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diff --git a/old/52002-8.txt b/old/52002-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 903a515..0000000 --- a/old/52002-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4606 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mitchelhurst Place, Vol. II, by Margaret Veley - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Mitchelhurst Place, Vol. II - A Novel - -Author: Margaret Veley - -Release Date: May 5, 2016 [EBook #52002] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MITCHELHURST PLACE, VOL. II *** - - - - -Produced by Robert Cicconetti, David K. Park and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - -MITCHELHURST PLACE - -VOL. II - -[Illustration] - - -MITCHELHURST PLACE - -A Novel - -BY - -MARGARET VELEY - -AUTHOR OF "FOR PERCIVAL" - - "Que voulez-vous? Hélas! notre mère Nature, - Comme toute autre mère, a ses enfants gâtés, - Et pour les malvenus elle est avare et dure!" - - IN TWO VOLUMES - VOL. II. - - London - MACMILLAN AND CO. - 1884 - -_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved._ - - - - -Bungay: - -CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS. - - - - -CONTENTS OF VOL. II. - - - PAGE - CHAPTER I. - NO LETTER 1 - - CHAPTER II. - ONE MORE HOLIDAY 27 - - CHAPTER III. - MOONSHINE 44 - - CHAPTER IV. - REYNOLD'S REGRET 69 - - CHAPTER V. - LOVE'S MESSENGER 85 - - CHAPTER VI. - A PERPLEXING REFLECTION 112 - - CHAPTER VII. - TWO GLANCES 144 - - CHAPTER VIII. - IN NUTFIELD LANE 157 - - CHAPTER IX. - A VERSE OF AN OLD SONG 185 - - CHAPTER X. - JANUARY, 1883 232 - - - - -MITCHELHURST PLACE - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -NO LETTER. - - -The Mitchelhurst postman, coming up to the Place in his daily round, -found a young man loitering to and fro within view of the gate. The -morning was a pleasant one. The roadside grass was grey with dew, and -glistening pearls and diamonds were strung on the threads of gossamer, -tangled over bush and blade. The hollies in the hedgerows were brave and -bright, and there were many-tinted leaves yet clinging to the -bramble-sprays. Sun and wet together had turned the common road to a -shining, splendid way, up which the old postman crept, a dull, little, -toiling figure, with a bag over his shoulder, and something white in his -hand. The young man timed his indolent stroll so that they met each -other on the weedy slope, which led to the iron gate, with its solid -pillars, and white stone balls. There, with the briefest possible nod by -way of salutation, he demanded his letters. - -The old fellow knew him as the gentleman who was staying with Mr. Hayes, -and touched his cap obsequiously. He had carried his bag for more than -thirty years, and remembered old Squire Rothwell, and Mr. John, and he -fumbled with the letters in his hand, half expecting a curse at his -slowness, and hardly knowing what name he was to look for. The other -stood with his head high, showing a sharply-cut profile as he turned a -little, looking intently in the direction of the Place. Through the -black bars shone a pale bright picture of blue sky, and level turf, and -the gnarled and fantastic branches of the sunlit avenue. There were -yellow leaves on the straight roadway, and shadows softly interlaced, -and at the end the white, silent house. - -The postman finished his investigation, and announced in a hesitating -tone, "No, sir, no letter, sir. No letter at all, name of Rothwell." - -The young man turned upon him. "Harding, I said." - -"Yes, sir. No, sir, no letter name of Harding." - -"Are you sure? Give them to me." - -He looked them over. There were letters and papers for Mr. Hayes, one or -two for the servants, and one that had come from Devonshire for -Barbara. He gave them back with a meditative frown, and turned on his -heel without a word. The postman pushed the gate just sufficiently to -permit of a crab-like entrance to the grounds, and plodded along the -avenue, while the young fellow walked definitely away towards the -village. - -"The old boy doesn't write business letters on Sunday, I dare say," he -said to himself. "No, I don't suppose he would. Well, I shall hear -to-morrow. As well to-morrow as to-day, perhaps--better, perhaps. And -yet--and yet--Oh God! to get to work! I have banished myself from her -presence, I have shut that gate against me--that old fool goes crawling -up there with his letters--any one in Mitchelhurst may knock at that -door, and I may not! There's nothing left for me but to do the task she -set me, and by Heaven, I will! I shall have the right to speak to her -then, at any rate!" - -Barbara had intended to see Reynold before he left that morning. She did -not know what she wanted to say, she was uneasy at the thought of the -interview, but she could not endure that he should be dismissed from the -old house without a parting word. While Harding was moodily doubting -whether he had not alienated her for ever, she was wondering what she -could say or do to atone for the wrong done to him by her timidity. She -did not fully understand the meaning of the wrathful anguish of his last -speech, but she knew that she had pained him. She planned a score of -dialogues, she wearied herself in vain endeavours to guess what he -would say, and then, tired out, she solved the question by sleeping till -the sunlight fell upon her face, and the banished man was already beyond -the gate. - -She knew the truth the moment she awoke. It was only to confirm her -certainty that she dressed hurriedly and went out into the passage, to -see the door standing wide, and the vacant room. It seemed but -yesterday, and yet so long ago, since she made it ready for the coming -guest, who had left it in anger. Barbara sighed, and turned away. At the -head of the stairs she recalled the slim, dark figure that had stood -there so few hours before, fixing his angry eyes upon her, and grasping -the balustrade with long fingers as he spoke. The very ticking of the -old clock reminded her of their talk together the morning after he came, -and seemed to say "gone! gone! gone! gone!" as she went by. - -Her uncle came down a few minutes later, greeted her shortly, and -glanced at the table. It was laid for two. "I suppose there is nothing -to wait for?" he said. - -"Nothing," said Barbara, and she rang the bell. - -He unfolded a newspaper and spoke from behind it. "You know that young -fellow is gone?" - -"Yes." - -"Time he did go! I wish he had never come! Did you say good-bye to him?" - -"No. He went before I was down." - -Mr. Hayes uttered a little sound expressive of satisfaction, and the -girl perceived that she had accidentally led him to suppose that she had -had no talk with Harding since the quarrel. She did not speak. The maid -came into the room with the urn, and Mr. Hayes turned to her. "What man -was that I saw in the hall just now?" - -"He came for the gentleman's portmanteau, sir. He was to take it to Mrs. -Simmonds." - -He started, but controlled himself. "Mrs. Simmonds?" - -"Yes, sir, Mrs. Simmonds at the shop." - -Mr. Hayes was silent only till the door was closed behind her. Then, "He -has done that to spite me!" he said furiously. "Serves me right for -trying to be civil to one of these confounded Rothwells! They have the -devil's own temper, every one of them, and if they can do you a bad -turn, they will!" - -Barbara said nothing, but made tea rather drearily. - -"Confound him!" Mr. Hayes began afresh. "Now I suppose the whole place -will be cackling about this! He deserves to be kicked out of the parish, -and I should like to do it! I wish to heaven, Barbara, you wouldn't pick -young men out of the ditches in this fashion! You see what comes of it!" - -Barbara, appealed to in this direct and reasonable manner, plucked up -her spirit, and replied, rather loftily, that she would certainly -remember in future. She further remarked that the fish was getting cold. - -Mr. Hayes threw down the paper, and took his place. There was silence -for a minute or two, and then he began again. - -"There isn't a soul in Mitchelhurst that doesn't know he was staying -here. What do you suppose they will say when they find him starting off -at a moment's notice, and taking a lodging in the village, not a -stone's throw from my gate?" - -Barbara privately thought that, as Mr. Harding had betaken himself to -the further end of Mitchelhurst, her uncle's talent for throwing stones -must be remarkable. She did not suggest this, however, and when he -repeated his question, "What do you suppose they will say?" she only -replied that she did not know, she was sure. - -"Don't you?" said he, with withering scorn. "Well, I do." It was true -enough. He could guess pretty well what the gossips would say, and the -sting of it was that their version would not differ very much from the -actual fact. - -Barbara looked down, and finished her breakfast without a word. She knew -that silence was the safest course she could adopt, since it gave him no -chance of turning his anger on her, but she also knew that it irritated -him dreadfully. That, however, she did not mind. Barbara herself was -rather cross that morning. She had meant to be up early, and she had -slept later than usual; she was vexed and disappointed, and she had been -worried by the jarring tempers of the last two days. She kept her head -bent, and her lips closed, while Mr. Hayes drank his second cup of tea -with a muttered accompaniment of abuse. - -"Look here," he said suddenly, getting up, and going to the fire, "I -don't know how long that fellow means to stay in Mitchelhurst, but, till -he leaves, you don't go beyond the gate. I don't suppose you would wish -to do so"--he paused, but she was apparently absorbed in the -consideration of a little ring on her finger--"I should hope you have -proper feeling enough not to wish to do so"--this appeal was also -received in a strictly neutral manner--"but in any case you have my -express command to the contrary." - -"Very well," said Barbara, with a little affectation of being rather -weary of the whole subject. - -"I do not choose that you should be exposed to insult," Mr. Hayes -continued. - -"Very well," said Barbara again. "I can stay in if you like, though I -don't think Mr. Harding would insult me." - -"I beg your pardon, my dear, but you are not qualified to judge in this -matter. If you had heard Mr. Harding's conversation last night you might -not be quite so sure what he would or would not do. It is my duty to -protect you from an unpleasant possibility, and you will oblige me by -not going beyond--or rather by not going near the gate." - -Barbara, tired of saying "Very well," said "All right." - -"Wednesday is the night of Pryor's entertainment at the schools. I shall -be sorry to disappoint him, but I certainly shall not go unless Mr. -Harding has left the place. He has shown such a deplorable want of taste -and proper feeling that he would probably take that opportunity of -thrusting himself upon us." - -Mr. Hayes paused once more, but the girl did not seem inclined either to -defend or to denounce their late guest. She changed her position -listlessly, and gazed out of the window. - -"A gentleman would not, but that proves nothing with regard to Mr. -Harding. You are very silent this morning, Barbara." - -"I have a headache," she said, "I'm tired," and to her great relief, Mr. -Hayes, after walking two or three times up and down the room, went off -to his study. - -The poor little man was not happy. He sincerely regretted the quarrel of -the evening before, which had come upon him, as upon Reynold, unawares. -He was accustomed to the society of a few neighbours, who understood -him, and said behind his back, "Oh, you must not mind what Hayes says!" -or "I met Hayes yesterday--a little bit more cracked than usual!" and -took all his sallies good-humouredly, with argument, perhaps, or -loud-voiced denial at the time, but nothing in the way of consequences. -Thunder might roll, but no bolt fell, and the sky was as clear as usual -at the next meeting. Mr. Hayes had unconsciously fallen into the habit -of talking without any sense of responsibility. On this occasion a -variety of circumstances had combined to irritate him, and his personal -dislike of Reynold Harding had given a touch of acrid malice to his -attack, but he meant no more than to have the pleasure of contradicting, -and, if possible, silencing his companion. The game was played more -roughly than usual, but Mr. Hayes never realised that his adversary was -angrily in earnest till it was too late. Excitement had mastered him, -there was an interchange of speeches, swift and fierce as blows, and -then he saw Kate Rothwell's son, standing before him, trembling with -fury, and hoarsely declaring that he would leave the house at once. He -had only to close his eyes to see him again, the tall young figure -leaning forward into the light, with his clenched hands resting on the -polished table, amid the disarray of silver and glasses, his dark brows -drawn down, and his angry eyes aglow. Conciliation was impossible on -either side, though the shock of definite rupture so far sobered them -that Harding's departure was deferred to the morning. But, "I will never -break bread under _your_ roof again!" the young man had said, with a -glance round the room, and a curious significance of tone. Then he -turned away to encounter Barbara upon the stairs. - -To Harding, matters had seemed at their worst during the black hours of -silence, and the morning brought something of comfort. If there is but a -possibility that work may help us in our troubles, the dullest day is -better than the night. But to Mr. Hayes the daylight came drearily, -showing the folly of a business which nothing could mend. For more than -a quarter of a century he had plumed himself on his gratitude to Kate -Rothwell for her kindness to his dead love, and had imagined that he -only lacked an opportunity to serve her. And this graceful sentiment, -being put to the test, had not prevented him from quarrelling with her -son, and turning the young fellow out of doors. Yes, he, Herbert Hayes, -had actually driven Kate's boy from Mitchelhurst Place! and what made it -worse, if anything could make it worse, was the revelation of the utter -impotence of that cherished gratitude. He regretted what he had done, -but he must abide by it. Apologise to Harding?--he would die first! Own -to one of the Rothwells that he had been in the wrong?--the mere -thought, crossing his mind, as he tied his cravat that morning, very -nearly choked him. Never--never! Not if it were Kate herself! But he -reddened to the roots of his white hair at the thought of the gossip and -laughter which would follow the unseemly squabble. - -He would be unfairly judged. He said so over and over again, and in a -certain sense it was true, for he had never intended to quarrel with his -guest. But he could not prove even the innocence he felt. He remembered -two or three bitter fragments of their wrangling which would condemn him -if repeated. Yet he knew he had not meant them as his judges would take -them. "Well, but," some practical neighbour would say, "if you say such -things, what do you expect?" That was just it--he had expected nothing, -though nobody would believe it, and all at once this catastrophe had -come upon him. - -So he went down to breakfast, sincerely troubled and repentant, and -consequently in a very unpleasant mood. Repentance seldom makes a man -an agreeable companion, and when it seizes the head of the house the -subordinate members naturally share his discomfort. The moment he set -foot in the breakfast-room he was met by the news of Harding's stay in -the village, and his anger blazed up again, though, through it all, he -had an uncomfortable consciousness that the young man had a right to -stay in Mitchelhurst if he pleased. If he could only have convinced -himself that Reynold was utterly in the wrong, he would have forgiven -him and been happy. But it is almost impossible to forgive a man who is -somewhat in the wrong, yet less so than oneself. - -Harding had been guided by Barbara in his search for a lodging. When -they were standing together at the edge of the ditch, she had reminded -her uncle that Mrs. Simmonds had let her rooms to a man who came -surveying. The fact was so unprecedented that the good woman might be -pardoned for imagining herself an authority on what gentlemen liked, and -what gentlemen expected, on the strength of that one experience. Harding -confirmed her in her innocent belief by agreeing to everything she -proposed. Within half an hour of his arrival he was sitting down to what -the surveyor always took for breakfast, and the surveyor's favourite -dinner was cooking for him as he walked fast and far on the first road -that presented itself. He almost reached Littlemere before he turned, -and had to scramble over a hedge, to avoid what might have been an -awkward meeting with Mr. Masters. The little squire went by -unsuspectingly, though Reynold, finding himself face to face with a -bull in the meadow, nearly jumped back upon him. Happily however the -bull took time to consider, and before he had made up his mind whether -he liked his visitor or not, the coast was clear, and the young man -sprang down into the road, and set off on his way back to Mitchelhurst, -where he arrived just as Mrs. Simmonds was beginning to look out for -him. The surveyor had ordered rather an early dinner. - -Harding had done his best to check any gossip about his affairs, but his -landlady was burning with curiosity. She made a remark about Mr. Hayes -as she set the dish on the table, and her lodger replied that it -certainly was a queer fancy for a lonely man to live in that great -house, and might he trouble Mrs. Simmonds for a fork? She supplied the -omission with many apologies, and said that Mr. Hayes was not very -popular in the neighbourhood, she believed. - -"Isn't he?" said Reynold, slicing away. "Well, all I can say is that I -found him a very hospitable old gentleman. He had never seen me before, -and he invited me to stay there for three days. Wouldn't take any -denial." - -"Well, to be sure, sir, we can but speak as we find," said Mrs. -Simmonds, handing the potatoes. "Only, you see, there are some of us who -remember the old family--you'll excuse me, sir, but it's wonderful how -you favour Mr. John--and it's not the same, sir, having a stranger -there. It's _not_ like old times." - -"No," said Reynold with a jarring little laugh. "I should think it was a -good deal better. Thank you, Mrs. Simmonds, I have all I want." - -And with a nod, which was exactly Mr. John's, he dismissed the old lady. - -She was disconcerted; she did not know what to make of this young man -with the Rothwell features, who was not gratified by a respectful -allusion to the family. "A good deal better!" Well, of course, the -Rothwells held themselves very high, and thought other people were just -the dirt under their feet. There was no pleasing them with anything you -sent in, nothing was good enough, and they expected you to stand -curtseying and curtseying for their custom, and to wait for your money -till all the profit was gone. Mr. Hayes paid as soon as the bill was -sent in, and Miss Strange was a pleasant-spoken young lady. "A good deal -better"--well, no doubt it was. - -And yet the good woman had not been insincere when she spoke of the old -times with a regretful accent in her voice. She remembered John -Rothwell's father as a middle-aged gentleman, alert and strong. Those -old times were the times when she was a rosy-cheeked girl, whom Simmonds -came courting at her father the wheel-wright's, and not Simmonds only, -for she might have done better if she had chosen. It was in the good old -times that they set up their little shop, and that their little girl was -born who had been in the churchyard three-and-twenty years come -Christmas. There were no times now like those before Mitchelhurst Place -was sold, when she didn't know what rheumatism was, and there were none -of your new-fangled Board Schools, to teach children to think little of -their elders. It was not to be supposed that Mrs. Simmonds thought that -her stiff old joints would become flexible again if the Rothwells came -back to the manor-house, but she certainly felt that in their reign the -world went its way with fewer obstructions and less weariness, and was -more brightly visible without the aid of spectacles. She had an -impression, too, that the weather was better. - -She straightened herself laboriously after taking the apple-pie from the -oven, and was horrified to find the crust a little caught on one side. -Having to explain how this had occurred when she carried it in, she had -no opportunity of continuing the previous conversation, and the moment -dinner was over Reynold was out again. The fact was that Mrs. Simmonds's -parlour, which was small and low, and had been carefully shut up for -many months, was not very attractive to the young man, who was fresh -from the faded stateliness of the old Place. Besides, he was anxious to -keep down importunate thoughts by sheer weariness, if in no other way. - -He went that afternoon to the Hall, the dreary old farmhouse which -Barbara had pointed out as the Rothwells' earlier home, and walked in -the sodden pastures where she picked her cowslips in the spring. He -looked more kindly at the old house, in spite of the ignoble disorder of -its surroundings, but he lingered longest at the gate where she had -shown him Mitchelhurst, spread out before him like the Promised Land. He -studied it all in the fading light, and then, with a farewell glance at -the white far-off front of the Place, he went down into the village, -tired enough to drop asleep over the fire after tea. - -"To-morrow, the letter," was his last thought as he lay down. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -ONE MORE HOLIDAY. - - -The inevitable morning came, but the letter did not. - -Harding was first incredulous, then when a light flashed upon him, he -was at once amused and indignant. - -"So! I kept you waiting till the latest day, and you are returning the -compliment. I am given to understand that you can take your time as well -as I? That's fair enough, no doubt, only it seems rather a small sort of -revenge, and, as things have turned out, it's a nuisance. What is to be -done now? Shall I wait another day for my instructions, or shall I go -up to town at once? I told him to write here, but, after all, what is -there to say, except, 'Be at the office on such a day?' Shall I go, or -stay?" - -He tossed up, not ill-pleased to decide his uncle's affairs so airily. -The coin decreed that he should stay. - -"It's just as well," he said to himself. "I don't want to seem impatient -if he isn't." - -But the additional day of idleness proved very burdensome. He fancied -that the Mitchelhurst gossips watched his every movement; he felt -himself in a false position; he shut himself up in his little -sitting-room and asked for books. Mrs. Simmonds brought him all she had, -but she looked upon reading as a penitential occupation for Sundays, and -periods of affliction, and the volumes were well suited for the purpose. -Harding thrust them aside. The local paper was nearly a week old, but -he read every word of it. - -"There'll be a new one to-morrow, sir," said his landlady, delighted to -see that he enjoyed it so much. - -"Thank you, Mrs. Simmonds, but I shall be far enough away by this time -to-morrow," the young man replied. - -He spent a considerable part of the afternoon lying on the horse-hair -couch, and staring at the ceiling. A ceiling is not, as a rule, very -interesting to study, and the only thing that could be said for this one -was that it was conveniently near. Reynold could examine every -smoke-stain at his ease, and every fly that chanced to stroll across his -range of vision. The first he noticed made him think of Barbara and -Joppa, but the later comers were simply wearisome. There is a -distressing want of individuality about flies. Even when one buzzed -about his head, with a fixed determination to wander awhile upon his -forehead, he had not an idea which fly it was. It seemed to him, as he -lay there, with his arm thrown up for a pillow, that flies in general -were just one instrument of torture of, say, a billion-fly power. The -afternoon sunshine and the smouldering fire had wakened more than he -could reckon in the little parlour. - -He would not have cared to confess how much he was troubled by his -uncle's silence. He had expected to be met rather more than half-way, -instead of which it seemed that he was to be taught to know his place. -The idea was intolerable, and it haunted him. - -When Mrs. Simmonds came in with a tray (the surveyor always took his tea -between five and six), she made a remark or two about things in -general, which Reynold, turning his lustreless eyes upon her, -endeavoured to receive with a decent show of interest. When she brought -the tea-pot, she told him that Mr. Hayes had sent to the Rothwell Arms -for a carriage early that afternoon. "Indeed!" said Reynold, this time -endeavouring to conceal the interest he felt. - -"What were they going to do?" he wondered, as he propped his head on his -hand and sipped his tea. Was the old man taking Barbara away? What did -it mean? - -It meant simply that Mr. Hayes had wearied of his self-imposed -seclusion, and had announced to his niece that he should drive over to -Littlemere and see Masters. He added that he might not return to dinner, -and that she was not to wait for him. While Reynold lay on the sofa the -carriage had gone by, with the little man sitting in it, his head rather -more bowed than usual, planning how he would explain the quarrel to his -friend. "Masters will understand--he knows how the fellow behaved the -night before," said Mr. Hayes to himself a score of times. But every -time he said it he felt a little less certain that Masters would -understand exactly as he wished. - -Mrs. Simmonds, returning after a considerable interval, told her lodger -that the wind was getting up, and she thought there was going to be a -change in the weather. She mostly knew, as she informed him, on account -of her rheumatism. Reynold opened the door for her and her tray, and -then went to the window. - -The moon had risen, the low roofs and gaunt poplars of Mitchelhurst were -black in its light, and wild wreaths of cloud were tossed across the -sky. It was a sky that seemed to mean something, to have a mood and -expression of its own. Reynold watched it for a few minutes, till its -vastness made the little box of a room, where even the flies had fallen -asleep again, insupportably small. He took his hat and went out. - -He did not care which way he went, if only it were not in the direction -of the Place. Mr. Hayes, when he charged Barbara not to go near the -gate, had a sort of fancy that the young fellow might walk defiantly on -the very edge of the forbidden ground, and peer through the bars with a -white, spiteful face. The girl acquiesced indifferently. She might not -altogether understand Reynold Harding, but she knew most certainly that -he would never approach them. - -It chanced that evening that he took a narrow lane which led out of the -Littlemere road. It proved to be a rugged but very gradual ascent. -Presently it led him through a gate, and, still gently rising, became a -mere cart track across open fields, where the wind came in sudden, -hurrying gusts over the grey slopes, and brought undefinable suggestions -of hopelessness and solitude. Reaching the highest point the wayfarer -passed through another gate, and pursued a level road, bordered by -spaces of unenclosed grass, sometimes widening almost to a common, -sometimes shrinking to a mere strip between the white way and the low -hedgerows. Reynold pushed forward, gazing at the sky. The clouds, torn -and driven by the wind, fled wildly overhead, like shattered squadrons, -and yet rolled up in new unconquered masses, as if from a gloomy host -encamped on the horizon. The moon, slowly climbing the heavens, fought -her way as a swimmer fights the waves. Now she would show a pale face -through the blanched ripples of a misty sea, then would be over-powered -by a black deluge of cloud, which darkened earth and sky, and swept over -her sunken and scarcely suspected presence. And then suddenly she would -emerge, pearl-white and pure, from the midst of the fierce confusion, -rising unopposed over a gulf of shadowy blue. Or yet again she would -glance mockingly from behind a rent veil of gossamer at the lonely -little traveller who toiled so far below, under the vast arch of the -heavens, and who raised his pre-occupied eyes to her, from the world of -dream and mystery which he carried with him under the little arch of his -skull. To Harding just then that inner world seemed more real, -stranger, and less trodden, than did the world without. The billows of -cloud, vast and formless and dark, rolling on high, were no more than -symbols of the undefined forebodings which gathered blackly in his soul -and changed with every thought. The wild and restless melancholy of the -evening harmonised so marvellously with his temper, that he could almost -have forgotten its outward reality, had it not been for the wind which -blew freshly in his face. It did not seem possible that, when hereafter -he came back to Mitchelhurst, he could walk this way whenever he -pleased. - -Yet he noted landmarks now and then. Here was a thin row of firs, slim -and black, then a bare stretch of road where he stepped quickly, his -shadow at his side for company, and then a sturdy oak, with all its -brown leaves astir in a gust, which whispered hurriedly as he went by. -Somewhat further yet the way grew narrow, dipping down into a little -hollow, where a runnel of clear water crossed it, glancing over the -pebbly earth. There was a plank at one side, and Reynold, stepping on -it, smelt the water-mint which clustered at its edge. It seemed, -somehow, as if the night, which uttered his desolate thoughts in the -wind and the flying clouds, breathed them in that perfume. - -Reynold was one of those who take little interest, even as children, in -stories of goblins and witches, yet who sympathise with the mood which -gave such legends birth, something which in its unshapen darkness and -mystery is more impressive than the strangest vision. Why this -inexplicable mood, with its world-wide suggestiveness, should have come -upon him that evening, transforming the bit of upland country through -which he walked to a grey and ghostly region, he could not tell. He -tried to reason with his shadowy presentiments. He was going to his work -the next day; that very evening he was going back to the little parlour -over the shop; Mrs. Simmonds would have his supper ready, old Simmonds -would be smoking bad tobacco in the back room; his walk would lead to -nothing else. Yet he could not convince himself. He could call up his -uncle and Mrs. Simmonds before his eyes, but they were grotesque -apparitions in his cloudland. What was it that he was awaiting? Why did -he feel as if the crisis of his fate were come, as if it would be upon -him before the night were over? "Are we to see it out together?" he -said, looking up at the moon. - -He hardly knew whether he had uttered the question aloud or not, and he -stopped short. There was a pool close by, roughly fenced from the road, -and fringed with ragged bushes on the further side. He sat down on the -rail. "To-morrow," he said to himself, "nothing can happen before -to-morrow." He took old Mr. Harding's letter from his pocket, and tried -to read it in the moonlight, but a sudden gust caught it, and almost -tore it out of his hand. He crushed the flapping paper together, put it -back, and sat gazing at the black pool at his side, idly wondering -whether it were deep enough to drown a man. It looked deep, he -thought--as deep as the heavens, and a troubled gleam of moonlight -rested on it every now and then. Harding knew well that he should never -touch his life, yet he played that night with the fancy that in one of -the darkened moments when the moon was hidden, it would not be difficult -to drop below that shadowy surface, and effectually end the business, so -that when the bright glance rested there again it should read nothing. -He fancied the moon-beams travelling swiftly along the road, and not -finding him, while he lay hidden under the water, with a clump of osiers -bending and quivering above him in the windy night. "Why couldn't I do -it?" he asked himself. "Why do I go on to meet my ill-luck? It is -coming, I know, to play me some devil's trick--I feel it in the air, -just as Mrs. Simmonds feels a change of the weather in her poor bones." - -So, idly jesting, he stooped and tossed a pebble into the brimming -blackness, and as he did so he pictured to himself the groping hands, -and the ugly strangling fight with death which the moon might chance to -see, if it tore its veil aside too quickly. And, besides, there was the -grim uncertainty of it. _What_ was under that dusky surface? "That's as -you please to put it, I suppose," said Reynold, getting to his feet. -"Eternity, or just a little black mud. And, by Jove, that railing's -rather shaky!" He turned his face towards Mitchelhurst, laughing at his -own folly. "Well, I'll take to-morrow and its chance of -fortune--presentiments and all?" - -The wind, which had fought against him as he came, seemed now so -impatient to get him safely back to Mrs. Simmonds, that it fairly took -him by the shoulders and hurried him along, as if it knew that it was -between nine and ten, and that the good lady was addicted to early -hours. And perhaps Reynold himself was slightly ashamed of his moonlit -vagary, and not altogether unwilling to seek the shelter of that little -roof. He ran and walked down the field path, and saw the glimmering -lights of the village below, small sparks of friendly welcome in the -great night. When, finally, he turned into the Littlemere road, and was -somewhat sheltered from the wind, he met a couple of youths, fresh from -the "Rothwell Arms," harmonious in their desire to sing together, but -not in the result of their efforts. About a hundred yards further he -encountered the Mitchelhurst policeman. The road was quite populous and -homely. - -He had outstripped his forebodings in his hurried race, and the question -whether his landlady would think that he was very late for supper was -uppermost in his mind. He opened the door, which was never fastened till -Simmonds bolted it at night, and drew a breath which gave him a -comprehensive idea of the variety of goods they kept in stock. With the -chilly sweetness of the night air still upon him, the young man strode -into his room, and confronted Barbara Strange, who rose from the sofa to -meet him. - -All his misgivings overtook him in a moment. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -MOONSHINE. - - -"Miss Strange!" he exclaimed, amazed. - -"Oh!" cried Barbara, "I thought you would _never_ come!" - -"You wanted me! You have been waiting for me! If I had known----" And -while he spoke the strangest thoughts and possibilities shaped -themselves in his brain, and died away again. If her presence called -them up it also killed them. He saw that she was frightened. Her lip -quivered, and her eyes looked larger and a little vague. She was gazing -at him through a bright film of unshed tears. - -"If I had known," he repeated confusedly, as he stepped forward. "What -is it?" - -They had not shaken hands in his first astonishment, and now she still -looked up at him, and his hand dropped unheeded. - -"I don't know what you will say to me," she began. "I am so very, very -sorry--I felt I must come myself and ask you to forgive me." - -"_I_ forgive _you_! Why," said Reynold, his eyes shining, "it is you who -should forgive!" - -Barbara started, and the hot tears dropped, and slid over her burning -blushes. She turned away, but too late to hide them. "What do you mean?" -she said. "You don't know. I haven't told you yet. What do you suppose I -have come for like this? What do you mean?" - -He drew back as if he were stung. - -"Well, what is it then?" - -She threw two letters on the table. - -"Letters? You came with those? Upon my word Miss Strange, it's very -kind----" - -He stopped short, looking from the letters to her and back again. -Barbara shrank away, drawing herself together, but she resolutely fixed -her eyes upon his face. - -"Why--why--" stammered Harding, turning as pale as death, and then he -dropped into a chair and began to laugh. - -The letter that lay nearest to him was directed "R. Harding, Esq." in -his own handwriting. - -"It is my fault!" cried Barbara. "Tell me what I have done! It is -something that matters very much! I knew it--I felt it was, the moment I -found them. I came with them directly--I was so afraid you might have -gone away. Don't laugh! Oh I know it matters dreadfully!" - -Harding had had time to master himself. - -"On the contrary," he said, "it doesn't matter at all." - -He threw himself back in his chair, tilting it carelessly, and looking -at Barbara. - -"Doesn't it?" said the girl incredulously. "Doesn't it really?" - -"Not a bit; why should it? How did it happen?" - -Since everything was lost, he might as well hear her talk. - -"It was my fault," Barbara repeated, still doubtfully. "I told you to -put them on the hall table--it was the day we had those people to -dinner." - -Reynold nodded. - -"I had my apron on, I was busy. I went out to speak to the gardener, and -I thought I would give them to the boy, so I put them in my apron -pocket, yours and one of mine, and I never thought of them again." - -He had balanced his chair very dexterously, and was still looking at -her. - -"And they have been in that little apron pocket of yours ever since! -Dear me, Miss Strange, I hope yours wasn't an important letter. I'm -sorry for your correspondent." - -"No, mine didn't matter. Mr. Harding, tell me about yours--tell me the -truth! All the time I have been waiting here--and I thought you never -_would_ come!--I have felt more and more sure that yours _did_ matter. I -can't tell why, but I am certain. Let me know the worst, please. Tell me -what I have done!" - -"I don't know why you are so determined that you must have done -something dreadful. I assure you I'm not in the habit of writing such -terribly important letters as you seem to suppose." - -Reynold, as he spoke, had been thinking how strange it was that people -should excite themselves about their plans for the future. What child's -play and chance it all was! You dreamed, and schemed, and worked it all -out, you made allowance for everything except what was really going to -happen, and suddenly it was all over, and there was nothing more to be -said or done. Here, for instance, was Mitchelhurst Place blown away like -a bubble! Possibly, somewhere, there might be found something in the -shape of a house, a certain quantity of stone and timber, set on the -face of the earth and called by that name, but had Reynold been opposite -the gate at that moment he would have looked at it with indifference. -_His_ Mitchelhurst Place, the one he had thought about so much, the one -he meant to give the best years of his life to win, was, it now -appeared, a house of cards. Barbara and he had been mightily interested -in setting it up, and really it had been a very lofty and presentable -edifice, till Barbara forgot to put a letter in the post, and so it all -tumbled down in a minute. It was a pity, certainly. - -"Tell me the truth," said the girl's voice again, with its soft accent -of entreaty. - -"But you won't believe me! I tell you again, Miss Strange, it doesn't -matter a bit. And again, if you like! And again!" - -She looked fixedly at him, and stretched out her hand towards the -letters. - -"Very well," she said. "Shall I post these for you as I go back?" - -He brought down his tilted chair with sudden emphasis, and sprang up. - -"No!" - -He had lost all, but at least his pride was safe. His mother and old Mr. -Harding need never learn how nearly they had had their way. He knew what -deadly offence he had given by the silence which would be taken for a -calculated insult, but he would a thousand times rather face their anger -than appeal to their pity with a lame story of a letter delayed. -Besides, it was too late. Old Harding was a man of his word, the place -was filled up, the chance was gone. - -"No!" cried Reynold. - -"There!" the girl exclaimed. "I knew it! I saw your face when you looked -at the letters first--and now again! You do not choose to tell me what I -have done. Very well, why don't you say so at once? You treat me as if -I were a baby!" - -Her cheeks were flushed, her mouth quivered, she looked childishly ready -to cry. - -"You do not choose to tell me what I have done." No, why should he? The -one thing he saw clearly was that the mischief was irreparable; the less -said about it, therefore, the better. There was but one avenue to -fortune and love for him, and it was closed before his eyes by this -night's revelation. Some men would have set to work at once to make -another, but not Reynold Harding. He simply accepted the decree of Fate, -and felt that he had half expected it all the time. And after all, what -_had_ Barbara done? Most likely he would have failed, even if his letter -had been duly sent. His ill-luck would have dogged him on his way to -wealth. Perhaps it was more merciful, when, with one sharp stroke, it -spared him the long struggle. What right had he to find fault with -Barbara, the timid messenger of misfortune? Was he to answer her -brutally--"You have ruined me!"--and throw the weight of his failure on -the little throbbing heart which had never been so burdened before? The -very idea was absurd. It was absurd to look back, absurd to murmur; the -dream of Mitchelhurst was over and done with, it was not worth a -withered leaf. Let it lie where it had fallen. - -"Miss Strange," he said, "I assure you you are making too much of this -accident. Regrets are wasted on it. Mine was a business letter, it is -true, but the chances are that it would have come to nothing. I -hesitated a long while before I wrote it, and I am not sure it was not -a mistake. Think no more about it." - -"Will you write again?" she persisted. - -"Oh, we shall see. I'm going up to town to-morrow--I can settle -everything then. I don't think there will be any occasion to write." - -He realised his utter severance from all his hopes when he heard himself -say that he was going back to town. The girl who stood questioning him -had kindled a strange brightness in his life, a light which revealed her -own ripe-lipped, radiant face, and then with capricious breath had blown -it out again, and left him in darkness and alone. He had lost her, and -yet, by a fantastic contradiction, she had never been half so near to -him as at that moment. "You are deceiving me!" she said, sorrowfully. -"Don't think I don't know it! Oh, if there were anything I could do to -make amends!" And in her pain and pity, and her certainty that in some -unspoken way she had wronged him more than she could understand, she -unconsciously swayed towards Reynold with her eyes and lips uplifted. -She wanted to quiet the aching of her regret. She wanted a channel -through which her over-wrought feelings, might pour in atoning -self-sacrifice. - -He knew that she did not love him, though she herself was ignorant of -her own heart, but he also knew that he might have her in his arms if he -chose, acquiescent, remorseful, submissive, with her head upon his -breast. That one moment was his. Through the fierce throbbing of his -pulses he was oddly conscious of all his surroundings--the little room -which smelt of paraffin and of unused furniture, the letters lying on -the magenta table-cloth, the slippery little horse-hair sofa from which -Barbara had risen to meet him; everything was mean, dreary, and hideous. -But he had only to make one step across the patchwork rug of red and -black, only to ask her to share that hopeless future of his, and he -might take her to himself in her pliant grace, and his lips would meet -hers! - -He was her master, yet he stood still drawing his breath deeply, and -eyeing the parti-coloured rug as if it were a yawning gulf between them. -He would not cross it, he would say no word of love or of reproach to -spoil her after-life, but his soul was bitter as gall. At that moment he -felt himself strong enough to give up everything, but he could not be -tender. Was she in later days to remember him vaguely as a poor sullen -fellow whose schemes and talk came to nothing, who was too helpless to -make his way in the world? Was she, perhaps, to try to do something for -him--to recommend him, for instance, to some friend who wanted a tutor -for a dull boy? Was she to give him her little dole of pity and -friendship? No, by Heaven! he would not have that, when he might have -taken herself. Why should he suffer in silence, and not inflict one -answering touch of pain, if only that he might feel his power to wound? -She was trying him too cruelly with that innocent offer of atonement, -which meant so much more than she understood. - -Because he would not speak the "Marry me, Barbara!" which was at his -very lips, he controlled his voice and asked with an air of polite -inquiry, "What is it that you so kindly wish to do for me?" - -"What? Oh, I don't know!" she faltered in confusion. "What _can_ I do? -I don't know. Only if there were anything--if there ever could be----" - -He looked at her, gravely at first, then with a smile that deepened -slowly. She met his glance with her appealing eyes, but she could not -meet his smile. Its derision reached her like a stinging lash, and she -shrank away. "I _wish_ I had never come!" she said in a low tone. All -her sweet compassionate longing was driven back upon her heart by his -mocking smile, and turned to something that choked her. "I wish I -hadn't!" she repeated in a stifled voice, and went towards the door, -eager to escape. - -Reynold perceived that he had succeeded admirably. It seemed unlikely -that Barbara would ever come to him again. - -A sudden roar of wind in the chimney startled them both, and recalled -him to some consciousness of the outer world. He took his hat from the -table, and held the door for her to pass. - -"Good-bye," she panted, still with her eyes averted. - -"I'm coming with you." - -"No, you are not!" - -"Pardon me, but I think I am." - -"No!" Barbara repeated. He smiled, but followed her. She turned on the -stairs in angry helplessness and faced him. "But I would rather you -didn't!" she exclaimed. - -"Did you come alone?" - -"Yes, and I can go back alone." - -"But Mr. Hayes--what did he say?" - -"He is out, he didn't know. Oh!" with a terrified glance, "if he should -be back first!" - -Harding unlatched the outer door, and she flew out into the rushing -wind. He was at her side in a moment. "Take my arm," he said. - -"I won't!" cried the girl, angrily. "Why don't you leave me when I ask -you?" - -"Because you can't go all through Mitchelhurst alone this stormy -night--and so late," said Reynold, raising his voice to dominate an -especially furious gust. - -Barbara caught at Mrs. Simmonds's railings to steady herself. "Thank -you!" she shouted, "it's very kind of you to remind me that I ought not -to be here at this time of night!" She felt as if her words were torn -out of her mouth and whirled away. She ended with something that sounded -like a sob, but she herself hardly knew what it was, or what became of -it. - -"Nonsense!" said Reynold, as if he were hailing her from an almost -hopeless distance. "You _must_ let me see you safely to the gate." The -gust subsided a little. "You must indeed," he added in a more natural -tone. - -"Will you leave me?" she persisted. "It's all I ask you!" - -"Very well," he answered, angrily. "But I suppose Mitchelhurst Street is -as free to me as to you, and I don't see that you can want more than -half of it. Take whichever side you please, and I'll go the other." - -"Good night," she said, ignoring this declaration. He waited only to -ascertain her intention, and then strode across the way to the further -path. - -They walked through the village in this fashion, two dusky shapes, -grotesquely blown and hustled by the strong wind. A capricious blast, -catching Barbara's dress, would send her scudding helplessly for a few -yards before she could regain her self-control. The tall figure on the -other side of the road, clutching at his hat, would quicken his long -steps to keep up with her involuntary increase of speed. When she -contrived to pull herself up he slackened his pace, timing his movements -with shadow-like accuracy and persistence. - -The clouds were flying in such quick succession that for some time there -was no decided break through which the moon might show her face. The -heavens were a vast moving canopy, glimmering with diffused light, that -grew to spectral whiteness now and again, when the veil was thin over -the hidden orb. Harding blessed the obscurity which might save Miss -Strange from the wondering comments of Mitchelhurst. They only met three -or four men, fighting their homeward way against the wind, and, country -fashion, keeping the centre of the road. One of these caught sight of -Reynold, and, staring at him, shouted a jovial "Good night," to which -the young man, glad to monopolise his attention, made a courteous reply, -while the slim little figure, on the other side of the way, stole along -in the shadow of the houses unobserved. Presently they passed beyond the -village street and turned into the road which led up to the Place, where -the high banks sheltered them a little, and they did not meet the wind -so directly. Barbara kept to the hedgerow on the left, Reynold skirted -that on the right, and though the narrower way enforced a rather closer -companionship, they walked with an air of indifference as serene as the -stormy night permitted. - -When they reached the little slope at the gate, Harding halted. Barbara -had to cross the road, and while she did so he stood perfectly still, -not attempting to lessen the distance between them by one step. The wild -noise of the blast in the tree tops made a kind of rushing accompaniment -to the silence. All at once the ragged clouds parted, and the moon -sailed suddenly into a blue rift. Everything became coldly and -brilliantly distinct, even to the lock of the wrought-iron gate, towards -which Barbara stretched an ungloved hand. As she touched it she -hesitated. - -"Mr. Harding," she said. - -There was a lull between two gusts, and the fury which had preceded it -made it seem like an absolute and charmed tranquillity. Reynold advanced -at her summons with a slightly exaggerated obedience. The moon was at -his back and his black shadow seemed to hurry before him, to throw -itself at the girl's feet, and then to slip past her through the iron -bars, as if it would creep into Mitchelhurst Place, and take possession -by stealth. - -"Why did you make me angry?" said Barbara in a tremulous voice. "Why did -we come through the village in this idiotic way?" - -"I was under the impression that you declined my escort," he replied, -with conscious meekness. - -"You make me behave rudely--_why_ do you? I went to your lodgings to -tell you how sorry I was, and to ask your pardon for my carelessness, -and it seems as if I went for nothing but to quarrel. Any one would -think so. Perhaps you think so?" - -"No," said Reynold, smiling, "I don't. And it isn't a very serious -quarrel, is it?" - -"Don't sneer at me any more, or you will make me hateful!" cried -Barbara. "I can't bear it! I will never ask you again if there is -anything I can do--never! You needn't have shown me how you despised me: -you might have been a little kinder when I went to you like that!" - -She swallowed down a sob. - -"Really I'm very sorry if anything I said--" he began. - -"Oh never mind now what you said or did! I know it, and that's -enough. I won't give you another chance, but I won't quarrel. It -hurts me, it's horrid, it's worse than Uncle Hayes. Do let us part -friends--or--or--something like friends--not in this miserable way!" - -"With all my heart." - -She took her hand from the gate and turned towards him. - -"Say you forgive me then! For everything!" - -"Ah! that I can't do," Reynold replied, finding a kind of distorted -pleasure in playing with her earnestness. "I'm not sure, yet, that there -is anything to forgive." - -"Forgive me on the chance!" - -"Oh no, I couldn't presume to do that! It would be a chance whether -_you_ forgave _me_ afterwards for my impertinence." - -A sudden blast nearly sent her tottering into his arms. She recovered -herself, looked at him in speechless indignation as if he had ordered -it, pushed open the gate, and the black tracery of bars swung back into -its place, dividing them. - -Reynold stood where she had left him, gazing after her. She went a -little way up the drive, and then lingered, half turning as if she -thought some one had called. The ground on which she stood was dry and -white in the moonshine, and dappled with fantastic, moving shadows. The -little old trees fought against the wind, swaying their bare, misshapen -arms above her head. The stone balls on either side of the entrance -gleamed like skulls in the pale light, guarding the avenue to the -sepulchral house, with its glassy rows of windows. For a moment the -picture was as clear as day, with Barbara standing in the middle of the -road; then a great wave of stormy cloud rolled up and overtopped the -moon, and in the dusky confusion she vanished. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -REYNOLD'S REGRET. - - -With the passing of that gleam of moonlight it seemed to Reynold Harding -that Mitchelhurst Place disappeared finally into the abyss that waits -for all created things. Where the house, in its curious ghastly -whiteness, had stood a moment earlier, was now nothing but baffling -gloom, and the very gate vanished into the shadows, as if there were no -need of any substantial barrier between him and the lost vision. The -scene had closed with dramatic suddenness, and he felt that the play was -played out, but how long he stood staring at the dusky curtain he did -not know. - -At last he turned, and made his way down the dim road. The bewildering -obscurity seemed to press upon his sight, and he quickened his pace to -gain the corner where his glance might rest on the scattered lamps of -Mitchelhurst Street--little flames shuddering and struggling in the -gale. He had gone about half the distance to his lodgings, when he saw -two advancing eyes of fire at the end of the street. Nearer and nearer -they came, but, owing to the clamour of the wind, the noise of wheels -was inaudible till the carriage was close upon him where he paused on -the sidewalk. Then for a moment there was a gleam of light upon the -road, and in it appeared, as in a kind of magic-lantern picture, a -sorry-looking grey horse, travelling reluctantly beyond his stable at -the inn, a shabby driver, buttoned closely against the wind, with his -hat pulled low on his brows, a flashing of revolving wheels, and the -black silhouette of the Mitchelhurst fly. Harding looked after it till -he saw the lamp shine for a moment, with sudden brightness, as the -carriage turned, and then go out. After this fashion was Mr. Hayes, too, -lost in the darkness which had swallowed everything else, and Reynold's -gaze conveyed a not unkindly farewell. - -The night gathered and deepened in the village, and the great starless -dome bent its vaulted gloom over the half-dozen lights which glimmered -on cottages and cabbage plots. Now and again a dog would bark, or the -wind would pass with a wilder wail, and the sign of the _Rothwell Arms_ -would creak discordantly. The people to whom that little hollow was the -world, lay close and safe in their houses, wakened, perhaps, by the -gale to hope that no tiles would fall, and no damage be done in the -gardens, listening drowsily for awhile, and then turning in their beds -to sleep again. - -It was not till the moon was low in the west that it broke once more -through the clouds, and, peering in at a small uncurtained window, -revealed the white face of a man who sat by it, with drooping head and -listless hands. He was not asleep, but he did not move. With that same -glance the moon espied St. Michael in the lancet window, sedulously -trampling on his little dragon, while the old clock above his head -recorded the passing of the hours with a labour of slow strokes. Those -two, and those two only, did the moon see in all Mitchelhurst, and then -vanished again and left them, till the wind went down, and the day came -slowly over the grey fields, with a deluge of autumnal rain. - -Mrs. Simmonds was sorry to lose her lodger, and sorry that the weather -should be so bad, and that he should look so pale. She busied herself -about his breakfast, and brought him the local paper with the air of a -successful prophet. - -"I told you there'd be another to-day, sir," she said as she laid it -down, "and here it is!" Reynold briefly acknowledged the attention, but -he never touched it. "So set as he was upon that other one!" said Mrs. -Simmonds later to her husband. - -Simmonds suggested that he might have found something that specially -interested him in the other paper, somebody dead and leaving money, may -be, or somebody mysteriously disappeared, or something--he looked as if -he'd had a shock of some sort. But Mrs. Simmonds was inclined to think -that he was most likely upset by the thought of his railway journey. She -knew it was all _she_ could do to swallow a bit, if she were going -anywhere, with all her packing on her mind, and very likely the -gentleman was of the same way of feeling. As to a shock, he hadn't got -any shock out of the paper, she knew. He might have had some bad news in -the letters Miss Strange brought him, for he told her with his own lips -that they were very important, and that was why she came with them -herself. - -"You see, the old gentleman was out," said Mrs. Simmonds, "so I suppose -she didn't know what to do." - -"I shouldn't think the old gentleman would be best pleased," said -Simmonds. - -The good woman considered for a moment. - -"Well, I sha'n't tell him," she announced finally. - -Harding drove to the nearest station in a gig. The rain was not so heavy -then, the downpour had become a persistent drizzle. Nevertheless the -village looked drenched and dismal enough as he bade it good-bye, and -swung round the corner of the churchyard wall, where the yellow weeds -stood up in the crevices behind the slant grey veil, and the great -black-plumaged yews let fall their heavy tears upon the graves. In -another minute a clump of trees hid the square tower and the leaden -roof, and Mitchelhurst was left behind. But the young man looked right -and left at the wet hedgerows till they reached a spot where a ploughed -field rose above the bank on one side, while on the other a deep -bramble-grown ditch divided the road from the sodden meadows. He fixed -his eyes on that. It was exactly a week that Wednesday since he first -met Barbara Strange. - -Late that afternoon he walked into a dull room in a dull suburb of -London, and a woman who stood in the window, snipping the dead fronds -from a homesick-looking fern, turned to meet him. There was no mistaking -the relationship. Allowing for the differences of sex and age, they were -as like as they could possibly be, except that in every glance and -gesture the woman showed a fuller and richer life than did the man. -There was something of imperious grace in her movements which made him -seem awkward, hesitating, and constrained. She suffered him to touch her -cheek with his lips, but showed no inclination to speak first. - -"Back again, you see," he said, drawing a chair to the hearth-rug. - -"Yes. I should think you must be wet." - -"Damp, I suppose." - -He glanced round the room. The flock paper, the red curtains, the grimy -windows, the smoky fire, had the strange novelty which the most familiar -things will sometimes put on. The atmosphere was loaded with acrid fog, -and the blackness of the great city. He raised his foot and warmed a -muddy boot, while his thoughts went back to the stateliness and airy -purity of the old manor house, where the great logs cracked and glowed -upon the hearths. - -Mrs. Harding came and rested her elbow on the chimney-piece, looking -down at her son. - -"I left Mitchelhurst this morning," said he, after a pause. - -"Yes? Well, I suppose you had seen enough of it." - -"It was time to come home, anyhow," he said. - -"You had business in town?" - -The tone and words would have served as well for any chance visitor. - -"Yes--naturally." - -He put the other foot to the fire by way of a change. - -"I did not know," said Mrs. Harding. "I have nothing to do with your -business. It certainly isn't mine. You are always welcome to be here as -much as you please, but of course you will attend to your own affairs." - -Reynold made no answer. - -"You are your own master," she continued, after a short silence. "I have -recognised that for some years. I have not expected you to go my way." - -"One must go one's own way, I suppose," said the young man. - -"And if I expected you to show some slight consideration for me, in -taking the way you have chosen--I was mistaken!" - -He stirred the fire, and replaced the poker, but did not look at her or -speak. - -"You know what I mean?" she demanded. - -"Perfectly." - -"Reynold, you might have written! Your uncle's offer deserved a word. I -do not say you might have accepted it, but you might have refused it -courteously. Was that so much to ask? You have insulted him wantonly, -and he will never pardon it. After all, he is your father's brother, and -an old man. Reynold, you should have written!" - -He did not raise his eyes from the burning coals. - -"Well," he said, "I did propose to write before I went away." - -She winced at the thrust. - -"I was wrong!" she owned, with bitter passion in her voice. "It would -have been better." - -"As things have turned out," said Reynold, "I think it would." - -Poor little Barbara! If that angry, dark-eyed woman had known how near -the fulfilment of her hopes had been, and lost by how pitiful a chance? -But the secret was safe. - -Kate Harding drew a long breath. - -"Well, I have no more to say about it. Perhaps it is best that we should -understand each other. You knew how your silence would wound me; it was -deliberate--it was calculated. Well, it _has_ wounded me, I don't deny -it. But it is all over now, and you will never wound me again. Do what -you please, now and always--as you have done." - -He signified his attention sullenly, with a slight movement of his head. - -"It is all over," she continued. "The situation is filled up, and -nothing would ever induce Robert Harding to suffer you to enter his -office--not if you offered to sweep it! He will not trouble you any -more, and, since the matter is ended, let it never be mentioned between -us again." - -It was easy to see that she was, as she had said, deeply wounded, and -there was a tragical intensity in her speech. Her son made answer with -the same mute gesture of assent. - -Presently she moved away, and for a few minutes she busied herself about -the room. She gathered up the leaves she had cut off, put away two or -three things that were lying about, and then came back to him. - -"Dinner will be ready at the usual time," she said, in a cold, everyday -voice. "And then we can talk----of other things." - -"Yes," Reynold answered, with a start, looking up from his reverie. He -had been thinking of the evening before. When he went into the little -sitting-room after his walk, and Barbara rose up from the sofa to meet -him, he had been startled, she was confused and frightened, and they had -forgotten the ordinary greetings. And then they had talked, he had sat -looking at her, he had stood up and held himself aloof--_how_ had he -done it? Well, it had been for Barbara's sake. Afterwards they had gone -through Mitchelhurst together. Together? No, absurdly apart, with the -breadth of the street between them. And at last they had talked at the -gate, and he had vexed her, and she had hurried away without a word of -farewell. It seemed to him now that he had never meant that. It was -impossible he could have meant it. Why, they had never shaken hands, he -had never touched her, and he remembered that she had no glove on, he -had seen her hand in the moonlight on the latch of the gate. She had -said, "Let us part friends," he had only to consent. - -It is well that we cannot recall our moments of temptation. Reynold had -been able to pain her then with a jest, he had been strong enough in his -bitterness of heart to let her go without a word, but now as he sat -staring at the fire, idly clasping his knee, he regretted his strength. -If he could have taken Barbara's hand he would, and the long fingers, -loosely knit together, suddenly tightened at the thought. A woman's -small hand would not have had much chance of escape from such a clasp as -that. - -But at that moment his mother aroused him from his musings. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -LOVE'S MESSENGER. - - -The first week of December had not gone by, and already the winter had -set in. Mr. Pryor, as he walked from the vicarage up the lonely road to -Mitchelhurst Place, said to himself that it was a most unpleasant -afternoon. Of his own free will he would not have left his fireside, but -Destiny had turned him out, and he went feebly and heavily along the -iron road, feeling as if Nature were in a mood of freezing malice and -took pleasure in his sufferings. The air was still, yet it came very -keenly to his pallid face, his feet were cold, the hand that held his -umbrella was remarkably cold, a red-edged manual of prayers and -devotional readings, tucked under his left arm, showed a tendency to -slip, and altogether Mr. Pryor had a half-numbed sense that it was not -fair that any one should want him in such weather. - -The sky was grey, a chilly fog narrowed the horizon, and all the hedges -and boughs in the little frozen landscape were covered with hoarfrost. -It was like a dream of a dead spring. Every little clump of trees was an -orchard, white with sterile blossoming, spectral flowers which would -vanish as suddenly as they had come. Every sound was deadened, till it -was almost startling to come upon a man at work by the wayside, lopping -hoary branches from the hedge, and flinging them down, with all their -delicate tangle of white sprays, upon the frosted grass. It was a grim -task to be the only sign of energy in that ghostlike world; such a task -as in an old picture Death himself might have undertaken. Happily, -however, for good Mr. Pryor's nerves, it was the face of an ordinary -flesh and blood labourer, with the breath steaming from his gaping -mouth, that was lifted as he went by. - -The vicar crept, shivering, up the avenue to the house, which was more -than ever like a great white tomb. He asked the servant who admitted him -how Mr. Hayes was that afternoon. - -"Much the same, thank you, sir," said the woman, showing him into the -yellow drawing-room, and putting a piece of wood on the fire, "I'll tell -Miss Strange you are here." - -He stood miserably on the rug, looking down into the fender, and -squeezing his red-edged book under his arm, till at the sound of the -opening door he turned and saw Barbara. The girl came forward quickly, -and touched the fumbling fingers which he held out, as she uttered a -word of greeting. - -"Mr. Hayes is much the same, they tell me," said the clergyman in a -melancholy voice. - -"Yes," said Barbara, "I suppose there isn't any difference. But I think -anyhow he isn't any worse. Mamma is with him, and he was taking some -beef-tea just now"--Mr. Pryor nodded grave approval of the -beef-tea--"but he'll be very glad to see you in a few minutes. Won't you -sit down?" - -He sat down, nursing the book, which had a narrow ribbon hanging out of -it. - -"I hope Mrs. Strange is pretty well--as well as can be expected?" he -said, after a pause. "Not over-fatigued, I trust?" - -"Oh, no; I don't think so," the girl replied. "Mamma seems very well." - -"Ah, quite so. She bears up, she bears up. Well, that is what we must -all try to do--to bear up. It is the only thing." - -"Yes," said Barbara. She was not quite sure that she ought to have said -that her mother seemed very well. "Of course it is a trying time," she -added, by way of softening the possibly indiscreet admission. - -"Certainly, certainly--very trying for you both," Mr. Pryor agreed. Yet -even to his dull eyes it was apparent that this very trying time had not -dimmed the bright face opposite. There was a peculiar radiance and -warmth of youth about Barbara that afternoon, a glow of life which -forced itself on his perception. She did not smile, she was very quiet, -and yet it seemed as if some new delight, some unspoken hope, had -awakened within her, quickening and kindling her to the very -finger-tips. She sat demurely in her low chair, with her face turned -towards the window, but there was a soft flame of colour on her cheek, -and a light in her eyes when she lifted her drooping lashes. In that -great, cold house, through which the shadow of death was creeping, she -was the incarnation of life and promise, a curious contrast to her -surroundings. It would hardly have seemed stranger if suddenly, in the -desolate world without, one had come on a burning bush of pomegranate -flowers among the cold frost-blossoms of the Mitchelhurst hedges. - -Mr. Pryor felt something of all this. He did not quite like it. Of -course he did not want to see the girl haggard and weary, but he was so -chilly, as he sat there by the fireside with his book on his knee, that -it seemed to him as if the swift, light pulsations of youth were hardly -proper. He would have been more at his ease with Barbara if she had had -a slight toothache, or a cold in her head. He felt it his duty to -depress her a little, quietly, as she sat there. - -"The hour of Death's approach is a very solemn one, even for the -bystanders," Mr. Pryor began, after a moment's consideration. - -Barbara said, "Yes it was," with an almost disconcerting readiness. - -"Yes, yes, and we should endeavour to profit by it. We should spend it, -not only in regrets for those who are about to be taken from us, but in -thoughts of the future." - -Barbara's red lips parted in another "Yes." The future--she was thinking -of it. It was easier to think of it than of the old man who was dying. - -"Of the future," Mr. Pryor continued, caressing the smooth leather of -his book with his ungloved hand, and softly pulling the pendent ribbon, -"of the time when we shall be lying--yes, yes, each one of us--as our -friend is now." He glanced up at the ceiling, to indicate that he meant -Mr. Hayes, taking his beef-tea in the bed-room on the first floor. - -The girl said nothing, but looked meditatively at the folds of her -dress, as if she were in church. It would have been pleasanter if Mr. -Pryor had brought a funeral sermon out of his table drawer, and could -have gone on without these embarrassing pauses. - -"When our hour is at hand," he said at last, "as--as it must be one of -these days. How shall we feel then, Miss Strange?" - -Barbara didn't know. - -"No," said the vicar, "we don't know. But we must think--we must think. -Try to picture yourself in your uncle's position--what would your life -look to you if you were lying there now?" - -She looked up with a sudden startled flash. "I haven't had my life--it -would only look like a beginning," she said with a vision as of a -rose-garlanded doorway to a vault. "If I were going to die directly I -couldn't feel like Uncle Hayes." - -The passionate speech awoke the clergyman's instinct of assent. "No, -no," he said, "certainly not. Certainly not." At that moment a message -came: "Would Mr. Pryor kindly step up-stairs?" and he went, not -altogether sorry to bring his little discourse to a close. - -Barbara, left to herself, sat gazing at the window, till at last the -hinted smile, which had troubled her companion, betrayed itself in a -tender, changeful curve. "Adrian!" she said softly, under her breath. -"Oh, how could I? How could I? Adrian! and I thought you didn't care!" - -She was restless with happiness. She sprang up, and walked to and fro, -too glad at heart to complain of the walls that held her, and yet -feeling that she needed air and freedom for her joy. She leaned against -the window, and looked out at the wintry world, murmuring Adrian's name -against the chilly pane. There was no voice to give her back her tender -speech, yet she hardly missed it. No praise is so sweet to a woman as -the reproaches she heaps upon herself for an unjust suspicion of her -lover. To defend him to others is a mixture of joy and pain, but to feel -that she has wronged him, and that to trust him is safer than to trust -her doubts, is a passionate delight. - -This joy had come to Barbara that very morning. She had been sitting in -her uncle's room, reading a novel by the fireside, while the old man -slept, as she thought. She softly turned page after page till a feeble -voice broke the silence. "Where's your mamma?" said Mr. Hayes. - -"Down-stairs, writing letters. Do you want her?" And Barbara stood ready -to go. - -"No, I don't want her. Writing her daily bulletins, eh? Well, well. -What's the time? You haven't given me my medicine." - -"It's very nearly time," said Barbara, with a glance at the clock. -There was a little clinking of bottle and glass, and then she came to -the bedside, and stood looking down at the wrinkled, fallen face among -the pillows. "Can I help you?" she asked. - -"Wait a bit, can't you?" said the old man. - -She waited, looking aside, yet watching for the slightest movement on -his part. Her soft young fingers closed round the half-filled glass, and -his dim eyes rested on them. Presently he raised himself with an effort, -and the girl put another pillow behind him. He stretched out a -trembling, dingy-white hand, carried the glass to his lips a little -uncertainly, and emptied it. - -She set it down. "Shall I take away that pillow?" she asked. - -"No--wait." - -Barbara, after a minute, shifted her position, and stood by the carved -post at the foot of the bed, while her thoughts went back to her novel. -She was not heartless, she was only young. Her uncle had never been very -much to her, and she found it as difficult to concentrate her mind on -this melancholy business of sickness and dissolution as if it were a -sermon. And yet she did sincerely desire to behave properly, and to feel -properly, too, if it could be managed. - -The little old man rested awhile, sitting up in his bed. He perceived -that the girl's thoughts were far away. He could keep her standing there -as long as he pleased, a motionless figure against the faded green -curtains, but he could not narrow her world to his sick-room. Perhaps -for that very reason he felt a desire to awaken her from her reverie. - -"How old are you?" he asked. - -"Nineteen." - -The answer was given with a lifting of her long lashes. She had not -expected any question about herself. - -"Nineteen?" - -"Yes. At least I shall be nineteen next month." - -A month more or less made little difference to Barbara. - -"As much as that?" he said. "Barbara, perhaps I ought to say something -before I go." - -Her attention was effectually aroused, and her brilliant gaze rested on -the dull, waxen mask before her. But after a moment his eyes fell away -from hers. - -"I thought I did right," he said. - -"Yes?" Barbara questioned. - -"That young man who came here--what was his name?" - -"Mr. Harding." - -"No, no, no!" he cried irritably. "No! What made you think of him? The -first one?" - -"Mr. Scarlett?" - -He nodded. - -"But it doesn't matter," he said. "If you were thinking of the other one -it doesn't matter about Scarlett." - -"What about him?" - -"He wanted to speak to you before he went away, and I told him to wait. -Better to wait--you were so young, you know." - -"He _did_ want to speak to me!" the girl exclaimed under her breath. - -"Plenty of time," said Mr. Hayes. "He's young too. I told him he could -come again to Mitchelhurst if he felt the same. I thought it was best--I -thought it was best," he repeated, trying to drown a faint -consciousness that to have parted with Barbara would have upset all his -arrangements. - -"I'm sure you did," she answered soothingly. - -"I know your mother would say it was best--wouldn't she? Besides, I -didn't do any harm, since you were thinking of the other one." - -"He was here last," said Barbara. - -"So he was," the sick man answered, with a flash of his old briskness. -"And girls soon forget." - -Barbara said nothing. What was the good of protestations? She would -never utter a word against Reynold Harding--never. And what could she -say about Adrian Scarlett? She had not owned to herself that she cared -for him. If she did--and she was conscious of strong pulsations, which -flushed her face, and filled her veins with tingling warmth--the more -reason for silence. She laid a hand on the carved foliage of the post, -and faced the dim figure propped in the bed. There was something -grotesquely feeble about the little man's attitude. His face, -discoloured and pale, drooped in the greenish shadow of the hangings, -his unshaven chin rested on his breast, his parchment hands lay in a -little nerveless heap on the counterpane before him. One would have said -that he was set up in sport, as children set up dolls and nine-pins, on -purpose to be knocked over. - -"Hadn't you better lie down?" said Barbara, after considering him for a -while. She wanted to speak tenderly, for the sake of the strange new -gladness which was throbbing at her heart; yet the facts of sickness and -hopeless decay had never seemed so distasteful. When he assented, she -put her arm about him with the utmost care, but she could hardly help -shrinking from the clutch of his chilly fingers on her wrist. - -"Rothwells are a bad lot," he said, "bad and poor. Scarlett would be a -better match. Some of his people have money." - -The habit of deference to her Uncle Hayes prevented her from resenting -this speech. - -"Never mind about that, please, uncle," she said gently. - -"Good family, too," said Mr. Hayes, indistinctly to himself. "I did it -for the best, as your mamma would see." - -"Never mind about mamma, Uncle Hayes," said the girl again. "I'm sure -you had better rest a little." - -And when he acquiesced she went back to her novel, which was all about -Adrian Scarlett. After all, he had not gone off without a thought of -her--he had _not_ slighted her. Perhaps she was too young, and at any -rate she could not be angry with her uncle since he had told her of -Adrian's love. She had a right to think of him as Adrian, surely, if he -loved her. So he had been sent away--where? Perhaps he would see -somebody else, somebody better and more beautiful, and she would be -forgotten. Well!