear?  Then, let her hear
+it.  Obedience to her husband!  And welcome's the man when he calls on
+me.  He's welcome.  My doors are open to him.  I thank him.  I honour
+him.  I bless his name.  It's to him I owe--You go up to her and say, her
+father owes it to the young man who's married her that he can lift up his
+head.  Go aloft.  Ay! for years I've been suspecting something of this.
+I tell ye, girl, I don't understand about church doors and castin' of her
+off--he's come for her, hasn't he?  Then, he shall have her.  I tell ye,
+I don't understand about money: he's married her.  Well, then, she's his
+wife; and how can he bargain not to see her?"
+
+"The base wretch!" cried Rhoda.
+
+"Hasn't he married her?" the farmer retorted.  "Hasn't he given the poor
+creature a name?  I'm not for abusing her, but him I do thank, and I say,
+when he calls, here's my hand for him.  Here, it's out and waiting for
+him."
+
+"Father, if you let me see it--"  Rhoda checked the intemperate outburst.
+"Father, this is a bad--a bad man.  He is a very wicked man.  We were all
+deceived by him.  Robert knows him.  He has known him for years, and
+knows that he is very wicked.  This man married our Dahlia to get--"
+Rhoda gasped, and could not speak it.  "He flung her off with horrible
+words at the church door.  After this, how can he claim her?  I paid him
+all he had to expect with uncle's money, for his promise by his sacred
+oath never, never to disturb or come near my sister.  After that he
+can't, can't claim her.  If he does--"
+
+"He's her husband," interrupted the farmer; "when he comes here, he's
+welcome.  I say he's welcome.  My hand's out to him:--If it's alone that
+he's saved the name of Fleming from disgrace!  I thank him, and my
+daughter belongs to him.  Where is he now?  You talk of a scuffle with
+Robert.  I do hope Robert will not forget his proper behaviour.  Go you
+up to your sister, and say from me--All's forgotten and forgiven; say,
+It's all underfoot; but she must learn to be a good girl from this day.
+And, if she's at the gate to welcome her husband, so much the better 'll
+her father be pleased;--say that.  I want to see the man.  It'll gratify
+me to feel her husband's flesh and blood.  His being out of sight so
+long's been a sore at my heart; and when I see him I'll welcome him, and
+so must all in my house."
+
+This was how William Fleming received the confession of his daughter's
+unhappy plight.
+
+Rhoda might have pleaded Dahlia's case better, but that she was too
+shocked and outraged by the selfishness she saw in her father, and the
+partial desire to scourge which she was too intuitively keen at the
+moment not to perceive in the paternal forgiveness, and in the
+stipulation of the forgiveness.
+
+She went upstairs to Dahlia, simply stating that their father was aware
+of all the circumstances.
+
+Dahlia looked at her, but dared ask nothing.
+
+So the day passed.  Neither Robert nor Anthony appeared.  The night came:
+all doors were locked.  The sisters that night slept together, feeling
+the very pulses of the hours; yet neither of them absolutely hopelessly,
+although in a great anguish.
+
+Rhoda was dressed by daylight.  The old familiar country about the house
+lay still as if it knew no expectation.  She observed Master Gammon
+tramping forth afield, and presently heard her father's voice below.  All
+the machinery of the daily life got into motion; but it was evident that
+Robert and Anthony continued to be absent.  A thought struck her that
+Robert had killed the man.  It came with a flash of joy that was speedily
+terror, and she fell to praying vehemently and vaguely.  Dahlia lay
+exhausted on the bed, but nigh the hour when letters were delivered, she
+sat up, saying, "There is one for me; get it."
+
+There was in truth a letter for her below, and it was in her father's
+hand and open.
+
+"Come out," said the farmer, as Rhoda entered to him.  When they were in
+the garden, he commanded her to read and tell him the meaning of it.  The
+letter was addressed to Dahlia Fleming.
+
+"It's for my sister," Rhoda murmured, in anger, but more in fear.
+
+She was sternly bidden to read, and she read,--
+
+     Dahlia,--There is mercy for us.  You are not lost to me.
+
+                                   "Edward."
+
+
+After this, was appended in a feminine hand:--
+
+     "There is really hope.  A few hours will tell us.  But keep firm.
+     If he comes near you, keep from him.  You are not his.  Run, hide,
+     go anywhere, if you have reason to think he is near.  I dare not
+     write what it is we expect.  Yesterday I told you to hope; to-day I
+     can say, believe that you will be saved.  You are not lost.
+     Everything depends on your firmness.
+
+                                   "Margaret L."
+
+Rhoda lifted up her eyes.
+
+The farmer seized the letter, and laid his finger on the first signature.
+
+"Is that the christian name of my girl's seducer?"
+
+He did not wait for an answer, but turned and went into the
+breakfast-table, when he ordered a tray with breakfast for Dahlia to
+betaken up to her bed-room; and that done, he himself turned the key of
+the door, and secured her.  Mute woe was on Mrs. Sumfit's face at all
+these strange doings, but none heeded her, and she smothered her
+lamentations.  The farmer spoke nothing either of Robert or of Anthony.
+He sat in his chair till the dinner hour, without book or pipe, without
+occupation for eyes or hands; silent, but acute in his hearing.
+
+The afternoon brought relief to Rhoda's apprehensions.  A messenger ran
+up to the farm bearing a pencilled note to her from Robert, which said
+that he, in company with her uncle, was holding Sedgett at a distance by
+force of arm, and that there was no fear.  Rhoda kissed the words,
+hurrying away to the fields for a few minutes to thank and bless and
+dream of him who had said that there was no fear.  She knew that Dahlia
+was unconscious of her imprisonment, and had less compunction in counting
+the minutes of her absence.  The sun spread in yellow and fell in red
+before she thought of returning, so sweet it had become to her to let her
+mind dwell with Robert; and she was half a stranger to the mournfulness
+of the house when she set her steps homeward.  But when she lifted the
+latch of the gate, a sensation, prompted by some unwitting self-accusal,
+struck her with alarm.  She passed into the room, and beheld her father,
+and Mrs. Sumfit, who was sitting rolling, with her apron over her head.
