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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7c11b33 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #55155 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55155) diff --git a/old/55155-0.txt b/old/55155-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index bfad086..0000000 --- a/old/55155-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16067 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Mr. Tredgold, by Margaret Oliphant - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Old Mr. Tredgold - -Author: Margaret Oliphant - -Release Date: July 19, 2017 [EBook #55155] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD MR. TREDGOLD *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - - - OLD MR. TREDGOLD - - BY - MRS. OLIPHANT - AUTHOR OF “IN TRUST,” “MADAM,” ETC. - - LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. - LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY - 1896 - _All rights reserved_ - - - - - OLD MR. TREDGOLD. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -They were not exactly of that conventional type which used to be common -whenever two sisters had to be described--the one dark and the other -fair, the one sunny and amiable, the other reserved and proud; the one -gay, the other melancholy, or at least very serious by nature. They were -not at all like Minna and Brenda in the “Pirate,” which used to be a -contrast dear to the imagination. But yet there was a very distinct -difference between them. Katherine was a little taller, a little bigger, -a little darker, than Stella. She was three years older but was supposed -to look ten. She was not so lively in her movements either of mind or -person, and she was supposed to be slow. The one who was all light threw -a shadow--which seems contradictory--on the other. They were the two -daughters of an old gentleman who had been that mysterious being called -a City man in his time. Not that there was anything at all mysterious -about old Mr. Tredgold; his daughters and his daughters’ friends were -fond of saying that he had come to London with the traditionary -half-crown in his pocket; but this was, as in so many cases, fabulous, -Mr. Tredgold having in fact come of a perfectly creditable Eastern -Counties family, his father being a well-to-do linen draper in Ipswich, -whose pride it was to have set forth all his boys comfortably, and done -everything for them that a father could do. But perhaps it is easier to -own to that half-crown and the myth of an origin sudden and -commercially-romantic without antecedents, than to a respectable shop -in a respectable town, with a number of relatives installed in other -shops, doing well and ready to claim the rights of relationship at -inconvenient moments. I do not know at all how fortunes are made “in the -City.” If you dig coals out of the bowels of the earth, or manufacture -anything, from cotton to ships, by which money is made, that is a -process which comes within the comprehension of the most limited -faculties; but making money in the City never seems to mean anything so -simple. It means handing about money, or goods which other people have -produced, to other third or fourth people, and then handing them back -again even to the Scriptural limits of seventy times seven; which is why -it appears so mysterious to the simple-minded. - -But, indeed, if anybody had investigated the matter, Mr. Tredgold’s -progress had been quite easy to follow, at least in the results. He had -gone from a house in Hampstead to a house in Kensington, and thence to -Belgravia, changing also his summer residences from Herne Bay to -Hastings, and thence to the wilds of Surrey, and then to the Isle of -Wight, where, having retired from the cares of business, he now lived in -one of those beautiful places, with one of the most beautiful prospects -in the world before him, which so often fall to the lot of persons who -care very little about beauty in any shape. The house stood on a cliff -which was almost a little headland, standing out from the line of the -downs between two of the little towns on the south side of that favoured -island. The grounds were laid out quite regardless of expense, so much -so that they were a show in the district, and tourists were admitted by -the gardeners when the family was absent, to see such a collection of -flowering shrubs and rare trees as was not to be found between that -point, let us say, and Mr. Hanbury’s gardens at Mortola. The sunny -platform of the cliff thus adorned to the very edge of the precipice was -the most delightful mount of vision, from which you could look along the -lovely coast at that spot not much inferior to the Riviera, with its -line of sunny towns and villages lying along the course of the bay on -one hand, and the darker cliffs clad with wood, amid all the -picturesque broken ground of the Landslip on the other; and the dazzling -sea, with the additional glory of passing ships giving it a continual -interest, stretching out far into the distance, where it met the circle -of the globe, and merged as all life does in the indefinite Heaven -beyond--the Heaven, the Hades, the unknown--not always celestial, -sometimes dark with storm or wild with wind, a vague and indeterminate -distance from which the tempests and all their demons, as well as the -angels, come, yet the only thing that gives even a wistful satisfaction -to the eyes of those who sway with every movement of this swaying globe -in the undiscovered depths of air and sky. - -Very little attention, I am sorry to say, was paid to this beautiful -landscape by the family who had secured it for their special -delectation. The girls would take their visitors “to see the view,” who -cast a careless glance at it, and said, “How pretty!” and returned with -pleasure to the tennis or croquet, or even tea of the moment. Mr. -Tredgold, for his part, had chosen a room for himself on the sheltered -side of the house, as was perhaps natural, and shivered at the thought -of the view. There was always a wind that cut you to pieces, he said, on -that side of the cliff; and, truth to tell, I believe there was, the -proverbial softness of the climate of the Isle of Wight being a fond -delusion, for the most part, in the minds of its inhabitants. Katherine -was the only one who lingered occasionally over the great panorama of -the sea and coast; but I think it was when she felt herself a little -“out of it,” as people say, when Stella was appropriating everything, -and all the guests and all the lovers were circling round that little -luminary, and the elder sister was not wanted anywhere--except to fill -out tea perhaps, or look after the comforts of the others, which is a -_rôle_ that may suit a staid person of forty, but at twenty-three is not -only melancholy but bewildering--it being always so difficult to see why -another should have all the good things, and yourself all the crosses of -life. - -In the circumstances of these two girls there was not even that cheap -way of relief which ends in blaming some one. Even Providence could not -be blamed. Katherine, if you looked at her calmly, was quite as pretty -as Stella; she had a great deal more in her; she was more faithful, more -genuine and trustworthy; she played tennis as well or better; she had as -good a voice and a better ear; in short, it was quite incomprehensible -to any one why it was that Stella was the universal favourite and her -sister was left in the shade. But so it was. Katherine made up the set -with the worst players, or she was kept at the tea-table while the -merriest game was going on. She had the reversion of Stella’s partners, -who talked to her of her sister, of what a jolly girl, or what an -incipient angel she was, according to their several modes of speech. The -old ladies said that it was because Katherine was so unselfish; but I -should not like to brand a girl for whom I have a great regard with that -conventional title. She was not, to her own consciousness, unselfish at -all. She would have liked very much, if not to have the first place, at -least to share it, to have a retinue of her own, and champions and -admirers as well as Stella. She did not like the secondary position nor -even consent to it with any willingness; and the consequence was that -occasionally she retired and looked at the view with anything but happy -feelings; so that the appreciation of Nature, and of their good fortune -in having their lines thrown in such pleasant places, was very small and -scant indeed in this family, which outsiders were sometimes disposed to -envy for the beauty of their surroundings and for their wonderful view. - -The house which occupied this beautiful situation was set well back in -the grounds, so that it at least should not be contaminated by the view, -and it was an odd fantastic house, though by no means uncomfortable when -you got into the ways of it. A guest, unacquainted with these ways, -which consisted of all the very last so-called improvements, might -indeed spend a wretched day or night in his or her ignorance. I have -indeed known one who, on a very warm evening, found herself in a chamber -hermetically sealed to all appearance, with labels upon the windows -bearing the words “Close” and “Open,” but affording no information as -to how to work or move the complicated machinery which achieved these -operations; and when she turned to the bell for aid, there was a long -cord depending by the wall, at which she tugged and tugged in vain, not -knowing (for these were the early days of electrical appliances) that -all she had to do was to touch the little ivory circle at the end of the -cord. The result was a night’s imprisonment in what gradually became a -sort of Black Hole of Calcutta, without air to breathe or means of -appealing to the outside world. The Tredgolds themselves, however, I am -happy to say, had the sense in their own rooms to have the windows free -to open and shut according to the rules of Nature. - -The whole place was very elaborately furnished, with an amount of -gilding and ornament calculated to dazzle the beholder--inlaid cabinets, -carved furniture, and rich hangings everywhere, not a door without a -_portière_, not a window without the most elaborate sets of curtains. -The girls had not been old enough to control this splendour when it was -brought into being by an adroit upholsterer; and, indeed, they were -scarcely old enough even yet to have escaped from the spell of the awe -and admiration into which they had been trained. They felt the -flimsiness of the fashionable mode inspired by Liberty in comparison -with their solid and costly things, even should these be in worst taste, -and, as in everything a sense of superiority is sweet, they did not -attempt any innovations. But the room in which they sat together in the -evening was at least the most simply decorated in the house. There was -less gold, there were some smooth and simple tables on which the hand -could rest without carrying away a sharp impression of carved foliage or -arabesques. There were no china vases standing six feet high, and there -was a good deal of litter about such as is indispensable to the -happiness of girls. Mr. Tredgold had a huge easy-chair placed near to a -tall lamp, and the evening paper, only a few hours later than if he had -been in London, in his hands. He was a little old man with no appearance -to speak of--no features, no hair, and very little in the way of eyes. -How he had managed to be the father of two vigorous young women nobody -could understand; but vigorous young women are, however it has come -about, one of the commonest productions of the age, a fashion like any -other. Stella lay back in a deep chair near her father, and was at this -moment, while he filled the air of the room with the crinkling of his -paper as he folded back a leaf, lost in the utterance of a long yawn -which opened her mouth to a preternatural size, and put her face, which -was almost in a horizontal position thrown back and contemplating the -ceiling, completely out of drawing, which was a pity, for it was a -pretty face. Katherine showed no inclination to yawn--she was busy at a -table doing something--something very useless and of the nature of -trumpery I have no doubt; but it kept her from yawning at least. - -“Well, my pet,” Mr. Tredgold said, putting his hand on the arm of -Stella’s chair, “very tired, eh--tired of having nothing to do, and -sitting with your old father one night?” - -“Oh, I’ve got plenty to do,” said Stella, getting over the yawn, and -smiling blandly upon the world; “and, as for one night I sit with you -for ever, you ungrateful old dad.” - -“What is in the wind now? What’s the next entertainment? You never mean -to be quiet for two days together?” the old gentleman said. - -“It is not our fault,” said Katherine. “The Courtnays have gone away, -the Allens are going, and Lady Jane has not yet come back.” - -“I declare,” cried Stella, “it’s humiliating that we should have to -depend on anybody for company, whether they are summer people or winter -people. What is Lady Jane to us? We are as good as any of them. It is -you who give in directly, Kate, and think there is nothing to be done. -I’ll have a picnic to-morrow, if it was only the people from the hotel; -they are better than nobody, and so pleased to be asked. I shan’t spend -another evening alone with papa.” - -Papa was not displeased by this sally. He laughed and chuckled in his -throat, and crinkled his newspaper more than ever. “What a little -hussy!” he cried. “Did you ever know such a little hussy, Kate?” - -Kate did not pay any attention at all to papa. She went on with her gum -and scissors and her trumpery, which was intended for a bazaar -somewhere. “The question is, Do you know the hotel people?” she said. -“You would not think a picnic of five or six much fun.” - -“Oh, five or six!” cried the other with a toss of her head; and she -sprang up from her chair with an activity as great as her former -listlessness, and rushed to a very fine ormolu table all rose colour and -gold, at which she sat down, dashing off as many notes. “The Setons at -the hotel will bring as many as that; they have officers and all kinds -of people about,” she cried, flinging the words across her shoulder as -she wrote. - -“But we scarcely know them, Stella; and Mrs. Seton I don’t like,” said -Katherine, with her gum-brush arrested in her hand. - -“Papa, am I to ask the people I want, or is Kate to dictate in -everything?” cried Stella, putting up another note. - -“Let the child have her way, Katie, my dear; you know she has always had -her way all her life.” - -Katherine’s countenance was perhaps not so amiable as Stella’s, who was -radiant with fun and expectation and contradiction. “I think I may -sometimes have my way too,” she said. “They are not nice people; they -may bring any kind of man, there is always a crowd of men about _her_. -Papa, I think we are much safer, two girls like us, and you never going -out with us, if we keep to people we know; that was always to be the -condition when you consented that Stella should send our invitations -without consulting you.” - -“Yes, yes, my dear,” said the old gentleman, turning to his elder -daughter, “that is quite true, quite true;” then he caught Stella’s eye, -and added tremulously: “You must certainly have two or three people you -know.” - -“And what do you call Miss Mildmay?” cried Stella, “and Mrs. -Shanks?--aren’t they people we know?” - -“Oh, if she is asking them--the most excellent people and knowing -everybody--I think--don’t you think, Katie?--that might do?” - -“Of course it will do,” cried Stella gaily. “And old Shanks and old -Mildmay are such fun; they always fight--and they hate all the people in -the hotels; and only think of their two old faces when they see Mrs. -Seton and all her men! It will be the best party we have had this whole -year.” - -Katherine’s ineffectual remonstrances were drowned in the tinkling as of -a cracked bottle of Mr. Tredgold’s laugh. He liked to hear the old -ladies called old cats and set to fight and spit at each other. It gave -him an agreeable sense of contrast with his own happy conditions; petted -and appealed to by the triumphant youth which belonged to him, and of -which he was so proud. The inferiority of the “old things” was pleasant -to the old man, who was older than they. The cackle of his laugh swept -every objection away. And then I think Katherine would have liked to -steal away outside and look at the view, and console herself with the -sight of the Sliplin lights and all the twinkling villages along the -coast; which, it will be seen, was no disinterested devotion to Nature, -but only a result of the sensation of being out of it, and not having, -which Stella had, her own way. - -“Well, you needn’t come unless you like,” cried Stella with defiance, as -they parted at the door between their respective rooms, a door which -Katherine, I confess, shut with some energy on this particular evening, -though it generally stood open night and day. - -“I don’t think I will,” Katherine cried in her impatience; but she -thought better of this before day. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -Stella had always been the spoilt child of the Tredgold family. Her -little selfishnesses and passions of desire to have her own way, and -everything she might happen to want, had been so amusing that nobody had -chidden or thought for a moment (as everybody thought with Katherine) of -the bad effect upon her character and temper of having all these -passions satisfied and getting everything she stormed or cried for. Aunt -after aunt had passed in shadow, as it were, across the highly lighted -circle of Mr. Tredgold’s home life, all of them breaking down at last in -the impossibility of keeping pace with Stella, or satisfying her -impetuous little spirit; and governess after governess in the same way -had performed a sort of processional march through the house. Stella’s -perpetual flow of mockery and mimicry had all the time kept her father -in endless amusement. The mockery was not very clever, but he was easily -pleased and thought it capital fun. There was so much inhumanity in his -constitution, though he was a kind man in his way and very indulgent to -those who belonged to him, that he had no objection to see his own old -sister (though a good creature) outrageously mimicked in all her -peculiarities, much less the sisters of his late wife. Little Stella, -while still under the age of sixteen, had driven off all these ladies -and kept her father in constant amusement. “The little hussy!” he said, -“the little vixen!” and chuckled and laughed till it was feared he might -choke some time, being afflicted with bronchitis, in those convulsions -of delight. Katherine, who was the champion of the aunts, and wept as -one after the other departed, amused him greatly too. “She is an old -maid born!” he said, “and she sticks up for her kind, but Stella will -have her pick, and marry a prince, and take off the old cats as long as -she lives.” - -“But if she lives,” said a severe governess who for some time kept the -household in awe, “she will become old too, and probably be an old cat -in the opinion of those that come after her.” - -“No fear,” cried the foolish old man--“no fear.” In his opinion Stella -would never be anything but pretty and young, and radiant with fun and -fascination. - -And since the period when the girls “came out” there had been nothing -but a whirl of gaiety in the house. They did not come out in the -legitimate way, by being presented to Her Majesty and thus placed on the -roll of society in the usual meaning of the word, but only by appearing -at the first important ball in the locality, and giving it so to be -understood that they were prepared to accept any invitations that might -come in their way. They had come out together, Stella being much too -masterful and impatient to permit any such step on Katherine’s part -without her, so that Katherine had been more than nineteen while Stella -was not much over sixteen when this important step took place. Three -years had passed since that time. Stella was twenty, and beginning to -feel like a rather _blasé_ woman of the world; while Katherine at -twenty-three was supposed to be stepping back to that obscurity which -her father had prophesied for her, not far off from the region of the -old cats to which she was supposed to belong. Curiously enough, no -prince had come out of the unknown for the brighter sister. The only -suitor that had appeared had been for Katherine, and had been almost -laughed out of countenance, poor man, before he took his dismissal, -which was, indeed, rather given by the household in general than by the -person chiefly concerned. He was an Indian civilian on his way back to -some blazing station on the Plains, which was reason enough why he -should be repulsed by the family; but probably the annoying thought that -it was Katherine he wanted and not her sister had still more to do with -it. - -“It was a good thing at least that he had not the audacity to ask for -you, my pet,” Mr. Tredgold said. - -“For me!” said Stella, with a little shriek of horror, “I should very -soon have given him his answer.” And Katherine, too, gave him his -answer, but in a dazed and bewildered way. She was not at all in love -with him, but it did glance across her mind that to be the first person -with some one, to have a house of her own in which she should be -supreme, and a man by her side who thought there was nobody like her---- -But, then, was it possible that any man should really think that? or -that any house could ever have this strange fascination of home which -held her fast she could not tell how or why? She acquiesced accordingly -in Mr. Stanford’s dismissal. But when she went out to look at the view -in her moments of discouragement her mind was apt to return to him, to -wonder sometimes what he was doing, where he was, or if he had found -some one to be his companion, and of whom he could think that there was -nobody like her in the world? - -In the meantime, however, on the morning which followed the evening -already recorded, Katherine had too much to do in the way of providing -for the picnic to have much time to think. Stella had darted into her -room half-dressed with a number of notes in her hand to tell her that -everybody was coming. “Mrs. Seton brings six including her husband and -herself--that makes four fresh new men besides little Seton, whom you -can talk to if you like, Kate; and there’s three from the Rectory, and -five from the Villa, and old Mildmay and Shanks to do propriety for -papa’s sake.” - -“I wish you would not speak of them in that way by their names. It does -not take much trouble to say Miss Mildmay and Mrs. Shanks.” - -“I’ll say the old cats, if you like,” Stella said with a laugh, “that’s -shorter still. Do stir up a little, and be quick and let us have a good -lunch.” - -“How am I to get cold chickens at an hour’s notice?” said Katherine. -“You seem to think they are all ready roasted in the poultry yard, and -can be put in the hampers straight off. I don’t know what Mrs. Pearson -will say.” - -“She will only say what she has said a hundred times; but it always -comes right all the same,” cried Stella, retreating into her own room to -complete her toilette. And this was so true that Kate finished hers also -in comparative calm. She was the housekeeper _de jure_, and interviewed -Mrs. Pearson every morning with the profoundest gravity as if everything -depended upon her; but at bottom Katherine knew very well that it was -Mrs. Pearson who was the housekeeper _de facto_, and that she, like -everyone else, managed somehow that Miss Stella should have her way. - -“You know it’s just impossible,” said that authority a few minutes -later. “Start at twelve and tell me at nine to provide for nearly twenty -people! Where am I to get the chickens, not to speak of ham and cold -beef and all the rest? Do ye think the chickens in the yard are roasted -already?” cried the indignant housekeeper, using Katherine’s own -argument, “and that I have only to set them out in the air to cool?” - -“You see I did not know yesterday,” said the young mistress -apologetically; “it was a sudden thought of Miss Stella’s last night.” - -“She _is_ a one for sudden thoughts!” cried Pearson, half-indignant, -half-admiring; and after a little more protestation that it was -impossible she began to arrange how it could be done. It was indeed so -usual an experience that the protests were stereotyped, so to speak. -Everything on the Cliff was sudden--even Katherine had acquired the -habit, and preferred an impromptu to any careful preparation of events. -“Then if anything is wrong we can say there was so very little time to -do it in,” she said with an instinct of recklessness foreign to her -nature. But Mrs. Pearson was wise and prudent and knew her business, so -that it was very seldom anything went wrong. - -On ordinary occasions every one knows how rare it is to have a -thoroughly fine day for the most carefully arranged picnic. The -association of rain with these festivities is traditional. There is -nothing that has so bad an effect upon the most settled weather. Clouds -blow up upon the sky and rain pours down at the very suggestion. But -that strange Deity which we call Providence, and speak of in the neuter -gender, is never more apparently capricious than in this respect. A -picnic which is thoroughly undesirable, which has nothing in its favour, -which brings people together who ought to be kept apart, and involves -mischief of every kind, is free from all the usual mischances. That day -dawned more brightly even than other days. It shone even cloudless, the -glass rising, the wind dropping as if for the special enjoyment of some -favourite of Heaven. It was already October, but quite warm, as warm as -June, the colour of autumn adding only a charm the more, and neither -chill nor cloud to dull the atmosphere. The sea shone like diamonds but -more brilliant, curve upon curve of light following each other with -every glittering facet in movement. The white cliff at the further point -of the bay shone with a dazzling whiteness beyond comparison with -anything else in sky or earth. - -At twelve o’clock the sun overhead was like a benediction, not too hot -as in July and August, just perfect everybody said; and the carriages -and the horses with their shiny coats, and the gay guests in every tint -of colour, with convivial smiles and pleasant faces, made the drive as -gay as Rotten Row when Mr. Tredgold came forth to welcome and speed -forth his guests. This was his own comparison often used, though the -good man had never known much of Rotten Row. He stood in the porch, -which had a rustical air though the house was so far from being -rustical, and surveyed all these dazzling people with pride. Though he -had been used for years now to such gay assemblages, he had never ceased -to feel a great pride in them as though of “an honour unto which he was -not born.” To see his girls holding out hospitality to all the grand -folks was an unceasing satisfaction. He liked to see them at the head of -everything, dispensing bounties. The objectionable lady who had brought -so many men in her train did not come near Mr. Tredgold, but bowed to -him from a safe distance, from his own waggonette in which she had -placed herself. - -“I am not going to be led like a lamb to that old bore,” she said to -her party, which swarmed about her and was ready to laugh at everything -she said; and they were all much amused by the old man’s bow, and by the -wave of his hand, with which he seemed to make his visitors free of his -luxuries. - -“The old bore thinks himself an old swell,” said someone else. “Tredgold -and Silverstamp, money changers,” said another. “Not half so -good--Tredgold and Wurst, sausage makers,” cried a third. They all -laughed so much, being easily satisfied in the way of wit, that Stella, -who was going to drive, came up flourishing her whip, to know what was -the joke. - -“Oh, only about a funny sign we saw on the way,” said Mrs. Seton, with a -glance all round, quenching the laughter. The last thing that could have -entered Stella’s mind was that these guests of hers, so effusive in -their acceptance of her invitation, so pleased to be there, with -everything supplied for their day’s pleasure, were making a jest of -anything that belonged to her. She felt that she was conferring a favour -upon them, giving them “a great treat,” which they had no right to -expect. - -“You must tell me about it on the way,” she said, beaming upon them with -gracious looks, which was the best joke of all, they all thought, -stifling their laughter. - -Mr. Tredgold sent a great many wreathed smiles and gracious gestures to -the waggonette which was full of such a distinguished company, and with -Stella and her whip just ready to mount the driving-seat. They were new -friends he was aware. The men were all fashionable, “a cut above” the -Sliplin or even the smaller county people. The old gentleman loved to -see his little Stella among them, with her little delightful swagger and -air of being A 1 everywhere. I hope nobody will think me responsible for -the words in which poor Mr. Tredgold’s vulgar little thoughts expressed -themselves. He did not swagger like Stella, but loved to see her -swaggering. He himself would have been almost obsequious to the fine -folks. He had a remnant of uneasy consciousness that he had no natural -right to all this splendour, which made him deeply delighted when -people who had a right to it condescended to accept it from his hand. -But he was proud too to know that Stella did not at all share this -feeling, but thought herself A 1. So she was A 1; no one there was fit -to hold a candle to her. So he thought, standing at his door waving his -hands, and calling out congratulations on the fine day and injunctions -to his guests to enjoy themselves. - -“Don’t spare anything--neither the horses nor the champagne; there is -plenty more where these came from,” he said. - -Then the waggonette dashed off, leading the way; and Katherine followed -in the landau with the clergyman’s family from the Rectory, receiving -more of Mr. Tredgold’s smiles and salutations, but not so enthusiastic. - -“Mind you make everybody comfortable, Kate,” he cried. “Have you plenty -of wraps and cushions? There’s any number in the hall; and I hope your -hampers are full of nice things and plenty of champagne--plenty of good -champagne; that’s what the ladies want to keep up their spirits. And -don’t be afraid of it. I have none but the best in my house.” - -The vehicle which came after the landau was something of the shandrydan -order, with one humble horse and five people clustering upon it. - -“Why didn’t you have one of our carriages!” he cried. “There’s a many in -the stables that we never use. You had only to say the word, and the -other waggonette would have been ready for you; far more comfortable -than that old rattle-trap. And, bless us! here is the midge--the midge, -I declare--with the two old--with two old friends; but, dear me, Mrs. -Shanks, how much better you would have been in the brougham!” - -“So I said,” said one of the ladies; “but Ruth Mildmay would not hear of -it. She is all for independence and our own trap, but I like comfort -best.” - -“No,” said Miss Mildmay. “Indebted to our good friend we’ll always be -for many a nice party, and good dinner and good wine as well; but my -carriage must be my own, if it’s only a hired one; that is my opinion, -Mr. Tredgold, whatever any one may say.” - -“My dear good ladies,” said Mr. Tredgold, “this is Liberty Hall; you may -come as you please and do as you please; only you know there’s heaps of -horses in my stables, and when my daughters go out I like everything -about them to be nice--nice horses, nice carriages. And why should you -pay for a shabby affair that anybody can hire, when you might have my -brougham with all the last improvements? But ladies will have their -little whims and fads, we all know that.” - -“Mr. Perkins,” cried Miss Mildmay out of the window to the driver of the -fly, “go on! We’ll never make up to the others if you don’t drive fast; -and the midge is not very safe when it goes along a heavy road.” - -“As safe as a coach, and we’re in very good time, Miss,” said Mr. -Perkins, waving his whip. Perkins felt himself to be of the party too, -as indeed he was of most parties along the half circle of the bay. - -“Ah, I told you,” cried Mr. Tredgold, with his chuckle, “you’d have been -much better in the brougham.” He went on chuckling after this last -detachment had driven unsteadily away. A midge is not a graceful nor -perhaps a very safe vehicle. It is like a section of an omnibus, a -square box on wheels wanting proportions, and I think it is used only by -elderly ladies at seaside places. As it jogged forth Mr. Tredgold -chuckled more and more. Though he had been so lavish in his offers of -the brougham, the old gentleman was not displeased to see his old -neighbours roll and shamble along in that uncomfortable way. It served -them right for rejecting the luxury he had provided. It served them -still more right for being poor. And yet there was this advantage in -their being poor, that it threw up the fact of his own wealth, like a -bright object on a dark background. He went back to his room after a -while, casting a glance and a shiver at the garden blazing with sunshine -and flowers which crowned the cliff. He knew there was always a little -shrewd breeze blowing round the corner somewhere, and the view might be -hanged for anything he cared. He went indoors to his room, where there -was a nice little bit of fire. There was generally a little bit of fire -somewhere wherever he was. It was much more concentrated than the sun, -and could be controlled at his pleasure and suited him better. The sun -shone when it pleased, but the fire burned when Mr. Tredgold pleased. He -sat down and stretched himself out in his easy-chair and thought for a -minute or two how excellent it was to have such a plenty of money, so -many horses and carriages, and one of the nicest houses in the -island--the very nicest he thought--and to give Stella everything she -wanted. “She makes a fool of me,” he said to himself, chuckling. “If -that little girl wanted the Koh-i-Noor, I’d be game to send off somebody -careering over the earth to find out as good.” This was all for love of -Stella and a little for glory of himself; and in this mood he took up -his morning paper, which was his occupation for the day. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -A picnic is a very doubtful pleasure to people out of their teens, or at -least out of their twenties; and yet it remains a very popular -amusement. The grass is often damp, and it is a very forced and -uncomfortable position to sit with your plate on your knees and nothing -within your reach which you may reasonably want in the course of the -awkward meal. Mrs. Seton and the younger ladies, who were sedulously -attended upon, did not perhaps feel this so much; but then smart young -men, especially when themselves guests and attached to one particular -party, do not wait upon “the old cats” as they do upon the ladies of the -feast. Why Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay should have continued to partake -in these banquets, and spend their money on the midge to convey them -there, I am unable so much as to guess, for they would certainly have -been much more comfortable at home. But they did do so, in defiance of -any persuasion. They were not entirely ignorant that they were -considered old cats. The jibes which were current on the subject did not -always fly over their heads. They knew more or less why they were asked, -and how little any one cared for their presence. And yet they went to -every entertainment of the kind to which they were asked with a -steadiness worthy of a better cause. They were less considered even than -usual in this company, which was chiefly made up of strangers. They had -to scramble for the salad and help themselves to the ham. Cold chicken -was supposed to be quite enough for them without any accompaniment. The -_pâté de foie gras_ was quite exhausted before it came their length, and -Miss Mildmay had to pluck at Mr. Seton’s coat and call his attention -half a dozen times before they got any champagne; and yet they were -always ready to accept the most careless invitation, I cannot tell why. -They talked chiefly to each other, and took their little walks together -when the young ones dispersed or betook themselves to some foolish game. -“Oh, here are the old cats!” they could almost hear the girls say, when -the two ancient figures came in sight at the turn of the path; and -Stella would turn round and walk off in the opposite direction without -an attempt at concealment. But they did not take offence, and next time -were always ready to come again. - -That Mrs. Seton should have been ready to come was less wonderful, for -though she was old enough to be a little afraid of her complexion, and -was aware that damp was very bad for her neuralgia, it was indispensable -for her to have something to do, and the heavy blank of a day without -entertainment was dreadful to bear. And this was not for herself only -but for her court, or her tail, or whatever it may be called--the -retinue of young men whom she led about, and who had to be amused -whatever happened. Think of the expenditure of energy that is necessary -to amuse so many young active human creatures in a sitting-room in a -hotel for a whole morning, before lunch comes to relieve the intolerable -strain; or even in an afternoon before and after the blessed relief of -tea! They sprawl about upon the chairs, they block up the windows, they -gape for something to do, they expect to have funny things said to them -and to be made to laugh. What hard work for any woman whose whole -faculty consists in a capacity for saying every folly that comes into -her head with an audacity which is not accompanied by wit! “What a fool -you do look, Algy, with your mouth open like a little chick in a nest! -Do you expect me to pop a worm into it?” This speech made them all roar, -but it was not in itself amusing, the reader will perceive. And to go on -in that strain for hours is extremely fatiguing, more so than the -hardest work. Many people wondered why she should take the trouble to -have all these men about her, and to undertake the Herculean task of -entertaining them, which was a mystery quite as great as the -persistence of the elder ladies in going to feasts where they are -called old cats and receive no attention. The lightest of social -entertainments _donnent à penser_ in this way. You would have thought -that Mrs. Seton would have welcomed the moment of relief which ensued -when the boys and girls ran off together in a sort of hide-and-seek -among the tufted slopes. But when she found that she was actually left -alone for a moment with only her husband to attend upon her, the lady -was not pleased at all. - -“Where have they all gone?” she cried. “What do they mean leaving me all -alone? Where’s Algy--and where’s Sir Charles--and all of them?” - -“There’s nobody but me, I’m afraid, Lottie,” said little Seton, who was -strengthening himself with another glass of champagne; “they’ve all gone -off with the young ones.” - -“The young ones!” Mrs. Seton cried, with a sort of suppressed shriek. -The eldest of the Stanley girls was seated at a little distance, -sedately employed in making a drawing, and Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay -sat resting upon a pile of carriage cushions which they had collected -together when the others went away. The old ladies were much occupied in -seeing that Perkins, the driver of the midge, had his share with the -other servants of the relics of the feast. And was she, the brilliant, -the gay, the lovely Lottie, left with these _débris_ of humanity, -deserted by her kind? She rose up hastily and flourished her parasol -with an energy which nearly broke the ivory stick. “Have you no spirit -at all,” she cried, “to let your wife be neglected like this?” Katherine -was the one who met her in full career as she went down the winding -slopes--Katherine enjoying herself very moderately with none of the -stolen goods about her, in sole company of Evelyn Stanley and Gerrard, -her brother. “Where are all my party?” cried Mrs. Seton. “They will -never forgive me for deserting them. You stole a march upon me, Miss -Tredgold.” But certainly it was not Katherine who had stolen the march. -At this moment Stella appeared out of the bushes, flushed with fun and -laughter, her pretty hat pushed back upon her head, her pretty hair in a -little confusion. - -“Oh, come along, come along!” she cried, seizing Mrs. Seton by the arm, -“here’s such a beautiful place to hide in; they are all after us, full -cry. Come, come, we must have you on our side.” Thus, again, it was -Stella that was on the amusing side where all the fun and the pleasure -was. Evelyn Stanley cast wistful eyes after the pair. - -“Oh, Katherine, do you mind me going, too? Hide-and-seek is such fun, -and we can walk here every day.” - -“Do you want to go, too, Gerrard?” Katherine said. - -“Not if I may walk with you,” said the youth, who was at the University -and felt himself superior. He was only a year younger than she was, and -he thought that a _grande passion_ for a woman advanced in life was a -fine thing for a young man. He had made up his mind to keep by -Katherine’s side whatever happened. “I don’t care for that silly -nonsense,” he said; “it’s very well for these military fellows that have -not an idea in their heads. I always liked conversation best, and your -conversation, dear Katherine----” - -“Why, I cannot talk a bit,” she said with a laugh. - -It was on Gerrard’s lips to say, “But I can.” He had the grace, however, -not to utter that sentiment. “There are some people whose silence is -more eloquent than other people’s talk,” he said, which was a much -prettier thing to say. - -“Oh, why didn’t you come at first?” cried Stella in Mrs. Seton’s ear. -“They all think you are with me, only that you’ve got some very cunning -place to hide in: and here it is. I am sure they’ll never find us here.” - -“I hope they will, though,” said the elder lady, speaking in tones that -were not at all subdued. “You need not be so clever with your cunning -places. Of course we want them to find us; there is no fun in it if they -don’t.” - -Stella stared a little with widely opened eyes at her experienced -companion. She was still schoolgirl enough to rejoice in baffling the -other side, and liked the fun simply as Evelyn Stanley did, who was only -sixteen, and who came crowding in upon them whispering in her delight: -“They’ve run down the other way, the whole lot of them like sheep; they -have no sense. Oh, hush! hush! speak low! they’ll never think of a -place like this.” - -“I shall make them think,” cried Mrs. Seton, and then she began to sing -snatches of songs, and whistled through the thicket to the astonishment -of the girls. - -“Oh, that is no fun at all,” said Evelyn. - -“Hush!” cried Stella, already better informed, “it isn’t any fun if they -don’t find us, after all.” - -And then the train of young men came rushing back with shouts, and the -romp went on. It was so far different from other romps that when the fun -flagged for a moment the faces of the players all grew blank again, as -if they had at once relapsed into the heavy dulness which lay behind, -which was rather astonishing to the younger ones, who loved the game for -its own sake. Stella, for her part, was much impressed by this recurring -relapse. How exquisite must be the fun to which they were accustomed, -which kept them going! She was painfully aware that she flagged too, -that her invention was not quick enough to think of something new before -the old was quite exhausted. She had thought of nothing better than to -go on, to hide again, when Mrs. Seton, yawning, sat down to fan herself, -and said what Stella thought the rudest things to her cavaliers. - -“Why does Charlie Somers look so like an ass?” she said. “Do you give it -up? Because he’s got thistles all round him and can’t get at ’em.” - -Stella stared while the young men burst into noisy laughter. - -“Is that a conundrum?” Stella said. - -They thought this was wit too, and roared again. And then once more all -the faces grew blank. It was her first experience of a kind of society -decidedly above her level, and it was impressive as well as alarming to -the inexperienced young woman. It had been her habit to amuse herself, -not doubting that in doing so she would best promote the amusement of -her guests. But Stella now began to feel the responsibilities of an -entertainer. It was not all plain sailing. She began to understand the -rush of reckless talk, the excited tones, the startling devices of her -new friend. In lack of anything better, the acceptance of a cigar on -Mrs. Seton’s part, and the attempt to induce Stella to try one too, -answered for a moment to the necessities of the situation. They were not -very particular as to the selection of things to amuse them, so long as -there was always something going on. - -Sir Charles Somers sat with her on the box as she drove home, and gave -her a number of instructions which at first Stella was disposed to -resent. - -“I have driven papa’s horses ever since I was born,” she said. - -“But you might drive much better,” said the young man, calmly putting -his hand on hers, moulding her fingers into a better grasp upon the -reins, as composedly as if he were touching the springs of an instrument -instead of a girl’s hand. She blushed, but he showed no sense of being -aware that this touch was too much. He was the one of the strangers whom -she liked best, probably because he was Sir Charles, which gave him a -distinction over the others, or at least it did so to Stella. This was -not, however, because she was unaccustomed to meet persons who shared -the distinction, for the island people were very tolerant of such -_nouveaux riches_ as the Tredgolds, who were so very ready to add to -their neighbours’ entertainment. Two pretty girls with money are seldom -disdained in any community, and the father, especially as he was so well -advised as to keep himself out of society, was forgiven them, so that -the girls were sometimes so favoured as to go to a ball under Lady -Jane’s wing, and knew all “the best people.” But even to those who are -still more accustomed to rank than Stella, Sir Charles sounds better -than Mr. So-and-so; and he had his share of good looks, and of that ease -in society which even she felt herself to be a little wanting in. He did -not defer to the girl, or pay her compliments in any old-fashioned way. -He spoke to her very much as he spoke to the other young men, and -gripped her fingers to give them the proper grasp of the reins with as -much force of grip and as perfect calm as if she had been a boy instead -of a girl. This rudeness has, it appears, its charm. - -“I shouldn’t have wondered if he had called me Tredgold,” Stella said -with a pretence at displeasure. - -“What a horrid man!” Katherine replied, to whom this statement was made. - -“Horrid yourself for thinking so,” cried her sister. “He is not a horrid -man at all, he is very nice. We are going to be great--pals. Why -shouldn’t we be great pals? He is a little tired of Lottie Seton and her -airs, he said. He likes nice honest girls that say what they mean, and -are not always bullying a fellow. Well, that is what he said. It is his -language, it is not mine. You know very well that is how men speak, and -Lottie Seton does just the same. I told him little thanks to him to like -girls better than an old married woman, and you should have seen how he -tugged his moustache and rolled in his seat with laughing. Lottie Seton -must have suspected something, for she called out to us what was the -joke?” - -“I did not know you were on such terms with Mrs. Seton, Stella, as to -call her by her Christian name.” - -“Oh, we call them all by their names. Life’s too short for Missis That -and Mr. This. Charlie asked me----” - -“Charlie! why, you never saw him till to-day.” - -“When you get to know a man you don’t count the days you’ve been -acquainted with him,” said Stella, tossing her head, but with a flush on -her face. She added: “I asked him to come over to lunch to-morrow and to -see the garden. He said it would be rare fun to see something of the -neighbourhood without Lottie Seton, who was always dragging a lot of -fellows about.” - -“Stella, what a very, very unpleasant man, to talk like that about the -lady who is his friend, and who brought him here!” - -“Oh, his friend!” cried Stella, “that is only your old-fashioned way. -She is no more his friend! She likes to have a lot of men following her -about everywhere, and they have got nothing to do, and are thankful to -go out anywhere to spend the time; so it is just about as broad as it -is long. They do it to please themselves, and there is not a bit of love -lost.” - -“I don’t like those kind of people,” said Katherine. - -“They are the only kind of people,” Stella replied. - -This conversation took place from one room to another, the door standing -open while the girls performed a hasty toilette. All the picnic people -had been parted with at the gate with much demonstration of friendship -and a thousand thanks for a delightful day. Only the midge had deposited -its occupants at the door. The two old cats were never to be got rid of. -They were at that moment in another room, making themselves tidy, as -they said, with the supercilious aid of Katherine’s maid. Stella did not -part with hers in any circumstances, though she was about to dine in -something very like a dressing-gown with her hair upon her shoulders. -Mr. Tredgold liked to see Stella with her hair down, and she was not -herself averse to the spectacle of the long rippled locks falling over -her shoulders. Stella was one of the girls who find a certain enjoyment -in their own beauty even when there is nobody to see. - -“It was a very pleasant party on the whole to be such an impromptu,” -said Mrs. Shanks; “your girls, Mr. Tredgold, put such a spirit in -everything. Dear girls! Stella is always the most active and full of -fun, and Katherine the one that looks after one’s comfort. Don’t you -find the Stanleys, Kate, a little heavy in hand?--excellent good people, -don’t you know, always a stand-by, but five of them, fancy! Marion that -is always at her drawing, and Edith that can talk of nothing but the -parish, and that little romp Evelyn who is really too young and too -childish! Poor Mr. Stanley has his quiver too full, poor man, like so -many clergymen.” - -“If ever there was a man out of place--the Rector at a picnic!” said -Miss Mildmay, “with nobody for him to talk to. I’ll tell you what it is, -Mr. Tredgold, he thinks Kate is such a steady creature, he wants her for -a mother to his children; now see if I am not a true prophet before the -summer is out.” - -Mr. Tredgold’s laugh, which was like the tinkling of a tin vessel, -reached Katherine’s ear at the other end of the table, but not the -speech which had called it forth. - -“Papa, the officers are coming here to-morrow to lunch--you don’t mind, -do you?--that is, Charlie Somers and Algy Scott. Oh, they are nice -enough; they are dreadfully dull at Newport. They want to see the garden -and anything there is to see. You know you’re one of the sights of the -island, papa.” - -“That is their fun,” said the old man. “I don’t know what they take me -for, these young fellows that are after the girls. Oh, they’re all after -the girls; they know they’ve got a good bit of money and so forth, and -think their father’s an easy-going old fool as soft as--Wait till we -come to the question of settlements, my good ladies, wait till then; -they’ll not find me so soft when we get there.” - -“It is sudden to think of settlements yet, Mr. Tredgold. The Rector, -poor man, has got nothing to settle, and as for those boys in the -garrison, they never saw the dear girls till to-day.” - -“Ah, I know what they are after,” said Mr. Tredgold. “My money, that is -what they are all after. Talk to me about coming to see over the garden -and so forth! Fudge! it is my money they are after; but they’ll find I -know a thing or two before it comes to that.” - -“Papa,” said Stella, “you are just an old suspicious absurd--What do -they know about your money? They never heard your name before. Of course -they had heard of _me_. The other battalion were all at the Ryde ball, -and took notes. They thought I was an American, that shows how little -they know about you.” - -“That means, Stella,” said Miss Mildmay, “everything that is fast and -fly-away. I wouldn’t brag of it if I were you.” - -“It means the fashion,” said Mrs. Shanks. “Dear Stella _is_ like that, -with her nice clothes, and her way of rushing at everything, and never -minding. Now Katherine is English, no mistake about her--a good -daughter, don’t you know--and she’ll make an excellent wife.” - -“But the man will have to put down his money, piece for piece, before he -shall have her, I can tell you,” said the master of the house. “Oh, I’m -soft if you like it, and over-indulgent, and let them have all their own -way; but there’s not a man in England that stands faster when it comes -to that.” - -Stella gave her sister a look, and a little nod of her head; her eyes -danced and her hair waved a little, so light and fluffy it was, with -that slight gesture. It seemed to say, We shall see! It said to -Katherine, “You might stand that, but it will not happen with me.” The -look and the gesture were full of a triumphant defiance. Stella was not -afraid that she would ever feel the restraining grip of her father’s -hand; and then she thought of that other grip upon her fingers, and -shook her shiny hair about her ears more triumphant still. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -Stella, however, courageous as she was, was not bold enough to address -Sir Charles and his companion as Charlie and Algy when they appeared, -not next day, but some days later; for their engagements with Mrs. Seton -and others of their friends were not so lightly to be pushed aside for -the attraction of her society as the girl supposed. It was a little -disappointing to meet them with their friends, not on the same sudden -level of intimacy which had been developed by the picnic, and to be -greeted indifferently, “like anybody else,” after that entertainment and -its sudden fervour of acquaintance. When, however, Mrs. Seton left the -hotel, and the young men had no longer that resource in their idleness, -they appeared at the Cliff without further invitation, and with an -evident disposition to profit by its hospitality which half flattered -and half offended the girls. - -“They have never even left cards,” said Katherine, after the picnic, -“but now that their friends have gone they remember that you asked them, -Stella.” - -“Well,” cried Stella, “that is so much the more friendly. Do you suppose -they haven’t hundreds of places to go to? And when they choose _us_, are -we to be disagreeable? I shan’t be so at least.” - -She ran downstairs indeed wreathed with smiles, and received them with -an eager gratification, which was very flattering to the young men, who -opened their eyes at the luxury of the luncheon and gave each other a -look which said that here was something worth the trouble. Old Mr. -Tredgold, in his shabby coat and his slippers, was a curious feature in -the group; but it was by no means out of keeping that a rich old -father, who had begun life with half a crown, should thus fulfil his -part, and the young men laughed at his jokes, and elevated an eyebrow at -each other across the table, with a sense of the fun of it, which -perplexed and disturbed the two young women, to whom they were still -figures unaccustomed, about whose modes and manners they were quite -unassured. Katherine took it all seriously, with an inclination towards -offence, though it is not to be supposed that the advent of two young -officers, more or less good-looking and a novelty in her life, should -not have exercised a little influence upon her also. But Stella was in a -state of suppressed excitement which made her eyes shine indeed, and -brightened her colour, but was not very pleasant to behold for anyone -who loved her. She was half offended with her father for the share he -took in the conversation, and angry with the young men who listened to -and applauded him, without remarking her own attempts to be witty. Her -voice, though it was a pretty voice, grew a little shrill in her -endeavours to attract their attention and to secure the loud outbursts -of laughter which had been used to accompany Mrs. Seton’s sallies. What -was it about Mrs. Seton which amused them? She said nothing remarkable, -except for rudeness and foolishness, and yet they laughed; but to -Stella’s funniest remarks they gave but a gape of inattention, and -concentrated their attention on her father--on papa! What could they -possibly see in him? - -It was consolatory, however, when they all went out into the garden -after lunch, to find that they came one on each side of her -instinctively with a just discrimination, leaving Katherine out. Stella, -to do her justice, did not want Katherine to be left entirely out. When -her own triumph was assured she was always willing that there should be -something for her sister. But it was well at least that the strangers -should recognise that she was the centre of everything. She led them, as -in duty bound, through all the rare trees and shrubs which were the -glory of the Cliff. “This papa had brought all the way from Brazil, or -somewhere. It is the first one that ever was grown in England; and just -look at those berries! Wain, the gardener, has coaxed them to grow, -giving them all sorts of nice things to eat. Oh, I couldn’t tell you all -he has given them--old rags and rusty nails and all kinds of -confectioneries!” - -“Their dessert, eh?” said Sir Charles. He had stuck his glass in his -eye, but he looked gloomily at all the wonderful plants. Algy put up his -hand to his moustache, under which his mouth gaped more open than usual, -with a yawn. Stella remembered that Mrs. Seton had proposed to pop a -worm into it, and longed to make use, though at second hand, of that -famous witticism, but had not the courage. They looked about blankly -even while she discoursed, with roving yet vacant looks, seeking -something to entertain them. Stella could not entertain them--oh, -dreadful discovery! She did not know what to say; her pretty face began -to wear an anxious look, her colour became hectic, her eyes hollow with -eagerness, her voice loud and shrill with the strain. Mrs. Seton could -keep them going, could make them laugh at nothing, could maintain a -whirl of noisy talk and jest; but Stella could not amuse these two heavy -young men. Their opaque eyes went roving round the beautiful place in -search of some “fun,” their faces grew more and more blank. It was -Katherine, who did not pretend to be amusing, who had so very little to -say for herself, who interposed: - -“Don’t you think,” she said, “Stella, they might like to look at the -view? Sliplin Harbour is so pretty under the cliff, and then there are -some yachts.” - -“Oh, let’s look at the yachts,” the young men said, pushing forward with -a sudden impulse of interest. The bay was blazing in the afternoon -sunshine, the distant cliff a dazzle of whiteness striking sharp against -the blue of sky and sea; but the visitors did not pause upon anything so -insignificant as the view. They stumbled over each other in their -anxiety to see the little vessel which lay at the little pier, one white -sail showing against the same brilliant background. Whose was it? -Jones’s for a wager, the _Lively Jinny_. No, no, nothing of the sort. -Howard’s the _Inscrutable_, built for Napier, don’t you know, before he -went to the dogs. - -Stella pressed forward into the discussion with questions which she did -not know to be irrelevant. What was the meaning of clipper-rigged? Did -raking masts mean anything against anyone’s character? Which was the -jib, and why should it be of one shape rather than another? The -gentlemen paid very little attention to her. They went on discussing the -identity of the toy ship with interest and fervour. - -“Why, I know her like the palm of my hand,” cried Sir Charles. “I -steered her through that last westerly gale, and a tough one it was. I -rather think if any one should know her, it’s I. The _Lively Jinny_, and -a livelier in the teeth of a gale I never wish to see.” - -“Pooh!” said the other. “You’re as blind as a bat, Charlie, everyone -knows; you wouldn’t know your best friend at that distance. It’s -Howard’s little schooner that he bought when poor Napier went to----” - -“I tell you it’s _Jinny_, the fetish of Jones’s tribe. I know her as -well as I know you. Ten to one in sovs.” - -“I’ll take you,” cried the other. “Howard’s, and a nice little craft; -but never answers her helm as she ought, that’s why he calls her the -_Inscrutable_.” - -“What a strange thing,” cried Stella, toiling behind them in her -incomprehension, “not to answer your helm! What is your helm, and what -does it say to you? Perhaps she doesn’t understand.” - -This, she thought, was _à la mode de_ Mrs. Seton, but it produced no -effect, not even a smile. - -“You could see the figure-head with a glass,” said Captain Scott. -“Where’s the glass, Miss Tredgold? There ought to be a glass somewhere.” - -“Jove!” cried Sir Charles. “Fancy a look-out like this and no telescope. -What could the people be thinking of?” - -“You are very rude to call papa and me the people,” cried Stella, almost -in tears. “Who cares for a silly little cockle-shell of a boat? But it -is a good thing at least that it gives you something to talk -about--which I suppose you can understand.” - -“Hullo!” said the one visitor to the other, under his breath, with a -look of surprise. - -“If it is only a glass that is wanted,” said Katherine, “why shouldn’t -we all have a look? There is a telescope, you know, upstairs.” - -Stella flashed out again under the protection of this suggestion. “I’ll -run,” she said, being in reality all compliance and deeply desirous to -please, “and tell one of the footmen to bring it down.” - -“Too much trouble,” and “What a bore for you to have us on your hands!” -the young men said. - -“Don’t, Stella,” said Katherine; “they had better go up to papa’s -observatory, where they can see it for themselves.” - -“Oh, yes,” cried the girl, “come along, let’s go to papa’s observatory, -that will be something for you to do. You always want something to do, -don’t you? Come along, come along!” Stella ran on before them with -heated cheeks and blazing eyes. It was not that she was angry with them, -but with herself, to think that she could not do what Mrs. Seton did. -She could not amuse them, or keep up to their high level of spirits, and -the vacancy of the look which came over both their faces--the mouth of -Algy under his moustache, the eyes of Charlie staring blankly about in -search of a sensation--were more than her nerves could bear. And yet she -was alarmed beyond measure, feeling her own prestige in question, by the -thought that they might never come again. - -Papa’s observatory was a terrace on the leads between the two gables -where the big telescope stood. Was it a pity, or was it not, that papa -was there in his shabby coat sniffing at the ships as they went out to -sea? He had an extended prospect on all sides, and he was watching a -speck on the horizon with much interest through the glass. “Perhaps you -young fellows have got some interest in the shipping like me?” he said. -“There, don’t you see the _Haitch_ and the _Ho_ on the pennant just -slipping out of sight? I have a deal of money in that ship. I like to -see them pass when it’s one I have an interest in. Put your little -peeper here, Stella, you’ll see her yet. They pay very well with proper -care. You have to keep your wits about you, but that’s the case with all -investments. Want to see any particular ship, eh? I hope you’ve got some -money in ’em,” Mr. Tredgold said. - -“Oh, papa, take your horrid thing away; you know I never can see -anything,” cried Stella. “Now look, now look, Sir Charles! Remember, I -back you. The _Jenny_ before the world.” - -“Miss Tredgold, put a sixpence on me,” said Algy; “don’t let a poor -fellow go into the ring unprotected. It’s Howard’s or nobody’s.” - -“Betting?” said Mr. Tredgold. “It is not a thing I approve of, but we -all do it, I suppose. That little boat, if that is what you’re thinking -of, belongs to none of those names. It’s neither the _Jones_ nor the -_Howard_. It’s the _Stella_, after that little girl of mine, and it’s my -boat, and you can take a cruise in it if you like any day when there’s -no wind.” - -“Oh, papa,” cried Stella, “is it really, really for me?” - -“You little minx,” said the old man as she kissed him, “you little fair -weather flatterer, always pleased when you get something! I know you, -for all you think you keep it up so well. Papa’s expected always to be -giving you something--the only use, ain’t it? of an old man. It’s a bit -late in the season to buy a boat, but I got it a bargain, a great -bargain.” - -“Then it was Jones’s,” cried Sir Charles. - -“Then Howard was the man,” cried his friend. - -“That’s delightful,” cried Stella, clapping her hands. “Do keep it up! I -will put all my money on Sir Charles.” And they were so kind that they -laughed with her, admiring the skip and dance of excitement which she -performed for their pleasure. But when it turned out that Mr. Tredgold -did not know from whom he had bought the boat, and that the figure-head -had been removed to make room for a lovely wooden lady in white and gold -with a star on her forehead, speculation grew more and more lively than -ever. It was Stella, in the excitement of that unexpected success, who -proposed to run down to the pier to examine into the yacht and see if -any solution was possible. “We have a private way,” she cried. “I’ll -show you if you’d like to come; and I want to see my yacht, and if the -Stella on it is like me, and if it is pretty inside, and everything. -And, Kate, while we’re gone, you might order tea. Papa, did you say the -Stella on the figure-head was to be like me?” - -“Nothing that is wooden could be like you,” said Sir Charles graciously. -It was as if an oracle had spoken. Algy opened his mouth under his -moustache with a laugh or gape which made Stella long there and then to -repeat Mrs. Seton’s elegant jest. She was almost bold enough in the -flush of spirits which Sir Charles’s compliment had called forth. - -“I wish Stella would not rush about with those men,” said Katherine, as -the noise of their steps died away upon the stairs. - -“Jealous, eh?” said her father. “Well, I don’t wonder--and they can’t -both have her. One of them might have done the civil by you, Katie--but -they’re selfish brutes, you know, are men.” - -Katherine perhaps walked too solemnly away in the midst of this -unpalatable consolation, and was undutifully irritated by her father’s -tin-tinkle of a laugh. She was not jealous, but the feeling perhaps was -not much unlike that unlovely sentiment. She declared indignantly to -herself that she did not want them to “do the civil” to her, these dull -frivolous young men, and that it was in the last degree injurious to her -to suggest anything of the sort. It was hopeless to make her father see -what was her point of view, or realise her feelings--as hopeless as it -was to make Stella perceive how little fit it was that she should woo -the favour of these rude strangers. Mrs. Seton might do it with that -foolish desire to drag about a train with her, to pose as a conqueror, -to---- Katherine did not know what words to use. But Stella, a girl! -Stella, who was full of real charm, who was fit for so much better -things! On the whole, Katherine found it was better to fulfil the homely -duties that were hers and give her orders about the tea. It was the part -in life that was apportioned to her, and why should she object to it? -It might not be the liveliest, but surely it was a more befitting -situation than Stella’s rush after novelty, her strain to please. And -whom to please? People who sneered at them before their faces and did -not take pains to be civil--not even to Stella. - -It did her good to go out into the air, to select the spot under the -acacia where the tea-table stood so prettily, with its shining white. It -was still warm, extraordinary for October. She sat down there gazing out -upon the radiance of the sea and sky; the rocky fringe of sand was -invisible, and so was the town and harbour which lay at the foot of the -cliff; beyond the light fringe of the tamarisk trees which grew there as -luxuriantly as in warmer countries there was nothing but the sunny -expanse of the water, dazzling under the Western sun, which was by this -time low, shining level in the eyes of the solitary gazer. She saw, -almost without seeing it, the white sail of a yacht suddenly gleam into -the middle of the prospect before her, coming out all at once from the -haven under the hill. Someone was going out for a sail, a little late -indeed; but what could be more beautiful or tempting than this glorious -afternoon! Katherine sighed softly with a half sensation of envy. A -little puff of air came over her, blowing about the light acacia foliage -overhead, and bringing down a little shower of faintly yellow leaves. -The little yacht felt it even more than the acacia did. It seemed to -waver a little, then changed its course, following the impulse of the -breeze into the open. Katherine wondered indifferently who it could be. -The yachting people were mostly gone from the neighbourhood. They were -off on their longer voyages, or they had laid up their boats for the -season. And there had begun to grow a windy look, such as dwellers by -the sea soon learn to recognise about the sky. Katherine wished calmly -to herself in her ignorance of who these people were that they might not -go too far. - -She was sitting thus musing and wondering a little that Stella and her -cavaliers did not come back for tea, when the sound of her father’s -stick from the porch of the house startled her, and a loud discussion -with somebody which he seemed to be carrying on within. He came out -presently, limping along with his stick and with a great air of -excitement. “I said they were only to go when there was no wind. Didn’t -you hear me, Katie? When there was no wind--I said it as plain as -anything. And look at that; look at that!” He was stammering with -excitement, and could scarcely keep his standing in his unusual -excitement. - -“What is the matter, papa? Look at what? Oh, the boat. But we have -nothing to do with any boat,” she cried. “Why should you disturb -yourself? The people can surely take care of---- Papa! what is it?” - -He had sunk into a chair, one of those set ready on the grass for Stella -and her friends, and was growing purple in the face and panting for -breath. “You fool! you fool! Stella,” he cried, “Stella, my little girl. -Oh, I’ll be even with those young fools when I catch them. They want to -drown her. They want to run away with her. Stella! my little girl!” - -Katherine had awakened to the fact before these interrupted words were -half uttered. And naturally what she did was perfectly unreasonable. She -rushed to the edge of the cliff, waving aloft the white parasol in her -hand, beckoning wildly, and crying, “Come back, come back!” She called -all the servants, the gardener and his man, the footmen who were looking -out alarmed from the porch. “Go, go,” she cried, stamping her foot, “and -bring them back; go and bring them back!” There was much rushing and -running, and one at least of the men flung himself helter-skelter down -the steep stair that led to the beach, while the gardeners stood gazing -from the cliff. Katherine clapped her hands in her excitement, giving -wild orders. “Go! go! don’t stand there as if nothing could be done; go -and bring them back!” - -“Not to contradict you, Miss Katherine----” the gardener began. - -“Oh, don’t speak to me--don’t stand talking--go, go, and bring them -back.” - -Mr. Tredgold had recovered his breath a little. “Let us think,” he -said--“let us think, and don’t talk nonsense, Kate. There’s a breeze -blowing up, and where will it drive them to, gardener? Man, can’t you -tell where it’ll drive them to? Round by the Needles, I shouldn’t -wonder, the dangerousest coast. Oh, my little girl, my little girl! -Shall I ever see her again? And me that said they were never to go out -but when there was no wind.” - -“Not to the Needles, sir--not to the Needles when there’s a westerly -breeze. More likely round the cliffs Bembridge way; and who can stop ’em -when they’re once out? It’s only a little cruise; let ’em alone and -they’ll come home, with their tails be’ind them, as the rhyme says.” - -“And I said they were only to go out if there was no wind, gardener!” -The old gentleman was almost weeping with alarm and anxiety, but yet he -was comforted by what the man said. - -“They are going the contrary way,” cried Katherine. - -“Bless you, miss, that’s tacking, to catch the breeze. They couldn’t go -far, sir, could they? without no wind.” - -“And that’s just what I wanted, that they should not go far--just a -little about in the bay to please her. Oh, my little girl! She will be -dead with fright; she will catch her death of cold, she will.” - -“Not a bit, sir,” cried the gardener. “Miss Stella’s a very plucky one. -She’ll enjoy the run, she’ll enjoy the danger.” - -“The danger!” cried father and sister together. - -“What a fool I am! There ain’t none, no more than if they was in a duck -pond,” the gardener said. - -And, indeed, to see the white sail flying in the sunshine over the blue -sea, there did not seem much appearance of danger. With his first -apprehensions quieted down, Mr. Tredgold stumbled with the help of his -daughter’s arm to the edge of the cliff within the feathery line of the -tamarisk trees, attended closely by the gardener, who, as an islander -born, was supposed to know something of the sea. The hearts of the -anxious gazers fluctuated as the little yacht danced over the water, -going down when she made a little lurch and curtsey before the breeze, -and up when she went steadily by the wind, making one of those long -tacks which the gardener explained were all made, though they seemed to -lead the little craft so far away, with the object of getting back. - -“Them two young gentlemen, they knows what they’re about,” the gardener -said. - -“And there’s a sailor-man on board,” said Mr. Tredgold--“a man that -knows everything about it, one of the crew whose business it is----” - -“I don’t see no third man,” said the gardener doubtfully. - -“Oh, yes, yes, there’s a sailor-man,” cried the father. The old -gentleman spoke with a kind of sob in his throat; he was ready to cry -with weakness and trouble and exasperation, as the little vessel, -instead of replying to the cries and wailings of his anxiety by coming -right home as seemed to him the simplest way, went on tacking and -turning, sailing further and further off, then heeling over as if she -would go down, then fluttering with an empty sail that hung about the -mast before she struck off in another direction, but never turning back. -“They are taking her off to America!” he cried, half weeping, leaning -heavily on Katherine’s arm. - -“They’re tacking, sir, tacking, to bring her in,” said the gardener. - -“Oh, don’t speak to me!” cried the unhappy father; “they are carrying -her off to America. Who was it said there was nothing between this and -America, Katie? Oh, my little girl! my little girl!” - -And it may be partly imagined what were the feelings of those -inexperienced and anxious people when the early October evening began to -fall, and the blue sky to be covered with clouds flying, gathering, and -dispersing before a freshening westerly gale. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -I will not enter in detail into the feelings of the father and sister on -this alarming and dreadful night. No tragedy followed, the reader will -feel well assured, or this history would never have been written. But -the wind rose till it blew what the sailors called half a gale. It -seemed to Katherine a hurricane--a horrible tempest, in which no such -slender craft as that in which Stella had gone forth had a chance for -life; and indeed the men on the pier with their conjectures as to what -might have happened were not encouraging. She might have fetched Ventnor -or one of those places by a long tack. She might have been driven out to -the Needles. She mightn’t know her way with those gentlemen only as was -famous sailors with a fair wind, but not used to dirty weather. -Katherine spent all the night on the pier gazing out upon the waste of -water now and then lighted up by a fitful moon. What a change--what a -change from the golden afternoon! And what a difference from her own -thoughts!