--Barbara's eyes were fixed intently on the page--even -if he did forget her, it might break her heart, but she need not be -ashamed that she had thought of him, since she held the happy certainty -that he had thought of her. Happen what might in his after life, he had -loved her once--he had!--he had! And she had feared that he had only -laughed at her, she had thought that he might be heartless--Oh how was -it possible that she could have been so wickedly unjust! She deserved -that he should never come back to her. - -It was an incongruous business altogether. It was as if a breath from a -burial vault had quickened the faint flame in Barbara's heart to sudden -splendour, for if old Hayes had actually been the mummy he very much -resembled, he could not have been more remote from any comprehension of -the message which he had delivered. His lips had relaxed in utter -feebleness, and the secret had escaped. He did not see the look which -flashed into the girl's eyes, and when Mrs. Strange, who might have been -more observant, came to take her place by the bedside, Barbara stole -softly away, hanging her head in the consciousness of those flushed -cheeks, which seemed too like holiday wear for such a melancholy time. -Her mother might have been surprised, for she had been a little uneasy, -fancying that the girl looked sad. Barbara was but a young thing, and -had been left too long shut up with but dismal company. - -And, if Mrs. Strange had only known it, the poor little girl had been -her own most dismal company. From the time that Reynold Harding went -away she had been restless, frightened, and miserable. When the -exaltation of that evening had passed, a sudden terror at the thought of -her own daring overtook her. She was not only afraid of her uncle's -anger, but doubtful whether she had not really committed an unpardonable -sin against the social law. When she hurried to Harding with the -letters, she had somehow vaguely believed that he would shelter her, -that he would stand by her if she were blamed. And when he had played -with her, refused to trust her, and vanished into the night with a -mocking smile, leaving her utterly alone, she had felt absurdly -desolate. At first she had waited, in sickening apprehension, for her -uncle to hear of her visit to Mr. Harding. Fate, however, seemed -whimsically inclined to protect her. First there was the storm of rain -which prevented a meeting with all the gossips of Mitchelhurst at the -Penny Reading. Then, a day or two later, came Mr. Hayes' accident--a -mere slip on the stairs, it was supposed, till the doctor hinted at -something in the nature of a fit. Barbara saw that detection was -postponed, but still she felt that the sword hung over her head, and -night after night she tossed in an agony of doubt. Had she really done -anything very dreadful? She recalled Mr. Harding's ambiguous words and -glances--did they mean that he thought lightly of a girl who would go to -him as she had done? Over and over again she asked the useless -questions--Did they mean that?--Did they not?--- What _did_ they mean? -And leaving his meaning out of the matter, what would other people say? -Suppose she went and told them--ah! but how and what would she tell -them? She might say, "I found I hadn't posted Mr. Harding's letters, so -I took them to him at once: wasn't that the best thing to do?" How right -and reasonable it sounded! But if she said, "I went secretly to a man's -lodgings at night----" at the mere thought a blush passed over her like -a scorching wave of fire. What would her mother say? - -Even in her misery she was childish enough to wince at the thought of -her sisters at home. She had been proud to be mistress of a house while -they were still in the school-room, and the idea that she had been -wanting in dignity, perhaps even in modesty, and that she might be -ostentatiously controlled and watched, by way of punishment, was -intolerable to her. To be humiliated before Louisa and Hetty--how could -she endure it? They were not ill-natured, but they had a little resented -her advancement, and Barbara, as she lay in her great over-shadowing -bed, could fancy all the out-spoken comments and questionings in the -roomy attic where the three used to sleep. She did not want to go back -to the Devonshire vicarage, and yet Mitchelhurst was fast becoming -hateful to her. The pictures on the walls gazed at her with Reynold's -eyes, his presence haunted the house from which he had been banished. -What was the wrong that she had done him? She did not know, and the -uncertainty seemed to mock her as he had mocked her that night. The poor -child said to herself quite seriously that he had taken away all her -youth and happiness. She fancied that she felt old and weary as the days -went by, fretting her simple heart with unacknowledged fear. - -And now suddenly came the message of Adrian's love, and lifted her above -all her dreary little troubles. What did it matter that it was uttered -by those dry, bloodless lips, which stumbled over the blissful words? -What did anything matter since Adrian cared for her, and life was all to -come? Why had she tormented herself about Reynold Harding! _Reynold -Harding!_ He was utterly insignificant, he was nobody! She could tell -Adrian about that expedition of hers, it was so unimportant, so -trivial, that he could not be jealous; he could not mind. Adrian's -jealousy! There was something delightful, even in that terrible -possibility. But he would not be jealous, everything was warm, and glad, -and full of sunshine when Adrian was there. - -She resented Mr. Pryor's professional allusions to the uncertainty of -life. There are moments so perfect that they ought not to be degraded by -thoughts of disease and death, ought not to be measured or weighed in -any way whatever. Barbara felt this, and she thrust aside the -clergyman's lecture as soon as he left the room. Let him talk of such -things to Uncle Hayes. As for her, she lingered at the window, thinking -of her newly-found happiness, while she gazed at the hoary fields, with -their black boundaries of railing or leafless hedge, till a faint pink -flush crept over the pale sky, as if it were softly suffused with her -overflowing joy. Mitchelhurst Place, of which Harding had dreamed so -tenderly a few months earlier, as a home for himself and his love, was -to the eager girl at that moment only a charnel-house, full of death and -clinging memories, from which she panted to escape. It was true that she -had first met Adrian Scarlett there, but she had the whole world in -which to meet him again. "And he will always know where to find me," she -said to herself with a touch of practical common sense in the midst of -her rapture. "He can look out papa's name in the Clergy List, any day." - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -A PERPLEXING REFLECTION. - - -The April sun was shining into two pleasant sitting-rooms, only divided -by a partially drawn curtain. Their long windows opened on a wide gravel -walk. Beyond this lay a garden, bright with the airy, leafless charm of -spring. The grass was grey-green as yet, the borders brown earth, but -there were lines and patches of gay spring flowers, and a blithe -activity of birds, while the white clouds floated far away in the breezy -sky. - -Adrian Scarlett, who was a guest in the house, came slowly sauntering -along one of the sunshiny paths, between the yellow daffodils, with eyes -intent on a handful of printed leaves. Now and again he stopped short, -trying a different reading of a line, or twisting his little pointed -beard with white fingers, while he questioned some doubtful harmony of -syllables. Once he took a pencil from his pocket, and with indignant -amusement marked a misprint. After each of these pauses he resumed his -dreamy progress, unconscious of any wider horizon than the margin of his -page. - -Presently his loitering walk brought him to one of the tall, shining -windows, and thrusting the little bundle of proofs into his pocket, he -unfastened it and stepped in. He found the room untenanted, except by -two or three flies, which buzzed in the sunny panes as if summer time -had come. A piano stood open, with some music lying on it, and the -young man sat down with his back to the curtained opening, began to -play, and amused himself for a while in an agreeably discursive fashion. -But after a time he felt that he was not alone. The conviction stole -upon him gradually, though, as far as he knew, there had been no sound -in the further room, and he had previously believed that everybody was -out. He glanced over his shoulder more than once, but saw nothing. - -"Shall I go and look?" he asked himself. "But it may be somebody I don't -know, and don't want to know. Suppose it should be a housemaid come to -be hired, and waiting till Mrs. Wilton comes in. What should I say to -the housemaid? Or, by the way, the parson said something about Easter -offerings yesterday, perhaps this is the clerk or somebody come for -them. Perhaps if I go in he'll ask me for an Easter offering. I think I -won't risk it. Shall I go into the garden again?" - -While he debated the question, he went on playing, feeling that the -music justified an apparent unconsciousness of the invisible -companionship. The sunshine lighted up the reddish golden tint of his -hair and moustache, and the warm flesh colours of his face. Presently -his wandering fingers slackened on the keys, and then after a momentary -pause of recollection he struck the first notes of a simple air, and -played it, with his head thrown back and a smile on his lips. - -Near him an old-fashioned mirror hung, a little slanted, on the wall, -and as his roving eyes fell on it, a beardless, sharply-cut face -appeared in its shadows, motionless and pale, gazing out of the heavy -frame with a singular look of eagerness. - -Adrian started, but his surprise was so quickly mastered that it was -hardly perceptible, and he continued as if nothing had happened, -apparently suffering his glances to wander as before, though in reality -he watched the dark eyes and sullen brows bent on him from the wall. The -face appearing so picturesquely, interested him, and after a moment the -interest deepened. As he had before become gradually conscious of the -man's presence, so now did a certainty steal over him that he was -somehow familiar with the features in the mirror. - -The stranger was evidently standing where he might see and not be seen, -and he leant on a high-backed chair so that he was partially hidden. - -"Who the deuce is he? and where have I seen him? and what does he want -here?" said Scarlett to himself, continuing to play the tune which had -evoked the apparition. "He doesn't look as if he went round for Easter -offerings. Can't want to tune the piano, or why didn't he begin before I -came in? Hope he isn't an escaped lunatic--there's something queer and -fixed about his eyes; perhaps I had better soothe him with a softer -strain. By Jove! I _have_ seen him somewhere, and uncommonly -good-looking he is, too! How can I have forgotten him? He isn't the sort -of man to forget. He doesn't look quite modern, somehow, with his full, -dark hair, and his beardless face; or, rather, I _feel_ as if he were -not quite modern--but why?" - -Adrian glided into the accompaniment to an old song, and sang a quaint -verse or two softly to himself. The face in the mirror relaxed a -little. After a moment the man straightened himself, drew back, and -vanished. Adrian finished his song, and then, in the silence that -ensued, a slight movement was audible, enough to warrant his entering -the further room, as if he had just suspected the presence of a visitor. - -The man of the mirror was sitting in an arm-chair, with a book in his -hand. He looked up a little hesitatingly and awkwardly, as if he were -doubtful whether to rise or not. Adrian hastened to apologise for his -musical performance. - -"I had no idea there was any one here," he said. "I hope I didn't -disturb you?" - -"Not at all," said the stranger, glancing at the book he held, and -furtively reversing it. "An enviable talent," he added, with an evident -effort. - -"For oneself, perhaps," answered Scarlett. "But I'm not sure it is -desirable in a next-door neighbour." - -He was still trying to identify his companion. The voice, unmusical and -almost harsh, did not help him in the least, and, oddly enough, now that -they were actually face to face, he was less absolutely certain that he -ought to recognise the man. "It may be only a likeness to somebody I -know," he reflected. "But to whom, then? And why does he look at me like -that? _He_ seems to think he knows _me_!" - -"I hope you'll go on if you feel inclined," said the stranger. - -Adrian shook his head. - -"Thank you, but I think I've made about noise enough for one morning." - -He took up the paper and skimmed a column or two. Presently he looked -from behind it, and their eyes met. - -"I can't help thinking," he said, "that we have met before somewhere, -haven't we? I don't know where, but I have an idea that your memory is -better than mine." - -The other was obviously taken by surprise. - -"No," he said, drawing back and frowning. "No--in fact I'm sure we -haven't met--at least not to my knowledge. My name is Harding." - -Scarlett owned that the name conveyed nothing to his mind, but when in -return he mentioned his own, he was certain that he caught a flash of -recognition in the other's eyes. "He expected that," he soliloquised, as -he picked up his paper again. "Here is a mystery! Deuce take the -fellow--why did he stare at me so? He isn't as handsome as I thought he -was in the glass--he's ill-tempered and awkward; it isn't a pleasant -face, though of course the features are good. He might make a good -picture--and, by Jove! that's what he was--a picture! and I didn't know -him out of his frame! I wonder whether it's a chance resemblance, or -whether----" - -"Were you ever at a place called Mitchelhurst?" he asked, abruptly. - -The blood mounted to Harding's face. - -"Yes," he said. - -"Then," said Adrian, "you must surely be some connection of the family -at the old Place--the _old_ family at the old Place, I mean. I have made -out the likeness that puzzled me. There is a picture there----" - -"I am connected with the family," said Harding, "on my mother's side. -It isn't much to boast of----" - -"If you come to that," Scarlett answered lightly, "what is? But I'll -confess--I dare say I ought to be ashamed of myself--but I'll confess -that I _do_ care about such things. I don't want to boast, but I would -rather my ancestors were gentlemen, than that they were butchers and -bakers and--well, the candlestick-makers might be decorative artists in -their way, and so a trifle better." - -Harding scowled, but did not speak. - -"You don't agree with me," Adrian went on, with his pleasant smile. -"Well, you can afford to scorn the pride of long descent if you choose. -And, mind you, though I prefer the gentleman, I dare say the trades-man -might be more valuable to the community at large!" - -"I hope so," said Harding with a sneer. "My grandfather was a -pork-butcher." - -"Oh!" exclaimed Adrian, blankly. "You combine both, certainly!" He was -decidedly taken aback by the announcement, as the other had intended, -but he recovered himself first. It was Harding who looked sullen and ill -at ease after the revelation into which he had been betrayed, as if his -grandfather had somehow recoiled upon him, and knocked him down. - -Young Scarlett felt that he could not get up and go away the moment the -pork-butcher was introduced, though he half regretted that he had come -from the piano to talk to his sulky descendant. "Well, you get your -looks from your ancestors at Mitchelhurst," he said; "it's quite -wonderful. I studied those portraits a good deal, and there's one on the -right-hand side of the fire-place in the yellow drawing-room, as they -call it--do you know the house well?" - -"Yes, well enough. Yes, I know Anthony Rothwell's picture." - -"It might be yours," said Adrian. - -Reynold's only answer was a doubtful "Hm!" - -"A fine old house!" Scarlett remarked, as he rose from his chair. If his -companion intended to treat him to such curt, half-hostile speeches, he -would leave him alone, and ask Mrs. Wilton, or one of the girls, about -him, later. He might satisfy his curiosity so, more pleasantly. - -But, "A fine old house!" Harding repeated. "Yes, a fine, dreary, chilly, -decaying, melancholy old house." He leant back in his chair and looked -up at Scarlett, "Did you ever see a more hopeless place in all your -life?" - -"Come! Not so bad as that!" - -"Well, it seems to me that there is no hope about it," Reynold -persisted; "no hope at all. A ghastly nightmare of a house. Why doesn't -somebody pull it down!" - -"You must have seen it under unfavourable circumstances." - -"Very likely. I was there last October. It might be better in the -summer-time." - -"You stayed there?" - -"Yes, a few days." - -"Did they tell you I had been?" Scarlett asked, impulsively. "Did they -speak of me--Mr. Hayes, and--Miss Strange?" - -The men looked at each other as the name was spoken, Reynold's dark gaze -crossing the bright grey-blue gleam of Adrian's glance. "They said -something of a Mr. Scarlett who had been there--yes." - -"And they were well, I hope?" - -"Well enough--then." - -"Then?" cried Adrian. "Then! Why, what has happened since?" - -"Didn't you know old Hayes was dead?" - -The young man drew a long breath. "No, I didn't!" - -"Died just a week before Christmas. The old house is shut up." - -Adrian was silent for a moment. "Poor old fellow!" he said at last. "I'm -very sorry to hear it. And the house shut up--of course Miss Strange -would go back to her people in Devonshire." Reynold looked at him -silently. "I wonder who will take the old Place!" said Adrian. "If I -were rich--" Their glances met once more, and he stopped short, and -strolled towards the window. - -"A castle in the air," he said, presently. "I don't suppose I shall -ever see Mitchelhurst again, since the poor old gentleman is gone. But I -shall always remember the place. Not for its beauty, precisely. I know -when I went there first I was surprised that he should care to live in a -corner of that great white pile. Something rather sepulchral about it. -Did you ever notice it by moonlight?" - -Reynold Harding said, Yes, he had. - -"I recollect an almost startling effect one night," Scarlett continued. -"And the avenue too--that queer avenue--gnarled boughs, with thin -foliage quivering in the wind, and glimpses of summer sky shining -through. I think if I were a painter I would make a picture of those -trees." - -There _was_ a picture of them, stripped of their leaves, and wrestling -with an October gale, before the eyes of the man to whom he spoke. -"They might be worth painting," he said. "I suppose they weren't worth -cutting down. If they had been, I fancy there wouldn't be any avenue -left." - -"I suppose not. Well, anyhow I'm glad it was spared. There's an -individuality about the place--melancholy it may be, perhaps dreary, as -you say, but it isn't commonplace, so it misses the worst dreariness of -all." He recurred to his first idea. "I wonder who will live there now -poor old Hayes is dead." - -"Rats," said Reynold. "And perhaps an old man and his wife, to take care -of it." - -Scarlett stood, with a shadow on his pleasant face. He had meant to go -back to Mitchelhurst quite early in the summer, and he slipped a hand -into his pocket, and fingered the little bundle of printed leaves which -had played a part in his day-dream. He had counted on a welcome from -the white-haired old gentleman, whose whims and oddities he understood -and did not dislike, and he had waited contentedly enough till the time -should come. In fact, he had found plenty to do that winter, what with -Christmas visits, and the preparation of his poems for the press. As -Adrian looked back, he realised that it had been a very agreeable -winter, and that it had slipped away very quickly. The thought of -Mitchelhurst had been there through it all, but, to tell the truth, it -had not been very prominent. He would have spoken to Barbara in the -autumn, if he had been left to himself, yet he had recognised the wisdom -of the old man's prohibition, he had enjoyed the pathos of that unspoken -farewell, and the sonnet which he touched and retouched with dainty -grieving, and he had looked forward, very happily, to the end of his -probation. Barbara, who was certainly very young, was growing a little -older while he waltzed, and sang, and polished his rhymes, and made new -friends wherever he went. Adrian had too much honesty to pretend to -himself that he had been broken-hearted in consequence of their -separation. He had not even felt uneasy, for, without being boastful, he -had been very frankly and simply sure of the end of his love-story. He -knew Barbara liked him. - -And now it seemed that his testy little white-haired friend had gone out -of the great old house into a smaller dwelling-place, and he had been -reckoning on a dead man's welcome. A welcome--to what? To the cold clay -of Mitchelhurst churchyard? The week before Christmas--Scarlett -remembered that he had been very busy the week before Christmas, -helping in some theatricals at a country house. He had been called, and -called again at the end of the performance. And just then, at -Mitchelhurst, the curtain had fallen for ever on the little part which -Mr. Hayes had played, and Barbara had looked on its black mystery. - -He bit his lip impatiently. There had been no harm in the theatricals, -just the usual joking and intimacy among the actors behind the scenes, -and the usual love-making and embraces on the stage. Adrian's conscience -was clear enough, and yet the recollection of the girl who played the -heroine (painted and powdered a little more than was absolutely -necessary, for the mere pleasure of painting and powdering, as is the -way with amateurs), came back to him with unpleasant distinctness. He -could see her face, close to his own, as he remembered it on the hot -little gaslit stage, in their great reconciliation scene, the scene that -was always followed by a burst of applause. Everybody had admired his -very becoming dress, and Scarlett himself had been rather proud of it. -But now in a freak of his vivid imagination, he pictured the -masquerading figure that he was, all showy pretence, with a head full of -cues and inflated speeches, set down suddenly in the wintry loneliness -of Mitchelhurst Place, and passing along the corridors to the threshold -of the dead man's room, to see Barbara turn with startled eyes in the -midst of the shadows. God! how pitiful and incongruous was that -frippery, as he saw it in his fancy, brought thus into the presence of -the last reality! - -And Barbara, had she wondered at his silence during all these months? -Never one word of regret for the old man who had been kind to him! "I -wouldn't have had it happen for anything!" he said to himself. "What has -she thought of me?" - -Harding, with eyelids slightly drooping, was watching him, and Scarlett -suddenly became aware of the fact. - -"No, I suppose nobody is likely to take the old house," he said -hurriedly. "I used to think it must be dull for Miss Strange, shut up -there with nobody but her uncle." - -"I should say it was." - -"Well, Devonshire's a nice county, not that I know much of it. What part -of Devonshire do the Stranges live in--do you know?" - -"North Devon," Reynold Harding answered, and then added, half -reluctantly, "Sandmoor, near Ilfracombe." - -"Ah, it isn't a part I know at all," said Adrian aloud, and to himself -he repeated "Sandmoor, near Ilfracombe." - -At that moment the door opened, and one of the daughters of the house -came in. "Oh, Mr. Harding!" she exclaimed, advancing, and shaking hands -in a quick, careless fashion, "I'm afraid you've been kept waiting a -long while." - -"It doesn't matter," said Harding, standing very stiffly. "Is Guy ready -now, Miss Wilton?" - -"Yes, he's waiting in the hall. Bob got him away to the stables, and I -didn't know he was there till just now: you know what those boys are -when they get together. I thought Guy had _better_ wait in the hall, for -I'm afraid he's not as clean as he might be." - -"It doesn't matter," Harding replied again. "He very seldom is." - -"I did try to brush him," said the girl good-humouredly, "but I didn't -do much good." - -"Wanted something a good deal more thorough, no doubt," Adrian -suggested. - -"I hope he delivered his message?" Harding inquired. "It is his birthday -to-morrow, and his father is going to take him for the day to the -seaside. He was to ask if your brother would go with him." - -"Oh, Bob will be delighted, I'm sure," said Miss Wilton. "I should think -_you_ would enjoy the holiday, Mr. Harding, you must be thankful to get -rid of your charge now and then." - -Scarlett, sitting on the end of the sofa, saw Harding's face darken with -displeasure. "It makes very little difference, thank you," said the -tutor coldly. "I think I'll go and find Guy now." And he bowed himself -out of the room in his sullen fashion. The girl looked after him, and -then turned to Adrian and laughed. - -"Aren't we dignified?" she said. "What did I say to make him so cross? I -didn't mean any harm." - -"Oh, I don't know--I don't think you said anything very dreadful. Who is -Guy?" - -"Guy Robinson. His father has no end of money, Jones and Robinson the -builders, you know, who are always getting big contracts for things in -the newspapers--you see their names for ever. Old Robinson has bought -the Priory, so they are neighbours of ours. Guy is twelve or thirteen, -the only boy, and they won't send him to school." - -"Mr. Harding is his tutor?" - -Miss Wilton nodded. - -"I shouldn't much fancy him for mine," said Scarlett reflectively. "I'm -rather inclined to pity Master Guy." - -"You needn't," the girl made answer, glancing shrewdly. "I think Mr. -Harding is there under false pretences." - -"False pretences?" - -"Yes. I believe they think he is stern, and will keep Guy in order, and -my private conviction is that he does nothing of the kind. Nobody -_could_ keep Guy in order, without perpetual battles, and Mr. Robinson -always ends the battles, by dismissing the tutor. I never hear of any -battles with Mr. Harding." - -"I see. You think he spoils the boy." - -"Spoils him? Well, I think that in his supreme contempt for Guy and all -the Robinsons, he just takes care that he doesn't drown himself, or -blow himself up with gunpowder, or break his neck, and I don't believe -he troubles himself any further. I wonder what made the boy want to go -to the seaside." - -"How far is it?" - -"Well, about thirty miles if they go to Salthaven. There's a railway--I -should think old Robinson will have a special. Bob will have a great -deal too much to eat and drink, and he'll be ill the day after. And if -he and Guy can think of any senseless mischief, they are sure to be up -to it, and the old man will swagger and pay for the damage. Boys will be -boys," said Miss Wilton, with pompous intonation. - -Adrian laughed. "Perhaps Mr. Harding will go too." - -"Oh no! I know he won't." - -"How do you know?" - -"Mr. Robinson won't take him. My belief is that he's rather afraid of -Mr. Harding. Oh! there he goes with Guy, out by the garden way." - -Scarlett looked over her shoulder. "What a handsome fellow he is!" - -"Handsome?" Miss Wilton turned her head, and looked doubtfully at her -companion. - -"Yes. Don't you think so?" - -"N-no. It never occurred to me. Do you mean it really, or are you -laughing?" - -"Of course I mean it. Didn't you ever look at him?" - -"Why yes, often." - -"Well, then?" - -"I suppose his features are good, when one comes to think about them," -said the girl, with a dubious expression in her eyes. "Yes, I suppose -they are." - -"I wish mine were anything like as good," said Scarlett, with -dispassionate candour. - -"You wish yours----" Miss Wilton began, and ended with an amazed and -incredulous laugh which was exceedingly flattering. It was so evidently -genuine. - -"I don't think you half believe me now," he said. "But I assure you, if -you were to ask an artist he would tell you----" - -"An artist? Oh, I dare say an artist might say so. But I don't believe a -_woman_ would say that Mr. Harding was good-looking." - -"How if _she_ were an artist?" - -"Oh, then she wouldn't count." - -"But why wouldn't a woman think so?" - -She paused to consider. "I don't know," she said, "and yet I do mean it, -somehow. He may be handsome, but he doesn't seem like it. I think a -woman would want him to seem as well as to be." - -"Do you mean that she wouldn't admire him unless he gave himself airs? -That's not very complimentary to the woman, you know." - -Miss Wilton shook her head. "I don't mean that. He might not think about -himself at all--I should like him all the better." She stood for a -minute with her eyes raised to Adrian's, yet was plainly looking back at -the image of Reynold Harding which she had called up for the purpose of -analysis. At last, "He isn't a bit unconscious!" she exclaimed. "He is -the _most_ self-conscious man I know. I believe he is _always_ thinking -about himself!" - -"If he is," said Scarlett, "as far as I could judge I should say he -didn't enjoy it much." - - "That's it!" she said. "He doesn't find himself -attractive, and so--no more do we. _Isn't_ that it?" - -He smiled. "There's something in the idea as far as it goes. But it -doesn't alter his features, you know." - -"Of course not. But we don't look at them." - -Adrian stood, pulling his moustache, and still smiling. He was not -afraid, yet he found it rather pleasant to be told that this picturesque -tutor, who had been shut up in Mitchelhurst Place with Barbara, was not -the kind of man to take a woman's fancy. It was pleasant, but of course -it did not mean much. Molly Wilton might be perfectly right, and yet it -would not mean much. It is easy to lay down general rules about women, -and very clever rules they often are. The mistake is, in applying these -admirable theories to any one particular woman--she is certain to be an -exception. Scarlett, while he listened to his companion, did not forget -that there are always women enough to supply a formidable minority. - -"I say," Miss Wilton exclaimed, with a real kindling of interest in her -face, "I'll just go and take off my hat, and then we might try over that -duet, you know." - -To this he readily assented, but when she left the room he lingered by -the window, and presently ejaculated "Poor devil!" It is hardly -necessary to say that he was not thinking of Molly Wilton, who assuredly -was neither angel nor devil, but a bright, wholesome, rather substantial -young woman. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -TWO GLANCES. - - -After all it was not Molly Wilton who first came into the room where -Adrian waited for the duet, but her elder sister, Amy. Each sister had -her recognised province, in which she reigned supreme. Amy was the -beauty of the family, and had a taste for poetry; Molly was musical and -lively. This arrangement worked perfectly, and Molly admired her -sister's charms, and her poetical sympathies, without a trace of -jealousy, feeling quite sure that justice would be done to her if there -were any question of music or repartee. - -Adrian was not looking at his proofs when Miss Wilton came in. He was -sitting on the sofa, with his legs stretched out before him, gazing into -space, and thinking of Sandmoor, near Ilfracombe. It was absolutely -necessary that he should put himself into communication with that place, -but how was it to be done? Should he write that day, or should he go the -next? - -"Oh, I have interrupted you!" Miss Wilton ejaculated, and stopped just -inside the door. - -"Interrupted me! Not a bit of it! I was only----" - -"You were thinking of that sonnet--I know you were!" - -"No, really," said Adrian, almost wishing he _had_ been thinking of that -sonnet. "No, I wasn't. In fact I think the sonnet is pretty well -finished." - -"Is it? You must read it to me, won't you?" and she came forward -eagerly, took a chair, and dropped into a graceful attitude of -attention. She had a real taste for poetry, and the poet was also to her -liking. This was not the first time that she had listened, with shining -eyes and quickened breath, and had brought the colour to the young man's -cheek by saying with soft earnestness, "I like that--O, I like that!" -Adrian found it very pleasant to read his poems to Miss Wilton. - -"If you like," he said. "If you are sure it won't bore you." - -"Of course I like," she answered. - -"It's the first sonnet of all, you know," he explained, "a sort of -dedication. I didn't like the one I had, so I shall make them put this -in instead." He pulled his papers out of his pocket, and took a leaf of -manuscript from among the printed pages. "You must tell me what you -think of it," he said, and cleared his throat. - -At that moment Molly opened the door. She saw the state of affairs at a -glance, and slipped into her place, as quietly as if she had come into -church late, and spied a convenient free seat. - - Adrian read-- - - "_Have not all songs been sung, all loves been told?_ - What shall I say when nought is left unsaid? - The world is full of memories of the dead, - Echoes, and relics. Here's no virgin gold, - But all assayed, none left for me to mould - Into new coin, and at your feet to shed, - Each piece is mint-marked with some poet's head, - Tested and rung in tributes manifold._ - - "_O for a single word should be mine own-- - And not the homage of long-studied art, - Common to all, for you who stand apart! - O weariness of measures tried and known! - Yet in their rhythm, you_--_if you alone-- - Should hear the passionate pulses of my heart!_" - -As he finished he lifted his eyes and looked at Amy. Where else should a -young man look, to emphasise the meaning of his love-poem, except into a -woman's sympathising eyes? But the look, mere matter of course as it -was, startled and silenced her. "You--if you alone!" The words, spoken -with the soft fulness of Adrian's pleasant voice, rang in her ears. A -young woman whose attractions were recognised by all the family might -very well be pardoned for not at once perceiving that the emphasis was -purely artistic. - -But the silence which would have been full of meaning for the lover, -frightened the poet. - -"You don't like it!" he exclaimed, anxiously. - -"Oh yes, I do--I like it very much." - -"But there is something wrong," Adrian persisted. "I am sure you don't -like it." - -"Indeed--indeed I do," the girl declared fervently, and Molly chimed in -with an enthusiastic-- - -"Oh, Mr. Scarlett, it's charming!" - -"It's very kind of you to say so," he replied, pocketing his sonnet and -going towards the piano, still with a slightly troubled expression. -"Shall we try that duet now?" - -Molly's thoughts were very easily diverted from poetry. She set up the -music; but just as she was about to strike the first note, an idea -occurred to her, and spinning half round on the stool-- - -"Amy," she said, "do _you_ call that Mr. Harding so very good-looking?" - -Amy was taken by surprise. - -"I? oh no!" she answered. - -"There!" Molly exclaimed, looking up at Scarlett. - -"Why, what do you mean?" Miss Wilton asked. "Somehow I can't fancy he'll -live. Whenever I look at that man's face I think of death." - -"What a queer idea!" said the younger sister reflectively. "Well, he -certainly doesn't look strong, and I should think that Robinson boy -would be enough to worry anybody into an early grave." - -Adrian, standing by the piano, raised his eyes to the old mirror, as if -he half expected to see the pale face with its watchful eyes below the -gleaming surface of the glass. But it reflected only a vague confusion -of curtain and wall-paper, and the feathery foliage of a palm. - -"I say," said Molly, "had you met him before this morning, or did you -introduce yourselves?" - -"We introduced ourselves. I found he knew a place where I stayed last -summer. Don't you remember," he said, looking across at Amy, "the old -house I told you about?" - -"I remember. Where you wrote that bit, '_Waiting by the Sundial_'?" - -Scarlett nodded. - -"Yes. Well, I found he knew it well--in fact it turned out that he was a -connection----" - -"What, of your friends there?" - -"No, not of my friends, of the old family who used to have the place." - -"Oh, your friends aren't the old family then?" said Molly. - -"No, they are not. I ought to say they _were_ not--there were only two -of them," he added in an explanatory fashion, "old Mr. Hayes, and his -niece Miss Strange, and Mr. Harding told me to-day that the old man was -dead. I didn't know it." - -Molly looked up sympathetically, but, as he did not seem to be -over-powered with grief, she went on, after a moment-- - -"Isn't it funny how, when one has never heard a name, and then one -_does_ hear it, one is sure to hear it again in three or four different -ways directly? Did you ever notice that?" - -Mr. Scarlett wasn't sure that he had, but he agreed that it was a very -remarkable law. - -"Well it always _is_ so--you notice," she said. "Now I don't remember -that I ever knew of anybody of the name of Strange in all my life, and -now the Ashfords have got a Miss Strange staying with them, and here -your friend is a Miss Strange." - -His glance quickened a little at this illustration of the rule in -question. - -"Curious!" he said. "And who is this Miss Strange who is staying with -the Ashfords?" - -"Oh, she is a clergyman's daughter from Devonshire. She is very pretty. -Amy, don't you think that Miss Strange is pretty?" - -"Very pretty," said Amy, taking a book from the table. - -"Yes, very pretty, for that style," Molly repeated. - -"And what is her particular style?" Adrian asked, keeping his eyes, -which were growing eager, fixed upon the keyboard. - -"Oh, I don't know--she's rather small," said Molly lamely (Barbara was -not as tall as Amy Wilton), "and she is dark--too dark, I think." (Amy -was decidedly fair.) "She has a quantity of black hair. Do you like -black hair?" (Amy's was wound in shining golden coils,) "and rather a -colour, and fine eyes. Oh, dear, how _difficult_ it is to describe -people!" - -It might be so, and yet young Scarlett, as he listened, could actually -see a pair of soft eyes shining under darkly pencilled brows, a cloud of -shadowy hair, and lips of deep carnation. It would rather have seemed -that Miss Molly Wilton excelled in the art of description. - -"Do you know what her name is?" he asked in an indifferent voice, -stooping a little to look at a speck on one of the keys, and touching it -with a neat finger-nail. - -"What, do you think it may be your Miss Strange?" - -"It's possible," he said. "Her people were somewhere in that part of the -world." - -"I did hear her name--no, don't say it! Amy, do you remember Miss -Strange's name?" - -Amy looked up absently. - -"Something old-fashioned--wasn't it Barbara?" - -Adrian had lifted his head, and their eyes met. In that moment the girl -saw what a glance could mean. It was just a flash of light, and then his -ordinary look. - -"Yes," he said, "that's the name; it must be the Miss Strange I know." - -"Dear me!" said Molly, "I hope I didn't say any harm of her just now! -You'd better go and call. You remember the Ashfords, you went with us to -a garden party at their place when you were staying here two years ago." - -Adrian smiled, and moved towards the window, forgetting his engagement -at the piano. - -"Oh!" said the disappointed musician, "aren't we to have the duet then?" - -"I beg your pardon," he answered, coming back with bright promptitude, -"I'm quite ready." - -But Amy, as their voices rose and filled the room, sat gazing at the -page which she did not read. She had seen how Adrian Scarlett could -look, when he heard the name of Barbara. And she had thought, because he -turned towards her when he read a sonnet--she had thought--what? A pink -flush dyed her delicate skin. Our pardonable mistakes are precisely what -we ourselves can never pardon. - -The song being ended young Scarlett made his escape. He was half amused, -half indignant. - -"Sandmoor near Ilfracombe! Confound the fellow, he knew where she was -all the time, and I thought he was rather unwilling to give me her -Devonshire address! Sandmoor near Ilfracombe indeed!" - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -IN NUTFIELD LANE. - - -When Reynold Harding assured Miss Wilton that it made very little -difference to him whether he got rid of his pupil for a day or not, he -told a lie. From the moment when he heard of Guy's holiday, he had -resolved in his own mind that on that day of freedom, he would see -Barbara Strange. - -He knew that she was staying with the Ashfords, and he had heard the -Robinson girls talking about her one day after luncheon. - -"That pretty little Devonshire girl finds it dull, I think," said -Violet. - -"Who wouldn't?" her sister exclaimed. "She has had time to hear all old -Ashford's stories a dozen times before this, and they are stupid enough -the first time. But how do you know she finds it dull?" - -"They say she is always running about the fields looking for primroses -and cowslips. I saw her when I was out riding this morning, leaning on -the gate into Nutfield Lane, with her hands full of them." - -"How very picturesque! Looking into the lane for some more?" - -"Or for some one to help her carry what she'd got. I don't know what I -mightn't be driven to, myself, if I had to listen to old Ashford's -prosing, and then go crawling out for a couple of hours boxed up in -Mother Ashford's stuffy old brougham, two or three times a week. And -Willy Ashford hardly ever comes, now he's engaged to that girl in -Kensington." - -"No," said Muriel, "and I don't know that he would mend matters much if -he did. Well, perhaps somebody with a taste for cowslips and innocence, -will happen to walk along Nutfield Lane next time Miss Strange is -looking over the gate. What did you think of doing this afternoon?" - -They were standing in the window, and speaking low. But their voices -were metallic and penetrating, and the tutor, who was watching Guy's -progress through a meal, which had worn out his sisters' patience, heard -every word. He had his back to the light, and the boy did not see the -black full veins on his forehead. - -"But I want some more tart," said Guy. - -The request was granted with careless liberality. - -"Is that enough?" Harding asked. - -The boy eyed it. He did not think he could possibly manage any more, but -he said-- - -"I don't know," just as a measure of precaution. - -"Well, eat that first," said the other, and sat, resting his head on his -hand. - -He knew Nutfield Lane. It was three or four miles from the Priory; Guy -and he went that way sometimes. He remembered a gate there, with posts -set close to a couple of towering elms, that arched it with their -budding boughs, and thrust their roots above the trodden pathway. There -was a meadow beyond, the prettiest possible background for a pretty -little Devonshire girl with her hands full of cowslips. As to her -looking out for any one--he would like to walk straight up to those -vulgar, chattering, expensive young women, and knock their heads -together. It seemed to Harding that there would be something very -soothing and satisfying about such an expression of his opinion, if only -it were possible! But it could not be, and he relinquished the thought -with a sigh, as he had relinquished the pursuit of other unattainable -joys. - -"N--no, I don't want any more," said Guy, regretfully. "Only some more -beer." - -Harding nodded, with that absent-minded acquiescence which had endeared -him to his pupil. Guy was only to him like a buzzing fly, or any other -tiresome little presence, to be endured in silence, and, as far as -possible, ignored. But when that afternoon the boy came to him with the -announcement that he should be twelve on Tuesday, and his father was -going to take him somewhere for the whole day, Reynold raised his head -from the exercise he was correcting, and looked at him fixedly. - -"That's all right," he said, after a moment. - -In that moment he had made up his mind. He wanted to see Barbara. And -then? He did not know what then, but he wanted to see her. - -The white spring sunshine lighted the page which Guy had scrawled and -blotted, and Reynold sat with the pen between his fingers, dreaming. He -would see Barbara, but he would not even attempt to think what he would -do or say when they met. He had planned and schemed before, and chance -had swept all his schemes away. Now he would leave it all to chance; it -was enough for him to think that he would certainly see her again. - -He would see her, not standing as he had seen her first, in sad autumnal -scenery, not coming towards him in the pale firelit room, not walking -beside him to the village, while the wind drove flights of dead leaves -across the grey curtain of the sky, not as she faced him, frightened and -breathless, in the quivering circle of lamplight on the stairs, not as -he remembered her last of all, when she stood beyond the boundary which -he might not cross, and Mitchelhurst Place rose behind her in the light -of the moon, white and dead as dry bones. It seemed to him that it must -always be autumn at Mitchelhurst, with dim, short days, and gusty -nights, and the chilly atmosphere laden with odours of decay. But all -this was past and over, and he was going to meet Barbara in the spring. -Barbara in April--all happy songs of love, all the young gladness of -the year, all tender possibilities were summed up in those three words. -He was startled at the sudden eagerness which escaped from his control, -and throbbed and bounded within him when he resolved to see her once -again. But he did not betray it outwardly, unless, perhaps, by an -attempt to write his next correction with a dry pen. - -He listened to Guy's excited chatter as the day drew near, and set out -with him to carry the invitation to Bob Wilton, in a mood which, on the -surface, was one of apathetic patience. Nothing he could do would hasten -the arrival of Tuesday, but nevertheless it was coming. When the two -boys went off to the stables together, he waited. He might as well wait -in the Wiltons' sunny drawing-room as anywhere else. And when some one -entered by the further door and began to play, he listened, not ill -pleased. He had no ear for