+
+The man Sedgett was between them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+No sooner had Rhoda appeared than her father held up the key of Dahlia's
+bed-room, and said, "Unlock your sister, and fetch her down to her
+husband."
+
+Mechanically Rhoda took the key.
+
+"And leave our door open," he added.
+
+She went up to Dahlia, sick with a sudden fright lest evil had come to
+Robert, seeing that his enemy was here; but that was swept from her by
+Dahlia's aspect.
+
+"He is in the house," Dahlia said; and asked, "Was there no letter--no
+letter; none, this morning?"
+
+Rhoda clasped her in her arms, seeking to check the convulsions of her
+trembling.
+
+"No letter! no letter! none? not any?  Oh! no letter for me!"
+
+The strange varying tones of musical interjection and interrogation were
+pitiful to hear.
+
+"Did you look for a letter?" said Rhoda, despising herself for so
+speaking.
+
+"He is in the house!  Where is my letter?"
+
+"What was it you hoped? what was it you expected, darling?"
+
+Dahlia moaned: "I don't know.  I'm blind.  I was told to hope.  Yesterday
+I had my letter, and it told me to hope.  He is in the house!"
+
+"Oh, my dear, my love!" cried Rhoda; "come down a minute.  See him.  It
+is father's wish.  Come only for a minute.  Come, to gain time, if there
+is hope."
+
+"But there was no letter for me this morning, Rhoda.  I can't hope.  I am
+lost.  He is in the house!"
+
+"Dearest, there was a letter," said Rhoda, doubting that she did well in
+revealing it.
+
+Dahlia put out her hands dumb for the letter.
+
+"Father opened it, and read it, and keeps it," said Rhoda, clinging tight
+to the stricken form.
+
+"Then, he is against me?  Oh, my letter!" Dahlia wrung her hands.
+
+While they were speaking, their father's voice was heard below calling
+for Dahlia to descend.  He came thrice to the foot of the stairs, and
+shouted for her.
+
+The third time he uttered a threat that sprang an answer from her bosom
+in shrieks.
+
+Rhoda went out on the landing and said softly, "Come up to her, father."
+
+After a little hesitation, he ascended the stairs.
+
+"Why, girl, I only ask you to come down and see your husband," he
+remarked with an attempt at kindliness of tone.  "What's the harm, then?
+Come and see him; that's all; come and see him."
+
+Dahlia was shrinking out of her father's sight as he stood in the
+doorway.  "Say," she communicated to Rhoda, "say, I want my letter."
+
+"Come!" William Fleming grew impatient.
+
+"Let her have her letter, father," said Rhoda.  "You have no right to
+withhold it."
+
+"That letter, my girl" (he touched Rhoda's shoulder as to satisfy her
+that he was not angry), "that letter's where it ought to be.  I've
+puzzled out the meaning of it.  That letter's in her husband's
+possession."
+
+Dahlia, with her ears stretching for all that might be uttered, heard
+this.  Passing round the door, she fronted her father.
+
+"My letter gone to him!" she cried.  "Shameful old man!  Can you look on
+me?  Father, could you give it?  I'm a dead woman."
+
+She smote her bosom, stumbling backward upon Rhoda's arm.
+
+"You have been a wicked girl," the ordinarily unmoved old man retorted.
+"Your husband has come for you, and you go with him.  Know that, and let
+me hear no threats.  He's a modest-minded, quiet young man, and a farmer
+like myself, and needn't be better than he is.  Come you down to him at
+once.  I'll tell you: he comes to take you away, and his cart's at the
+gate.  To the gate you go with him.  When next I see you--you visiting me
+or I visiting you--I shall see a respected creature, and not what you
+have been and want to be.  You have racked the household with fear and
+shame for years.  Now come, and carry out what you've begun in the
+contrary direction.  You've got my word o' command, dead woman or live
+woman.  Rhoda, take one elbow of your sister.  Your aunt's coming up to
+pack her box.  I say I'm determined, and no one stops me when I say that.
+Come out, Dahlia, and let our parting be like between parent and child.
+Here's the dark falling, and your husband's anxious to be away.  He has
+business, and 'll hardly get you to the station for the last train to
+town.  Hark at him below!  He's naturally astonished, he is, and you're
+trying his temper, as you'd try any man's.  He wants to be off.  Come,
+and when next we meet I shall see you a happy wife."
+
+He might as well have spoken to a corpse.
+
+"Speak to her still, father," said Rhoda, as she drew a chair upon which
+she leaned her sister's body, and ran down full of the power of hate and
+loathing to confront Sedgett; but great as was that power within her, it
+was overmatched by his brutal resolution to take his wife away.  No
+argument, no irony, no appeals, can long withstand the iteration of a
+dogged phrase.  "I've come for my wife," Sedgett said to all her
+instances.  His voice was waxing loud and insolent, and, as it sounded,
+Mrs. Sumfit moaned and flapped her apron.
+
+"Then, how could you have married him?"
+
+They heard the farmer's roar of this unanswerable thing, aloft.
+
+"Yes--how! how!" cried Rhoda below, utterly forgetting the part she had
+played in the marriage.
+
+"It's too late to hate a man when you've married him, my girl."
+
+Sedgett went out to the foot of the stairs.
+
+"Mr. Fleming--she's my wife.  I'll teach her about hating and loving.
+I'll behave well to her, I swear.  I'm in the midst of enemies; but I say
+I do love my wife, and I've come for her, and have her I will.  Now, in
+two minutes' time.  Mr. Fleming, my cart's at the gate, and I've got
+business, and she's my wife."
+
+The farmer called for Mrs. Sumfit to come up and pack Dahlia's box, and
+the forlorn woman made her way to the bedroom.  All the house was silent.
+Rhoda closed her sight, and she thought: "Does God totally abandon us?"
+
+She let her father hear: "Father, you know that you are killing your
+child."
+
+"I hear ye, my lass," said he.
+
+"She will die, father."
+
+"I hear ye, I hear ye."