--a little grudging of Stella’s all-success, a little wounded -to feel herself always in the shade, and the horrible suggestion of -Stella’s loss, the dread that overwhelmed her imagination and took all -her courage from her. She stood on the end of the pier, with the -wind--that wind which had driven Stella forth out of sound and -sight--blowing her about, wrapping her skirts round her, loosing her -hair, making her hold tight to the rail lest she should be blown away. -Why should she hold tight? What did it matter, if Stella were gone, -whether she kept her footing or not? She could never take Stella’s place -with anyone. Her father would grudge her very existence that could not -be sacrificed to save Stella. Already he had begun to reproach her. Why -did you let her go? What is the use of an elder sister to a girl if she -doesn’t interfere in such a case? And three years older, that ought to -have been a mother to her. - -Thus Mr. Tredgold had babbled in his misery before he was persuaded to -lie down to await news which nothing that could be done would make any -quicker. He had clamoured to send out boats--any number--after Stella. -He had insisted upon hiring a steamer to go out in quest of her; but -telegrams had to be sent far and wide and frantic messengers to -Ryde--even to Portsmouth--before he could get what he wanted. And in the -meantime the night had fallen, the wind had risen, and out of that -blackness and those dashing waves, which could be heard without being -seen, there came no sign of the boat. Never had such a night passed over -the peaceful place. There had been sailors and fishermen in danger many -a time, and distracted women on the pier; but what was that to the agony -of a millionaire who had been accustomed to do everything with his -wealth, and now raged and foamed at the mouth because he could do -nothing? What was all his wealth to him? He was as powerless as the poor -mother of that sailor-boy who was lost (there were so many, so many of -them), and who had not a shilling in the world. Not a shilling in the -world! It was exactly as if Mr. Tredgold had come to that. What could he -do with all his thousands? Oh, send out a tug from Portsmouth, send out -the fastest ferry-boat from Ryde, send out the whole fleet--fishing -cobles, pleasure boats--everything that was in Sliplin Harbour! Send -everything, everything that had a sail or an oar, not to say a steam -engine. A hundred pounds, a thousand pounds--anything to the man who -would bring Stella back! - -The little harbour was in wild commotion with all these offers. There -were not many boats, but they were all preparing; the men clattering -down the rolling shingle, with women after them calling to them to take -care, or not to go out in the teeth of the gale. “If you’re lost too -what good will that do?” they shrieked in the wind, their hair flying -like Katherine’s, but not so speechless as she was. The darkness, the -flaring feeble lights, the stir and noise on the shore, with these -shrieking voices breaking in, made a sort of Pandemonium unseen, taking -double horror from the fact that it was almost all sound and sensation, -made visible occasionally by the gleam of the moon between the flying -clouds. Mr. Tredgold’s house on the cliff blazed with lights from every -window, and a great pan of fire wildly blazing, sending up great shadows -of black smoke, was lit on the end of the pier--everything that could be -done to guide them back, to indicate the way. Nothing of that sort was -done when the fishermen were battling for their lives. But what did it -all matter, what was the good of it all? Millionaire and pauper stood on -the same level, hopeless, tearing their hair, praying their hearts out, -on the blind margin of that wild invisible sea. - -There was a horrible warning of dawn in the blackness when Stella, -soaked to the skin, her hair lashing about her unconscious face like -whips, and far more dead than alive, was at last carried home. I believe -there were great controversies afterwards between the steam-tug and the -fishing boats which claimed to have saved her--controversies which might -have been spared, since Mr. Tredgold paid neither, fortified by the -statement of the yachtsmen that neither had been of any use, and that -the _Stella_ had at last blundered her way back of her own accord and -their superior management. He had to pay for the tug, which put forth by -his orders, but only as much as was barely necessary, with no such -gratuity as the men had hoped for; while to the fishers he would give -nothing, and Katherine’s allowance was all expended for six months in -advance in recompensing these clamorous rescuers who had not succeeded -in rescuing anyone. - -Stella was very ill for a few days; when she recovered the wetting and -the cold, then she was ill of the imagination, recalling more clearly -than at first all the horrors which she had passed through. As soon as -she was well enough to recover the use of her tongue she did nothing but -talk of this tremendous experience in her life, growing proud of it as -she got a little way beyond it and saw the thrilling character of the -episode in full proportion. At first she would faint away, or rather, -almost faint away (between two which things there is an immense -difference), as she recalled the incidents of that night. But after a -while they became her favourite and most delightful subjects of -conversation. She entertained all her friends with the account of her -adventure as she lay pale, with her pretty hair streaming over her -pillow, not yet allowed to get up after all she had gone through, but -able to receive her habitual visitors. - -“The feeling that came over me when it got dark, oh! I can’t describe -what it was,” said Stella. “I thought it was a shadow at first. The sail -throws such a shadow sometimes; it’s like a great bird settling down -with its big wing. But when it came down all round and one saw it wasn’t -a shadow, but darkness--night!--oh, how horrible it was! I thought I -should have died, out there on the great waves and the water dashing -into the boat, and the cliffs growing fainter and fainter, and the -horrible, horrible dark!” - -“Stella dear, don’t excite yourself again. It is all over, God be -praised.” - -“Yes, it’s all over. It is easy for you people to speak who have never -been lost at sea. It will never be over for me. If I were to live to be -a hundred I should feel it all the same. The hauling up and the hauling -down of that dreadful sail, carrying us right away out into the sea when -we wanted to get home, and then flopping down all in a moment, while we -rocked and pitched till I felt I must be pitched out. Oh, how I implored -them to go back! ‘Just turn back!’ I cried. ‘Why don’t you turn back? We -are always going further and further, instead of nearer. And oh! what -will papa say and Katherine?’ They laughed at first, and told me they -were tacking, and I begged them, for Heaven’s sake, not to tack, but to -run home. But they would not listen to me. Oh, they are all very nice -and do what you like when it doesn’t matter; but when it’s risking your -life, and you hate them and are miserable and can’t help yourself, then -they take their own way.” - -“But they couldn’t help it either,” cried Evelyn, the rector’s daughter. -“They had to tack; they could not run home when the wind was against -them.” - -“What do I care about the wind?” cried Stella. “They should not have -made me go out if there was a wind. Papa said we were never to go out in -a wind. I told them so. I said, ‘You ought not to have brought me out.’ -They said it was nothing to speak of. I wonder what it is when it is -something to speak of! And then we shipped a sea, as they called it, and -I got drenched to the very skin. Oh, I don’t say they were not kind. -They took off their coats and put round me, but what did that do for me? -I was chilled to the very bone. Oh, you can’t think how dreadful it is -to lie and see those sails swaying and to hear the men moving about and -saying dreadful things to each other, and the boat moving up and down. -Oh!” cried Stella, clasping her hands together and looking as if once -more she was about almost to faint away. - -“Stella, spare yourself, dear. Try to forget it; try to think of -something else. It is too much for you when you dwell on it,” Katherine -said. - -“Dwell on it!” cried Stella, reviving instantly. “It is very clear that -_you_ never were in danger of your life, Kate.” - -“I was in danger of _your_ life,” cried Katherine, “and I think that was -worse. Oh, I could tell you a story, too, of that night on the pier, -looking out on the blackness, and thinking every moment--but don’t let -us think of it, it is too much. Thank God, it is all over, and you are -quite safe now.” - -“It is very different standing upon the pier, and no doubt saying to -yourself what a fool Stella was to go out; she just deserves it all for -making papa so unhappy, and keeping me out of bed. Oh, I know that was -what you were thinking! and being like me with only a plank between me -and--don’t you know? The one is very, very different from the other, I -can tell you,” Stella said, with a little flush on her cheek. - -And the Stanley girls who were her audience agreed with her, with a -strong sense that to be the heroine of such an adventure was, after all, -when it was over, one of the most delightful things in the world. Her -father also agreed with her, who came stumping with his stick up the -stairs, his own room being below, and took no greater delight than to -sit by her bedside and hear her go over the story again and again. - -“I’ll sell that little beast of a boat. I’ll have her broken up for -firewood. To think I should have paid such a lot of money for her, and -her nearly to drown my little girl!” - -“Oh, don’t do that, papa,” said Stella; “when it’s quite safe and there -is no wind I should like perhaps to go out in her again, just to see. -But to be sure there was no wind when we went out--just a very little, -just enough to fill the sail, they said; but you can never trust to a -wind. I said I shouldn’t go, only just for ten minutes to try how I -liked it; and then that horrid gale came on to blow, and they began to -tack, as they call it. Such nonsense that tacking, papa! when they began -it I said, ‘Why, we’re going further off than ever; what I want is to -get home.’” - -“They paid no attention, I suppose--they thought they knew better,” said -Mr. Tredgold. - -“They always think they know better,” cried Stella, with indignation. -“And oh, when it came on to be dark, and the wind always rising, and the -water coming in, in buckets full! Were you ever at sea in a storm, -papa?” - -“Never, my pet,” said Mr. Tredgold, “trust me for that. I never let -myself go off firm land, except sometimes in a penny steamboat, that’s -dangerous enough. Sometimes the boilers blow up, or you run into some -other boat; but on the sea, not if I know it, Stella.” - -“But I have,” said the girl. “A steamboat! within the two banks of a -river! You know nothing, nothing about it, neither does Katherine. Some -sailors, I believe, might go voyages for years and never see anything so -bad as that night. Why, the waves were mountains high, and then you -seemed to slide down to the bottom as if you were going--oh! hold me, -hold me, papa, or I shall feel as if I were going again.” - -“Poor little Stella,” said Mr. Tredgold, “poor little girl! What a thing -for her to go through, so early in life! But I’d like to do something to -those men. I’d like to punish them for taking advantage of a child like -that, all to get hold of my new boat, and show how clever they were with -their tacking and all that. Confound their tacking! If it hadn’t been -for their tacking she might have got back to dinner and saved us such a -miserable night.” - -“What was your miserable night in comparison to mine?” cried Stella, -scornfully. “I believe you both think it was as bad as being out at sea, -only because you did not get your dinner at the proper time and were -kept longer than usual out of bed.” - -“We must not forget,” said Katherine, “that after all, though they might -be to blame in going out, these gentlemen saved her life.” - -“I don’t know about that,” said the old man. “I believe it was my tug -that saved her life. It was they that put her life in danger, if you -please. I’d like just to break them in the army, or sell them up, or -something; idle fellows doing nothing, strolling about to see what -mischief they can find to do.” - -“Oh, they are very nice,” said Stella. “You shan’t do anything to them, -papa. I am great chums with Charlie and Algy; they are such nice boys, -really, when you come to know them; they took off their coats to keep me -warm. I should have had inflammation of the lungs or something if I had -not had their coats. I was shivering so.” - -“And do you know,” said Katherine, “one of them is ill, as Stella -perhaps might have been if he had not taken off his coat.” - -“Oh, which is that?” cried Stella; “oh, do find out which is that? It -must be Algy, I think. Algy is the delicate one. He never is good for -much--he gives in, you know, so soon. He is so weedy, long, and thin, -and no stamina, that is what the others say.” - -“And is that all the pity you have for him, Stella? when it was to save -you----” - -“It was not to save me,” cried Stella, raising herself in her bed with -flushed cheeks, “it was to save himself! If I hadn’t been saved where -would they have been? They would have gone to the bottom too. Oh, I -can’t see that I’m so much obliged to them as all that! What they did -they did for themselves far more than for me. We were all in the same -boat, and if I had been drowned they would have been drowned too. I -hope, though,” she said, more amiably, “that Algy will get better if -it’s he that is ill. And it must be he. Charlie is as strong as a horse. -He never feels anything. Papa, I hope you will send him grapes and -things. I shall go and see him as soon as I am well.” - -“You go and see a young fellow--in his room! You shall do nothing of the -sort, Stella. Things may be changed from my time, and I suppose they -are, but for a girl to go and visit a young fellow--in his----” - -Stella smiled a disdainful and amused smile as she lay back on her -pillow. “You may be sure, papa,” she said, “that I certainly shall. I -will go and nurse him, unless he has someone already. I ought to nurse -the man who helped to save my life.” - -“You are a little self-willed, wrong-headed---- Katherine, you had -better take care. I will make you answer for it if she does anything so -silly--a chit of a girl! I’ll speak to Dr. Dobson. I’ll send to--to the -War Office. I’ll have him carted away.” - -“Is poor Algy here, Kate? Where is he--at the hotel? Oh, you dreadful -hard-hearted people to let him go to the hotel when you knew he had -saved my life. Papa, go away, and let me get dressed. I must find out -how he is. I must go to him, poor fellow. Perhaps the sight of me and to -see that I am better will do him good. Go away, please, papa.” - -“I’ll not budge a step,” cried the old gentleman. “Katie, Katie, she’ll -work herself into a fever. She’ll make herself ill, and then what shall -we do?” - -“I’m very ill already,” said Stella, with a cough. “I am being thrust -into my grave. Let them bring us together--poor, poor Algy and me. Oh, -if we are both to be victims, let it be so! We will take each other’s -hands and go down--go down together to the----” - -“Oh, Katie, can’t you stop her?” cried the father. - -Stella was sobbing with delicious despair over the thought of the two -delightful, dreadful funerals, and all the world weeping over her -untimely fate. - -Stella recovered rapidly when her father was put to the door. She said -with a pretty childish reverberation of her sob: “For you know, Kate, it -never was he--that would be the poignant thing, wouldn’t it?--it was not -he that I ever would have chosen. But to be united in--in a common fate, -with two graves together, don’t you know, and an inscription, and people -saying, ‘Both so young!’” She paused to dry her eyes, and then she -laughed. “There is nothing in him, don’t you know; it was Charlie that -did all the work. He was nearly as frightened as I was. Oh, I don’t -think anything much of Algy, but I shall go to see him all the same--if -it were only to shock papa.” - -“You had better get well yourself in the meantime,” said Katherine. - -“Oh, you cold, cold--toad! What do you care? It would have been better -for you if I had been drowned, Kate. Then you would have been the only -daughter and the first in the house, but now, you know, it’s Stella -again--always Stella. Papa is an unjust old man and makes favourites; -but you need not think, however bad I am, and however good you are, that -you will ever cure him of that.” - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - - -When Stella was first able to appear out of the shelter of her father’s -grounds for a walk, she was the object of a sort of ovation--as much of -an ovation as it is possible to make in such a place. She was leaning on -her sister’s arm and was supported on the other side by a stick, as it -was only right a girl should be who had gone through so much. And she -was very prettily pale, and looked more interesting than words could -say, leaning heavily (if anything about Stella could be called heavy) -upon Katherine, and wielding her stick with a charming air of finding it -too much for her, yet at the same time finding it indispensable. There -was nobody in the place who did not feel the attraction of sympathy, and -the charm of the young creature who had been rescued from the very jaws -of death and restored to the family that adored her. To think what might -have been!--the old man broken-hearted and Katherine in deep mourning -going and coming all alone, and perhaps not even a grave for the -unfortunate Stella--lost at sea! Some of the ladies who thronged about -her, stopping her to kiss her and express the depths of sympathetic -anguish through which they had gone, declared that to think of it made -them shudder. Thank Heaven that everything had ended so well! Stella -took all these expressions of sympathy very sweetly. She liked to be the -chief person, to awaken so much emotion, to be surrounded by so many -flatteries. She felt, indeed, that she, always an interesting person, -had advanced greatly in the scale of human consideration. She was more -important by far since she had “gone through” that experience. They had -been so near to losing her; everybody felt now fully what it was to have -her. The rector had returned thanks publicly in church, and every -common person about the streets curtsied or touched his hat with a -deeper sentiment. To think that perhaps she might have been -drowned--she, so young, so fair, so largely endowed with everything that -heart could desire! If her neighbours were moved by this sentiment, -Stella herself was still more deeply moved by it. She felt to the depths -of her heart what a thing it was for all these people that she should -have been saved from the sea. - -Public opinion was still more moved when it was known where Stella was -going when she first set foot outside the gates--to inquire after the -rash young man who, popular opinion now believed, had beguiled her into -danger. How good, how sweet, how forgiving of her! Unless, indeed, there -was something--something between them, as people say. This added a new -interest to the situation. The world of Sliplin had very much blamed the -young men. It had thought them inexcusable from every point of view. To -have taken an inexperienced girl out, who knew nothing about yachting, -just when that gale was rising! It was intolerable and not to be -forgiven. This judgment was modified by the illness of Captain Scott, -who, everybody now found, was delicate, and ought not to have exposed -himself to the perils of such an expedition. It must have been the other -who was to blame, but then the other conciliated everybody by his -devotion to his friend. And the community was in a very soft and amiable -mood altogether when Stella was seen to issue forth from her father’s -gates leaning on Katherine at one side and her stick on the other, to -ask for news of her fellow-sufferer. This mood rose to enthusiasm at the -sight of her paleness and at the suggestion that there probably was -something between Stella and Captain Scott. It was supposed at first -that he was an honourable, and a great many peerages fluttered forth. It -was a disappointment to find that he was not so; but at least his father -was a baronet, and himself an officer in a crack regiment, and he had -been in danger of his life. All these circumstances were of an -interesting kind. - -Stella, however, did not carry out this tender purpose at once. When -she actually visited the hotel and made her way upstairs into Captain -Scott’s room her own convalescence was complete, and the other invalid -was getting well, and there was not only Katherine in attendance upon -her, but Sir Charles, who was now commonly seen with her in her walks, -and about whom Sliplin began to be divided in its mind whether it was he -and not the sick man between whom and Stella there was something. He was -certainly very devoted, people said, but then most men were devoted to -Stella. Captain Scott had been prepared for the visit, and was eager for -it, notwithstanding the disapproval of the nurse, who stood apart by the -window and looked daggers at the young ladies, or at least at Stella, -who took the chief place by the patient’s bedside and began to chatter -to him, trying her best to get into the right tone, the tone of Mrs. -Seton, and make the young man laugh. Katherine, who was not “in it,” -drew aside to conciliate the attendant a little. - -“I don’t hold with visits when a young man is so weak,” said the nurse. -“Do you know, miss, that his life just hung on a thread, so to speak? We -were on the point of telegraphing for his people, me and the doctor; and -he is very weak still.” - -“My sister will only stay a few minutes,” said Katherine. “You know she -was with them in the boat and escaped with her life too.” - -“Oh, I can see, miss, as there was no danger of her life,” said the -nurse, indignant. “Look at her colour! I am not thinking anything of the -boat. A nasty night at sea is a nasty thing, but nothing for them that -can stand it. But he couldn’t stand it; that’s all the difference. The -young lady may thank her stars as she hasn’t his death at her door.” - -“It was her life that those rash young men risked by their folly,” said -Katherine, indignant in her turn. - -“Oh, no,” cried the nurse. “I know better than that. When he was off his -head he was always going over it. ‘Don’t, Charlie, don’t give in; -there’s wind in the sky. Don’t give in to her. What does she know?’ That -was what he was always a-saying. And there she sits as bold as brass, -that is the cause.” - -“You take a great liberty to say so,” said Katherine, returning to her -sister’s side. - -Stella was now in full career. - -“Oh, do you remember the first puff--how it made us all start? How we -laughed at him for looking always at the sky! Don’t you remember, -Captain Scott, I kept asking you what you were looking for in the sky, -and you kept shaking your head?” - -Here Stella began shaking her head from side to side and laughing -loudly--a laugh echoed by the two young men, but faintly by the invalid, -who shook his head too. - -“Yes, I saw the wind was coming,” he said. “We ought not to have given -in to you, Miss Stella. It doesn’t matter now it’s all over, but it -wasn’t nice while it lasted, was it?” - -“Speak for yourself, Algy,” said Sir Charles. “You were never made for a -sailor. Miss Stella is game for another voyage to-morrow.” - -“Oh, if you like,” cried Stella, “with a good man. I shall bargain for a -good man--that can manage sails and all that. What is the fun of going -out when the men with you won’t sit by you and enjoy it. And all that -silly tacking and nonsense--there should have been someone to do it, and -you two should have sat by me.” - -They both laughed at this and looked at each other. “The fun is in the -sailing--for us, don’t you know,” said Sir Charles. It was not necessary -in their society even to pretend to another motive. Curiously enough, -though Stella desired to ape that freedom, she was not--perhaps no woman -is--delivered from the desire to believe that the motive was herself, to -give her pleasure. She did not even now understand why her -fellow-sufferers should not acknowledge this as the cause of their -daring trip. - -“Papa wants to thank you,” she said, “for saving my life; but that’s -absurd, ain’t it, for you were saving your own. If you had let me drown, -you would have drowned too.” - -“I don’t know. You were a bit in our way,” said Sir Charles. “We’d have -got on better without you, we should, by George! You were an awful -responsibility, Miss Stella. I shouldn’t have liked to have faced Lady -Scott if Algy had kicked the bucket; and how I should have faced your -father if you----” - -“If that was all you thought of, I shall never, never go out with you -again,” cried Stella with an angry flush. But she could not make up her -mind to throw over her two companions for so little. “It was jolly at -first, wasn’t it?” she said, after a pause, “until Al--Captain Scott -began to look up to the sky, and open his mouth for something to fall -in.” - -But they did not laugh at this, though Mrs. Seton’s similar witticism -had brought on fits of laughter. Captain Scott swore “By George!” softly -under his breath; Sir Charles whistled--a very little, but he did -whistle, at which sound Stella rose angry from her seat. - -“You don’t seem to care much for my visit,” she cried, “though it tired -me very much to come. Oh, I know now what is meant by fair-weather -friends. We were to be such chums. You were to do anything for me; and -now, because it came on to blow--which was not my fault----” - -Here Stella’s voice shook, and she was very near bursting into tears. - -“Don’t say that, Miss Stella; it’s awfully jolly to see you, and it’s -dreadful dull lying here.” - -“And weren’t all the old cats shocked!” cried Sir Charles. “Oh, fie!” -putting up his hands to his eyes, “to find you had been out half the -night along with Algy and me.” - -“I have not seen any old cats yet,” said Stella, recovering her temper, -“only the young kittens, and they thought it a most terrible -adventure--like something in a book. You don’t seem to think anything of -that, you boys; you are all full of Captain Scott’s illness, as if that -dreadful, dreadful sail was nothing, except just the way he caught cold. -How funny that is! Now I don’t mind anything about catching cold or -being in bed for a week; but the terrible sea, and the wind, and the -dark--these are what I never can get out of my mind.” - -“You see you were in no danger to speak of; but Algy was, poor fellow. -He is only just clear of it now.” - -“_I_ only got up for the first time a week ago,” said Stella, aggrieved; -but she did not pursue the subject. “Mrs. Seton is coming across to see -us--both the invalids, she says; and perhaps she is one of the old cats, -for she says she is coming to scold me as well as to pet me. I don’t -know what there is to scold about, unless perhaps she would have liked -better to go out with you herself.” - -“That is just like Lottie Seton,” they both said, and laughed as -Stella’s efforts never made them laugh. Why should they laugh at her -very name when all the poor little girl could do in that way left them -unmoved? - -“She’s a perfect dragon of virtue, don’t you know?” said Algy, opening -his wide mouth. - -“And won’t she give it to the little ’un!” said Sir Charles, with -another outburst. - -“I should like to know who is meant by the little ’un; and what it is -she can give,” said Stella with offence. - -They both laughed again, looking at each other. “She’s as jealous as the -devil, don’t you know?” and “Lottie likes to keep all the good things to -herself,” they said. - -Stella was partly mollified to think that Mrs. Seton was jealous. It was -a feather in her little cap. “I don’t know if you think that sail was a -good thing,” she said. “She might have had it for me. It is a pity that -she left so soon. You always seem to be much happier when you have her -near.” - -“She’s such fun, she’s not a bad sort. She keeps fellows going,” the -young men replied. - -“Well then,” said Stella, getting up quickly, “you’ll be amused, for she -is coming. I brought you some grapes and things. I don’t know if you’ll -find them amusing. Kate, I think I’m very tired. Coming out so soon has -thrown me back again. And these gentlemen don’t want any visits from us, -I feel sure.” - -“Don’t say that, Miss Stella,” cried Sir Charles. “Algy’s a dull beggar, -that’s the truth. He won’t say what he thinks; but I hope you know me. -Here, you must have my arm downstairs. You don’t know the dark corners -as I do. Algy, you dumb dog, say a word to the pretty lady that has -brought you all these nice things. He means it all, Miss Stella, but -he’s tongue-tied.” - -“His mouth is open enough,” said Stella as she turned away. - -“Choke full of grapes, and that is the truth,” said his friend. “And -he’s been very bad really, don’t you know? Quite near making an end of -it. That takes the starch out of a man, and just for a bit of fun. It -wasn’t his fun, don’t you know? it was you and I that enjoyed it,” Sir -Charles said, pressing his companion’s hand. Yes, she felt it was he -whom she liked best, not Algy with his mouth full of grapes. His open -mouth was always a thing to laugh at, but it is dreary work laughing -alone. Sir Charles, on the other hand, was a handsome fellow, and he had -always paid a great deal more attention to Stella than his friend. She -went down the stairs leaning on his arm, Katherine following after a -word of farewell to the invalid. The elder sister begged the young man -to send to the Cliff for anything he wanted, and to come as soon as he -was able to move, for a change. “Papa bade me say how glad we should be -to have you.” - -Algy gaped at Katherine, who was supposed to be a sort of incipient old -maid and no fun at all, with eyes and mouth wide. “Oh, thanks!” he said. -He could not master this new idea. She had been always supposed to be -elderly and plain, whereas it appeared in reality that she was just as -pretty as the other one. He had to be left in silence to assimilate this -new thought. - -“Mind you tell me every word Lottie Seton says. She _is_ fun when she is -proper, and she just can be proper to make your hair stand on end. Now -remember, Miss Stella, that’s a bargain. You are to tell me every word -she says.” - -“I shall do nothing of the sort; you must think much of her indeed when -you want to hear every word. I wonder you didn’t go after her if you -thought so much of her as that.” - -“Oh, yes, she’s very amusing,” said Sir Charles. “She doesn’t always -mean to be, bless you, but when she goes in for the right and proper -thing! Mrs. Grundy is not in it, by Jove! She’ll come to the hotel and -go on at Algy; but it’s with you that the fun will be. I should like to -borrow the servant’s clothes and get in a corner somewhere to hear. -Lottie never minds what she says before servants. It is as if they were -cabbages, don’t you know?” - -“You seem to know a great deal about Mrs. Seton, Sir Charles,” said -Stella severely; but he did not disown this or hesitate as Stella -expected. He said, “Yes, by Jove,” simply into his big moustache, -meaning Stella did not know what of good or evil. She allowed him to put -her into the carriage which was waiting without further remark. Stella -began to feel that it was by no means plain sailing with these young -soldiers. Perhaps they were not so silly with her as with Mrs. Seton, -perhaps Stella was not so clever; and certainly she did not take the -lead with them at all. - -“I think they are rude,” said Katherine; “probably they don’t mean any -harm. I don’t think they mean any harm. They are spoiled and allowed to -say whatever they like, and to have very rude things said to them. Your -Mrs. Seton, for instance----” - -“Oh, don’t say my Mrs. Seton,” said Stella. “I hate Mrs. Seton. I wish -we had never known her. She is not one of our kind of people at all.” - -“But you would not have known these gentlemen whom you like but for Mrs. -Seton, Stella.” - -“How dare you say gentlemen whom I like? as if it was something wrong! -They are only boys to play about,” Stella said. - -Which, indeed, was not at all a bad description of the sort of sentiment -which fills many girlish minds with an inclination that is often very -wrongly defined. Boys to play about is a thing which every one likes. It -implies nothing perhaps, it means the most superficial of sentiments. -It is to be hoped that it was only as boys to play about that Mrs. Seton -herself took an interest in these young men. But her promise of a visit -and a scold was perplexing to Stella. What was she to be scolded about, -she whom neither her father nor sister had scolded, though she had given -them such a night! And what a night she had given herself--terror, -misery, and cold, a cold, perhaps, quite as bad as Algy Scott’s, only -borne by her with so much more courage! This was what Stella was -thinking as she drove home. It was a ruddy October afternoon, very -delightful in the sunshine, a little chilly out of it, and it was -pleasant to be out again after her week’s imprisonment, and to look -across that glittering sea and feel what an experience she had gained. -Now she knew the other side of it, and had a right to shudder and tell -her awe-inspiring story whenever she pleased. “Oh, doesn’t it look -lovely, as if it could not harm anyone, but I could tell you another -tale!” This was a possession which never could be taken from her, -whoever might scold, or whoever complain. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - - -“I only wonder to find you holding up your head at all. Your people must -be very silly people, and no mistake. What, to spend a whole night out -in the bay with Charlie Somers and Algy Scott, and then to ask me what -you have done? Do you know what sort of character these boys have got? -They are nice boys, and I don’t care about their morals, don’t you know? -as long as they’re amusing. But then I’ve my husband always by me. Tom -would no more leave me with those men by myself--though they’re all well -enough with anyone that knows how to keep them in order; but a young -girl like you--it will need all that your friends can do to stand by you -and to whitewash you, Stella. Tom didn’t want me to come. ‘You keep out -of it. She has got people of her own,’ he said; but I felt I must. And -then, after all that, you lift up your little nozzle and ask what you -have done!” - -Stella sat up, very white, in the big easy-chair where she had been -resting when Mrs. Seton marched in. The little girl was so entirely -overwhelmed by the sudden downfall of all her pretensions to be a -heroine that after the first minute of defiance her courage was -completely cowed, and she could not find a word to say for herself. She -was a very foolish girl carried away by her spirits, by her false -conception of what was smart and amusing to do, and by the imperiousness -natural to her position as a spoilt child whose every caprice was -yielded to. But there was no harm, only folly, in poor little Stella’s -thoughts. She liked the company of the young men and the _éclat_ which -their attendance gave her. To drag about a couple of officers in her -train was delightful to her. But further than that her innocent -imagination did not go. Her wild adventure in the yacht had never -presented itself to her as anything to be ashamed of, and Mrs. Seton’s -horrible suggestion filled her with a consternation for which there was -no words. And it gave her a special wound that it should be Mrs. Seton -who said it, she who had first introduced her to the noisy whirl of a -“set” with which by nature she had nothing to do. - -“It was all an accident,” Stella murmured at last; “everybody knows it -was an accident. I meant to go--for ten minutes--just to try--and then -the wind got up. Do you think I wanted to be drowned--to risk my life, -to be so ill and frightened to death? Oh!” the poor little girl cried, -with that vivid realisation of her own distress which is perhaps the -most poignant sentiment in the world--especially when it is -unappreciated by others. Mrs. Seton tossed her head; she was implacable. -No feature of the adventure moved her except to wrath. - -“Everybody knows what these accidents mean,” she said, “and as for your -life it was in no more danger than it is here. Charlie Somers knows the -bay like the palm of his hand. He is one of the best sailors going. I -confess I don’t understand what _he_ did it for. Those boys will do -anything for fun; but it wasn’t very great fun, I should think--unless -it was the lark of the thing, just under your father’s windows and so -forth. I do think, Stella, you’ve committed yourself dreadfully, and I -shouldn’t wonder if you never got the better of it. _I_ should never -have held up my head again if it had been me.” - -They were seated in the pretty morning-room opening upon the garden, -which was the favourite room of the two girls. The window was open to -admit the sunshine of a brilliant noon, but a brisk fire was burning, -for the afternoons were beginning to grow cold, when the sunshine was no -longer there, with the large breath of the sea. Mrs. Seton had arrived -by an early train to visit her friends, and had just come from Algy’s -sick bed to carry fire and flame into the convalescence of Stella. Her -injured virtue, her high propriety, shocked by such proceedings as had -been thus brought under her notice, were indescribable. She had given -the girl a careless kiss with an air of protest against that very -unmeaning endearment, when she came in, and this was how, without any -warning, she had assailed the little heroine. Stella’s courage was not -at all equal to the encounter. She had held her own with difficulty -before the indifference of the young men. She could not bear up at all -under the unlooked-for attack of her friend. - -“Oh, how cruel you are!--how unkind you are!--how dreadful of you to say -such things!” she cried. “As if I was merely sport for them like a--like -any sort of girl; a lark!--under my father’s windows----” It was too -much for Stella. She began to cry in spite of herself, in spite of her -pride, which was not equal to this strain. - -Katherine had come in unperceived while the conversation was going on. - -“I cannot have my sister spoken to so,” she said. “It is quite false in -the first place, and she is weak and nervous and not able to bear such -suggestions. If you have anything to say against Stella’s conduct it -will be better to say it to my father, or to me. If anybody was to -blame, it was your friends who were to blame. They knew what they were -about and Stella did not. They must be ignorant indeed if they looked -upon her as they would do upon”--Katherine stopped herself -hurriedly--“upon a person of experience--an older woman.” - -“Upon me, you mean!” cried Mrs. Seton. “I am obliged to you, Miss -Tredgold! Oh, yes! I have got some experience and so has she, if -flirting through a couple of seasons can give it. Two seasons!--more -than that. I am sure I have seen her at the Cowes ball I don’t know how -many times! And then to pretend she doesn’t know what men are, and what -people will say of such an escapade as that! Why, goodness, everybody -knows what people say; they will talk for a nothing at all, for a few -visits you may have from a friend, and nothing in it but just to pass -the time. And then to think she can be out a whole night with a couple -of men in a boat, and nothing said! Do you mean to say that you, who -are old enough, I am sure, for anything----” - -“Katherine is not much older than I am,” cried Stella, drying her tears. -“Katherine is twenty-three--Katherine is----” - -“Oh, I’m sure, quite a perfect person! though you don’t always think so, -Stella; and twenty-three’s quite a nice age, that you can stand at for -ever so long. And you are a couple of very impudent girls to face it out -to me so, who have come all this way for your good, just to warn you. -Oh, if you don’t know what people say, I do! I have had it hot all round -for far more innocent things; but I’ve got Tom always to stand by me. -Who’s going to stand by you when it gets told all about how you went out -with Charlie Somers and Algy Scott all by yourself in a boat, and didn’t -come back till morning? You think perhaps it won’t be known? Why, it’s -half over the country already; the men are all laughing about it in -their clubs; they are saying which of ’em was it who played gooseberry? -They aren’t the sort of men to play gooseberry, neither Algy nor -Charlie. The old father will have to come down strong----” - -Poor Stella looked up at her sister with distracted eyes. “Oh, Kate, -what does she mean? What does she mean?” she cried. - -“We don’t want to know what she means,” cried Katherine, putting her -arms round her sister. “She speaks her own language, not one that we -understand. Stella, Stella dear, don’t take any notice. What are the men -in the clubs to you?” - -“I’d like to know,” said Mrs. Seton with a laugh, “which of us can -afford to think like that of the men in the clubs. Why, it’s there that -everything comes from. A good joke or a good story, that’s what they -live by--they tell each other everything! Who would care to have them, -or who would ask them out, and stand their impudence if they hadn’t -always the very last bit of gossip at their fingers’ ends? And this is -such a delicious story, don’t you know? Charlie Somers and Algy Scott -off in a little pleasure yacht with a millionaire’s daughter, and kept -her out all night, by Jove, in a gale of wind to make everything nice! -And now the thing is to see how far the old father will go. He’ll have -to do something big, don’t you know? but whether Charlie or Algy is to -be the happy man----” - -“Kate!” said Stella with a scream, hiding her head on her sister’s -shoulder. “Take me away! Oh, hide me somewhere! Don’t let me see -anyone--anyone! Oh, what have I done--what have I done, that anything so -dreadful should come to me.” - -“You have done nothing, Stella, except a little folly, childish folly, -that meant nothing. Will you let her alone, please? You have done enough -harm here. It was you who brought those--those very vulgar young men to -this house.” - -Even Stella lifted her tearful face in consternation at Katherine’s -boldness, and Mrs. Seton uttered a shriek of dismay. - -“What next--what next? Vulgar young men! The very flower of the country, -the finest young fellows going. You’ve taken leave of your senses, I -think. And to this house--oh, my goodness, what fun it is!--how they -will laugh! To _this_ house----” - -“They had better not laugh in our hearing at least. This house is sacred -to those who live in it, and anyone who comes here with such hideous -miserable gossip may be prepared for a bad reception. Those vulgar -cads!” cried Katherine. “Oh, that word is vulgar too, I suppose. I don’t -care--they are so if any men ever were, who think they can trifle with a -girl’s name and make her father come down--with what? his money you -mean--it would be good sound blows if I were a man. And for what? to buy -the miserable beings off, to shut their wretched mouths, to----” - -“Katherine!” cried Stella, all aglow, detaching herself from her -sister’s arms. - -“Here’s heroics!” said Mrs. Seton; but she was overawed more or less by -the flashing eyes and imposing aspect of this young woman, who was no -“frump” after all, as appeared, but a person to be reckoned with--not -Stella’s duenna, but something in her own right. Then she turned to -Stella, who was more comprehensible, with whom a friend might quarrel -and make it up again and no harm done. “My dear,” she said, “you are the -one of this family who understands a little, who can be spoken to--I -shan’t notice the rude things your sister says--I was obliged to tell -you, for it’s always best to hear from a friend what is being said about -you outside. You might have seen yourself boycotted, don’t you know? and -not known what it meant. But, I dare say, if we all stand by you, you’ll -not be boycotted for very long. You don’t mean to be rude, I hope, to -your best friends.” - -“Oh, Lottie! I hope you will stand by me,” cried Stella. “It was all an -accident, as sure, as sure----! I only took them to the yacht for -fun--and then I thought I should like to see the sails up--for fun. And -then--oh, it was anything but fun after that!” the girl cried. - -“I dare say. Were you sick?--did you make an exhibition of yourself? Oh, -I shall hear all about it from Algy--Charlie won’t say anything, so he -is the one, I suppose. Don’t forget he’s a very bad boy--oh, there isn’t -a good one between them! _I_ shouldn’t like to be out with them alone. -But Charlie! the rows he has had everywhere, the scandals he has made! -Oh, my dear! If you go and marry Charlie Somers, Stella, which you’ll -have to do, I believe----” - -“He is the very last person she shall marry if she will listen to me!” - -“Oh, you are too silly for anything, Katherine,” said Stella, slightly -pushing her away. “You don’t know the world, you are goody-goody. What -do you know about men? But I don’t want to marry anyone. I want to have -my fun. The sea was dreadful the other night, and I was terribly -frightened and thought I was going to be drowned. But yet it was fun in -a way. Oh, Lottie, you understand! One felt it was such a dreadful thing -to happen, and the state papa and everybody would be in! Still it is -very, very impudent to discuss me like that, as if I had been run away -with. I wasn’t in the least. It was I who wanted to go out. They said -the wind was getting up, but I didn’t care, I said. ‘Let’s try.’ It was -all for fun. And it was fun, after all.” - -“Oh, if you take it in that way,” said Mrs. Seton, “and perhaps it is -the best way just to brazen it out. Say what fun it was for everybody. -Don’t go in for being pale and having been ill and all that. Laugh at -Algy for being such a milksop. You are a clever little thing, Stella. I -am sure that is the best way. And if I were you I should smooth down the -old cats here--those old cats, you know, that came to the picnic--and -throw dust in the eyes of Lady Jane, and then you’ll do. I’ll fight your -battles for you, you may be sure. And then there is Charlie Somers. I -wouldn’t turn up my nose at Charlie Somers if I were you.” - -“He is nothing to me,” said Stella. “He has never said a word to me that -all the world--that Kate herself--mightn’t hear. When he does it’ll be -time enough to turn up my nose, or not. Oh, what do I care? I don’t want -to have anybody to stand up for me. I can do quite well by myself, thank -you. Kate, why should I sit here in a dressing gown? I am quite well. I -want the fresh air and to run about. You are so silly; you always want -to pet me and take care of me as if I were a child. I’m going out now -with Lottie to have a little run before lunch and see the view.” - -“Brava,” said Mrs. Seton, “you see what a lot of good I’ve done -her--that is what she wants, shaking up, not being petted and fed with -sweets. All right, Stella, run and get your frock on and I’ll wait for -you. You may be quite right, Miss Tredgold,” she said, when Stella had -disappeared, “to stand up for your family. But all the same it’s quite -true what I say.” - -“If it is true, it is abominable; but I don’t believe it to be true,” -Katherine cried. - -“Well, I don’t say it isn’t a shame. I’ve had abominable things said of -me. But what does that matter so long as your husband stands by you like -a brick, as Tom does? But if I were you, and Charlie Somers really comes -forward--it is just as likely he won’t, for he ain’t a marrying man, he -likes his fun like Stella--but if he does come forward----” - -“I hope he will have more sense than to think of such a thing. He will -certainly not be well received.” - -“Oh, if you stick to that! But why should you now? If she married it -would be the best thing possible for you. You ain’t bad looking, and I -shouldn’t wonder if you were only the age she says. But with Stella here -you seem a hundred, and nobody looks twice at you----” - -Katherine smiled, but the smile was not without bitterness. “You are -very kind to advise me for my good,” she said. - -“Oh, you mean I’m very impudent--perhaps I am! But I know what I’m -saying all the same. If Charlie Somers comes forward----” - -“Advise him not to do so, you who are fond of giving advice,” said -Katherine, “for my father will have nothing to say to him, and it would -be no use.” - -“Oh, your father!” said Mrs. Seton with contempt, and then she kissed -her hand to Stella, who came in with her hat on ready for the “run” she -had proposed. “Here she is as fresh as paint,” said that mistress of all -the elegancies of language--“what a good ’un I am for stirring up the -right spirit! You see how much of an invalid she is now! Where shall we -go for our run, Stella, now that you have made yourself look so killing? -You don’t mean, I should suppose, to waste that toilette upon me?” - -“We’ll go and look at the view,” said Stella, “that is all I am equal -to; and I’ll show you where we went that night.” - -“Papa will be ready for his luncheon in half an hour, Stella.” - -“Yes, I know, I know! Don’t push papa and his luncheon down my throat -for ever,” cried the girl. She too was a mistress of language. She went -out with her adviser arm-in-arm, clinging to her as if to her dearest -friend, while Katherine stood in the window, rather sadly, looking after -the pair. Stella had been restored to her sister by the half-illness of -her rescue, and there was a pang in Katherine’s mind which was mingled -of many sentiments as the semi-invalid went forth hanging upon her worst -friend. Would nobody ever cling to Katherine as Stella, her only sister, -clung to this woman--this--woman! Katherine did not know what epithet to -use. If she had had bad words at her disposal I am afraid she would have -expended them on Mrs. Seton, but she had not. They were not in her way. -Was it possible this--woman might be right? Could Stella’s mad prank, if -it could be called so--rather her childish, foolish impulse, meaning no -harm--tell against her seriously with anybody in their senses? Katherine -could not believe it--it was impossible. The people who had known her -from her childhood knew that there was no harm in Stella. She might be -thoughtless, disregarding everything that came in the way of her -amusement, but after all that was not a crime. She was sure that such -old cats as Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay would never think anything of -the kind. But then there was Lady Jane. Lady Jane was not an old cat; -she was a very important person. When she spoke the word no dog ventured -to bark. But then her kindness to the Tredgold girls had always been a -little in the way of patronage. She was not of their middle-class world. -The side with which she would be in sympathy would be that of the young -men. The escapade in the boat would be to her their fun, but on Stella’s -it would not be fun. It would be folly of the deepest dye, perhaps--who -could tell?--depravity. In fiction--a young woman not much in society -instinctively takes a good many of her ideas from fiction--it had become -fashionable of late to represent wicked girls, girls without soul or -heart, as the prevailing type. Lady Jane might suppose that Stella, whom -she did not know very well, was a girl without soul or heart, ready to -do anything for a little excitement and a new sensation, without the -least reflection what would come of it. Nay, was not that the _rôle_ -which Stella herself was proposing to assume? Was it not to a certain -extent her real character? This thought made Katherine’s heart ache. And -how if Lady Jane should think she had really compromised herself, -forfeited, if not her good name, yet the bloom that ought to surround -it? Katherine’s courage sank at the thought. And, on the other hand, -there was her father, who would understand none of these things, who -would turn anybody out of his house who breathed a whisper against -Stella, who would show Sir Charles himself the door. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - - -It would be absurd to suppose that Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay had not -heard the entire story of Stella’s escape and all that led up to it, the -foolish venture and the unexpected and too serious punishment. They had -known all about it from the first moment. They had seen her running down -to the beach with her attendants after her, and had heard all about the -boat with the new figure-head which Mr. Tredgold had got a bargain and -had called after his favourite child. And they had said to each other as -soon as they had heard of it, “Mark my words! we shall soon hear of an -accident to that boat.” They had related this fact in all the -drawing-rooms in the neighbourhood with great, but modest, pride when -the accident did take place. But they had shown the greatest interest in -Stella, and made no disagreeable remarks as to the depravity of her -expedition. Nobody had been surprised at this self-denial at first, for -no one had supposed that there was any blame attaching to the young -party, two out of the three of whom had suffered so much for their -imprudence; for Stella’s cold and the shock to her nerves had at first -been raised by a complimentary doctor almost to the same flattering -seriousness as Captain Scott’s pneumonia. Now the event altogether had -begun to sink a little into the mild perspective of distance, as a thing -which was over and done with, though it would always be an exciting -reminiscence to talk of--the night when poor Stella Tredgold had been -carried out to sea by the sudden squall, “just in her white afternoon -frock, poor thing, without a wrap or anything.” - -This had been the condition of affairs before Mrs. Seton’s visit. I -cannot tell how it was breathed into the air that the adventure was by -no means such a simple matter, that Stella was somehow dreadfully in -fault, that it would be something against her all her life which she -would have the greatest difficulty in “living down.” Impossible to say -who sowed this cruel seed. Mrs. Seton declared afterwards that she had -spoken to no one, except indeed the landlady of the hotel where Captain -Scott was lying, and his nurse; but that was entirely about Algy, poor -boy. But whoever was the culprit, or by what methods soever the idea was -communicated, certain it is that the views of the little community were -completely changed after that moment. It began to be whispered about in -the little assemblies, over the tea-tables, and over the billiard-tables -(which was worse), that Stella Tredgold’s escapade was a very queer -thing after all. It was nonsense to say that she had never heard of the -existence of the _Stella_ till that day, when it was well known that old -Tredgold bragged about everything he bought, and the lot o’ money, or -the little money he had given for it; for it was equally sweet to him to -get a great bargain or to give the highest price that had ever been -paid. That he should have held his tongue about this one thing, was it -likely? And she was such a daring little thing, fond of scandalising her -neighbours; and she was a little fast, there could be no doubt; at all -events, she had been so ever since she had made the acquaintance of that -Mrs. Seton--that Seton woman, some people said. Before her advent it -only had been high spirits and innocent nonsense, but since then Stella -had been infected with a love of sensation and had learned to like the -attendance of men--any men, it did not matter whom. If the insinuation -was of Mrs. Seton’s making, she was not herself spared in it. - -Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay were by no means the last to be infected by -this wave of opinion. They lived close to each other in two little -houses built upon the hill side, with gardens in long narrow strips -which descended in natural terraces to the level of the high road. They -were houses which looked very weedy and damp in the winter time, being -surrounded by verandahs, very useful to soften the summer glow but not -much wanted in October when the wind blew heaps of withered leaves (if -you ventured to call those rays of gold and crimson withered) under the -shelter of their green trellises. There are few things more beautiful -than these same autumn leaves; but a garden is sadly “untidy,” as these -ladies lamented, when covered with them, flying in showers from somebody -else’s trees, and accumulating in heaps in the corners of the verandahs. -“The boy,” who was the drudge of Mrs. Shanks’ establishment, and “the -girl” who filled the same place in Miss Mildmay’s, swept and swept for -ever, but did not succeed in “keeping them down;” and indeed, when these -two ladies stepped outside in the sunny mornings, as often as not a leaf -or two lighted, an undesired ornament upon the frills of Mrs. Shanks’ -cap or in the scanty coils of Miss Mildmay’s hair. There was only a low -railing between the two gardens in order not to break the beauty of the -bank with its terraces as seen from below, and over this the neighbours -had many talks as they superintended on either side the work of the boy -and the girl, or the flowering of the dahlias which made a little show -on Mrs. Shanks’ side, or the chrysanthemums on the other. These winterly -flowers were what the gardens were reduced to in October, though there -were a few roses still to be found near the houses, and the gay summer -annuals were still clinging on to life in rags and desperation along the -borders, and a few sturdy red geraniums standing up boldly here and -there. - -“Have you heard what they are saying about Stella Tredgold?” said the -one lady to the other one of these mornings. Mrs. Shanks had a hood tied -over her cap, and Miss Mildmay a Shetland shawl covering her grey hair. - -“Have I heard of anything else?” said the other, shaking her head. - -“And I just ask you, Ruth Mildmay,” said Mrs. Shanks, “do you think that -little thing is capable of making up any plan to run off with a couple -of officers? Good gracious, why should she do such a thing? She can have -them as much as she likes at home. That silly old man will never stop -her, but feed them with the best of everything at breakfast, lunch, and -dinner, if they like--and then be astonished if people talk. And as for -Katherine--but I have no patience with Katherine,” the old lady said. - -“If it’s only a question what Stella Tredgold is capable of,” answered -Miss Mildmay, “she is capable of making the hair stand up straight on -our heads--and there is nothing she would like better than to do it.” - -“Ah,” said Mrs. Shanks, “she would find that hard with me; for I am -nearly bald on the top of my head.” - -“And don’t you try something for it?” said the other blandly. Miss -Mildmay was herself anxiously in search of “something” that might still -restore to her, though changed in colour, the abundance of the locks of -her youth. - -“I try a cap for it,” said the other, “which covers everything up -nicely. What the eye does not see the heart does not grieve--not like -you, Ruth Mildmay, that have so much hair. Did you feel it standing up -on end when you heard of Stella’s escapade?” - -“I formed my opinion of Stella’s escapade long ago,” said Miss Mildmay. -“I thought it mad--simply mad, like so many things she does; but I hoped -nobody would take any notice, and I did not mean to be the first to say -anything.” - -“Well, it just shows how innocent I am,” said Mrs. Shanks, “an old -married woman that ought to know better! Why, I never thought any harm -of it at all! I thought they had just pushed off a bit, three young -fools!” - -“But why did they push off a bit--that is the question? They might have -looked at the boat; but why should she go out, a girl with two men?” - -“Well, two was better than one, surely, Ruth Mildmay! If it had been -one, why, you might have said--but there’s safety in numbers--besides, -one man in a little yacht with a big sail. I hate those things myself,” -said Mrs. Shanks. “I would not put my foot in one of them to save my -life. They are like guns which no one believes are ever loaded till they -go off and kill you before you know. - -“I have no objection to yachting, for my part. My. Uncle Sir Ralph was a -great yachtsman. I have often been out with him. The worst of these -girls is that they’ve nobody to give them a little understanding of -things--nobody that knows. Old Tredgold can buy anything for them, but -he can’t tell them how to behave. And even Katherine, you know----” - -“Oh, Katherine--I have no patience with Katherine. She lets that little -thing do whatever she pleases.” - -“As if any one could control Stella, a spoilt child if ever there was -one! May I ask you, Jane Shanks, what you intend to do?” - -“To do?” cried Mrs. Shanks, her face, which was a little red by nature, -paling suddenly. She stopped short in the very act of cutting a dahlia, -a large very double purple one, into which the usual colour of her -cheeks seemed to have gone. - -“Oh, for goodness’ sake take care of those earwigs,” cried Miss Mildmay. -“I hate dahlias for that--they are always full of earwigs. When I was a -little child I thought I had got one in my ear. You know the -nursery-maids always say they go into your ear. And the miserable night -I had! I have never forgotten it. There is one on the rails, I declare.” - -“Are we talking of earwigs--or of anything more important?” Mrs. Shanks -cried. - -“There are not many things more important, I can tell you, if you think -one has got into your ear. They say it creeps into your brain and eats -it up--and all sorts of horrible things. I was talking of going to the -Cliff to see what those girls were about, and what Stella has to say for -herself.” - -“To the Cliff!” Mrs. Shanks said. - -“Well,” said her neighbour sharply, “did you mean to give them up -without even asking what they had to say for themselves?” - -“I--give them up?--I never thought of such a thing. You go so fast, Ruth -Mildmay. It was only yesterday I heard of this talk, which never should -have gone from me. At the worst it’s a thing that might be gossiped -about; but to give them up----” - -“You wouldn’t, I suppose,” said Miss Mildmay sternly, “countenance -depravity--if it was proved to be true.” - -“If what was proved to be true? What is it they say against her?” Mrs. -Shanks cried. - -But this was not so easy to tell, for nobody had said anything except -the fact which everybody knew. - -“You know what is said as well as I do,” said Miss Mildmay. “Are you -going? Or do you intend to drop them? That is what I want to know.” - -“Has any one dropped them, yet?” her friend asked. There was a tremble -in her hand which held the dahlias. She was probably scattering earwigs -on every side, paying no attention. And her colour had not yet come -back. It was very rarely that a question of this importance came up -between the two neighbours. “Has Lady Jane said anything?” she asked in -tones of awe. - -“I don’t know and I don’t care,” cried Miss Mildmay boldly; for, maiden -lady as she was, and poor, she was one of those who did not give in to -Lady Jane. “For my part, I want to hear more about it before I decide -what to do.” - -“And so should I too,” said Mrs. Shanks, though still with bated breath. -“Oh, Ruth Mildmay, I do not think I could ever have the heart! Such a -little thing, and no mother, and such a father as Mr. Tredgold! I think -it is going to rain this afternoon. I should not mind for once having -the midge if you will share it, and going to call, and see what we can -see.” - -“I will share the midge if you like. I have other places where I must -call. I can wait for you outside if you like, or I might even go in with -you, for five minutes,” Miss Mildmay said severely, as if the shortness -of that term justified the impulse. And they drove out accordingly, in -the slumbrous afternoon, when most people were composing themselves -comfortably by the side of their newly-lighted fires, comforting -themselves that, as it had come on to rain, nobody would call, and that -they were quite free either to read a book or to nod over it till -tea-time. It rained softly, persistently, quietly, as the midge drove -along amid a mingled shower of water-drops and falling leaves. The -leaves were like bits of gold, the water-drops sparkled on the glass of -the windows. All was soft, weeping, and downfall, the trees standing -fast through the mild rain, scattering, with a sort of forlorn pleasure -in it, their old glories off them. The midge stumbled along, jolting -over the stones, and the old ladies seated opposite--for it held only -one on each side--nodded their heads at each other, partly because they -could not help it, partly to emphasise their talk. “That little thing! -to have gone wrong at her age! But girls now were not like what they -used to be--they were very different--not the least like what we used to -be in our time.” - -“Here is the midge trundling along the drive and the old cats coming to -inquire. They are sure to have heard everything that ever was said in -the world,” cried Stella, “and they are coming to stare at me and find -out if I look as if I felt it. They shall not see me at all, however I -look. I am not going to answer to them for what I do.” - -“Certainly not,” said Katherine. “If that is what they have come for, -you had better leave them to me.” - -“I don’t know, either,” said Stella, “it rains, and nobody else will -come. They might be fun. I shall say everything I can think of to shock -them, Kate.” - -“They deserve it, the old inquisitors,” cried Kate, who was more -indignant than her sister; “but I think I would not, Stella. Don’t do -anything unworthy of yourself, dear, whatever other people may say.” - -“Oh! unworthy of myself!--I don’t know what’s worthy of myself--nothing -but nonsense, I believe. I should just like, however, for fun, to see -what the old cats have to say.” - -The old cats came in, taking some time to alight from the midge and -shake out their skirts in the hall. They were a little frightened, if -truth must be told. They were not sure of their force against the sharp -little claws sheathed in velvet of the little white cat-princess, on -whom they were going to make an inquisition, whether there was any stain -upon her coat of snow. - -“We need not let them see we’ve come for that, or have heard anything,” -Mrs. Shanks whispered in Miss Mildmay’s ear. - -“Oh, I shall let them see!” said the fiercer visitor; but nevertheless -she trembled too. - -They were taken into the young ladies’ room, which was on the ground -floor, and opened with a large window upon the lawn and its encircling -trees. It was perhaps too much on a level with that lawn for a house -which is lived in in autumn and winter as well as summer, and the large -window occupied almost one entire side of the room. Sometimes it was -almost too bright, but to-day, with the soft persistent rain pouring -down, and showers of leaves coming across the rain from time to time, as -if flying frightened before every puff of air, the effect of the vast -window and of the white and gold furniture was more dismal than bright. -There was a wood fire, not very bright either, but hissing faintly as it -smouldered, which did not add much to the comfort of the room. Katherine -was working at something as usual--probably something of no -importance--but it was natural to her to be occupied, while it was -natural for Stella to do nothing. The visitors instinctively remarked -the fact with the usual approval and disapproval. - -“Katherine, how do you do, my dear? We thought we were sure to find you -at home such a day. Isn’t it a wet day? raining cats and dogs; but the -midge is so good for that, one is so sheltered from the weather. Ruth -Mildmay thought it was just the day to find you; Jane Shanks was certain -you would be at home. Ah, Stella, you are here too!” they said both -together. - -“Did you think I shouldn’t be here too?” said Stella. “I am always here -too. I wonder why you should be surprised.” - -“Oh, indeed, Stella! We know that is not the case by any means. If you -were always with Katherine, it would be very, very much the better for -you. You would get into no scrapes if you kept close to Katherine,” Mrs. -Shanks said. - -“Do I get into scrapes?” cried Stella, tossing her young head. “Oh, I -knew there would be some fun when I saw the midge coming along the -drive! Tell me what scrapes I have got into. I hope it is a very bad one -to-day to make your hair stand on end.” - -“My dear, you know a great deal better than we can tell you what things -people are saying,” said Miss Mildmay. “I did not mean to blurt it out -the first thing as Jane Shanks has done. It is scarcely civil, I -feel--perhaps you would yourself have been moved to give us some -explanation which would have satisfied our minds--and to Katherine it is -scarcely polite.” - -“Oh, please do not mind being polite to me!” cried Katherine, who was in -a white heat of resentment and indignation, her hands trembling as she -threw down her work. And Stella, that little thing, was completely at -her ease! “If there is anything to be said I take my full share with -Stella, whatever it may be.” And then there was a little pause, for tea -was brought in with a footman’s instinct for the most dramatic moment. -Tea singularly changed the face of affairs. Gossip may be exchanged over -the teacups; but to come fully prepared for mortal combat, and in the -midst of it to be served by your antagonist with a cup of tea, is -terribly embarrassing. Katherine, being excited and innocent, would have -left it there with its fragrance rising fruitlessly in the midst of the -fury melting the assailants’ hearts; but Stella, guilty and clever, saw -her advantage. Before she said anything more she sprang up from her -chair and took the place which was generally Katherine’s before the -little shining table. Mr. Tredgold’s tea was naturally the very best -that could be got for money, and had a fragrance which was delightful; -and there were muffins in a beautiful little covered silver dish, though -October is early in the season for muffins. “I’ll give you some tea -first,” cried the girl, “and then you can come down upon me as much as -you please.” - -And it was so nice after the damp drive, after the jolting of the midge, -in the dull and dreary afternoon! It was more than female virtue was -equal to, to refuse that deceiving cup. Miss Mildmay said faintly: “None -for me, please. I am going on to the----” But before she had ended this -assertion she found herself, she knew not how, with a cup in her hand. - -“Oh, Stella, my love,” cried Mrs. Shanks, “what tea yours is! And oh, -how much sweeter you look, and how much better it is, instead of putting -yourself in the way of a set of silly young officers, to sit there -smiling at your old friends and pouring out the tea!” - -Miss Mildmay gave a little gasp, and made a motion to put down the cup -again, but she was not equal to the effort. - -“Oh, it is the officers you object to!” cried Stella. “If it was curates -perhaps you would like them better. I love the officers! they are so -nice and big and silly. To be sure, curates are silly also, but they are -not so easy and nice about it.” - -Miss Mildmay’s gasp this time was almost like a choke. “Believe me,” she -said, “it would be much better to keep clear of young men. You girls now -are almost as bad as the American girls, that go about with them -everywhere--worse, indeed, for it is permitted there, and it is not -permitted here.” - -“That makes it all the nicer,” cried Stella; “it’s delightful because -it’s wrong. I wonder why the American girls do it when all the fun is -gone out of it!” - -“Depend upon it,” said Miss Mildmay, “it’s better to have nothing at all -to do with young men.” - -“But then what is to become of the world?” said the culprit gravely. - -“Stella!” cried Katherine. - -“It is quite true. The world would come to an end--there would be no -more----” - -“Stella, Stella!” - -“I think you are quite right in what you said, Jane Shanks,” said Miss -Mildmay. “It is a case that can’t be passed over. It is----” - -“I never said anything of the sort,” cried Mrs. Shanks, alarmed. “I said -we must know what Stella had to say for herself----” - -“And so you shall,” said Stella, with a toss of her saucy head. “I have -as much as ever you like to say for myself. There is nothing I won’t -say. Some more muffin, Mrs. Shanks--one little other piece. It is so -good, and the first of the season. But this is not enough toasted. Look -after the tea, Katherine, while I toast this piece for Miss Mildmay. It -is much nicer when it is toasted for you at a nice clear fire.” - -“Not any more for me,” cried Miss Mildmay decisively, putting down her -cup and pushing away her chair. - -“You cannot refuse it when I have toasted it expressly for you. It is -just as I know you like it, golden brown and hot! Why, here is another -carriage! Take it, take it, dear Miss Mildmay, before some one else -comes in. Who can be coming, Kate--this wet day?” - -They all looked out eagerly, speechless, at the pair of smoking horses -and dark green landau which passed close to the great window in the -rain. Miss Mildmay took the muffin mechanically, scarcely knowing what -she did, and a great consternation fell upon them all. The midge -outside, frightened, drew away clumsily from the door, and the ladies, -both assailed and assailants, gazed into each other’s eyes with a shock -almost too much for speech. - -“Oh, heavens,” breathed Mrs. Shanks, “do you see who it is, you -unfortunate children? It is Lady Jane herself--and how are you going to -stand up, you little Stella, before Lady Jane?” - -“Let her come,” said Stella defiant, yet with a hot flush on her cheeks. - -And, indeed, so it happened. Lady Jane did not pause to shake out her -skirts, which were always short enough for all circumstances. Almost -before the footman, who preceded her with awe, could open the door -decorously, she pushed him aside with her own hand to quicken his -movements, Lady Jane herself marched squarely into the expectant room. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - - -Lady Jane walked into the room squarely, with her short skirts and her -close jacket. She looked as if she were quite ready to walk back the -four miles of muddy road between her house and the Cliff. And so indeed -she was, though she had no intention of doing so to-day. She came in, -pushing aside the footman, as I have said, who was very much frightened -of Lady Jane. When she saw the dark figures of Mrs. Shanks and Miss -Mildmay sitting against the large light of the window, she uttered a -suppressed sound of discontent. It might be translated by an “Oh,” or it -might be translated, as we so often do as the symbol of a sound, by a -“Humph.” At all events, it was a sound which expressed annoyance. “You -here!” it seemed to say; but Lady Jane afterwards shook hands with them -very civilly, it need not be said. For the two old cats were very -respectable members of society, and not to be badly treated even by Lady -Jane. - -“That was your funny little carriage, I suppose,” she said, when she had -seated herself, “stopping the way.” - -“Was it stopping the way?” cried Mrs. Shanks, “the midge? I am -astonished at Mr. Perkins. We always give him the most careful -instructions; but if he had found one of the servants to gossip with, he -is a man who forgets everything one may say.” - -“I can’t undertake what his motives were, but he was in the way, -blocking up the doors,” said Lady Jane; “all the more astonishing to my -men and my horses, as they were brought out, much against their will, on -the full understanding that nobody else would be out on such a day.” - -“It is a long way to Steephill,” said Miss Mildmay, “so that we could -not possibly have known Lady Jane’s intentions, could we, Jane Shanks? -or else we might have taken care not to get into her way.” - -“Oh, the public roads are free to every one,” said Lady Jane, dismissing -the subject. “What rainy weather we have had, to be sure! Of course you -are all interested in that bazaar; if it goes on like this you will have -no one, not a soul to buy; and all the expense of the decorations and so -forth on our hands.” - -“Oh, the officers will come over from Newport,” said Miss Mildmay; -“anything is better than nothing. Whatever has a show of amusement will -attract the officers, and that will make the young ladies happy, so that -it will not be thrown away.” - -“What a Christian you are!” said Lady Jane. “You mean it is an ill wind -that blows nobody good. I have several cousins in the garrison, but I -don’t think I should care so much for their amusement as all that.” - -“Was there ever a place,” said Mrs. Shanks, with a certain tone of -humble admiration, which grated dreadfully upon her companion, “in which -you had not a number of cousins, Lady Jane? They say the Scotch are the -great people for having relatives everywhere, and my poor husband was a -Scotchman; but I’m sure he had not half so many as you.” - -Lady Jane answered curtly with a nod of her head and went on. “The rain -is spoiling everything,” she said. “The men, of course, go out in spite -of it when they can, but they have no pleasure in their work, and to -have a shooting party on one’s hands in bad weather is a hard task. They -look at you as if it were your fault, as if you could order good weather -as easily as you can order luncheon for them at the cover side.” - -“Dear me, that is not at all fair, is it, Ruth Mildmay? In my poor -husband’s lifetime, when we used to take a shooting regularly, I always -said to his friends, ‘Now, don’t look reproachfully at me if it’s bad -weather. We can’t guarantee the weather. You ought to get so many brace -if you have good luck. We’ll answer for that.’” - -“You were a bold woman,” said Lady Jane; “so many brace without knowing -if they could fire a gun or not! That’s a rash promise. Sir John is not -so bold as that, I can tell you. He says, ‘There’s a bird or two about -if you can hit ’em.’ Katherine, you may as well let me see those things -of yours for my stall. It will amuse me a little this wet day.” - -“They are all upstairs, Lady Jane.” - -“Well, I’ll go upstairs. Oh, don’t let me take you away from your -visitors. Stella, you can come with me and show them; not that I suppose -you know anything about them.” - -“Not the least in the world,” said Stella very clearly. Her face, so -delicately tinted usually, and at present paler than ordinary, was -crimson, and her attitude one of battle. She could propitiate and play -with the old cats, but she dare not either cajole or defy Lady Jane. - -“Then Katherine can come, and I can enjoy the pleasure of conversation -with you after. Shall I find you still here,” said Lady Jane, holding -out her hand graciously to the other ladies, “when I come downstairs -again?” - -“Oh, we must be going----” - -Mrs. Shanks was interrupted by Miss Mildmay’s precise tones. “Probably -you will find _me_ here, Lady Jane; and I am sure it will be a mutual -pleasure to continue the conversation which----” - -“Then I needn’t say good-bye,” said the great lady calmly, taking -Katherine by the arm and pushing the girl before her. Stella stood with -her shoulders against the mantel-piece, very red, watching them as they -disappeared. She gave the others an angry look of appeal as the door -closed upon the more important visitor. - -“Oh, I wish you’d take me away with you in the midge!” she cried. - -“Ah, Stella,” cried Mrs. Shanks, shaking her head, “the times I have -heard you making your fun of the midge! But in a time of trouble one -finds out who are one’s real friends.” - -Miss Mildmay was softened too, but she was not yet disposed to give in. -She had not been able to eat that special muffin which Stella had -re-toasted for her. Lady Jane, in declining tea curtly with a wave of -her hands, had made the tea-drinkers uncomfortable, and especially had -arrested the eating of muffins, which it is difficult to consume with -dignity unless you have the sympathy of your audience. It was cold now, -quite cold and unappetizing. It lay in its little plate with the air of -a thing rejected. And Miss Mildmay felt it was not consistent with her -position to ask even for half a cup of hot tea. - -“It has to be seen,” she said stiffly, “what friends will respond to the -appeal; everybody is not at the disposal of the erring person when and -how she pleases. I must draw a line----” - -“What do you say I have done, then?” cried Stella, flushing with lively -wrath. “Do you think I went out in that boat on purpose to be drowned or -catch my death? Do you think I wanted to be ill and sea-sick and make an -exhibition of myself before two men? Do you think I wanted them to see -me _ill_? Goodness!” cried Stella, overcome at once by the recollection -and the image, “could you like a man--especially if he was by way of -admiring you, and talking nonsense to you and all that--to see you _ill_ -at sea? If you can believe that you can believe anything, and there is -no more for me to say.” - -The force of this argument was such that Miss Mildmay was quite startled -out of her usual composure and reserve. She stared at Stella for a -moment with wide-opened eyes. - -“I did not think of that,” she said in a tone of sudden conviction. -“There is truth in what you say--certainly there is truth in what you -say.” - -“Truth in it!” cried the girl. “If you had only seen me--but I am very -thankful you didn’t see me--leaning over the side of that dreadful boat, -not minding what waves went over me! When you were a girl and had men -after you, oh, Miss Mildmay, I ask you, would you have chosen to have -them to see you _then_?” - -Miss Mildmay put the plate with the cold muffin off her knees. She set -down her empty cup. She felt the solemnity of the appeal. - -“No,” she said, “if you put it to me like that, Stella, I am obliged to -allow I should not. And I may add,” she went on, looking round the room -as if to a contradictory audience, “I don’t know any woman who would; -and that is my opinion, whatever anybody may say.” She paused a moment -with a little triumphant air of having conducted to a climax a potent -argument, looking round upon the baffled opponents. And then she came -down from that height and added in soft tones of affectionate reproach: -“But why did you go out with them at all, Stella? When I was a girl, as -you say, and had--I never, never should have exposed myself to such -risks, by going out in a boat with----” - -“Oh, Miss Mildmay,” cried Stella, “girls were better in your time. You -have always told us so. They were not perhaps so fond of--fun; they were -in better order; they had more--more--” said the girl, fishing for a -word, which Mrs. Shanks supplied her with by a movement of her lips -behind Miss Mildmay’s back--“disciplined minds,” Stella said with an -outburst of sudden utterance which was perilously near a laugh. - -“And you had a mother, Ruth Mildmay?” said the plotter behind, in tender -notes. - -“Yes; I had a mother--an excellent mother, who would not have permitted -any of the follies I see around me. Jane Shanks, you have conquered me -with that word. Stella, my dear, count on us both to stand by you, -should that insolent woman upstairs take anything upon her. Who is Lady -Jane, I should like to know? The daughter of a new-made man--coals, or -beer, or something! A creation of this reign! Stella, this will teach -you, perhaps, who are your true friends.” - -And Miss Mildmay extended her arms and took the girl to her bosom. -Stella had got down on her knees for some reason of her own, which girls -who are fond of throwing themselves about may understand, and therefore -was within reach of this unexpected embrace, and I am afraid laughed -rather than sobbed on Miss Mildmay’s lap; but the slight heaving of her -shoulders in that position had the same effect, and sealed the bargain. -The two ladies lingered a little after this, hoping that Lady Jane might -come down. At least Miss Mildmay hoped so. Mrs. Shanks would have stolen -humbly out to get into the midge at a little distance along the drive, -not to disturb the big landau with the brown horses which stood large -before the door. But Miss Mildmay would have none of that; she ordered -the landau off with great majesty, and waved her hand indignantly for -Perkins to “come round,” as if the midge had been a chariot, a -manœuvre which Stella promoted eagerly, standing in the doorway to -see her visitors off with the most affectionate interest, while the -other carriage paced sullenly up and down. - -In the meantime Lady Jane had nearly completed her interview with -Katherine in the midst of the large assortment of trumpery set out in -readiness for the bazaar. “Oh, yes, I suppose they’ll do well enough,” -she said, turning over the many coloured articles into which the Sliplin -ladies had worked so many hours of their lives with careless hands. -“Mark them cheap; the people here like to have bargains, and I’m sure -they’re not worth much. Of course, it was not the bazaar things I was -thinking of. Tell me, Katherine, what is all this about Stella? I find -the country ringing with it. What has she done to have her name mixed up -with Charlie Somers and Algy Scott--two of the fastest men one knows? -What has the child been doing? And how did she come to know these men?” - -“She has been doing nothing, Lady Jane. It is the most wicked invention. -I can tell you exactly how it happened. A little yacht was lying in the -harbour, and they went up to papa’s observatory, as he calls it, to look -at it through his telescope, and papa himself was there, and he -said----” - -“But this is going very far back, surely? I asked you what Stella was -doing with these men.” - -“And I am telling you,” cried Katherine, red with indignation. “Papa -said it was his yacht, which he had just bought, and they began to argue -and bet about who it was from whom he had bought it, and he would not -tell them; and then Stella said----” - -“My dear Katherine, this elaborate explanation begins to make me -fear----” - -“Stella cried: ‘Come down and look at it, while Kate orders tea.’ You -know how careless she is, and how she orders me about. They ran down by -our private gate. It was to settle their bet, and I had tea laid out for -them--it was quite warm then--under the trees. Well,” said Katherine, -pausing to take breath, “the first thing I saw was a white sail moving -round under the cliff while I sat waiting for them to come back. And -then papa came down screaming that it was the _Stella_, his yacht, and -that a gale was blowing up. And then we spent the most dreadful evening, -and darkness came on and we lost sight of the sail, and I thought I -should have died and that it would kill papa.” - -Her breath went from her with this rapid narrative, uttered at full -speed to keep Lady Jane from interrupting. What with indignation and -what with alarm, the quickening of her heart was such that Katherine -could say no more. She stopped short and stood panting, with her hand -upon her heart. - -“And at what hour,” said Lady Jane icily, “did they come back?” - -“Oh, I can’t tell what hour it was. It seemed years and years to me. I -got her back in a faint and wet to the skin, half dead with sickness and -misery and cold. Oh, my poor, poor little girl! And now here are wicked -and cruel people saying it is her fault. Her fault to risk her life and -make herself ill and drive us out of our senses, papa and me!” - -“Oh, Stella would not care very much for her papa and you, so long as -she got her fun. So it was as bad as that, was it--a whole night at sea -along with these two men? I could not have imagined any girl would have -been such a fool.” - -“I will not hear my sister spoken of so. It was the men who were fools, -or worse, taking her out when a gale was rising. What did she know -about the signs of a gale? She thought of nothing but two minutes in the -bay, just to see how the boat sailed. It was these men.” - -“What is the use of saying anything about the men? I dare say they -enjoyed it thoroughly. It doesn’t do them any harm. Why should they -mind? It is the girl who ought to look out, for it is she who suffers. -Good Heavens, to think that any girl should be such a reckless little -fool!” - -“Stella has done nothing to be spoken of in that way.” - -“Oh, don’t speak to me!” said Lady Jane. “Haven’t I taken you both up -and done all I could to give you your chance, you two? And this is my -reward. Stella has done nothing? Why, Stella has just compromised -herself in the most dreadful way. You know what sort of a man Charlie -Somers is? No, you don’t, of course. How should you, not living in a set -where you were likely to hear? That’s the worst, you know, of going out -a little in one _monde_ and belonging to another all the time.” - -“I don’t know what you mean, Lady Jane,” cried Katherine, on the edge of -tears. - -“No; there’s no need you should know what I mean. A girl, in another -position, that got to know Charlie Somers would have known more -or less what he was. You, of course, have the disadvantages of -both--acquaintance and then ignorance. Who introduced Charlie Somers to -your sister? The blame lies on her first of all.” - -“It was--they were all--at the hotel, and Stella thought it would be -kind to ask Mrs. Seton to a picnic we were giving----” - -“Lottie Seton!” cried Lady Jane, sitting down in the weakness of her -consternation. “Why, this is the most extraordinary thing of all!” - -“I see nothing extraordinary in the whole business,” said Katherine, in -a lofty tone. - -“Oh, my dear Katherine, for goodness’ sake don’t let me have any more of -your innocent little-girlishness. Of course you see nothing! You have -no eyes, no sense, no---- Lottie Seton!--she to give over two of her own -men to a pretty, silly, reckless little thing like Stella, just the kind -for them! Well, that is the last thing I should have expected. Why, -Lottie Seton is nothing without her tail. If they abandon her she is -lost. She is asked to places because she is always sure to be able to -bring a few men. What they can see in her nobody knows, but there it -is--that’s her faculty. And she actually gave over two of her very -choicest----” - -“You must excuse me, Lady Jane,” said Katherine, “if I don’t want to -hear any more of Mrs. Seton and her men. They are exceedingly rude, -stupid, disagreeable men. You may think it a fine thing for us to be -elevated to the sphere in which we can meet men like Sir Charles Somers. -I don’t think so. I think he is detestable. I think he believes women to -exist only for the purpose of amusing him and making him laugh, like an -idiot, as he is!” - -Lady Jane sat in her easy-chair and looked sardonically at the passion -of the girl, whose face was crimson, whose voice was breaking. She was, -with that horrible weakness which a high-spirited girl so resents in -herself, so near an outbreak of crying that she could scarcely keep the -tears within her eyes. The elder lady looked at her for some time in -silence. The sight troubled her a little, and amused her a little also. -It occurred to her to say, “You are surely in love with him yourself,” -which was her instinct, but for once forbore, out of a sort of awed -sense that here was a creature who was outside of her common rules. - -“He is not an idiot, however,” she said at last. “I don’t say he is -intellectual. He does think, perhaps, that women exist, &c. So do most -of them, my dear. You will soon find that out if you have anything to do -with men. Still, for a good little girl, I have always thought you were -nice, Katherine. It is for your sake more than hers that I feel inclined -to do that silly little Stella a good turn. How could she be such a -little fool? Has she lived on this cliff half her life and doesn’t know -when a gale’s coming on? The more shame to her, then! And I don’t doubt -that instead of being ashamed she is quite proud of her adventure. And -I hear, to make things worse, that Algy Scott went and caught a bad cold -over it. That will make his mother and all her set furious with the -girl, and say everything about her. He’s not going to die--that’s a good -thing. If he had, she need never have shown her impertinent little nose -anywhere again. Lady Scott’s an inveterate woman. It will be bad enough -as it is. How are we to get things set right again?” - -“It is a pity you should take any trouble,” said Katherine; “things are -quite right, thank you. We have quite enough in what you call our own -_monde_.” - -“Well, and what do you find to object to in the word? It is a very good -word; the French understand that sort of thing better than we do. So you -have quite enough to make you happy in your own _monde_? I don’t think -so--and I know the world in general better than you do. And, what is -more, I am very doubtful indeed whether Stella thinks so.” - -“Oh, no,” cried a little voice, and Stella, running in, threw herself -down at Lady Jane’s feet, in the caressing attitude which she had so -lately held in spite of herself at Miss Mildmay’s. “Stella doesn’t think -so at all. Stella will be miserable if you don’t take her up and put -things right for her, dear Lady Jane. I have been a dreadful little -fool. I know it, I know it; but I didn’t mean it. I meant nothing but a -little--fun. And now there is nobody who can put everything right again -but you, and only you.” - - - - -CHAPTER X. - - -Lady Jane Thurston was a fine lady in due place and time; but on other -occasions she was a robust countrywoman, ready to walk as sturdily as -any man, or to undertake whatever athletic exercise was necessary. When -she had gone downstairs again, and been served with a cup of warm tea -(now those old cats were gone), she sent her carriage off that the -horses might be put under shelter, not to speak of the men, and walked -herself in the rain to the hotel, where the two young men were still -staying, Captain Scott being as yet unable to be moved. It was one of -those hotels which are so pretty in summer, all ivy and clematis, and -balconies full of flowers. But on a wet day in October it looked squalid -and damp, with its open doorway traversed by many muddy footsteps, and -the wreaths of the withered creepers hanging limp about the windows. -Lady Jane knew everybody about, and took in them all the interest which -a member of the highest class--quite free from any doubt about her -position--is able to take with so much more ease and naturalness than -any other. The difference between the Tredgolds, for instance, and Mrs. -Black of the hotel in comparison with herself was but slightly marked in -her mind. She was impartially kind to both. The difference between them -was but one of degree; she herself was of so different a species that -the gradations did not count. In consequence of this she was more -natural with the Blacks at the hotel than Katherine Tredgold, though in -her way a Lady Bountiful, and universal friend, could ever have been. -She was extremely interested to hear of Mrs. Black’s baby, which had -come most inopportunely, with a sick gentleman in the house, at least a -fortnight before it was expected, and went upstairs to see the mother -and administer a word or two of rebuke to the precipitate infant before -she proceeded on her own proper errand. “Silly little thing, to rush -into this rain sooner than it could help,” she said, “but mind you don’t -do the same, my dear woman. Never trouble your head about the sick -gentleman. Don’t stir till you have got up your strength.” And then she -marched along the passages to the room in which Algy and Charlie sat, -glum and tired to death, looking out at the dull sky and the raindrops -on the window. They had invented a sort of sport with those same -raindrops, watching them as they ran down and backing one against the -other. There had just been a close race, and Algy’s man had won to his -great delight, when Lady Jane’s sharp knock came to the door; so that -she went in to the sound of laughter pealing forth from the sick -gentleman in such a manner as to reassure any anxious visitor as to the -state of his lungs, at least. - -“Well, you seem cheerful enough,” Lady Jane said. - -“Making the best of it,” said Captain Scott. - -“How do, Lady Jane? I say, Algy, there’s another starting. Beg pardon, -too excitin’ to stop. Ten to one on the little fellow. By George, looks -as if he knew it, don’t he now! Done this time, old man----” - -“Never took it,” said Algy, with a kick directed at his friend. “Shut -up! It’s awfully kind of you coming to see a fellow--in such -weather--Lady Jane!” - -“Yes,” she said composedly, placing herself in the easiest chair. “It -would be kind if I had come without a motive--but I don’t claim that -virtue. How are you, by the way? Better, I hope.” - -“Awfully well--as fit as a----, but they won’t let me budge in this -weather. I’ve got a nurse that lords it over me, and the doctor, don’t -you know?--daren’t stir, not to save my life.” - -“And occupying your leisure with elevating pastimes,” said Lady Jane. - -“Don’t be hard on a man when he’s down--nothing to do,” said Sir -Charles. “Desert island sort of thing--Algy educating mouse, and that -sort of thing; hard lines upon me.” - -“Does he know enough?” said Lady Jane with a polite air of inquiry. “I -am glad to find you both,” she added, “and not too busy evidently to -give me your attention. How did you manage, Algy, to catch such a bad -cold?” - -“Pneumonia, by Jove,” the young man cried, inspired by so inadequate a -description. - -“Well, pneumonia--so much the worse--and still more foolish for you who -have a weak chest. How did you manage to do it? I wonder if your mother -knows, and why is it I don’t find her here at your bedside?” - -“I say, don’t tell her, Lady Jane; it’s bad enough being shut up here, -without making more fuss, and the whole thing spread all over the -place.” - -“What is the whole thing?” said Lady Jane. - -“Went out in a bit of a yacht,” said Sir Charles, “clear up a bet, that -was why we did it. Caught in a gale--my fault, not Algy’s--says he saw -it coming--I----” - -“You were otherwise occupied, Charlie----” - -“Shut up!” Sir Charles was the speaker this time, with a kick in the -direction of his companion in trouble. - -“I am glad to see you’ve got some grace left,” said Lady Jane. “Not you, -Algy, you are beyond that--I know all about it, however. It was little -Stella Tredgold who ran away with you--or you with her.” - -Algy burst into a loud laugh. Sir Charles on his part said nothing, but -pulled his long moustache. - -“Which is it? And what were the rights of it? and was there any meaning -in it? or merely fun, as you call it in your idiotic way?” - -“By Jove!” was all the remark the chief culprit made. Algy on his sofa -kicked up his feet and roared again. - -“Please don’t think,” said Lady Jane, “that I am going to pick my words -to please you. I never do it, and especially not to a couple of boys -whom I have known since ever they were born, and before that. What do -you mean by it, if it is you, Charlie Somers? I suppose, by Algy’s -laugh, that he is not the chief offender this time. You know as well as -I do that you’re not a man to take little girls about. I suppose you -must have sense enough to know that, whatever good opinion you may have -of yourself. Stella Tredgold may be a little fool, but she’s a girl I -have taken up, and I don’t mean to let her be compromised. A girl that -knew anything would have known better than to mix up her name with -yours. Now what is the meaning of it? You will just be so good as to -inform me.” - -“Why, Cousin Jane, it was all the little thing herself.” - -“Shut up!” said Sir Charles again, with another kick at Algy’s foot. - -“Well!” said Lady Jane, very magisterially. No judge upon the bench -could look more alarming than she. It is true that her short skirts, her -strong walking shoes, her very severest hat and stiff feather that would -bear the rain, were not so impressive as flowing wigs and robes. She had -not any of the awe-inspiring trappings of the Law; but she was law all -the same, the law of society, which tolerates a great many things, and -is not very nice about motives nor forbidding as to details, but yet -draws the line--if capriciously--sometimes, yet very definitely, between -what can and what cannot be done. - -“Well,” came at length hesitatingly through the culprit’s big moustache. -“Don’t know, really--have got anything to say--no meaning at all. Bet to -clear up--him and me; then sudden thought--just ten minutes--try the -sails. No harm in that, Lady Jane,” he said, more briskly, recovering -courage, “afterwards gale came on; no responsibility,” he cried, -throwing up his hands. - -“Fact it was she that was the keenest. I shan’t shut up,” cried Algy; -“up to anything, that little thing is. Never minded a bit till it got -very bad, and then gave in, but never said a word. No fault of anybody, -that is the truth. But turned out badly--for me----” - -“And worse for her,” said Lady Jane--“that is, without me; all the old -cats will be down upon the girl” (which was not true, the reader -knows). “She is a pretty girl, Charlie.” - -Sir Charles, though he was so experienced a person, coloured faintly and -gave a nod of his head. - -“Stunner, by Jove!” said Algy, “though I like the little plain one -better,” he added in a parenthesis. - -“And a very rich girl, Sir Charles,” Lady Jane said. - -This time a faint “O--Oh” came from under the big moustache. - -“A _very_ rich girl. The father is an old curmudgeon, but he is made of -money, and he adores his little girl. I believe he would buy a title for -her high and think it cheap.” - -“Oh, I say!” exclaimed Sir Charles, with a colour more pronounced upon -his cheek. - -“Yours is not anything very great in that way,” said the remorseless -person on the bench, “but still it’s what he would call a title, you -know; and I haven’t the least doubt he would come down very handsomely. -Old Tredgold knows very well what he is about.” - -“Unexpected,” said Sir Charles, “sort of serious jaw like this. Put it -off, if you don’t mind, till another time.” - -“No time like the present,” said Lady Jane. “Your father was a great -friend of mine, Charlie Somers. He once proposed to me--very much left -to himself on that occasion, you will say--but still it’s true. So I -might have been your mother, don’t you see. I know your age, therefore, -to a day. You are a good bit past thirty, and you have been up to -nothing but mischief all your life.” - -“Oh, I say now!” exclaimed Sir Charles again. - -“Well, now here is a chance for you. Perhaps I began without thinking, -but now I’m in great earnest. Here is really a chance for you. Stella’s -not so nice as her sister, as Algy there (I did not expect it of him) -has the sense to see: but she’s much more in your way. She is just your -kind, a reckless little hot-headed--all for pleasure and never a thought -of to-morrow. But that sort of thing is not so risky when you have a -good fortune behind you, well tied down. Now, Charlie, listen to me. -Here is a capital chance for you; a man at your age, if he is ever going -to do anything, should stop playing the fool. These boys even will soon -begin to think you an old fellow. Oh, you needn’t cry out! I know -generations of them, and I understand their ways. A man should stop -taking his fling before he gets to thirty-five. Why, Algy there would -tell you that, if he had the spirit to speak up.” - -“I’m out of it,” said Algy. “Say whatever you like, it has nothing to do -with me.” - -“You see,” said Lady Jane, with a little flourish of her hand, “the boy -doesn’t contradict me; he daren’t contradict me, for it’s truth. Now, as -I say, here’s a chance for you. Abundance of money, and a very pretty -girl, whom you like.” She made a pause here to emphasise her words. -“Whom--you--like. Oh, I know very well what I’m saying. I am going to -ask her over to Steephill and you can come too if you please; and if you -don’t take advantage of your opportunities, Sir Charles, why you have -less sense than even I have given you credit for, and that is a great -deal to say.” - -“Rather public, don’t you think, for this sort of thing? Go in and win, -before admiring audience. Don’t relish exhibition. Prefer own way.” - -This Sir Charles said, standing at the window, gazing out, apparently -insensible even of the raindrops, and turning his back upon his adviser. - -“Well, take your own way. I don’t mind what way you take, so long as you -take my advice, which is given in your very best interests, I can tell -you. Isn’t the regiment ordered out to India, Algy?” she said, turning -quickly upon the other. “And what do you mean to do?” - -“Go, of course,” he said--“the very thing for me, they say. And I’m not -going to shirk either; see some sport probably out there.” - -“And Charlie?” said Lady Jane. There was no apparent connection between -her previous argument and this question, yet the very distinct staccato -manner in which she said these words called the attention. - -Sir Charles, still standing by the window with his back to Lady Jane, -once more muttered, “By Jove!” under his breath, or under his moustache, -which came to the same thing. - -“Oh, Charlie! He’ll exchange, I suppose, and get out of it; too great a -swell for India, he is. And how could he live out of reach of Pall -Mall?” - -“Well, I hope you’ll soon be able to move, my dear boy; if the weather -keeps mild and the rain goes off you had better come up to Steephill for -a few days to get up your strength.” - -“Thanks, awf’lly,” said Captain Scott. “I will with pleasure; and Cousin -Jane, if that little prim one should be there----” - -“She shan’t, not for you, my young man, you have other things to think -of. As for Charlie, I shall say no more to him; he can come too if he -likes, but not unless he likes. Send me a line to let me know.” - -Sir Charles accompanied the visitor solemnly downstairs, but without -saying anything until they reached the door, where to his surprise no -carriage was waiting. - -“Don’t mean to say you walked--day like this?” he cried. - -“No; but the horses and the men are more used to take care of -themselves; they are to meet me at the Rectory. I am going there about -this ridiculous bazaar. You can walk with me, if you like,” she said. - -He seized a cap from the stand and lounged out after her into the rain. -“I say--don’t you know?” he said, but paused there and added no more. - -“Get it out,” said Lady Jane. - -After a while, as he walked along by her side, his hands deep in his -pockets, the rain soaking pleasantly into his thick tweed coat, he -resumed: “Unexpected serious sort of jaw that, before little beggar like -Algy--laughs at everything.” - -“There was no chance of speaking to you alone,” said Lady Jane almost -apologetically. - -“Suppose not. Don’t say see my way to it. Don’t deny, though--reason in -it.” - -“And inclination, eh? not much of one without the other, if I am any -judge.” - -“First-rate judge, by Jove!” Sir Charles said. - -And he added no more. But when he took leave of Lady Jane at the Rectory -he took a long walk by himself in the rain, skirting the gardens of the -Cliff and getting out upon the downs beyond, where the steady downfall -penetrated into him, soaking the tweed in a kind of affectionate natural -way as of a material prepared for the purpose. He strolled along with -his hands in his pockets and the cap over his eyes as if it had been a -summer day, liking it all the better for the wetness and the big masses -of the clouds and the leaden monotone of the sea. It was all so dismal -that it gave him a certain pleasure; he seemed all the more free to -think of his own concerns, to consider the new panorama opened before -him, which perhaps, however, was not so new as Lady Jane supposed. She -had forced open the door and made him look in, giving all the details; -but he had been quite conscious that it had been there before, within -his reach, awaiting his inspection. There were a great many inducements, -no doubt, to make that fantastic prospect real if he could. He did not -want to go to India, though indeed it would have been very good for him -in view of his sadly reduced finances and considerably affected credit -in both senses of that word. He had not much credit at headquarters, -that he knew; he was not what people called a good officer. No doubt he -would have been brave enough had there been fighting to do, and he was -not disliked by his men; his character of a “careless beggar” being -quite as much for good as for evil among those partial observers; but -his credit in higher regions was not great. Credit in the other sense of -the word was a little failing too, tradesmen having a wonderful _flair_ -as to a man’s resources and the rising and falling of his account at his -bankers. It would do him much good to go to India and devote himself to -his profession; but then he did not want to go. Was it last of all or -first of all that another motive came in, little Stella herself to wit, -though she broke down so much in her attempts to imitate Lottie Seton’s -ways, and was not amusing at all in that point of view? Stella had -perhaps behaved better on that impromptu yachting trip than she was -herself aware. Certainly she was far more guilty in the beginning of it -than she herself allowed. But when the night was dark and the storm -high, she had--what had she done? Behaved very well and made the men -admire her pluck, or behaved very badly and frightened them--I cannot -tell; anyhow, she had been very natural, she had done and said only what -it came into her head to say and to do, without any affectation or -thought of effect; and the sight of the little girl, very silly and yet -so entirely herself, scolding them, upbraiding them, though she was -indeed the most to blame, yet bearing her punishment not so badly after -all and not without sympathy for them, had somehow penetrated Charles -Somers’ very hardened heart. She was a nice little girl--she was a very -pretty little girl--she was a creature one would not tire of even if she -was not amusing like Lottie Seton. If a man was to have anything more to -do with her, it was to be hoped she never would be amusing like Lottie -Seton. He paced along the downs he never knew how long, pondering these -questions; but he was not a man very good at thinking. In the end he -came to no more than a very much strengthened conviction that Stella -Tredgold was a very pretty little girl. - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - - -It shut the mouths of all the gossips, or rather it afforded a new but -less exciting subject of comment, when it was known that Stella Tredgold -had gone off on a visit to Steephill. I am not sure that Mrs. Shanks and -Miss Mildmay did not feel themselves deceived a little. They had pledged -themselves to Stella’s championship in a moment of enthusiasm, -stimulated thereto by a strong presumption of the hostility of Lady -Jane. Miss Mildmay in particular had felt that she had a foeman worthy -of her steel, and that it would be an enterprise worth her while to -bring the girl out with flying colours from any boycotting or unfriendly -action directed by the great lady of the district; and to find that -Stella had been taken immediately under Lady Jane’s wing disturbed her -composure greatly. There was great talk over the railing between the -ladies, and even, as it became a little too cold for these outdoor -conferences, in the drawing-rooms in both houses, under the shade of the -verandah which made these apartments a little dark and gloomy at this -season of the year. But I must not occupy the reader’s time with any -account of these talks, for as a matter of fact the ladies had committed -themselves and given their promise, which, though offended, they were -too high-minded to take back. It conduced, however, to a general cooling -of the atmosphere about them, that what everybody in Sliplin and the -neighbourhood now discussed was not Stella’s escapade, but Stella’s -visit to Steephill, where there was a large party assembled, and where -her accomplices in that escapade were to be her fellow-guests. What did -this mean was now the question demanded? Had Lady Jane any intentions in -respect to Stella? Was there “anything between” her and either of these -gentlemen? But this was a question to which no one as yet had any reply. - -Stella herself was so much excited by the prospect that all thought of -the previous adventure died out of her mind. Save at a garden party, she -had never been privileged to enter Lady Jane’s house except on the one -occasion when she and Katherine stayed all night after a ball; and then -there were many girls besides themselves, and no great attention paid to -them. But to be the favoured guest, almost the young lady of the house, -among a large company was a very different matter. Telegrams flew to -right and left--to dressmakers, milliners, glovers, and I don’t know how -many more. Stevens, the maid, whom at present she shared with Katherine, -but who was, of course, to accompany her to Steephill as her own -separate attendant, was despatched to town after the telegrams with more -detailed and close instructions. The girl shook off all thought both of -her own adventure and of her companions in it. She already felt herself -flying at higher game. There was a nephew of Lady Jane’s, a young earl, -who, it was known, was there, a much more important personage than any -trumpery baronet. This she informed her father, to his great delight, as -he gave her his paternal advice with much unction the evening before she -went away. - -“That’s right, Stella,” he said, “always fly at the highest--and them -that has most money. This Sir Charles, I wager you anything, he is after -you for your fortune. I dare say he hasn’t a penny. He thinks he can -come and hang up his hat and nothing more to do all his life. But he’ll -find he’s a bit mistaken with me.” - -“It isn’t very nice of you, papa,” said Stella, “to think I am only run -after because I have money--or because you have money, for not much of -it comes to me.” - -“Ain’t she satisfied with her allowance?” said the old gentleman, -looking over Stella’s head at her elder sister. “It’s big enough. Your -poor mother would have dressed herself and me and the whole family off -half of what that little thing gets through. It is a deal better the -money should be in my hands, my pet. And if any man comes after you, -you may take your oath he shan’t have you cheap. He’ll have to put down -shillin’ for shillin’, I can tell you. You find out which is the one -that has the most money, and go for him. Bad’s the best among all them -new earls and things, but keep your eyes open, Stella, and mark the one -that’s best off.” Here he gave utterance to a huge chuckle. “Most people -would think she would never find that out; looks as innocent as a daisy, -don’t she, Katie? But she’s got the old stuff in her all the same.” - -“I don’t know what you call the old stuff,” said Stella, indignant; “it -must be very nasty stuff. What does your horrid money do for me? I have -not half enough to dress on, and you go over my bills with your -spectacles as if I were Simmons, the cook. If you had a chest full of -diamonds and rubies, and gave us a handful now and then, that is the -kind of richness I should like; but I have no jewels at all,” cried the -girl, putting up her hand to her neck, which was encircled by a modest -row of small pearls; “and they will all be in their diamonds and -things.” - -Mr. Tredgold’s countenance fell a little. “Is that true?” he said. -“Katie, is that true?” - -“Girls are not expected to wear diamonds,” said Katie; “at least, I -don’t think so, papa.” - -“Oh, what does she know? That’s all old-fashioned nowadays. Girls wear -just whatever they can get to wear, and why shouldn’t girls wear -diamonds? Don’t you think I should set them off better than Lady Jane, -papa?” cried Stella, tossing her young head. - -Mr. Tredgold was much amused by this question; he chuckled and laughed -over it till he nearly lost his breath. “All the difference between -parchment and white satin, ain’t there, Katie? Well, I don’t say as you -mightn’t have some diamonds. They’re things that always keep their -value. It’s not a paying investment, but, anyhow, you’re sure of your -capital. They don’t wear out, don’t diamonds. So that’s what you’re -after, Miss Stella. Just you mind what you’re about, and don’t send me -any young fool without a penny in his pocket, but a man that can afford -to keep you like you’ve been kept all your life. And I’ll see about the -jewels,” Mr. Tredgold said. - -The consequence of this conversation was that little Stella appeared at -Steephill, notwithstanding her vapoury and girlish toilettes of white -chiffon and other such airy fabrics, with a _rivière_ of diamonds -sparkling round her pretty neck, which, indeed, did them much greater -justice than did Lady Jane. Ridiculous for a little girl, all the ladies -said--but yet impressive more or less, and suggestive of illimitable -wealth on the part of the foolish old man, who, quite unaware what was -suitable, bedizened his little daughter like that. And Stella was -excited by her diamonds and by the circumstances, and the fact that she -was the youngest there, and the most fun; for who would expect fun from -portly matrons or weather-beaten middle age, like Lady Jane’s? To do her -justice, she never or hardly ever thought, as she might very well have -done, that she was the prettiest little person in the party. On the -contrary, she was a little disposed to be envious of Lady Mary, the -niece of Lady Jane and sister of the Earl, who was not pretty in the -least, but who was tall, and had a figure which all the ladies’ maids, -including Stevens, admired much. “Oh, if you only was as tall as Lady -Mary, Miss Stella,” Stevens said. “Oh, I wish as you had that kind of -figger--her waist ain’t more than eighteen inches, for all as she’s so -tall.” Stella had felt nearly disposed to cry over her inferiority. She -was as light as a feather in her round and blooming youth, but she was -not so slim as Lady Mary. It was a consolation to be able to say to -herself that at least she was more fun. - -Lady Mary, it turned out, was not fun at all; neither most surely was -the young Earl. He talked to Stella, whom, and her diamonds, he -approached gravely, feeling that the claims of beauty were as real as -those of rank or personal importance, and that the qualification of -youth was as worthy of being taken into consideration as that of age, -for he was a philosopher about University Extension, and the great -advantage it was to the lower classes to share the culture of those -above them. - -“Oh, I am sure I am not cultured at all,” cried Stella. “I am as -ignorant as a goose. I can’t spell any big words, or do any of the -things that people do.” - -“You must not expect to take me in with professions of ignorance,” said -the Earl with a smile. “I know how ladies read, and how much they do -nowadays--perhaps in a different way from us, but just as important.” - -“Oh, no, no,” cried Stella; “it is quite true, I can’t spell a bit,” and -her eyes and her diamonds sparkled, and a certain radiance of red and -white, sheen of satin, and shimmer of curls, and fun and audacity, and -youth, made a sort of atmosphere round her, by which the grave youth, -prematurely burdened by the troubles of his country and the lower -classes, felt dazzled and uneasy, as if too warm a sun was shining full -upon him. - -“Where’s a book?” cried Algy Scott, who sat by in the luxury of his -convalescence. “Let’s try; I don’t believe any of you fellows could -spell this any more than Miss Stella--here you are--sesquipedalian. Now, -Miss Tredgold, there is your chance.” - -Stella put her pretty head on one side, and her hands behind her. This -was a sort of thing which she understood better than University -Extension. “S-e-s,” she began, and then broke off. “Oh, what is the next -syllable? Break it down into little, quite little syllables--_quip_--I -know that, q-u-i-p. There, oh, help me, help me, someone!” There was -quite a crush round the little shining, charming figure, as she turned -from one to another in pretended distress, holding out her pretty hands. -And then there were several tries, artificially unsuccessful, and the -greatest merriment in the knot which surrounded Stella, thinking it all -“great fun.” The Earl, with a smile on his face which was not so -superior as he thought, but a little tinged by the sense of being “out -of it,” was edged outside of this laughing circle, and Lady Mary came -and placed her arm within his to console him. The brother and sister -lingered for a moment looking on with a disappointed chill, though they -were so superior; but it became clear to his lordship from that moment, -though with a little envy in the midst of the shock and disapproval, -that Stella Tredgold, unable to spell and laughing over it with all -those fellows, was not the heroine for him. - -Lady Jane, indeed, would have been both angry and disappointed had the -case turned out otherwise; for her nephew was not poor and did not stand -in need of any _mésalliance_, whereas she had planned the whole affair -for Charlie Somers’ benefit and no other. And, indeed, the plan worked -very well. Sir Charles had no objection at all to the _rôle_ assigned -him. Stella did not require to be approached with any show of deference -or devotion; she was quite willing to be treated as a chum, to respond -to a call more curt than reverential. “I say, come on and see the -horses.” “Look here, Miss Tredgold, let’s have a stroll before lunch.” -“Come along and look at the puppies.” These were the kind of invitations -addressed to her; and Stella came along tripping, buttoning up her -jacket, putting on a cap, the first she could find, upon her fluffy -hair. She was _bon camarade_, and did not “go in for sentiment.” It was -she who was the first to call him Charlie, as she had been on the eve of -doing several times in the Lottie Seton days, which now looked like the -age before the Flood to this pair. - -“Fancy only knowing you through that woman,” cried Stella; “and you -should have heard how she bullied me after that night of the sail!” - -“Jealous,” said Sir Charles in his moustache. “Never likes to lose any -fellow she knows.” - -“But she was not losing you!” cried Stella with much innocence. “What -harm could it do to her that you spent one evening with--anyone else?” - -“Knows better than that, does Lottie,” the laconic lover said. - -“Oh, stuff!” cried Stella. “It was only to make herself disagreeable. -But she never was any friend of mine.” - -“Not likely. Lottie knows a thing or two. Not so soft as all that. Put -you in prison if she could--push you out of her way.” - -“But I was never in her way,” cried Stella. - -At which Sir Charles laughed loud and long. “Tell you what it is--as bad -as Lottie. Can’t have you talk to fellows like Uppin’ton. Great prig, -not your sort at all. Call myself your sort, Stella, eh? Since anyhow -you’re mine.” - -“I don’t know what you mean by your sort,” Stella said, but with -downcast eyes. - -“Yes, you do--chums--always get on. Awf’lly fond of you, don’t you know? -Eh? Marriage awf’l bore, but can’t be helped. Look here! Off to India if -you won’t have me,” the wooer said. - -“Oh, Charlie!” - -“Fact; can’t stand it here any more--except you’d have me, Stella.” - -“I don’t want,” said Stella with a little gasp, “to have any one--just -now.” - -“Not surprised,” said Sir Charles, “marriage awf’l bore. Glad regiment’s -ordered off; no good in England now. Knock about in India; get knocked -on the head most likely. No fault of yours--if you can’t cotton to it, -little girl.” - -“Oh, Charlie! but I don’t want you to go to India,” Stella said. - -“Well, then, keep me here. There are no two ways of it,” he said more -distinctly than usual, holding out his hand. - -And Stella put her hand with a little hesitation into his. She was not -quite sure she wanted to do so. But she did not want him to go away. And -though marriage was an awf’l bore, the preparations for it were “great -fun.” And he was her sort--they were quite sure to get on. She liked him -better than any of the others, far better than that prig, Uffington, -though he was an earl. And it would be nice on the whole to be called my -Lady, and not Miss any longer. And Charlie was very nice; she liked him -far better than any of the others. That was the refrain of Stella’s -thoughts as she turned over in her own room all she had done. To be -married at twenty is pleasant too. Some girls nowadays do not marry till -thirty or near it, when they are almost decrepit. That was what would -happen to Kate; if, indeed, she ever married at all. Stella’s mind then -jumped to a consideration of the wedding presents and who would give -her--what, and then to her own appearance in her wedding dress, walking -down the aisle of the old church. What a fuss all the Stanleys would be -in about the decorations; and then there were the bridesmaids to be -thought of. Decidedly the preliminaries would be great fun. Then, of -course, afterwards she would be presented and go into society--real -society--not this mere country house business. On the whole there was a -great deal that was desirable in it, all round. - -“Now have over the little prim one for me,” said Algy Scott. “I say, -cousin Jane, you owe me that much. It was I that really suffered for -that little thing’s whim--and to get no good of it; while Charlie--no, I -don’t want this one, the little prim one for my money. If you are going -to have a dance to end off with, have her over for me.” - -“I may have her over, but not for you, my boy,” said Lady Jane. “I have -the fear of your mother before my eyes, if you haven’t. A little -Tredgold girl for my Lady Scott! No, thank you, Algy, I am not going to -fly in your mother’s face, whatever you may do.” - -“Somebody will have to fly in her face sooner or later,” Algy said -composedly; “and, mind you, my mother would like to tread gold as well -as any one.” - -“Don’t abandon every principle, Algy. I can forgive anything but a pun.” - -“It’s such a very little one,” he said. - -And Lady Jane did ask Katherine to the dance, who was very much -bewildered by the state of affairs, by her sister’s engagement, which -everybody knew about, and the revolution which had taken place in -everything, without the least intimation being conveyed to those most -concerned. Captain Scott’s attentions to herself were the least of her -thoughts. She was impatient of the ball--impatient of further delay. -Would it all be so easy as Stella thought? Would the old man, as they -called him, take it with as much delight as was expected? She pushed -Algy away from her mind as if he had been a fly in the great -preoccupations of her thoughts. - - - - -CHAPTER XII. - - -“Bravo, Charlie!” said Lady Jane. “I never knew anything better or -quicker done. My congratulations! You have proved yourself a man of -sense and business. Now you’ve got to tackle the old man.” - -“Nothin’ of th’ sort,” said Sir Charles, with a dull blush covering all -that was not hair of his countenance. “Sweet on little girl. Like her -awf’lly; none of your business for me.” - -“So much the better, and I respect you all the more; but now comes the -point at which you have really to show yourself a hero and a man of -mettle--the old father----” - -Sir Charles walked the whole length of the great drawing-room and back -again. He pulled at his moustache till it seemed likely that it might -come off. He thrust one hand deep into his pocket, putting up the -corresponding shoulder. “Ah!” he said with a long-drawn breath, “there’s -the rub.” He was not aware that he was quoting anyone, but yet would -have felt more or less comforted by the thought that a fellow in his -circumstances might have said the same thing before him. - -“Yes, there’s the rub indeed,” said his sympathetic but amused friend -and backer-up. “Stella is the apple of his eye.” - -“Shows sense in that.” - -“Well, perhaps,” said Lady Jane doubtfully. She thought the little prim -one might have had a little consideration too, being partially -enlightened as to a certain attractiveness in Katherine through the -admiration of Algy Scott. “Anyhow, it will make it all the harder. But -that’s doubtful too. He will probably like his pet child to be Lady -Somers, which sounds very well. Anyhow, you must settle it with him at -once. I can’t let it be said that I let girls be proposed to in my -house, and that afterwards the men don’t come up to the scratch.” - -“Not my way,” said Sir Charles. “Never refuse even it were a harder jump -than that.” - -“Oh, you don’t know how hard a jump it is till you try,” said Lady Jane. -But she did not really expect that it would be hard. That old Tredgold -should not be pleased with such a marriage for his daughter did not -occur to either of them. Of course Charlie Somers was poor; if he had -been rich it was not at all likely that he would have wanted to marry -Stella; but Lady Somers was a pretty title, and no doubt the old man -would desire to have his favourite child so distinguished. Lady Jane was -an extremely sensible woman, and as likely to estimate the people round -her at their just value as anybody I know; but she could not get it out -of her head that to be hoisted into society was a real advantage, -however it was accomplished, whether by marriage or in some other way. -Was she right? was she wrong? Society is made up of very silly people, -but also there the best are to be met, and there is something in the -Freemasonry within these imaginary boundaries which is attractive to the -wistful imagination without. But was Mr. Tredgold aware of these -advantages, or did he know even what it was, or that his daughters were -not in it? This was what Lady Jane did not know. Somers, it need not be -said, did not think on the subject. What he thought of was that old -Tredgold’s money would enable him to marry, to fit out his old house as -it ought to be, and restore it to its importance in his county, and, in -the first place of all, would prevent the necessity of going to India -with his regiment. This, indeed, was the first thing in his mind, after -the pleasure of securing Stella, which, especially since all the men in -the house had so flattered and ran after her, had been very gratifying -to him. He loved her as well as he understood love or she either. They -were on very equal terms. - -Katherine did not give him any very warm reception when the exciting -news was communicated to her; but then Katherine was the little prim -one, and not effusive to any one. “She is always like that,” Stella had -said--“a stick! but she’ll stand up for me, whatever happens, all the -same.” - -“I say,” cried Sir Charles alarmed--“think it’ll be a hard job, eh? with -the old man, don’t you know?” - -“You will please,” said Stella with determination, “speak more -respectfully of papa. I don’t know if it’ll be a hard job or not--but -you’re big enough for that, or anything, I hope.” - -“Oh, I’m big enough,” he said; but there was a certain faltering in his -tone. - -He did not drive with the two girls on their return to the Cliff the -morning after the ball, but walked in to Sliplin the five miles to pull -himself together. He had no reason that he knew of to feel anxious. The -girl--it was by this irreverent title that he thought of her, though he -was so fond of her--liked him, and her father, it was reported, saw -everything with Stella’s eyes. She was the one that he favoured in -everything. No doubt it was she who would have the bulk of his fortune. -Sir Charles magnanimously resolved that he would not see the other -wronged--that she should always have her share, whatever happened. He -remembered long afterwards the aspect of the somewhat muddy road, and -the hawthorn hedges with the russet leaves hanging to them still, and -here and there a bramble with the intense red of a leaf lighting up the -less brilliant colour. Yes, she should always have her share! He had a -half-conscious feeling that to form so admirable a resolution would do -him good in the crisis that was about to come. - -Mr. Tredgold stood at the door to meet his daughters when they came -home, very glad to see them, and to know that everybody was acquainted -with the length of Stella’s stay at Steephill, and the favour shown her -by Lady Jane, and delighted to have them back also, and to feel that -these two pretty creatures--and especially the prettiest of the -two--were his own private property, though there were no girls like -them, far or near. “Well,” he said, “so here you are back again--glad -to be back again I’ll be bound, though you’ve been among all the -grandees! Nothing like home, is there, Stella, after all?” (He said -’ome, alas! and Stella felt it as she had never done before.) “Well, you -are very welcome to your old pa. Made a great sensation, did you, little -’un, diamonds and all? How did the diamonds go down, eh, Stella? You -must give them to me to put in my safe, for they’re not safe, valuable -things like that, with you.” - -“Dear papa, do you think all that of the diamonds?” said Stella. “They -are only little things--nothing to speak of. You should have seen the -diamonds at Steephill. If you think they are worth putting in the safe, -pray do so; but I should not think of giving you the trouble. Well, we -didn’t come back to think of the safe and my little _rivière_, did we, -Kate? As for that, the pendant you have given her is handsomer of its -kind, papa.” - -“Couldn’t leave Katie out, could I? when I was giving you such a thing -as that?” said Mr. Tredgold a little confused. - -“Oh, I hope you don’t think I’m jealous,” cried Stella. “Kate doesn’t -have things half nice enough. She ought to have them nicer than mine, -for she is the eldest. We amused ourselves very well, thank you, papa. -Kate couldn’t move without Algy Scott after her wherever she turned. -You’ll have him coming over here to make love to you, papa.” - -“I think you might say a word of something a great deal more important, -Stella.” - -“Oh, let me alone with your seriousness. Papa will hear of that fast -enough, when you know Charlie is---- I’m going upstairs to take off my -things. I’ll bring the diamonds if I can remember,” she added, pausing -for a moment at the door and waving her hand to her father, who followed -her with delighted eyes. - -“What a saucy little thing she is!” he said. “You and I have a deal to -put up with from that little hussy, Katie, haven’t we? But there aren’t -many like her all the same, are there? We shouldn’t like it if we were -to lose her. She keeps everything going with her impudent little ways.” - -“You are in great danger of losing her, papa. There is a man on the -road----” - -“What’s that--what’s that, Katie? A man that is after my Stella? A man -to rob me of my little girl? Well, I like ’em to come after her, I like -to see her with a lot at her feet. And who’s this one? The man with a -handle to his name?” - -“Yes; I suppose you would call it a handle. It was one of the men that -were out in the boat with her--Sir Charles----” - -“Oh!” said Mr. Tredgold, with his countenance falling. “And why didn’t -the t’other one--his lordship--come forward? I don’t care for none of -your Sir Charleses--reminds me of a puppy, that name.” - -“The puppies are King Charles’s, papa. I don’t know why the Earl did not -come forward; because he didn’t want to, I suppose. And, indeed, he was -not Stella’s sort at all.” - -“Stella’s sort! Stella’s sort!” cried the old man. “What right has -Stella to have a sort when she might have got a crown to put on her -pretty head. Coronet? Yes, I know; it’s all the same. And where is this -fellow? Do you mean that you brought him in my carriage, hiding him -somewhere between your petticoats? I will soon settle your Sir Charles, -unless he can settle shilling to shilling down.” - -“Sir Charles is walking,” said Katherine; “and, papa, please to remember -that Stella is fond of him, she is really fond of him; she is--in love -with him. At least I think so, otherwise---- You would not do anything -to make Stella unhappy, papa?” - -“You leave that to me,” said the old man; but he chuckled more than -ever. - -Katherine did not quite understand her father, but she concluded that he -was not angry--that he could not be going to receive the suitor -unfavourably, that there was nothing to indicate a serious shock of any -kind. She followed Stella upstairs, and went into her room to comfort -her with this assurance; for which I cannot say that Stella was at all -grateful. - -“Not angry? Why should he be angry?” the girl cried. “Serious? I never -expected him to be serious. What could he find to object to in Charlie? -I am not anxious about it at all.” - -Katherine withdrew into her own premises, feeling herself much humbled -and set down. But somehow she could not make herself happy about that -chuckle of Mr. Tredgold’s. It was not a pleasant sound to hear. - -Sir Charles Somers felt it very absurd that he should own a tremor in -his big bosom as he walked up the drive, all fringed with its rare -plants in every shade of autumn colour. It was not a long drive, and the -house by no means a “place,” but only a seaside villa, though (as Mr. -Tredgold hoped) the costliest house in the neighbourhood. The carriage -had left fresh marks upon the gravel, which were in a kind of a way the -footsteps of his beloved, had the wooer been sentimental enough to think -of that. What he did think of was whether the old fellow would see him -at once and settle everything before lunch, comfortably, or whether he -would walk into a family party with the girls hanging about, not -thinking it worth while to take off their hats before that meal was -over. There might be advantage in this. It would put a little strength -into himself, who was unquestionably feeling shaky, ridiculous as that -was, and would be the better, after his walk, of something to eat; and -it might also put old Tredgold in a better humour to have his luncheon -before this important interview. But, on the other hand, there was the -worry of the suspense. Somers did not know whether he was glad or sorry -when he was told that Mr. Tredgold was in his library, and led through -the long passages to that warm room which was at the back of the house. -A chair was placed for him just in front of the fire as he had foreseen, -and the day, though damp, was warm, and he had heated himself with his -long walk. - -“Sit down, sit down, Sir Charles,” said the old gentleman, whose -writing-table was placed at one side, where he had the benefit of the -warmth without the glare of the fire. And he leant amicably and -cheerfully across the corner of the table, and said, “What can I do for -you this morning?” rubbing his hands. He looked so like a genial -money-lender before the demands of the borrower are exposed to him, -that Sir Charles, much more accustomed to that sort of thing than to a -prospective father-in-law, found it very difficult not to propose, -instead of for Stella, that Mr. Tredgold should do him a little bill. He -got through his statement of the case in a most confused and complicated -way. It was indeed possible, if it had not been for the hint received -beforehand, that the old man would not have picked up his meaning; as it -was, he listened patiently with a calm face of amusement, which was the -most aggravating thing in the world. - -“Am I to understand,” he said at last, “that you are making me a -proposal for Stella, Sir Charles? Eh? It is for Stella, is it, and not -for any other thing? Come, that’s a good thing to understand each other. -Stella is a great pet of mine. She is a very great pet. There is nobody -in the world that I think like her, or that I would do so much for.” - -“M’ own feelings--to a nicety--but better expressed,” Sir Charles said. - -“That girl has had a deal of money spent on her, Sir Charles, first and -last; you wouldn’t believe the money that girl has cost me, and I don’t -say she ain’t worth it. But she’s a very expensive article and has been -all her life. It’s right you should look that in the face before we get -any forwarder. She has always had everything she has fancied, and she’ll -cost her husband a deal of money, when she gets one, as she has done -me.” - -This address made Somers feel very small, for what could he reply? To -have been quite truthful, the only thing he could have said would have -been, “I hope, sir, you will give her so much money that it will not -matter how expensive she is;” but this he could not say. “I know very -well,” he stammered, “a lady--wants a lot of things;--hope Stella--will -never--suffer, don’t you know?--through giving her to me.” - -Ah, how easy it was to say that! But not at all the sort of thing to -secure Stella’s comfort, or her husband’s either, which, on the whole, -was the most important of the two to Sir Charles. - -“That’s just what we’ve got to make sure of,” said old Tredgold, -chuckling more than ever. There was no such joke to the old man as this -which he was now enjoying. And he did not look forbidding or malevolent -at all. Though what he said was rather alarming, his face seemed to mean -nothing but amiability and content. “Now, look here, Sir Charles, I -don’t know what your circumstances are, and they would be no business of -mine, but for this that you’ve been telling me; you young fellows are -not very often flush o’ money, but you may have got it tied up, and that -sort of thing. I don’t give my daughter to any man as can’t count down -upon the table shillin’ for shillin’ with me.” This he said very -deliberately, with an emphasis on every word; then he made a pause, and, -putting his hand in his pocket, produced a large handful of coins, which -he proceeded to tell out in lines upon the table before him. Sir Charles -watched him in consternation for a moment, and then with a sort of -fascination followed his example. By some happy chance he had a quantity -of change in his pocket. He began with perfect gravity to count it out -on his side, coin after coin, in distinct rows. The room was quite -silent, the air only moved by the sound of a cinder falling now and then -on the hearth and the clink of the money as the two actors in this -strange little drama went on with the greatest seriousness counting out -coin after coin. - -When they had both finished they looked up and met each other’s eyes. -Then Mr. Tredgold threw himself back in his chair, kicking up his -cloth-shod feet. “See,” he cried, with a gurgle of laughter in his -throat, “that’s the style for me.” - -He was pleased to have his fine jest appreciated, and doubly amused by -the intense and puzzled gravity of his companion’s face. - -“Don’t seem to have as many as you,” Sir Charles said. “Five short, by -Jove.” - -“Shillin’s don’t matter,” said the old man; “but suppose every shillin’ -was five thousand pounds, and where would you be then? eh? perhaps you -would go on longer than I could. What do I know of your private affairs? -But that’s what the man that gets Stella will have to do--table down his -money, cent for cent, five thousand for five thousand, as I do. I know -what my little girl costs a year. I won’t have her want for anything, if -it’s ever so unreasonable; so, my fine young man, though you’ve got a -handle to your name, unless you can show the colour of your money, my -daughter is not for you.” - -Sir Charles Somers’s eyes had acquired a heavy stare of astonishment and -consternation. What he said in his disappointment and horror he did not -himself know--only one part of it fully reached the outer air, and that -was the unfortunate words, “money of her own.” - -“Money of her own!” cried old Tredgold. “Oh, yes, she’s got money of her -own--plenty of money of her own--but not to keep a husband upon. No, nor -to keep herself either. Her husband’s got to keep her, when she gets -one. If I count out to the last penny of my fortune he’s got to count -with me. I’ll give her the equal. I’ll not stint a penny upon her; but -give my money or her money, it’s all the same thing, to keep up another -family, her husband and her children, and the whole race of them--no, -Sir Charles Somers,” cried Mr. Tredgold, hastily shuffling his silver -into his pocket, “that’s not good enough for me.” - -Saying which he jumped up in his cloth shoes and began to walk about the -room, humming to himself loudly something which he supposed to be a -tune. Sir Charles, for his part, sat for a long time gazing at his money -on the table. He did not take it up as Tredgold had done. He only stared -at it vacantly, going over it without knowing, line by line. Then he, -too, rose slowly. - -“Can’t count with you,” he said. “Know I can’t. Chance this--put down -what I put down--no more. Got to go to India in that case. Never mind, -Stella and I----” - -“Don’t you speak any more of Stella. I won’t have it. Go to India, -indeed--my little girl! I will see you--further first. I will see you at -the bottom of the sea first! No. If you can count with me, something -like, you can send your lawyer to me. If you can’t, do you think I’m a -man to put pounds again’ your shillin’s? Not I! And I advise you just -to give it up, Sir Charles Somers, and speak no more about Stella to -me.” - -It was with the most intense astonishment that Charlie Somers found -himself out of doors, going humbly back along that drive by which he had -approached so short a time before, as he thought, his bride, his -happiness, and his luncheon. He went dismally away without any of them, -stupefied, not half conscious what had happened; his tail more -completely between his legs, to use his own simile, than whipped dog -ever had. He had left all his shillings on the table laid out in two -shining rows. But he did not think of his shillings. He could not think. -His consternation made him speechless both in body and in soul. - -It was not till late in the afternoon, when he had regained his -self-command a little, that he began to ask himself the question, What -would Stella do? Ah, what would Stella do? That was another side of the -question altogether. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. - - -There was great consternation at Steephill when Somers came back, not -indeed so cowed as when he left the Cliff, but still with the aspect -more or less of a man who had been beaten and who was extremely -surprised to find himself so. He came back, to make it more remarkable, -while the diminished party were still at luncheon, and sat down humbly -in the lowest place by the side of the governess to partake of the -mutton and rice pudding which Lady Jane thought most appropriate when -the family was alone. Algy was the only stranger left of all the large -party which had dispersed that morning, the few remaining men having -gone out to shoot; and to Algy, as an invalid, the roast mutton was of -course quite appropriate. - -“What luck! without even your lunch!” they cried out--Algy with a roar -(the fellow was getting as strong as an elephant) of ridicule and -delight. - -“As you see,” said Sir Charles with a solemnity which he could not shake -off. The very governess divined his meaning, and that sharp little -Janey--the horrid little thing, a mite of fourteen. “Oh, didn’t Stella -ask you to stay to lunch? Didn’t they give you anything to eat after -your walk?” that precocious critic cried. And Sir Charles felt with a -sensation of hatred, wishing to kill them all, that his own aspect was -enough to justify all their jokes. He was as serious as a mustard-pot; -he could not conjure up a laugh on his face; he could not look careless -and indifferent or say a light word. His tail was between his legs; he -felt it, and he felt sure that everybody must see it, down to the little -boys, who, with spoonfuls of rice suspended, stared at him with round -blue eyes; and he dared not say, “Confound the little beggars!” before -Lady Jane. - -“What is the matter?” she asked him, hurrying him after luncheon to her -own room away from the mocking looks of the governess--she too mixing -herself up with it!--and the gibes of Algy. “For goodness’ sake,” she -cried, “don’t look as if you had been having a whipping, Charlie Somers! -What has been done to you? Have you quarrelled with Stella on the way?” - -Sir Charles walked to the window, pulling his moustache, and stood there -looking out, turning his back on Lady Jane. A window is a great resource -to a man in trouble. “Old man turned me off,” he said. - -“What? _What?_ The old man turned you off? Oh!” cried Lady Jane in a -tone of relief; “so long as it was only the old man!” - -Sir Charles stood by the window for some time longer, and then he turned -back to the fire, near which Lady Jane had comfortably seated herself. -She was much concerned about him, yet not so much concerned as to -interfere with her own arrangements--her chair just at the right angle, -her screen to preserve her from the glare. She kept opening and looking -at the notes that lay on her table while she talked to him. - -“Oh, old Tredgold,” she said. “He was bound to object at first. About -money, I suppose? That of course is the only thing he knows anything -about. Did he ask you what you would settle upon her? You should have -said boldly, ‘Somerton,’ and left him to find out the rest. But I don’t -suppose you had the sense to stop his mouth like that. You would go and -enter into explanations.” - -“Never got so far,” said Sir Charles. “He that stopped my mouth. Game to -lay down pound for pound with him, or else no go.” - -“Pound for pound with him!” cried Lady Jane in consternation. She was so -much startled that she pushed back her chair from her writing-table, and -so came within the range of the fire and disorganized all her -arrangements. “Now I think of it,” she said, “(pull that screen this -way, Charlie) I have heard him say something like that. Pound for pound -with him! Why, the old----” (she made a pause without putting in the -word as so many people do), “is a millionaire!” - -Sir Charles, who was standing before the fire with his back to it, in -the habitual attitude of Englishmen, pulled his moustache again and -solemnly nodded his head. - -“And who does he think,” cried Lady Jane, carried away by her feelings, -“that could do _that_ would ever go near him and his vulgar, common---- -Oh, I beg your pardon, Charlie, I am sure!” she said. - -“No pardon needed. Know what you mean,” Somers said with a wave of his -hand. - -“Of course,” said Lady Jane with emphasis, “I don’t mean the girls, or -else you may be sure I never should have taken them out or had them -here.” She made a little pause after this disclaimer, in the heat of -which there was perhaps just a little doubt of her own motives, checked -by the reflection that Katherine Tredgold at least was not vulgar, and -might have been anybody’s daughter. She went on again after a moment. -“But he is an old---- Oh! I would not pay the least attention to what he -said; he was bound to say that sort of thing at first. Do you imagine -for a moment that any man who could do _that_ would please Stella? What -kind of man could do that? Only perhaps an old horror like himself, whom -a nice girl would never look at. Oh! I think I should be easy in my -mind, Charlie, if I were you. It is impossible, you know! There’s no -such man, no such _young_ man. Can you fancy Stella accepting an old -fellow made of money? I don’t believe in it for a moment,” said Lady -Jane. - -“Old fellows got sons--sometimes,” said Sir Charles, “City men, rolling -in money, don’t you know?” - -“One knows all those sort of people,” said Lady Jane; “you could count -them on your fingers; and they go in for rank, &c., not for other -millionaires. No, Charlie, I don’t see any call you have to be so -discouraged. Why did you come in looking such a whipped dog? It will be -all over the island in no time and through the regiment that you have -been refused by Stella Tredgold. The father’s nothing. The father was -quite sure to refuse. Rather picturesque that about laying down pound -for pound, isn’t it? It makes one think of a great table groaning under -heaps of gold.” - -“Jove!” said Sir Charles. “Old beggar said shillin’ for shillin’. Had a -heap of silver--got it like a fool--didn’t see what he was driving -at--paid it out on the table.” He pulled his moustache to the very roots -and uttered a short and cavernous laugh. “Left it there, by Jove!