music, but the defect was purely physical, -and except for that hindrance he might have loved it. As it was he could -not appreciate the meaning of what was played beyond the curtain, nor -could he recognise the skill and delicacy with which it was rendered. To -him it was only a bright, formless ripple of sound, gliding vaguely by, -till suddenly Barbara's tune, rounded and clear and silver sweet, awoke -him from his reverie. - -For a moment he sat breathless with wonder. Only a dull memory of her -music had stayed with him, a kind of tuneless beating of its measure, -and the living notes, melodiously full, pursued that poor ghost through -his heart and brain. His pulses throbbed as if the girl herself were -close at hand. Then he rose, and softly stepped across the room. Who was -it who was playing Barbara's tune? Who but the man who had played it to -Barbara? - -Considered as a piece of reasoning this was weak. Anybody would have -told him the name of the composer, and could have assured him that -dozens and scores of men might play the thing. Barbara might have heard -it on a barrel organ! But Harding's thoughts went straight to the one -man who had left music lying about at Mitchelhurst with his name, -"Adrian Scarlett," written on it. Barbara's tune jangled wildly in his -ears; she had learnt it from this man, or she had taught it to him. - -Thus it happened that Adrian looked up from his playing, and saw the -picture in the mirror, the face that followed him with its intent and -hostile gaze. And Reynold, standing apart and motionless, watched the -musician, and noted his air of careless ease and mastery, the smile -which lingered on his lips, and the way in which he threw back his head -and let his glances rove, though of course he did not know that all -these things were a little accentuated by Adrian's self-consciousness -under his scrutiny. He was sure, even before a word had been uttered, -that this was the man whose name had haunted him at Mitchelhurst, and -who won Mr. Pryor's heart by singing at his penny reading. To Reynold, -standing in the shadow, Scarlett was the type of the conquering young -hero, swaggering a little in the consciousness of his popularity and his -facile triumphs. - -To some extent he wronged Adrian, and on one point Adrian wronged him. -He believed that Harding had exulted in the idea of putting him on the -wrong scent with his "Sandmoor near Ilfracombe." But in point of fact -Harding had given the address with real reluctance. He had been asked -where the Stranges lived, and had told the truth. To have supplemented -it with information as to Barbara's whereabouts would have been to -assume a knowledge of Scarlett's meaning in asking the question, a thing -intolerable and impossible. Yet Harding's morbid pride was galled by his -unwilling deceit, and he wished that the subject had never been -mentioned. He had no doubt that his rival would go to Sandmoor, but he -did not exult in the thought of the disappointment that awaited him -there. - -Still, when Tuesday came it undoubtedly was a satisfaction to feel that -the express was carrying Mr. Scarlett further and further from the gate -which led into Nutfield Lane. Otherwise the day was of but doubtful -promise, its blue blotted with rain-clouds, which Guy Robinson regarded -as a personal injury. It brightened, however, after the birthday party -had started, and Reynold set out on his rather vague errand, under skies -which shone and threatened in the most orthodox April fashion. The -heavens might have laid a wager that they would show a dozen different -faces in the hour, from watery sadness to glittering joy. It was hardly -a day on which Mrs. Ashford would care to creep out in her brougham, but -a little Devonshire girl, tired of a dull house, might very well face it -with an umbrella and her second-best hat. - -Harding made sure that she would. If she failed to do so he had no -scheme ready. He did not know the Ashfords, and to go up to their house -and ask for Miss Strange, could lead, at the best, to nothing but a -formal interview under the eyes of an old lady who would consider his -visit an impertinence. But Barbara would come! It was surely time that -his luck should turn. When the hazard of the die has been against us a -dozen times we are apt to have an irrational conviction that our chance -must come with the next throw, and Harding strolled round the Ashfords' -place, questioning only how, and how soon, she would appear. To see her -once--it was so little that he asked!--to see her, and to hold her hand -for a moment in his own, and to make her look up at him, straight into -his eyes. And if she had the fancy still, as he somehow thought she had, -to hear him say that he forgave her, why, he would say it. As if he had -ever blamed her for the little forgetfulness which had ended all his -hopes of fortune! And yet, if Barbara could have known how near that -fortune had been! The old man's health had failed suddenly during the -winter, the great inheritance was about to fall in, and Reynold would -have been a partner and his own master within a few months from his -decision. "Well," he said to himself as he leant on the gate in Nutfield -Lane, "and even so, what harm has she done? Was I not going to say No -before I saw her? And if she persuaded me to write the Yes which turned -to No at the bottom of her apron pocket, am I to complain of her for -that?" - -He thought, that he would ask her for a flower, a leaf, or a budding -twig from the hedge, just by way of remembrance. At present he had -none, except the unopened letter which she had given back to him in his -lodgings at Mitchelhurst. - -The day grew fairer as it passed. Though a couple of sparkling showers, -which filled the sunlit air with the quick flashing of falling drops, -drove him once and again for shelter to a hay-stack in a neighbouring -meadow, the blue field overhead widened little by little, and shone -through the tracery of leafless boughs. He felt his spirits rising -almost in spite of himself. He came back, after the second shower, by -the field path to the lane, and was in the act of getting over the gate -when he heard steps coming quickly towards him. Not Barbara's, they were -from the opposite direction. He sprang hastily down, and found himself -face to face with Mr. Adrian Scarlett, who was humming a tune. - -Reynold drew a long breath, and stood as if he were turned to stone. -Adrian was only mortal, he lifted his hat, and smiled his greeting, with -a look in his grey-blue eyes which said as plainly as possible, "_Didn't -you think I was at Sandmoor?_" and then walked on towards the Ashfords' -house, where he had been to the tennis party two years before. He would -be very welcome there. And if he should chance to meet Barbara by the -way, _he_ knew very well what he was going to say to her. But a moment -later he felt a touch of pity for the luckless fellow who had not -outwitted him after all. "Poor devil!" he said, as he had said the day -before. - -The epithet, which, like many another, is flung about inappropriately -enough, hit the mark for once. Reynold stood pale and dumb, choked with -bitter hate, but helpless and hopeless enough for pity. He would do no -more with hate than he had done with love. He knew it, and presently he -turned and walked drearily away. He did not want to see Barbara when she -had met Adrian Scarlett. He had meant to see her _first_, to end his -unlucky little love-story with a few gentle words, to hold her hand for -a moment, and then to step aside and leave her free to go her way. What -harm would there have been? But this man, who was to have everything, -had baulked him even in this. She would not care for his pardon now, and -perhaps it would hardly have been worth taking. If one is compelled to -own one's forgiveness superfluous it is difficult to keep it sweet. - -So he did not see Barbara when, a little later, she came up Nutfield -Lane by Scarlett's side. They stopped by the gate, and leant on it. -Barbara had no flowers in her hands, but it seemed to her that all the -country-side was blossoming. - -She looked a little older than when Adrian had bidden her his mute -farewell at Mitchelhurst. The expression of her face was at once -quickened and deepened, her horizon was enlarged, though the gaze which -questioned it was as innocent as ever. But her dark eyes kept a memory -of the proud patience with which she had waited through the winter. -There had been times when her faith in the _Clergy List_ had been -shaken, and she had doubted whether Adrian would ever consult its pages, -and find out where her father lived. She did not blame him; he was free -as air; yet those had been moments of almost unbearable loneliness. She -never spoke of him to anybody; to have been joked and pitied by Louisa -and Hetty would have been hateful to her. She thought of him -continually, and dreamed of him sometimes. But there was only a limited -satisfaction in dreaming of Adrian Scarlett; he was apt to be placed in -absurdly topsy-turvy circumstances, and to behave unaccountably. Barbara -felt, regretfully, that a girl who was parted from such a lover should -have dreamed in a loftier manner. She was ashamed of herself, although -she knew she could not help it. Now, however, there was no need to -trouble herself about dreams or clergy lists; Adrian was leaning on the -gate by her side. - -"What you must have thought of me!" he was saying. "Never to take the -least notice of your uncle's death! I can't think how I missed hearing -of it." - -"It was in the _Times_ and some of the other papers," said Barbara. - -The melancholy little announcement had seemed to her a sort of appeal to -her absent lover. - -"I never saw it. I was--busy just then," he explained with a little -hesitation. "I suppose I didn't look at the papers. I have been fancying -you at Mitchelhurst all the time, and promising myself that I would go -back there, and find you where I found you first." - -Barbara did not speak; she leaned back and looked up at him with a -smile. Adrian's answering gaze held hers as if it enfolded it. - -"I _might_ have written," he said, "or inquired--I might have done -_something_, at any rate! I can't think how it was I didn't! But I'd got -it into my head that I wanted to get those poems of mine out--wanted to -go back to you with my volume in my hand, and show you the dedication. I -was waiting for that--I never thought----" - -"Yes," said the girl with breathless admiration and approval. "And are -they finished now?" - -"Confound the poems!" cried Adrian with an amazed, remorseful laugh. A -stronger word had been on his lips. "Don't talk of them, Barbara! To -think that I neglected you while I was polishing those idiotic rhymes, -and that you think it was all right and proper! Oh, my dear, if you -tried for a week you couldn't make me feel smaller! If--if anything had -happened to you, and I had been left with my trumpery verses--" - -"You shall not call them that! Don't talk so!" - -"Well, suppose you had got tired of waiting, and had come across some -better fellow. There was time enough, and it would have served me -right." - -"I don't know about serving you right, but there wouldn't have been time -for me to get tired of waiting," said Barbara, and added more softly, -"not if it had been all my life." - -"Listen to that!" Adrian answered, leaning backward, with his elbows on -the gate. "All her life--for _me_!" - -His quick fancy sketched that life: first the passionate eagerness, -throbbing, hoping, trusting, despairing; then submission to the -inevitable, the gradual extinction of expectation as time went on; and -finally the dimness and placidity of old age, satisfied to worship a -pathetic memory. Hardly love, rather love's ghost, that shadowy -sentiment, cut off from the strong actual existence of men and women, -and thinly nourished on recollections, and fragments of mild verse. -Scarlett turned away, as from a book of dried flowers, to Barbara. - -"What did you think of me?" he said, still dwelling on the same thought. -"Never one word!" - -"Well, I felt as if there were a word--at least, a kind of a -word--once," she said. "I went with Louisa to the dentist last -February--it was Valentine's Day--she wanted a tooth taken out. There -were some books and papers lying about in the waiting-room. One of them -was an old Christmas number, with something of yours in it. Do you -remember?" - -"N--no," said Scarlett doubtfully. - -"Oh, don't say it wasn't yours! A little poem--it had your name at the -end. There can't be _another_, surely," said Barbara, with a touch of -resentment at the idea. "There were two illustrations, but I didn't care -much for them; I didn't think they were good enough. I read the poem -over and over. I did so hope I should recollect it all; but he was ready -for Louisa before I had time to learn it properly, and our name was -called. It was a very bad tooth, and Louisa had gas, you know. I was -obliged to go. I am so slow at learning by heart. Louisa would have -known it all in half the time; but I did wish I could have had just one -minute more." - -"Tell me what it was," Adrian said. - -"_My love loves me_," Barbara began in a timid voice. - -"Oh--that! Yes, I remember now. The man who edits that magazine is a -friend of mine, and he asked me for some little thing for his Christmas -number. If I had thought you would have cared I could have sent it to -you." - -Her eyes shone with grateful happiness. - -"But I didn't," said Adrian. "I didn't do anything. Well, go on, -Barbara, tell me how much you remembered." - -Barbara paused a moment, looking back to the open page on the dentist's -green table-cloth. As she spoke she could see poor Louisa, awaiting her -summons with a resigned and swollen face, an old gentleman examining a -picture in the _Illustrated London News_ through his eyeglass, and a -lady apprehensively turning the pages of the dentist's pamphlet, _On -Diseases of the Teeth and Gums_. Outside, the rain was streaming down -the window panes. Barbara recalled all this with Adrian's verses. - - "_My love loves me. Then wherefore care - For rain or shine, for foul or fair? - My love loves me. - My daylight hours are golden wine, - And all the happy stars are mine, - My love loves me!_" - -"_Love flies away_," she began more doubtfully, and looked at Adrian, -who took it up. - - "_Love flies away, and summer mirth - Lies cold and grey upon the earth, - Love flies away, - The sun has set, no more to rise, - And far, beneath the shrouded sides, - Love flies away._" - -"Yes!" cried Barbara, "that's it! I had forgotten those last lines--how -stupid of me!" - -"Not at all," said Adrian. "You remembered all that concerned you, the -rest was quite superfluous." - -"Oh, but how I did try to remember the end!" she continued pensively. -"It haunted me. If I had only had a minute more! But all the same I -felt as if I had had something of a message from you that day. It was my -valentine, wasn't it?" - -Scarlett's eyes, with a look half whimsical, half touched with tender -melancholy, met hers. - -"I _wish_ we were worth a little more--my poems and I!" said he. "I wish -I were a hero, and had written an epic. Yes, by Jove! an epic in twelve -books." - -"Oh, not for me!" cried Barbara. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -A VERSE OF AN OLD SONG. - - -"Adrian!" - -The name was uttered with just a hint of hesitating appeal. - -"At your service," Scarlett answered promptly. He had a bit of paper -before him, and was pencilling an initial letter to be embroidered on -Barbara's handkerchiefs. - -"Adrian, did you hear that Mr. Harding--you know whom I mean--was ill?" - -"Yes, I did hear something about it." He put his head on one side and -looked critically at his work. "Is it anything serious?" - -"Yes," said Barbara. "I'm afraid it is." - -"Poor fellow! I'm very sorry. How the days do shorten, don't they?" - -"Yes," said Barbara again. "They spoke as if he were going to--die." - -"Really? I'm sorry for that. It is strange," Adrian continued, putting -in a stroke very delicately, "but one of the Wilton girls used always to -say he looked like it. I think it was Molly." - -Barbara sighed but did not speak. - -"Let's see," said Adrian, "he left the Robinsons--what happened? Didn't -the boy get drowned?" - -"No!" scornfully, "he fell into the water, but somebody fished him out." - -"Not Harding?" - -"No, somebody else. Mr. Harding went in, but he couldn't swim, and he -didn't reach Guy. But he got a chill--it seems that was the beginning -of it all." - -Scarlett leant back in his chair, twirling the pencil between his -fingers and looking at Barbara, whose eyes were fixed upon the rug. They -were alone in the drawing-room of a house in Kensington. Their wedding -was to be in about six weeks' time, and Barbara was staying for a -fortnight with an aunt who had undertaken to help her in her shopping--a -delightful aunt who paid bills, and who liked a quiet nap in the -afternoon. Adrian sometimes went out with them, and always showed great -respect for the good lady's slumbers. - -"Well," he said, after a pause, "and where is Mr. Harding now?" - -"At his mother's. She lives at Westbourne Park." - -"Westbourne Park," Scarlett repeated. "By Jove, that's a change from -Mitchelhurst! A nice healthy neighbourhood, and convenient for -Whiteley's, I suppose; but _what_ a change! I say, Barbara, how do you -happen to know so much about the Hardings?" - -"Adrian!" - -And again she seemed to appeal and hesitate in the mere utterance of his -name. She crossed the room, and touched his shoulder with her left hand, -which had a ring shining on it--a single emerald, a point of lucid -colour on her slim finger. - -"Adrian, I wanted to ask you, would there be any harm if----" - -"No," said Adrian gravely, "no harm at all. Not the slightest. Certainly -not." - -He took her other hand in his. - -She looked doubtfully at him. - -"What do you mean?" - -"What do _you_ mean, Barbara?" - -"I wanted to go to the door and ask how he is--that's all. I feel as if -I shouldn't like to go away without a word. We didn't part quite good -friends, you know. And last year he was making his plans, and now we are -making ours, and he----Oh, Adrian, why is life so sad? And yet I never -thought I _could_ be as happy as I am now." - -"It's rather mixed, isn't it?" he said, smiling up at her, and he drew -her hand to his lips. Barbara's eyes were full of tears. To hide them, -she stooped quickly and touched his hair with a fleeting kiss. - -"By all means go and ask after your friend before you leave town," said -Adrian. "Let us hope he isn't as bad as they think." - -"He is," said the girl. - -Long before this she had told Adrian about her night adventure at -Mitchelhurst. She had been perfectly frank about it, and yet she -sometimes doubted her own confession. It seemed so little when she spoke -of it to him, so unimportant, so empty of all meaning. Could it be that, -and only that, which had troubled her so strangely? He had smiled as he -listened, and had put it aside. "I don't suppose you did very much -harm," he said, "but any one with half an eye could see that he wasn't -the kind of fellow to take things easily. Poor Barbara!" She stood now -with something of the same perplexity on her brow; the thought of -Reynold Harding always perplexed her. - -There was a brief silence, during which she abandoned her hands to -Adrian's clasp, and felt his touch run through her, from sensitive -finger tips to her very heart. Then she spoke quickly, yet half -unwillingly, "Very well then, I shall go." - -"You wish it?" Adrian exclaimed, swift to detect every shade of meaning -in her voice. "Because, if not, there is no reason why you should. If -you hadn't said just now you wanted to go----" - -She drew one hand away and turned a little aside. "I know," she said, "I -did say it. Really and truly I don't want to go; it makes me -uncomfortable to think about him, but I want to have been." - -"Get it over then. Ask, and come away as quickly as you can." - -"To-morrow?" said Barbara. "I thought, perhaps, as aunt was not going -with us about those photograph frames, that to-morrow might do. I -couldn't go with aunt." - -"You have thought of everything. Go on." - -"You might put me into a cab after we leave the shop," she continued. "I -think that would be best. I would go and just inquire, and then come -straight on here. I don't want to explain to anybody, and if you say it -is all right----" - -"Why, it is all right, of course. That's settled then," said Adrian. - - * * * * * - -The next day was dreary even for late November. Adrian and Barbara -passed through the frame-maker's door into an outer gloom, chilly and -acrid with a touch of fog, and variegated with slowly-descending blacks. -Everything was dirty and damp. There were gas-lights in the shop windows -of a dim tawny yellow. - -Scarlett looked right and left at the sodden street and then upward in -the direction of the sky. "This isn't very nice," he said; "hadn't we -better go straight home?" - -"No--please!" Barbara entreated. "We have filled up to-morrow and the -next day, and aunt has asked some people to afternoon tea on Saturday." - -"All right; it may be better when we get to Westbourne Park. I'll go a -bit of the way with you." - -He looked for a cab. Barbara waited passively by his side, gazing -straight before her. She had never looked prettier than she did at that -moment, standing on the muddy step in the midst of the universal -dinginess. Excitement had given tension and brilliancy to her face, she -was flushed and warm in her wrappings of dark fur, and above the -rose-red of her cheeks her eyes were shining like stars. "Here we are!" -said Scarlett, as he hailed a loitering hansom. - -They drove northward, passing rows of shops, all blurred and glistening -in the foggy air, and wide, muddy crossings, where people started back -at the driver's hoarse shout. Scarlett, with Barbara's hand in his, -watched the long procession of figures on the pavement--dusky figures -which looked like marionnettes, going mechanically and ceaselessly on -their way. To the young man, driving by at his ease, their measured -movements had an air of ineffectual toil; they were on the treadmill, -they hurried for ever, and were always left behind. Looking at them he -thought of the myriads in the rear, stepping onward, stepping -continually. If they had really been marionnettes! But the droll thing -was that each figure had a history; there was a world-picture in every -one of those little, jogging heads. - -Presently the shops became scarce, the procession on the pavement grew -scattered and thin. They were driving up long, dim streets of stuccoed -houses. They passed a square or two where trees, black and bare, rose -above shadowy masses of evergreens all pent together within iron -railings. One might have fancied that the poor things had strayed into -the smoky wilderness, and been impounded in that melancholy place. - -"We must be almost there," said Adrian at last, when they had turned -into a cross street where the plastered fronts were lower and shabbier. -He put the question to the cabman. - -"Next turning but one, sir," was the answer. - -"Then I'll get out here," said Scarlett. - -Barbara murmured a word of farewell, but she felt that it was best. She -always thought of Reynold Harding as the unhappiest man she knew, and -she could not have driven up to his door to flaunt her great happiness -before his eyes. She leant forward quickly, and caught a glimpse of that -clear happiness of hers on the side walk, smiling and waving a farewell, -the one bright and pleasant thing to look upon in the grey foulness of -the afternoon. - -A turning--then it was very near indeed! Another dull row of houses, -each with its portico and little flight of steps. Here and there was a -glimmer of gas-light in the basement windows. Then another corner and -they were in the very street, and going more slowly as the driver tried -to make out the numbers on the doors. At that moment it suddenly -occurred to Miss Strange that her errand was altogether absurd and -impossible. She was seized with an overpowering paroxysm of shyness. Her -heart stood still, and then began to throb with labouring strokes. Why -had she ever come? - -Had it depended on herself alone she would certainly have turned round -and gone home, but the cab stopped with a jerk opposite one of the -stuccoed houses, and there was an evident expectation that she would get -out and knock at the door. What would the cabman think of her if she -refused, and what could she say to Adrian after all the fuss she had -made? Well, perhaps she could face Adrian, who always understood. But -the cabman! She alighted and went miserably up the steps. - -A servant answered her knock, and stood waiting. Between the maid and -the man Barbara plucked up a desperate courage, and asked if Mrs. -Harding was at home. She was. - -"How is Mr. Harding to-day?" inquired Barbara, hesitating on the -threshold. - -"Much as usual, thank you, miss," the girl replied. "Won't you step in?" - -She obeyed. After all, as she reflected, she need only stay a few -minutes, and to