+
+"She will die, father."
+
+He stamped furiously, exclaiming: "Who's got the law of her better and
+above a husband?  Hear reason, and come and help and fetch down your
+sister.  She goes!"
+
+"Father!" Rhoda cried, looking at her open hands, as if she marvelled to
+see them helpless.
+
+There was for a time that silence which reigns in a sickchamber when the
+man of medicine takes the patient's wrist.  And in the silence came a
+blessed sound--the lifting of a latch.  Rhoda saw Robert's face.
+
+"So," said Robert, as she neared him, "you needn't tell me what's
+happened.  Here's the man, I see.  He dodged me cleverly.  The hound
+wants practice; the fox is born with his cunning."
+
+Few words were required to make him understand the position of things in
+the house.  Rhoda spoke out all without hesitation in Sedgett's hearing.
+
+But the farmer respected Robert enough to come down to him and explain
+his views of his duty and his daughter's duty.  By the kitchen firelight
+he and Robert and Sedgett read one another's countenances.
+
+"He has a proper claim to take his wife, Robert," said the farmer.  "He's
+righted her before the world, and I thank him; and if he asks for her of
+me he must have her, and he shall."
+
+"All right, sir," replied Robert, "and I say too, shall, when I'm stiff
+as log-wood."
+
+"Oh! Robert, Robert!" Rhoda cried in great joy.
+
+"Do you mean that you step 'twixt me and my own?" said Mr. Fleming.
+
+"I won't let you nod at downright murder--that's all," said Robert.
+"She--Dahlia, take the hand of that creature!"
+
+"Why did she marry me?" thundered Sedgett.
+
+"There's one o' the wonders!" Robert rejoined.  "Except that you're an
+amazingly clever hypocrite with women; and she was just half dead and had
+no will of her own; and some one set you to hunt her down.  I tell you,
+Mr. Fleming, you might as well send your daughter to the hangman as put
+her in this fellow's hands."
+
+"She's his wife, man."
+
+"May be," Robert assented.
+
+"You, Robert Eccles!" said Sedgett hoarsely; "I've come for my wife--do
+you hear?"
+
+"You have, I dare say," returned Robert.  "You dodged me cleverly, that
+you did.  I'd like to know how it was done.  I see you've got a cart
+outside and a boy at the horse's head.  The horse steps well, does he?
+I'm about three hours behind him, I reckon:--not too late, though!"
+
+He let fall a great breath of weariness.
+
+Rhoda went to the cupboard and drew forth a rarely touched bottle of
+spirits, with which she filled a small glass, and handing the glass to
+him, said, "Drink."   He smiled kindly and drank it off.
+
+"The man's in your house, Mr. Fleming," he said.
+
+"And he's my guest, and my daughter's husband, remember that," said the
+farmer.
+
+"And mean to wait not half a minute longer till I've taken her off--mark
+that," Sedgett struck in.  "Now, Mr. Fleming, you see you keep good your
+word to me."
+
+"I'll do no less," said the farmer.  He went into the passage shouting
+for Mrs. Sumfit to bring down the box.
+
+"She begs," Mrs. Sumfit answered to him--"She begs, William, on'y a short
+five minutes to pray by herself, which you will grant unto her, dear, you
+will.  Lord! what's come upon us?"
+
+"Quick, and down with the box, then, mother," he rejoined.
+
+The box was dragged out, and Dahlia's door was shut, that she might have
+her last minutes alone.
+
+Rhoda kissed her sister before leaving her alone: and so cold were
+Dahlia's lips, so tight the clutch of her hands, that she said: "Dearest,
+think of God:" and Dahlia replied: "I do."
+
+"He will not forsake you," Rhoda said.
+
+Dahlia nodded, with shut eyes, and Rhoda went forth.
+
+"And now, Robert, you and I'll see who's master on these premises," said
+the farmer.  "Hear, all! I'm bounders under a sacred obligation to the
+husband of my child, and the Lord's wrath on him who interferes and lifts
+his hand against me when I perform my sacred duty as a father.  Place
+there!  I'm going to open the door.  Rhoda, see to your sister's bonnet
+and things.  Robert, stand out of my way.  There's no refreshment of any
+sort you'll accept of before starting, Mr. Sedgett?   None at all!
+That's no fault of my hospitality.  Stand out of my way, Robert."
+
+He was obeyed.  Robert looked at Rhoda, but had no reply for her gaze of
+despair.
+
+The farmer threw the door wide open.
+
+There were people in the garden--strangers.  His name was inquired for
+out of the dusk.  Then whisperings were heard passing among the
+ill-discerned forms, and the farmer went out to them.  Robert listened
+keenly, but the touch of Rhoda's hand upon his own distracted his
+hearing.  "Yet it must be!" he said.  "Why does she come here?"
+
+Both he and Rhoda followed the farmer's steps, drawn forth by the
+ever-credulous eagerness which arises from an interruption to excited
+wretchedness.  Near and nearer to the group, they heard a quaint old
+woman exclaim: "Come here to you for a wife, when he has one of his own
+at home; a poor thing he shipped off to America, thinking himself more
+cunning than devils or angels: and she got put out at a port, owing to
+stress of weather, to defeat the man's wickedness!  Can't I prove it to
+you, sir, he's a married man, which none of us in our village knew till
+the poor tricked thing crawled back penniless to find him;--and there she
+is now with such a story of his cunning to tell to anybody as will
+listen; and why he kept it secret to get her pension paid him still on.
+It's all such a tale for you to hear by-and-by."
+
+Robert burst into a glorious laugh.
+
+"Why, mother!  Mrs. Boulby! haven't you got a word for me?"
+
+"My blessedest Robert!" the good woman cried, as she rushed up to kiss
+him.  "Though it wasn't to see you I came exactly."   She whispered: "The
+Major and the good gentleman--they're behind.  I travelled down with
+them.  Dear,--you'd like to know:--Mrs. Lovell sent her little cunning
+groom down to Warbeach just two weeks back to make inquiries about that
+villain; and the groom left me her address, in case, my dear, when the
+poor creature--his true wife--crawled home, and we knew of her at Three-
+Tree Farm and knew her story.  I wrote word at once, I did, to Mrs.