--all -my change,” he cried; “not a blessed thruppenny to throw to little girl -at gate.” - -“Left it there?” said Lady Jane--“on the table?” Her gravity was -overpowered by this detail. “Upon my word, Charlie Somers, for all your -big moustache and your six feet and your experiences, I declare I don’t -think there ever was such a simpleton born.” - -Somers bore her laughter very steadily. He was not unused to it. The -things in which he showed himself a simpleton were in relation to the -things in which he was prematurely wise as three to a hundred; but yet -there were such things. And he was free to acknowledge that leaving his -seventeen shillings spread out on the millionaire’s table, or even -taking the millionaire’s challenge _au pied de la lettre_, was the act -of a simpleton. He stood tranquilly with his back to the fire till Lady -Jane had got her laugh out. Then she resumed with a sort of apology: - -“It was too much for me, Charlie. I could not help laughing. What will -become of all that money, I wonder? Will he keep it and put it to -interest? I should like to have seen him after you were gone. I should -like to have seen him afterwards, when Stella had her knife at his -throat, asking him what he meant by it. You may trust to Stella, my dear -boy. She will soon bring her father to reason. He may be all sorts of -queer things to you, but he can’t stand against her. She can twist him -round her little finger. If it had been Katherine I should not have been -so confident. But Stella--he never has refused anything to Stella since -ever she was born.” - -“Think so, really?” said Somers through his moustache. He was beginning -to revive a little again, but yet the impression of old Tredgold’s -chuckling laugh and his contemptuous certainty was not to be got over -lightly. The gloom of the rejected was still over him. - -“Yes, I think so,” said Lady Jane. “Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, go on in -that hang-dog way. There’s nothing happened but what was to be expected. -Of course, the old curmudgeon would make an attempt to guard his -money-bags. I wish I were as sure of a company for Jack as I am of -Stella’s power to do anything she likes with her father. But if you go -down in this way at the first touch----” - -“No intention of going down,” said Sir Charles, piqued. “Marry her -to-morrow--take her out to India--then see what old beggar says.” - -“That, indeed,” cried Lady Jane--“that would be a fine revenge on him! -Don’t propose it to Stella if you don’t want her to accept, for she -would think it the finest fun in the world.” - -“By George!” Somers said, and a smile began to lift up the corners of -his moustache. - -“That would bring him to his senses, indeed,” Lady Jane said -reflectively; “but it would be rather cruel, Charlie. After all, he is -an old man. Not a very venerable old man, perhaps; not what you would -call a lovely old age, is it? but still---- Oh, I think it would be -cruel. You need not go so far as that. But we shall soon hear what -Stella says.” - -And it very soon was known what Stella said. Stella wrote in a whirlwind -of passion, finding nothing too bad to say of papa. An old bull, an old -pig, were the sweetest of the similes she used. She believed that he -wanted to kill her, to drag her by the hair of her head, to shut her up -in a dungeon or a back kitchen or something. She thought he must have -been changed in his sleep, for he was not in the very least like her own -old nice papa, and Kate thought so too. Kate could not understand it any -more than she could. But one thing was certain--that, let papa say what -he would or do what he would, she (Stella) never would give in. She -would be true, whatever happened. And if she were locked up anywhere she -would trust in her Charlie to get her out. All her trust was in her -Charlie, she declared. She had got his money, his poor dear bright -shillings, of which papa had robbed him, and put them in a silk bag, -which she always meant to preserve and carry about with her. She called -it Charlie’s fortune. Poor dear, dear Charlie; he had left it all for -her. She knew it was for her, and she would never part with it, never! -This whirlwind of a letter amused Charlie very much; he did not mind -letting his friends read it. They all laughed over it, and declared that -she was a little brick, and that he must certainly stick to her whatever -happened. The old fellow was sure to come round, they all said; no old -father could ever stand out against a girl like that. She had him on -toast, everybody knew. - -These were the encouraging suggestions addressed to Sir Charles by his -most intimate friends, who encouraged him still more by their narratives -of how Lottie Seton tossed her head and declared that Charlie Somers had -been waiting all along for some rich girl to drop into his mouth. He had -always had an _arrière pensée_, she cried (whatever that might be), and -had never been at all amusin’ at the best of times. He was very amusin’ -now, however, with Stella’s letter in his pocket and this absorbing -question to discuss. The whole regiment addressed itself with all the -brain it possessed to the consideration of the subject, which, of -course, was so much the more urgent in consequence of the orders under -which it lay. To go or not to go to India, that was the rub, as Charlie -had said. Stella only complicated the question, which had been under -discussion before. He did not want to go; but then, on the other hand, -if he remained at home, his creditors would be rampant and he would be -within their reach, which would not be the case if he went to India. And -India meant double pay. And if it could be secured that Stella’s father -should send an expedition after them to bring them back within a year, -then going to India with Stella as a companion would be the best fun in -the world. To go for a year was one thing, to go as long as the regiment -remained, doing ordinary duty, was quite another. Everybody whom he -consulted, even Lady Jane, though she began to be a little frightened by -the responsibility, assured him that old Tredgold would never hold out -for a year. Impossible! an old man in shaky health who adored his -daughter. “Doubt if he’ll give you time to get on board before he’s -after you,” Algy said. “You’ll find telegrams at Suez or at Aden or -somewhere,” said another; and a third chaunted (being at once poetical -and musical, which was not common in the regiment) a verse which many of -them thought had been composed for the occasion: - -“Come back, come back,” he cried in grief - Across the stormy water, -“And I’ll forgive your Highland chief, - My daughter, O my daughter!” - -“Though Charlie ain’t a Highland chief, you know,” said one of the -youngsters. “If it had been Algy, now!” - -All these things worked very deeply in the brain of Sir Charles Somers, -Baronet. He spent a great deal of time thinking of them. A year in India -would be great fun. Stella, for her part, was wild with delight at the -thought of it. If it could but be made quite clear that old Tredgold, -dying for the loss of his favourite child, would be sure to send for -her! Everybody said there was not a doubt on the subject. Stella, who -ought to know, was sure of it; so was Lady Jane, though she had got -frightened and cried, “Oh, don’t ask me!” when importuned the hundredth -time for her opinion. If a fellow could only be quite sure! Sometimes a -chilling vision of the “old beggar” came across Charlie’s mind, and the -courage began to ooze out at his fingers’ ends. That old fellow did not -look like an old fellow who would give in. He looked a dangerous old -man, an old man capable of anything. Charles Somers was by no means a -coward, but when he remembered the look which Mr. Tredgold had cast upon -him, all the strength went out of him. To marry an expensive wife who -had never been stinted in her expenses and take her out to India, and -then find that there was no relenting, remorseful father behind them, -but only the common stress and strain of a poor man’s life in a -profession, obliged to live upon his pay! What should he do if this -happened? But everybody around him assured him that it could not, would -not happen. Stella had the old gentleman “on toast.” He could not live -without her; he would send to the end of the world to bring her back; he -would forgive anything, Highland chief or whoever it might be. Even Lady -Jane said so. “Don’t ask me to advise you,” that lady cried. “I daren’t -take the responsibility. How can I tell whether Stella and you are fond -enough of each other to run such a risk? Old Mr. Tredgold? Oh, as for -old Mr. Tredgold, I should not really fear any lasting opposition from -him. He may bluster a little, he may try to be overbearing, he may think -he can frighten his daughter. But, of course, he will give in. Oh, yes, -he will give in. Stella is everything to him. She is the very apple of -his eye. It is very unjust to Katherine I always have said, and always -will say. But that is how it is. Stella’s little finger is more to him -than all the rest of the world put together. But please, please don’t -ask advice from me!” - -Sir Charles walked up and down the room, the room at Steephill, the room -at the barracks, wherever he happened to be, and pulled his moustache -almost till the blood came. But neither that intimate councillor, nor -his fellow-officers, nor his anxious friends gave him any definite -enlightenment. He was in love, too, in his way, which pushed him on, but -he was by no means without prudence, which held him back. If old -Tredgold did not break his heart, if he took the other one into Stella’s -place--for to be sure Katherine was his daughter also, though not equal -to Stella! If!--it is a little word, but there is terrible meaning in -it. In that case what would happen? He shuddered and turned away from -the appalling thought. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. - - -“Kate, Kate, Kate!” cried Stella. All had been quiet between the two -rooms connected by that open door. Katherine was fastening the ribbon at -her neck before the glass. This made her less ready to respond to -Stella’s eager summons; but the tone of the third repetition of her name -was so urgent that she dropped the ends of the ribbon and flew to her -sister. Stella was leaning half out of the open window. “Kate,” she -cried--“Kate, he has sent him away!” - -“Who is sent away?” cried Katherine, in amazement. - -Stella’s answer was to seize her sister by the arm and pull her half out -of the window, endangering her equilibrium. Thus enforced, however, -Katherine saw the figure of Sir Charles Somers disappearing round the -corner of a group of trees, which so entirely recalled the image, coarse -yet expressive, of a dog with its tail between its legs, that no -certainty of disappointment and failure could be more complete. The two -girls stared after him until he had disappeared, and then Stella drew -her sister in again, and they looked into each other’s eyes for a -moment. Even Stella the unsubduable was cowed; her face was pale, her -eyes round and staring with astonishment and trouble; the strength was -all taken out of her by bewilderment. What did it mean? Papa, papa, he -who had denied her nothing, who had been the more pleased the more -costly was the toy which she demanded! Had Charlie offended him? Had he -gone the wrong way to work? What could he possibly have done to receive -a rebuff from papa? - -“Of course I shall not stand it,” Stella cried, when she had recovered -herself a little. “He shall not have much peace of his life if he -crosses me. You let him dance upon you, Kate, and never said a -word--though I don’t suppose you cared, or surely you would have stood -out a little more than you did. But he shan’t dance upon me--he shall -soon find out the difference. I am going to him at once to ask what he -means.” She rushed towards the door, glowing anew with courage and -spirit, but then suddenly stopped herself, and came running back, -throwing herself suddenly on Katherine’s shoulders. - -“Oh, Kate, why should parents be so hard,” she said, shedding a few -tears--“and so hypocritical!” she exclaimed, rousing herself -again--“pretending to be ready to do everything, and then doing -nothing!” - -“Oh, hush, Stella!” cried Katherine, restraining her; “there is nothing -you have wanted till now that papa has not done.” - -“What!” cried the girl indignantly. “Diamonds and such wretched things.” -She made a gesture as if to pull something from her throat and throw it -on the floor, though the diamonds, naturally, at this hour in the -morning, were not there. “But the first thing I really want--the only -thing--oh, let me go, Kate, let me go and ask him what he means!” - -“Wait a little,” said Katherine--“wait a little; it may not be as bad as -we think; it may not be bad at all. Let us go down as if nothing had -happened. Perhaps Sir Charles has only--gone--to fetch something.” - -“Like that?” cried Stella; and then a something of the ridiculous in the -drooping figure came across her volatile mind. He was so like, so very -like, that dog with his tail between his legs. She burst out into a -laugh. “Poor Charlie, oh, poor Charlie! he looked exactly like--but I -will pay papa for this,” the girl cried. - -“Oh, not now,” said Katherine. “Remember, he is an old man--we must try -not to cross him but to soothe him. He may have been vexed to think of -losing you, Stella. He may have been--a little sharp; perhaps to try -to--break it off--for a time.” - -“And you think he might succeed, I shouldn’t wonder,” Stella cried, -tossing her head high. To tell the truth, Katherine was by no means sure -that he might not succeed. She had not a great confidence in the depth -of the sentiment which connected her sister and Sir Charles. She -believed that on one side or the other that tie might be broken, and -that it would be no great harm. But she made no reply to Stella’s -question. She only begged her to have patience a little, to make no -immediate assault upon her father. “You know the doctor said he must be -very regular--and not be disturbed--in his meals and things.” - -“Oh, if it is lunch you are thinking of!” cried Stella, with great -disdain; but after a little she consented to take things quietly and -await the elucidation of events. The meal that followed was not, -however, a very comfortable meal. Mr. Tredgold came in with every -evidence of high spirits, but was also nervous, not knowing what kind of -reception he was likely to meet with. He was as evidently relieved when -they seated themselves at table without any questions, but it was a -relief not unmingled with excitement. He talked continuously and against -time, but he neither asked about their visit as he usually did, nor -about the previous night’s entertainment, nor Stella’s appearance nor -her triumphs. Stella sat very silent at her side of the table. And -Katherine thought that her father was a little afraid. He made haste to -escape as soon as the luncheon was over, and it was not a moment too -soon, for Stella’s excitement was no longer restrainable. “What has he -said to Charlie--what has he done to him?” she cried. “Do you think he -would dare send him away for good and never say a word to me? What is -the meaning of it, Kate? You would not let me speak, though it choked me -to sit and say nothing. Where is my Charlie? and oh, how dared he, how -dared he, to send him away?” - -Katherine suggested that he might still be lingering about waiting for -the chance of seeing one of them, and Stella darted out accordingly and -flew through the grounds, in and out of the trees, with her uncovered -head shining in the sun, but came back with no further enlightenment. -She then proceeded imperiously to her father’s room; where, however, she -was again stopped by the butler, who announced that master was having -his nap and was not to be disturbed. All this delayed the explanation -and prolonged the suspense, which was aggravated, as in so many cases, -by the arrival of visitors. “So you have got back, Stella, from your -grand visit? Oh, do tell us all about it!” It was perhaps the first -fiery ordeal of social difficulty to which that undisciplined little -girl had been exposed. And it was so much the more severe that various -other sentiments came in--pride in the visit, which was so much greater -a privilege than was accorded to the ordinary inhabitants of Sliplin; -pride, too, in a show of indifference to it, desire to make her own -glories known, and an equally strong desire to represent these glories -as nothing more than were habitual and invariable. In the conflict of -feeling Stella was drawn a little out of herself and out of the -consideration of her father’s unimaginable behaviour. Oh, if they only -knew the real climax of all those eager questions! If only a hint could -have been given of the crowning glory, of the new possession she had -acquired, and the rank to which she was about to be elevated! - -Stella did not think of “a trumpery baronet” now. It was the Earl whom -she thought trumpery, a creation of this reign, as Miss Mildmay said, -whereas the Somers went back to the Anglo-Saxons. Stella did not know -very well who the Anglo-Saxons were. She did not know that baronetcies -are comparatively modern inventions. She only knew that to be Lady -Somers was a fine thing, and that she was going to attain that dignity. -But then, papa--who was papa, to interfere with her happiness? what -could he do to stop a thing she had made up her mind to?--stood in the -way. It was papa’s fault that she could not make that thrilling, that -tremendous announcement to her friends. Her little tongue trembled on -the edge of it. At one moment it had almost burst forth. Oh, how silly -to be talking of Steephill, of the dance, of the rides, of going to the -covert side with the sportsmen’s luncheon--all these things which -unengaged persons, mere spectators of life, make so much of--when she -had had it in her power to tell something so much more exciting, -something that would fly not only through Sliplin and all along the -coast but over the whole island before night! And to think she could not -tell it--must not say anything about it because of papa! - -Thus Stella fretted through the afternoon, determined, however, to “have -it out with papa” the moment her visitors were gone, and not, on the -whole, much afraid. He had never crossed her in her life before. Since -the time when Stella crying for it in the nursery was enough to secure -any delight she wanted, till now, when she stood on the edge of life and -all its excitements, nothing that she cared for had ever been refused -her. She had her little ways of getting whatever she wanted. It was not -that he was always willing or always agreed in her wishes; if that had -been so, the prospect before her would have been more doubtful; but -there were things which he did not like and had yet been made to consent -to because of Stella’s wish. Why should he resist her now for the first -time? There was no reason in it, no probability in it, no sense. He had -been able to say No to Charlie--that was quite another thing. Charlie -was very nice, but he was not Stella, though he might be Stella’s -chosen; and papa had, no doubt, a little spite against him because of -that adventure in the yacht, and because he was poor, and other things. -But Stella herself, was it possible that papa could ever hold head -against her, look her in the face and deny her anything? No, certainly -no! She was going over this in her mind while the visitors were talking, -and even when she was giving them an account of what she wore. Her new -white, and her diamonds--what diamonds! Oh, hadn’t they heard? A -_rivière_ that papa had given her; not a big one, you know, like an old -lady’s--a little one, but such stones, exactly like drops of dew! As she -related this, her hopes--nay, certainties--sprang high. She had not -needed to hold up her little finger to have those jewels--a word had -done it, the merest accidental word. She had not even had the trouble of -wishing for them. And to imagine that he would be likely to cross her -now! - -“Stella! Stella! where are you going?” Katherine cried. - -“I am going--to have it out with papa.” The last visitor had just gone; -Stella caught the cloth on the tea-table in the sweep of her dress, and -disordered everything as she flew by. But Katherine, though so tidy, did -not stop to restore things to their usual trimness. She followed her -sister along the passage a little more slowly, but with much excitement -too. Would Stella conquer, as she usually did? or, for the first time in -her life, would she find a blank wall before her which nothing could -break down? Katherine could not but remember the curt intimation which -had been given to her that James Stanford had been sent away and was -never to be spoken of more. But then she was not Stella--she was very -different from Stella; she had always felt even (or fancied) that the -fact that James Stanford’s suit had been to herself and not to Stella -had something to do with his rejection. That anyone should have thought -of Katherine while Stella was by! She blamed herself for this idea as -she followed Stella flying through the long and intricate passages to -have it out with papa. Perhaps she had been wrong, Katherine said to -herself. If papa held out against Stella this time, she would feel sure -she had been wrong. - -Stella burst into the room without giving any indication of her -approach, and Katherine went in behind her--swept in the wind of her -going. But what they saw was a vacant room, the fire purring to itself -like a cat, with sleepy little starts and droppings, a level sunbeam -coming in broad at one window, and on the table two lines of silver -money stretched along the dark table-cloth and catching the eye. They -were irregular lines--one all of shillings straight and unbroken, the -other shorter, and made up with a half-crown and a sixpence. What was -the meaning of this? They consulted each other with their eyes. - -“I am coming directly,” said Mr. Tredgold from an inner room. The door -was open. It was the room in which his safe was, and they could hear him -rustling his paper, putting in or taking out something. “Oh, papa, make -haste! I am waiting for you,” Stella cried in her impatience. She could -scarcely brook at the last moment this unnecessary delay. - -He came out, but not for a minute more; and then he was wiping his lips -as if he had been taking something to support himself; which indeed was -the case, and he had need of it. He came in with a great show of -cheerfulness, rubbing his hands. “What, both of you?” he said, “I -thought it was only Stella. I am glad both of you are here. Then you can -tell me----” - -“Papa, I will tell you nothing, nor shall Kate, till you have answered -my question. What have you done to Charlie Somers? Where is he? where -have you sent him? and how--how--how da--how could you have sent him -away?” - -“That’s his money,” said the old gentleman, pointing to the table. -“You’d better pick it up and send it to him; he might miss it -afterwards. The fool thought he could lay down money with me; there’s -only seventeen shillings of it,” said Mr. Tredgold contemptuously--“not -change for a sovereign! But he might want it. I don’t think he had much -more in his pocket, and I don’t want his small change; no, nor nobody -else’s. You can pick it up and send it back.” - -“What does all this mean?” asked Stella in imperious tones, though her -heart quaked she could scarcely tell why. “Why have you Charlie Somers’s -money on your table? and why--why, have you sent him away?” - -Mr. Tredgold seated himself deliberately in his chair, first removing -the newspaper that lay in it, folding that and placing it carefully on a -stand by his side. “Well, my little girl,” he said, also taking off his -spectacles and folding them before he laid them down, “that’s a very -easy one to answer. I sent him away because he didn’t suit me, my dear.” - -“But he suited me,” cried Stella, “which is surely far more important.” - -“Well, my pet, you may think so, but I don’t. I gave him my reasons. I -say nothing against him--a man as I know nothing of, and don’t want to -know. It’s all the same who you send to me; they’ll just hear the same -thing. The man I give my little girl to will have to count out shillin’ -for shillin’ with me. That fellow took me at my word, don’t you -see?--took out a handful of money and began to count it out as grave as -a judge. But he couldn’t do it, even at that. Seventeen shillings! not -as much as change for a sovereign,” said Mr. Tredgold with a chuckle. “I -told him as he was an ass for his pains. Thousand pound for thousand -pound down, that’s my rule; and all the baronets in the kingdom--or if -they were dukes for that matter--won’t get me out of that.” - -“Papa, do you know what you are saying?” Stella was so utterly -bewildered that she did not at all know what she was saying in the -sudden arrest of all her thoughts. - -“I think so, pet; very well indeed, I should say. I’m a man that has -always been particular about business arrangements. Business is one -thing; feelings, or so forth, is another. I never let feelings come in -when it’s a question of business. Money down on the table--shillin’s, or -thousands, which is plainer, for thousands, and that’s all about it; the -man who can’t do that don’t suit me.” - -Stella stood with two red patches on her cheeks, with her mouth open, -with her eyes staring before the easy and complacent old gentleman in -his chair. He was, no doubt, conscious of the passion and horror with -which she was regarding him, for he shifted the paper and the spectacles -a little nervously to give himself a countenance; but he took no notice -otherwise, and maintained his easy position--one leg crossed over the -other, his foot swinging a little--even after she burst forth. - -“Papa, do you say this to me--to _me_? And I have given him my word, and -I love him, though you don’t know what that means. Papa, can you look me -in the face--me, Stella, and dare to say that you have sent my Charlie -away?” - -“My dear,” said Mr. Tredgold, “he ain’t your Charlie, and never will be. -He’s Sir Charles Somers, Bart., a fine fellow, but I don’t think we -shall see him here again, and I can look my little Stella quite well in -the face.” - -He did not like to do it, though. He gave her one glance, and then -turned his eyes to his paper again. - -“Papa,” cried Stella, stamping her foot, “I won’t have it! I shall not -take it from you! Whatever you say, he shall come back here. I won’t -give him up, no, not if you should shut me up on bread and water--not if -you should put me in prison, or drag me by the hair of my head, or kill -me! which, I think, is what you must want to do.” - -“You little hussy! You never had so much as a whipping in your life, and -I am not going to begin now. Take her away, Katie. If she cries till -Christmas she won’t change me. Crying’s good for many things, but not -for business. Stella, you can go away.” - -“Oh, papa, how can you say Stella, and be so cruel!” Stella threw -herself down suddenly by his side and seized his hand, upon which she -laid down her wet cheek. “You have always done everything for Stella. -Never--never has my papa refused me anything. I am not used to it. I -can’t bear it! Papa, it is _me_ whose heart you are breaking. Papa, -_me_! Stella, it is Stella!” - -“Kate, for goodness’ sake take her away. It is no use. She is not going -to come over me. Stella’s a very good name for anything else, but it’s -not a name in business. Go away, child. Take her away. But, Katie, if -there’s anything else she would like now, a new carriage, or a horse, or -a bracelet, or a lot of dresses, or anything--anything in that way----” - -Stella drew herself up to her full height; she dried her eyes; she -turned upon her father with that instinct of the drama which is so -strong in human nature. “I scorn all your presents; I will take -nothing--nothing, as long as I live, you cruel, cruel father,” she -cried. - -Later, when Mr. Tredgold had gone out in his Bath-chair for his -afternoon “turn,” Stella came back very quietly to his room and gathered -up poor Charlie’s shillings. She did not know very much about the value -of money, though she spent so much; indeed, if she had ever felt the -need of it it was in this prosaic form of a few shillings. She thought -he might want them, poor Charlie, whom she had not the faintest -intention of giving up, whatever papa might say. - - - - -CHAPTER XV. - - -But Stella neither shuddered nor hesitated. She was in the highest -spirits, flying everywhere, scarcely touching the ground with her feet. -“Oh, yes! I’m engaged to Sir Charles,” she said to all her friends. -“Papa won’t hear of it, but he will have to give in.” - -“Papas always give in when the young people hold out,” said some -injudicious sympathiser. - -“Don’t they?” cried Stella, giving a kiss to that lady. She was not in -the least discouraged. There was a great deal of gaiety going on at the -time, both in the village (as it was fashionable to call the town of -Sliplin) and in the county, and Stella met her Charlie everywhere, Mr. -Tredgold having no means, and perhaps no inclination, to put a stop to -this. He did not want to interfere with her pleasures. If she liked to -dance and “go on” with that fellow, let her. She should not marry him; -that was all. The old gentleman had no wish to be unkind to his -daughter. He desired her to have her fling like the rest, to enjoy -herself as much as was possible; only for this one thing he had put down -his foot. - -“When is that confounded regiment going away?” he asked Katherine. - -“Dear papa,” Katherine replied, “won’t you think it over again? Charlie -Somers has perhaps no money, but Stella is very fond of him, and he -of----” - -“Hold your tongue!” said old Tredgold. “Hold your confounded tongue! If -I don’t give in to her, do you think it”--with a dash--“likely that I -will to you?” - -Katherine retreated very quickly, for when her father began to swear she -was frightened. He did not swear in an ordinary way, and visions of -apoplexy were associated to her with oaths. Stella did not care. She -would have let him swear as long as he liked, and paid no attention. She -went to her parties almost every night, glittering in her _rivière_ of -diamonds and meeting Sir Charles everywhere. They had all the airs of an -engaged couple, people said. And it was thought quite natural, for -nobody believed that old Tredgold would stand out. Thus, no one gave him -any warning of what was going on. The whole island was in a conspiracy -on behalf of the lovers. Nor was it like any other abetting of domestic -insurrection, for the opinion was unanimous that the father would give -in. Why, Stella could do anything with him. Stella was his favourite, as -he had shown on every possible occasion. Everybody knew it, even -Katherine, who made no struggle against the fact. To think of his having -the strength of mind really to deny Stella anything! It was impossible. -He was playing with her a little now, only for the pleasure of being -coaxed and wheedled, many people thought. But when the time came, of -course he would give in. So Stella thought, like everybody else. There -was nobody but Katherine and, as I have said, Somers himself who did not -feel quite sure. As time went on, the two ladies who went to all the -parties and saw everything--the two old cats, Mrs. Shanks and Miss -Mildmay--had many consultations on the subject over the invisible rail -of separation between their gardens. It was a very bright October, and -even the beginning of the next dreary month was far milder than usual, -and in the mornings, when the sun shone, these ladies were still to be -found on their terraces, caressing the last remnants of their flowers, -and cutting the last chrysanthemums or dahlias. - -“Stella danced every dance last night with that Sir Charles,” Miss -Mildmay said. - -“But she always does, my dear; and why shouldn’t she, when she is going -to marry him?” - -There was really no answer to this, which was so well ascertained a -fact, and which everybody knew. - -“But I wonder if old Mr. Tredgold knows how much they are together! As -he never goes out himself, it is so easy to keep him deceived. I wonder, -Jane Shanks,” said Miss Mildmay, “whether you or I should say a word?” - -“You may say as many words as you please, Ruth Mildmay; but I shan’t,” -cried the other. “I would not interfere for the world.” - -“I am not the least afraid of interfering,” Miss Mildmay said; and she -succeeded in persuading her friend to go out in the midge once more, and -call at the Cliff, on an afternoon when the girls were known to be out -of the way. - -“We ought, I am sure, to congratulate you, Mr. Tredgold. We heard that -you did not approve, and, of course, it must be dreadful for you to -think of losing Stella; but as it is going on so long, we feel, at last, -that the engagement must be true.” - -“What engagement?” said the old man. He liked to amuse himself with the -two old cats. He put his newspaper away and prepared to “get his fun out -of them.” - -“Oh, the engagement between Stella and Sir Charles,” said Mrs. Shanks, -with bated breath. - -“Oh! they’re engaged, are they?” he said, with that laugh which was like -an electrical bell. - -“Dear Mr. Tredgold, it is given out everywhere. They are for ever -together. They dance every dance with one another.” - -“Confounded dull, I should think, for my little girl. You take my word, -she’ll soon tire of that,” he said. - -“Oh, but she does not tire of it; you don’t go out with them, you don’t -see things. I assure you they are always together. If you don’t approve -of it, Mr. Tredgold, indeed--indeed you should put a stop to it. It -isn’t kind to dear Stella.” - -“Oh, stop, stop, Ruth Mildmay!” cried Mrs. Shanks. “Stella knows very -well just how far she can go. Stella would never do anything that was -displeasing to her dear papa. May I pour out the tea for you, dear Mr. -Tredgold, as the girls are not in?” - -Mr. Tredgold gave the permission with a wave of his hand, and hoped that -Miss Mildmay would say just as much as she pleased. - -“I like to know what my girls do when they’re out,” he said. “I like to -know that Stella is enjoying herself. That’s what they go out for. Just -to get themselves as much pleasure as is to be had, in their own way.” - -“But you would not wish them to compromise themselves,” said Miss -Mildmay. “Oh, I wouldn’t interfere for the world. But as you don’t go -out with them you ought to be told. I do hope you approve of Sir -Charles, Mr. Tredgold. He is a nice young man enough. He has been a -little fast; but so have they all; and he is old enough now to have more -sense. I am sure he will make you a very good son-in-law. So long as you -approve----” - -“I approve of my little girl enjoying herself,” said the old man. “Bring -some more muffins, John; there’s plenty in the house, I hope. I know why -you won’t take that piece, Miss Mildmay, because it is the last in the -plate, and you think you will never be married.” He accompanied this -with a tremendous tinkle of a laugh, as if it were the greatest joke in -the world. - -Miss Mildmay waved her hand with dignity, putting aside the foolish -jest, and also putting aside the new dish of muffins, which that dignity -would not permit her to touch. - -“The question is,” she said, “not my marriage, which does not concern -you, Mr. Tredgold, but dear Stella’s, which does.” - -“Mr. Tredgold is so fond of his joke,” Mrs. Shanks said. - -“Yes, I’m fond of my joke, ain’t I? I’m a funny man. Many of the ladies -call me so. Lord! I like other people to have their fun too. Stella’s -welcome to hers, as long as she likes. She’s a kitten, she is; she goes -on playin’ and springin’ as long as anybody will fling a bit of string -at her. But she’s well in hand all the same. She knows, as you say, just -how far to go.” - -“Then she has your approval, we must all presume,” said Miss Mildmay, -rising from her chair, though Mrs. Shanks had not half finished her tea. - -“Oh, she’s free to have her fun,” Mr. Tredgold said. - -What did it mean, her fun? This question was fully discussed between -the two ladies in the midge. Marriage is no fun, if it comes to that, -they both agreed, and the phrase was very ambiguous; but still, no man -in his senses, even Mr. Tredgold, could allow his young daughter to make -herself so conspicuous if he did not mean to consent in the end. - -“I am very glad to hear, Stella, that it is all right about your -marriage,” Mrs. Shanks said next time she met the girls. “Your papa -would not say anything very definite; but still, he knows all about it, -and you are to take your own way, as he says.” - -“Did he say I was to have my own way?” said Stella, in a flush of -pleasure. - -“At least, he said the same thing. Yes, I am sure that was what he -meant. He was full of his jokes, don’t you know? But that must have been -what he meant; and I am sure I wish you joy with all my heart, Stella, -dear.” - -Stella went dancing home after this, though Katherine walked very -gravely by her side. - -“I knew papa would give in at last. I knew he never would stand against -me, when he knew I was in earnest this time,” she cried. - -“Do you think he would tell Mrs. Shanks, after sending off both of us, -and frightening me?” - -“You are so easily frightened,” cried Stella. “Yes, I shouldn’t wonder -at all if he told Mrs. Shanks. He likes the two old cats; he knows they -will go and publish it all over the place. He would think I should hear -just as soon as if he had told me, and so I have. I will run in and give -him a kiss, for he is a dear old soul, after all.” - -Stella did run in and gave her father a tumultuous kiss, and roused him -out of a nap. - -“Oh, papa, you dear, you old darling--you best papa in the world!” she -cried. - -Mr. Tredgold felt a little cross at first, but the kiss and the praises -were sweet to him. He put his arms round her as she stood over him. - -“What have I done now?” he said, with his tinkling laugh. - -“You have done just what I wanted most--what it was dearest of you to -do,” she cried. “Mrs. Shanks told me. You told her, of course, dear -papa, because you knew it would be published directly all over the -place.” - -“Oh, the two old cats!” he said, tinkling more than ever. “That’s what -they made of it, is it? I said you might have your fun, my dear. You are -free to have your fun as much as ever you like. That’s what I said, and -that’s what I shall say as long as you’re amusing yourself, Stella. You -can have your fling; I shan’t stop you. Enjoy yourself as long as you -can, if that’s what you like,” he said. - -“Oh, papa, what do you mean--what do you mean?” cried Stella. “Don’t you -mean, dear papa,” she continued, with renewed caresses, putting her arms -round his neck, pressing his bald head upon her breast, “that you’ll let -Charlie come--that he needn’t go to India, that we are to be married, -and that you’ll give us your blessing, and--and everything? That is what -you mean, isn’t it, dear papa?” - -“Don’t strangle me, child,” he said, coughing and laughing. “There’s -such a thing, don’t you know? as to be killed with kindness. I’ve told -you what I’ll do, my dear,” he continued. “I shall let you have your fun -as long as ever you like. You can dance with him down to the very ship’s -side, if you please. That won’t do any harm to me, but he don’t set a -foot in this house unless he’s ready to table pound for pound with me. -Where’s his shillin’s, by the way, Katie? He ought to have had his -shillin’s; he might have wanted them, poor man. Ah, don’t strangle me, I -tell you, Stella!” - -“I wish I could!” cried Stella, setting her little teeth. “You deserve -it, you old dreadful, dreadful----” - -“What is she saying, Kate? Never mind; it was swearing or something, I -suppose--all the fault of those old cats, not mine. I said she should -have her swing, and she can have her swing and welcome. That’s what she -wants, I suppose. You have always had your fun, Stella. You don’t know -what a thing it is to have your fun and nobody to oppose you. I never -had that in my life. I was always pulled up sharp. Get along now, I -want my nap before dinner; but mind, I have said all I’m going to say. -You can have your fun, and he can table down pound for pound with me, if -he has the money--otherwise, not another word. I may be a funny man,” -said Mr. Tredgold, “but when I put my foot down, none of you will get it -up again, that’s all I have got to say.” - -“You are a very hard, cruel, tyrannical father,” said Stella, “and you -never will have any love from anyone as long as you live!” - -“We’ll see about that,” he said, with a grimace, preparing to fling his -handkerchief over his head, which was his way when he went to sleep. - -“Oh, papa!--oh, dear papa! Of course I did not mean that. I want no -fling and no fun, but to settle down with Charlie, and to be always -ready when you want me as long as I live.” - -“You shall settle down with some man as I approve of, as can count down -his hundreds and his thousands on the table, Stella. That’s what you are -going to do.” - -“Papa, you never would be so cruel to me, your little Stella? I will -have no man if I have not Charlie--never, never, if he had all the money -in the world.” - -“Well, there’s no hurry; you’re only twenty,” he said, blinking at her -with sleepy eyes. “I don’t want to get rid of you. You may give yourself -several years to have your fun before you settle down.” - -Stella, standing behind her father’s bald and defenceless head, looked -for a minute or two like a pretty but dreadful demon, threatening him -with a raised fist and appalling looks. Suddenly, however, there came a -transformation scene--her arms slid round his neck once more; she put -her cheek against his bald head. “Papa,” she said, her voice faltering -between fury and the newly-conceived plan, which, in its way, was fun, -“you gave me a kind of an alternative once. You said, if I didn’t have -Charlie----” - -“Well?” said the old man, waking up, with a gleam of amusement in his -eyes. - -“I could have--you said it yourself--anything else I liked,” said -Stella, drooping over the back of his chair. Was she ashamed of herself, -or was she secretly overcome with something, either laughter or tears? - -“Stella,” cried Katharine, “do come away now and let papa rest.” The -elder sister’s face was full of alarm, but for what she was frightened -she could scarcely herself have said. - -“Let her get it out,” cried Mr. Tredgold. “Speak up, Stella, my little -girl; out with it, my pet. What would it like from its papa?” - -“You said I might have anything I liked--more diamonds, a lot of new -dresses----” - -“And so you shall,” he said, chuckling, till it was doubtful if he would -ever recover his breath. “That’s my little girl down to the -ground--that’s my pet! That’s the woman all over--just the woman I like! -You shall have all that--diamonds? Yes, if I’d to send out to wherever -they come from. And frocks? As many as you can set your face to. Give me -a kiss, Stella, and that’s a bargain, my dear.” - -“Very well, papa,” said Stella, with dignity, heaving a soft sigh. “You -will complete the parure, please; a handsome pendant, and a star for my -hair, and a bracelet--_but_ handsome, really good, fit for one of the -princesses.” - -“As good as they make ’em, Stella.” - -“And I must have them,” she said languidly, “for that ball that is going -to be given to the regiment before they go away. As for the dresses,” -she added, with more energy, “papa, I shall fleece you--I shall rob you! -I will order everything I take a fancy to--everything that is nice, -everything that is dear. I shall ruin you!” she cried, clapping her -hands together with a sound like a pistol-shot over his head. - -Through all this the tinkling of his laugh had run on. It burst out now -and had a little solo of its own, disturbed by a cough, while the girls -were silent and listened. “That’s the sort of thing,” he cried. “That’s -my Stella--that’s my pet! Ruin me! I can stand it. Have them as dear as -they’re made. I’ll write for the diamonds to-night; and you shall go to -the ball all shinin’ from head to foot, my Stella--that’s what you’ve -always been since you were born--my little star!” - -Then she pulled the handkerchief over his head, gave him a kiss through -it, and hurried away. - -“Oh, Stella, Stella!” cried Katherine under her breath. She repeated the -words when they had gone into their own room. Stella, flushed and -excited, had thrown herself upon the stool before the piano and began to -play wildly, with jars and crashes of sound. “Oh, Stella, how dared you -do such a thing? How dared you barter away your love, for he is your -love, for diamonds and frocks? Oh, Stella, you are behaving very, very -badly. I am not fond of Charles Somers; but surely, if you care for him -at all, he is worth more than that. And how dared you--how dared you -sell him--to papa?” - -But Stella said never a word. She went on playing wild chords and making -crashes of dreadful sound, which, to Katherine, who was more or less a -musician, were beyond bearing. She seized her sister’s arm after a -moment and stopped her almost violently. “Stop that, stop that, and -answer me!” she cried. - -“Don’t you like my music, Kate? It was all out of my own head--what you -call improvising. I thought you would like me to go to the piano for -comfort. So it is an ease to one’s mind--it lets the steam off,” cried -Stella with a last crash, louder and more discordant than the others. -Then she abandoned the piano and threw herself down in a chair. - -“Wasn’t that a funny talk I had with papa? You may tell Charlie, if you -like, it will amuse him so. They would all think it the most glorious. I -shall tell it to everybody when I am on the----” - -Here Stella stopped, and gave her sister a half-inquiring, -half-malicious look, but found no response in Katherine’s grieved eyes. - -“I don’t know what you mean, Stella,” she said. “If you mean what papa -thinks, it is the most odious, humiliating bargain; if you mean -something else, it is--but I can’t say what it is, for I don’t know what -you mean. You are going to be a traitor one way or else another, either -to Charlie or to papa. I don’t know which is worse, to break that man’s -heart (for he is fond of you) by throwing him over at the last moment, -or to steal papa’s money and break his heart too.” - -“You needn’t trouble yourself so much about people’s hearts, Kate. How -do you know that Charlie would have me if he thought papa wouldn’t give -in? And, as for papa’s heart, he would only have to give in, and then -all would be right. It isn’t such a complicated matter as you think. You -are so fond of making out that things are complicated. I think them -quite simple. Papa has just to make up his mind which he likes best, me -or his money. He thinks he likes his money best. Well, perhaps later he -will find he doesn’t, and then he has only got to change. Where’s the -difficulty? As for me, you must just weave webs about me as long as you -please. I am not complicated--not a bit. I shall do what I like best. I -am not sure even now which I like best, but I shall know when the time -comes. And in the meantime I am laying up all the best evidence to judge -from. I shall send Stevens up to town for patterns to-morrow. I shall -get the very richest and the very dearest things that Madame has or can -get. Oh,” cried the girl, clapping her hands with true enjoyment, “what -fun it will be!” - - - - -CHAPTER XVI. - - -Everything now began to converge towards the great ball which was to be -given in Sliplin to the regiment before it went off to India. It was in -its little way something like that great Brussels ball which came before -Waterloo. They were to embark next morning, these heroic soldiers. If -they were not going to fight, they were at least going to dare the -dangers of the deep in a troop-ship, which is not comfortable; and they -were fully impressed with their own importance as the heroes of the -moment. Lady Jane was at the head of the undertaking, along with certain -other magnates of the neighbourhood. Without them I doubt whether the -Sliplin people proper would have felt it necessary to give the Chestnuts -a ball; the officers had never been keen about the village parties. They -had gone to the Cliff, where everything smelt of gold, but they had not -cared for those little entertainments--for lawn tennis in the summer and -other mild dissipations at which their presence would have been an -excitement and delight. So that the good people in Sliplin had looked -rather coldly upon the suggestion at first. When it was settled, -however, and the greatness of the event was realised, the Sliplin people -warmed up into interest. A ball is a ball, however it is brought about. - -Mr. Tredgold subscribed liberally, and so of course Stella and Katherine -had been “in it” from the very first. They took the greatest interest in -the decorations, running up and down to the great hall in which it was -to be held, and superintending everything. Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay -also looked in a great many times in a day, and so did many other of the -Sliplin ladies, moved at last to “take an interest” when it was no -longer possible that it should cost them anything. - -“I hear they have plenty of money for everything--too much indeed--so it -is just as well that we did not come forward. If we had come forward I -don’t know what the lists would have risen to. As it is, I hear there is -almost too much. Mr. Tredgold insists upon champagne--oceans of -champagne. I am sure I hope that the young men will behave properly. I -don’t approve of such rivers of wine. If they are fond of dancing, -surely they can enjoy their dancing without that.” - -This is a very general opinion among the ladies of country towns, and -gives a fine disinterested aspect to the pursuit of dancing for its own -sake; but no doubt the Chestnuts liked it better when there were oceans -of champagne. - -It had been known all along in the place that Stella Tredgold meant to -surpass herself on this occasion, which was a matter calling forth much -astonishment and speculation among her friends. It was also known, more -or less, that Sir Charles Somers had made his proposals to her father -and had been refused. All his own friends were well aware of the fact, -and it was not to be supposed that it should be a secret at Sliplin. Sir -Charles had been refused by Mr. Tredgold because he had no money, not by -Stella, who was very much in love with him, everybody said, as he was -with her. It was enough to see them together to be convinced of that. -And yet she meant to be the gayest of the gay at the ball on the eve of -parting with him! Some of the girls expected and hoped that evidences of -a broken heart would be visible even under the lovely white dress and -wonderful diamonds in which she was understood to be going to appear. So -ridiculous for a girl of her age to wear diamonds, the elder ladies -said; and they did not think there would be any evidences of a broken -heart. “She has no heart, that little thing; Lord Uffington will be -there, and she will go in for him, now that Sir Charles has failed.” It -must be admitted it was strange that she should show so much delight in -this ball and proclaim her intention of being dressed more gorgeously -than she had ever been in her life on the eve of parting with her -lover. Was it to leave such an impression on his mind that he never -should forget her? was it to show she didn’t care? But nobody could -tell. Stella had always been an odd girl, they said, though indeed I do -not think that this was true. - -She was very much occupied on the day of the ball, still looking after -these decorations, and even made a dash across the country in her own -little brougham in the morning to get one particular kind of white -chrysanthemum which only grew in a cottage garden in the middle of the -island. She returned from this wild expedition about noon with the -brougham filled with the flowers, and a great air of triumph and -excitement. “Wasn’t it clever of me?” she cried. “I just remembered. We -saw them, don’t you recollect, Kate? the last time we were out that way. -They were just the things that were wanted for the head of the room. I -flew to the stables and called Andrews, and we were there--oh, I can’t -tell you how soon.” - -“Nice thing for my horse,” said Mr. Tredgold. “He’s a young devil, that -Andrews boy. I shall give him the sack if he doesn’t mind.” - -“It is my horse,” said Stella; “the brougham’s mine, and the boy’s mine. -You forget what you said, papa.” - -“There never was an extortioner like this little----” said Mr. Tredgold, -chuckling; “drives her horse to death and then feeds him with -sugar--just like women--it’s what they all do.” - -“I think,” said Katherine, “you might have found some chrysanthemums -nearer home.” - -“But you see I didn’t,” said Stella, with her usual impatience, breaking -into song and tossing her shining head as she walked away. - -“Doesn’t make much of the parting, and that fellow off to India, does -she?” said her father. “I knew how it would be; I never believe in a -girl’s swagger, bless you. She’s very fond of one man till she sees -another. You’ll find my lord will make all the running to-night.” - -“And if Lord Uffington should propose for Stella,” said Katherine with -her grave air, “which I don’t think very likely, but, still, from your -point of view, papa, would you insist upon the same test with my -lord--as you call him--pound for pound on the table as you say, and that -sort of thing?” - -“Certainly I should--if he was a Royal Dook,” Mr. Tredgold said. - -“Then it is a pity,” said Katherine; but she said no more, nor would any -question bring forth the end of her sentence. She went out and took a -walk along the cliff, where there was that beautiful view. It was a very -fine day, one of those matchless days of early winter which are perhaps -the most beautiful of English weather. The sun was blazing, calling -forth the dazzling whiteness of that sharp cliff which was the furthest -point to the east, and lighting every wave as with the many coloured -facets of a diamond. There were one or two boats out, lying in the -light, or moving softly with the slight breeze, which was no more than a -little movement in the celestial air--as if suspended between earth and -heaven. And to think it was November, that grim month in which -everything is dismal! I don’t think Katherine was thinking very much -about the view, but she was soothed by it in the multitude of her -thoughts. - -She was out there again very late, between one and two in the morning, -after the ball. Stella had wanted to leave early, and would fain have -escaped before her sister. But Katherine balked her in this, without -having any particular reason for it. She felt only that when Stella went -away she must go too, and that though she had seemed so indifferent -there was now a great deal of excitement in Stella’s gaiety, which was -so unrestrained. They went off accordingly, leaving a crowd of -disappointed partners shouting complaints and good-nights after them. -When they entered the drive, where a sleepy woman came forth from the -lodge to let them in, Katherine noticed a dark figure which stole in -with the carriage. - -“Who is that?” she said. - -“Oh, Katie, Katie dear, don’t say anything!” cried Stella, putting a -hand upon her mouth. “It is Charlie come to say good-bye. I must say one -little word to him before he goes; do you think that I am made of -stone?” - -“Oh, no, no!” cried Katherine. “I have been wondering--I thought you had -got over--I didn’t know what to think.” - -“I shall never get over it,” said Stella, vehemently. She was crying -with her head against her sister’s shoulder. “Oh, Kate, don’t be hard -upon me, or say anything! I must--I must have one little half hour with -Charlie before he goes away.” - -“Indeed--indeed, I shall not say anything! I do feel for you, Stella. I -am sorry for him. But, oh, don’t stay long, dear, it will only prolong -the trouble. And it is so late, and people might say----” - -“How could people say if they didn’t know? And, Katie,” cried her -sister, “if you stay here to watch over us, while I bid him--I mean talk -to him yonder--what could anyone say? Won’t it be enough to quench every -evil tongue if you are there?” - -“I suppose it will,” said Katherine dubiously. - -She got down very dubiously from the brougham, from which Stella had -sprung like an arrow. And Andrews, who drove the warm little carriage -which was Stella’s, as he was more or less Stella’s man, turned -immediately and drove away, no doubt to relieve the gatekeeper, who was -waiting to close up after him. A sleepy footman had opened the door, and -stood waiting while Katherine, in her white cloak, lingered in the -porch. The fire was still burning in the hall, and the lamp bright. -Katherine told the man to go to bed, and that she would herself fasten -the door, and then she turned to the glory of the night, and the lawn, -and all the shrubberies, looking like frosted silver in the moonlight. -Stella had disappeared somewhere among the shadows with her lover. -Katherine heard a faint sound of steps, and thought she could perceive -still a gleam of whiteness among the trees. She stepped out herself upon -the walk. It sounded a little crisp under her foot, for there was frost -in the air. The moon was glorious, filling earth and heaven with light, -and flinging the blackest shadows into all the corners. And the -stillness was such that the dropping of one of those last yellow leaves -slowly down through the air was like an event. She was warmly wrapped up -in her fur cloak, and, though the hour was eerie, the night was -beautiful, and the house with its open door, and the glow of the red -fire, and the light of the lamp, gave protection and fellowship. All the -rare trees, though sufficiently hardy to bear it, had shrunk a little -before that pennyworth of frost, though it was really nothing, not -enough to bind the moisture in a little hollow of the path, which -Katherine had to avoid as she walked up and down in her satin shoes. -After a while she heard the little click of the door at the foot of the -steep path which led to the beach, and concluded that Stella had let her -lover out that way, and would soon join her. But Katherine was in no -hurry; she was not cold, and she had never been out, she thought, in so -lovely a night. It carried her away to many thoughts; I will not venture -to allege that James Stanford was not one of them. It would have been -strange if she had not thought of him in these circumstances. She had -never had the chance of saying farewell to him; he had been quenched at -once by her father, and he had not had the spirit to come back, which, -she supposed, Sir Charles had. He had disappeared and made no sign. -Stella was more lucky than she was in every way. Poor Stella! who must -just have gone through one of the most terrible of separations! -“Partings that press the life from out young hearts!” Who was it that -said that? But still it must be better to have the parting than that he -should disappear like a shadow without a word, and be no more seen or -heard of--as if he were dead. And perhaps he was dead, for anything she -knew. - -But, what a long time Stella was coming back! If she had let him out at -that door, she surely should have found her way up the cliff before now. -Katherine turned in that direction, and stood still at the top of the -path and listened, but could hear nothing. Perhaps she had been mistaken -about the click of the door. It was very dark in that deep shadow--too -dark to penetrate into the gloom by herself without a lantern, -especially as, after all, she was not quite sure that Stella had gone -that way. She must at least wait a little longer before making any -search which might betray her sister. She turned back again, -accordingly, along the round of the broad cliff with its feathering edge -of tamarisks. Oh, what a wonderful world of light and stillness! The -white cliff to the east shone and flamed in the moonlight; it was like a -tall ghost between the blue sea and the blue sky, both of them so -indescribably blue--the little ripple breaking the monotony of one, the -hosts of stars half veiled in the superior radiance of the moon -diversifying the other. She had never been out on such a beautiful -night. It was a thing to remember. She felt that she should never forget -(though she certainly was not fond of him at all) the night of Charlie -Somers’s departure--the night of the ball, which had been the finest -Sliplin had ever known. - -As Katherine moved along she heard in the distance, beginning to make a -little roll of sound, the carriages of the people going away. She must -have been quite a long time there when she perceived this; the red fire -in the hall was only a speck now. A little anxious, she went back again -to the head of the path. She even ventured a few steps down into the -profound blackness. “Stella!” she cried in a low voice, “Stella!” Then -she added, still in a kind of whisper, “Come back, oh, come back; it is -getting so late.” - -But she got no reply. There were various little rustlings, and one sound -as of a branch that crushed under a step, but no step was audible. Could -they be too engrossed to hear her, or was Stella angry or miserable, -declining to answer? Katherine, in great distress, threaded her way back -among the trees that seemed to get in her way and take pleasure in -striking against her, as if they thought her false to her sister. She -was not false to Stella, she declared to herself indignantly; but this -was too long--she should not have stayed so long. Katherine began to -feel cold, with a chill that was not of the night. And then there -sounded into the clear shining air the stroke of the hour. She had -never heard it so loud before. She felt that it must wake all the house, -and bring every one out to see if the girls had not come back. It would -wake papa, who was not a very good sleeper, and betray everything. -Three! “Stella, Stella! oh, for goodness’ sake, don’t stay any longer!” -cried Katherine, making a sort of funnel of her two hands, and sending -her voice down into the dark. - -After all, she said to herself, presently, three was not late for a -ball. The rest of the people were only beginning to go away. And a -parting which might be for ever! “It may be for years, and it may be for -ever.” The song came into her mind and breathed itself all about her, as -a song has a way of doing. Poor things, poor young things! and perhaps -they might never see each other again. “Partings that press the life -from out young hearts.” Katherine turned with a sigh and made a little -round of the cliff again, without thinking of the view. And then she -turned suddenly to go back, and looked out upon the wonderful round of -the sea and sky. - -There was something new in it now, something that had not been there -before--a tall white sail, like something glorified, like an angel with -one foot on the surface of the waves, and one high white wing uplifted. -She stood still with a sort of breathless admiration and rapture. Sea -and sky had been wonderful before, but they had wanted just that--the -white softly moving sail, the faint line of the boat. Where was it she -had seen just that before, suddenly coming into sight while she was -watching? It was when the _Stella_, when Stella--good heavens!--the -_Stella_, and Stella---- - -Katherine uttered a great cry, and ran wildly towards the house. And -then she stopped herself and went back to the cliff and gazed again. It -might only be a fishing-boat made into a wonderful thing by the -moonlight. When she looked again it had already made a great advance in -the direction of the white cliff, to the east; it was crossing the bay, -gliding very smoothly on the soft waves. The _Stella_--could it be the -_Stella_?--and where was her sister? She gathered up her long white -dress more securely and plunged down the dark path towards the beach. -The door was locked, there was not a sound anywhere. - -“Stella!” she cried, louder than ever. “Stella! where are you?” but -nobody heard, not even in the sleeping house, where surely there must be -some one waking who could help her. This made her remember that Stevens, -the maid, must be waking, or at least not in bed. She hurried in, past -the dying fire in the hall, and up the silent stairs, the sleeping house -so still that the creak of a plank under her feet sounded like a shriek. -But there was no Stevens to be found, neither in the young ladies’ rooms -where she should have been, nor in her own; everything was very tidy, -there was not a brush nor a pocket-handkerchief out of place, and the -trim, white bed was not even prepared for any inhabitant. It was as if -it were a bed of death. - -Then Katherine bethought her to go again to the gardener’s wife in the -lodge, who had a lantern. She had been woke up before, perhaps it was -less harm to wake her up again (this was not logical, but Katherine was -above logic). Finally, the woman was roused, and her husband along with -her, and the lantern lighted, and the three made a circle of the -shrubberies. There was nothing to be found there. The man declared that -the door was not only locked but jammed, so that it would be very hard -to open it, and he unhesitatingly swore that it was the _Stella_ which -was now gliding round beyond the Bunbridge cliffs. - -“How do you know it is the _Stella_? It might be any yacht,” cried -Katherine. - -The man did not condescend to make any explanation. “I just knows it,” -he said. - -It was proved presently by this messenger, despatched in haste to -ascertain, that the _Stella_ was gone from the pier, and there was -nothing more to be said. - -The sight of these three, hunting in every corner, filling the grounds -with floating gleams of light, and voices and steps no longer subdued, -while the house lay open full of sleep, the lamp burning in the hall but -nobody stirring, was a strange sight. At length there was a sound heard -in the silent place. A window was thrown open, a night-capped head was -thrust into the air. - -“What the deuce is all this row about?” cried the voice of Mr. Tredgold. -“Who’s there? Look out for yourselves, whoever you are; I’m not going to -have strangers in my garden at this hour of the night.” - -And the old man, startled, put a climax to the confusion by firing -wildly into space. The gardener’s wife gave a shriek and fell, and the -house suddenly woke up, with candles moving from window to window, and -men and women calling out in different tones of fury and affright, “Who -is there? Who is there?” - - - - -CHAPTER XVII. - - -Not only Sliplin, but the entire island was in commotion next day. -Stella Tredgold had disappeared in the night, in her ball dress, which -was the most startling detail, and seized the imagination of the -community as nothing else could have done. Those of them who had seen -her, so ridiculously over-dressed for a girl of her age, sparkling with -diamonds from head to foot, as some of these spectators said, -represented to themselves with the dismayed delight of excitement that -gleaming figure in the white satin dress which many people had remarked -was like a wedding dress, the official apparel of a bride. In this -wonderful garb she had stolen away down the dark private path from the -Cliff to the beach, and got round somehow over the sands and rocks to -the little harbour; and, while her sister was waiting for her on the -cold cliff in the moonlight, had put out to sea and fled away--Stella -the girl, and _Stella_ the yacht, no one knew where. Was it her wedding -dress, indeed? or had she, the misguided, foolish creature, flung -herself into Charlie Somers’s life without any safeguard, trusting to -the honour of a man like that, who was a profligate and without honour, -as everybody knew. - -No one, however, except the most pessimistic--who always exist in every -society, and think the worst, and alas! prove in so many cases right, -because they always think the worst--believed in this. Indeed, it would -be only right to say that nobody believed Stella to have run away to -shame. There was a conviction in the general mind that a marriage -licence, if not a marriage certificate, had certainly formed part of her -baggage; and nobody expected that her father would be able to drag her -back “by the hair of her head,” as it was believed the furious old man -intended to do. Mr. Tredgold’s fury passed all bounds, it was -universally said. He had discharged a gun into the group on the lawn, -who were searching for Stella in the shrubberies (_most_ absurd of -them!), and wounded, it was said, the gardener’s wife, who kept the -lodge, and who had taken to her bed and made the worst of it, as such a -person would naturally do. And then he had stood at the open window in -his dressing-gown, shouting orders to the people as they -appeared--always under the idea that burglars had got into the grounds. - -“Have the girls come back? Is Stella asleep? Don’t let them disturb my -little Stella! Don’t let them frighten my pet,” he had cried, while all -the servants ran and bobbed about with lanterns and naked candles, -flaring and blowing out, and not knowing what they were looking for. A -hundred details were given of this scene, which no outsider had -witnessed, which the persons involved were not conscious of, but which -were nevertheless true. Even what Katherine said to her father crept out -somehow, though certainly neither he nor she reported the details of -that curious scene. - -When she had a little organised the helpless body of servants and told -them as far as she could think what to do--which was for half of them at -least to go back to bed and keep quiet; when she had sent a man she -could trust to make inquiries about the _Stella_ at the pier, and -another to fetch a doctor for the woman who considered herself to be -dying, though she was, in fact, not hurt at all, and who made a -diversion for which Katherine was thankful, she went indoors with Mrs. -Simmons, the housekeeper, who was a person of some sense and not -helpless in an emergency as the others were. And Mrs. Simmons had really -something to tell. She informed Katherine as they went in together -through the cold house, where the candles they carried made faintly -visible the confusion of rooms abandoned for the night, with the ashes -of last night’s fires in the grate, and last night’s occupations in -every chair carelessly pushed aside, and table heaped with newspapers -and trifles, that she had been misdoubting as something was up with -Stevens at least. Stevens was the point at which the story revealed -itself to Mrs. Simmons. She had been holding her head very high, the -little minx. She had been going on errands and carrying letters as -nobody knew where they were to; and yesterday was that grand she -couldn’t contain herself, laughing and smiling to herself and dressed up -in her very best. She had gone out quite early after breakfast on the -day of the ball to get some bit of ribbon she wanted, but never came -back till past twelve, when she came in the brougham with Miss Stella, -and laughing so with her mistress in her room (you were out, Miss -Katherine) as it wasn’t right for a maid to be carrying on like that. -And out again as soon as you young ladies was gone to the ball, and -never come back, not so far as Mrs. Simmons knew. “Oh, I’ve misdoubted -as there was something going on,” the housekeeper said. Katherine, who -was shivering in the dreadful chill of the house in the dead of night, -in the confusion of this sudden trouble, was too much depressed and sick -at heart to ask why she had not been told of these suspicions. And then -her father’s voice calling to her was audible coming down the stairs. He -stood at the head of the staircase, a strange figure in his -dressing-gown and night-cap, with a candle held up in one hand and his -old gun embraced in the other arm. - -“Who’s there?” he cried, staring down in the darkness. “Who’s there? -Have you got ’em?--have you got ’em? Damn the fellows, and you too, for -keeping me waitin’!” He was foaming at the mouth, or at least sending -forth jets of moisture in his excitement. Then he gave vent to a sort of -broken shout--“Kath-i-rine!” astonishment and sudden terror driving him -out of familiarity into her formal name. - -“Yes, papa, I am coming. Go back to your room. I will tell you -everything--or, at least, all I know.” She was vaguely thankful in her -heart that the doctor would be there, that there would be some one to -fall back upon if it made him ill. Katherine seemed by this time to have -all feeling deadened in her. If she could only have gone to her own room -and lain down and forgotten everything, above all, that Stella was not -there breathing softly within the ever-open door between! She stopped a -moment, in spite of herself, at the window on the landing which looked -out upon the sea, and there, just rounding the white cliff, was that -moving speck of whiteness sharing in the intense illumination of the -moonlight, which even as she looked disappeared, going out of sight in a -minute as if it had been a cloud or a dream. - -“Have they got ’em, Katie? and what were you doing there at this time of -night, out on the lawn in your---- George!” cried the old man--“in your -ball finery? Have you just come back? Why, it’s near five in the -morning. What’s the meaning of all this? Is Stella in her bed safe? And -what in the name of wonder are you doing here?” - -“Papa,” said Katherine in sheer disability to enter on the real subject, -“you have shot the woman.” - -“Damn the woman!” he cried. - -“And there were no burglars,” she said with a sob. The cold, moral and -physical, had got into her very soul. She drew her fur cloak more -closely about her, but it seemed to give no warmth, and then she dropped -upon her knees by the cold fireplace, in which, as in all the rest, -there was nothing but the ashes of last night’s fire. Mr. Tredgold stood -leaning on the mantel-piece, and he was cold too. He bade her tell him -in a moment what was the matter, and what she had been doing out of the -house at this hour of the night--with a tremulous roar. - -“Papa! oh, how can I tell you! It is Stella--Stella----” - -“What!” he cried. “Stella ill? Stella ill? Send for the doctor. Call up -Simmons. What is the matter with the child? Is it anything bad that you -look so distracted? Good Lord--my Stella!” - -“Oh, have patience, sir,” said Mrs. Simmons, coming in with wood to make -a fire; “there’ll be news of her by the morning--sure there’ll be news -by the morning. Miss Katherine have done everything. And the sea is just -like a mill-pond, and her own gentlemen to see to her----” - -“The sea?” cried the old man. “What has the sea to do with my Stella?” -He aimed a clumsy blow at the housekeeper, kneeling in front of the -fire, with the butt end of the gun he still had in his hand, in his -unreflecting rage. “You old hag! what do you know about my Stella?” he -cried. - -Mrs. Simmons did not feel the blow which Katherine diverted, but she was -wounded by the name, and rose up with dignity, though not before she had -made a cheerful blaze. “I meant to have brought you some tea, Miss -Katherine, but if Master is going on with his abuse---- He did ought to -think a little bit of _you_ as are far more faithful. What do I -know--more than that innocent lamb does of all their goings on?” - -“Katie,” cried Mr. Tredgold, “put that wretched woman out by the -shoulders. And why don’t you go to your sister? Doesn’t Stella go before -everything? Have you sent for the doctor? Where’s the doctor? And can’t -you tell me what is the matter with my child?” - -“If I’m a wretched woman,” cried Mrs. Simmons, “I ain’t fit to be at the -head of your servants, Mr. Tredgold; and I’m quite willing to go this -day month, sir, for it’s a hard place, though very likely better now -Miss Stella’s gone. As for Miss Stella, sir, it’s no doctor, but maybe a -clergyman as she is wanting; for she is off with her gentleman as sure -as I am standing here.” - -Mr. Tredgold gave an inarticulate cry, and felt vaguely for the gun -which was still within his arm; but he missed hold of it and it fell on -the floor, where the loaded barrel went off, scattering small shot into -all the corners. Mrs. Simmons flew from the room with a conviction, -which never left her, that she had been shot at, to meet the trembling -household flocking from all quarters to know the meaning of this second -report. Katherine, whose nerves were nearly as much shaken as those of -Mrs. Simmons, and who could not shut out from her mind the sensation -that some one must have been killed, shut the door quickly, she hardly -knew why; and then she came back to her father, who was lying back very -pale, and looking as if he were the person wounded, on the cushions of -his great chair. - -“What--what--does she mean?” he half said, half looked. “Is--is--it -true?” - -“Oh, papa!” cried Katherine, kneeling before him, trying to take his -hand. “I am afraid, I am afraid----” - -He pushed her off furiously. “You--afraid!” Impossible to describe the -scorn with which he repeated this word. “Is it--is it true?” - -Katherine could make no reply, and he wanted none, for thereupon he -burst into a roar of oaths and curses which beat down on her head like a -hailstorm. She had never heard the like before, nor anything in the -least resembling it. She tried to grasp at his hands, which he dashed -into the air in his fury, right and left. She called out his name, -pulled at his arm in the same vain effort. Then she sprang to her feet, -crying out that she could not bear it--that it was a horror and a shame. -Katherine’s cloak fell from her; she stood, a vision of white, with her -uncovered shoulders and arms, confronting the old man, who, with his -face distorted like that of a demoniac, sat volleying forth curses and -imprecations. Katherine had never been so splendidly adorned as Stella, -but a much smaller matter will make a girl look wonderful in all her -whiteness shining, in the middle of the gloom against the background of -heavy curtains and furniture, at such a moment of excitement and dismay. -It startled the doctor as he came in, as with the effect of a scene in a -play. And indeed he had a totally different impression of Katherine, who -had always been kept a little in the shade of the brightness of Stella, -from that day. - -“Well,” he said, coming in, energetic but calm, into the midst of all -this agitation, with a breath of healthful freshness out of the night, -“what is the matter here? I have seen the woman, Miss Katherine, and she -is really not hurt at all. If it had touched her eyes, though, it might -have been bad enough. Hullo! the gun again--gone off of itself this -time, eh? I hope you are not hurt--nor your father.” - -“We are in great trouble,” said Katherine. “Papa has been very much -excited. Oh, I am so glad--so glad you have come, doctor! Papa----” - -“Eh? what’s the matter? Come, Mr. Tredgold, you must get into bed--not a -burglar about, I assure you, and the man on the alert. What do you say? -Oh, come, come, my friend, you mustn’t swear.” - -To think he should treat as a jest that torrent of oaths that had made -Katherine tremble and shrink more than anything else that had happened! -It brought her, like a sharp prick, back to herself. - -“Don’t speak to me, d---- you,” cried the old man. “D---- you -all--d----” - -“Yes,” said the doctor, “cursed be the whole concern, I know--and a -great relief to your mind, I shouldn’t wonder. But now there’s been -enough of that and you must get to bed.” - -He made Katherine a sign to go away, and she was thankful beyond -expression to do so, escaping into her own room, where there was a fire, -and where the head housemaid, very serious, waited to help her to -undress--“As Stevens, you are aware, Miss Katherine, ’as gone away.” The -door of the other room was open, the gleam of firelight visible within. -Oh, was it possible--was it possible that Stella was not there, that she -was gone away without a sign, out on the breadths of the moonlit sea, -from whence she might never come again? Katherine had not realised this -part of the catastrophe till now. “I think I can manage by myself, -Thompson,” she said faintly; “don’t let me keep you out of bed.” - -“Oh, there’s no question of bed now for us, Miss,” said Thompson with -emphasis; “it’s only an hour or two earlier than usual, that’s all. -We’ll get the more forwarder with our work--if any one can work, with -messengers coming and going, and news arriving, and all this trouble -about Miss Stella. I’m sure, for one, I couldn’t close my eyes.” - -Katherine vaguely wondered within herself if she were of more common -clay than Thompson, as she had always been supposed to be of more common -clay than her sister; for she felt that she would be very glad to close -her eyes and forget for a moment all this trouble. She said in a faint -voice, “We do not know anything about Miss Stella, Thompson, as yet. -She may have gone--up to Steephill with Lady Jane.” - -“Oh, I know, Miss, very well where she’s gone. She’s gone to that big -ship as sails to-morrow with all the soldiers. How she could do it, -along of all those men, I can’t think. I’m sure I couldn’t do it,” cried -Thompson. “Oh, I had my doubts what all them notes and messages was -coming to, and Stevens that proud she wouldn’t speak a word to nobody. -Well, I always thought as Stevens was your maid, Miss Katherine, as -you’re the eldest; but I don’t believe she have done a thing for you.” - -“Oh, she has done all I wanted. I don’t like very much attendance. Now -that you have undone these laces, you may go. Thank you very much, -Thompson, but I really do not want anything more.” - -“I’ll go and get you some tea, Miss Katherine,” the woman said. Another -came to the door before she had been gone a minute. They were all most -eager to serve the remaining daughter of the house, and try to pick up a -scrap of news, or to state their own views at the same time. This one -put in her head at the door and said in a hoarse confidential whisper, -“Andrews could tell more about it than most, Miss, if you’d get hold of -him.” - -“Andrews!” said Katherine. - -“He always said he was Miss Stella’s man, and he’s drove her a many -places--oh, a many places--as you never knowed of. You just ast him -where he took her yesterday mornin’, Miss?” - -At this point Thompson came back, and drove the other skurrying away. - -When Katherine went back, in the warm dressing-gown which was so -comfortable, wrapping her round like a friend, to her father’s room, she -found the old man in bed, very white and tremulous after his passion, -but quiet, though his lips still moved and his cruel little red eyes -shone. Katherine had never known before that they were cruel eyes, but -the impression came upon her now with a force that made her shiver; -they were like the eyes of a wild creature, small and impotent, which -would fain have killed but could not--with a red glare in them, -unwinking, fixed, full of malice and fury. The doctor explained to her, -standing by the fireplace, what he had done; while Katherine, listening, -saw across the room those fiery small eyes watching the conversation as -if they could read what it was in her face. She could not take her own -eyes away, nor refuse to be investigated by that virulent look. - -“I have given him a strong composing draught. He’ll go to sleep -presently, and the longer he sleeps the better. He has got his man with -him, which is the best thing for him; and now about you, Miss -Katherine.” He took her hand with that easy familiarity of the medical -man which his science authorises, and in which there is often as much -kindness as science. “What am I to do for you?” - -“Oh, nothing, doctor, unless you can suggest something. Oh, doctor, it -is of no use trying to conceal it from you--my sister is gone!” She -melted suddenly, not expecting them at all, thinking herself incapable -of them--into tears. - -“I know, I know,” he said. “It is a great shock for you, it is very -painful; but if, as I hear, he was violently against the marriage, and -she was violently determined on it, was not something of the kind to be -expected? You know your sister was very much accustomed to her own way.” - -“Oh, doctor, how can you say that!