go away with merely the formal inquiry, made and -answered at the door, would be unsatisfactory. Mr. Harding might never -hear that she had called. She followed the maid into a vacant -sitting-room, and gave her a card to take to her mistress. The colour -rushed to her very forehead as she opened the case. Her Uncle Hayes had -had her cards printed with _Mitchelhurst Place_ in the corner, and -though, on coming to Kensington, she had drawn her pen through it, and -written her aunt's address instead, it was plain enough to see. How -would a Rothwell like to read _Mitchelhurst Place_ on a stranger's card? -She felt that she was a miserable little upstart. - -Mrs. Harding did not come immediately, and Barbara as she waited was -reminded of the dentist's room at Ilfracombe. "It's just like it," she -said to herself, "and I can't have gas, so it's worse, really. And she -hasn't got as many books either." This brought back a memory, and her -lips and eyes began to smile-- - - "_My love loves me. Then wherefore care - For rain or shine, for foul or fair? - My love loves me._" - -But the smile was soon followed by a sigh. - -The door opened and Mrs. Harding came in. To Barbara, still in her -teens, Reynold's mother was necessarily an old woman, but she recognised -her beauty almost in spite of herself, and stood amazed. Mrs. Harding -wore black, and it was rather shabby black, but she had the air of a -great lady, and her visitor, in her presence, was a shy blushing child. -She apologised for her delay, and the apology was a condescension. - -"You don't know me," said the girl in timid haste, "but I know Mr. -Harding a little, and I thought I would call." - -"Oh, yes," said Kate, "I know you by name, Miss Strange. My son was -indebted to Mr. Hayes for an invitation to Mitchelhurst Place last -autumn." - -"I'm sure we were very glad," Barbara began, and then stopped -confusedly, remembering that they had turned Mr. Reynold Harding out of -the house before his visit was over. The situation was embarrassing. "I -wish we could have made it pleasanter for him," she said, and blushed -more furiously than ever. - -"Have made Mitchelhurst Place pleasanter?" Mrs. Harding repeated. "Thank -you, you are very kind. I believe he had a great wish to see the Place." - -"It's a fine old house," said Barbara, conversationally. "I have left it -now." - -"So I supposed. I was sorry to see in the paper that Mr. Hayes was dead. -I remember him very well, five-and-twenty or thirty years ago." - -"I am going abroad," the girl continued. "I--I don't exactly know how -long we shall be away. I am going to be married. But they told me Mr. -Harding was ill--I hope it is not serious? I thought, as I was near, -that I should like to ask before I went." - -Mrs. Harding considered her with suddenly awakened attention. "He is -very ill," she said, briefly. "You know what is the matter with him?" - -"Yes, I suppose so." - -"He was not very strong as a boy. At one time he seemed better, but it -was only for a time." - -"I'm very sorry," said Barbara, standing up. "Please tell him I came to -ask how he was before I went." - -Mrs. Harding rose too, and looked straight into her visitor's eyes. -"Would you like to see him?" - -"I don't know," the girl faltered. "I'm not sure he would care to see -me. If he would--" - -Mrs. Harding interrupted her, "Excuse me a moment," and vanished. - -Barbara, left alone, stood confounded. She was taken by surprise, and -yet she was conscious that to see Reynold Harding was what she had -really been hoping and dreading from the first. Some one moved overhead. -Perhaps he would say "No," in that harsh, sudden voice of his. Well, -then, she would escape from this house, which was like a prison to her, -and go back to Adrian, knowing that she had done all she could. Perhaps -he would laugh, and say "Yes." - -She listened with strained attention. A chair was moved, a fire was -stirred, a door was closed. Then her hostess reappeared. "Will you come -this way?" she said. - -Barbara obeyed without a word. The matter was taken out of her hands, -and nothing but submission was possible. The grey dusk was gathering on -the stairs, and through a tall window, rimmed with squares of red and -blue, rose a view of roofs and chimneys half drowned in fog. Barbara -passed onward and upward, went mutely through a door which was opened -for her, and saw Reynold Harding sitting by the fire. He lifted his face -and looked at her. In an instant there flashed into her memory a verse -of the old song of _Barbara Allen_, sung to her as a child for her -name's sake:-- - - "_Slowly, slowly, she came up, - And slowly she came nigh him; - And all she said when there she came, - 'Young man, I think you're dying.'_" - -The words, which she had sung to herself many a time, taking pleasure in -their grotesque simplicity, presented themselves now with such sudden -and ghastly directness, that a cold damp broke out on her forehead. She -set her teeth fast, fearing that Barbara's speech would force its way -through her lips with an outburst of hysterical laughter. What _could_ -she say, what could anybody say, but, "Young man, I think you're dying?" -The words were clamouring so loudly in her ears that she glanced -apprehensively at Mrs. Harding to make sure that they had not been -spoken. - -Reynold's smile recalled her to herself, and told her that he was -reading too much on her startled face. "Won't you sit down?" he said, -pointing to a chair. Before she took it she instinctively put out her -hand, and greeted him with a murmur of speech. What she said she did not -exactly know, but _not_ those hideous words, thank God! - -Mrs. Harding paused for a moment by the fire, gazing curiously at her -son, as if she were studying a problem. Then silently, in obedience to -some sign of his, or to some divination of her own, she turned away and -left the two together. - -Barbara looked over her shoulder at the closing door, and her eyes in -travelling back to Harding's face took in the general aspect of the -room. It was fairly large and lofty. Folding doors, painted a dull drab, -divided it from what she conjectured was the sick man's bed-room. It was -dull, it was negative, not particularly shabby, not uncomfortable, not -vulgar, but hopelessly dreary and commonplace. There was in it no single -touch of beauty or individuality on which the eye could rest. Some years -earlier an upholsterer had supplied the ordinary furniture, a -paper-hanger had put up an ordinary paper, and, except that time had a -little dulled and faded everything, it remained as they had left it. -The drab was rather more drab, that was all. - -"Well," said Reynold from his arm-chair, "so you have come to see me." - -"I wanted to ask you how you were--I heard you were ill," Barbara -explained, and it struck her that she was exactly like a little parrot, -saying the same thing over and over again. - -"Very kind of you," he replied. "Do you want me to answer?" - -"If--if you could say you were getting a little better." - -He smiled. "It looks like it, doesn't it?" he said, languidly. - -Barbara's eyes met his for a moment, and then she hung her head. - -No, it did not look like it. Two candles were burning on the -chimney-piece, but the curtains had not been drawn. Between the two dim -lights, yellow and grey, he sat, leaning a little sideways, with a face -like the face of the dead, except for the great sombre eyes which looked -out of it, and the smile which showed a glimpse of his teeth. His hand -hung over the arm of his chair, the hot nerveless hand which Barbara had -taken in her own a moment before. - -"I am so sorry," she said. "I hoped I might have had some better news of -you before I went away. Did you know I was going away--going to be -married?" - -She looked up, putting the question in a timid voice, and he answered -"Yes," with a slight movement of his head and eyelids. "I wish you all -happiness." - -"Thank you," said Barbara gratefully. - -"And where are you going?" - -"To Paris for a time, and then we shall see. He"--this with a little -hesitation--"he is very busy." - -"Busy--what, more poems?" said the man who had done with being busy. - -"Yes. Did you see his volume?" - -Harding shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm a little past Mr. Scarlett's -poetry." - -"Oh!" said Barbara, "of course one can't read when one is ill. You ought -to rest." - -"Yes," he assented, "I don't seem able to manage that either, just at -present, but I dare say I shall soon. Meanwhile I sit here and look at -the fire." - -"Yes," said the girl. "Some people see all sorts of things in the fire." - -"So they say," he answered listlessly. "_I_ see it eating its heart out -slowly. And so you are going to Paris? That was your dream when you were -at Mitchelhurst." - -"Yes--you told me to wait, and it would come, and it is coming. Oh, but -you had dreams at Mitchelhurst, too, Mr. Harding! I wanted them to come -true as well as mine." - -"Did you? That was very kind of you. Mitchelhurst was a great place for -dreams, wasn't it? But I left mine there. Better there." - -"I felt ashamed just now," said Barbara, "when your mother spoke about -your staying with us at Mitchelhurst. She doesn't know, then? Oh, Mr. -Harding, I hate to think how we treated you in your old home, and I know -my poor uncle was sorry too!" - -"What for? People who can't agree are better apart, and Mrs. Simmonds' -lodgings were comfortable enough," said Reynold. - -"Oh, but it wasn't right! If you and uncle had only met--" - -"Well, if all they tell us is true, I suppose we shall before long. -Let's hope we may both be better tempered." - -"Don't!" cried Barbara, with a glance at the pale face opposite, and a -remembrance of her Uncle Hayes propped up in the great bed at -Mitchelhurst. Would those two spectres meet and bow, in some dim -underworld of graves and skeletons? She could not picture them glorified -in any way, could not fancy them otherwise than as she had known them. -"Pray don't," she said again. - -"Very well," said Reynold, "but why not? It makes no difference. Still, -talk of what you please." - -"Does it hurt you to talk?" - -"Yes, I believe it does. Everything hurts me, and therefore nothing -does. So if you like it any better, it doesn't." - -"I won't keep you long," said Barbara. "Perhaps I ought not to have -come, but I felt as if I could not leave England without a word. You -see, there is no knowing how long I may be away--" - -"You were wise," said Reynold. "A pleasant journey to you! But don't -come here to look for me when you come back. The fire will be out, and -the room will be swept and garnished. This is a very chilly room when it -is swept and garnished." - -To Barbara it was a dim and suffocating room at that moment. She hardly -felt as if it were really she who sat there, face to face with that pale -Rothwell shadow, and she put up her hand and loosened the fur at her -throat. - -"You do not mind my coming now?" she said, ignoring the latter half of -his speech. "You remember that evening? You did not make me very -welcome then." A tremulous little laugh ended the sentence. - -He shifted his position in the big chair with a weary effort, and let -his head fall back. "It's different," he said. "Everything is different. -I was alive then--five-and-twenty--and I was afraid you might get -yourself into some trouble on my account--you had told me how the -Mitchelhurst people gossipped. _I_ understood, but they wouldn't have. -Did the old man hear of it?" - -"No," said Barbara; "he was ill so soon." - -Harding made a slight sign of comprehension. "Well, it wouldn't be my -business to say anything now," he went on in his hoarse low voice. -"Besides, there is nothing to say. If the Devil had a daughter, she -couldn't make any scandal out of an afternoon call in my mother's house. -She couldn't suspect you of a flirtation with a death's head. Visiting -the sick--it is the very pink of propriety." - -Barbara felt herself continually baffled. And yet she could not accept -her repulse. There was something she wanted to say to Mr. Harding, or -rather, there was a word she wanted him to say to her. If he would but -say it she would go, very gladly, for the walls of the room, the heavy -atmosphere, and Reynold's eyes, weighed upon her like a nightmare. He -had likened her once in his thoughts to a little brown-plumaged bird, -and she felt like a bird that afternoon, a bird which had flown into a -gloomy cage, and sat, oppressed and fascinated, with a palpitating -heart. It seemed to her that his eyes had been upon her ever since she -came in, and she wanted a moment's respite. - -It came almost as soon as the thought had crossed her mind. Reynold -coughed painfully. She started to her feet, not knowing what she ought -to do, but a thin hand, lifted in the air, signed to her to be still. -Presently the paroxysm subsided. - -"Don't you want anything?" she ventured to ask. - -He shook his head. After a moment he opened a little box on the table at -his elbow, and took out a lozenge. Barbara dared not speak again. She -looked at the dull, smouldering fire. "Young man," she said to herself -with great distinctness, "Young man, _I think_ you're dying." - -She had the saddest heartache as she thought of it. That for her there -should be life, London, Paris, the South--who could tell what far-off -cities and shores?--who could tell how many years with Adrian? Who -could tell what beauty and sweetness and music, what laughter and tears, -what dreams and wonders, what joys and sorrows in days to come? While -for him, this man with whom she had built castles in the air at -Mitchelhurst, there were only four drab walls, a slowly burning fire, -and a square grey picture of roofs and chimneys, dim in the foggy air. -That was his share of the wide earth! No ease, no love, no joy, no -hope,--the mother-world which was to her so bountifully kind, kept -nothing for him but a few dull wintry days. Why must this be? And he was -so young! And there was so much life everywhere, the earth was full of -it, full to overflowing, this busy London was a surging, tumultuous sea -of life about them, where they sat in that dim hushed room. She raised -her head and looked timidly at the figure opposite, pale as a spectre, -half lying, half lolling in his leathern chair, while he sucked his -lozenge, and gazed before him with downcast eyes. From him, at least, -life had ebbed hopelessly. - -"Young man, I think you're dying." Oh, it was cruel, cruel! Barbara's -thoughts flashed from the sick room to her own happiness--flashed home. -She saw the lawn at Sandmoor, and a certain tennis-player standing in -the shade of the big tulip tree, as she had seen him often that summer. -He was in his white flannels, he was flushed, smiling, his grey-blue -eyes were shining, he swung his racquet in his hand as he talked. He was -so handsome and glad and young----ah! but no younger than Reynold -Harding! Suppose it had been Adrian, and not Reynold, in the chair -yonder, and her happy dreams, instead of being carried forward on the -full flood of prosperity, had been left stranded and wrecked, on the -low, desolate shore of death. It might have been Adrian passing thus -beyond recall, the sun might have been dying out of her heaven, and at -the thought she turned away her head, to hide the hot tears which welled -into her eyes. - -"You are sorry for me," said Reynold. - -It was true, though the tears had not been for him. "I'm sorry you are -ill," she said. She got up as she spoke, and stood by the fire. - -"Very kind, but very useless," he answered with a smile. - -"Useless!" cried little Barbara. "I know it is useless! I know I can't -do anything! But, Mr. Harding, we were friends once, weren't we?" - -He was silent. "I thought we were?" she faltered. - -"Friends--yes, if you like. We will say that we were--friends." - -"I thought we were," she repeated humbly. "I don't mean to make too much -of it, but I thought we were very good friends, as people say, till that -unlucky evening--that evening when you and Uncle Hayes--you were angry -with me then!" - -"That's a long while ago." - -"It was my fault," she continued. "I didn't mean any harm, but you had a -right to be vexed. And afterwards, that other evening when I went to -you--I don't know what harm I did by forgetting your letter--you would -not tell me, but I know you were angry. Afterwards, when I thought of -it, I could see that you had been keeping it down all the time, you -wouldn't reproach me then and there," said Barbara, with cheeks of -flame, "but I understood when I looked back. It was only natural that -you should be angry. It was very good of you not to say more." - -"I think it was," said Reynold, but so indistinctly that Barbara, though -she looked questioningly at him, doubted whether she heard the words. - -"It would be only natural if you hated me," she went on, panting and -eager, now that she had once began to speak. "But you mustn't, please, I -can't bear it! I have never quarrelled with any one, never in all my -life. I don't like to go away and feel that I am leaving some one behind -me with whom I am not friends. So, Mr. Harding, I want you just to say -that you don't hate me." - -"Oh, but you are making too much of all that," he replied, and then, -with an invalid's abruptness, he asked, "Where's your talisman?" - -She looked down at her watch chain. "I gave it to Mr. Scarlett, he liked -it," she said, with a guilty remembrance of Reynold among the brambles. -"But you haven't answered me, Mr. Harding." - -Her pleading was persistent, like a child's. She was childishly intent -on the very word she wanted. She remembered how her uncle had laughed as -she walked home after that first encounter with young Harding. "And you -saw him roll into the ditch--Barbara, the poor fellow must hate you like -poison!" No, he must not! It was the _word_ she could not bear, it was -only the _word_ she knew. - -"Nonsense!" he said, moving his head uneasily, "Let bygones be bygones. -We can't alter the past. We are going different ways--go yours, and let -me go mine in peace." - -It was a harsh answer, but the frown which accompanied it betrayed -irresolution as well as anger. - -"I can't go so," Barbara pleaded, emboldened by this sign of possible -yielding. "I never meant to do any harm. Say you are not angry--only one -word--and then I'll go." - -"I know you will." He laid his lean hands on the arms of his chair, and -drew himself up. "Well," he said, "have it your own way--why not? What -is it that I am to say?" - -"Say," she began eagerly, and then checked herself. She would not ask -too much. "Say only that you don't hate me," she entreated, fixing her -eyes intently on his face. - -"I love you, Barbara." - -The girl recoiled, scared at the sudden intensity of meaning in his -eyes, and in every line of his wasted figure as he leaned towards her. -His hoarse whisper sent a shock through the deadened air of the drab -room. Those three words had broken through the frozen silence of a life -of repression and self-restraint, in them was distilled all its hoarded -fierceness of love and revenge. In uttering them Reynold had uttered -himself at last. - -To Barbara it was as if a flash of fire showed her his passion, such a -passion as her gentle soul had never imagined, against the outer -darkness of death and his despair. Something choked and frightened her, -and seemed to encircle her heart in its coils. It was a revelation which -came from within as well as without. She threw out her hands as if he -approached her. "_Adrian!_" she cried. - -Reynold, leaning feebly on the arms of his chair, laughed. - -"Well," he said, "are you content? I have said it." - -"Oh," said Barbara, still gazing at him, "I know now--I understand--you -_do_ hate me!" - -"Love you," he repeated. "I think I loved you from the day I saw you -first. I dreamed of you at Mitchelhurst--only of you! Mitchelhurst for -you, if you would have it so--but you--_you_!" - -"No!" she cried. - -"And afterwards you were afraid of me! If it had been any one else! But -you shrank from me--you were afraid of me--the only creature in the -world I loved! And then that last night when you came to me--how clever -of you to discover that I was fighting with something I wanted to keep -down! So I was, Barbara!" - -He paused, but she only looked helplessly into his eyes. - -"You don't know how hard it was," he continued meaningly. "For if I had -chosen----" - -"No!" she cried again. - -"Yes! Do you think I did not know? _Yes!_ I might have had your promise -then! I might have had----" - -He checked himself, but she did not attempt a second denial. - -"Well, enough of this," said Reynold, after a moment. "It need not -trouble you long. Look in the _Times_ and you will soon see the end of -it. But you can remember, if you like, that one man loved you, at any -rate." - -"One man does," said Barbara, in a voice which she tried to keep steady. - -"Ah, the other fellow. Well, you know about that." - -"Yes, I know." - -"And you know that in spite of all I _don't_ hate you. No, I don't, -though I dare say you hate me for what I have said. But I can't help -that--you asked for it." - -"Yes," said Barbara. "I wish I hadn't." - -"Forget it, then," he replied, with a gleam of triumph in his glance. - -"You know I can't do that," she said. - -She was too young to know how much may be forgotten with the help of -time, and it seemed to her that Reynold's eyes would follow her to her -dying day, that wherever there were shadows and silence, she would meet -that reproachful, unsatisfied gaze, and hear his voice. - -"You are very cruel!" she exclaimed. - -"Am I?" he said more gently. "Poor child! I never meant to speak of -this. I never could have spoken if you had not come this afternoon. I -could not have told it to anybody but you, and you were out of my reach. -Why did you come? You were quite safe if you had stayed away. You should -have left me to sting myself to death in a ring of fire, as the -scorpions do--or don't! What made you come inside the ring? It's narrow -enough, God knows--!" he looked round as he spoke. "And you had all the -world to choose from. As far as I was concerned you might have been in -another planet. I couldn't have reached you. What possessed you to come -here, to me? Well, you _did_, and you are stung. Is it my fault?" - -"No, mine!" said the girl, passionately. "I never meant to hurt you, and -you know I didn't, but it has all gone wrong from first to last. Anyhow, -you have revenged yourself now. I wish--I _wish_ that you were well, and -strong, and rich----" - -"That you might have the luxury of hating me? No, no, Barbara. I'm -dying, and no one in all the world will miss me. I leave my memory to -you." - -He smiled as he spoke, but his utterance almost failed him, and -Barbara's answer was a sob. - -"I take it, then," she said in a choked voice. "Perhaps I should have -been too happy if I had not known--I might never have thought about -other people. But I sha'n't forget." - -Then she saw that he had sunk back into his chair, and his face, which -had fallen on the dull red leather, was a picture of death. The marble -bust in Mitchelhurst Church did not look more bloodless. - -"Oh!" said Barbara, "you are tired!" - -"Mortally," he replied, faintly unclosing his lips. "Good-bye." - -She paused for an instant, looking at the dropped lids which hid those -eyes that she had feared. She could do nothing for him but leave him. -"Good-bye," she said, very softly, as if she feared to disturb his rest, -and then she went away. - -The window on the stairs was a dim grey shape. Barbara groped her way -down, and stood hesitating in the passage. It was really only half a -minute before the maid came up from the basement with matches to light -the gas, but it was like an age of dreary perplexity. - -"I've just left Mr. Harding," she said hurriedly to the girl, whose -matter-of-fact face was suddenly illuminated by the jet of flame. "I'm -afraid he's tired. I think somebody ought to go to him." - -"Mind the step, miss," was the reply. "I'll tell missis. I dare say -he'll have his cocoa, I think it's past the time." - -"Oh, _don't_ wait for me!" cried Barbara. "I'm all right." - -She felt as if Reynold Harding might die by his fireside while she was -being ceremoniously shown out. She reached the door first and shut it -quickly after her, to cut all attentions short. She had hurried out at -the gate, under the foggy outline of a little laburnum, when a shout -from the pursuing cabman aroused her to the consciousness that she had -started off to walk. - -Thus arrested, she got into the hansom, covered with confusion, and not -daring to look at the man as she gave her address. He must certainly -think that she meant to cheat him, or that she was mad. She shrank back -into the seat, feeling sure that he would look through the little hole -in the roof, from time to time, to see what his eccentric fare might be -doing, and she folded her hands and sat very still, to impress him with -the idea that she had become quite sane and well-behaved. As if it -mattered what the cabman thought! And yet she blushed over her blunder -while Reynold Harding's "I