+Lovell, and the sweet good lady sent down her groom to fetch me to you to
+make things clear here.  You shall understand them soon.  It's Providence
+at work.  I do believe that now there's a chance o' punishing the wicked
+ones."
+
+The figure of Rhoda with two lights in her hand was seen in the porch,
+and by the shadowy rays she beheld old Anthony leaning against the house,
+and Major Waring with a gentleman beside him close upon the gate.
+
+At the same time a sound of wheels was heard.
+
+Robert rushed back into the great parlour-kitchen, and finding it empty,
+stamped with vexation.  His prey had escaped.
+
+But there was no relapse to give spare thoughts to that pollution of the
+house.  It had passed.  Major Waring was talking earnestly to Mr.
+Fleming, who held his head low, stupefied, and aware only of the fact
+that it was a gentleman imparting to him strange matters.  By degrees all
+were beneath the farmer's roof--all, save one, who stood with bowed head
+by the threshold.
+
+There is a sort of hero, and a sort of villain, to this story: they are
+but instruments.  Hero and villain are combined in the person of Edward,
+who was now here to abase himself before the old man and the family he
+had injured, and to kneel penitently at the feet of the woman who had
+just reason to spurn him.  He had sold her as a slave is sold; he had
+seen her plunged into the blackest pit; yet was she miraculously kept
+pure for him, and if she could give him her pardon, might still be his.
+The grief for which he could ask no compassion had at least purified him
+to meet her embrace.  The great agony he had passed through of late had
+killed his meaner pride.  He stood there ready to come forward and ask
+forgiveness from unfriendly faces, and beg that he might be in Dahlia's
+eyes once--that he might see her once.
+
+He had grown to love her with the fullest force of a selfish, though not
+a common, nature.  Or rather he had always loved her, and much of the
+selfishness had fallen away from his love.  It was not the highest form
+of love, but the love was his highest development.  He had heard that
+Dahlia, lost to him, was free.  Something like the mortal yearning to
+look upon the dead risen to life, made it impossible for him to remain
+absent and in doubt.  He was ready to submit to every humiliation that he
+might see the rescued features; he was willing to pay all his penalties.
+Believing, too, that he was forgiven, he knew that Dahlia's heart would
+throb for him to be near her, and he had come.
+
+The miraculous agencies which had brought him and Major Waring and Mrs.
+Boulby to the farm, that exalted woman was relating to Mrs. Sumfit in
+another part of the house.
+
+The farmer, and Percy, and Robert were in the family sitting-room, when,
+after an interval, William Fleming said aloud, "Come in, sir," and Edward
+stepped in among them.
+
+Rhoda was above, seeking admittance to her sisters door, and she heard
+her father utter that welcome.  It froze her limbs, for still she hated
+the evil-doer.  Her hatred of him was a passion.  She crouched over the
+stairs, listening to a low and long-toned voice monotonously telling what
+seemed to be one sole thing over and over, without variation, in the room
+where the men were.  Words were indistinguishable.  Thrice, after calling
+to Dahlia and getting no response, she listened again, and awe took her
+soul at last, for, abhorred as he was by her, his power was felt: she
+comprehended something of that earnestness which made the offender speak
+of his wrongful deeds, and his shame, and his remorse, before his
+fellow-men, straight out and calmly, like one who has been plunged up to
+the middle in the fires of the abyss, and is thereafter insensible to
+meaner pains.  The voice ended.  She was then aware that it had put a
+charm upon her ears.  The other voices following it sounded dull.
+
+"Has he--can he have confessed in words all his wicked baseness?" she
+thought, and in her soul the magnitude of his crime threw a gleam of
+splendour on his courage, even at the bare thought that he might have
+done this.  Feeling that Dahlia was saved, and thenceforth at liberty to
+despise him and torture him, Rhoda the more readily acknowledged that it
+might be a true love for her sister animating him.  From the height of a
+possible vengeance it was perceptible.
+
+She turned to her sister's door and knocked at it, calling to her, "Safe,
+safe!" but there came no answer; and she was half glad, for she had a
+fear that in the quick revulsion of her sister's feelings, mere earthly
+love would act like heavenly charity, and Edward would find himself
+forgiven only too instantly and heartily.
+
+In the small musk-scented guest's parlour, Mrs. Boulby was giving Mrs.
+Sumfit and poor old sleepy Anthony the account of the miraculous
+discovery of Sedgett's wickedness, which had vindicated all one hoped for
+from Above; as also the narration of the stabbing of her boy, and the
+heroism and great-heartedness of Robert.  Rhoda listened to her for a
+space, and went to her sister's door again; but when she stood outside
+the kitchen she found all voices silent within.
+
+It was, in truth, not only very difficult for William Fleming to change
+his view of the complexion of circumstances as rapidly as circumstances
+themselves changed, but it was very bitter for him to look upon Edward,
+and to see him in the place of Sedgett.
+
+He had been struck dumb by the sudden revolution of affairs in his house;
+and he had been deferentially convinced by Major Waring's tone that he
+ought rightly to give his hearing to an unknown young gentleman against
+whom anger was due.  He had listened to Edward without one particle of
+comprehension, except of the fact that his behaviour was extraordinary.
+He understood that every admission made by Edward with such grave and
+strange directness, would justly have condemned him to punishment which
+the culprit's odd, and upright, and even-toned self-denunciation rendered
+it impossible to think of inflicting.  He knew likewise that a whole
+history was being narrated to him, and that, although the other two
+listeners manifestly did not approve it, they expected him to show some
+tolerance to the speaker.
+
+He said once, "Robert, do me the favour to look about outside for t'
+other."   Robert answered him, that the man was far away by this time.
+
+The farmer suggested that he might be waiting to say his word presently.
+
+"Don't you know you've been dealing with a villain, sir?" cried Robert.