love you," was still sounding in her ears, -and while the hansom rolled southward through the lamp-lit, glimmering -streets, to the tune of _Barbara Allen_. - - - - -CHAPTER X. - -JANUARY, 1883. - - "_A train of human memories, - Crying: The past must never pass away._" - - "_They depart and come no more, - Or come as phantoms and as ghosts._" - - -"When we are married," Adrian had said on that blissful day in Nutfield -Lane, "before we go abroad, before we go _anywhere_, we will run down to -Mitchelhurst for a day, won't we?" - -Barbara had agreed to this, as she would have agreed to anything he had -suggested, and the plan had been discussed during the summer months, -till it seemed to have acquired a kind of separate existence, as if -Adrian's light whim had been transformed into Destiny. The bleak little -English village stood in the foreground of their radiant honeymoon -picture of Paris and the south. The straggling rows of cottages, the -cabbage plots, the churchyard where the damp earth, heavy with its -burden of death, rose high against the buttressed wall, the blacksmith's -forge with its fierce rush of sparks, the _Rothwell Arms_ with the sign -that swung above the door--were all strangely distinct against a bright -confusion of far-off stir and gaiety, white foreign streets, and skies -and waters of deepest blue. All their lives, if they pleased, for that -world beyond, but the one day, first, for Mitchelhurst. - -Thus it happened that the careless fancy of April was fulfilled in -January. January is a month which exhibits most English scenery to -small advantage; and Mitchelhurst wore its dreariest aspect when a fly -from the county town drew up beneath the swaying sign. The little -holiday couple, stepping out of it into the midst of the universal -melancholy, looked somewhat out of place. Adrian and Barbara had that -radiant consciousness of having done something very remarkable indeed -which characterises newly-married pairs. They had the usual conviction -that an exceptional perfection in their union made it the very flower of -all love in all time. They had plucked this supremely delicate felicity, -and here they were, alighting with it from the shabby conveyance, and -standing in the prosaic dirt of Mitchelhurst Street. The sign gave a -long, discordant creak by way of greeting, and they started and looked -up. - -"It wouldn't be worse for a little grease," the landlord allowed, in a -voice which was not much more melodious than the creaking sign. - -Scarlett laughed, but he realised the whole scene with an amusement -which had a slight flavour of dismay. Was this the place which was to -give his honeymoon an added touch of poetry? How poor and ignoble the -houses were! How bare and bleak the outlines of the landscape! How low -the dull, grey roof of sky! How raw the January wind upon his cheek! -There was only a momentary pause. Barbara was looking down the -well-known road, the bullet-headed landlord scratched his unshaven chin, -and the disconsolate chickens came nearer and nearer, pecking aimlessly -among the puddles. - -"I suppose you can give us some luncheon?" said the young man, and in -the interest of that important question it hardly seemed as if there had -been a pause at all. - -The landlady arrived in a flurry, asking what they would please to -order, and Adrian and she kept up a brisk dialogue for the next five -minutes. Finally, it was decided that they should have chops. Perhaps -the discussion satisfied some traditional sense of what was the right -thing to do on arriving at an inn. There was nothing to have _but_ the -chops which Adrian had chosen, and he murmured something of "fixed fate, -free-will" under his moustache, as he crossed the road in the direction -of the church. - -"In an hour," he said. "That will give us time to see the church and the -village. Then, after luncheon, we will go to the old Place, and the fly -shall call for us there, and take us back the short way. Will that do, -Barbara?" - -Of course it would do; and when they reached the churchyard she bade him -wait a moment and she would get the key. The stony path to Mrs. -Spearman's cottage was curiously familiar--the broken palings, the pump, -the leafless alder-bush. The only difference was that it was Barbara -Scarlett--a different person--who was stepping over the rough pebbles. - -She returned to Adrian, who was leaning against the gate-post. - -"Mitchelhurst isn't very beautiful," he said, with an air of conviction. -"I thought I remembered it, but it has come upon me rather as a shock. -Somehow, I fancied--Barbara, is it possible that I have taken all the -beauty out of it--that it belongs to _me_ now, instead of to -Mitchelhurst? Can that be?" - -She smiled her answer to the question, and then-- - -"I think it looks very much as usual," she said, gazing dispassionately -round. "Of course, it is prettier in the spring--or in the summer. It -was summer when you came, you know." - -She had a vague recollection of having pleaded the cause of Mitchelhurst -at some other time in the same way, which troubled her a little. - -"Yes, I know it was summer," said Adrian. "But still----" - -"You mustn't say anything against Mitchelhurst," cried Barbara, swinging -her great key. "It isn't beautiful, but I feel as if I belonged to it, -somehow. It changed me, I can't tell why or how, but it did. After I -had been six months with Uncle Hayes, I went home for a fortnight in the -spring, and everything seemed so different. It was all so bright and -busy there, everybody talked so fast about little everyday things, and -the rooms were so small and crowded. I suppose it was because I had been -living with echoes and old pictures in that great house. Louisa and -Hetty were always having little secrets and jokes, there wasn't any harm -in them, you know, but I felt as if I could not care about them or laugh -at them, and yet some of them had been my jokes, before I went to -Mitchelhurst. And I could not make them understand why I cared about the -Rothwells and their pictures, when I had never known any of them." - -"Louisa is a very nice girl," said Scarlett; "but if Mitchelhurst is all -the difference between you two, I am bound to say that I have a high -opinion of the place." - -"Well, I don't know any other difference." - -"Don't you?" and he smiled as he followed her along the churchyard path. -"No other difference? None?" He smiled, and yet he knew that the old -house had given a charm to Barbara when he saw her first. She had been -like a little damask rose, breathing and glowing against its grim walls. -He took the key from her hand, and turned it in the grating lock. - -It seemed as if the very air were unchanged within, so heavy and still -it was. Barbara went forward, and her little footfalls were hardly -audible on the matting. Adrian, with his head high, sniffed in search of -a certain remembered perfume, as of mildewed hymn-books, found it, and -was content. It brought back to him, as only an odour could, his first -afternoon in the church, when he stood with one of those books in his -hand, and watched the Rothwell pew which held Barbara. - -Having enjoyed his memory he faced round and inspected St. Michael, who -was as new, and neat, and radiant as ever. Adrian speculated how long it -would take to make him look a little less of a parvenu. "Would a couple -of centuries do him any good, I wonder?" he mused, half-aloud. "Not -much, I fear." The archangel returned his gaze with a permanent serenity -which seemed to imply that a century more or less was a matter of -indifference to his dragon and him. - -Barbara had gone straight to the Rothwell monuments, where Scarlett -presently joined her. She did not take her eyes from the tombs, but she -stole a warm little hand under his arm. "I wish he could have been -buried here," she said in a low voice. - -Reynold had said that he bequeathed her his memory, but now, in her -happiness, it seemed to be receding, fading, melting away. She gazed -helplessly in remorseful pain; he was only a chilly phantom; the very -fierceness of his passion was but a dying spark of fire. She could -recall his words, but they were dull and faint, like echoes nearly -spent. She could not recall their meaning--that was gone. The -declaration of love which had burst upon her like a great wave, filling -her with pity and wonder and fear, had ebbed to some unapproachable -distance, leaving her perplexed and half incredulous. Adrian, in flesh -and blood, was at her side, and she thrilled and glowed at his touch; -but when she thought of Reynold Harding she met only a vague emptiness. -He was not with the Rothwells in this quiet corner; he was not where she -had left him, lying back in his leathern chair. That room was swept and -garnished and cold, as he had said. No doubt they had put him in some -suburban cemetery, some wilderness of graves which to her was only a -name of dreariness. Standing where he had once stood in Mitchelhurst -Church, she only felt his absence, and she thought that she could have -recalled him better if he had been at rest beneath the dimly-lettered -pavement on which her eyes were fixed. - -She was wrong. Memories cannot bear the outer air, or be laid away in -the cold earth; they can only live when they are hidden in our hearts, -and quickened by our pulses. Barbara could not keep the remembrance of -Reynold's love alive, with no love of her own to warm it. But in her -ignorance she said, wistfully-- - -"I wish he could have been buried here!" and then added in a quicker -tone, "I suppose you'll say it makes no difference where he lies." - -"Indeed I sha'n't," said Adrian. "There may be beauty or ugliness, -fitness or unfitness, in one's last home as well as any other. Yes, I -wish he were here. But he was an unlucky fellow; it seemed as if he were -never to have anything he wanted, didn't it?" - -"How do you mean--not anything?" - -"Well, I think he would have liked Mitchelhurst Place." - -"Yes," said Barbara, "he would, I know." - -"And I am sure he would have liked the name of Rothwell. He was ashamed -of his father's people. That pork-butcher rankled." - -"Oh!" said Barbara, still looking at the tombs, "did you know about -that? Did everybody know?" She spoke very softly, as if she thought the -dusty Rothwell, peering out of his marble curls, might overhear. "No, I -suppose he didn't like him." - -"I know he didn't. Well, he hadn't the name he liked: he was saddled -with the pork-butcher's name. And then, worst of all, he couldn't have -you, Barbara!" - -She turned upon him with parted lips and a startled face. - -"Well," said Scarlett, "he couldn't, you know." - -"Adrian! how did you know he cared for me? He did, but how did you know -it? I thought I ought not to tell anybody." - -"I saw him once," said Scarlett, "and I found it out. I saw him -again--just passed him in the road, and we did not say a word. But I was -doubly sure, if that were possible. Poor devil! If he could have had his -way we should not have met in the lane that day, Barbara." - -"I never dreamed of it," she said. "I thought he hated me." - -"If a girl thinks a man hates her," said Adrian, "I suppose the chances -are he does one thing or the other." - -"I never dreamed of it," she repeated, "never, till he told me at the -end. It could not be my fault, could it, as I did not know? But it -seemed so cruel--so hard! He had cared for me all the time, he said, and -nobody had ever cared for him." - -"You mustn't be unhappy about that," said Scarlett, gently. - -"But that's just it!" Barbara exclaimed, plaintively. "I ought to be -unhappy, and I can't be. Adrian! I've got all the happiness--a whole -world full of it--and he had none. I must be a heartless wretch to stand -here, and think of him, and be so glad because----" - -Because her hand was on Adrian's arm. - -"My darling," he said, in a tone half tenderly jesting, half earnest, -"you mustn't blame yourself for this. What had you to do with it? Do you -think you could have made that poor fellow happy?" - -She looked at him perplexed. - -"He loved me," she said. - -"I know he did. You might have given him a momentary rapture if you had -loved him. But make him happy--not you! Not anybody, Barbara! How could -you look at his face, and not see that he carried his unhappiness about -with him? I verily believe that there was no place on the earth's -surface where he could have been at peace. Underneath it--perhaps!" - -Barbara sighed, looking down at the stones. - -"You people with consciences blame yourselves for things foredoomed," -said Scarlett. "Harding's destiny was written before you were born, my -dear child. Besides," he added, in a lighter tone, "what would you do -with the pair of us?" - -"That's true," she said, thoughtfully. - -"Take my word for it," he went on, "if you want to do any good you -should give happiness to the people who are fit for it. You can brighten -my life--oh, my darling, you don't know how much! But his--never! If you -were an artist you might as well spend your best work in painting -angels and roses on the walls of the family vault down here as try it." - -"Yes," said Barbara. Then, after a pause, she spoke with a kind of sob -in her voice, "But if one had thrown in just a flower before the door -was shut! I couldn't, you know, I hadn't anything to give him!" - -Scarlett, by way of answer, laid his hand on hers. When you come face to -face with such an undoubted fact as the attraction a man's lonely -suffering has for a woman, argument is useless. It is an ache for which -self-devotion is the only relief. He perfectly understood the remorseful -workings of Barbara's tender heart. - -"I couldn't do without you, my dear," he said. - -"Oh, Adrian!--no!" she exclaimed. "That day when I said good-bye to -him, he fancied I was crying for him once, and even that was for you. I -was just thinking, if it had been you sitting there!" - -"Foolish child! I'm not to be got rid of so easily." - -"Don't talk of it!" said Barbara. - -Her hand tightened on his arm, and she looked up at him, with a glance -that said plainly that the sun would drop out of her sky if any -mischance befell him. - -"Well," she said, after a minute, more in her ordinary voice, as if she -were dismissing Reynold Harding from the conversation, "I'm glad you -know. I wanted you to know, but of course I could not tell you." - -"It's wonderful with women," said Adrian, gliding easily into -generalities, "the things they _don't_ think it necessary to tell us, -taking it for granted that we know them, and we _can't_ know them and -_don't_ know them to our dying day--and the things they _do_ think it -necessary to tell us, with elaborate precautions and explanations--which -we knew perfectly well from the first." - -"Oh, is that it?" Barbara replied, smartly. "Then I shall tell you -everything, and you can be surprised or not as you please." - -"I sha'n't be much surprised," said Adrian, "unless, perhaps, you tell -me something when you think you are not telling anything at all." - -And with this they went off together to look at the seat in which he sat -when Barbara saw him first, and then she stood in her old place in the -Rothwells' red-lined pew, and looked across at him, recalling that -summer Sunday. It would have been a delightful amusement if the church -had been a few degrees warmer, but Barbara could not help shivering a -little, and Adrian frankly avowed that he found it impossible to -maintain his feelings at the proper pitch. - -"I'm blue," he said, "and I'm iced, and I can't be sentimental. And you -wore a thin cream-coloured dress that day, which is terrible to think -of. Might write something afterwards, perhaps," he continued, musingly. -"Not while my feet are like two stones, but I feel as if I might thaw -into a sonnet, or something of the kind." - -Barbara looked up at him reverentially, and Adrian began to laugh. - -"Let's go and eat those chops," he said. - -Later, as they walked along the street towards Mitchelhurst Place, -Scarlett was silent for a time, glancing right and left at the dull -cottages. Here and there one might catch a glimpse of firelight through -the panes, but most of them were drearily blank, with grey windows and -closed doors. It was too cold for the straw-plaiters to stand on their -thresholds and gossip while they worked. There was a foreshadowing of -snow in the low-hanging clouds. - -"What are you thinking of?" Barbara asked him. - -"Don't let us ever come here again!" he answered. "It's all very well -for this once; we are young enough, we have our happiness before us. But -never again! Suppose we were old and sad when we came back, or -suppose----" He stopped short. "Suppose one came back alone," should -have been the ending of that sentence. - -"Very well," she agreed hastily, as if to thrust aside the unspoken -words. - -"We say our good-bye to Mitchelhurst to-day, then?" Adrian insisted. - -"Yes. There won't be any temptation to come again, if what they told us -is true--will there?" - -She referred to a rumour which they had heard at the _Rothwell Arms_, -that as Mr. Croft could not find a tenant for the Place he meant to pull -it down. - -"No," said Scarlett. "It seems a shame, though," he added. - -Presently they came in sight of the entrance--black bars, and beyond -them a stirring of black boughs in the January wind, over the straight, -bleak roadway to the house. The young man pushed the gate. "Some one has -been here to-day," he said, noting a curve already traced on the damp -earth. - -"Some one to take the house, perhaps," Barbara suggested. "Look, there's -a carriage waiting out to the right of the door. I wish they hadn't -happened to choose this very day. I would rather have had the old Place -to ourselves, wouldn't you?" - -"Much," said Adrian. - -These young people were still in that ecstatic mood in which, could they -have had the whole planet to themselves, it would never have occurred to -them that it was lonely. Their eyes met as they answered, and if at that -moment the wind-swept avenue had been transformed into sunlit boughs of -blossoming orange, they might not have remarked any accession of warmth -and sweetness. - -The old woman who was in charge recognised Barbara, and made no -difficulty about allowing them to wander through the rooms at their -leisure. In fact, she was only too glad not to leave her handful of fire -on such a chilly errand. - -"Is it true," Mrs. Scarlett asked eagerly, "that Mr. Croft is going to -pull the house down?" - -"So they tell me, ma'am. There's to be a sale here, come Midsummer, and -after that they say the old Place comes down. There's nobody to take it -now poor Mr. Hayes is gone." - -Adrian's glance quickened at the mention of a sale, and then he recalled -his expressed intention never to come to Mitchelhurst again. "Perhaps -he'll find a tenant before then," he said. "You've got somebody here -to-day, haven't you?" - -The woman started in sudden remembrance. "Oh, there's a lady," she said, -"I most forgot her. She said she was one of the old family, and used to -live here. My orders are to go round with 'em when they come to look at -the house, but the lady didn't want nobody, she said, she knew her way, -and she walked right off. - -"I hope it ain't nothing wrong, but she's been gone some time." - -"I should think it was quite right," said Scarlett. "Come, Barbara." - -They went from room to room. All were silent, empty, and cold, with -shutters partly unclosed, letting in slanting gleams of grey light. The -painted eyes of the portraits on the wall looked askance at them as they -stood gazing about. All the little modern additions which Mr. Hayes had -made to the furniture for comfort's sake had been taken away, and the -Rothwells had come into possession of their own again. - -Scarlett opened the old piano as he passed. "Do you remember?" he said, -glancing brightly, and with a smile curving his red lips, as he began, -with one hand, to touch a familiar tune. But Barbara cried "Hush!" and -the tinkling, jangling notes died suddenly into the stillness. "Suppose -she were to hear!" - -"I wonder where she is," he rejoined, with a glance round. "She must -have come to say good-bye to her old home, too." - -There was no sign of her as they crossed the hall (where Barbara's great -clock had long ago run down) and went up the wide, white stairs. But it -was curious how they felt her unseen presence, and how the knowledge -that at any moment they might turn a corner and encounter that living -woman, made the place more truly haunted than if it had held a legion of -ghosts. They walked in silence, like a couple of half-frightened -children, along the passages, and the remembrance that the old house -was doomed was with them all the time. It was strange to lay their warm -light hands on those strong walls, which had outlasted so many lives, so -much hope, and so much hopelessness, and to think that they, in their -fragile, happy existence might well remain when Mitchelhurst Place was -forgotten. It seemed hardly more than a phantom house already. - -"I almost think she must have gone," Barbara whispered, as they came -down-stairs again. - -"No," said Adrian, with an oblique glance which her eyes followed. - -Kate Harding was standing by one of the windows in the entrance hall, a -stately figure in heavy draperies of black. Hearing the steps of the -intruders she turned slightly, and partially confronted them, and the -light fell on her face, pale and proud, close-lipped, full of mute and -dreary defiance. Only she herself knew the passionate eagerness with -which, as a girl, she had renounced her old home--only she knew the -strange power with which Mitchelhurst had drawn her back once more. Fate -had been too strong for her, and she had returned to her own place, -perhaps to the thought of the son who had belonged more to it than to -her. Her presence there that day was a confession of defeat too bitter -to be spoken, a last homage of farewell to the old house which she was -not rich enough to save. - -Her eyes, resting indifferently on the girl's face, widened in sudden -recognition, and she looked from Barbara to Adrian. Her glance -enveloped the young couple in its swift intensity, and then fell coldly -to the pavement as she bent her head. Barbara blushed and drooped, -Scarlett bowed, as they passed the motionless woman, drawn back a little -against the wall, with the faded map of the great Mitchelhurst estate -hanging just behind her. - -Their fly was waiting at the door, and in less than a minute they were -rolling quickly down the avenue. Adrian, stooping to tuck a rug about -his wife's feet, only raised himself in time to catch a last glimpse of -the white house front, and to cry, "Good-bye, Mitchelhurst!" Barbara -echoed his good-bye. Mitchelhurst was only an episode in her life; she -cared for the place, yet she was not sorry to escape from its shadows of -loves and hates, too deep and dark for her, and its unconquerable -melancholy. She left it, but a touch of its sadness would cling to her -in after years, giving her the tenderness which comes from a sense--dim, -perhaps, but all-pervading--of the underlying suffering of the world. -She looked back and saw her happiness tossed lightly and miraculously -from crest to crest of the black waves which might have engulfed it in a -moment; and even as she leaned in the warm shelter of Adrian's arm, she -was sorry for the lives that were wrecked, and broken, and forgotten. - -"Look!" he said quickly, as the road wound along the hill-side, and a -steep bank, crowned with leafless thorns and brown stunted oaks, rose on -the right, "this is where I said good-bye to you, Barbara, and you never -knew it!" - -"Never!" she cried. "No, I thought you had gone away, and hadn't cared -to say good-bye." - -"Well, you were kinder to me than you knew. You left me a bunch of red -berries lying in the road." - -"Ah, but if I had known you were there!" - -"Why," said Adrian, "you wouldn't have left me anything at all. You -would have died first! You know you would! It was better as it was." - -"Perhaps," she allowed. - -"Anyhow, it is best as it is," said he conclusively, and to that she -agreed; but her smile was followed by a quick little sigh. - -"What does that mean?" he demanded, tenderly. - -"Nothing," she said, "nothing, _really_." - -It was nothing. Only, absorbed in picturing Adrian's mute farewell, she -had passed the place where she first saw Reynold Harding, and had not -spared him one thought as she went by. And she was never coming to -Mitchelhurst again. - - -THE END. - - -_Clay and Taylor, Printers, Bungay, Suffolk._ - - * * * * * - -Transcriber's Notes - - -Spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been standardised. - -Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (italics). - - - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Mitchelhurst Place, Vol. II, by Margaret Veley - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MITCHELHURST PLACE, VOL. II *** - -***** This file should be named 52002-8.txt or 52002-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/0/0/52002/ - -Produced by Robert Cicconetti, David K. 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