+"Throw ever so little light upon one of that breed, and they skulk in a
+hurry.  Mr. Fleming, for the sake of your honour, don't mention him
+again.  What you're asked to do now, is to bury the thoughts of him."
+
+"He righted my daughter when there was shame on her," the farmer replied.
+
+That was the idea printed simply on his understanding.
+
+For Edward to hear it was worse than a scourging with rods.  He bore it,
+telling the last vitality of his pride to sleep, and comforting himself
+with the drowsy sensuous expectation that he was soon to press the hand
+of his lost one, his beloved, who was in the house, breathing the same
+air with him; was perhaps in the room above, perhaps sitting impatiently
+with clasped fingers, waiting for the signal to unlock them and fling
+them open.  He could imagine the damp touch of very expectant fingers;
+the dying look of life-drinking eyes; and, oh! the helplessness of her
+limbs as she sat buoying a heart drowned in bliss.
+
+It was unknown to him that the peril of her uttermost misery had been so
+imminent, and the picture conjured of her in his mind was that of a
+gentle but troubled face--a soul afflicted, yet hoping because it had
+been told to hope, and half conscious that a rescue, almost divine in its
+suddenness and unexpectedness, and its perfect clearing away of all
+shadows, approached.
+
+Manifestly, by the pallid cast of his visage, he had tasted shrewd and
+wasting grief of late.  Robert's heart melted as he beheld the change in
+Edward.
+
+"I believe, Mr. Blancove, I'm a little to blame," he said.  "Perhaps when
+I behaved so badly down at Fairly, you may have thought she sent me, and
+it set your heart against her for a time.  I can just understand how it
+might."
+
+Edward thought for a moment, and conscientiously accepted the suggestion;
+for, standing under that roof, with her whom he loved near him, it was
+absolutely out of his power for him to comprehend that his wish to break
+from Dahlia, and the measures he had taken or consented to, had sprung
+from his own unassisted temporary baseness.
+
+Then Robert spoke to the farmer.
+
+Rhoda could hear Robert's words.  Her fear was that Dahlia might hear
+them too, his pleading for Edward was so hearty.  "Yet why should I
+always think differently from Robert?" she asked herself, and with that
+excuse for changeing, partially thawed.
+
+She was very anxious for her father's reply; and it was late in coming.
+She felt that he was unconvinced.  But suddenly the door opened, and the
+farmer called into the darkness,--
+
+"Dahlia down here!"
+
+Previously emotionless, an emotion was started in Rhoda's bosom by the
+command, and it was gladness.  She ran up and knocked, and found herself
+crying out: "He is here--Edward."
+
+But there came no answer.
+
+"Edward is here.  Come, come and see him."
+
+Still not one faint reply.
+
+"Dahlia! Dahlia!"
+
+The call of Dahlia's name seemed to travel endlessly on.  Rhoda knelt,
+and putting her mouth to the door, said,--
+
+"My darling, I know you will reply to me.  I know you do not doubt me
+now.  Listen.  You are to come down to happiness."
+
+The silence grew heavier; and now a doubt came shrieking through her
+soul.
+
+"Father!" rang her outcry.
+
+The father came; and then the lover came, and neither to father nor to
+lover was there any word from Dahlia's voice.
+
+She was found by the side of the bed, inanimate, and pale as a sister of
+death.
+
+But you who may have cared for her through her many tribulations, have no
+fear for this gentle heart.  It was near the worst; yet not the worst.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+
+Up to the black gates, but not beyond them.  The dawn following such a
+night will seem more like a daughter of the night than promise of day.
+It is day that follows, notwithstanding: The sad fair girl survived, and
+her flickering life was the sole light of the household; at times burying
+its members in dusk, to shine on them again more like a prolonged
+farewell than a gladsome restoration.
+
+She was saved by what we call chance; for it had not been in her design
+to save herself.  The hand was firm to help her to the deadly draught.
+As far as could be conjectured, she had drunk it between hurried readings
+from her mother's Bible; the one true companion to which she had often
+clung, always half-availingly.  The Bible was found by her side, as if it
+had fallen from the chair before which she knelt to read her last
+quickening verses, and had fallen with her.  One arm was about it; one
+grasped the broken phial with its hideous label.
+
+It was uncomplainingly registered among the few facts very distinctly
+legible in Master Gammon's memory, that for three entire weeks he had no
+dumplings for dinner at the farm; and although, upon a computation,
+articles of that description, amounting probably to sixty-three (if there
+is any need for our being precise), were due to him, and would
+necessarily be for evermore due to him, seeing that it is beyond all
+human and even spiritual agency to make good unto man the dinner he has
+lost, Master Gammon uttered no word to show that he was sensible of a
+slight, which was the only indication given by him of his knowledge of a
+calamity having changed the order of things at the farm.  On the day when
+dumplings reappeared, he remarked, with a glance at the ceiling: "Goin'
+on better--eh, marm?"
+
+"Oh! Mas' Gammon," Mrs. Sumfit burst out; "if I was only certain you said
+your prayers faithful every night!"  The observation was apparently taken
+by Master Gammon to express one of the mere emotions within her bosom,
+for he did not reply to it.
+
+She watched him feeding in his steady way, with the patient bent back,
+and slowly chopping old grey jaws, and struck by a pathos in the sight,
+exclaimed,--
+
+"We've all been searched so, Mas' Gammon!  I feel I know everything
+that's in me.  I'd say, I couldn't ha' given you dumplin's and tears; but
+think of our wickedness, when I confess to you I did feel spiteful at you
+to think that you were wiltin' to eat the dumplin's while all of us
+mourned and rocked as in a quake, expecting the worst to befall; and that
+made me refuse them to you.  It was cruel of me, and well may you shake
+your head.  If I was only sure you said your prayers!"
+
+The meaning in her aroused heart was, that if she could be sure Master
+Gammon said his prayers, so as to be searched all through by them, as she
+was herself, and to feel thereby, as she did, that he knew everything
+that was within him, she would then, in admiration of his profound
+equanimity, acknowledge him to be a superior Christian.
+
+Naturally enough, Master Gammon allowed the interjection to pass,
+regarding it as simply a vagrant action of the engine of speech; while
+Mrs. Sumfit, with an interjector's consciousness of prodigious things
+implied which were not in any degree comprehended, left his presence in
+kindness, and with a shade less of the sense that he was a superior
+Christian.
+
+Nevertheless, the sight of Master Gammon was like a comforting medicine
+to all who were in the house.  He was Mrs. Sumfit's clock; he was balm
+and blessedness in Rhoda's eyes; Anthony was jealous of him; the farmer
+held to him as to a stake in the ground: even Robert, who rallied and
+tormented, and was vexed by him, admitted that he stood some way between
+an example and a warning, and was a study.  The grand primaeval quality
+of unchangeableness, as exhibited by this old man, affected them
+singularly in their recovery from the storm and the wreck of the hours
+gone by; so much so that they could not divest themselves of the idea
+that it was a manifestation of power in Master Gammon to show forth
+undisturbed while they were feeling their life shaken in them to the
+depths.  I have never had the opportunity of examining the
+idol-worshipping mind of a savage; but it seems possible that the
+immutability of aspect of his little wooden God may sometimes touch him
+with a similar astounded awe;--even when, and indeed especially after, he
+has thrashed it.  Had the old man betrayed his mortality in a sign of
+curiosity to know why the hubbub of trouble had arisen, and who was to
+blame, and what was the story, the effect on them would have been
+diminished.  He really seemed granite among the turbulent waves.  "Give
+me Gammon's life!" was Farmer Fleming's prayerful interjection; seeing
+him come and go, sit at his meals, and sleep and wake in season, all
+through those tragic hours of suspense, without a question to anybody.
+Once or twice, when his eye fell upon the doctor, Master Gammon appeared
+to meditate.  He observed that the doctor had never been called in to one
+of his family, and it was evident that he did not understand the
+complication of things which rendered the doctor's visit necessary.
+
+"You'll never live so long as that old man," the farmer said to Robert.
+
+"No; but when he goes, all of him's gone," Robert answered.
+
+"But Gammon's got the wisdom to keep himself safe, Robert; there's no one
+to blame for his wrinkles."
+
+"Gammon's a sheepskin old Time writes his nothings on," said Robert.
+"He's safe--safe enough.  An old hulk doesn't very easily manage to
+founder in the mud, and Gammon's been lying on the mud all his life."
+
+"Let that be how 't will," returned the farmer; "I've had days o' mortal
+envy of that old man."
+
+"Well, it's whether you prefer being the fiddle or the fiddle-case,"
+quoth Robert.
+
+Of Anthony the farmer no longer had any envy.  In him, though he was as
+passive as Master Gammon, the farmer beheld merely a stupefied old man,
+and not a steady machine.  He knew that some queer misfortune had
+befallen Anthony.
+
+"He'll find I'm brotherly," said Mr. Fleming; but Anthony had darkened
+his golden horizon for him, and was no longer an attractive object to his
+vision.
+
+Upon an Autumn afternoon; Dahlia, looking like a pale Spring flower, came
+down among them.  She told her sister that it was her wish to see Edward.
+Rhoda had lost all power of will, even if she had desired to keep them
+asunder.  She mentioned Dahlia's wish to her father, who at once went for
+his hat, and said: "Dress yourself neat, my lass."  She knew what was
+meant by that remark.  Messages daily had been coming down from the Hall,
+but the rule of a discerning lady was then established there, and Rhoda
+had been spared a visit from either Edward or Algernon, though she knew
+them to be at hand.  During Dahlia's convalescence, the farmer had not
+spoken to Rhoda of her engagement to the young squire.  The great misery
+intervening, seemed in her mind to have cancelled all earthly
+engagements; and when he said that she must use care in her attire he
+suddenly revived a dread within her bosom, as if he had plucked her to
+the verge of a chasm.
+
+But Mrs. Lovell's delicacy was still manifest: Edward came alone, and he
+and Dahlia were left apart.
+
+There was no need to ask for pardon from those gentle eyes.  They joined
+hands.  She was wasted and very weak, but she did not tremble.  Passion
+was extinguished.  He refrained from speaking of their union, feeling
+sure that they were united.  It required that he should see her to know
+fully the sinner he had been.  Wasted though she was, he was ready to
+make her his own, if only for the sake of making amends to this dear fair
+soul, whose picture of Saint was impressed on him, first as a response to
+the world wondering at his sacrifice of himself, and next, by degrees, as
+an absolute visible fleshly fact.  She had come out of her martyrdom
+stamped with the heavenly sign-mark.
+
+"Those are the old trees I used to speak of," she said, pointing to the
+two pines in the miller's grounds.  "They always look like Adam and Eve
+turning away."
+
+"They do not make you unhappy to see them, Dahlia?"
+
+"I hope to see them till I am gone."
+
+Edward pressed her fingers.  He thought that warmer hopes would soon flow
+into her.
+
+"The neighbours are kind?" he asked.
+
+"Very kind.  They, inquire after me daily."
+
+His cheeks reddened; he had spoken at random, and he wondered that Dahlia
+should feel it pleasurable to be inquired after, she who was so
+sensitive.
+
+"The clergyman sits with me every day, and knows my heart," she added.
+
+"The clergyman is a comfort to women," said Edward.
+
+Dahlia looked at him gently.  The round of her thin eyelids dwelt on him.
+She wished.  She dared not speak her wish to one whose remembered mastery
+in words forbade her poor speechlessness.  But God would hear her prayers
+for him.
+
+Edward begged that he might come to her often, and she said,--
+
+"Come."
+
+He misinterpreted the readiness of the invitation.
+
+When he had left her, he reflected on the absence of all endearing
+epithets in her speech, and missed them.  Having himself suffered, he
+required them.  For what had she wrestled so sharply with death, if not
+to fall upon his bosom and be his in a great outpouring of gladness?  In
+fact he craved the immediate reward for his public acknowledgement of his
+misdeeds.  He walked in this neighbourhood known by what he had done, and
+his desire was to take his wife away, never more to be seen there.
+Following so deep a darkness, he wanted at least a cheerful dawn: not one
+of a penitential grey--not a hooded dawn, as if the paths of life were to
+be under cloistral arches.  And he wanted a rose of womanhood in his hand
+like that he had parted with, and to recover which he had endured every
+earthly mortification, even to absolute abasement.  The frail bent lily
+seemed a stranger to him.
+
+Can a man go farther than his nature?  Never, when he takes passion on
+board.  By other means his nature may be enlarged and nerved, but passion
+will find his weakness, and, while urging him on, will constantly betray
+him at that point.  Edward had three interviews with Dahlia; he wrote to
+her as many times.  There was but one answer for him; and when he ceased
+to charge her with unforgivingness, he came to the strange conclusion
+that beyond our calling of a woman a Saint for rhetorical purposes, and
+esteeming her as one for pictorial, it is indeed possible, as he had
+slightly discerned in this woman's presence, both to think her saintly
+and to have the sentiments inspired by the overearthly in her person.
+Her voice, her simple words of writing, her gentle resolve, all issuing
+of a capacity to suffer evil, and pardon it, conveyed that character to a
+mind not soft for receiving such impressions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+Major Waring came to Wrexby Hall at the close of the October month.  He
+came to plead his own cause with Mrs. Lovell; but she stopped him by
+telling him that his friend Robert was in some danger of losing his love.
+
+"She is a woman, Percy; I anticipate your observation.  But, more than
+that, she believes she is obliged to give her hand to my cousin, the
+squire.  It's an intricate story relating to money.  She does not care
+for Algy a bit, which is not a matter that greatly influences him.  He
+has served her in some mysterious way; by relieving an old uncle of hers.
+Algy has got him the office of village postman for this district, I
+believe; if it's that; but I think it should be more, to justify her.  At
+all events, she seems to consider that her hand is pledged.  You know the
+kind of girl your friend fancies.  Besides, her father insists she is to
+marry "the squire," which is certainly the most natural thing of all.
+So, don't you think, dear Percy, you had better take your friend on the
+Continent for some weeks?  I never, I confess, exactly understood the
+intimacy existing between you, but it must be sincere."
+
+"Are you?" said Percy.
+
+"Yes, perfectly; but always in a roundabout way.  Why do you ask me in
+this instance?"
+
+"Because you could stop this silly business in a day."
+
+"I know I could."
+
+"Then, why do you not?"
+
+"Because of a wish to be sincere.  Percy, I have been that throughout, if
+you could read me.  I tried to deliver my cousin Edward from what I
+thought was a wretched entanglement.  His selfish falseness offended me,
+and I let him know that I despised him.  When I found that he was a man
+who had courage, and some heart, he gained my friendship once more, and I
+served him as far as I could--happily, as it chanced.  I tell you all
+this, because I don't care to forfeit your esteem, and heaven knows, I
+may want it in the days to come.  I believe I am the best friend in the
+world--and bad anything else.  No one perfectly pleases me, not even you:
+you are too studious of character, and, like myself, exacting of
+perfection in one or two points.  But now hear what I have done, and
+approve it if you think fit.  I have flirted--abominable word!--I am
+compelled to use the language of the Misses--yes, I have flirted with my
+cousin Algy.  I do it too well, I know--by nature! and I hate it.  He has
+this morning sent a letter down to the farm saying, that, as he believes
+he has failed in securing Rhoda's affections, he renounces all
+pretensions, etc., subject to her wishes, etc.  The courting, I imagine,
+can scarcely have been pleasant to him.  My delightful manner with him
+during the last fortnight has been infinitely pleasanter.  So, your
+friend Robert may be made happy by-and-by; that is to say, if his Rhoda
+is not too like her sex."
+
+"You're an enchantress," exclaimed Percy.
+
+"Stop," said she, and drifted into seriousness.  "Before you praise me
+you must know more.  Percy, that duel in India--"
+
+He put out his hand to her.
+
+"Yes, I forgive," she resumed.  "You were cruel then.  Remember that, and
+try to be just now.  The poor boy would go to his doom.  I could have
+arrested it.  I partly caused it.  I thought the honour of the army at
+stake.  I was to blame on that day, and I am to blame again, but I feel
+that I am almost excuseable, if you are not too harsh a judge.  No, I am
+not; I am execrable; but forgive me."
+
+Percy's face lighted up in horrified amazement as Margaret Lovell
+unfastened the brooch at her neck and took out the dull-red handkerchief.
+
+"It was the bond between us," she pursued, "that I was to return this to
+you when I no longer remained my own mistress.  Count me a miserably
+heartless woman.  I do my best.  You brought this handkerchief to me
+dipped in the blood of the poor boy who was slain.  I have worn it.  It
+was a safeguard.  Did you mean it to serve as such?  Oh, Percy! I felt
+continually that blood was on my bosom.  I felt it fighting with me.  It
+has saved me from much.  And now I return it to you."
+
+He could barely articulate "Why?"
+
+"Dear friend, by the reading of the bond you should know.  I asked you
+when I was leaving India, how long I was to keep it by me.  You said,
+"Till you marry."  Do not be vehement, Percy.  This is a thing that could
+not have been averted."
+
+"Is it possible," Percy cried, "that you carried the play out so far as
+to promise him to marry him?"
+
+"Your forehead is thunder, Percy.  I know that look."
+
+"Margaret, I think I could bear to see our army suffer another defeat
+rather than you should be contemptible."
+
+"Your chastisement is not given in half measures, Percy."
+
+"Speak on," said he; "there is more to come.  You are engaged to marry
+him?"
+
+"I engaged that I would take the name of Blancove."
+
+"If he would cease to persecute Rhoda Fleming!"
+
+"The stipulation was exactly in those words."
+
+"You mean to carry it out?"
+
+"To be sincere?  I do, Percy!
+
+"You mean to marry Algernon Blancove?"
+
+"I should be contemptible indeed if I did, Percy!
+
+"You do not?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"And you are sincere?  By all the powers of earth and heaven, there's no
+madness like dealing with an animated enigma!  What is it you do mean?"
+
+"As I said--to be sincere.  But I was also bound to be of service to your
+friend.  It is easy to be sincere and passive."
+
+Percy struck his brows.  "Can you mean that Edward Blancove is the man?"
+
+"Oh! no.  Edward will never marry any one.  I do him the justice to say
+that his vice is not that of unfaithfulness.  He had but one love, and
+her heart is quite dead.  There is no marriage for him--she refuses.  You
+may not understand the why of that, but women will.  She would marry him
+if she could bring herself to it;--the truth is, he killed her pride.
+Her taste for life has gone.  She is bent on her sister's marrying your
+friend.  She has no other thought of marriage, and never will have.  I
+know the state.  It is not much unlike mine."
+
+Waring fixed her eyes.  "There is a man?"
+
+"Yes," she answered bluntly.
+
+"It is somebody, then, whose banker's account is, I hope, satisfactory."
+
+"Yes, Percy;" she looked eagerly forward, as thanking him for releasing
+her from a difficulty.  "You still can use the whip, but I do not feel
+the sting.  I marry a banker's account.  Do you bear in mind the day I
+sent after you in the park?  I had just heard that I was ruined.  You
+know my mania for betting.  I heard it, and knew when I let my heart warm
+to you that I could never marry you.  That is one reason, perhaps, why I
+have been an enigma.  I am sincere in telling Algy I shall take the name
+of Blancove.  I marry the banker.  Now take this old gift of yours."
+
+Percy grasped the handkerchief, and quitted her presence forthwith,
+feeling that he had swallowed a dose of the sex to serve him for a
+lifetime.  Yet he lived to reflect on her having decided practically,
+perhaps wisely for all parties.  Her debts expunged, she became an old
+gentleman's demure young wife, a sweet hostess, and, as ever, a true
+friend: something of a miracle to one who had inclined to make a heroine
+of her while imagining himself to accurately estimate her deficiencies.
+Honourably by this marriage the lady paid for such wild oats as she had
+sown in youth.
+
+There were joy-bells for Robert and Rhoda, but none for Dahlia and
+Edward.
+
+Dahlia lived seven years her sister's housemate, nurse of the growing
+swarm.  She had gone through fire, as few women have done in like manner,
+to leave their hearts among the ashes; but with that human heart she left
+regrets behind her.  The soul of this young creature filled its place.
+It shone in her eyes and in her work, a lamp to her little neighbourhood;
+and not less a lamp of cheerful beams for one day being as another to
+her.  In truth, she sat above the clouds.  When she died she relinquished
+nothing.  Others knew the loss.  Between her and Robert there was deeper
+community on one subject than she let Rhoda share.  Almost her last words
+to him, spoken calmly, but with the quaver of breath resembling sobs,
+were: "Help poor girls."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+You who may have cared for her through her many tribulations, have no fear
+Can a man go farther than his nature?
+Cold curiosity
+Found by the side of the bed, inanimate, and pale as a sister of death
+Sinners are not to repent only in words
+So long as we do not know that we are performing any remarkable feat
+There were joy-bells for Robert and Rhoda, but none for Dahlia
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Rhoda Fleming, v5
+by George Meredith
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE ENTIRE RHODA FLEMING:
+
+A fleet of South-westerly rainclouds had been met in mid-sky
+All women are the same--Know one, know all
+Ashamed of letting his ears be filled with secret talk
+Borrower to be dancing on Fortune's tight-rope above the old abyss
+But you must be beautiful to please some men
+But the key to young men is the ambition, or, in the place of it.....
+But great, powerful London--the new universe to her spirit
+Can a man go farther than his nature?
+Childish faith in the beneficence of the unseen Powers who feed us
+Cold curiosity
+Dahlia, the perplexity to her sister's heart, lay stretched....
+Dead Britons are all Britons, but live Britons are not quite brothers
+Developing stiff, solid, unobtrusive men, and very personable women
+Exceeding variety and quantity of things money can buy
+Found by the side of the bed, inanimate, and pale as a sister of death
+Full-o'-Beer's a hasty chap
+Gravely reproaching the tobacconist for the growing costliness of cigars
+He had no recollection of having ever dined without drinking wine
+He tried to gather his ideas, but the effort was like that of a light dreamer
+He lies as naturally as an infant sucks
+He will be a part of every history (the fool)
+I haven't got the pluck of a flea
+I never pay compliments to transparent merit
+I would cut my tongue out, if it did you a service
+Inferences are like shadows on the wall
+It was her prayer to heaven that she might save a doctor's bill
+Land and beasts!  They sound like blessed things
+Love dies like natural decay
+Marriage is an awful thing, where there's no love
+Mrs. Fleming, of Queen Anne's Farm, was the wife of a yeoman
+My first girl--she's brought disgrace on this house
+My plain story is of two Kentish damsels
+One learns to have compassion for fools, by studying them
+Pleasant companion, who did not play the woman obtrusively among men
+Principle of examining your hypothesis before you proceed to decide by it
+Rhoda will love you.  She is firm when she loves
+Silence is commonly the slow poison used by those who mean to murder love
+Sinners are not to repent only in words
+So long as we do not know that we are performing any remarkable feat
+Sort of religion with her to believe no wrong of you
+The unhappy, who do not wish to live, and cannot die
+The kindest of men can be cruel
+The idea of love upon the lips of ordinary men, provoked Dahlia's irony
+The backstairs of history (Memoirs)
+The woman seeking for an anomaly wants a master
+Then, if you will not tell me
+There were joy-bells for Robert and Rhoda, but none for Dahlia
+To be a really popular hero anywhere in Britain (must be a drinker)
+To be her master, however, one must not begin by writhing as her slave
+Wait till the day's ended before you curse your luck
+William John Fleming was simply a poor farmer
+With this money, said the demon,  you might speculate
+Work is medicine
+You who may have cared for her through her many tribulations, have no fear
+You choose to give yourself to an obscure dog
+You're a rank, right-down widow, and no mistake
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Rhoda Fleming, Complete
+by George Meredith
+
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