--as if you took it for granted--as if -it was not the most terrible thing that could happen! Eloped, only -imagine it! Stella! in her ball dress, and with that man!” - -“I hope there is nothing very bad about the man,” said the doctor with -hesitation. - -“And how are we to get her back? The ship sails to-morrow. If she is -once carried away in the ship, she will never, never---- Oh, doctor, can -I go? who can go? What can we do? Do tell me something, or I will go out -of my senses,” she cried. - -“Is there another room where we can talk? I think he is going to sleep,” -said the doctor. - -Katherine, in her distress, had got beyond the power of the terrible -eyes on the bed, which still gleamed, but fitfully. Her father did not -notice her as she went out of the room. And by this time the whole house -was astir--fires lighted in all the rooms--to relieve the minds of the -servants, it is to be supposed, for nobody knew why. The tray that had -been carried to her room was brought downstairs, and there by the -perturbed fire of a winter morning, burning with preternatural vigilance -and activity as if eager to find out what caused it, she poured out the -hot tea for the doctor, and he ate bread and butter with the most -wholesome and hearty appetite--which was again a very curious scene. - -The Tredgolds were curiously without friends. There was no uncle, no -intimate to refer to, who might come and take the lead in such an -emergency. Unless Katherine could have conducted such inquiries herself, -or sent a servant, there was no one nearer than the doctor, or perhaps -the vicar, who had always been so friendly. He and she decided between -them that the doctor should go off at once, or at least as soon as there -was a train to take him, to the great ship which was to embark the -regiment early that morning, to discover whether Sir Charles Somers was -there; while the vicar, whom he could see and inform in the meantime, -should investigate the matter at home and at Steephill. The gardener, a -trustworthy man, had, as soon as his wife was seen to be “out of -danger,” as they preferred to phrase it--“scarcely hurt at all,” as the -doctor said--been sent off to trace the _Stella_, driving in a dog-cart -to Bunbridge, which was the nearest port she was likely to put in at. By -noon the doctor thought they would certainly have ascertained among them -all that was likely to be ascertained. He tried to comfort Katherine’s -mind by an assurance that no doubt there would be a marriage, that -Somers, though he had not a good character, would never--but stopped -with a kind of awe, perceiving that Katherine had no suspicion of the -possibility of any other ending, and condemning himself violently as a -fool for putting any such thought into her head; but he had not put any -such thought in her head, which was incapable of it. She had no -conception of anything that could be worse than the elopement. He -hastened to take refuge in something she did understand. “All this on -one condition,” he said, “that you go to bed and try to sleep. I will do -nothing unless you promise this, and you can do nothing for your sister. -There is nothing to be done; gazing out over the sea won’t bring the -yacht back. You must promise me that you will try to go to sleep. You -will if you try.” - -“Oh, yes, I will go to sleep,” Katharine said. She reflected again that -she was of commoner clay than Thompson, who could not have closed an -eye. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII. - - -It proved not at all difficult to find out everything, or almost -everything, about the runaway pair. The doctor’s mission, though it -seemed likely to be the most important of all, did not produce very -much. In the bustle of the embarkation he had found it difficult to get -any information at all, but eventually he had found Captain Scott, whom -he had attended during his illness, and whom he now sent peremptorily -down below out of the cold. “If that’s your duty, you must not do it, -that’s all,” he had said with the decision of a medical man, though -whether he had secured his point or not, Katherine, ungratefully -indifferent to Algy, did not ascertain. But he found that Sir Charles -Somers had got leave and was going out with a P. and O. from Brindisi to -join his regiment when it should reach India. - -“It will cost him the eyes out of his head,” Algy said. “Lucky beggar, -he don’t mind what he spends now.” - -“Why?” the doctor asked, and was laughed at for not knowing that Charlie -had run off with old Tredgold’s daughter, who was good for any amount of -money, and, of course, would soon give in and receive the pair back -again into favour. “Are you so sure of that?” the doctor said. And Algy -had replied that his friend would be awfully up a tree if it didn’t turn -out so. The doctor shook his head in relating this story to Katherine. -“I have my doubts,” he said; but she knew nothing on that subject, and -was thinking of nothing but of Stella herself, and the dreadful thought -that she might see her no more. - -The vicar, on his side, had been busy with his inquiries too, and he had -found out everything with the greatest ease; in the first place from -Andrews, the young coachman, who declared that he had always taken his -orders from Miss Stella, and didn’t know as he was doing no wrong. -Andrews admitted very frankly that he had driven his young mistress to -the little church, one of the very small primitive churches of the -island near Steephill, where the tall gentleman with the dark moustaches -had met her, and where Miss Stevens had turned up with a big basketful -of white chrysanthemums. They had been in the church about half an hour, -and then they had come out again, and Miss Stevens and the young lady -had got into the brougham. The chrysanthemums had been for the -decoration of the ballroom, as everybody knew. Then he had taken Miss -Stevens to meet the last train for Ryde; and finally he had driven his -young ladies home with a gentleman on the box that had got down at the -gate, but whether he came any further or not Andrews did not know. The -vicar had gone on in search of information to Steephill Church, and -found that the old rector there, in the absence of the curate--he -himself being almost past duty by reason of old age--had married one of -the gentlemen living at the Castle to a young lady whose name he could -not recollect further than that it was Stella. The old gentleman had -thought it all right as it was a gentleman from the Castle, and he had a -special licence, which made everything straight. The register of the -marriage was all right in the books, as the vicar had taken care to see. -Of course it was all right in the books! Katherine was much surprised -that they should all make such a point of that, as if anything else was -to be thought of. What did it matter about the register? The thing was -that Stella had run away, that she was gone, that she had betrayed their -trust in her, and been a traitor to her home. - -But a girl is not generally judged very hardly when she runs away; it is -supposed to be her parents’ fault or her lover’s fault, and she but -little to blame. But when Katherine thought of her vigil on the cliff, -her long watch in the moonlight, without a word of warning or farewell, -she did not think that Stella was so innocent. Her heart was very sore -and wounded by the desertion. The power of love indeed! Was there no -love, then, but one? Did her home count for nothing, where she had -always been so cherished; nor her father, who had loved her so dearly; -nor her sister, who had given up everything to her? Oh, no; perhaps the -sister didn’t matter! But at least her father, who could not bear that -she should want anything upon which she had set her heart! Katherine’s -heart swelled at the thought of all Stella’s contrivances to escape in -safety. She had carried all her jewels with her, those jewels which she -had partly acquired as the price of abandoning Sir Charles. Oh, the -treachery, the treachery of it! She could scarcely keep her countenance -while the gentlemen came with their reports. She felt her features -distorted with the effort to show nothing but sorrow, and to thank them -quietly for all the trouble they had taken. She would have liked to -stamp her foot, to dash her clenched hands into the air, almost to utter -those curses which had burst from her father. What a traitor she had -been! What a traitor! She was glad to get the men out of the house, who -were very kind, and wanted to do more if she would let them--to do -anything, and especially to return and communicate to Mr. Tredgold the -result of their inquiries when he woke from his long sleep. Katherine -said No, no, she would prefer to tell him herself. There seemed to be -but one thing she desired, and that was to be left alone. - -After this hot fit there came, as was natural, a cold one. Katherine -went upstairs to her own room, the room divided from that other only by -an open door, which they had occupied ever since they were children. -Then her loneliness came down upon her like a pall. Even with the thrill -of this news in all her frame, she felt a foolish impulse to go and call -Stella--to tell Stella all about it, and hear her hasty opinion. Stella -never hesitated to give her opinion, to pronounce upon every subject -that was set before her with rapid, unhesitating decisions. She would -have known exactly what to say on this subject. She would have taken the -girl’s part; she would have asked what right a man had because he was -your father to be such a tyrant. Katherine could hear the very tone in -which she would have condemned the unnatural parent, and see the -indignant gesture with which she would have lifted her head. And now -there was nobody, nothing but silence; the room so vacant, the trim bed -so empty and cold and white. It was like a bed of death, and Katherine -shivered. The creature so full of impulses and hasty thoughts and crude -opinions and life and brightness would never be there again. No, even if -papa would forgive--even if he would receive her back, there would be no -Stella any more. This would not be her place; the sisterly companionship -was broken, and life could never more be what it had been. - -She sat down on the floor in the middle of the desolation and cried -bitterly. What should she do without Stella? Stella had always been the -first to think of everything; the suggestion of what to do or say had -always been in her hands. Katherine did not deny to herself that she had -often thought differently from Stella, that she had not always accepted -either her suggestions or her opinions; but that was very different from -the silence, the absence of that clear, distinct, self-assured little -voice, the mind made up so instantaneously, so ready to pronounce upon -every subject. Even in this way of looking at it, it will be seen that -she was no blind admirer of her sister. She knew her faults as well as -anyone. Faults! she was made up of faults--but she was Stella all the -same. - -She had cried all her tears out, and was still sitting intent, with her -sorrowful face, motionless, in the reaction of excitement, upon the -floor, when Simmons, the housekeeper, opened the door, and looked round -for her, calling at last in subdued tones, and starting much to see the -lowly position in which her young mistress was. Simmons came attended by -the little jingle of a cup and spoon, which had been so familiar in the -ears of the girls in all their little childish illnesses, when Simmons -with the beef-tea or the arrowroot, or whatever it might be, was a -change and a little amusement to them, in the dreadful vacancy of a day -in bed. Mrs. Simmons, though she was a great personage in the house and -(actually) ordered the dinners and ruled over everything, -notwithstanding any fond illusions that Katherine might cherish on that -subject, had never delegated this care to anyone else, and Katherine -knew very well what was going to be said. - -“Miss Katherine, dear, sit up now and take this nice beef-tea. I’ve seen -it made myself, and it’s just as good as I know how. And you must take -something if you’re ever to get up your strength. Sit up, now, and eat -it as long as it’s nice and hot--do!” The address was at once -persuasive, imploring, and authoritative. “Sit up, now, Miss -Katherine--do!” - -“Oh, Simmons, it isn’t beef-tea I want this time,” she said, stumbling -hastily to her feet. - -“No,” Simmons allowed with a sigh, “but you want your strength kep’ up, -and there’s nothing so strengthening. It’ll warm you too. It’s a very -cold morning and there’s no comfort in the house--not a fire burning as -it ought to, not a bit of consolation nowhere. We can’t all lay down and -die, Miss Katherine, because Miss Stella, bless her, has married a very -nice gentleman. He ain’t to your papa’s liking, more’s the pity, and -sorry I am in many ways, for a wedding in the house is a fine thing, and -such a wedding as Miss Stella’s, if she had only pleased your papa! It -would have been a sight to see. But, dear, a young lady’s fancy is not -often the same as an old gentleman’s, Miss Katherine. We must all own to -that. They thinks of one thing and the young lady, bless her, she thinks -of another. It’s human nature. Miss Stella’s pleased herself, she hasn’t -pleased Master. Well, we can’t change it, Miss Katherine, dear; but -she’s very ’appy, I don’t make a doubt of it, for I always did say as -Sir Charles was a very taking man. Lord bless us, just to think of it! I -am a-calling her Miss Stella, and it’s my Lady she is, bless her little -heart!” - -Though she despised herself for it, this gave a new turn to Katherine’s -thoughts too. Lady Somers! yes, that was what Stella was now. That -little title, though it was not an exalted one, would have an effect -upon the general opinion, however lofty might be the theories expressed, -as to the insignificance of rank. Rank; it was the lowest grade of -anything that could be called rank. And yet it would have a certain -effect on the general mind. She was even conscious of feeling it -herself, notwithstanding both the indignation and the sorrow in her -mind. “My sister, Lady Somers!” Was it possible that she could say it -with a certain pleasure, as if it explained more or less now (a question -which had always been so difficult) who the Tredgolds were, and what -they were worth in the island. Now Katherine suddenly realised that -people would say, “One of the daughters married Sir Charles Somers.” It -would be acknowledged that in that case the Tredgolds might be people to -know. Katherine’s pride revolted, yet her judgment recognised the truth -of it. And she wondered involuntarily if it would affect her father--if -he would think of that? - -“Is my father awake yet, Simmons?” she asked. - -“Beginning to stir, Miss Katherine,” Dolby said. “How clever they are, -them doctors, with their sleeping draffs and things! Oh, I’m quite -opposed to ’em. I don’t think as it’s right to force sleep or anything -as is contrary to the Almighty’s pleasure. But to be such nasty stuff, -the effeck it do have is wonderful. Your papa, as was so excited like -and ready to shoot all of us, right and left, he has slep’ like a baby -all these hours. And waking up now, Dolby says, like a lamb, and ready -for his breakfast.” - -“I must go to him at once, Simmons,” cried Katherine, thrusting back -into Simmons’s hand the cup and the spoon. - -“You won’t do nothing of the sort, Miss, if so be as you’ll be guided by -me. He’ll not think of it just at once, and he’ll eat his breakfast, -which will do him a lot of good, and if he don’t see you, why, he’ll -never remember as anything’s up. And then when he comes to think, Dolby -will call you, Miss Katherine, if the doctor isn’t here first, which -would be the best way.” - -“I think I ought to go to him at once,” Katherine said. But she did not -do so. It was no pleasant task. His looks when he burst forth into those -oaths and curses (though she had herself felt not very long ago as if to -do the same might have been a relief to her surcharged and sickened -soul), and when he lay, with his keen small eyes gleaming red with -passion, in his bed, looking at her, came back to her with a shudder. -Perhaps she had not a very elevated ideal of a father. The name did not -imply justice or even tenderness to her mind. Katherine was well aware -that he had never done her justice all her life. He had been -kind--enough; but his kindness had been very different from the love he -had shown to Stella. He had elevated the younger sister over the elder -since ever the children had known how to distinguish between good and -evil. But still he was papa. It might be that an uneasy feeling that she -was not proud of her father had visited the girl’s mind more than once, -when she saw him among other men; but still he was papa just as Stella -was Stella, and therefore like no one else, whatever they might say or -do. She did not like to go to him again, to renew his misery and her -own, to hear him curse the girl whom he had adored, to see that dreadful -look as if of a fiend in his face. Her own feelings had fallen into a -sort of quietude now by means of exhaustion, and of the slow, slow -moments, which felt every one of them as if it were an hour. - -It was some time longer before she was called. Mr. Tredgold had got up; -he had made his toilet, and gone down to his sitting-room, which -communicated with his bedroom by a little private staircase. And it was -only when he was there that his eyes fell on his clock, and he cried -with a start: - -“Half-past twelve, and I just come downstairs! What does this mean--what -does it mean? Why wasn’t I called at the right time?” - -“You had a--a restless night, sir,” said the man, trembling. (“Oh, -where’s that Miss Katherine, where’s that young person,” he said to -himself.) - -“A restless night! And why had I a restless night? No supper, eh? Never -eat supper now. Girls won’t let me. Hollo! I begin to remember. Wasn’t -there an alarm of burglars? And none of you heard, you deaf fools; -nobody but me, an old man! I let go one barrel at them, eh? Enough to -send them all flying. Great fun that. And then Katherine, -Katherine--what do I remember about Katherine? Stopped me before I could -do anything, saying there was nobody. Fool, to mind what she said; quite -sure there was somebody, eh? Can’t you tell me what it was?” - -“Don’t know, indeed, sir,” said the man, whose teeth were chattering -with fear. - -“Don’t know, indeed! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Speak out, you -fool. Was it burglars----” - -“No, sir. I think not, sir. I--don’t know what it was, sir. Something -about Miss---- about Miss----” - -“About whom?” the old man cried. - -“Oh, sir, have a little patience--it’s all right, it’s all right, -sir--just Miss Stella, sir, that--that is all right, sir--all safe, -sir,” the attendant cried. - -Old Tredgold sat upright in his chair; he put his elbows on the table to -support his head. “Miss Stella!” he said with a sudden hoarseness in his -voice. - -And then the man rushed out to summon Katherine, who came quietly but -trembling to the call. - -He uncovered his face as she came in. It was ghastly pale, the two -gleaming points of the eyes glimmering out of it like the eyes of a wild -beast. “Stella, Stella!” he said hoarsely, and, seizing Katherine by the -arm, pressed her down upon a low chair close to him. “What’s all this -cock and a bull story?” he said. - -“Oh, papa!” - -He seized her again and shook her in his fury. “Speak out or I’ll--I’ll -kill you,” he said. - -Her arm was crushed as in an iron vice. Body and soul she trembled -before him. “Papa, let me go or I can say nothing! Let me go!” - -He gave her arm one violent twist and then he dropped it. “What are you -afraid of?” he said, with a gleam of those angry eyes. “Go on--go -on--tell me what happened last night.” - -Katherine’s narrative was confused and broken, and Mr. Tredgold was not -usually a man of very clear intelligence. It must have been that his -recollections, sent into the background of his mind by the extreme shock -of last night, and by the opiate which had helped him to shake it off, -had all the time been working secretly within him through sleeping and -waking, waiting only for the outer framework of the story now told him. -He understood every word. He took it all up point by point, marking them -by the beating of his hand upon the arm of his chair. “That’s how it -was,” he said several times, nodding his head. He was much clearer about -it than Katherine, who did not yet realise the sequence of events or -that Stella was already Charlie Somers’s wife when she came innocently -back with her white flowers, and hung about her father at his luncheon, -doing everything possible to please him; but he perceived all this -without the hesitation of a moment and with apparent composure. “It was -all over, then,” he said to himself; “she had done it, then. She took us -in finely, you and me, Kate. We are a silly lot--to believe what -everyone tells us. She was married to a fine gentleman before she came -in to us all smiling and pleasant;” and, then, speaking in the same even -tone, he suddenly cursed her, without even a pause to distinguish the -words. - -“Papa, papa!” Katherine cried, almost with a shriek. - -“What is it, you little fool? You think perhaps I’ll say ‘Bless you, my -children,’ and have them back? They think so themselves, I shouldn’t -wonder; they’ll find out the difference. What about those diamonds that -I gave her instead of him--instead of----” And here he laughed, and in -the same steady tone bade God curse her again. - -“I cannot hear you say that--I cannot, I cannot! Oh, God bless and take -care of my poor Stella! Oh, papa, little Stella, that you have always -been so fond of----” - -Mr. Tredgold’s arm started forth as if it would have given a blow. He -dashed his fist in the air, then subsided again and laughed a low laugh. -“I shan’t pay for those diamonds,” he said. “I’ll send them back, -I’ll---- And her new clothes that she was to get--God damn her. She -can’t have taken her clothes, flying off from a ball by night.” - -“Oh, what are clothes, or money, or anything, in comparison with -Stella!” Katherine said. - -“Not much to you that don’t have to pay for them,” he said. “I shan’t -pay for them. Go and pack up the rags, don’t you hear? and bring me the -diamonds. She thinks we’ll send ’em after her.” And here the curse -again. “She shan’t have one of them, not one. Go and do what I tell you, -Katie. God damn her and her----” - -“Oh, papa, for the sake of everything that is good! Yes, I will go--I -will go. What does it matter? Her poor little frocks, her----” - -“They cost a deal of money all the same. And bring me the diamonds,” Mr. -Tredgold said. - -And then there suddenly flashed upon Katherine a strange revelation, a -ludicrous tragic detail which did not seem laughable to her, yet was -so----“The diamonds,” she said faltering, half turning back on her way -to the door. - -“Well! the diamonds?” - -“Oh, forgive her, forgive her! She never could have thought of that; she -never could have meant it. Papa, for God’s sake, forgive her, and don’t -say--_that_ again. She was wearing them all at the ball. She was in her -ball dress. She had no time to change--she----” - -He seized and shook her savagely as if she had been confessing a theft -of her own, and then rose up with his habitual chuckle in his throat. -“George, she’s done me,” he said. “She’s got her fortune on her back. -She’s--she’s a chip of the old block, after all.” He dropped down again -heavily in his chair, and then with a calm voice, looking at Katherine, -said tranquilly, “God damn her” once more. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX. - - -It was afterwards discovered that Stella had calculated her elopement in -a way which justified most perfectly the unwilling applause elicited -from her father--that she was a chip of the old block. She had -over-decorated herself, as had been remarked, it now appeared, by -everybody at the ball, on the night of her flight, wearing all the -diamonds she had got from her father as an equivalent for her lover--and -other things besides, everything she had that was valuable. It was -ridiculous enough to see a girl blazing in all those diamonds; but to -have her pearl necklace as well, adjusted as an ornament on her bodice, -and bracelets enough to go up almost to the elbow, was more absurd -still, and Katherine, it now appeared, was the only person who had not -observed this excess of jewellery. She remembered now vaguely that she -had felt Stella to be more radiant, more dazzling than ever, and had -wondered with a sort of dull ache whether it was want of heart, whether -it was over-excitement, or what it was which made her sister’s -appearance and aspect so brilliant on the very eve of her parting from -her lover. “Partings which press the life from out young hearts.” How -was it possible that she could be so bright, so gay, so full of life, -and he going away? She had felt this, but she had not noticed, which was -strange, the extraordinary number of Stella’s bracelets, or the manner -in which her pearls were fastened upon the bosom of her dress. This was -strange, but due chiefly perhaps to the fact that Stella had not shown -herself, as usual, for her sister’s admiration, but had appeared in a -hurry rather late, and already wrapped in her cloak. - -It was found, however, on examining her drawers, that Stella had taken -everything she had which was of any value. It was also discovered later -that she had taken advantage of her father’s permission to get as many -new frocks as she pleased--always to make up for the loss of Charlie--by -ordering for herself an ample _trousseau_, which had been sent to await -her to a London hotel. She had all these things now and the lover too, -which was so brilliant a practical joke that it kept the regiment in -laughter for a year; but was not so regarded at home, though Mr. -Tredgold himself was not able to refrain from a certain admiration when -he became fully aware of it, as has been seen. It afflicted Katherine, -however, with a dull, enduring pain in the midst of her longing for her -sister and her sense of the dreadful vacancy made by Stella’s absence. -The cheerful calculation, the peaceful looks with which Stella had hid -all her wiles and preparations gave her sister a pang, not acute but -profound--a constant ache which took away all the spring of her life. -Even when she tried to escape from it, making to herself all those -_banal_ excuses which are employed in such circumstances--about love, to -which everything is permitted, and the lover’s entreaties, to which -nothing can be refused, and the fact that she had to live her own life, -not another’s, and was obeying the voice of Nature in choosing for -herself--all these things, which Katherine presented to herself as -consolations, were over and over again refused. If Stella had run away -in her little white frock and garden hat, her sister could have forgiven -her; but the _trousseau_, the maid, the diamonds, even the old pearls -which had been given to both of them, and still remained the chief of -Katherine’s possessions--that Stella should have settled and arranged -all that was more than Katherine could bear. She locked away her own -pearls, with what she felt afterwards to be a very absurd sentiment, and -vowed that she would never wear them again. There seemed a sort of -insult in the addition of that girlish decoration to all her other -ornaments. But this, the reader will perceive, was very high-flown on -Katherine’s part. - -A day or two after this tremendous crisis, which, I need not say, was by -far the most delightful public event which had occurred in Sliplin for -centuries, and which moved the very island to its centre, Lady Jane -called with solemnity at the Cliff. Lady Jane was better dressed on this -occasion than I believe she had ever been seen to be in the memory of -men. She was attired in black brocade with a train, and wore such a -mantle as everybody said must have been got for the occasion, since it -was like nothing that had ever been seen on Lady Jane’s shoulders -before. The furs, too, were unknown to Sliplin; perhaps she wore them in -more favoured places, perhaps she had borrowed them for the occasion. -The reason of all this display was beyond the divination of Katherine, -who received her visitor half with the suppressed resentment which she -felt she owed to everyone who could be supposed privy to Stella’s plans, -and half with the wistful longing for an old friend, a wiser and more -experienced person, to console herself. Katherine had abandoned the -young ladies’ room, with all its double arrangements and suggestions of -a life that was over. She sat in the large drawing-room, among the -costly, crowded furniture, feeling as if, though less expensive, she was -but one of them--a daughter needed, like the Italian cabinets, for the -due furnishing of the house. - -Lady Jane came in, feeling her way between the chairs and tables. It was -appropriate that so formal a visit should be received in this formal -place. She shook hands with Katherine, who held back visibly from the -usual unnecessary kiss. It marked at once the difference, and that the -younger woman felt herself elevated by her resentment, and was no longer -to be supposed to be in any way at Lady Jane’s feet. - -“How do you do?” said Lady Jane, carrying out the same idea. “How is -your father? I am glad to hear that he has, on the whole, not suffered -in health--nor you either, Katherine, I hope?” - -“I don’t know about suffering in health. I am well enough,” the girl -said. - -“I perceive,” said Lady Jane, “by your manner that you identify me -somehow with what has happened. That is why I have come here to-day. You -must feel I don’t come as I usually do. In ordinary circumstances I -should probably have sent for you to come to me. Katherine, I can see -that you think I’m somehow to blame, in what way, I’m sure I don’t -know.” - -“I have never expressed any blame. I don’t know that I have ever thought -anyone was to blame--except----” - -“Except--except themselves. You are right. They are very hot-headed, the -one as much as the other. I don’t mean to say that he--he is a sort of -relation of mine--has not asked my advice. If he has done so once he has -done it a hundred times, and I can assure you, Katherine, all that I -have said has been consistently ‘Don’t ask me.’ I have told him a -hundred times that I would not take any responsibility. I have said to -him, ‘I can’t tell how you will suit each other, or whether you will -agree, or anything.’ I have had nothing to do with it. I felt, as he was -staying in my house at the time, that you or your father might be -disposed to blame me. I assure you it would be very unjust. I knew no -more of what was going on on Wednesday last--no more than--than Snap -did,” cried Lady Jane. Snap was the little tyrant of the fields at -Steephill, a small fox terrier, and kept everything under his control. - -“I can only say that you have never been blamed, Lady Jane. Papa has -never mentioned your name, and as for me----” - -“Yes, Katherine, you; it is chiefly you I think of. I am sure you have -thought I had something to do with it.” - -Katherine made a pause. She was in a black dress. I can scarcely tell -why--partly, perhaps, from some exaggerated sentiment--actually because -Mrs. Simmons, who insisted on attending to her till someone could be got -to replace Stevens, had laid it out. And she was unusually pale. She had -not in reality “got over” the incident so well as people appeared to -hope. - -“To tell the truth,” she said, “all the world has seemed quite -insignificant to me except my sister. I have had so much to do thinking -of her that I have had no time for anything else.” - -“That’s not very complimentary to people that have taken so great an -interest in you.” Lady Jane was quite discomposed by having the word -insignificant applied to her. She was certainly not insignificant, -whatever else she might be. - -“Perhaps it is not,” Katherine said. “I have had a great deal to think -of,” she added with a half appeal for sympathy. - -“I dare say. Is it possible that you never expected it? Didn’t you see -that night? All those jewels even might have told their story. I confess -that I was vaguely in a great fright; but I thought you must have been -in her confidence, Katherine, that is the truth.” - -“I in her confidence! Did you think I would have helped her -to--to--deceive everybody--to--give such a blow to papa?” - -“Is it such a blow to your papa? I am told he has not suffered in -health. Now I look at you again you are pale, but I don’t suppose you -have suffered in health either. Katherine, don’t you think you are -overdoing it a little? She has done nothing that is so very criminal. -And your own conduct was a little strange. You let her run off into the -dark shrubberies to say farewell to him, as I am told, and never gave -any alarm till you saw the yacht out in the bay, and must have known -they were safe from any pursuit. I must say that a girl who has behaved -like that is much more likely to have known all about it than an -outsider like me!” - -“I did not know anything about it,” cried Katherine--“nothing! Stella -did not confide in me. If she had done so--if she had told me----” - -“Yes; what would you have done then?” Lady Jane asked with a certain air -of triumph. - -Katherine looked blankly at her. She was wandering about in worlds not -realised. She had never asked herself that question. And yet perhaps her -own conduct, her patience in that moonlight scene was more extraordinary -in her ignorance than it would have been had she sympathised and known. -The question took her breath away, and she had no answer to give. - -“If she had told you that she had been married to Charlie Somers that -morning; that he was starting for India next day; that whatever her duty -to her father and yourself might have been (that’s nonsense; a girl has -no duty to her sister), her duty to her husband came first then. If she -had told you that at the last moment, Katherine, what would you have -done?” - -Katherine felt every possibility of reply taken from her. What could she -have done? Supposing Stella that night--that night in the moonlight, -which somehow seemed mixed up with everything--had whispered _that_ in -her ear, instead of the lie about wishing to bid Charlie farewell. What -could she have done; what would she have done? With a gasp in her throat -she looked helplessly at her questioner. She had no answer to make. - -“Then how could you blame me?” cried Lady Jane, throwing off her -wonderful furs, loosening her mantle, beginning, with her dress tucked -up a little in front, to look more like herself. “What was to be done -when they had gone and taken it into their own hands? You can’t separate -husband and wife, though, Heaven knows, there are a great many that -would be too thankful if you could. But there they were--married. What -was to be done? I made sure when you would insist on driving home with -her, Katherine, that she must have told you.” - -“I was not expected, then, to drive home with her?” Katherine said -sharply. “It was intended that I should know nothing--nothing at all.” - -“I thought--I sincerely thought,” said Lady Jane, hanging her head a -little, “that she would have told you then. I suppose she was angry at -the delay.” - -Katherine’s heart was very sore. She had been the one who knew nothing, -from whom everything had been kept. It had been intended that she should -be left at the ball while Stella stole off with her bridegroom; and her -affectionate anxiety about Stella’s headache had been a bore, the -greatest bore, losing so much time and delaying the escape. And shut up -there with her sister, her closest friend, her inseparable companion of -so many years, there had not been even a whisper of the great thing -which had happened, which now stood between them and cut them apart for -ever. Katherine, in her life of the secondary person, the always -inferior, had learned unconsciously a great deal of self-repression; but -it taxed all her powers to receive this blow full on her breast and make -no sign. Her lips quivered a little; she clasped her hands tightly -together; and a hot and heavy moisture, which made everything awry and -changed, stood in her eyes. - -“Was that how it was?” she said at last when she had controlled her -voice to speak. - -“Katherine, dear child, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Nobody thought -that you would feel it----” Lady Jane added after a moment, “so much,” -and put out her hand to lay it on Katherine’s tightly-clasped hands. - -“Nobody thought of me, I imagine, at all,” said Katherine, withdrawing -from this touch, and recovering herself after that bitter and blinding -moment. “It would have been foolish to expect anything else. And it is -perhaps a good thing that I was not tried--that I was not confided in. I -might perhaps have thought of my duty to my father. But a woman who is -married,” she added quickly, with an uncontrollable bitterness, “has, I -suppose, no duties, except to the man whom--who has married her.” - -“He must always come first,” said Lady Jane with a little solemnity. She -was thunderstruck when Katherine, rising quickly to her feet and walking -about the room, gave vent to Brabantio’s exclamation before the Venetian -senators: - - “Look to her, thou: have a quick eye to see. - She hath deceived her father and may thee.” - -Lady Jane was not an ignorant woman for her rank and position. She had -read the necessary books, and kept up a kind of speaking acquaintance -with those of the day. But it may be excused to her, a woman of many -occupations, if she did not remember whence this outburst came, and -thought it exceedingly ridiculous and indeed of very doubtful taste, if -truth must be told. - -“I could not have thought you would be so merciless,” she said severely. -“I thought you were a kind creature, almost too kind. It is easy to see -that you have never been touched by any love-affair of your own.” - -Katherine laughed--there seemed no other reply to this assumption--and -came back and sat down quietly in her chair. - -“Was that all, Lady Jane?” she said. “You came to tell me you had -nothing to do with the step my sister has taken, and then that you knew -all about it, and that it was only I who was left out.” - -“You are a very strange girl, Katherine Tredgold. I excuse you because -no doubt you have been much agitated, otherwise I should say you were -very rude and impudent.” Lady Jane was gathering on again her panoply of -war--her magnificent town-mantle, the overwhelming furs which actually -belonged to her maid. “I knew nothing about the first step,” she said -angrily. “I was as ignorant of the marriage as you were. Afterwards, I -allow, they told me; and as there was nothing else to be done--for, of -course, as you confess, a woman as soon as she is married has no such -important duty as to her husband--I did not oppose the going away. I -advised them to take you into their confidence; afterwards, I allow, for -their sakes, I promised to keep you engaged, if possible, to see that -you had plenty of partners and no time to think.” - -Katherine was ashamed afterwards to remember how the prick of injured -pride stung her more deeply than even that of wounded affection. “So,” -she said, her cheeks glowing crimson, “it was to your artifice that I -owed my partners! But I have never found it difficult to get -partners--without your aid, Lady Jane!” - -“You will take everything amiss, however one puts it,” said Lady Jane. -And then there was a long pause, during which that poor lady struggled -much with her wraps without any help from Katherine, who sat like stone -and saw her difficulties without lifting so much as a little finger. -“You are to be excused,” the elder lady added, “for I do not think you -have been very well treated, though, to be sure, poor Stella must have -felt there was very little sympathy likely, or she certainly would have -confided in you. As for Charlie Somers----” Lady Jane gave an expressive -wave of her hand, as if consenting that nothing was to be expected from -him; then she dropped her voice and asked with a change of tone, “I -don’t see why it should make any difference between you and me, -Katherine. I have really had nothing to do with it--except at the very -last. Tell me now, dear, how your father takes it? Is he very much -displeased?” - -“Displeased is a weak word, Lady Jane.” - -“Well, angry then--enraged--any word you like; of course, for the moment -no word will be strong enough.” - -“I don’t think,” said Katherine, “that he will ever allow her to enter -his house, or consent to see her again.” - -“Good Heavens!” cried Lady Jane. “Then what in the world is to become of -them? But I am sure you exaggerate--in the heat of the moment; and, of -course, Katherine, I acknowledge you have been very badly used,” she -said. - - - - -CHAPTER XX. - - -Katherine was perhaps not in very good condition after Lady Jane’s -visit, though that great personage found it, on the whole, satisfactory, -and felt that she had settled the future terms on which they were to -meet in quite a pleasant way--to receive the first letter which Stella -sent her, an epistle which arrived a day or two later. Stella’s epistle -was very characteristic indeed. It was dated from Paris: - - “Dearest Kate,--I can’t suppose that you have not heard everything - about all that we have done and haven’t done. I don’t excuse myself - for not writing on the plea that you couldn’t possibly be anxious - about me, as you must have known all this by next morning, but I - can’t help feeling that you must have been angry, both you and - papa, and I thought it would perhaps be better just to let you cool - down. I know you have cause to be angry, dear; I ought to have told - you, and it was on my lips all the time; but I thought you might - think it your duty to make a row, and then all our plans might have - been turned upside down. What we had planned to do was to get - across to Southsea in the yacht, and go next morning by the first - train to London, and on here at once, which, with little - divergencies, we carried out. You see we have never been to say out - of reach; but it would have done you no good to try to stop us, - for, of course, from the moment I was Charlie’s wife my place was - with him. I know you never would have consented to such a marriage; - but it is perfectly all right, I can assure you--as good as if it - had come off in St. George’s, Hanover Square. And we have had a - delightful time. Stevens met me at Southsea with the few things I - wanted (apologies for taking her from you, but you never made so - much use of her as I did, and I don’t think you ever cared for - Stevens), and next day we picked up our things at London. I wish - you could see my things, they are beautiful. I hope papa won’t be - dreadfully angry that I took him at his word; and I am quite - frightened sometimes to think what it will all cost--the most - lovely _trousseau_ all packed in such nice boxes--some marked cabin - and some--but that’s a trifle. The important thing is that the - clothes are charming, just what you would expect from Madame’s - tastes. I do hope that papa will not make any fuss about her bill. - They are not dear at all, for material and workmanship (can you say - workmanship, when it’s needlework, and all done by women?) are - simply splendid. I never saw such beautiful things. - - “And so here I am, Kate, a married woman, off to India with my - husband. Isn’t it wonderful? I can’t say that I feel much different - myself. I am the same old Stella, always after my fun. I shouldn’t - wonder in the least if after a while Charlie were to set up a way - of his own, and think he can stop me; but I don’t advise him to - try, and in the meantime he is as sweet as sugar and does exactly - what I like. It is nice, on the whole, to be called my Lady, and it - is very nice to see how respectful all the people are to a married - person, as if one had grown quite a great personage all at once. - And it is nicer still to turn a big man round your little finger, - even when you have a sort of feeling, as I have sometimes, that it - may not last. One wonderful thing is that he is always meeting - somebody he knows. People in society I believe know everybody--that - is, really everybody who ought to be known. This man was at school - with him, and that man belongs to one of his clubs, and another was - brother to a fellow in his regiment, and so on, and so on--so we - need never be alone unless we like: they turn up at every corner. - Of course, he knows the ladies too, but this is not a good time in - the year for them, for the grandees are at their country houses and - English people only passing through. We did see one gorgeous - person, who was a friend of his mother’s (who is dead, Heaven be - praised!), and to whom he introduced me, but she looked at me - exactly as if she had heard that Charlie had married a barmaid, - with a ‘How do you do?’ up in the air--an odious woman. She was, of - course, Countess of Something or Other, and as poor as a Church - mouse. Papa could buy up dozens of such countesses; tell him I said - so. - - “You will wonder what we are doing knocking about in Paris when the - regiment is on the high seas; but Charlie could not take me, you - know, in a troopship, it would have been out of the question, and - we couldn’t possibly have spent our honeymoon among all those men. - So he got his leave and we are going by a P. and O. boat, which are - the best, and which we pick up at Brindisi, or at Suez, or - somewhere. I am looking forward to it immensely, and to India, - which is full of amusement, everybody tells me. I intend to get all - the fun I can for the next year, and then I hope, I do hope, dear - Katie, that papa may send for us home. - - “How is poor dear papa? You may think I am a little hypocrite, - having given him such a shock, but I did really hope he would see - some fun in it--he always had such a sense of humour. I have - thought of this, really, truly, in all I have done. About the - _trousseau_ (which everybody thinks the greatest joke that ever - was), and about going off in the yacht, and all that, I kept - thinking that papa, though he would be very angry, would see the - fun. I planned it all for that--indeed, indeed, Kate, I did, - whatever you may think. To be sure, Charlie went for half in the - planning, and I can’t say I think he has very much sense of humour, - but, still, that was in my mind all the time. Was he very, very - angry when he found out? Did you wake him in the night to tell him - and risk an illness? If you did, I think you were very, very much - to blame. There is never any hurry in telling bad news. But you are - so tremendously straightforward and all that. I hope he only heard - in the morning, and had his good night’s rest and was not - disturbed. It was delicious this time in the yacht, as quiet almost - as a mill-pond--just a nice soft little air that carried us across - the bay and on to Southsea; such a delightful sail! I ought to have - thought of you promenading about in the cold waiting for me - without any companion, but I really couldn’t, dear. Naturally we - were too much taken up with ourselves, and the joy of having got - off so nicely. But I do beg your pardon most sincerely, dear Katie, - for having left you out in the cold, really out in the - cold--without any figure of speech--like that. - - “But my thoughts keep going back constantly to dear papa. You will - miss me a little, I hope, but not as he will miss me. What does he - say? Was he very angry? Do you think he is beginning to come round? - Oh, dear Kate, I hope you take an opportunity when you can to say - something nice to him about me. Tell him Charlie wanted to be - married in London, but I knew what papa would think on this - subject, and simply insisted for his sake that it should be in the - little Steephill Church, where he could go himself, if he liked, - and see the register and make sure that it was all right. And I - have always thought of him all through. You may say it doesn’t look - very like it, but I have, I have, Kate. I am quite sure that he - will get very fond of Charlie after a time, and he will like to - hear me called Lady Somers; and now that my mind is set at rest and - no longer drawn this way and that way by love affairs, don’t you - know? I should be a better daughter to him than ever before. Do get - him to see this, Kate. You will have all the influence now that I - am away. It is you that will be able to turn him round your little - finger. And, oh, I hope, I hope, dear, that you will do it, and be - true to me! You have always been such a faithful, good sister, even - when I tried you most with my nonsense. I am sure I tried you, you - being so different a kind from such a little fool as Stella, and so - much more valuable and all that. Be sure to write to me before we - leave Paris, which will be in a week, to tell me how papa is, and - how he is feeling about me--and, _oh_, do be faithful to us, dear - Kate, and make him call us back within a year! Charlie does not - mind about his profession; he would be quite willing to give it up - and settle down, to be near papa. And then, you see, he has really - a beautiful old house of his own in the country, which he never - could afford to live in, where we could arrange the most charming - _appartement_, as the French say, for papa for part of the year. - - “Do, dearest Kate, write, write! and tell me all about the state of - affairs. With Charlie’s love, - - “Your most affectionate sister, - - “_Stella (Lady) Somers_.” - - - -“I have a letter from--Stella, papa,” said Katherine the same night. - -“Ah!” he said, with a momentary prick of his ears; then he composed -himself and repeated with the profoundest composure, “God damn her!” as -before. - -“Oh, papa, do not say that! She is very anxious to know how you are, and -to ask you--oh, with all her heart, papa--to forgive her.” - -Mr. Tredgold did not raise his head or show any interest. He only -repeated with the same calm that phrase again. - -“You have surely something else to say at the mention of her name than -that. Oh, papa, she has done very, very wrong, but she is so sorry--she -would like to fling herself at your feet.” - -“She had better not do that; I should kick her away like a football,” he -said. - -“You could never be cruel to Stella--your little Stella! You always -loved her the best of us two. I never came near her in one way nor -another.” - -“That is true enough,” said the old man. - -Katherine did not expect any better, but this calm daunted her. Even -Stella’s absence did not advance her in any way; she still occupied the -same place, whatever happened. It was with difficulty that she resumed -her questions. - -“And you will miss her dreadfully, papa. Only think, those long nights -that are coming--how you will miss her with her songs and her chatter -and her brightness! I am only a dull companion,” said Katherine, perhaps -a little, though not very reasonably, hoping to be contradicted. - -“You are that,” said her father calmly. - -What was she to say? She felt crushed down by this disapproval, the calm -recognition that she was nobody, and that all her efforts to be -agreeable could never meet with any response. She did make many efforts, -far more than ever Stella had done. Stella had never taken any trouble; -her father’s comfort had in reality been of very little importance to -her. She had pleased him because she was Stella, just as Katherine, -because she was Katherine, did not please him. And what was there more -to be said? It is hard upon the unpleasing one, the one who never gives -satisfaction, but the fact remains. - -“You are very plain spoken,” said Katherine, trying to find a little -forlorn fun in the situation. “You don’t take much pains to spare my -feelings. Still, allowing that to be all true, and I don’t doubt it for -a moment, think how dull you will be in the evenings, papa! You will -want Stella a hundred times in an hour, you will always want her. This -winter, of course, they could not come back; but before another winter, -oh, papa, think for your own advantage--do say that you will forgive -her, and that they may come back!” - -“We may all be dead and gone before another winter,” Mr. Tredgold said. - -“That is true; but then, on the other hand, we may all be living and -very dull and in great, great need of something to cheer us up. Do hold -out the hope, papa, that you will forgive her, and send for her, and -have her back!” - -“What is she to give you for standing up for her like this?” said the -old man with his grim chuckling laugh. - -“To give--me?” Katherine was so astonished this time that she could not -think of any answer. - -“Because you needn’t lose your breath,” said her father, “for you’ll -lose whatever she has promised you. I’ve only one word to say about her, -and that I’ve said too often already to please you--God damn her,” her -father said. - -And Katherine gave up the unequal conflict--for the moment at least. It -was not astonishing, perhaps, that she spent a great deal of her time, -as much as the weather would allow, which now was grim November, -bringing up fog from land and sea, upon the cliff, where she walked up -and down sometimes when there was little visible except a grey expanse -of mist behind the feathery tracery of the tamarisk trees; sometimes -thinking of those two apparitions of the _Stella_ in the bay, which now -seemed to connect with each other like two succeeding events in a story, -and sometimes of very different things. She began to think oftener than -she had ever done of her own lover, he whom she had not had time to -begin to love, only to have a curious half-awakened interest in, at the -time when he was sent so summarily about his business. Had he not been -sent about his business, probably Katherine might never have thought of -him at all. It was the sudden fact of his dismissal and the strange -discovery thus made, that there was one person in the world at least -whose mind was occupied with her and not with Stella, that gave him that -hold upon her mind which he had retained. - -She wondered now vaguely what would have happened had she done what -Stella had done? (It was impossible, because she had not thought of him -much, had not come to any conscious appropriation of him until after he -was gone; but supposing, for the sake of argument, that she had done -what Stella had done). She would have been cut off, she and he, and -nobody would have been much the worse. Stella, then, being the only girl -of the house, would have been more serious, would have been obliged to -think of things. She would have chosen someone better than Charlie -Somers, someone that would have pleased her father better; and he would -have kept his most beloved child, and all would have been well. From -that point of view it would perhaps have been better that Katherine -should have done evil that good might come. Was it doing evil to elope -from home with the man you loved, because your father refused him--if -you felt you could not live without him? That is a question very -difficult to solve. In the first place, Katherine, never having been, -let us say, very much in love herself, thought it was almost immodest -in a woman to say that she could not live without any man. It might be -that she loved a man who did not love her, or who loved somebody else, -and then she would be compelled, whatever she wished, to live without -him. But, on the other hand, there was the well-worn yet very reasonable -argument that it is the girl’s life and happiness that is concerned, not -the parents’, and that to issue a ukase like an emperor, or a bull like -a pope, that your child must give up the man who alone can make her -happy is tyrannical and cruel. You are commanded to obey your parents, -but there are limits to that command; a woman of, say, thirty for -instance (which to Katherine, at twenty-three, was still a great age), -could not be expected to obey like a child; a woman of twenty even was -not like a little girl. A child has to do what it is told, whether it -likes or not; but a woman--and when all her own life is in question? - -Those were thoughts which Katherine pondered much as she walked up and -down the path on the cliff. For some time she went out very little, -fearing always to meet a new group of interested neighbours who should -question her about Stella. She shrank from the demands, from the -criticisms that were sometimes very plain, and sometimes veiled under -pretences of interest or sympathy. She would not discuss her sister with -anyone, or her father, or their arrangements or family disasters, and -the consequence was that, during almost the whole of that winter she -confined herself to the small but varied domain which was such a world -of flowers in summer, and now, though the trees were bare, commanded all -the sun that enlivens a wintry sky, and all the aspects of the sea, and -all the wide expanse of the sky. There she walked about and asked -herself a hundred questions. Perhaps it would have been better for all -of them if she had run away with James Stanford. It would have cost her -father nothing to part with her; he would have been more lenient with -the daughter he did not care for. And Stella would have been more -thoughtful, more judicious, if there had been nobody at home behind her -to bear the responsibility of common life. And then, Katherine -wondered, with a gasp, as to the life that might have been hers had she -been James Stanford’s wife. She would have gone to India, too, but with -no _trousseau_, no diamonds, no gay interval at Paris. She would have -had only him, no more, to fill up her horizon and occupy her changed -life. She thought of this with a little shiver, wondering--for, to be -sure, she was not, so to speak, in love with him, but only interested in -him--very curious if it had been possible to know more about him, to get -to understand him. It was a singular characteristic in him that it was -she whom he had cared for and not Stella. He was the first and only -person who had done so--at least, the only man. Women, she was aware, -often got on better with her than with her sister; but that did not -surprise her, somehow, while the other did impress her deeply. Why -should he have singled out her, Katherine, to fall in love with? It -showed that he must be a particular kind of man, not like other people. -This was the reason why Katherine had taken so much interest in him, -thought so much of him all this time, not because she was in love with -him. And it struck her with quite a curious impression, made up of some -awe, some alarm, some pleasure, and a good deal of abashed amusement, to -think that she might, like Stella, have eloped with him--might have been -living with him as her sole companion for two or three years. She used -to laugh to herself and hush up her line of thinking abruptly when she -came to this point, and yet there was a curious attraction in it. - -Soon, however, the old routine, although so much changed, came back, the -usual visitors came to call, there were the usual little assemblages to -luncheon, which was the form of entertainment Mr. Tredgold preferred; -the old round of occupations began, the Stanley girls and the others -flowed and circled about her in the afternoon, and, before she knew, -Katherine was drawn again into the ordinary routine of life. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI. - - -The company in the house on the cliff was, however, very considerably -changed, though the visitors were not much lessened in number. It -became, perhaps, more _bourgeois_, certainly more village, than it had -been. Stella, a daring, audacious creature, with her beauty, which burst -upon the spectators at the first glance, and her absence of all reserve, -and her determination to be “in” everything that was amusing or -agreeable, had made her way among her social betters as her quieter and -more sensitive sister would never have done. Then the prestige which had -attached to them because of their wealth and that character of heiress -which attracts not only fortune-hunters who are less dangerous, but -benevolent match-makers and the mothers and sisters of impecunious but -charming young men, had been much dulled and sobered by the discovery -that the old father, despised of everybody, was not so easily to be -moved as was supposed. This was an astonishing and painful discovery, -which Lady Jane, in herself perfectly disinterested and wanting nothing -from old Tredgold, felt almost more than anyone. She had not entertained -the least doubt that he would give in. She did not believe, indeed, that -Stella and her husband would ever have been allowed to leave England at -all. She had felt sure that old Tredgold’s money would at once and for -ever settle all questions about the necessity of going to India with the -regiment for Charlie; that he would be able at once to rehabilitate his -old house, and to set up his establishment, and to settle into that -respectable country-gentleman life in which all a man’s youthful -peccadilloes are washed out and forgotten. - -Mr. Tredgold’s obstinacy was thus as great a blow to Lady Jane as if she -herself had been impoverished by it. She felt the ground cut from under -her feet, and her confidence in human nature destroyed. If you cannot -make sure of a vulgar old father’s weakness for his favourite child whom -he has spoiled outrageously all her life, of what can you make sure? -Lady Jane was disappointed, wounded, mortified. She felt less sure of -her own good sense and intuitions, which is a very humbling thing--not -to speak of the depreciation in men’s minds of her judgment which was -likely to follow. Indeed, it did follow, and that at once, people in -general being very sorry for poor Charlie Somers, who had been taken in -so abominably, and who never would have risked the expenses of married -life, and a wife trained up to every extravagance, if he had not felt -sure of being indemnified; and, what was still worse, they all agreed he -never would have taken such a strong step--for he was a cautious man, -was Charlie, notwithstanding his past prodigalities--if he had not been -so pushed forward and kept up to the mark by Lady Jane. - -The thing that Lady Jane really fell back on as a consolation in the -pressure of these painful circumstances was that she had not allowed -Algy to make himself ridiculous by any decisive step in respect to the -“little prim one,” as he called Katherine. This Lady Jane had sternly -put down her foot upon. She had said at once that Katherine was not the -favourite, that nothing could be known as to how the old man would leave -her, along with many other arguments which intimidated the young one. As -a patter of fact, Lady Jane, naturally a very courageous woman, was -afraid of Algy’s mother, and did not venture to commit herself in any -way that would have brought her into conflict with Lady Scott, which, -rather than any wisdom on her part, was the chief reason which had -prevented additional trouble on that score. Poor Charlie Somers had no -mother nor any female relation of importance to defend him. Lady Jane -herself ought to have been his defence, and it was she who had led him -astray. It was not brought against her open-mouthed, or to her face. But -she felt that it was in everybody’s mind, and that her reputation, or at -least her prestige, had suffered. - -This it was that made her drop the Tredgolds “like a hot potato.” She -who had taken such an interest in the girls, and superintended Stella’s -_début_ as if she had been a girl of her own, retreated from Katherine -as if from the plague. After the way they had behaved to poor dear -Charlie Somers and his wife, she said, she could have no more to do with -them. Lady Jane had been their great patroness, their only effectual -connection with the county and its grandeurs, so that the higher society -of the island was cast off at once from Katherine. I do not think she -felt it very much, or was even conscious for a long time that she had -lost anything. But still it was painful and surprising to her to be -dismissed with a brief nod, and “How d’ye do?” in passing, from Lady -Jane. She was troubled to think what she could have done to alienate a -woman whom she had always liked, and who had professed, as Katherine -knew, to think the elder sister the superior of the younger. That, -however, was of course a mere _façon de parler_, for Stella had always -been, Katherine reminded herself, the attraction to the house. People -might even approve of herself more, but it was Stella who was the -attraction--Stella who shocked and disturbed, and amused and delighted -everybody about; who was always inventing new things, festive surprises -and novelties, and keeping a whirl of life in the place. The neighbours -gave their serious approval to Katherine, but she did not amuse them or -surprise. They never had to speculate what she would do next. They knew -(she said to herself) that she would always do just the conventional -proper thing, whereas Stella never could be calculated upon, and had a -perpetual charm of novelty. Katherine was not sufficiently enlightened -to be aware that Stella’s way in its wildness was much the more -conventional of the two. - -But the effect was soon made very plain. The link between the Tredgolds -and the higher society of the island was broken. Perhaps it is -conventional, too, to call these good people the higher society, for -they were not high society in any sense of the word. There were a great -many stupid people among them. Those who were not stupid were little -elevated above the other classes except by having more beautiful -manners _when they chose_. Generally, they did not choose, and therefore -were worse than the humble people because they knew better. Their one -great quality was that they were the higher class. It is a great thing -to stand first, whatever nation or tribe, or tongue, or sect, or station -you may belong to. It is in itself an education: it saves even very -stupid people from many mistakes that even clever people make in other -spheres, and it gives a sort of habit of greatness--if I may use the -words--of feeling that there is nothing extraordinary in brushing -shoulders with the greatest at any moment; indeed, that it is certain -you will brush shoulders with them, to-day or to-morrow, in the natural -course of events. To know the people who move the world makes even the -smallest man a little bigger, makes him accustomed to the stature of the -gods. - -I am not sure that this tells in respect to the poets and painters and -so forth, who are what the youthful imagination always fixes on as the -flower of noble society. One thinks in maturer life that perhaps one -prefers not to come to too close quarters with these, any more than with -dignified clergymen, lest some of the bloom of one’s veneration might be -rubbed off. But one does not venerate in the same way the governors of -the world, the men who are already historical; and it is perhaps they -and their contemporaries from beyond all the seas, who, naturally -revolving in that sphere, give a kind of bigness, not to be found in -other spheres, to the highest class of society everywhere. One must -account to oneself somehow for the universal pre-eminence of an -aristocracy which consists of an enormous number of the most completely -commonplace, and even vulgar, individuals. It is not high, but it cannot -help coming in contact with the highest. Figures pass familiarly before -its eyes, and brush its shoulders in passing, which are wonders and -prodigies to other men. One wants an explanation, and this is the one -that commends itself to me. Therefore, to be cut off from this higher -class is an evil, whatever anyone may say. - -Katherine, in her wounded pride and in her youth, did not allow that -she thought so, I need not say. Her serious little head was tossed in -indignation as scornfully as Stella’s would have been. She recalled to -herself what dull people they were (which was quite true), and how -commonplace their talk, and asked heaven and earth why she should care. -Lottie Seton, for instance, with her retinue of silly young men: was she -a loss to anyone? It was different with Lady Jane, who was a person of -sense, and Katherine felt herself obliged to allow, different -someway--she could not tell how--from the village ladies. Yet Lady Jane, -though she disapproved highly of Mrs. Seton, for instance, never would -have shut her out, as she very calmly and without the least hesitation -shut out Katherine, of whom in her heart she did approve. It seemed to -the girl merely injustice, the tyranny of a preposterous convention, the -innate snobbishness (what other word is there?) of people in what is -called society. And though she said little, she felt herself dropped out -of that outer ledge of it, upon which Lady Jane’s patronage had posed -her and her sister, with an angry pang. Stella belonged to it now, -because she had married a pauper, a mercenary, fortune-hunting, and -disreputable man; but she, who had done no harm, who was exactly the -same Katherine as ever, was dropped. - -There were other consequences of this which were more harmful still. -People who were connected in business with Mr. Tredgold, who had always -appeared occasionally in the house, but against whom Stella had set her -little impertinent face, now appeared in greater numbers, and with -greater assurance than ever; and Mr. Tredgold, no longer held under -subjection by Stella, liked to have them. With the hold she had on the -great people, Stella had been able to keep these others at a distance, -for Stella had that supreme distinction which belongs to aristocracy of -being perfectly indifferent whether she hurt other people’s feelings or -not; but Katherine possessed neither the one advantage nor the -other--neither the hold upon society nor the calm and indifference. And -the consequence naturally was that she was pushed to the wall. The city -people came more and more; and she had to be kind to them, to receive -them as if she liked it. When I say she had to do it, I do not mean that -Katherine was forced by her father, but that she was forced by herself. -There is an Eastern proverb that says “A man can act only according to -his nature.” It was no more possible for Katherine to be uncivil, to -make anyone feel that he or she was unwelcome, to “hurt their feelings,” -as she would have said, than to read Hebrew or Chinese. - -So she was compelled to be agreeable to the dreadful old men who sat and -talked stocks and premiums, and made still more dreadful jokes with her -father, making him chuckle till he almost choked; and to the old women -who criticised her housekeeping, and told her that a little bit of onion -(or something else) would improve this dish, or just a taste of brandy -that, and who wondered that she did not control the table in the -servants’ hall, and give them out daily what was wanted. Still more -terrible were the sons and daughters who came, now one, now another; the -first making incipient love to her, the other asking about the officers, -and if there were many balls, and men enough, or always too many ladies, -as was so often the case. The worst part of her new life was these -visits upon which she now exercised no control. Stella had done so. -Stella had said, “Now, papa, I cannot have those old guys of yours here; -let the men come from Saturday to Monday and talk shop with you if you -like, but we can’t have the women, nor the young ones. There I set down -my foot,” and this she had emphasised with a stamp on the carpet, which -was saucy and pretty, and delighted the old man. But Mr. Tredgold was no -fool, and he knew very well the difference between his daughters. He -knew that Katherine would not put down her foot, and if she had -attempted to do so, he would have laughed in her face--not a delighted -laugh of acquiescence as with Stella, but a laugh of ridicule that she -could suppose he would be taken in so easily. Katherine tried quietly to -express to her father her hope that he would not inflict these guests -upon her. “You have brought us up so differently, papa,” she would say -with hesitation, while he replied, “Stuff and nonsense! they are just as -good as you are.” - -“Perhaps,” said Katharine. “Mrs. Simmons, I am sure, is a much better -woman than I am; but we don’t ask her to come in to dinner.” - -“Hold your impudence!” her father cried, who was never choice in his -expressions. “Do you put my friends on a level with your servants?” He -would not have called them her servants in any other conversation, but -in this it seemed to point the moral better. - -“They are not so well bred, papa,” she said, which was a speech which -from Stella would have delighted the old man, but from Katherine it made -him angry. - -“Don’t let me hear you set up such d---- d pretensions,” he cried. “Who -are you, I wonder, to turn up your nose at the Turnys of Lothbury? There -is not a better firm in London, and young Turny’s got his grandfather’s -money, and many a one of your grand ladies would jump at him. If you -don’t take your chance when you find it, you may never have another, my -fine lady. None of your beggars with titles for me. My old friends -before all.” - -This was a fine sentiment indeed, calculated to penetrate the most -callous heart; but it made Katherine glow all over, and then grow chill -and pale. She divined what was intended--that there were designs to -unite her, now the representative of the Tredgolds, with the heir of the -house of Turny. There was no discrepancy of fortune there. Old Turny -could table thousand by thousand with Mr. Tredgold, and it was a match -that would delight both parties. Why should Katherine have felt so -violent a pang of offended pride? Mr. Turny was no better and no worse -in origin than she. The father of that family was her father’s oldest -friend; the young people had been brought up with “every -advantage”--even a year or two of the University for the eldest son, -who, however, when he was found to be spending his time in vanities with -other young men like himself--not with the sons of dukes and earls, -which might have made it bearable--was promptly withdrawn accordingly, -but still could call himself an Oxford man. The girls had been to school -in France and in Germany, and had learned their music in Berlin and -their drawing in Paris. They were far better educated than Katherine, -who had never had any instructor but a humble governess at home. How, -then, did it come about that the idea of young Turny having the -insolence to think of her should have made Katherine first red with -indignation, then pale with disgust? I cannot explain it, neither could -she to herself; but so it was. We used to hear a great deal about -nature’s noblemen in the days of sentimental fiction. But there -certainly is such a thing as a natural-born aristocrat, without any -foundation for his or her instinct, yet possessing it as potently as the -most highly descended princess that ever breathed. Katherine’s -grand-father, as has been said, had been a respectable linen-draper, -while the Turnys sprung from a house of business devoting itself to the -sale of crockery at an adjoining corner; yet Katherine felt herself as -much insulted by the suggestion of young Turny as a suitor as if she had -been a lady of high degree and he a low-born squire. There are more -things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. - -Two or three of such suitors crossed her path within a short time. -Neither of the sisters might have deserved the attentions of these -gentlemen had they been likely to share their father’s wealth; but now -that the disgrace of one was generally known, and the promotion of the -other as sole heiress generally counted upon, this was what happened to -Katherine. She was exceedingly civil in a superior kind of way, with an -air noble that indeed sat very well upon her, and a dignity worthy of a -countess at least to these visitors: serious and stately with the -mothers, tolerant with the fathers, gracious with the daughters, but -altogether unbending with the sons. She would have none of them. Two -other famous young heroes of the city (both of whom afterwards married -ladies of distinguished families, and who has not heard of Lady Arabella -Turny?) followed the first, but with the same result. Mr. Tredgold was -very angry with his only remaining child. He asked her if she meant to -be an infernal fool too. If so, she might die in a ditch for anything -her father cared, and he would leave all his money to a hospital. - -“A good thing too. Far better than heaping all your good money, that -you’ve worked and slaved for, on the head of a silly girl. Who are you, -I wonder,” he said, “to turn up your dashed little nose? Why, you’re not -even a beauty like the other; a little prim thing that would never get a -man to look twice at you but for your father’s money at your back. But -don’t you make too sure of your father’s money--to keep up your -grandeur,” he cried. Nevertheless, though he was so angry, Mr. Tredgold -was rather pleased all the same to see his girl turn up her nose at his -friends’ sons. She was not a bit better than they were--perhaps not so -good. And he was very angry, yet could not but feel flattered too at the -hang-dog looks with which the Turnys and others went away--“tail between -their legs,” he said to himself; and it tickled his fancy and pride, -though he was so much displeased. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII. - - -Perhaps the village society into which Katherine was now thrown was not -much more elevating than the Turnys, &c.; but it was different. She had -known it all her life, for one thing, and understood every allusion, and -had almost what might be called an interest in all the doings of the -parish. The fact that the old Cantrells had grown so rich that they now -felt justified in confessing it, and were going to retire from the -bakery and set up as private gentlefolks while their daughter and -son-in-law entered into possession of the business, quite entertained -her for half an hour while it was being discussed by Miss Mildmay and -Mrs. Shanks over their tea. Katherine had constructed for herself in the -big and crowded drawing-room, by means of screens, a corner in which -there was both a fireplace and a window, and which looked like an inner -room, now that she had taken possession of it. She had covered the -gilded furniture with chintzes, and the shining tables with embroidered -cloths. The fire always burned bright, and the window looked out over -the cliff and the fringe of tamarisks upon the sea. The dual chamber, -the young ladies’ room, with all its contrivances for pleasure and -occupation, was shut up, as has been said, and this was the first place -which Katherine had ever had of her very own. - -She did not work nearly so much for bazaars as she had done in the old -Stella days. Then that kind of material occupation (though the things -produced were neither very admirable in themselves nor of particular use -to anyone) gave a sort of steady thread, flimsy as it was, to run -through her light and airy life. It meant something if not much. _Elle -fait ses robes_--which is the last height of the good girl’s excellence -in modern French--would have been absurd; and to make coats and cloaks -for the poor by Stella’s side would have been extremely inappropriate, -not to say that such serious labours are much against the exquisite -disorder of a modern drawing-room, therefore the bazaar articles had to -do. But now there was no occasion for the bazaars--green and gilt paper -stained her fingers no more. She had no one to keep in balance; no one -but herself, who weighed a little if anything to the other side, and -required, if anything, a touch of frivolity, which, to be sure, the -bazaars were quite capable of furnishing if you took them in that way. -She read a great deal in this retreat of hers; but I fear to say it was -chiefly novels she read. And she had not the least taste for -metaphysics. And anything about Woman, with a capital letter, daunted -her at once. She was very dull sometimes--what human creature is -not?--but did not blame anyone else for it, nor even fate. She chiefly -thought it was her own fault, and that she had indeed no right to be -dull; and in this I think she showed herself to be a very reasonable -creature. - -Now that Lady Jane’s large landau never swept up to the doors, one of -the most frequent appearances there was that convenient but unbeautiful -equipage called the midge. It was not a vehicle beloved of the -neighbourhood. The gardener’s wife, now happily quite recovered from the -severe gunshot wound she had received on the night of Stella’s -elopement, went out most reluctantly, taking a very long time about it, -to open the gate when it appeared. She wanted to know what was the good -of driving that thing in, as was no credit to be seen anywhere, when -them as used it might just as well have got out outside the gate and -walked. The ladies did not think so at all. They were very particular to -be driven exactly up to the door and turned half round so that the door -which was at the end, not the side of the vehicle, should be opposite -the porch; and they would sometimes keep it waiting an hour, a -remarkable object seen from all the windows, while they sat with poor -Katherine and cheered her up. These colloquies always began with -inquiries after her sister. - -“Have you heard again from Stella? Where is she now, poor child? Have -you heard of their safe arrival? And where is the regiment to be -quartered? And what does she say of the climate? Does she think it will -agree with her? Are they in the plains, where it is so hot, or near the -hills, where there is always a little more air?” - -Such was the beginning in every case, and then the two ladies would draw -their chairs a little nearer, and ask eagerly in half-whispers, “And -your papa, Katherine? Does he show any signs of relenting? Does he ever -speak of her? Don’t you think he will soon give in? He must give in -soon. Considering how fond he was of Stella, I cannot understand how he -has held out so long.” - -Katherine ignored as much as she could the latter questions. - -“I believe they are in quite a healthy place,” she said, “and it amuses -Stella very much, and the life is all so new. You know she is very fond -of novelty, and there are a great many parties and gaieties, and of -course she knows everybody. She seems to be getting on very well.” - -“And very happy with her husband, I hope, my dear--for that is the great -thing after all.” - -“Do you expect Stella to say that she is not happy with her husband, -Jane Shanks? or Katherine to repeat it if she did? All young women are -happy with their husbands--that’s taken for granted--so far as the world -is concerned.” - -“I think, Ruth Mildmay, it is you who should have been Mrs. Shanks,” -cried the other, with a laugh. - -“Heaven forbid! You may be quite sure that had I ever been tempted that -way, I should only have changed for a better, not a worse name.” - -“Stella,” cried Katherine to stop the fray, “seems to get on capitally -with Charlie. She is always talking of him. I should think they were -constantly together, and enjoying themselves very much indeed.” - -“Ah, it is early days,” Miss Mildmay said, with a shake of her head. -“And India is a very dissipated place. There are always things going on -at an Indian station that keep people from thinking. By-and-by, when -difficulties come---- But you must always stand her friend and keep her -before your father’s eyes. I don’t know if Jane Shanks has told you--but -the news is all over the town--the Cantrells have taken that place, you -know, with the nice paddock and garden; the place the doctor was -after--quite a gentleman’s little place. I forget the name, but it is -near the Rectory--don’t you know?--a little to the right; quite a -gentleman’s house.” - -“I suppose Mr. Cantrell considers himself a gentleman now,” Katherine -said, glad of the change of subject. - -“Why, he’s a magistrate,” said Mrs. Shanks, “and could buy up the half -of us--isn’t that the right thing to say when a man has grown rich in -trade?” - -“It is a thing papa says constantly,” said Katherine; “and I suppose, as -that is what has happened to himself----” - -“O my dear Katherine! you don’t suppose that for one moment! fancy dear -Mr. Tredgold, with his colossal fortune--a merchant prince and all -that--compared to old Cantrell, the baker! Nobody could ever think of -making such a comparison!” - -“It just shows how silly it is not to make up your mind,” said Miss -Mildmay. “I know the doctor was after that house--much too large a house -for an unmarried man, I have always said, but it was not likely that he -would think anything of what I said--and now it is taken from under his -very nose. The Cantrells did not take long to make up their minds! They -go out and in all day long smiling at each other. I believe they think -they will quite be county people with that house.” - -“It is nice to see them smiling at each other--at their age they were -just as likely to be spitting fire at each other. I shall call certainly -and ask her to show me over the house. I like to see such people’s -houses, and their funny arrangements and imitations, and yet the -original showing through all the same.” - -“And does George Cantrell get the shop?” Katherine asked. She had known -George Cantrell all her life--better than she knew the young gentlemen -who were to be met at Steephill and in whom it would have been natural -to be interested. “He was always very nice to us when we were little,” -she said. - -“Oh, my dear child, you must not speak of George Cantrell. He has gone -away somewhere--nobody knows where. He fell in love with his mother’s -maid-of-all-work--don’t you know?--and married her and put the house of -Cantrell to shame. So there are no shops nor goodwills for George. He -has to work as what they call a journeyman, after driving about in his -nice cart almost like a gentleman.” - -“I suppose,” said Miss Mildmay, “that even in the lower classes grades -must tell. There are grades everywhere. When I gave the poor children a -tea at Christmas, the carpenter’s little girls were not allowed to come -because the little flower-woman’s children were to be there.” - -“For that matter we don’t know anything about the doctor’s grade, Ruth -Mildmay. He might be a baker’s son just like George for anything we -know.” - -“That is true,” said the other. “You can’t tell who anybody is nowadays. -But because he is a doctor--which I don’t think anything of as a -profession--none of my belongings were ever doctors, I know nothing -about them--he might ask any girl to marry him--anybody----” - -“Surely, his education makes some difference,” Katherine said. - -“Oh, education! You can pick up as much education as you like at any -roadside now. And what does that kind of education do for you?--walking -hospitals where the worst kind of people are collected together, and -growing familiar with the nastiest things and the most horrible! Will -that teach a man the manners of a gentleman?” Miss Mildmay asked, -raising her hands and appealing to earth and heaven. - -At this point in the conversation the drawing-room door opened, and -someone came in knocking against the angles of the furniture. - -“May I announce myself?” a voice said. “Burnet--Dr., as I stand in the -directory. John was trying to catch the midge, which had bolted, and -accordingly I brought myself in. How do you do, Miss Katherine? It is -very cold outside.” - -“The midge bolted!” both the ladies cried with alarm, rushing to the -window. - -“Nothing of the sort,” cried Mrs. Shanks, who was the more nimble. “It -is there standing as quiet as a judge. Fancy the midge bolting!” - -“Oh, have they got it safe again?” he said. “But you ladies should not -drive such a spirited horse.” - -“Fancy----” Mrs. Shanks began, but the ground was cut from under her -feet by her more energetic friend. - -“Katherine,” she said, “you see what a very good example this is of what -we were saying. It is evident the doctor wants us to bolt after the -midge--if you will forgive me using such a word.” - -“On the contrary,” said the doctor, “I wish you to give me your advice, -which I am sure nobody could do better. I want you to tell me whether -you think the Laurels would be a good place for me to set up my -household gods.” - -“The Laurels! oh, the Laurels----” cried Mrs. Shanks, eager to speak, -but anxious at the same time to spare Dr. Burnet’s feelings. - -“The Cantrells have bought the Laurels,” said Miss Mildmay, quickly, -determined to be first. - -“The Cantrells--the bakers!” he cried, his countenance falling. - -“Yes, indeed, the Cantrells, the bakers--people who know their own mind, -Dr. Burnet. They went over the house yesterday, every corner, from the -drawing-room to the dustbin; and they were delighted with it, and they -settled everything this morning. They are going to set up a carriage, -and, in short, to become county people--if they can,” Miss Mildmay said. - -“They are very respectable,” said Mrs. Shanks. “Of course, Ruth Mildmay -is only laughing when she speaks of county people--but I should like to -ask her, after she has got into it, to show me the house.” - -“The Cantrells--the bakers!” cried Dr. Burnet, with a despair which was -half grotesque, “in _my_ house! This is a very dreadful thing for me, -Miss Katherine, though I see that you are disposed to laugh. I have been -thinking of it for some time as my house. I have been settling all the -rooms, where this was to be and where that was to be.” Here he paused a -moment, and gave her a look which was startling, but which Katherine, -notwithstanding her experience with the Turnys, etc., did not -immediately understand. And then he grew a little red under his somewhat -sunburnt weather-beaten complexion, and cried--“What am I to do? It -unsettles everything. The Cantrells! in my house.” - -“You see, it doesn’t do to shilly-shally, doctor,” said Miss Mildmay. -“You should come to the point. While you think about it someone else is -sure to come in and do it. And the Cantrells are people that know their -own minds.” - -“Yes, indeed,” he said--“yes, indeed,” shaking his head. “Poor -George--they know their own minds with a vengeance. That poor fellow now -is very likely to go to the dogs.” - -“No; he will go to London,” said the other old lady. “I know some such -nice people there in the same trade, and I have recommended him to them. -You know the people, Katherine--they used to send us down such nice -French loaves by the parcel post, that time when I quarrelled with the -old Cantrells, don’t you remember, about----” - -“I don’t think there is any other house about Sliplin that will suit you -now, Dr. Burnet,” said Miss Mildmay. “You will have to wait a little, -and keep on the look-out.” - -“I suppose so,” he said dejectedly, thrusting his hands down to the -depths of his pockets, as if it were possible that he should find some -consolation there. - -And he saw the two ladies out with great civility, putting them into the -midge with a care for their comfort which melted their hearts. - -“I should wait a little now, if I were you,” said Miss Mildmay, gripping -his hand for a moment with the thin old fingers, which she had muffled -up in coarse woollen gloves drawn on over the visiting kid. “I should -wait a little, since you have let this chance slip.” - -“Do you think so?” he said. - -“Ruth Mildmay,” said Mrs. Shanks, when they had driven away. “This is -not treating me fairly. There is something private between you and that -young man which you have never disclosed to me.” - -“There is nothing private,” said Miss Mildmay. “Do you think I’m an -improper person, Jane Shanks? There is nothing except that I’ve got a -pair of eyes in my head.” - -Dr. Burnet went slowly back to the drawing-room, where Katherine had -promised him a cup of tea. His step sounded differently, and when he -knocked against the furniture the sound was dull. He looked a different -man altogether. He had come in so briskly, half an hour before, that -Katherine was troubled for him. - -“I am afraid you are very much disappointed about the house,” she said. - -“Yes, Miss Katherine, I am. I had set my heart on it somehow--and on -other things connected with it,” he said. - -She was called Miss Katherine by everybody in consequence of the dislike -of her father to have any sign of superiority over her sister shown to -his eldest daughter. Miss Katherine and Miss Stella meant strict -equality. Neither of them was ever called Miss Tredgold. - -“I am very sorry,” she said, with her soft sympathetic voice. - -He looked at her, and she for a moment at him, as she gave him his cup -of tea. Again she was startled, almost confused, by his look, but could -not make out to herself the reason why. Then she made a little effort to -recover herself, and said, with a half laugh, half shiver, “You are -thinking how we once took tea together in the middle of the night.” - -“On that dreadful morning?” he said. “No, I don’t know that I was, but -I shall never forget it. Don’t let me bring it back to your mind.” - -“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I think of it often enough. And I don’t believe -I ever thanked you, Dr. Burnet, for all you did for me, leaving -everything to go over to Portsmouth, you that are always so busy, to -make those inquiries--which were of so little good--and explaining -everything to the Rector, and sending him off too.” - -“And his inquiries were of some use, though mine were not,” he said. -“Well, we are both your very humble servants, Miss Katherine: I will say -that for him. If Stanley could keep the wind from blowing upon you too -roughly he would do so, and it’s the same with me.” - -Katherine looked up with a sudden open-eyed glance of pleasure and -gratitude. “How very good of you to say that!” she cried. “How kind, how -beautiful, to think it! It is true I am very solitary now. I haven’t -many people to feel for me. I shall always be grateful and happy to -think that you have so kind a feeling for me, you two good men.” - -“Oh, as for the goodness,” he said. And then he remembered Miss -Mildmay’s advice, and rubbed his hands over his eyes as if to take -something out of them which he feared was there. Katherine sat down and -looked at him very kindly, but her recollection was chiefly of the -strong white teeth with which he had eaten the bread-and-butter in the -dark of the winter morning after _that_ night. It was the only breakfast -he was likely to have, going off as he did on her concerns, and he had -been called out of his bed in the middle of the night, and had passed a -long time by her father’s bedside. All these things made the simple -impromptu meal very necessary; but still she had kept the impression on -her mind of his strong teeth taking a large bite of the -bread-and-butter, which was neither sentimental nor romantic. This was -about all that passed between them on that day. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII. - - -The village society in Sliplin was not to be despised, especially by a -girl who had no pretensions, like Katherine. When a person out of the -larger world comes into such a local society, it is inevitable that he -or she should look upon it with a more or less courteous contempt, and -that the chief members should condole with him or her upon the -inferiority of the new surroundings, and the absence of those -intellectual and other advantages which he or she is supposed to have -tasted in London, for example. But, as a matter of fact, the -intellectual advantages are much more in evidence on the lower than on -the higher ground. Lady Jane, no doubt, had her own particular box from -Mudie’s and command of all the magazines, &c., at first hand; but then -she read very little, having the Mudie books chiefly for her governess, -and glancing only at some topic of the day, some great lady’s -predilections on Society and its depravity, or some fad which happened -to be on the surface for the moment, and which everybody was expected to -be able to discuss. Whereas the Sliplin ladies read all the books, vying -with each other who should get them first, and were great in the -_Nineteenth Century_ and the _Fortnightly_, and all the more weighty -periodicals. They were members of mutual improvement societies, and of -correspondence classes, and I don’t know all what. Some of them studied -logic and other appalling subjects through the latter means, and many of -them wrote modest little essays and chronicles of their reading for the -press. When the University Extension Lectures were set up quite a -commotion was made in the little town. Mr. Stanley, the rector, and Dr. -Burnet were both on the committee, and everybody went to hear the -lectures. They were one year on the History of the Merovingians, and -another year on Crockery--I mean Pottery, or rather Ceramic Art--and a -third upon the Arctic Circle. They were thus calculated to produce a -broad general intelligence, people said, though it was more difficult to -see how they extended the system of the Universities, which seldom -devote themselves to such varied studies. But they were very popular, -especially those which were illustrated by the limelight. - -All the ladies in Sliplin who had any respect for themselves attended -these lectures, and a number read up the subjects privately, and wrote -essays, the best of which were in their turn read out at subsequent -meetings for the edification of the others. I think, however, these -essays were rarely appreciated except by the families of the writers. -But it may be easily perceived that a great deal of mental activity was -going on where all this occurred. - -The men of the community took a great deal less trouble in the -improvement of their minds--two or three of them came to the lectures, a -rather shame-faced minority amid the ranks of the ladies, but not one, -so far as I have heard, belonged to a mutual improvement society, or -profited by a correspondence class, or joined a Reading Union. Whether -this was because they were originally better educated, or naturally had -less intellectual enthusiasm, I cannot tell. In other places it might -have been supposed to be because they had less leisure; but that was -scarcely to be asserted in Sliplin, where nobody, or hardly anybody, had -anything to do. There was a good club, and very good billiard tables, -which perhaps supplied an alternative; but I would not willingly say -anything to the prejudice of the gentlemen, who were really, in a -general way, as intelligent as the ladies, though they did so much less -for the improvement of their minds. Now, the people whom Katherine -Tredgold had met at Steephill did none of these things--the officers and -their society as represented by Charlie Somers and Algy Scott, and their -original leader, Mrs. Seton, were, it is needless to state, absolutely -innocent of any such efforts. Therefore Katherine, as may be said, had -gained rather than lost by being so much more drawn into this -intellectually active circle when dropped by that of Lady Jane. - -The chief male personages in this society were certainly the doctor and -the clergyman. Curates came and curates went, and some of them were -clever and some the reverse; but Mr. Stanley and Dr. Burnet went on for -ever. They were of course invariably of all the dinner parties, but -there the level of intelligence was not so high--the other gentlemen in -the town and the less important ones in the country coming in as a more -important element. But in the evening parties, which were popular in -Sliplin during the winter, and the afternoon-tea parties which some -people, who did not care to go out at night, tried hard to introduce in -their place, they were supreme. It was astonishing how the doctor, so -hard-worked a man, managed to find scraps of time for so many of these -assemblages. He was never there during the whole of these symposia. He -came very late or he went away very early, he put in half an hour -between two rounds, or he ran in for ten minutes while he waited for his -dog-cart. But the occasions were very rare on which he did not appear -one time or another during the course of the entertainment. Mr. Stanley, -of course, was always on the spot. He was a very dignified clergyman, -though he had not risen to any position in the Church beyond that of -Rector of Sliplin. He preached well, he read well, he looked well, he -had not too much to do; he had brought up his motherless family in the -most beautiful way, with never any entanglement of governesses or -anything that could be found fault with for a moment. Naturally, being -the father of a family, the eldest of which was twenty-two, he was not -in his first youth; but very few men of forty-seven looked so young or -so handsome and well set up. He took the greatest interest in the mental -development of the Sliplin society, presiding at the University -Extension as well as all the other meetings, and declaring publicly, to -the great encouragement of all the other students, that he himself had -“learned a great deal” from the Merovingians lectures and the Ceramic -lectures, and those on the Arctic regions. - -Mr. Stanley had three daughters, and a son who was at Cambridge; and a -pretty old Rectory with beautiful rooms, and everything very graceful -and handsome about him. The young people were certainly a drawback to -any matrimonial aspirations on his part; but it was surmised that he -entertained them all the same. Miss Mildmay was one of the people who -was most deeply convinced on this subject. She had an eye which could -see through stone walls in this particular. She knew when a man -conceived the idea of asking a woman to marry him before he knew it -himself. When she decided that a thing was to be (always in this line) -it came to pass. Her judgment was infallible. She knew all the -signs--how the man was being wrought up to the point of proposing, and -what the woman’s answer was going to be--and she took the keenest -interest in the course of the little drama. It was only a pity that she -had so little exercise for her faculty in that way, for there were few -marriages in Sliplin. The young men went away and found their wives in -other regions; the young women stayed at home, or else went off on -visits where, when they had any destiny at all, they found their fate. -It was therefore all the more absorbing in its interest when anything of -the kind came her way. Stella’s affair had been outside her orbit, and -she had gained no advantage from it; but the rector and the doctor and -Katherine Tredgold were a trio that kept her attention fully awake. - -There was a party in the Rectory about Christmas, at which all Sliplin -was present. It was a delightful house for a party. There was a pretty -old hall most comfortably warmed--which is a rare attraction in -halls--with a handsome oak staircase rising out of it, and a gallery -above which ran along two sides. The drawing-room was also a beautiful -old room, low, but large, with old furniture judiciously mingled with -new, and a row of recessed windows looking to the south and clothed -outside with a great growth of myrtle, with pink buds still visible at -Christmas amid the frost and snow. Inside it was bright with many lamps -and blazing fires; and there were several rooms to sit in, according to -the dispositions of the guests--the hall where the young people -gathered together, the drawing-rooms to which favoured people went when -they were bidden to go up higher, and Mr. Stanley’s study, where a group -of sybarites were always to be found, for it was the warmest and most -luxurious of all. The hall made the greatest noise, for Bertie was there -with various of his own order, home, like himself, for Christmas, and -clusters of girls, all chattering at the tops of their voices, and -urging each other to the point of proposing a dance, for which the hall -was so suitable, and quite large enough. The drawing-room was full of an -almost equally potent volume of sound, for everybody was talking, though -the individual voices might be lower in tone. But in the study it was -more or less quiet. The Rector himself had taken Katherine there to show -her some of his books. “It would be absurd to call them priceless,” he -said, “for any chance might bring a set into the market, and then, of -course, a price would be put upon them, varying according to the -dealer’s knowledge and the demand; but they are rare, and for a poor man -like me to have been able to get them at all is--well, I think that, -with all modesty, it is a feather in my cap; I mean, to get them at a -price within my means.” - -“It is only people who know that ever get bargains, I think,” Katherine -said, in discharge of that barren duty of admiration and approval on -subjects we do not understand, which makes us all responsible for many -foolish speeches. Mr. Stanley’s fine taste was not quite pleased with -the idea that his last acquisition was a bargain, but he let that pass. - -“Yes; I think that, without transgressing the limits of modesty, I may -allow that to be the case. It holds in everything; those who know what a -friend is attain to the best friends; those who can appreciate a noble -woman----” - -“Oh!” said Katherine, a little startled, “that is carrying the principle -perhaps too far. I was thinking of china, you know, and things of that -sort--when you see an insignificant little pot which you would not give -sixpence for, and suddenly a connoisseur comes in who puts down the -sixpence in a great hurry and carries it off rejoicing--and you hear -afterwards that it was priceless, too, though not, of course,” she -added apologetically, “like your books.” - -“Quite true, quite true,” said the Rector blandly; “but I maintain my -principle all the same, and the real prize sometimes stands unnoticed -while some rubbish is chosen instead. I hope,” he added in a lower tone, -“that you have good news from your sister, Miss Katherine, and at this -season of peace and forgiveness that your father is thinking a little -more kindly----” - -“My father says very little on the subject,” Katherine said. She knew -what he did say, which nobody else did, and the recollection made her -shiver. It was very concise, as the reader knows. - -“We must wait and hope--he has such excellent--perceptions,” said the -Rector, stumbling a little for a word, “and so much--good sense--that I -don’t doubt everything will come right.” Then he added, bending over -her, “Do you think that I could be of any use?” He took her hand for a -moment, half fatherly in his tender sympathy. “Could I help you, -perhaps, to induce him----” - -“Oh, no, no!” cried Katherine, drawing her hand away; her alarm, -however, was not for anything further that the Rector might say to -herself, but in terror at the mere idea of anyone ever hearing what Mr. -Tredgold said. - -“Ah, well,” he said with a sigh, “another time--perhaps another time.” -And then by way of changing the subject Katherine hurried off to a -little display of drawings on the table. Charlotte Stanley, the Rector’s -eldest daughter, had her correspondence class like the other ladies; but -it was a Drawing Union. She was devoted to art. She had made little -drawings since ever she could remember in pencil and in slate-pencil, -and finally in colour. Giotto could not have begun more spontaneously; -and she was apt to think that had she been taken up as Giotto was, she, -too, might have developed as he did. But short of that the Drawing Union -was her favourite occupation. The members sent little portfolios about -from one to another marked by pretty fictitious names. Charlotte signed -herself Fenella, though it would have been difficult to tell why; for -she was large and fair. The portfolio, with all the other ladies’ -performances, was put out to delight the guests, and along with that -several drawings of her own. She came up hastily to explain them, not, -perhaps, altogether to her father’s satisfaction, but he yielded his -place with his usual gentleness. - -“We send our drawings every month,” said the young artist, “and they are -criticised first and then sent round. Mr. Strange, of the Water Colour -Society, is our critic. He is quite distinguished; here is his little -note in the corner. ‘Good in places, but the sky is heavy, and there is -a want of atmospheric effect’--that is Fair Rosamond’s. Oh, yes, I know -her other name, but we are not supposed to mention them; and this is one -of mine--see what he says: ‘Great improvement, shows much desire to -learn, but too much stippling and great hardness in parts.’ I confess I -am too fond of stippling,” Charlotte said. “And then every month we have -a composition. ‘The Power of Music’ was the subject last time--that or -‘Sowing the Seed.’ I chose the music. You will think, perhaps, it is -very simple.” She lifted a drawing in which a little child in a red -frock and blue pinafore stood looking up at a bird of uncertain race in -a cage. “You see what he says,” Charlotte continued--“‘Full of good -intention, the colour perhaps a little crude, but there is much feeling -in the sketch.’ Now, feeling was precisely what I aimed at,” she said. - -Katherine was no judge of drawing any more than she was of literature, -and though the little picture did not appeal to her (for there were -pictures at the Cliff, and she had lived in the same room with several -Hunts and one supreme scrap of Turner--bought a bargain on the -information that it was a safe investment many years ago--and therefore -had an eye more cultivated than she was aware of) she was impressed by -her friend’s achievement, and thought it was a great thing to employ -your time in such elevated ways. Evelyn, who was only seventeen and very -frolicsome, wrote essays for the Mutual Improvement Society. This -filled Katherine, who did nothing particular, with great respect. She -found a little knot of them consulting and arguing what they were to say -in the next paper, and she was speechless with admiration. Inferior! -Lady Jane did not think much of the Sliplin people. She had warned the -girls in the days of her ascendency not to “mix themselves up” with the -village folk, not to conduct themselves as if they belonged to the -nobodies. But Lady Jane had never, Katherine felt sure, written an essay -in her life. She had her name on the Committee of the University -Extension centre at Sliplin, but she never attended a lecture. She it -was who was inferior, she and her kind: if intellect counted for -anything, surely, Katherine thought, the intellect was here. - -And then Dr. Burnet, came flying in, bringing a gust of fresh air with -him. Though he had but a very short time to spare, he made his way to -her through all the people who detained him. “I am glad to see you here; -you don’t despise the village parties,” he said. - -“Despise them!--but I am not nearly good enough for them. I feel so -small and so ignorant--they are all thinking of so many things--essays -and criticisms and I don’t know what. It is they who should despise me.” - -“Oh, I don’t think very much of the essays--nor would you if you saw -them,” Dr. Burnet said. - -“I tell you all,” said Miss Mildmay, “though you are so grand with your -theories and so forth, it is the old-fashioned girls who know nothing -about such nonsense that the gentlemen like best.” - -“The gentlemen--what gentlemen?” said Katherine, not at all comforted by -this side of the question, and, indeed, not very clear what was meant. - -“Oh, don’t pretend to be a little fool,” said Miss Mildmay. She was -quite anxious to promote what she considered to be Katherine’s two -chances--the two strings she had to her bow--but to put up with this -show of ignorance was too much for her. She went off angrily to where -her companion sat, yawning a little over an entertainment which -depended so entirely for its success upon whether you had someone nice -to talk to or not. “Kate Tredgold worries me,” she said. “She pretends -she knows nothing, when she is just as well up to it as either you or -I.” - -“I am up to nothing,” said Mrs. Shanks; “I only know what you say; and I -don’t believe Mr. Tredgold would give his daughter and only heiress to -either of them--if Stella is cut off, poor thing----” - -“Stella will not be cut off,” said Miss Mildmay. “Mark my words. He’ll -go back to her sooner or later; and what a good thing if Katherine had -someone to stand by her before then!” - -“If you saw two straws lying together in the road you would think there -was something between them,” cried Mrs. Shanks, yawning more than ever. -“Oh, Ruth Mildmay, fancy our being brought out on a cold night and -having to pay for the Midge and all that, and nothing more in it than to -wag our heads at each other about Katherine Tredgold’s marriage, if it -ever comes off!” - -“Let me take you in to supper,” said the rector, approaching with his -arm held out. - -And then Mrs. Shanks felt that there was compensation in all things. She -was taken in one of the first, she said afterwards; not the very -first--she could not expect that, with Mrs. Barry of Northcote present, -and General Skelton’s wife. The army and the landed gentry naturally -were first. But Miss Mildmay did not follow till long after--till the -doctor found her still standing in a corner, with that grim look of -suppressed scorn and satirical spectatorship with which the proud -neglected watch the vulgar stream pressing before them. - -“Have you not been _in_ yet?” the doctor said. - -“No,” said Miss Mildmay. “You see, I am not young to go with the girls, -nor married to go with the ladies who are at the head of society. I only -stand and look on.” - -“That is just my case,” said Dr. Burnet. “I am not young to go with the -girls, nor married to disport myself with Mrs. Barry or such magnates. -Let us be jolly together, for we are both in the same box.” - -“Don’t you let that girl slip through your fingers,” said Miss Mildmay -solemnly, as she went “in” on his arm. - -“Will she ever come within reach of my fingers?” the doctor said, -shaking his head. - -“You are not old, like that Stanley man; you’ve got no family dragging -you back. I should not stand by if I were you, and let her be seduced -into this house as the stepmother!” said Miss Mildmay with energy. - -“Don’t talk like that in the man’s house. He is a good man, and we are -just going to eat his sandwiches.” - -“If there are any left,” Miss Mildmay said. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV. - - -Thus it will be seen that Katherine’s new position as the only daughter -of her father was altogether like a new beginning of life, though she -had been familiar with the place and the people for years. Stella had -been the leader in everything, as has been said. When she went to a -party at the Rectory, she turned it into a dance or a romp at once, and -kept the Drawing Union and the Mutual Improvement Society quite in the -background. Even the books which for a year or two back the rector would -have liked to show Katherine privately, beguiling her into separate -talks, had been thrust aside necessarily when Katherine was imperiously -demanded for Sir Roger de Coverley or a round game. Therefore these more -studious and elevated occupations of the little community came upon her -now with the force of a surprise. Her own home was changed to her also -in the most remarkable way. Stella was not a creature whom anyone fully -approved of, not even her sister. She was very indifferent to the -comfort and wishes of others; she loved her own amusement by whatever -way it could be best obtained. She was restrained by no scruples about -the proprieties, or the risk--which was one of Katherine’s chief -terrors--of hurting other people’s feelings. She did what she liked, -instantaneously, recklessly, at any risk. And her father himself, though -he chuckled and applauded and took a certain pride in her cleverness -even when she cheated and defied him, did not pretend to approve of -Stella; but she carried her little world with her all the same. There -was a current, a whirl of air about her rapid progress. The stiller -figures were swept on with her whether they liked it or not; and, as a -matter of fact, they generally did like it when fairly afloat upon that -quick-flowing, rippling, continuous stream of youth and life. - -But now that all this movement and variety had departed nothing could be -imagined more dull than Mr. Tredgold’s house on the Cliff. It was like a -boat cast ashore--no more commotion of the sea and waves, no more risk -of hurricane or tempest, no need to shout against the noise of a -cyclone, or to steer in the teeth of a gale. It was all silent, all -quiet, nothing to be done, no tides to touch the motionless mass or -tinkle against the dull walls of wood. When Katherine received her -guests from the city, she felt as if she were showing them over a museum -rather than a house. “This is the room we used to sit in when my sister -was at home; I do not use it now.” How often had she to say such words -as these! And when the heavy tax of these visits had been paid she found -herself again high and dry, once more stranded, when the last carriage -had driven away. - -But the rush of little parties and festivities about Christmas, when all -the sons and brothers were at home, into which she was half forced by -the solicitations of her neighbours, and half by her own forlorn longing -to see and speak to somebody, made a not unwelcome change. The ladies in -Sliplin, especially those who had sons, had always been anxious to -secure the two Miss Tredgolds, the two heiresses, for every -entertainment, and there was nothing mercenary in the increased -attention paid to Katherine. She would have been quite rich enough with -half her father’s fortune to have fulfilled the utmost wishes of any -aspirant in the village. The doctor and the rector had both thought of -Katherine before there was any change in her fortunes--at the time when -it was believed that Stella would have the lion’s share of the money, as -well as, evidently, of the love. In that they were quite unlike the city -suitors, who only found her worth their while from the point of view of -old Tredgold’s entire and undivided fortune. Indeed, it is to be feared -that Sliplin generally would have been overawed by the greatness of her -heiresshood had it grasped this idea. But still nobody believed in the -disinheriting of Stella. They believed that she would be allowed to -repent at leisure of her hasty marriage, but never that she would be -finally cut off. The wooing of the rector and that of the doctor had -only reached an acuter stage because now Katherine was alone. They felt -that she was solitary and downcast, and wanted cheering and a companion -to indemnify her for what she had lost, and this naturally increased the -chances of the fortunate man who should succeed. - -Mr. Stanley would (perhaps) have been alarmed at the idea of offering -the position of stepmother to his children to Mr. Tredgold’s sole -heiress; although he would not, perhaps, have thought that in justice to -his family he could have asked her to share his lot had it not been -evident that she must have her part of her father’s fortune. He was a -moderate man--modest, as he would himself have said--and he had made up -his mind that Katherine in Stella’s shadow would have made a perfect -wife for him. Therefore he had been frightened rather than elated by the -change in her position; but with the consciousness of his previous -sentiments, which were so disinterested, he had got over that, and now -felt that in her loneliness a proposal such as he had to make might be -even more agreeable than in other circumstances. The doctor was in -something of the same mind. He was not at all like Turny and Company. He -felt the increased fortune to be a drawback, making more difference -between them than had existed before, but yet met this difficulty like a -man, feeling that it might be got over. He would probably have hesitated -more if she had been cut off without a shilling as Stella was supposed, -but never believed, to be. - -Neither of these gentlemen had any idea of that formula upon which Mr. -Tredgold stood. The money on the table, thousand for thousand, would -have been inconceivable to them. Indeed, they did not believe, -notwithstanding the experience of Sir Charles Somers, that there would -be much difficulty in dealing with old Tredgold. He might tie up his -money, and these good men had no objection--they did not want to grasp -at her money. Let him tie it up! They would neither of them have -opposed that. As to further requirements on his part they were tranquil, -neither of them being penniless, or in the condition, they both felt, to -be considered fortune-hunters at all. The curious thing was that they -were each aware of the other’s sentiments, without hating each other, or -showing any great amount of jealousy. Perhaps the crisis had not come -near enough to excite this; perhaps it was because they were neither of -them young, and loved with composure as they did most things; yet the -doctor had some seven years the advantage of the rector, and was -emphatically a young man still, not middle-aged at all. - -It was partly their unconscious influence that drew Katherine into the -way of life which was approved by all around her. The doctor persuaded -her to go to the ambulance class, which she attended weekly, very sure -that she never would have had the courage to apply a tourniquet or even -a bandage had a real emergency occurred. “Now, Stella could have done -it,” she said within herself. Stella’s hands would not have trembled, -nor her heart failed her. It was the rector who recommended her to join -the Mutual Improvement Society, offering to look over her essays, and to -lend her as many books as she might require. And it was under the -auspices of both that Katherine appeared at the University Extension -Lectures, and learned all about the Arctic regions and the successive -expeditions that had perished there. “I wish it had been India,” she -said on one occasion; “I should like to know about India, now that -Stella is there.” - -“I don’t doubt in the least that after Christmas we might get a series -on India. It is a great, a most interesting subject; what do you think, -Burnet?” - -Burnet entirely agreed with him. “Nothing better,” he said; “capital -contrast to the ice and the snow.” - -And naturally Katherine was bound to attend the new series which had -been so generously got up for her. There were many pictures and much -limelight, and everybody was delighted with the change. - -“What we want in winter is a nice warm blazing sun, and not something -colder than we have at home,” cried Mrs. Shanks. - -And Katherine sat and looked at the views and wondered where Stella was, -and then privately to herself wondered where James Stanford was, and -what he could be doing, and if he ever thought now of the old days. -There was not very much to think of, as she reflected when she asked -herself that question; but still she did ask it under her breath. - -“Remember, Miss Katherine, that all my books are at your service,” said -the rector, coming in to the end of the drawing-room where Katherine had -made herself comfortable behind the screens; “and if you would like me -to look at your essay, and make perhaps a few suggestions before you -send it in----” - -“I was not writing any essay. I was only writing to--my sister,” said -Katherine. - -“To be sure. It is the India mail day, I remember. Excuse me for coming -to interrupt you. What a thing for her to have a regular correspondent -like you! You still think I couldn’t be of any use to say a word to your -father? You know that I am always at your disposition. Anything I can -do----” - -“You are very good, but I don’t think it would be of any use.” Katherine -shivered a little, as she always did at the dreadful thought of anyone -hearing what her father said. - -“I am only good to myself when I try to be of use to you,” the rector -said, and he added, with a little vehemence, “I only wish you would -understand how dearly I should like to think that you would come to me -in any emergency, refer to me at once, whatever the matter might be----” - -“Indeed, Mr. Stanley, I understand, and I do,” she said, raising her -eyes to his gratefully. “You remember how I appealed to you that -dreadful time, and how much--how much you did for us?” - -“Ah, you sent Burnet to me,” he said, “that’s not exactly the same. Of -course, I did what I could; but what I should like would be that you -should come with full confidence to tell me anything that vexes you, or -to ask me to do anything you want done, like----” - -“I know,” she said. “Like Charlotte and Evelyn. And, indeed, I should, -indeed I will--trust me for that.” - -The rector drew back, as if she had flung in his face the vase of clear -water which was waiting on the table beside her for the flowers she -meant to put in it. He gave an impatient sigh and walked to the window, -with a little movement of his hands which Katherine did not understand. - -“Oh, has it begun to snow?” she said, for the sky was very grey, as if -full of something that must soon overflow and fall, and everybody had -been expecting snow for twenty-four hours past. - -“No, it has not begun to snow,” he said. “It is pelting hailstones--no, -I don’t mean that; nothing is coming down as yet--at least, out of the -sky. Perhaps I had better leave you to finish your letter.” - -“Oh, there is no hurry about that. There are hours yet before post-time, -and I have nearly said all I have to say. I have been telling her I am -studying India. It is a big subject,” Katherine said. “And how kind you -and Dr. Burnet were, getting this series of lectures instead of another -for me--though I think everybody is interested, and the pictures are -beautiful with the limelight.” - -“I should have thought of it before,” said the rector. “As for Burnet, -he wanted some scientific series about evolution and that sort of thing. -Medical men are always mad after science, or what they believe to be -such. But as soon as I saw how much you wished it----” - -“A thing one has something to do with is always so much the more -interesting,” Katherine said, half apologetically. - -“I hope you know that if it were left to me I should choose only those -subjects that you are interested in.” - -“Oh, no,” cried Katherine, “not so much as that. You are so kind, you -want to please and interest us all.” - -“Kindness is one thing; but there are other motives that tell still more -strongly.” The rector went to and from the window, where Katherine -believed him to be looking out for the snow, which lingered so long, to -the table, where she still trifled with her pen in her hand, and had not -yet laid it down to put the flowers which lay in a little basket into -water. The good clergyman was more agitated than he should have thought -possible. Should he speak? He was so much wound up to the effort that it -seemed as if it must burst forth at any moment, in spite of himself; -but, on the other hand, he was afraid lest he might precipitate matters. -He watched her hands involuntarily every time he approached her, and -then he said to himself that when she had put down the pen and begun to -arrange the flowers, he would make the plunge, but not till then. That -should be his sign. - -It was a long time before this happened. Katherine held her pen as if it -had been a shield, though she was not at all aware of the importance -thus assigned to it. She had a certain sense of protection in its use. -She thought that if she kept up the fiction of continuing her letter Mr. -Stanley would go away; and somehow she did not care for him so much as -usual to-day. She had always had every confidence in him, and would have -gone to him at any time, trusting to his sympathy and kindness; but to -be appealed to to do this, as if it were some new thing, confused her -mind. Why, of course she had faith in him, but she did not like the look -with which he made that appeal. Why should he look at her like that? He -had known her almost all her life, and taught her her Catechism and her -duty, which, though they may be endearing things, are not endearing in -that way. If Katherine had been asked in what way, she would probably -have been unable to answer; but yet in her heart she wished very much -that Mr. Stanley would go away. - -At last, when it seemed to her that this was hopeless--that he would not -take the hint broadly furnished by her unfinished letter--she did put -down the pen, and, pushing her writing-book away, drew towards her the -little basket of flowers from the conservatory, which the gardener -brought her every day. They were very waxen and winterly, as flowers -still are in January, and she took them up one by one, arranging them so -as to make the most of such colour as there was. The rector had turned -at the end of his little promenade when she did so, and came back -rapidly when he heard the little movement. She was aware of the -quickened step, and said, smiling, “Well, has the snow begun at last?” - -“There is no question of snow,” he said hurriedly, and Katherine heard -with astonishment the panting of his breath, and looked up--to see a -very flushed and anxious countenance directed towards her. Mr. Stanley -was a handsome man of his years, but his was a style which demanded calm -and composure and the tranquillity of an even mind to do it justice. He -was excited now, which was very unbecoming; his cheeks were flushed, his -lips parted with hasty breathing. “Katherine,” he said, “it is something -much more important than--any change outside.” He waved his hand almost -contemptuously at the window, as if the snow was a slight affair, not -worth mentioning. “I am afraid,” he said, standing with his hand on the -table looking down upon her, yet rather avoiding her steady, -half-wondering look, “that you are too little self-conscious to have -observed lately--any change in me.” - -“I don’t know,” she said faltering, looking up at him; “is there -anything the matter, really? I have thought once or twice--that you -looked a little disturbed.” - -It flashed into her mind that there might be something wrong in the -family, that Bertie might have been extravagant, that help might be -wanted from her rich father. Oh, poor Mr. Stanley! if his handsome -stately calm should be disturbed by such a trouble as that? Katherine’s -look grew very kind, very sympathising as she looked up into his face. - -“I have often, I am sure, looked disturbed. Katherine, it is not a small -matter when a man like me finds his position changed in respect to--one -like yourself--by an overmastering sentiment which has taken possession -of him he knows not how, and which he is quite unable to restrain.” - -“Rector!” cried Katherine astonished, looking up at him with even more -feeling than before. “Mr. Stanley! have I done anything?” - -“That shows,” he cried, with something like a stamp of his foot and an -impatient movement of his hand, “how much I have to contend with. You -think of me as nothing but your clergyman--a--a sort of pedagogue--and -your thought is that he is displeased--that there is something he is -going to find fault with----” - -“No,” she said. “You are too kind to find fault; but---- I am sure I -never neglect anything you say to me. Tell me what it is--and I--I will -not take offence. I will do my very best----” - -“Oh, how hard it is to make you understand! You put me on a -pedestal--whereas it is you who---- Katherine! do you know that you are -not a little girl any longer, but a woman, and a--most attractive one? I -have struggled against it, knowing that was not the light in which I can -have appeared to you, but it’s too strong for me. I have come to tell -you of a feeling which has existed for years on my part--and to ask -you--if there is any possibility, any hope, to ask you--to marry me----” -The poor rector! his voice almost died away in his throat. He put one -knee to the ground--not, I need not say, with any prayerful intention, -but only to put himself on the same level with her, with his hands on -the edge of her table, and gazed into her face. - -“To---- What did you say, Mr. Stanley?” she asked, with horror in her -eyes. - -“Don’t be hasty, for the sake of heaven! Don’t condemn me unheard. I -know all the disparities, all the---- But, Katherine, my love for you is -more than all that. I have been trying to keep it down for years. I -said, to marry me--to marry me, my dear and only----” - -“Do you mean that you are on your knees to me, a girl whom you have -catechised?” cried Katherine severely, holding her head high. - -The rector stumbled up in great confusion to his feet. “No, I did not -mean that. I was not kneeling to you. I was only---- Oh, Katherine, how -small a detail is this! God knows I do not want to make myself absurd in -your eyes. I am much older than you are. I am--but your true lover -notwithstanding--for years; and your most fond and faithful---- -Katherine! if you will be my wife----” - -“And the mother of Charlotte and Bertie!” said Katherine, looking at him -with shining eyes. “Charlotte is a year younger than I am. She comes -between Stella and me; and Bertie thinks he is in love with me too. Is -it _that_ you come and offer to a girl, Mr. Stanley? Oh, I know. Girls -who are governesses and poor have it offered to them and are grateful. -But I am as well off as you are. And do you think it likely that I would -want to change my age and be my own mother for the sake of--what? Being -married? I don’t want to be married. Oh, Mr. Stanley, it is wicked of -you to confuse everything--to change all our ways of looking at each -other--to----” Katherine almost broke down into a torrent of angry -tears, but controlled herself for wrath’s sake. - -The rector stood before her with his head down, as sorely humiliated a -man as ever clergyman was. “If you take it in that light, what can I -say? I had hoped you would not take it in that light. I am not an old -man. I have not been accustomed to--apologise for myself,” he said, with -a gleam of natural self-assertion. He, admired of ladies for miles -round--to the four seas, so to speak--on every hand. He could have told -her things! But the man was _digne_; he was no traitor nor ungrateful -for kindness shown him. “If you think, Katherine, that the accident of -my family and of a very early first marriage is so decisive, there is -perhaps nothing more to be said. But many men only begin life at my age; -and I think it is ungenerous--to throw my children in my teeth--when I -was speaking to you--of things so different----” - -“Oh, Mr. Stanley,” cried Katherine, subdued, “I am very, very sorry. I -did not mean to throw--anything in your teeth. But how could anyone -forget Charlotte and Bertie and Evelyn and the rest? Do you call them an -accident--all the family?” Katherine’s voice rose till it was almost -shrill in the thought of this injury to her friends. “But I only think -of you as their father and my clergyman--and always very, very kind,” -she said. - -The flowers had never yet got put into the water. She had thrown them -down again into the basket. The empty vase stood reproachfully full and -useless, reflecting in its side a tiny sparkle of the firelight; and the -girl sitting over them, and the man standing by her, had both of them -downcast heads, and did not dare to look at each other. This group -continued for a moment, and then he moved again towards the window. “It -has begun at last,” he said in a strange changed tone. “It is snowing -fast.” - -And the rector walked home in a blinding downfall, and was a white man, -snow covered, when he arrived at home, where his children ran out to -meet him, exclaiming at his beard which had grown white, and his hair, -which, when his hat was taken off, exhibited a round of natural colour -fringed off with ends of snow. The family surrounded him with -chatterings and caresses, pulling off his coat, unwinding his scarf, -shaking off the snow, leading him into the warm room by the warm fire, -running off for warm shoes and everything he could want. An accident! -The accident of a family! He submitted with a great effort over himself, -but in his heart he would have liked to push them off, the whole band of -them, into the snow. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV. - - -It will perhaps be thought very unfeeling of Katherine to have received -as she did this unlooked for elderly lover. All Sliplin, it is true, -could have told her for some time past that the Rector was in love with -her, and meant to make her an offer, and Miss Mildmay believed that she -had been aware of it long before that. But it had never occurred to -Katherine that the father of Charlotte and Gerard was occupied with -herself in any way, or that such an idea could enter his mind. He had -heard her say her catechism! He had given Charlotte in her presence the -little sting of a reproof about making a noise, and other domestic sins -which Katherine was very well aware she was intended to share. In the -_douceurs_ which, there was no denying, he had lately shed about, she -had thought of nothing but a fatherly intention to console her in her -changed circumstances; and to think that all the time this old -middle-aged man, this father of a family, had it in his mind to make her -his wife! Katherine let her flowers lie drooping, and paced up and down -the room furious, angry even with herself. Forty-five is a tremendous -age to three-and-twenty; and it was the first time she had ever received -a proposal straight in the face, so to speak. Turny and Company had -treated with her father, but had retreated from before her own severe -aspect when she gave it to be seen how immovable she was. And to think -that her first veritable proposal should be this--a thing that filled -her with indignation! What! did the man suppose for a moment that she, -his daughter’s friend, would marry him? Did all men think that a girl -would do anything to be married?--or what did they think? - -Katherine could not realise that Mr. Stanley to the Rector was not at -all the same person that he was to her. The Rector thought himself in -the prime of life, and so he was. The children belonged to him and he -was accustomed to them, and did not, except now and then, think them a -great burden; but himself was naturally the first person in his -thoughts. He knew that he was a very personable man, that his voice was -considered beautiful, and his aspect (in the pulpit) imposing. His -features were good, his height was good, he was in full health and -vigour. Why shouldn’t he have asked anybody to marry him? The idea that -it was an insult to a girl never entered his mind. And it was no insult. -He was not even poor or in pursuit of her wealth. No doubt her wealth -would make a great difference, but that was not in the least his motive, -for he had thought of her for years. And in his own person he was a man -any woman might have been proud of. All this was very visible to him. - -But to Katherine it only appeared that Mr. Stanley was forty-five, that -he was the father of a girl as old as herself, and of a young man, whom -she had laughed at, indeed, but who also had wished to make love to her. -What would Gerard say? This was the first thing that changed Katherine’s -mood, that made her laugh. It brought in a ludicrous element. What -Charlotte would say was not half so funny. Charlotte would be horrified, -but she would probably think that any woman might snatch at a man so -admired as her father, and the fear of being put out of her place would -occupy her and darken her understanding. But the thought of Gerard made -Katherine laugh and restored her equilibrium. Strengthened by this new -view she came down from her pinnacle of indignation and began to look -after the things she had to do. The snow went on falling thickly, a -white moving veil across every one of the windows; the great flickering -flakes falling now quickly, now slowly, and everything growing whiter -and whiter against the half-seen grey of the sky. This whiteness shut in -the house, encircling it as with a flowing mantle. Nobody would come -near the house that afternoon, nobody would come out that could help -it--not even the midge was likely to appear along the white path. The -snow made an end of visitors, and Katherine felt herself shut up within -it, condemned not to hear any voice or meet with any incident for the -rest of the day. It was not a cheering sensation. She finished her -letter to Stella, and paused and wondered whether she should tell her -what had happened; but she fortunately remembered that a high standard -of honour forbade the disclosure of secrets like this, which were the -secrets of others as well as her own. She had herself condemned from -that high eminence with much indignation the way in which other girls -blazoned such secrets. She would not be like one of them. And besides, -Stella and her husband would laugh and make jokes in bad taste and hold -up the Rector to the laughter of the regiment, which would not be fair -though Katherine was so angry with him. When she had finished her letter -she returned to the flowers, and finally arranged them as she had -intended to do long ago. And then she went and stood for a long time at -the window watching the snow falling. It was very dull to see nobody, to -be alone, all alone, for all these hours. There was a new novel fresh -from Mudie’s on the table, which was always something to look forward -to; but even a novel is but a poor substitute for society when you have -been so shaken and put out of your _assiette_ as Katherine had been by a -personal incident. Would she have told anyone if anyone had come? She -said to herself, “No, certainly not.” But as she was still thrilling and -throbbing all over, and felt it almost impossible to keep still, I -cannot feel so sure as she was that she would not have followed a -multitude to do evil, and betrayed her suitor’s secret by way of -relieving her own mind. But I am sure that she would have felt very -sorry had she done so as soon as the words were out of her mouth. - -She had seated herself by the fire and taken up her novel, not with the -content and pleasure which a well-conditioned girl ought to exhibit at -the sight of a new story in three volumes (in which form it is always -most welcome, according to my old-fashioned ideas) and a long afternoon -to enjoy it in, but still with resignation and a pulse beating more -quietly--when there arose sounds which indicated a visit after all. -Katherine listened eagerly, then subsided as the footsteps and voices -faded again, going off to the other end of the house. - -“Dr. Burnet to see papa,” she said half with relief, half with -expectation. She had no desire to see Dr. Burnet. She could not -certainly to him breathe the faintest sigh of a revelation, or relieve -her mind by the most distant hint of anything that had happened. Still, -he was somebody. It was rather agreeable to give him tea. The bread and -butter disappeared so quickly, and it had come to be such a familiar -operation to watch those strong white teeth getting through it. -Certainly he had wonderful teeth. Katherine gave but a half attention to -her book, listening to the sounds in the house. Her father’s door -closed, he had gone in, and then after a while the bell rang and the -footsteps became audible once more in the corridor. She closed her book -upon her hand wondering if he would come this way, or---- He was coming -this way! She pushed her chair away from the hearth, feeling that, what -with the past excitement and the glow of the fire, her cheeks were -ablaze. - -But Dr. Burnet did not seem to see this when he came in. She had gone to -the window by that time to look out again upon the falling snow. It was -falling, falling, silent and white and soft, in large flakes like -feathers, or rather like white swan’s down. He joined her there and they -stood looking at it together, and saying to each other how it seemed to -close round the house and wrap everything up as in a downy mantle. - -“I like to see it,” the doctor said, “which is very babyish, I know. I -like to see that flutter in the air and the great soft flakes dilating -as they fall. But it puts a great stop to everything. You have had no -visitors, I suppose, to-day?” - -“Oh, yes, before it came on,” said Katherine; and then she added in a -voice which she felt to be strange even while she spoke, “The Rector was -here.” - -That was all--not another word did she say; but Dr. Burnet gave her a -quick look, and he knew as well as the reader knows what had happened. -The Rector, then, had struck his blow. No doubt it was by deliberate -purpose that he had chosen a day threatening snow, when nobody was -likely to interrupt him. And he had made his explanation and it had not -been well received. The doctor divined all this and his heart gave a -jump of pleasure, though Katherine had not said a word, and indeed had -not looked at him, but stood steadily with a blank countenance in which -there was nothing to be read, gazing out upon the snow. Sometimes a -blank countenance displays more than the frankest speech. - -“He is a handsome man--for his time of life,” Dr. Burnet said, he could -not tell why. - -“Yes?” said Katherine, as if she were waiting for further evidence; and -then she added, “It is droll to think of that as being a quality of the -Rector--just as you would say it of a boy.” - -“Do you think that handsome is as handsome does, Miss Katherine? I -should not have expected that of you. I always thought you made a great -point of good looks.” - -“I like nice-looking people,” she said, and in spite of herself gave a -glance aside at the doctor, who in spite of those fine teeth and very -good eyes and other points of advantage, could not have been called -handsome by the most partial of friends. - -“You are looking at me,” he said with a laugh, “and the reflection is -obvious, though perhaps it is only my vanity that imagines you to have -made it. I am not much to brag of, I know it. I am very ’umble. A man -who knows he is good-looking must have a great advantage in life to -begin with. It must give him so much more confidence wherever he makes -his appearance--at least for the first time.” - -“Do you think so?” she said. “I should think one would forget it so -quickly, both the possessor himself and those who look at him. If people -are _nice_ you think of that and not of their beauty, unless----” - -“Unless what, Miss Katherine? You can’t think how interesting this talk -is to me. Tell me something on which an ugly man can rest and take -courage. You are thinking of John Wilkes’ famous saying that he only -wanted half-an-hour’s start of the handsomest man----” - -“Who was John Wilkes?” said Katherine with the serenest ignorance. “I -suppose one of the men one ought to know; but then I know so little. -After a year of the Mutual Improvement Society----” - -“Don’t trouble about that,” cried the doctor, “but my ambulance classes -are really of the greatest use. I do hope you will attend them. Suppose -there was an accident before your eyes--on the lawn there, and nobody -within reach--what should you do?” - -“Tremble all over and be of use to nobody,” Katherine said with a -shudder. - -“That is just what I want to obviate--that is just what ought to be -obviated. You, with your light touch and your kind heart and your quick -eye----” - -“Have I a quick eye and a light touch?” said Katherine with a laugh; -“and how do you know? It is understood that every girl must have a kind -heart. On the whole, I would rather write an essay, I think, than be -called upon to render first aid. My hand is not at all steady if my -touch is light.” - -She lifted one of the vases as she spoke to change its position and her -hand shook. He looked at it keenly, and she, not thinking of so sudden a -test, put down the vase in a hurry with a wave of colour coming over her -face. - -“That’s not natural, that’s worry, that’s excitement,” Dr. Burnet said. - -“The outlook is not very exciting, is it?” cried Katherine; “one does -not come in the way of much excitement at Sliplin, and I have not even -seen Miss Mildmay and Mrs. Shanks. No, it is natural, doctor. So you see -how little use it would be to train me. Come to the fire and have some -tea.” - -“I must not give myself this pleasure too often,” he said. “I find -myself going back to it in imagination when I am out in the wilds. It is -precious cold in my dog-cart facing the wind, Miss Katherine. I say to -myself, Now the tea is being brought in in the drawing-room on the -Cliff, now it is being poured out. I smell the fragrance of it driving -along the bitter downs; and then I go and order some poor wretch the -beastliest draught that can be compounded to avenge myself for getting -no tea.” - -“You should give them nothing but nice things, then, when you do have -tea--as now,” said Katherine. - -He came after her to where the little tea-table shone and sparkled in -the firelight, and took from her hand the cup of tea she offered him, -and stood with his back to the fire holding it in his hand. His groom -was driving his dog-cart round and round the snowy path, crossing the -window from time to time, a dark apparition amid the falling of the -snow. What the thoughts of the groom might be, looking in through the -great window on this scene of comfort, the figure of Katherine in her -pretty dress and colour stooping over the table, and his master behind -standing against the firelight with his cup of tea, nobody asked. -Perhaps he was making little comparisons as to his lot, perhaps only -thinking of the time when he should be able to thrust his hands into his -pockets and the doctor should have the reins. Yet Dr. Burnet did not -ignore his groom. “There,” he said, “is fate awaiting me. This time she -has assumed the innocent form of John Dobbs, my groom. I have got ten -miles to drive, there and back, to see Mrs. Crumples, who could do -perfectly well without me, and then to the Chine for a moment to -ascertain if the new man there has digested his early dinner, and then -to Steephill to look after the servants’ hall. I am not good enough, -except on an emergency, for the family or Lady Jane.” - -“I would not go more, then, if it is only for the servants’ hall,” cried -Katherine. - -“Why not?” he said. “I consider Mrs. Cole, the cook, is quite as -valuable a member of society as Lady Jane. The world would not come to -an end if Lady Jane were absent for a day, or laid up, but it would very -nearly--at Steephill--if anything happened to the cook.” - -“You said you were ’umble, Dr. Burnet, and I did not believe you. I see -that you are really so, now.” - -“Ah, there I disagree with you,” he said, a little flush on his face. “I -am ’umble about my personal appearance, but I only don’t mind with Lady -Jane. She thinks of me merely as the general practitioner from Sliplin, -which shows she doesn’t know anything--for I am more than a general -practitioner.” - -“I know,” cried Katherine quickly, half with a generous desire not to -leave him to sing his own praises, and half with a wondering scorn that -he should think it worth the while; “you will be a great physician one -of these days.” - -“I hope so,” he said quietly. Then, after a while, “But I am still more -than that; at least, what would seem more in Lady Jane’s eyes. I am not -a doctor only, Miss Katherine. I have not such a bad little estate -behind me. My uncle has it now, but I’m the man after him; and a family -a good deal better known than the Uffingtons, who are not a century -old.” He said this with a little excitement, and a flourish in his hand -of the teaspoon with which he had been stirring his tea. - -Jim Dobbs, driving past the window, white with snow, yet looking like a -huge blackness in the solidity of the group, he and his high coat and -his big horse amid the falling feathers, caught the gesture and wondered -within himself what the doctor could be about; while Katherine, looking -up at him from the tea-table, was scarcely less surprised. Why should he -tell her this? Why at all? Why now? The faint wonder in her look made -Dr. Burnet blush. - -“What a fool I am! As if you cared about that,” he said with a stamp of -his foot, in impatience with himself, and shame. - -“Oh, yes, I care about it. I am glad to hear of it. But--Dr. Burnet, let -me give you another cup of tea.” - -“But,” he said, “you think what have I to do with the man’s antecedents? -You see I want you to know that I can put my foot forward -sometimes--like----” he paused for a moment and laughed, putting down -his cup hastily. “No more! No more! I must tear myself from this -enchanted cliff, or Jim Dobbs will mistake the window for the stable -door--like my elderly friend, Miss Katherine,” he said over his shoulder -as he went away. - -Like--his elderly friend? Who was his elderly friend, and what did the -doctor mean? Katherine watched from the window while Burnet got into his -dog-cart and whirled away at a very different pace from that of his -groom. She could not see this from her window, but listened till the -sounds died away, looking out upon the snow. What a fascination that -snow had, falling, falling, without any dark object now to disturb its -absolute possession of the world! Katherine stood for a long time -watching before she went back to her novel, which was only when the -lamps were brought in, changing the aspect of the place. Did she care -for Dr. Burnet’s revelations, or divine the object of them? In the first -place not at all; in the second, I doubt whether she took the trouble to -ask herself the question. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI. - - -But though Dr. Burnet had been ’umble about his position at Steephill, -and considered himself only as the physician of the servants’ hall, he -was not invariably left in that secondary position. On this particular -snowy evening, when master and horse and man were all eager to get home -in view of the drifting of the snow, which was already very deep, and -the darkness of the night, which made it dangerous, Lady Jane--who was -alone at Steephill, i.e. without any house party, and enjoying the sole -society of Sir John, her spouse, which was not lively--bethought herself -that she would like to consult the doctor. She did not pretend that she -had more than a cold, but then a cold may develop into anything, as all -the world knows. It was better to have a talk with Dr. Burnet than not -to say a word to anybody, and to speak of her cold rather than not to -speak at all. Besides, she did want to hear something of old Tredgold, -and whether Katherine was behaving well, and what chance there might be -for Stella. The point of behaviour in Katherine about which Lady Jane -was anxious was whether or not she was keeping her sister’s claims -before her father--her conduct in other respects was a matter of -absolute indifference to her former patroness. - -“I have not been in Sliplin for quite a long time,” she said. “It may be -a deficiency in me, but, you know, I don’t very much affect your -village, Dr. Burnet.” - -“No; few people do; unless they want it, or something in it,” the doctor -said as he made out his prescription, of which I think _eau sucrée_, or -something like it, was the chief ingredient. - -“I don’t know what I should want in it or with it,” said Lady Jane with -a touch of impatience. And then she added, modifying her tone, “Tell me -about the Tredgolds, Dr. Burnet. How is the old man? Not a very -satisfactory patient, I should think--so fond of his own way; especially -when you have not Stella at hand to make him amenable.” - -“He is not a bad patient,” said Dr. Burnet. “He does not like his own -way better than most old men. He allows himself to be taken good care of -on the whole.” - -“Oh, I am glad to hear so good an opinion of him. I thought he was very -headstrong. Now, you know, I don’t want you to betray your patient’s -secrets, Dr. Burnet.” - -“No,” he said; “and it wouldn’t matter, I fear, if you did,” he -continued after a pause; “but I know no secrets of the Tredgolds, so I -am perfectly safe----” - -“That’s rather rude,” said Lady Jane, “but of course it’s the right -thing to say; and of course also you know all about Stella and her -elopement and the dreadful disappointment. I confess, for my own part, I -did not think he could stand out against her for a day.” - -“He is a man who knows his own mind very clearly, Lady Jane.” - -“So it appears. And will he hold out, do you think, till the bitter end? -Can Katherine do nothing? Couldn’t she do something if she were to try? -I mean for those poor Somers--they are great friends of mine. He is, you -know, a kind of relation. And poor Stella! Do tell me, Dr. Burnet, do -you think there is no hope? Couldn’t you do something yourself? A doctor -at a man’s bedside has great power.” - -“It is not a power I would ever care to exercise,” Dr. Burnet said. - -“Oh, you are too scrupulous! And when you consider how poor they are, -doctor!--really badly off. Why, they have next to nothing! The pay, of -course, is doubled in India, but beyond that---- Think of Charlie Somers -living on his pay! And then there is, Stella the most expensive little -person, accustomed to every luxury you can think of, and never used to -deny herself anything. It is extremely hard lines for them, certain as -they were that her father---- Oh, I can’t help thinking, Dr. Burnet, -that Katherine could do something if she chose.” - -“Then you may be quite at ease, Lady Jane, for I am sure she will -choose--to do a hardness to anyone, let alone her sister----” - -“Ah, Dr. Burnet,” cried Lady Jane, shaking her head, “it is so difficult -to tell in what subtle forms self-interest will get in. Now there is one -thing that I wish I could see as a way of settling the matter. I should -like to see Katherine Tredgold married to some excellent, honourable -man. Oh, I am not without sources of information. I have heard a little -bird here and there. What a good thing if there was such a man, who -would do poor little Stella justice and give her her share! Half of Mr. -Tredgold’s fortune would be a very handsome fortune. It would make all -the difference to--say, a rising professional man.” - -Dr. Burnet pretended to make a little change in the prescription he had -been writing. His head was bent over the writing-table, which was an -advantage. - -“I have no doubt half of Mr. Tredgold’s fortune would be very nice to -have,” he said, “but unfortunately Miss Katherine is not married, nor do -I know who are the candidates for her hand.” - -“I assure you,” said Lady Jane, “if there was such a person I should -take care to do everything I could to further his views. I have not seen -much of Katherine lately, but I should make a point of asking her and -him to meet here. There is nothing I would not do to bring such a thing -about, and--and secure her happiness, you know. You will scarcely -believe it, but it is the truth, that Katherine was always the one I -liked best.” - -What a delightful, satisfactory, successful lie one can sometimes tell -by telling the truth. Dr. Burnet, who loved Katherine Tredgold, was -touched by this last speech--there was the ring of sincerity in the -words; and though Lady Jane had not in the least the welfare of -Katherine in her head at this moment, still, these words were -undoubtedly true. - -He sat for some time making marks with the pen on the paper before him, -and Lady Jane was so much interested in his reply that she did not press -for it, but sat quite still, letting him take his time. - -“Have you any idea,” he said, making as though he were about to alter -the prescription for the third time, “on what ground Mr. Tredgold -refused Sir Charles Somers, who was not ineligible as marriages go?” His -extreme coolness, and the slight respect with which he spoke had a quite -subduing influence upon Lady Jane. “Was it--for his private character, -perhaps?” - -“Nothing of the sort,” cried Lady Jane. “Do you know Charlie Somers is a -cousin of mine, Dr. Burnet?” - -“That,” said the doctor, “though an inestimable advantage, would not -save him from having had--various things said about him, Lady Jane.” - -“No,” she said with a laugh. “I acknowledge it. Various things have been -said of him. The reason given was simply ludicrous. I don’t know if -Charlie invented it--but I don’t think he was clever enough to invent -it. It was something about putting money down pound for pound, or -shilling for shilling, or some nonsense, and that he would give Stella -to nobody that couldn’t do that. On the face of it that is folly, you -know.” - -“I am not so sure that it is folly. I have heard him say something of -the kind; meaning, I suppose, that any son-in-law he would accept would -have to be as wealthy as himself.” - -“But that is absolute madness, Dr. Burnet! Good heavens! who that was as -rich as old Tredgold could desire to be old Tredgold’s son-in-law? It is -against all reason. A man might forgive to the girls who are so nice in -themselves that they had such a father; but what object could one as -rich as himself---- Oh! it is sheer idiocy, you know.” - -“Not to him; and he, after all, is the person most concerned,” said Dr. -Burnet, with his head cast down and rather a dejected look about him -altogether. The thought was not cheerful to himself any more than to -Lady Jane, and as a matter of fact he had not realised it before. - -“But it cannot be,” she cried, “it cannot be; it is out of the question. -Oh, you are a man of resource; you must find out some way to baffle this -old curmudgeon. There must, there must,” she exclaimed, “be some way out -of it, if you care to try.” - -“Trying will not invent thousands of pounds, alas! nor can the man who -has the greatest fund of resource but no money do it anyhow,” said Dr. -Burnet sententiously. “There may be a dodge----” - -“That is what I meant. There must be a dodge to--to get you out of it,” -she cried. - -“It is possible that the man whose existence you divine might not care -to get a wife--if she would have him to begin with--by a dodge, Lady -Jane.” - -“Oh, rubbish!” cried the great lady, “we are not so high-minded as all -that. I am of opinion that in that way anything, everything can be done. -Charlie Somers is a fool and Stella another; but to a sensible pair with -an understanding between them and plenty of time to work--and an old -sick man,” Lady Jane laid an involuntary emphasis on the word sick--then -stopped and reddened visibly, though her countenance was rather -weather-beaten and did not easily show. - -“A sick man--to be taken advantage of? No, I think that would scarcely -do,” he said. “A sensible pair with an understanding, indeed--but then -the understanding--there’s the difficulty.” - -“No,” cried Lady Jane, anxiously cordial to wipe away the stain of her -unfortunate suggestion. “Not at all--the most natural thing in the -world--where there is real feeling, Dr. Burnet, on one side, and a -lonely, sensitive girl on the other----” - -“A lonely, sensitive girl,” he repeated. And then he looked up in Lady -Jane’s face with a short laugh--but made no further remark. - -Notwithstanding the safeguard of her complexion, Lady Jane this time -grew very red indeed; but having nothing to say for herself, she was -wise and made no attempt to say it. And he got up, having nothing -further to add by any possibility to his prescription, and put it into -her hand. - -“I must make haste home,” he said, “the snow is very blinding, and the -roads by this time will be scarcely distinguishable.” - -“I am sorry to have kept you so long--with my ridiculous cold, which is -really nothing. But Dr. Burnet,” she said, putting her hand on his -sleeve, “you will think of what I have said. Let justice be done to -those poor Somers. Their poverty is something tragic. They had so little -expectation of anything of the kind.” - -“It is most unlikely that I can be of any use to them, Lady Jane,” he -said a little stiffly, as he accepted her outstretched hand. - -Perhaps Lady Jane had more respect for him than ever before. She held -his prescription in her hand and looked at it for a moment. - -“I think I’ll take it,” she said to herself as if making a heroic -resolution. She had really a little cold. - -As for the doctor, he climbed up into his dog-cart and took the reins -from the benumbed hands of Jim, who was one mass of whiteness now -instead of the black form sprinkled over with flakes of white which he -had appeared at the Cliff. It was a difficult thing to drive home -between the hedges, which were no longer visible, and with the big -snow-flakes melting into his eyes and confusing the atmosphere, and he -had no time to think as long as he was still out in the open country, -without even the lights of Sliplin to guide him. It was very cold, and -his hands soon became as benumbed as Jim’s, with the reins not sensible -at all through his big gloves to his chilled fingers. - -“I think we should turn to the left, here?” he said to Jim, who answered -“Yessir,” with his teeth chattering, “or do you think it should perhaps -be to the right?” - -Jim said “Yessir,” again, dull to all proprieties. - -If Jim had been by himself he would probably have gone to sleep, and -allowed the mare to find her own way home, which very likely she would -have done; but Dr. Burnet could not trust to such a chance. To think -much of what had been said to him was scarcely possible in these -circumstances. But when the vague and confused glimmer of the Sliplin -lights through the snow put his mind at rest, it cannot but be said that -Dr. Burnet found a great many thoughts waiting to seize hold upon him. -He was not perhaps surprised that Lady Jane should have divined his -secret. He had no particular desire to conceal it, and though he did not -receive Lady Jane’s offer with enthusiasm, he could not but feel that -her friendship and assistance would be of great use to him--in fact, if -not with Katherine, at least with other things. It would be good for him -professionally, even this one visit, and the prescription for Lady Jane, -not for Mrs. Cole, which must be made up at the chemist’s, would do him -good. A man who held the position of medical attendant at Steephill -received a kind of warrant of skill from the fact, which would bring -other patients of distinction. When Dr. Burnet got home, and got into -dry and comfortable clothes, and found no impatient messenger awaiting -him, it was with a grateful sense of ease that he gave himself up to the -study of this subject by the cheerful fire. His mind glanced over the -different suggestions of Lady Jane, tabulating and classifying them as -if they had been scientific facts. There was that hint about the old -sick man, which she had herself blushed for before it was fully uttered, -and at which Dr. Burnet now grinned in mingled wrath and ridicule. To -take advantage of an old sick man--as being that old man’s medical -attendant and desirous of marrying his daughter--was a suggestion at -which Burnet could afford to laugh, though fiercely, and with an -exclamation not complimentary to the intentions of Lady Jane. But there -were other things which required more careful consideration. - -Should he follow these other suggestions, he asked himself? Should he -become a party to her plan, and get her support, and accept the -privileges of a visitor at her house as she had almost offered, and meet -Katherine there, which would probably be good for Katherine in other -ways as well as for himself? There was something very tempting in this -idea, and Dr. Burnet was not mercenary in his feeling towards Katherine, -nor indisposed to do “justice to Stella” in the almost incredible case -that it ever should be in his power to dispose of Mr. Tredgold’s -fortune. He could not help another short laugh to himself at the -absurdity of the idea. He to dispose of Mr. Tredgold’s fortune! So many -things were taken for granted in this ridiculous hypothesis. Katherine’s -acceptance and consent for one thing, of which he was not at all sure. -She had evidently sent the Rector about his business, which made him -glad, yet gave him a little thrill of anxiety too, for, though he was -ten years younger than the Rector, and had no family to encumber him, -yet Mr. Stanley, on the other hand, was a handsome man, universally -pleasing, and perhaps more desirable in respect to position than an -ordinary country practitioner--a man who dared not call his body, at -least, whatever might be said of his soul, his own; and who had as yet -had no opportunity of distinguishing himself. If she repulsed the one so -summarily, would she not have in all probability the same objections to -the other? At twenty-three a man of thirty-five is slightly elderly as -well as one of forty-seven. - -Supposing, however, that Katherine should make no objection, which was a -very strong step for a man who did not in the least believe that at the -present moment she had even thought of him in that light--there was her -father to be taken into account. He had heard Mr. Tredgold say that -about the thousand for thousand told down on the table, and he had heard -it from the two ladies of the midge; but without, perhaps, paying much -attention or putting any great faith in it. How could he table thousand -for thousand against Mr. Tredgold? The idea was ridiculous. He had the -reversion of that little, but ancient, estate in the North, of which he -had been at such pains to inform Katherine; and he had a little money -from his mother; and his practice, which was a good enough practice, but -not likely to produce thousands for some time at least to come. He had -said there might be a dodge--and, as a matter of fact, there had blown -across his mind a suggestion of a dodge, how he might perhaps persuade -his uncle to “table” the value of Bunhope on his side. But what was the -value of Bunhope to the millions of old Tredgold? He might, perhaps, say -that he wanted nothing more with Katherine than the equivalent of what -he brought; but he doubted whether the old man would accept that -compromise. And certainly, if he did so, there could be no question of -doing justice to Stella out of the small share he would have of her -father’s fortune. No; he felt sure Mr. Tredgold would exact the entire -pound of flesh, and no less; that he would no more reduce his daughter’s -inheritance than her husband’s fortune, and that no dodge would blind -the eyes of the acute, businesslike old man. - -This was rather a despairing point of view, from which Dr. Burnet tried -to escape by thinking of Katherine herself, and what might happen could -he persuade her to fall in love with him. That would make everything so -much more agreeable; but would it make it easier? Alas! falling in love -on Stella’s part had done no good to Somers; and Stella, though now cast -off and banished, had possessed a far greater influence over her father -than Katherine had ever had. Dr. Burnet was by no means destitute of -sentiment in respect to her. Indeed, it is very probable that had -Katherine had no fortune at all he would still have wished, and taken -earlier more decisive steps, to make her aware that he wished to secure -her for his wife; but the mere existence of a great fortune changes the -equilibrium of everything. And as it was there, Dr. Burnet felt that to -lose it, if there was any possible way of securing it, would be a great -mistake. He was the old man’s doctor, who ought to be grateful to him -for promoting his comfort and keeping him alive; and he was Katherine’s -lover, and the best if not the only one there was. And he had free -access to the house at all seasons, and a comfortable standing in the -drawing-room as well as in the master’s apartment. Surely something -must be made of these advantages by a man with his eyes open, neglecting -no opportunity. And, on the other hand, there was always the chance that -old Tredgold might die, thus simplifying matters. The doctor’s final -decision was that he would do nothing for the moment, but wait and -follow the leading of circumstances; always keeping up his watch over -Katherine, and endeavouring to draw her interest, perhaps in time her -affections, towards himself--while, on the other hand, it would commit -him to nothing to accept Lady Jane’s help, assuring her that--in the -case which he felt to be so unlikely of ever having any power in the -matter--he would certainly do “justice to Stella” as far as lay in his -power. - -When he had got to this conclusion the bell rang sharply, and, alas! Dr. -Burnet, who had calculated on going to bed for once in comfort and -quiet, had to face the wintry world again and go out into the snow. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII. - - -Katherine’s life at Sliplin was in no small degree affected by the -result of the Rector’s unfortunate visit. How its termination became -known nobody could tell. No one ventured to say “She told me herself,” -still less, “He told me.” Yet everybody knew. There were some who had -upheld that the Rector had too much respect for himself ever to put -himself in the position of being rejected by old Tredgold’s daughter; -but even these had to acknowledge that this overturn of everything -seemly and correct had really happened. It was divined, perhaps, from -Mr. Stanley’s look, who went about the parish with his head held very -high, and an air of injury which nobody had remarked in him before. For -it was not only that he had been refused. That is a privilege which no -law or authority can take from a free-born English girl, and far would -it have been from the Rector’s mind to deny to Katherine this right; but -it was the manner in which it had been exercised which gave him so deep -a wound. It was not as the father of Charlotte and Evelyn that Mr. -Stanley had been in the habit of regarding himself, nor that he had been -regarded. His own individuality was too remarkable and too attractive, -he felt with all modesty, to lay him under such a risk; and yet here was -a young woman in his own parish, in his own immediate circle, who -regarded him from that point of view, and who looked upon his proposal -as ridiculous and something like an insult to her youth. Had she said -prettily that she did not feel herself good enough for such a position, -that she was not worthy--but that she was aware of the high compliment -he had paid her, and never would forget it--which was the thing that any -woman with a due sense of fitness would have said, he might have -forgiven her. But Katherine’s outburst of indignation, her anger to have -been asked to be the stepmother of Charlotte and Evelyn her playfellows, -her complete want of gratitude or of any sense of the honour done her, -had inflicted a deep blow upon the Rector. That he should be scorned as -a lover seemed to him impossible, that a woman should be so insensible -to every fact of life. He did not get over it for a long time, nor am I -sure that he ever did get over it; not the disappointment, which he bore -like a man, but the sense of being scorned. So long as he lived he never -forgave Katherine that insult to his dearest feelings. - -And thus Katherine’s small diversions were driven back into a still -narrower circle. She could not go to the Rectory, where the girls were -divided between gratitude to her for not having turned their life upside -down, and wrath against her for not having appreciated papa; nor could -she go where she was sure to meet him, and to catch his look of offended -pride and wounded dignity. It made her way very hard for her to have to -think and consider, and even make furtive enquiries whether the Stanleys -would be there before going to the mildest tea party. When Mrs. Shanks -invited her to meet Miss Mildmay, she was indeed safe. Yet even there -Mr. Stanley might come in to pay these ladies a call, or Charlotte -appear with her portfolio of drawings, or Evelyn fly in for a moment on -her way to the post. She went even to that very mild entertainment with -a quiver of anxiety. The great snowstorm was over which had stopped -everything, obliterating all the roads, and making the doctor’s dog-cart -and the butcher’s and baker’s carts the only vehicles visible about the -country--which lay in one great white sheet, the brilliancy of which -made the sea look muddy where it came up with a dull colour upon the -beach. Everything, indeed, looked dark in comparison with that dazzling -cloak of snow, until by miserable human usage the dazzling white changed -into that most squalid of all squalid things, the remnant of a snowstorm -in England, drabbled by all kinds of droppings, powdered with dust of -smoke and coal, churned into the chillest and most dreadful of mud. The -island had passed through that horrible phase after a brief delicious -ecstasy of skating, from which poor Katherine was shut out by the same -reasons already given, but now had emerged green and fresh, though cold, -with a sense of thankfulness which the fields seemed to feel, and the -birds proclaimed better and more than the best of the human inhabitants -could do. - -The terrace gardens of Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay shone with this -refreshed and brightened greenness, and the prospect from under the -verandah of their little houses was restored to its natural colour. The -sea became once more the highest light in the landscape, the further -cliffs were brown, the trees showed a faint bloom of pushing buds and -rising sap, and glowed in the light of the afternoon sun near its -setting. Mrs. Shanks’ little drawing room was a good deal darkened by -its little verandah, but when the western sun shone in, as it was doing, -the shade of the little green roof was an advantage even in winter; and -it was so mild after the snow that the window was open, and a thrush in -a neighbouring shrubbery had begun to perform a solo among the bushes, -exactly, as Mrs. Shanks said, like a fine singer invited for the -entertainment of the guests. - -“It isn’t often you hear a roulade like that,” she said. “I consider -Miss Sherlock was nothing to it.” Miss Sherlock was a professional lady -who had been paying a visit in Sliplin, and who at afternoon teas and -evening parties, being very kind and ready to “oblige,” had turned the -season into a musical one, and provided for the people who were so kind -as to invite her, an entertainment almost as cheap as that of the thrush -in Major Toogood’s shrubbery. - -“I hope the poor thing has some crumbs,” said Miss Mildmay. “I always -took great pains to see that there was plenty of bread well peppered put -out for them during the snow.” - -“Was Miss Sherlock so very good?” said Katherine. “I was unfortunate, I -never heard her, even at her concert. Oh, yes, I had tickets--but I did -not go.” - -“That is just what we want to talk to you about, my dear Katherine. -Fancy a great singer in Sliplin, and the Cliff not represented, not a -soul there. Oh, if poor dear Stella had but been here, she would not -have stayed away when there was anything to see or hear.” - -“Yes, I am a poor creature in comparison,” said Katherine, “but you know -it isn’t nice to go to such places alone.” - -“If there was any need to go alone! You know we would have called for -you in the midge any time; but that’s ridiculous for you with all your -carriages; it would have been more appropriate for you to call for us. -Another time, Katherine, my dear----” - -“Oh, I know how kind you are; it was not precisely for want of some one -to go with.” - -“Jane Shanks,” said Miss Mildmay, “what is the use of pretences between -us who have known the child all her life? It is very well understood in -Sliplin, Katherine, that there must be some motive in your seclusion. -You have some reason, you cannot conceal it from us who know you, for -shutting yourself up as you do.” - -“What reason? Is it not a good enough reason that I am alone now, and -that to be reminded of it at every moment is--oh, it is hard,” said -Katherine, tears coming into her eyes. “It is almost more than I can -bear.” - -“Dear child!” Mrs. Shanks said, patting her hand which rested on the -table. “We shouldn’t worry her with questions, should we?” But there was -no conviction in her tone, and Katherine, though her self-pity was quite -strong enough to bring that harmless water to her eyes, was quite aware -not only that she did not seclude herself because of Stella, but also -that her friends were not in the least deceived. - -“I ask no questions,” said Miss Mildmay, “I hope I have a head on my -shoulders and a couple of eyes in it. I don’t require information from -Katherine! What I’ve got to say is that she mustn’t do it. Most girls -think very little of refusing a man; sometimes they continue good -friends, sometimes they don’t. When a man sulks it shows he was much in -earnest, and is really a compliment. But to stay at home morning and -night because there is a man in the town who is furious with you for not -marrying him; why, that’s a thing that is not to be allowed to go on, -not for a day----” - -“Nobody has any right to say that there is any man whom----” - -“Oh, don’t redden up, Katherine, and flash your eyes at me! I have known -you since you were _that_ high, and I don’t care a brass button what you -say. Do you think I don’t know all about you, my dear? Do you think that -there’s a thing in Sliplin which I don’t know or Jane Shanks doesn’t -know? Bless us, what is the good of us, two old cats, as I know you call -us----” - -“Miss Mildmay!” cried Katherine; but as it was perfectly true, she -stopped there and had not another word to say. - -“Yes, that’s my name, and _her_ name is Mrs. Shanks; but that makes no -difference. We are the two old cats. I have no doubt it was to Stella we -owed the title, and I don’t bear her any malice nor you either. Neither -does Jane Shanks. We like you, on the contrary, my dear; but if you -think you can throw dust in our eyes---- Why, there is the Rector’s -voice through the partition asking for me.” - -“Oh,” said Katherine, “I must go, really I must go; this is the time -when papa likes me to go to him. I have stayed too long, I really, -really must go now----” - -“Sit down, sit down, dear. It is only her fun. There is nobody speaking -through the partition. The idea! Sliplin houses are not very well built, -but I hope they are better than that.” - -“I must have been mistaken,” said Miss Mildmay grimly. “I believe after -all it is only Jane Shanks’ boy; he has a very gruff manly voice, though -he is such a little thing, and a man’s voice is such a rarity in these -parts that he deceives me. Well, Katherine, the two old cats hear -everything. If it does not come to me it comes to _her_. My eyes are the -sharpest, I think, but she hears the best. You can’t take us in. We know -pretty well all that has happened to you, though you have been so very -quiet about it. There was that young city man whom you wouldn’t have, -and I applaud you for it. But he’ll make a match with somebody of much -more consequence than you. And then there is poor Mr. Stanley. The -Stanleys are as thankful to you as they can be, and well they may. Why, -it would have turned the whole place upside down. A young very rich wife -at the Rectory and the poor girls turned out of doors. It just shows how -little religion does for some people.” - -“Oh, stop! stop!” cried Mrs. Shanks. “What has his religion to do with -it? It’s not against any man’s religion to fall in love with a nice -girl.” - -“Please don’t say any more on this subject,” cried Katherine; “if you -think it’s a compliment to me to be fallen in love with--by an old -gentleman!---- But I never said a word about the Rector. It is all one -of your mistakes. You do make mistakes sometimes, Miss Mildmay. You took -little Bobby’s voice for--a clergyman’s.” It gave more form to the -comparison to say a clergyman than merely a man. - -“So I did,” said Miss Mildmay, “that will always be remembered against -me; but you are not going to escape, Katherine Tredgold, in that way. I -shall go to your father, if you don’t mind, and tell him everything, and -that you are shutting yourself up and seeing nobody, because of---- -Well, if it is not because of that, what is it? It is not becoming, it -is scarcely decent that a girl of your age should live so much alone.” - -“Please let me go, Mrs. Shanks,” said Katherine. “Why should you upbraid -me? I do the best I can; it is not my fault if there is nobody to stand -by me.” - -“We shall all stand by you, my dear,” said Mrs. Shanks, following her to -the door, “and Ruth Mildmay is never so cross as she seems. We will -stand by you, in the midge or otherwise, wherever you want to go. At all -times you may be sure of us, Katherine, either Ruth Mildmay or me.” - -But when the door was closed upon Katherine Mrs. Shanks rushed back to -the little drawing-room, now just sinking into greyness, the last ray -of the sunset gone. “You see,” she cried, “it’s all right, I to----” - -But she was forestalled with a louder “I told you so!” from Miss -Mildmay; “didn’t I always say it?” that lady concluded triumphantly. -Mrs. Shanks might begin the first, but it was always her friend who -secured the last word. - -Katherine walked out into the still evening air, a little irritated, a -little disgusted, and a little amused by the offer of these two -chaperons and the midge to take her about. She had to walk through the -High Street of Sliplin, and everybody was out at that hour. She passed -Charlotte Stanley with her portfolio under her arm, who would probably -have rushed to her and demanded a glance at the sketches even in the -open road, or that Katherine should go in with her to the stationer’s to -examine them at her ease on the counter; but who passed now with an -awkward bow, having half crossed the road to get out of her way, yet -sending a wistful smile nevertheless across what she herself would have -called the middle distance. “Now what have I done to Charlotte?” -Katherine said to herself. If there was anyone who ought to applaud her, -who ought to be grateful to her, it was the Rector’s daughters. She went -on with a sort of rueful smile on her lips, and came up without -observing it to the big old landau, in which was seated Lady Jane. -Katherine was hurrying past with a bow, when she was suddenly greeted -from that unexpected quarter with a cry of “Katherine! where are you -going so fast?” which brought her reluctantly back. - -“My dear Katherine! what a long time it is since we have met,” said Lady -Jane. - -“Yes,” said Katherine sedately. “That is very true, it is a long time.” - -“You mean to say it is my fault by that tone! My dear, you have more -horses and carriages, and a great deal more time and youth and all that -than I. Why didn’t you come to see me? If you thought I was huffy or -neglectful, why didn’t you come and tell me so? I should have thought -that was the right thing to do.” - -“I should not have thought it becoming,” cried Katherine, astonished by -this accost, “from me to you. I am the youngest and far the -humblest----” - -“Oh, fiddlesticks!” cried the elder lady, “that’s not true humility, -that’s pride, my dear. I was an old friend; and though poor dear Stella -always put herself in the front, you know it was you I liked best, -Katherine. Well, when will you come, now? Come and spend a day or two, -which will be extremely dull, for we’re all alone; but you can tell me -of Stella, as well as your own little affairs.” - -“I don’t know that I can leave papa,” Katherine said, with a little -remnant of that primness which had been her distinction in Captain -Scott’s eyes. - -“Nonsense! He will spare you to me,” said Lady Jane with calm certainty. -“Let me see, what day is this, Tuesday? Then I will come for you on -Saturday. You can send over that famous little brougham with your maid -and your things, and keep it if you like, for we have scarcely anything -but dog-carts, except this hearse. Saturday; and don’t show bad breeding -by making any fuss about it,” Lady Jane said. - -Katherine felt that the great lady was right, it would have been bad -breeding; and then her heart rose a little in spite of herself at the -thought of the large dull rooms at Steephill in which there was no -gilding, nor any attempt to look finer than the most solid needs of life -demanded, and where Lady Jane conducted the affairs of life with a much -higher hand than any of the Sliplin ladies. After being so long shut up -in Sliplin, and now partly out of favour in it, the ways of Lady Jane -seemed bigger, the life more easy and less self-conscious, and she -consented with a little rising of her heart. She was a little surprised -that Lady Jane, with her large voice, should have shouted a cordial -greeting to the doctor as he passed in his dog-cart. “I am going to -write to you,” she cried, nodding her head at him; but no doubt this was -about some little ailment in the nursery, for with Katherine, a young -lady going on a visit to Steephill, what could it have to do? - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII. - - -The doctor had made himself a very important feature in Katherine’s life -during those dull winter days. After the great snowstorm, which was a -thing by which events were dated for long after, in the island, and -which was almost coincident with the catastrophe of the Rector; he had -become more frequent in his visits to Mr. Tredgold and consequently to -the tea-table of Mr. Tredgold’s lonely daughter. While the snow lasted, -and all the atmospheric influences were at their worst, it stood to -reason that an asthmatical, rheumatical, gouty old man wanted more -looking after than usual; and it was equally clear that a girl a little -out of temper and out of patience with life, who was disposed to shut -herself up and retire from the usual amusements of her kind, would also -be much the better for the invasion into her closed-up world of life and -fresh air in the shape of a vigorous and personable young man, who, if -not perhaps so secure in self-confidence and belief in his own -fascinations as the handsome (if a little elderly) Rector, had not -generally been discouraged by the impression he knew himself to have -made. And Katherine had liked those visits, that was undeniable; the -expectation of making a cup of tea for the doctor had been pleasant to -her. The thought of his white strong teeth and the bread and butter -which she never got out of her mind, was now amusing, not painful; she -had seen him so often making short work of the little thin slices -provided for her own entertainment. And he told her all that was going -on, and gave her pieces of advice which his profession warranted. He got -to know more of her tastes, and she more of his in this way, than -perhaps was the case with any two young people in the entire island, and -this in the most simple, the most natural way. If there began to get a -whisper into the air of Dr. Burnet’s devotion to his patient on the -Cliff and its possible consequences, that was chiefly because the -doctor’s inclinations had been suspected before by an observant public. -And indeed the episode of the Rector had afforded it too much -entertainment to leave the mind of Sliplin free for further remark in -respect to Katherine and her proceedings. And Mr. Tredgold’s asthma -accounted for everything in those more frequent visits to the Cliff. All -the same, it was impossible that there should not be a degree of -pleasant intimacy and much self-revelation on both sides during these -half hours, when, wrapped in warmth and comfort and sweet society, Dr. -Burnet saw his dog-cart promenading outside in the snow or during the -deeper miseries of the thaw, with the contrast which enhances present -pleasure. He became himself more and more interested in Katherine, his -feelings towards her being quite genuine, though perhaps enlivened by -her prospects as an heiress. And if there had not been that vague -preoccupation in Katherine’s mind concerning James Stanford, the -recollection not so much of him as of the many, many times she had -thought of him, I think it very probable indeed that she would have -fallen in love with the doctor; indeed, there were moments when his -image pushed Stanford very close, almost making that misty hero give -way. He was a very misty hero, a shadow, an outline, indefinite, never -having given much revelation of himself; and Dr. Burnet was very -definite, as clear as daylight, and in many respects as satisfactory. It -would have been very natural indeed that the one should have effaced the -other. - -Dr. Burnet did not know anything of James Stanford. He thought of -Katherine as a little shy, a little cold, perhaps from the persistent -shade into which she had been cast by her sister, unsusceptible as -people say; but he did not at all despair of moving her out of that -calm. He had thought indeed that there were indications of the internal -frost yielding, before his interview with Lady Jane. With Lady Jane’s -help he thought there was little doubt of success. But even that -security made him cautious. It was evident that she was a girl with -whom one must not attempt to go too fast. The Rector had tried to carry -the fort by a _coup de main_, and he had perished ingloriously in the -effort. Dr. Burnet drew himself in a little after he acquired the -knowledge of that event, determined not to risk the same fate. He had -continued his visits but he had been careful to give them the most -friendly, the least lover-like aspect, to arouse no alarms. When he -received the salutation of Lady Jane in passing, and her promise that he -should hear from her, his sober heart gave a bound, which was reflected -unconsciously in the start of the mare making a dash forward by means of -some magnetism, it is to be supposed conveyed to her by the reins from -her master’s hand--so that he had to exert himself suddenly with hand -and whip to reduce her to her ordinary pace again. If the manœuvre -had been intentional it would have been clever as showing his skill and -coolness in the sight of his love and of his patroness. It had the same -effect not being intentional at all. - -I am not sure either whether it was Lady Jane’s intention to enhance the -effect of Dr. Burnet by the extreme dulness of the household background -upon which she set him, so to speak, to impress the mind of Katherine. -There was no party at Steephill. Sir John, though everything that was -good and kind, was dull; the tutor, who was a young man fresh from the -University, and no doubt might have been very intellectual or very -frivolous had there been anything to call either gifts out, was dull -also because of having little encouragement to be anything else. Lady -Jane indeed was not dull, but she had no call upon her for any exertion; -and the tone of the house was humdrum beyond description. The old -clergyman dined habitually at Steephill on the Sunday evenings, and he -was duller still, though invested to Katherine with a little interest as -the man who had officiated at her sister’s marriage. But he could not be -got to recall the circumstance distinctly, nor to master the fact that -this Miss Tredgold was so closely related to the young lady whom he had -made into Lady Somers. “Dear! dear! to think of that!” he had said when -the connection had been explained to him, but what he meant by that -exclamation nobody knew. I think it very likely that Lady Jane herself -was not aware how dull her house was when in entire repose, until she -found it out by looking through the eyes of a chance guest like -Katherine. “What in thunder did you mean by bringing that poor girl here -to bore her to death, when there’s nobody in the house?” Sir John said, -whose voice was like a westerly gale. “Really, Katherine, I did not -remember how deadly dull we were,” Lady Jane said apologetically. “It -suits us well enough--Sir John and myself; but it’s a shame to have -asked you here when there’s nobody in the house, as he says. And Sunday -is the worst of all, when you can’t have even your needlework to amuse -you. But there are some people coming to dinner to-morrow.” Katherine -did her best to express herself prettily, and I don’t think even that -she felt the dulness so much as she was supposed to do. The routine of a -big family house, the machinery of meals and walks and drives and other -observances, the children bursting in now and then, the tutor appearing -from time to time tremendously _comme il faut_, and keeping up his -equality, Sir John, not half so careful, rolling in from the inspection -of his stables or his turnips with a noisy salutation, “You come out -with me after lunch, Miss Tredgold, and get a blow over the downs, far -better for you than keeping indoors.” And then after that blow on the -downs, afternoon tea, and Mr. Montgomery rubbing his hands before the -fire, while he asked, without moving, whether he should hand the kettle. -All this was mildly amusing, in the proportion of its dulness, for a -little while. We none of us, or at least few of us, feel heavily this -dull procession of the hours when it is our own life; when it is -another’s, our perceptions are more clear. - -“But there are people coming to dinner to-morrow,” Lady Jane said. There -was something in the little nod she gave, of satisfaction and -knowingness, which Katherine did not understand or attempt to -understand. No idea of Dr. Burnet was associated with Steephill. She was -not aware that he was on visiting terms there--he had told her that he -attended the servants’ hall--so that it was with a little start of -surprise that, raising her eyes from a book she was looking at, she -found him standing before her, holding out his hand as the guests -gathered before dinner. The party was from the neighbourhood--county, -or, at least, country people--and when Dr. Burnet was appointed to take -Katherine in to dinner, that young lady, though she knew the doctor so -well and liked him so much, did not feel that it was any great -promotion. She thought she might have had somebody newer, something that -belonged less to her own routine of existence, which is one of the -mistakes often made by very astute women of the world like Lady Jane. -There was young Fortescue, for instance, a mere fox-hunting young -squire, not half so agreeable as Dr. Burnet, whom Katherine would have -preferred. “He is an ass; he would not amuse her in the very least,” -Lady Jane had said. But Sir John, who was not clever at all, divined -that something new, though an ass, would have amused Katherine more. -Besides, Lady Jane had her motives, which she mentioned to nobody. - -Dr. Burnet did the very best for himself that was possible. He gave -Katherine a report of her father, he told her the last thing that had -transpired at Sliplin since her departure, he informed her who all the -people were at table, pleased to let her see that he knew them all. -“That’s young Fortescue who has just come in to his estate, and he -promises to make ducks and drakes of it,” Dr. Burnet said. Katherine -looked across the table at the young man thus described. She was not -responsible for him in any way, nor could it concern her if he did make -ducks and drakes of his estate, but she would have preferred to make -acquaintance with those specimens of the absolutely unknown. A little -feeling suddenly sprang up in her heart against Dr. Burnet, because he -was Dr. Burnet and absolutely above reproach. She would have sighed for -Dr. Burnet, for his quick understanding and the abundance he had to say, -had she been seated at young Fortescue’s side. - -After dinner, when she had talked a little to all the ladies and had -done her duty, Lady Jane caught Katherine’s hand and drew her to a seat -beside herself, and then she beckoned to Dr. Burnet, who drew a chair -in front of them and sat down, bending forward till his head, Katherine -thought, was almost in Lady Jane’s lap. “I want,” she said, “Katherine, -to get Dr. Burnet on our side--to make him take up our dear Stella’s -interests as you do, my dear, and as in my uninfluential way I should -like to do too.” - -“How can Dr. Burnet take up Stella’s interests?” cried Katherine, -surprised and perhaps a little offended too. - -“My dear Katherine, a medical man has the most tremendous -opportunities--all that the priest had in old times, and something -additional which belongs to himself. He can often say a word when none -of the rest of us would dare to do so. I have immense trust in a medical -man. He can bring people together that have quarrelled, and--and -influence wills, and--do endless things. I always try to have the doctor -on my side.” - -“Miss Katherine knows,” said Dr. Burnet, trying to lead out of the -subject, for Lady Jane’s methods were entirely, on this occasion, too -straightforward, “that the medical man in this case is always on her -side. Does not Mrs. Swanson, Lady Jane, sing very well? I have never -heard her. I am not very musical, but I love a song.” - -“Which is a sign that you are not musical. You are like Sir John,” said -Lady Jane, as if that was the worst that could be said. “Still, if that -is what you mean, Dr. Burnet, you can go and ask her, on my part. He is -very much interested in you all, I think, Katherine,” she added when he -had departed on this mission. “We had a talk the other day--about you -and Stella and the whole matter. I think, if he ever had it in his -power, that he would see justice done her, as you would yourself.” - -“He is very friendly, I daresay,” said Katherine, “but I can’t imagine -how he could ever have anything in his power.” - -“There is no telling,” Lady Jane said. “I think he is quite a -disinterested man, if any such thing exists. Now, we must be silent a -little, for, of course, Mrs. Swanson is going to sing; she is not likely -to neglect an opportunity. She has a good voice, so far as that goes, -but little training. It is just the thing that pleases Sir John. And he -has planted himself between us and the piano, bless him! now we can go -on with our talk. Katherine, I don’t think you see how important it is -to surround your father with people who think the same as we do about -your poor sister.” - -“No,” said Katherine, “it has not occurred to me; my father is not very -open to influence.” - -“Then do you give up Stella’s cause? Do you really think it is hopeless, -Katherine?” - -“How could I think so?” cried the girl with a keen tone in her voice -which, though she spoke low, was penetrating, and to check which, Lady -Jane placed her hand on Katherine’s hand and kept it there with a faint -“shsh.” “You know what I should instantly do,” she added, “if I ever had -it in my power.” - -“Dear Katherine! but your husband might not see it in that light.” - -“He should--or he should not be--my husband,” said Katherine with a -sudden blush. She raised her eyes unwillingly at this moment and caught -the gaze of Dr. Burnet, who was standing behind the great bulk of Sir -John, but with his face towards the ladies on the sofa. Katherine’s -heart gave a little bound, half of affright. She had looked at him and -he at her as she said the words. An answering gleam of expression, an -answering wave of colour, seemed to go over him (though he could not -possibly hear her) as she spoke. It was the first time that this idea -had been clearly suggested to her, but now so simply, so potently, as if -she were herself the author of the suggestion. She was startled out of -her self-possession. “Oh,” she cried with agitation, “I like her voice! -I am like Sir John; let us listen to the singing.” Lady Jane nodded her -head, pressed Katherine’s hand, and did what was indeed the first wise -step she had taken, stepped as noiselessly as possible to another -corner, where, behind her fan, she could talk to a friend more likely to -respond to her sentiments and left Dr. Burnet to take her place. - -“Is this permitted? It is too tempting to be lost,” he said in a -whisper, and then he too relapsed into silence and attention. Katherine, -I fear, did not get any clear impression of the song. Her own words went -through her head, involuntarily, as though she had touched some spring -which went on repeating them: “My husband--my husband.” Her white dress -touched his blackness as he sat down beside her. She drew away a little, -her heart beating loudly, in alarm, mingled with some other feeling -which she could not understand, but he did not say another word until -the song was over, and all the applause, and the moment of commotion in -which the singer returned to her seat, and the groups of the party -changed and mingled. Then he said suddenly, “I hope you will not think, -Miss Katherine, that I desired Lady Jane to drag me in head and -shoulders to your family concerns. I never should have been so -presumptuous. I do trust you will believe that.” - -“I never should have thought so, Dr. Burnet,” said Katherine, faltering -with that commotion which was she hoped entirely within herself and -apparent to no one. Then she added as she assured her voice, “It would -not have been presumptuous. You know so much of us already, and of -_her_, and took so much part----” - -“I am your faithful servant,” he said, “ready to be sent on any errand, -or to take any part you wish, but I do not presume further than that.” -Then he rose quickly, as one who is moved by a sudden impulse. “Miss -Katherine, will you let me take you to the conservatory to see Lady -Jane’s great aloe? They used to say it blossomed only once in a hundred -years.” - -“But that’s all nonsense, you know,” said Mr. Montgomery the tutor; “see -them all about the Riviera at every corner. Truth, they kill ’emselves -when they’re about it.” - -“Which comes to the same thing. Will you come?” said Dr. Burnet, -offering his arm. - -“But, my dear fellow, Miss Tredgold has seen it three or four times,” -said this very unnecessary commentator. - -“Never mind. She has not seen what I am going to show her,” said the -doctor with great self-possession. Lady Jane followed them with her eyes -as they went away into the long conservatory, which was famous in the -islands and full of lofty palms and tropical foliage. Her middle-aged -bosom owned a little tremor; was he going to put it to her, then and -there? Lady Jane had offered assistance, even co-operation, but this -prompt action took away her breath. - -“I should like to see the aloe, too,” said the lady by her side. - -“So you shall, presently,” said Lady Jane, “but we must not make a move -yet, for there is Lady Freshwater going to sing. Mr. Montgomery, ask -Lady Freshwater from me whether she will not sing us one of her -delightful French songs. She has such expression, and they are all as -light as air of course, not serious music. Look at Sir John, he is -pleased, but he likes it better when it is English, and he can make out -the words. He is a constant amusement when he talks of music--and he -thinks he understands it, poor dear.” - -She kept talking until she had watched Lady Freshwater to the piano, and -heard her begin. And then Lady Jane felt herself entitled to a little -rest. She kept one eye on the conservatory to see that nobody -interrupted the botanical exposition which was no doubt going on there. -Would he actually propose--on the spot, all at once, with the very sound -of the conversation and of Lady Freshwater’s song in their ears? Was it -possible that a man should go so fast as that? Now that it had come to -this point Lady Jane began to get a little compunctious, to ask herself -whether she might not have done better for Katherine than a country -doctor, without distinction, even though he might have a wealthy uncle -and a family place at his back? Old Tredgold’s daughter was perhaps too -great a prize to be allowed to drop in that commonplace way. On the -other hand, if Lady Jane had exerted herself to get Katherine a better -match, was it likely that a man--if a man of our _monde_--would have -consented to such an arrangement about Stella as Dr. Burnet was willing -to make? If the fortune had been Stella’s, Lady Jane was quite certain -that Charlie Somers would have consented to no such settlement. And -after all, would not Katherine be really happier with a man not too much -out of her own _monde_, fitted for village life, knowing all about her, -and not likely to be ashamed of his father-in-law? With this last -argument she comforted her heart. - -And Katherine went into the conservatory to see the aloe, which that -malevolent tutor declared she had already seen so often, with her heart -beating rather uncomfortably, and her hand upon Dr. Burnet’s arm. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX. - - -But though Lady Jane had so fully made up her mind to it, and awaited -the result with so much excitement, and though Katherine herself was -thrilled with an uneasy consciousness, and Dr. Burnet’s looks gave every -sanction to the idea, he did not on that evening under the tall aloe, -which had begun to burst the innumerable wrappings of its husk, in the -Steephill conservatory, declare his love or ask Katherine to be his -wife. I cannot tell the reason why--I think there came over him a chill -alarm as to how he should get back if by any accident his suit was -unsuccessful. It was like the position which gave Mr. Puff so much -trouble in the _Critic_. He could not “exit praying.” How was he to get -off the stage? He caught the eyes of an old lady who was seated near the -conservatory door. They were dull eyes, with little speculation in them, -but they gave a faint glare as the two young people passed; and the -doctor asked himself with a shudder, How could he meet their look when -he came back if----? How indeed could he meet anybody’s look--Lady -Jane’s, who was his accomplice, and who would be very severe upon him if -he did not succeed, and jolly Sir John’s, who would slap him on the -shoulder and shout at him in his big voice? His heart sank to his boots -when he found himself alone with the object of his affections amid the -rustling palms. He murmured something hurriedly about something he -wanted to say to her, but could not here, where they were liable to -interruption at any moment, and then he burst into a display of -information about the aloe which was very astounding to Katherine. She -listened, feeling the occasion _manqué_, with a sensation of relief. I -think it quite probable that in the circumstances, and amid the tremor -of sympathetic excitement derived from Lady Jane, and the general -tendency of the atmosphere, Katherine might have accepted Dr. Burnet. -She would probably have been sorry afterwards, and in all probability it -would have led to no results, but I think she would have accepted him -that evening had he had the courage to put it to the touch; and he, for -his part, would certainly have done it had he not been seized with that -tremor as to how he was to get off the stage. - -He found it very difficult to explain this behaviour to Lady Jane -afterwards, who, though she did not actually ask the question, pressed -him considerably about the botanical lecture he had been giving. - -“I have sat through a French _café chantant_ song in your interests, -with all the airs and graces,” she said with a look of disgust, “to give -you time.” - -“Yes, I know,” said Dr. Burnet--it was at the moment of taking his -leave, and he knew that he must soon escape, which gave him a little -courage--“you have done everything for me--you have been more than kind, -Lady Jane.” - -“But if it is all to come to nothing, after I had taken the trouble to -arrange everything for you!” - -“It was too abrupt,” he said, “and I funked it at the last. How was I to -get back under everybody’s eyes if it had not come off?” - -“It would have come off,” she said hurriedly, under her breath, with a -glance at Katherine. Then, in her usual very audible voice, she said, -“Must you go so early, Dr. Burnet? Then good-night; and if your mare is -fresh take care of the turning at Eversfield Green.” - -He did not know what this warning meant, and neither I believe did she, -though it was a nasty turning. And then he drove away into the winter -night, with a sense of having failed, failed to himself and his own -expectations, as well as to Lady Jane’s. He had not certainly intended -to take any decisive step when he drove to Steephill, but yet he felt -when he left it that the occasion was _manqué_, and that he had perhaps -risked everything by his lack of courage. This is not a pleasant -thought to a man who is not generally at a loss in any circumstances, -and whose ways have generally, on the whole, been prosperous and -successful. He was a fool not to have put it to the touch, to be -frightened by an old lady’s dull eyes which probably would have noticed -nothing, or the stare of the company which was occupied by its own -affairs and need not have suspected even that his were at a critical -point. Had he been a little bolder he might have been carrying home with -him a certainty which would have kept him warmer than any great-coat; -but then, on the other hand, he might have been departing shamed and -cast down, followed by the mocking glances of that assembly, and with -Rumour following after him as it followed the exit of the Rector, -breathing among all the gossips that he had been rejected; upon which he -congratulated himself that he had been prudent, that he had not exposed -himself at least so far. Finally he began to wonder, with a secret smile -of superiority, how the Rector had got off the scene? Did he “exit -praying”?--which would at least have been suitable to his profession. -The doctor smiled grimly under his muffler; he would have laughed if it -had not been for Jim by his side, who sat thinking of nothing, looking -out for the Sliplin lights and that turning about which Lady Jane had -warned his master. If it had not been for Jim, indeed, Dr. Burnet, -though so good a driver, would have run the mare into the bank of stones -and roadmakers’ materials which had been accumulated there for the -repair of the road. “Exit praying”?--no, the Rector, to judge from his -present aspect of irritated and wounded pride, could not have done that. -“Exit cursing,” would have been more like it. The doctor did burst into -a little laugh as he successfully steered round the Eversfield corner, -thanks to the observation of his groom, and Jim thought this was the -reason of the laugh. At all events, neither the praying nor the cursing -had come yet for Dr. Burnet, and he was not in any hurry. He said to -himself that he would go and pay old Tredgold a visit next morning, and -tell him of the dinner party at Steephill and see how the land lay. - -I cannot tell whether Mr. Tredgold had any suspicion of the motives -which made his medical man so very attentive to him, but he was always -glad to see the doctor, who amused him, and whose vigorous life and -occupation it did the old gentleman good to see. - -“Ah, doctor, you remind me of what I was when I was a young man--always -at it night and day. I didn’t care not a ha’penny for pleasure; work was -pleasure for me--and makin’ money,” said the old man with a chuckle and -a slap on the pocket where, metaphorically, it was all stored. - -“You had the advantage over me, then,” the doctor said. - -“Why, you fellows must be coining money,” cried the patient; “a golden -guinea for five minutes’ talk; rich as Creosote you doctors ought to -grow--once you get to the top of the tree. Must be at the top o’ the -tree first, I’ll allow--known on ‘Change, you know, and that sort of -thing. You should go in for royalties, doctor; that’s the way to get -known.” - -“I should have no objection, Mr. Tredgold, you may be sure, if the -royalties would go in for me; but there are two to be taken into account -in such a bargain.” - -“Oh, that’s easily done,” said the old man. “Stand by when there’s some -accident, doctor--there’s always accidents; and be on the spot at the -proper time.” - -“Unless I were to hire someone to get up the accident---- Would you go so -far as to recommend that?” - -Old Tredgold laughed and resumed the former subject. “So you took my -Katie in to dinner? Well, I’m glad of that. I don’t approve of young -prodigals dangling about my girls; they may save themselves the trouble. -I’ve let ’em know my principles, I hope, strong enough. If I would not -give in to my little Stella, it stands to reason I won’t for Kate. So my -Lady Jane had best keep her fine gentlemen to herself.” - -“You may make your mind quite easy, sir,” said the doctor; “there were -nothing but county people, and very heavy county people into the -bargain.” - -“County or town, I don’t think much of ’em,” said old Tredgold; “not -unless they can table their money alongside of me; that’s my principle, -Dr. Burnet--pound for pound, or you don’t get a daughter of mine. It’s -the only safe principle. Girls are chiefly fools about money; though -Stella wasn’t, mind you--that girl was always a chip o’ the old block. -Led astray, she was, by not believing I meant what I said--thought she -could turn me round her little finger. That’s what they all think,” he -said with a chuckle, “till they try--till they try.” - -“You see it is difficult to know until they do try,” said Dr. Burnet; -“and if you will excuse me saying it, Mr. Tredgold, Miss Stella had -every reason to think she could turn you round her little finger. She -had only to express a wish----” - -“I don’t deny it,” said the old man with another chuckle--“I don’t deny -it. Everything they like--until they come to separatin’ me from my -money. I’ll spend on them as much as any man; but when it comes to -settlin’, pound by pound--you’ve heard it before.” - -“Oh yes, I’ve heard it before,” the doctor said with a half groan, “and -I suppose there are very few men under the circumstances----” - -“Plenty of men! Why there’s young Fred Turny--fine young fellow--as -flashy as you like with his rings and his pins, good cricketer and all -that, though I think it’s nonsense, and keeps a young fellow off his -business. Why, twice the man that Somers fellow was! Had him down for -Stella to look at, and she as good as turned him out of the house. Oh, -she was an impudent one! Came down again the other day, on spec, looking -after Katie; and bless you, she’s just as bad, hankering after them -military swells, too, without a copper. I’m glad to know my Lady Jane -understands what’s what and kept her out of their way.” - -“There were only county people--young Fortescue, who has a pretty -estate, and myself.” - -“Oh, you don’t count,” said old Mr. Tredgold; “we needn’t reckon you. -Young Fortescue, eh? All land, no money. Land’s a very bad investment in -these days. I think I’ll have nothing to do with young Fortescue. Far -safer money on the table; then you run no risks.” - -“Young Fortescue is not a candidate, I believe,” said Dr. Burnet with a -smile much against the grain. - -“A candidate for what?--the county? I don’t take any interest in -politics except when they affect the market. Candidate, bless you, -they’re all candidates for a rich girl! There’s not one of ’em, young or -old, but thinks ‘That girl will have a lot of money.’ Why, they tell me -old Stanley--old enough to be her father--has been after Katie, old -fool!” the old man said. - -Dr. Burnet felt himself a little out of countenance. He said, “I do not -believe, sir, for a moment, that the Rector, if there is any truth in -the rumour, was thinking of Miss Katherine’s money.” - -“Oh, tell that to the--moon, doctor! I know a little better than that. -Her money? why it’s her money everybody is thinking of. D’ye think my -Lady Jane would pay her such attention if it wasn’t for her money? I -thought it was all broken off along of Stella, but she thinks better -luck next time, I suppose. By George!” cried the old man, smiting the -table with his fist, “if she brings another young rake to me, and thinks -she’ll get over me---- By George, doctor! I’ve left Stella to taste how -she likes it, but I’d turn the other one--that little white proud -Katie--out of my house.” There was a moment during which the doctor held -himself ready for every emergency, for old Tredgold’s countenance was -crimson and his eyes staring. He calmed down, however, quickly, having -learned the lesson that agitation was dangerous for his health, and with -a softened voice said, “You, now, doctor, why don’t you get married? -Always better for a doctor to be married. The ladies like it, and you’d -get on twice as well with a nice wife.” - -“Probably I should,” said Dr. Burnet, “but perhaps, if the lady happened -to have any money----” - -“Don’t take one without,” the old man interrupted. - -“I should be considered a fortune-hunter, and I shouldn’t like that.” - -“Oh, you!” said Mr. Tredgold, “you don’t count--that’s another pair of -shoes altogether. As for your young Fortescue, I should just like to see -him fork out, down upon the table, thousand for thousand. If he can do -that, he’s the man for me.” - -“‘You don’t count!’ What did the old beggar mean by that?” Dr. Burnet -asked himself as he took the reins out of Jim’s hand and drove away. Was -it contempt, meaning that the doctor was totally out of the question? or -was it by any possibility an encouragement with the signification that -he as a privileged person might be permitted to come in on different -grounds? In another man’s case Dr. Burnet would have rejected the latter -hypothesis with scorn, but in his own he was not so sure. What was the -meaning of that sudden softening of tone, the suggestion, “You, now, -doctor, why don’t you get married?” almost in the same breath with his -denunciation of any imaginary pretender? Why was he (Burnet) so -distinctly put in a different category? He rejected the idea that this -could mean anything favourable to himself, and then he took it back -again and caressed it, and began to think it possible. _You_ don’t -count. Why shouldn’t he count? _He_ was not a spendthrift like Charlie -Somers; _he_ was not all but bankrupt; on the contrary, he was -well-to-do and had expectations. He was in a better position than the -young military swells whom Mr. Tredgold denounced; he was far better off -than the Rector. Why shouldn’t he count? unless it was meant that the -rule about those pounds on the table, &c., did not count where he was -concerned, that he was to be reckoned with from a different point of -view. The reader may think this was great folly on Dr. Burnet’s part, -but when you turn over anything a hundred times in your mind it is sure -to take new aspects not seen at first. And then Mr. Tredgold’s words -appeared to the doctor’s intelligence quite capable of a special -interpretation. He was, as a matter of fact, a much more important -person to Mr. Tredgold than any fashionable young swell who might demand -Katherine in marriage. He, the doctor, held in his hands, in a measure, -the thread of life and death. Old Tredgold’s life had not a very -enjoyable aspect to the rest of the world, but he liked it, and did not -want it to be shortened by a day. And the doctor had great power over -that. The old man believed in him thoroughly--almost believed that so -long as he was there there was no reason why he should die. Was not that -an excellent reason for almost believing, certainly for allowing, that -he might want to make so important a person a member of his family on -terms very different from those which applied to other people, who could -have no effect upon his life and comfort at all? “You don’t count!” Dr. -Burnet had quite convinced himself that this really meant all that he -could wish it to mean before he returned from his morning round. He took -up the question _à plusieurs reprises_; after every visit working out -again and again the same line of argument: You don’t count; I look to -you to keep me in health, to prolong my life, to relieve me when I am in -any pain, and build me up when I get low, as you have done for all these -years; you don’t count as the strangers do, you have something to put -down on the table opposite my gold--your skill, your science, your art -of prolonging life. To a man like you things are dealt out by another -measure. Was it very foolish, very ridiculous, almost childish of Dr. -Burnet? Perhaps it was, but he did not see it in that light. - -He passed the Rector as he returned home, very late for his hurried -luncheon as doctors usually are, and he smiled with a mixed sense of -ridicule and compassion at the handsome clergyman, who had not yet -recovered his complacency or got over that rending asunder of his _amour -propre_. Poor old fellow! But it was very absurd of him to think that -Katherine would have anything to say to him with his grown-up children. -And a little while after, as he drove through the High Street, he saw -young Fortescue driving into the stables at the Thatched House Hotel, -evidently with the intention of putting up there. - -“Ah!” he said to himself, “young Fortescue, another candidate!” The -doctor was no wiser than other people, and did not consider that young -Fortescue had been introduced for the first time to Katherine on the -previous night, and could not possibly by any rule of likelihood be on -his way to make proposals to her father the next morning. This dawned -upon him after a while, and he laughed again aloud to the great -disturbance of the mind of Jim, who could not understand why his master -should laugh right out about nothing at all twice on successive days. -Was it possible that much learning had made the doctor mad, or at least -made him a little wrong in the head? And, indeed, excessive thinking on -one subject has, we all know, a tendency that way. - - - - -CHAPTER XXX. - - -Lady Jane gave Katherine a great deal of good advice before she allowed -her to return home. They talked much of Stella, as was natural, and of -the dreadful discovery it was to her to find that after all she had no -power over her father, and that she must remain in India with her -husband for the sake of the mere living instead of returning home in -triumph as she had hoped, and going to court and having the advantage at -once of her little title and of her great fortune. - -“The worst is that she seems to have given up hope,” Lady Jane said. “I -tell her that we all agreed we must give your father a year; but she has -quite made up her mind that he never will relent at all.” - -“I am afraid I am of her opinion,” said Katherine; “not while he lives. -I hope indeed--that if he were ill--if he were afraid of--of anything -happening----” - -“And you, of course, would be there to keep him up in his good -intentions, Katherine? Oh, don’t lose an opportunity! And what a good -thing for you to have a sensible understanding man like Dr. Burnet to -stand by you. I am quite sure he will do everything he can to bring your -father to a proper frame of mind.” - -“If he had anything to do with it!” said Katherine a little surprised. - -“A doctor, my dear, has always a great deal to do with it. He takes the -place that the priest used to take. The priest you need not send for -unless you like, but the doctor you must have there. And I have known -cases in which it made all the difference--with a good doctor who made a -point of standing up for justice. Dr. Burnet is a man of excellent -character, not to speak of his feeling for you, which I hope is apparent -enough.” - -“Lady Jane! I don’t know what you mean.” - -“Well,” said Lady Jane with composure, “there is no accounting for the -opaqueness of girls in some circumstances. You probably did not remark -either, Katherine, the infatuation of that unfortunate Rector, which you -should have done, my dear, and stopped him before he came the length of -a proposal, which is always humiliating to a man. But I was speaking of -the doctor. He takes a great interest in poor Stella; he would always -stand up for her in any circumstances, and you may find him of great use -with your father at any--any crisis--which let us hope, however, will -not occur for many a long year.” - -Lady Jane’s prayer was not, perhaps, very sincere. That old Tredgold -should continue to cumber the ground for many years, and keep poor -Stella out of her money, was the very reverse of her desire; but the old -man was a very tough old man, and she was afraid it was very likely that -it would be so. - -“I think,” said Katherine with a little heat, “that it would be well -that neither Dr. Burnet nor any other stranger should interfere.” - -“I did not say interfere,” said Lady Jane; “everything of that kind -should be done with delicacy. I only say that it will be a great thing -for you to have a good kind man within reach in case of any emergency. -Your father is, we all know, an old man, and one can never tell what may -happen--though I think, for my part, that he is good for many years. -Probably you will yourself be married long before that, which I will -rejoice to see for my part. You have no relations to stand by you, no -uncle, or anything of that sort? I thought not; then, my dear, I can -only hope that you will find a good man----” - -“Thank you for the good wish,” said Katherine with a laugh. “I find it -is a good man to look after Stella’s interests rather than anything that -will please me that my friends wish.” - -“My dear,” said Lady Jane with a little severity, “I should not have -expected such a speech from you. I have always thought a good quiet man -of high principles would be far more suitable for you than anything like -Charlie Somers, for example. Charlie Somers is my own relation, but I’m -bound to say that if I proposed to him to secure to his sister-in-law -half of his wife’s fortune I shouldn’t expect a very gracious answer. -These sort of men are always so hungry for money--they have such -quantities of things to do with it. A plain man with fewer needs and -more consideration for others---- Katherine, don’t think me interested -for Stella only. You know I like her, as well as feeling partly -responsible; but you also know, my dear, that of the two I always -preferred you.” - -“You are very kind,” said Katherine; but she was not grateful--there was -no _effusion_ in her manner. Many girls would have thrown themselves -upon Lady Jane’s neck with an enthusiasm of response. But this did not -occur to Katherine, nor did she feel the gratitude which she did not -express. - -“And I should like, I confess, to see you happily married, my dear,” -said Lady Jane impressively. “I don’t think I know any girl whom I -should be more glad to see settled; but don’t turn away from an honest, -plain man. That is the sort of man that suits a girl like you best. You -are not a butterfly, and your husband shouldn’t be of the butterfly -kind. A butterfly man is a dreadful creature, Katherine, when he -outgrows his season and gets old. There’s Algy Scott, for example, my -own cousin, who admired you very much--you would tire of him in a week, -my dear, or any of his kind; they would bore you to death in ten days.” - -“I have no desire, Lady Jane, to try how long it would take to be bored -to death by----” - -“And you are very wise,” Lady Jane said. “Come and let’s look at the -aloe and see how much it has unfolded since _that_ night. And is it -quite certain, Katherine, that you must go to-morrow? Well, you have had -a very dull visit, and I have done nothing but bore you with my dull -advice. But Sir John will be broken-hearted to lose you, and you will -always find the warmest welcome at Steephill. Friends are friends, my -dear, however dull they may be.” - -Katherine went home with her whole being in a state of animation, which -is always a good thing for the mind even when it is produced by -disagreeable events. The spirit of men, and naturally of women also, is -apt to get stagnant in an undisturbed routine, and this had been -happening to her day by day in the home life which so many things had -concurred to make motionless. The loss of Stella, the double break with -society, in the first place on that account, in the second because of -the Rector, her partial separation from Steephill on one side and from -the village on the other, had been, as it were, so many breakages of -existence to Katherine, who had not sufficient initiative or sufficient -position to make any centre for herself. Now the ice that had been -gathered over her was broken in a multitude of pieces, if not very -agreeably, yet with advantage to her mind. Katherine reflected with no -small sense of contrariety and injustice of the continued comparison -with Stella which apparently was to weigh down all her life. Lady Jane -had invited her, not for her own attractiveness--though she did not -doubt that Lady Jane’s real sentiment at bottom was, as she said, one of -partiality for Katherine--but to be put into the way she should go in -respect to Stella and kept up to her duty. That Stella should not -suffer, that she should eventually be secured in her fortune, that was -the object of all her friends. It was because he would be favourable to -Stella that Lady Jane had thrust Dr. Burnet upon her, indicating him -almost by name, forcing her, as it were, into his arms. Did Dr. Burnet -in the same way consider that he was acting in Stella’s interests when -he made himself agreeable to her sister? Katherine’s heart--a little -wounded, sore, mortified in pride and generosity (as if she required to -be pushed on, to be excited and pricked up into action for -Stella!)--seemed for a moment half disposed to throw itself on the other -side, to call back the Rector, who would probably think it right that -Stella should be punished for her disobedience, or to set up an -immovable front as an unmarried woman, adopting that _rôle_ which has -become so common now-a-days. She would, she felt, have nobody -recommended to her for her husband whose chief characteristic was that -he would take care of Stella. It was an insult to herself. She would -marry nobody at second-hand on Stella’s account. Better, far better, -marry nobody at all, which was certainly her present inclination, and so -be free to do for Stella, when the time came, what she had always -intended, of her own accord and without intervention. - -I think all the same that Lady Jane was quite right, and that the -butterfly kind of man--the gallant, gay Algy or any of his -fellows--would have been quite out of Katherine’s way; also that a man -like Dr. Burnet would have been much in her way. But to Katherine these -calculations seemed all, more or less, insulting. Why an elderly -clergyman with a grown-up family should suppose himself to be on an -equality with her, a girl of twenty-three, and entitled to make her an -offer, so very much at second-hand, of his heart and home, which was too -full already; and why, in default of him, a country practitioner with no -particular gifts or distinction should be considered the right thing for -Katherine, gave her an angry sense of antagonism to the world. This, -then, was all she was supposed to be good for--the humdrum country life, -the humdrum, useful wife of such a man. And that everything that was -pleasant and amusing and extravagant and brilliant should go to Stella: -that was the award of the world. Katherine felt very angry as she drove -home. She had no inclination towards any “military swell.” She did not -admire her brother-in-law nor his kind; she (on the whole) liked Dr. -Burnet, and had a great respect for his profession and his -much-occupied, laborious, honourable life. But to have herself set down -beforehand as a fit mate only for the doctor or the clergyman, this was -what annoyed the visionary young person, whose dreams had never been -reduced to anything material, except perhaps that vague figure of James -Stanford, who was nobody, and whom she scarcely knew! - -Yet all this shaking up did Katherine good. If she had been more -pleasantly moved she would perhaps scarcely have been so effectually -startled out of the deadening routine of her life. The process was not -pleasant at all, but it made her blood course more quickly through her -veins, and quickened her pulses and cleared her head. She was received -by her father without much emotion--with the usual chuckle and “Here you -are!” which was his most affectionate greeting. - -“Well, so you’ve got home,” he said. “Find home more comfortable on the -whole, eh, Katie? Better fires, better cooking, more light, eh? I -thought you would. These grand folks, they have to save on something; -here you’re stinted in nothing. Makes a difference, I can tell you, in -life.” - -“I don’t think there is much stinting in anything, papa, at Steephill.” - -“Not for the dinner party, perhaps. I never hold with dinner parties. -They don’t suit me; sitting down to a large meal when you ought to be -thinking of your bed. But Sir John puts his best foot forward, eh, for -that? Saves up the grapes, I shouldn’t wonder, till they go bad, for one -blow-out, instead of eating ’em when he wants ’em, like we do, every -day.” - -This speech restored the equilibrium of Katherine’s mind by turning the -balance of wit to the other side. - -“You are not at all just to Sir John, papa. You never are when you don’t -know people. He is very honest and kind, and takes very little trouble -about his dinner parties. They were both very kind to me.” - -“Asked young Fortescue to meet you, I hear. A young fellow with a lot of -poor land and no money. Meaning to try me on another tack this time, I -suppose. Not if he had a hundred miles of downs, Katie; you remember -that. Land’s a confounded bad investment. None of your encumbered -estates for me.” - -“You need not distress yourself, papa. I never spoke to Mr. Fortescue,” -said Katherine. - -There was a little offence in her tone. She had not forgiven Lady Jane -for the fact that Mr. Fortescue, the only young man of the party, had -not been allotted to her for dinner, as she felt would have been the -right thing. Katherine thought him very red in the face, weatherbeaten, -and dull--so far as appearances went; but she was piqued and offended -at having been deprived of her rights. Did Lady Jane not think her good -enough, _par exemple_, for young Fortescue? And her tone betrayed her, -if Mr. Tredgold had taken any trouble to observe her tone. - -“He need not come here to throw dust in my eyes--that’s all,” said the -old man. “I want none of your landed fellows--beggars! with more to give -out than they have coming in. No; the man that can put down his money on -the table----” - -“Don’t you think I have heard enough of your money down on the table?” -said Katherine, very red and uncomfortable. “No one is likely to trouble -you about me, papa, so we may leave the money alone, on the table or off -it.” - -“I’m not so sure about that. There’s young Fred Turny would like nothing -better. And a capital fellow that. Plenty of his own, and going into all -the best society, and titled ladies flinging themselves at his head. -Mind you, I don’t know if you keep shilly-shallying, whether he’ll stand -it long--a young fellow like that.” - -“He knows very well there is no shilly-shallying about me,” said -Katherine. - -And she left her father’s room thinking within herself that though Lady -Jane’s way of recommending a plain man was not pleasant, yet the other -way was worse. Fred Turny, it was certain, would not hear of dividing -his wife’s fortune with her sister, should her father’s will give it all -to herself; neither would Charlie Somers, Lady Jane assured her. Would -Dr. Burnet do this? Katherine, possessed for the moment of a prejudice -against the doctor, doubted, though that was the ground on which he was -recommended. Would any man do so? There was one man she thought (of whom -she knew nothing) who would; who cared nothing about the money; whose -heart had chosen herself while Stella was there in all her superior -attractions. Katherine felt that this man, of whom she had seen so -little, who had been out of the country for nearly four years, from whom -she had never received a letter, and scarcely even could call to mind -anything he had ever said to her, was the one man whom she could trust -in all the world. - -Dr. Burnet came that afternoon, as it was his usual day for visiting Mr. -Tredgold. He was very particular in keeping to his days. It was a -beautiful spring-like afternoon, and the borders round the house were -full of crocuses, yellow and blue and white. The window was open in -Katherine’s corner, and all the landscape outside bright with the -westering light. - -“What a difference,” he said, “from that snowstorm--do you remember the -snowstorm? It is in this way an era for me--as, indeed, it was in the -whole island. We all begin to date by it: before the snowstorm, or at -the time of the snowstorm.” - -“I wonder,” said Katherine, scarcely conscious of what she was saying, -“why it was an era to you?” - -“Ah, that I cannot tell you now. I will, perhaps, if you will let me, -sometime. Come out and look at the crocuses. This is just the moment, -before the sun goes down.” - -“Yes, they shut when the sun goes down,” Katherine said, stepping out -from the window. - -The air had all the balm of spring, and the crocuses were all the -colours of hope. It is delightful to come out of winter into the first -gleam of the reviving year. - -“We are nothing if not botanical,” said the doctor. “You remember the -aloe. It is a fine thing but it is melancholy, for its blossoming is its -death. It is like the old fable of the phœnix. When the new comes the -old dies. And a very good thing too if we did not put our ridiculous -human sentiment into everything.” - -“Do you think human sentiment is ridiculous?” said Katherine, half -disposed to back him up, half to argue it out. - -“Of course I don’t!” said the doctor with vehemence; and then he laughed -and said, “We are talking like a book. But I am glad you went to -Steephill; there is not any such sentiment there.” - -“Do you think, then, I am liable to be attacked by fits of sentiment? I -don’t think so,” she said, and then she invited the doctor to leave the -crocuses and to come in to tea. - -I think it was that day that Dr. Burnet informed Katherine that her -father had symptoms of illness more or less serious. He hoped that he -might be able to stave off their development, and Mr. Tredgold might yet -have many years of tolerable health before him. “But if I am right,” he -said, “I fear he will not have the calm life he has had. He will be -likely to have sudden attacks, and suffer a good deal, from time to -time. I will always be at hand, of course, and ready night and day. And, -as I tell you, great alleviations are possible. I quite hope there will -be many intervals of comfort. But, on the other hand, a catastrophe is -equally possible. If he has any affairs to attend to, it would perhaps -be--a good thing--if he could be persuaded to--look after them, as a -matter of prudence, without giving him any alarm.” - -Such an intimation makes the heart beat of those to whom the angel of -death is thus suddenly revealed hovering over their home; even when -there is no special love or loss involved. The bond between Mr. Tredgold -and his children was not very tender or delicate, and yet he was her -father. Katherine’s heart for a moment seemed to stand still. The colour -went out of her face, and the eyes which she turned with an appealing -gaze to the doctor filled with tears. - -“Oh, Dr. Burnet!” she said. - -“Don’t be alarmed; there is nothing to call for any immediate -apprehension. It is only if you want to procure any modification--any -change in a will, or detail of that kind.” - -“You mean about Stella,” she said. “I don’t know what he has done about -Stella; he never tells me anything. Is it necessary to trouble him, -doctor? If he has not changed his will it will be all right; if he has -destroyed it without making another it will still be all right, for some -one told me that in that case we should share alike--is that the law? -Then no harm can come to Stella. Oh, that we should be discussing in -this calm way what might happen--after!” Two big tears fell from -Katherine’s eyes. “If the worst were to happen even,” she said; “if -Stella were left out--it would still be all right, doctor, so long as I -was there to see justice done.” - -“Dear Katherine!” he said, just touching her hand for a moment. She -scarcely perceived in her agitation that he had left out the prefix, and -the look which he gave her made no impression on her preoccupied mind. -“You will remember,” he said, “that I am to be called instantly if -anything unusual happens, and that I shall always be ready--to do the -best I can for him, and to stand by you--to the end.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI. - - -This made again a delay in Dr. Burnet’s plans. You cannot begin to make -love to a girl when you have just told her of the serious illness, not -likely to end in anything but death, which is hovering over her father. -It is true that old Tredgold was not, could not, be the object of any -passionate devotion on the part of his daughter. But even when the tie -is so slight that, once broken, it has but a small effect on life, yet -the prospect of that breaking is always appalling, more or less worse -than the event itself. All that a man can say in such circumstances, Dr. -Burnet said--that he would be at her service night or day, that -everything he could do or think of he would do, and stand by her to the -last. That was far more appropriate than professions of love, and it was -a little trying to him to find that she had not even noticed how he -looked at her, or that he said, “Dear Katherine!” which, to be sure, he -had no right to say. She was not even aware of it! which is discouraging -to a man. - -Dr. Burnet was a good doctor, he knew what he was about; and it was not -long before his prophecy came true. Mr. Tredgold was seized with an -alarming attack in the spring, which brought him to the very verge of -the grave, and from which at one time it was not expected he would ever -rally. The old man was very ill, but very strong in spirit, and fought -with his disease like a lion; one would have said a good old man to see -him lying there with no apparent trouble on his mind, nothing to -pre-occupy time or draw him away from the immediate necessity of -battling for his life, which he did with a courage worthy of a better -cause. His coolness, his self-possession, his readiness to second every -remedy, and give himself every chance, was the admiration of the -watchers, doctors, and nurses alike, who were all on the alert to help -him, and conquer the enemy. Could there be a better cause than fighting -for your life? Not one at least of more intimate interest for the -combatant; though whether it is worth so much trouble when a man is over -seventy, and can look forward to nothing better than the existence of an -invalid, is a question which might well be debated. Mr. Tredgold, -however, had no doubt on the subject. He knew that he possessed in this -life a great many things he liked--what he would have in another he had -very little idea. Probably, according to all that he had ever heard, -there would be no money there, and if any difference between the beggar -and the rich man, a difference in favour of the former. He did not at -all desire to enter into that state of affairs. And the curious thing -was that it could never be discovered that he had anything on his mind. -He did not ask for Stella, as the large circle of watchers outside who -read the bulletins at the lodge, and discussed the whole matter with the -greatest interest, feeling it to be as good as a play, fondly hoped. He -never said a word that could be construed into a wish for her, never, -indeed, mentioned her name. He did not even desire to have Katherine by -him, it was said; he preferred the nurses, saying in his characteristic -way that they were paid for it, that it was their business, and that he -never in anything cared for amateurs; he said amateurs, as was natural, -and it was exactly the sentiment which everybody had expected from Mr. -Tredgold. But never to ask for Stella, never to call upon her at his -worst moment, never to be troubled by any thought of injustice done to -her, that was the extraordinary thing which the community could not -understand. Most people had expected a tragic scene of remorse, -telegrams flying over land and sea, at the cost of a sovereign a -word--but what was that to Mr. Tredgold?--calling Stella home. The good -people were confounded to hear, day by day, that no telegram had been -sent. It would have been a distinction for the little post-office in -Sliplin to have a telegram of such a character to transmit to India. The -postmistress awaited, feeling as if she were an inferior, but still -very important, personage in the play, attending her call to go on. But -the call never came. When the patient was at his worst various ladies in -the place, and I need not say Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay, had many -whispered conferences with the people at the post. “No telegram yet? Is -it possible?” - -“No, indeed, ma’am, not a word.” - -“I wonder at you for expecting it now,” cried Miss Mildmay, angry at the -failure of all those hopes which she had entertained as warmly as -anyone. “What use would it be. She couldn’t come now; he’ll be gone, -poor man, weeks and weeks before Stella could be here.” - -But Mr. Tredgold did not go, and then it began to be understood that he -never meant nor expected to go, and that this was the reason why he did -not disturb himself about Stella. The spectators were half satisfied, -yet half aggrieved, by this conclusion, and felt, as he got slowly -better, that they had been cheated out of their play; however, he was an -old man, and the doctor shook his head over all the triumphant accounts -of his recovery which were made in the local papers; and there was yet -hope of a tragedy preceded by a reconciliation, and the restoration of -Stella to all her rights. Dr. Burnet was, throughout the whole illness, -beyond praise. He was at the Cliff at every available moment, watching -every symptom. Not a day elapsed that he did not see Katherine two or -three times to console her about her father, or to explain anything new -that had occurred. They were together so much that some people said they -looked as if they had been not only lovers but married for years, so -complete seemed their confidence in each other and the way they -understood each other. A glance at Dr. Burnet’s face was enough for -Katherine. She knew what it meant without another word; while he divined -her anxiety, her apprehensions, her depression, as the long days went on -without any need of explanation. “As soon as the old man is well enough -there will, of course, be a marriage,” it was generally said. “And, of -course, the doctor will go and live there,” said Mrs. Shanks, “such a -comfort to have the doctor always on the spot--and what a happy thing -for poor Mr. Tredgold that it should be his son-in-law--a member of his -family.” - -“Mr. Tredgold will never have a son-in-law in his house,” said Miss -Mildmay, “if Katherine is expecting that she is reckoning without her -father. I don’t believe _that_ will ever be a marriage whatever you may -say. What! send off Sir Charles Somers, a man with something at least to -show for himself, and take in Dr. Burnet? I think, Jane Shanks, that you -must be off your head!” - -“Sir Charles Somers could never have been of any use to poor, dear Mr. -Tredgold,” said Mrs. Shanks, a little abashed, “and Dr. Burnet is. What -a difference that makes!” - -“It may make a difference--but it will not make that difference; and I -shouldn’t like myself to be attended by my son-in-law,” said the other -lady. “He might give you a little pinch of something at a critical -moment; or he might change your medicine; or he might take away a -pillow--you can’t tell the things that a doctor might do--which could -never be taken hold of, and yet----” - -“Ruth Mildmay!” cried Mrs. Shanks, “for shame of yourself, do you think -Dr. Burnet would murder the man?” - -“No; I don’t think he would murder the man,” said Miss Mildmay -decidedly, but there was an inscrutable look in her face, “there are -many ways of doing a thing,” she said, nodding her head to herself. - -It appeared, however, that this time at least Dr. Burnet was not going -to have the chance, whether he would have availed himself of it or not. -Mr. Tredgold got better. He came round gradually, to the surprise of -everybody but himself. When he was first able to go out in his bath -chair he explained the matter to the kind friends who hastened to -congratulate him, in the most easy way. “You all thought I was going to -give in this time,” he said, “but I never meant to give in. Nothing like -making up your mind to it. Ask the doctor. I said from the beginning, ‘I -ain’t going to die this bout, don’t you think it.’ _He_ thought -different; ignorant pack, doctors, not one of ’em knows a thing. Ask -him. He’ll tell you it wasn’t him a bit, nor his drugs neither, but me -as made up my mind.” - -The doctor had met the little procession and was walking along by Mr. -Tredgold’s chair. He laughed and nodded his head in reply, “Oh yes, he -is quite right. Pluck and determination are more than half of the -battle,” he said. He looked across the old man’s chair to Katherine on -the other side, who said hastily: “I don’t know what we should have done -without Dr. Burnet, papa.” - -“Oh, that’s all very well,” said old Tredgold. “Pay each other -compliments, that’s all right. He’ll say, perhaps, I’d have been dead -without your nursing, Katie. Not a bit of it! Always prefer a woman that -is paid for what she does and knows her duty. Yes, here I am, Rector, -getting all right, in spite of physic and doctors--as I always meant to -do.” - -“By the blessing of God,” said the Rector, with great solemnity. He had -met the group unawares round a corner, and to see Burnet and Katherine -together, triumphant, in sight of all the world, was bitter to the -injured man. That this common country doctor should be preferred to -himself added an additional insult, and he would have gone a mile round -rather than meet the procession. Being thus, however, unable to help -himself, the Rector grew imposing beyond anything that had ever been -seen of him. He looked a Bishop, at least, as he stood putting forth no -benediction, but a severe assertion that belied the words. “By the -blessing of God,” he said. - -“Oh!” said old Mr. Tredgold, taken aback. “Oh yes, that’s what you say. -I don’t mean to set myself against that. Never know, though, do you, how -it’s coming--queer thing to reckon on. But anyhow, here I am, and ten -pounds for the poor, Rector, if you like, to show as I don’t go against -that view.” - -“I hope the improvement will continue,” the Rector said, with his nose -in the air. “Good morning, Miss Katherine, I congratulate you with all -my heart.” - -On what did he congratulate her? The doctor, though his complexion was -not delicate, coloured high, and so did Katherine, without knowing -exactly what was the reason; and Sliplin, drawing its own conclusions, -looked on. The only indifferent person was Mr. Tredgold, always sure of -his own intentions and little concerned by those of others, to whom -blushes were of as little importance as any other insignificant trifles -which did not affect himself. - -It was perhaps this little incident which settled the question in the -mind of the community. The Rector had congratulated the pair in open -day; then, of course, the conclusion was clear that all the -preliminaries were over--that they were engaged, and that Mr. Tredgold, -who had rejected Sir Charles Somers, was really going to accept the -doctor. The Rector, who, without meaning it, thus confirmed and -established everything that had been mere imagination up to this time, -believed it himself with all the virulence of an injured man. And -Katherine, when Dr. Burnet had departed on his rounds and she was left -to accompany her father home, almost believed herself that it must be -true. He had said nothing to her which could be called a definite -proposal, and she had certainly given no acceptance, no consent to -anything of the kind, yet it was not impossible that without any -intention, without any words, she had tacitly permitted that this should -be. Looking back, it seemed to her, that indeed they had been always -together during these recent days, and a great many things had passed -between them in their meetings by her father’s bedside, outside his -door, or in the hall, at all times of the night and day. And perhaps a -significance might be given to words which she had not attached to them. -She was a little alarmed--confused--not knowing what had happened. She -had met his eyes full of an intelligence which she did not feel that she -shared, and she had seen him redden and herself had felt a hot colour -flushing to her face. She did not know why she blushed. It was not for -Dr. Burnet; it was from the Rector’s look--angry, half malignant, full -of scornful meaning. “I congratulate you!” Was that what it meant, and -that this thing had really happened which had been floating in the air -so long? - -When she returned to the Cliff, Katherine did not go in, but went along -the edge of the path, as she had done so often when she had anything in -her mind. All her thinkings had taken place there in the days when she -had often felt lonely and “out of it,” when Stella was in the ascendant -and everything had rolled on in accordance with her lively views. She -had gone there with so many people to show them “the view,” who cared -nothing for the view, and had lingered afterwards while they returned to -more noisy joys, to think with a little sigh that there was someone in -the world, though she knew not where, who might have preferred to linger -with her, but had been sent away from her, never to be seen more. And -then there had been the night of Stella’s escapade in the little yacht, -and then of Stella’s second flight with her husband, and of many a day -beside when Katherine’s heart had been too full to remain quietly -indoors, and when the space, the sky, the sea, had been her consolers. -She went there now, and with a languor which was half of the mind and -half of the body walked up and down the familiar way. The tamarisks were -beginning to show a little pink flush against the sea. It was not warm -enough yet to develop the blossom wholly, but yet it showed with a tinge -of colour against the blue, and all the flowering shrubs were coming -into blossom and flowers were in every crevice of the rocks. It was the -very end of April when it is verging into May, and the air was soft and -full of the sweetness of the spring. - -But Katherine’s mind was occupied with other things. She thought of Dr. -Burnet and whether it was true that she was betrothed to him and would -marry him and have him for her companion always from this time forth. -Was it true? She asked herself the question as if it had been someone -else, some other girl of whom she had heard this, but almost with less -interest than if it had been another girl. She would, indeed, scarcely -have been moved had she heard that the doctor had been engaged to -Charlotte Stanley or to anyone else in the neighbourhood. Was it true -that it was she, Katherine Tredgold, who was engaged to him? The -Rector’s fierce look had made her blush, but she did not blush now when -she thought over this question alone. Was she going to marry Dr. Burnet? -Katherine felt indifferent about it, as if she did not care. He would be -useful to papa; he would be a friend to Stella--he would not oppose her -in anything she might do for her sister. Why not he as well as another? -It did not seem to matter so very much, though she had once thought, as -girls do, that it mattered a great deal. There was Charlie Somers, for -whom (though without intending it) Stella had sacrificed everything. Was -he better worth than Dr. Burnet? Certainly, no. Why not, then, Dr. -Burnet as well as another? Katherine said to herself. It was curious how -little emotion she felt--her heart did not beat quicker, her breath came -with a kind of languid calm. There were no particular objections that -she knew of. He was a good man; there was nothing against him. Few -country doctors were so well bred, and scarcely anyone so kind. His -appearance was not against him either. These were all negatives, but -they seemed to give her a certain satisfaction in the weariness of soul. -Nothing against him, not even in her own mind. On the contrary, she -approved of Dr. Burnet. He was kind, not only to her, but to all. He -spared no trouble for his patients, and would face the storm, hurrying -out in the middle of the night for any suffering person who sent for him -without hesitation or delay. Who else could say the same thing? Perhaps -the Rector would do it too if he were called upon. But Katherine was not -disposed to discuss with herself the Rector’s excellencies, whereas it -seemed necessary to put before herself, though languidly, all that she -had heard to the advantage of the doctor. And how many good things she -had heard! Everybody spoke well of him, from the poorest people up to -Lady Jane, who had as good as pointed him out in so many words as the -man whom Katherine should marry. Was she about to marry him? Had it -somehow been all settled?--though she could not recollect how or when. - -She was tired by the long strain of her father’s illness, not so much -by absolute nursing, though she had taken her share of that (but Mr. -Tredgold, as has been said, preferred a nurse who was paid for her work -on the ordinary business principle), as by the lengthened tension of -mind and body, the waiting and watching and suspense. This no doubt was -one great reason for her languid, almost passive, condition. Had Dr. -Burnet spoken then she would have acquiesced quite calmly, and indeed -she was not at all sure whether it might not have so happened already. - -So she pursued her musing with her face towards the lawn and the -shrubberies. But when Katherine turned to go back along the edge of the -cliff towards the house, her eyes, as she raised them, were suddenly -struck almost as by a blow, by the great breadth of the sea and the sky, -the moving line of the coast, the faint undulation of the waves, the -clouds upon the horizon white in flakes of snowy vapour against the -unruffled blue. It was almost as if someone had suddenly stretched a -visionary hand out of the distance, and struck her lightly, quickly, to -bring her back to herself. She stood still for a moment with a shiver, -confused, astonished, awakened--and then shook herself as if to shake -something, some band, some chain, some veil that had been wound round -her, away. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII. - - -But whether the result of this awaking would have told for anything in -Katherine’s life had it not been for another incident which happened -shortly after, it would be impossible to say. She forgot the impression -of that sudden stroke of nature, and when she went back to her father, -who was a little excited by his first outing, there revived again so -strong an impression of the need there was of the doctor and his care, -and the importance of his position in the house as a sort of _deus ex -machinâ_, always ready to be appealed to and to perform miracles at -pleasure, that the former state of acquiescence in whatever he might -demand as the price of his services, came back strongly to her mind, and -the possibility was that there would have been no hesitation on her -part, though no enthusiasm, had he seized the opportunity during one of -the days of that week, and put his fate to the touch. But a number of -small incidents supervened; and there is a kind of luxury in delay in -these circumstances which gains upon a man, the pleasure of the -unacknowledged, the delightful sense of feeling that he is sure of a -favourable response, without all the responsibilities which a favourable -response immediately brings into being. The moment that he asked and -Katherine consented, there would be the father to face, and all the -practical difficulties of the position to be met. He would have to take -“the bull by the horns.” This is a very different thing from those -preliminaries, exciting but delightful, which form the first step. To -declare your sentiments to the girl you love, to receive that assent and -answering confession of which you are almost sure--only so much -uncertainty in it as makes the moment thrilling with an alarm and -timidity which is more sweet than confidence. That is one thing; but -what follows is quite another; the doctor a little “funked,” as he -himself said, that next important step. There was no telling what might -come out of that old demon of a father. Sometimes Dr. Burnet thought -that he was being encouraged, that he had become so necessary to Mr. -Tredgold that the idea of securing his attendance would be jumped at by -the old man; and sometimes he thought otherwise. He was, in fact, though -a brave man, frightened of the inevitable second step. And therefore he -let the matter linger, finding much delight in the happy unconsciousness -that he was risking nothing, that she understood him and all his -motives, and that his reward was certain, when he did make up his mind -to ask for it at last. - -Things were in this condition when one day, encouraged by her father’s -improvement, Katherine went to town, as everybody in the country is -bound to do, to go through that process which is popularly known as -“shopping.” In previous years Stella’s enterprise and activity had -provided clothes for every season as much in advance as fashion -permitted, so that there never was any sudden necessity. But Katherine -had never been energetic in these ways, and the result was that the -moment arrived, taking her a little unawares, in which even Katherine -was forced to see that she had nothing to wear. She went to town, -accordingly, one morning in the beginning of June, attended by the maid -who was no more than an elderly promoted upper housemaid, who had -succeeded Stevens. Katherine had not felt herself equal to a second -Stevens entirely for herself, indeed, she had been so well trained by -Stella, who always had need of the services of everybody about her, that -she was very well able to dispense with a personal attendant altogether. -But it was an admirable and honourable retirement for Hannah to give up -the more active work of the household and to become Miss Katherine’s -maid, and her conscientious efforts to fulfil the duties of her new -position were entertaining at least. A more perfect guardian, if any -guardian had been necessary, of all the decorums could not have been -than was this highly respectable person who accompanied her young -mistress to London with a sense of having a great responsibility upon -her shoulders. As a matter of fact, no guardian being in the least -necessary, it was Katherine who took care of her, which came to exactly -the same thing and answered all purposes. - -The train was on this occasion rather full, and the young lady and her -maid were put into a compartment in which were already two passengers, a -lady and gentleman, at the other extremity of the carriage, to all -appearance together. But it soon turned out that they were not together. -The lady got out at one of the little stations at which they stopped, -and then, with a little hesitation, the gentleman rose and came over to -the side on which Katherine was. “It is long since we have met,” he said -in a voice which had a thrill in it, noticeable even to Hannah, who -instinctively retired a little, leaving the place opposite Katherine at -his disposition (a thing, I need not remark, which was quite improper, -and ought not to have been done. Hannah could not for a long time -forgive herself, when she thought it over, but for the moment she was -dominated by the voice). “I have not seen you,” he repeated, with a -little faltering, “for years. Is it permitted to say a word to you, Miss -Tredgold?” - -The expression of his eyes was not a thing to be described. It startled -Katherine all the more that she had of late been exposed to glances -having a similar meaning, yet not of that kind. She looked at him almost -with a gasp. “Mr. Stanford! I thought you were in India?” - -“So I was,” he said, “and so I am going to be in a few months more. What -a curious unexpected happi--I mean occurrence--that I should have met -you--quite by accident.” - -“Oh yes, quite by accident,” she said. - -“I have been in the island,” he said, “and near Sliplin for a day or -two, where it would have been natural to see you, and then when I was -coming away in desp--without doing so, what a chance that of all places -in the world you should have been put into this carriage.” - -He seemed so astonished at this that it was very difficult to get over -it. Katherine took it with much more composure, and yet her heart had -begun to beat at the first sound of his voice. - -He asked her a great many questions about her father, about Stella; -even, timidly, about herself, though it soon became apparent that this -was not from any need of information. He had heard about Stella’s -marriage, “down there,” with a vague indication of the point at which -their journey began; and that Mr. Tredgold had been ill, and that---- -But he did not end that sentence. It was easily to be perceived that he -had acquired the knowledge somewhere that Katherine was -still--Katherine--and took a great satisfaction in the fact. And then he -began to tell her about himself. He had done very well, better than -could have been expected. He had now a very good appointment, and his -chief was very kind to him. “There are no fortunes to be made now in -India--or, at least, not such as we used to hear were once made. The -life is different altogether. It is not a long martyrdom and lakhs of -rupees, but a very passable existence and frequent holidays home. Better -that, I think.” - -“Surely much better,” said Katherine. - -“I think so. And then there are the hills--Simla, and so forth, which -never were thought of in my father’s time. They had to make up their -minds and put up with everything. We have many alleviations--the ladies -have especially,” he added, with a look that said a great deal more. Why -should he add by his looks so much importance to that fact? And how was -it that Katherine, knowing nothing of the life in India, took up his -meaning in the twinkling of an eye? - -“But the ladies,” she said, “don’t desert the plains where their--their -husbands are, I hope, to find safety for themselves on the hills?” - -“I did not mean that,” he said, with a flush of colour all over his -brown face (Katherine compared it, in spite of herself, to Dr. Burnet’s -recent blush, with conclusions not favourable to the latter). “I mean -that it is such a comfort to men to think that--what is most precious -to them in the world--may be placed in safety at any critical moment.” - -“I wonder if that is Charlie Somers’ feeling,” Katharine said with an -involuntary laugh. It was not that she meant to laugh at Charlie Somers; -it was rather the irrestrainable expression of a lightening and rising -of her own heart. - -“No doubt every man must,” James Stanford said. - -And they went on talking, he telling her many things which she did not -fully understand or even receive into her mind at all, her chief -consciousness being that this man--her first love--was the only one who -had felt what a true lover should, the only one to whom her heart made -any response. She did not even feel this during the course of that too -rapid journey. She felt only an exhilaration, a softening and expansion -of her whole being. She could not meet his eyes as she met Dr. Burnet’s; -they dazzled her; she could not tell why. Her heart beat, running on -with a tremulous accompaniment to those words of his, half of which her -intelligence did not master at the time, but which came to her after by -degrees. He told her that he was soon going back to India, and that he -would like to go and see Stella, to let her know by an independent -testimony how her sister was. Might he write and give her his report? -Might he come--this was said hurriedly as the train dashed into the -precincts of London, and the end of the interview approached--to Sliplin -again one day before he left on the chance of perhaps seeing her--to -inquire for Mr. Tredgold--to take anything she might wish to send to -Lady Somers? Katherine felt the flush on her own face to be -overwhelming. Ah, how different from that half-angry confused colour -which she had been conscious of when the Rector offered his -congratulations! - -“Oh no,” she said with a little shake of her head, and a sound of pathos -in her voice of which she was quite conscious; “my father is ill; he is -better now, but his condition is serious. I am very--sorry--I am -distressed--to say so--but he must not be disturbed, he must not. I have -escaped for a little to-day. I--had to come. But at home I am -altogether taken up by papa. I cannot let you--lose your time--take the -trouble--of coming for nothing. Oh, excuse me--I cannot----” Katherine -said. - -And he made no reply, he looked at her, saying a thousand things with -his eyes. And then there came the jar of the arrival. He handed her out, -he found a cab for her, performing all the little services that were -necessary, and then he held her hand a moment while he said goodbye. - -“May I come and see you off? May I be here when you come back?” - -“Oh, no, no!” Katherine said, she did not know why. “I don’t know when -we go back; it perhaps might not be till to-morrow--it might not be -till--that is, no, you must not come, Mr. Stanford--I--cannot help it,” -she said. - -Still he held her hand a moment. “It must still be hope then, nothing -but hope,” he said. - -She drove away through London, leaving him, seeing his face wherever she -looked. Ah, that was what the others had wanted to look like but had not -been able--that was--all that one wanted in this world; not the Tredgold -money, nor the fortune of the great City young man, nor the Rector’s -dignity, nor Dr. Burnet’s kindness--nothing but that, it did not matter -by what accompanied. What a small matter to be poor, to go away to the -end of the earth, to be burned by the sun and wasted by the heat, to -endure anything, so long as you had _that_. She trembled and was -incoherent when she tried to speak. She forgot where to tell the cabman -to go, and said strange things to Hannah, not knowing what she said. Her -heart beat and beat, as if it was the only organ she possessed, as if -she were nothing but one pulse, thumping, thumping with a delicious -idiocy, caring for nothing, and thinking of nothing. Thinking of -nothing, though rays and films of thought flew along in the air and made -themselves visible to her for a moment. Perhaps she should never see him -again; she had nothing to do with him, there was no link between them; -and yet, so to speak, there was nothing else but him in the world. She -saw the tall tower of the Parliament in a mist that somehow encircled -James Stanford’s face, and broad Whitehall was full of that vapour in -which any distinctions of other feature, of everything round about her, -was lost. - -How curious an effect to be produced upon anyone so reasonable, so -sensible as Katherine! After a long time, she did not know how long, she -was recalled to common day by her arrival at the dressmaker’s where she -had to get out and move and speak, all of which she seemed to do in a -dream. And then the day turned round and she had to think of her journey -back again. Why did she tell him not to come? It would have harmed -nobody if he had come. Her father had not forbidden her to see him, and -even had he forbidden her, a girl who was of age, who was nearly -twenty-four, who had after all a life of her own to think of, should she -have refrained from seeing him on that account? All her foundations were -shaken, not so much by feeling of her own as by the sight and certainty -of his feeling. She would not desert her father, never, never run away -from him like Stella. But at least she might have permitted herself to -see James Stanford again. She said to herself, “I may never marry him; -but now I shall marry nobody else.” And why had she not let him come, -why might they not at least have understood each other? The influence of -this thought was that Katherine did not linger for the afternoon train, -to which Stanford after all did go, on the chance of seeing her, of -perhaps travelling with her again, but hurried off by the very first, -sadly disappointing poor Hannah, who had looked forward to the glory of -lunching with her young mistress in some fine pastrycook’s as Stevens -had often described. Far from this, Hannah was compelled to snatch a bun -at the station, in the hurry Miss Katherine was in; and why should she -have hurried? There was no reason in the world. To be in London, and yet -not in London, to see nothing, not even the interior of Verey’s, went to -Hannah’s heart. Nor was Katherine’s much more calm when she began to -perceive that her very impetuosity had probably been the reason why she -did not see him again; for who could suppose that she who had spoken of -perhaps not going till to-morrow, should have fled back again in an -hour, by a slow train in which nobody who could help it ever went? - -By that strange luck which so often seems to regulate human affairs, Dr. -Burnet chose this evening of all others for the explanation of his -sentiments. He paid Mr. Tredgold an evening visit, and found him very -well; and then he went out to join Katherine, whom he saw walking on the -path that edged the cliff. It was a beautiful June evening, serene and -sweet, still light with the lingering light of day, though the moon was -already high in the sky. There was no reason any longer why Dr. Burnet -should restrain his feelings. His patient was well; there was no longer -any indecorum, anything inappropriate, in speaking to Katherine of what -she must well know was nearest to his heart. He, too, had been conscious -of the movement in the air--the magnetic communication from him to her -on the day of Mr. Tredgold’s first outing, when they had met the Rector, -and he had congratulated them. To Katherine it had seemed almost as if -in some way unknown to herself everything had been settled between them, -but Dr. Burnet knew different. He knew that nothing had been settled, -that no words nor pledge had passed between them; but he had little -doubt what the issue would be. He felt that he had the matter in his own -hands, that he had only to speak and she to reply. It was a foregone -conclusion, nothing wanting but the hand and seal. - -Katherine had scarcely got beyond the condition of dreaming in which she -had spent the afternoon. She was a little impatient when she saw him -approaching. She did not want her thoughts to be disturbed. Her thoughts -were more delightful to her than anything else at this moment, and she -half resented the appearance of the doctor, whom her mind had forsaken -as if he had never been. The dreaming state in which she was, the -preoccupation with one individual interest is a cruel condition of mind. -At another moment she would have read Dr. Burnet’s meaning in his eyes, -and would have been prepared at least for what was coming--she who knew -so well what was coming, who had but a few days ago acquiesced in what -seemed to be fate. But now, when he began to speak, Katherine was -thunderstruck. A sort of rage sprang up in her heart. She endeavoured to -stop him, to interrupt the words on his lips, which was not only cruel -but disrespectful to a man who was offering her his best, who was laying -himself, with a warmth which he had scarcely known to be in him, at her -feet. He was surprised at his own ardour, at the fire with which he made -his declaration, and so absorbed in that that he did not for the first -moment see how with broken exclamations and lifted hands she was keeping -him off. - -“Oh, don’t, doctor! Oh, don’t say so, don’t say so!” were the strange -words that caught his ear at last; and then he shook himself up, so to -speak, and saw her standing beside him in the gathering dimness of the -twilight, her face not shining with any sweetness of assent, but half -convulsed with pain and shame, her hands held up in entreaty, her lips -giving forth these words, “Oh, don’t say so!” - -It was his turn to be struck dumb. He drew up before her with a sudden -pause of consternation. - -“What?” he cried--“_what?_” not believing his ears. - -And thus they stood for a moment speechless, both of them. She had -stopped him in the middle of his love tale, which he had told better and -with more passion than he was himself sensible of. She had stopped him, -and now she did not seem to have another word to say. - -“It is my anxiety which is getting too much for me,” he said. “You -didn’t say that, Katherine--not that? You did not mean to interrupt -me--to stop me? No. It is only that I am too much in earnest--that I am -frightening myself----” - -“Oh, Dr. Burnet!” she cried, instinctively putting her hands together. -“It is I who am to blame. Oh, do not be angry with me. Let us part -friends. Don’t--don’t say that any more!” - -“Say what?--that I love you, that I want you to be my wife? Katherine, I -have a right to say it! You have known for a long time that I was going -to say it. I have been silent because of--for delicacy, for love’s sake; -but you have known. I know that you have known!” he cried almost -violently, though in a low voice. - -She had appealed to him like a frightened girl; now she had to collect -her forces as a woman, with her dignity to maintain. “I will not -contradict you,” she said. “I cannot; it is true. I can only ask you to -forgive me. How could I stop you while you had not spoken? Oh no, I will -not take that excuse. If it had been last night it might have been -otherwise, but to-day I know better. I cannot--it is impossible! -Don’t--oh don’t let us say any more.” - -“There is a great deal more to be said!” he cried. “Impossible! How is -it impossible? Last night it would have been possible, but to-day---- -You are playing with me, Katherine! Why should it be impossible to-day?” - -“Not from anything in you, Dr. Burnet,” she said; “from something in -myself.” - -“From what in yourself? Katherine, I tell you you are playing with me! I -deserve better at your hands.” - -“You deserve--everything!” she cried, “and I--I deserve nothing but that -you should scorn me. But it is not my fault. I have found out. I have -had a long time to think; I have seen things in a new light. Oh, accept -what I say! It is impossible--impossible!” - -“Yet it was possible yesterday, and it may be possible to-morrow?” - -“No, never again!” she said. - -“Do you know,” said the doctor stonily, “that you have led me on, that -you have given me encouragement, that you have given me almost a -certainty?--and now to cast me off, without sense, without reason----” - -The man’s lip quivered under the sting of this disappointment and -mortification. He began not to know what he was saying. - -“Let us not say any more--oh, let us not say any more! That was unkind -that you said. I could give you no certainty, for I had none; and -to-day--I know that it is impossible! Dr. Burnet, I cannot say any -more.” - -“But, Miss Tredgold,” he cried in his rage, “there is a great deal more -to be said! I have a right to an explanation! I have a right to---- Good -heavens, do you mean that nothing is to come of it after all?” he -cried. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIII. - - -It turned out that there was indeed a great deal more to be said. Dr. -Burnet came back after the extraordinary revelation of that evening. He -left Katherine on the cliff in the silvery light of the lingering day, -with all the tender mists of her dream dispersed, to recognise the -dreadful fact that she had behaved very badly to a man who had done -nothing but good to her. It was for this he had been so constant night -and day. No man in the island had been so taken care of, so surrounded -with vigilant attention, as old Mr. Tredgold--not for the fees he gave -certainly, which were no more than those of any other man, not for love -of him, but for Katherine. And now Katherine refused to pay the -price--nay, more, stood up against any such plea--as if he had no right -to ask her or to be considered more than another man. Dr. Burnet would -not accept his dismissal, he would not listen to her prayer to say no -more of it. He would not believe that it was true, or that by reasoning -and explanation it might not yet be made right. - -There were two or three very painful interviews in that corner of the -drawing-room where Katherine had established herself, and which had so -many happy associations to him. He reminded her of how he had come there -day after day during the dreary winter, of that day of the snowstorm, of -other days, during which things had been said and allusions made in -which now there was no meaning. Sometimes he accused her vehemently of -having played hot and cold with him, of having led him on, of having -permitted him up to the very last to believe that she cared for him. And -to some of these accusations Katherine did not know how to reply. She -had not led him on, but she had permitted a great deal to be implied if -not said, and she had acquiesced. She could not deny that she had -acquiesced even in her own mind. If she had confessed to him how little -of her heart was in it at any time, or that it was little more than a -mental consent as to something inevitable, that would have been even -less flattering to him than her refusal; this was an explanation she -could not make. And her whole being shrank from a disclosure of that -chance meeting on the railway and the self-revelation it brought with -it. As a matter of fact the meeting on the railway had no issue any more -than the other. Nothing came of it. There was nothing to tell that could -be received as a reason for her conduct. She could only stand silent and -pale, and listen to his sometimes vehement reproaches, inalterable only -in the fact that it could not be. - -There had been a very stormy interview between them one of those -evenings after he had left her father. He was convinced at last that it -was all over, that nothing could be done, and the man’s mortification -and indignant sense of injury had subsided into a more profound feeling, -into the deeper pang of real affection rejected and the prospects of -home and happiness lost. - -“You have spoiled my life,” he had said to her. “I have nothing to look -forward to, nothing to hope for. Here I am and here I shall be, the same -for ever--a lonely man. Home will never mean anything to me but dreary -rooms to work in and rest in; and you have done it all, not for any -reason, not with any motive, in pure wantonness.” It was almost more -than he could bear. - -“Forgive me,” Katherine said. She did not feel guilty to that extent, -but she would not say so. She was content to put up with the imputation -if it gave him any comfort to call her names. - -And then he had relented. After all had been said that could be said, he -had gone back again to the table by which she was sitting, leaning her -head on her arm and half covering it with her hand. He put his own hand -on the same table and stooped a little towards her. - -“All this,” he said with difficulty, “will of course make no difference. -You will send for me when I am wanted for your father all the same.” - -“Oh, Dr. Burnet!” was all she said. - -“Of course,” he said almost roughly, “you will send for me night or day -all the same. It makes no difference. You may forsake me, but I will not -forsake you.” And with that, without a word of leavetaking or any -courtesy, he went away. - -Was that how she was to be represented to herself and the world now and -for ever? Katherine sat with her head on her hand and her thoughts were -bitter. It seemed hard, it seemed unjust, yet what could she say? She -had not encouraged this man to love her or build his hopes upon her, but -yet she had made no stand against it; she had permitted a great deal -which, if she had not been so much alone, could not have been. Was it -her fault that she was alone? Could she have been so much more than -honest, so presumptuous and confident in her power, as to bid him pause, -to reject him before he asked her? These self-excusing thoughts are -self-accusing, as everybody knows. All her faults culminated in the fact -that whereas she was dully acquiescent before, after that going to -London the thing had become impossible. From that she could not save -herself--it was the only truth. One day the engagement between them was -a thing almost consented to and settled; next day it was a thing that -could not be, and that through no fault in the man. He had done nothing -to bring about such a catastrophe. It was no wonder that he was angry, -that he complained loudly of being deceived and forsaken. It was -altogether her fault, a fault fantastic, without any reason, which -nothing she could say would justify. And indeed how could she say -anything? It was nothing--a chance encounter, a conversation with her -maid sitting by, and nothing said that all the world might not hear. - -There was the further sting in all this that, as has been said, nothing -had come, nothing probably would ever come, of that talk. Time went on -and there was no sign--not so much as a note to say---- What was there -to say? Nothing! And yet Katherine had not been able to help a faint -expectation that something would come of it. As a matter of fact -Stanford came twice to Sliplin with the hope of seeing Katherine again, -but he did not venture to go to the house where his visits had been -forbidden, and either Katherine did not go out that day or an evil fate -directed her footsteps in a different direction. The second time Mr. -Tredgold was ill again and nothing could possibly be seen of her. He -went to Mrs. Shanks’, whom he knew, but that lady was not encouraging. -She told him that Katherine was all but engaged to Dr. Burnet, that he -had her father’s life in his hands, and that nothing could exceed his -devotion, which Katherine was beginning to return. Mrs. Shanks did not -like lovers to be unhappy; if she could have married Katherine to both -of them she would have done so; but that being impossible, it was better -that the man should be unhappy who was going away, not he who remained. -And this was how it was that Katherine saw and heard no more of the man -whose sudden appearance had produced so great an effect upon her, and -altered at a touch what might have been the current of her life. - -It was not only Dr. Burnet who avenged his wrongs upon her. Lady Jane -came down in full panoply of war to ask what Katherine meant by it. - -“Yes, you did encourage him,” she said. “I have seen it with my own -eyes--if it were no more than that evening at my own house. He asked you -to go into the conservatory with him on the most specious pretext, with -his intentions as plainly written in his face as ever man’s were. And -you went like a lamb, though you must have known----” - -“But, Lady Jane,” said Katherine, “he said nothing to me, whatever his -intentions may have been.” - -“No,” said Lady Jane with a little snort of displeasure; “I suppose you -snubbed him when you got him there, and he was frightened to speak. That -is exactly what I object to. You have blown hot and blown cold, made him -feel quite sure of you, and then knocked him down again like a ninepin. -All that may be forgiven if you take a man at the end. But to refuse -him when it comes to the point at last, after having played him off and -on so long--it is unpardonable, Katherine, unpardonable.” - -“I am very sorry,” Katherine said, though indeed Lady Jane’s reproaches -did not touch her at all. “It is a fact that I might have consented a -few days ago; no, not happily, but with a kind of dull acquiescence -because everybody expected it.” - -“Then you allow that everybody had a right to expect it?” - -“I said nothing about any right. You did all settle for me it appears -without any will of mine; but I saw on thinking that it was impossible. -One has after all to judge for oneself. I don’t suppose that Dr. Burnet -would wish a woman to--to marry him--because her friends wished it, Lady -Jane.” - -“He would take you on any terms, Katherine, after all that has come and -gone.” - -“No one shall have me on any terms,” cried Katherine. “It shall be -because I wish it myself or not at all.” - -“You have a great opinion of yourself,” said Lady Jane. “Under such a -quiet exterior I never saw a young woman more self-willed. You ought to -think of others a little. Dr. Burnet is far the best man you can marry -in so many different points of view. Everybody says he has saved your -father’s life. He is necessary, quite necessary, to Mr. Tredgold; and -how are you to call him in as a doctor after disappointing him so? And -then there is Stella. He would have done justice to Stella.” - -“It will be strange,” cried Katherine, getting up from her seat in her -agitation, “if I cannot do justice to Stella without the intervention of -Dr. Burnet--or any man!” - -Lady Jane took this action as a dismissal, and rose up, too, with much -solemnity. “You will regret this step you have taken,” she said, -“Katherine, not once but all your life.” - -The only person who did not take a similar view was the Rector, upon -whom the news, which of course spread in the same incomprehensible way -as his own failure had done, had a very consolatory effect. It restored -him, indeed, to much of his original comfort and self-esteem to know -that another man had been treated as badly as himself--more badly -indeed, for at least there had been no blowing hot and cold with him. He -said that Miss Katherine Tredgold was a singular young lady, and -evidently, though she had the grace to say little about them, held some -of the advanced ideas of the time. “She feels herself called to avenge -the wrongs of her sex,” he said with a bitterness which was mitigated by -the sense that another man was the present sufferer. But from most of -her neighbours she received nothing but disapproval--disapproval which -was generally unexpressed in words, for Katherine gave little opening -for verbal remonstrance, but was not less apparent for that. - -Miss Mildmay was, I think, the only one who took approvingly something -of the same view. “If she is capricious,” that lady said, “there is -plenty of caprice on the other side; loving and riding away and so -forth; let them just try how they like it for once! I don’t object to a -girl showing a little spirit, and doing to them as others have been done -by. It is a very good lesson to the gentlemen.” - -“Oh, Ruth Mildmay!” said Mrs. Shanks half weeping; “as if it could ever -be a good thing to make a man unhappy for life!” - -Mrs. Shanks felt that she knew more about it than anyone else, which -would have been delightful but for the other consciousness that her -intervention had done no good. She had not served Dr. Burnet, but she -had sacrificed the other lover. And she had her punishment in not daring -to whisper even to her nearest friend her special knowledge, or letting -it be seen she knew--which but for her action in sending young Stanford -away would have been a greater satisfaction than words can tell. - -The result was that Katherine had a season of great discomfort and even -unhappiness. She had freed herself from that passive submissiveness to -fate into which she had been about to fall, but she had got nothing -better in its place. She thought that he could not care much, since he -had never even tried to see or communicate with her, and she was -ashamed of the rush with which her heart had gone out to him. She had -not, she hoped, betrayed it, but she was herself aware of it, which was -bad enough. And now that momentary episode was over and nothing had come -of it--it was as if it had not been. - -After this there came a long period of suspense and waiting in -Katharine’s life. Her father had one attack of illness after another, -through all of which she was, if not the guiding spirit, at least the -head and superintendent of all that went on in the house. The character -of the house had changed when Stella left it. It changed still more now. -It became a sick house, the home of an invalid. Even the city people, -the old money-making friends, ceased to come from Saturday to Monday -when it became known among them that old Mr. Tredgold was subject to a -seizure at any time, and might be taken ill at last with all his friends -sitting round him. This is not a thing that anyone likes to face, -especially people who were, as old as he was, and perhaps, they could -not tell, might be liable to seizures too. When this occasional society -failed at the Cliff all other kinds of society failed too. Few people -came to the house--a decorous caller occasionally, but nothing more. It -was a very dull life for Katherine, everybody allowed, and some kind -people held periodical consultations with each other as to what could be -done for her, how she could be delivered from the monotony and misery of -her life; but what could anyone do? The rector and the doctor were the -most prominent men in Sliplin. A girl who had ill-treated them both -could only be asked out with extreme discretion, for it was almost -impossible to go anywhere without meeting one or other of these -gentlemen. But the ladies might have spared themselves these -discussions, for whatever invitations Katherine received she accepted -none of them. She would not go to Steephill again, though Lady Jane was -magnanimous and asked her. She would go nowhere. It showed that she had -a guilty conscience, people said; and yet that it must be very dull for -Katherine was what everybody lamenting allowed. - -She had trouble, too, from another quarter, which was perhaps worst of -all. As the months, went on and ran into years, Stella’s astonishment -that she was not recalled, her complaints, her appeals and denunciation -of her sister as able to help her if she would do so, became manifold -and violent. She accused Katherine of the most unlikely things, of -shutting up their father, and preventing him from carrying out his -natural impulses--of being her, Stella’s, enemy when she had so often -pledged herself to be her friend, even of having encouraged her, Stella, -in the rash step she had taken, with intent to profit by it, and build -her own fortune on her sister’s ruin. Any stranger who had read these -letters would have supposed that Katherine had been the chief agent in -Stella’s elopement--that it had been she that had arranged everything, -and flattered Stella with hopes of speedy recall, only to betray her. -Katherine was deeply moved by this injustice and unkindness at first, -but soon she came to look at them with calm, and to take no notice of -the outcries which were like outcries of a hurt child. There were so -many things that called forth pity that the reproaches were forgotten. -Stella’s life--which had been so triumphant and gay, and which she had -intended and expected should be nothing but a course of triumph and -gaiety--had fallen into very different lines from any she had -anticipated. After she had upbraided her sister for keeping her out of -her rights, and demanded with every threat she could think of their -restoration, and that Katherine should conspire no more against her, her -tone would sink into one of entreaty, so that the epistle which had -begun like an indictment ended like a begging letter. Stella wanted -money, always money; money to keep her position, money to pay her debts, -money at last for what she called the common necessaries of life. There -was scarcely a mail which did not bring over one of these appeals, which -tore Katherine’s heart. Though she was the daughter of so rich a man, -she had very little of her own. Her allowance was very moderate, for Mr. -Tredgold, though he was liberal enough, loved to be cajoled and -flattered out of his money, as Stella had done--an art which Katherine -had never possessed. She had a little from her mother, not enough to be -called a fortune, and this she sent almost entirely to her sister. She -sent the greater part of her allowance to Lady Somers, content to -confine herself to the plainest dress, in order to satisfy the wants of -one who had always had so many wants. It was thus that her best years, -the years of her brightest bloom and what ought to have been the most -delightful of her life, passed drearily away. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIV. - - -The regiment had been six years in India and was ordered home before -that lingering and perpetually-recurring malady of Mr. Tredgold’s came -to an end. It had come and gone so often--each seizure passing off in -indeed a reduced condition of temporary relief and comfort, but still -always in a sort of recovery--that the household had ceased to be -alarmed by them as at first. He was a most troublesome patient, and all -had to be on the alert when he was ill, from his personal attendant down -to the grooms, who might at a moment’s notice be sent scouring over the -country after the doctor, without whom the old man did not think he -could breathe when his attacks came on, and this notwithstanding the -constant presence of the professional nurse, who was now a regular -inmate; but the certainty that he would “come round” had by this time -got finally established in the house. This gave a sense of security, but -it dispelled the not altogether unpleasant solemnity of excitement with -which a household of servants await the end of an illness which may -terminate in death. There was nothing solemn about it at all--only -another of master’s attacks!--and even Katherine was now quite -accustomed to be called up in the middle of the night, or sent for to -her father’s room at any moment, as the legitimate authority, without -any thrill of alarm as to how things might end. Nobody was afraid of his -life, until suddenly the moment came when the wheel was broken at the -cistern and the much frayed thread of life snapped at last. - -These had been strange years. Fortunately the dark times that pass over -us come only one day at a time, and we are not aware that they are to -last for years, or enabled to grasp them and consent that so much of -life should be spent in that way. It would no doubt have appalled -Katherine, or any other young woman, to face steadily so long a period -of trouble and give herself up to live it through, consenting that all -the brightness and almost all the interest of existence should drop from -her at the moment when life is usually at its fairest. She would have -done it all the same, for what else could she do? She could not leave -her father to go through all these agonies of ending life by himself, -even though she was of so little use to him and he had apparently such -small need of natural affection or support. Her place was there under -all circumstances, and no inducement would have made her leave it; but -when Katherine looked back upon that course of years it appalled her as -it had not done when it was in course of passing day by day. She was -twenty-three when it began and she was twenty-nine when it came to an -end. She had been old for her age at the first, and she was still older -for her age in outward appearance, though younger in heart, at the -last--younger in heart, for there had been no wear and tear of actual -life any more than if she had spent these years in a convent, and older -because of the seclusion from society and even the severe self-restraint -in the matter of dress, which, however, was not self-restraint so much -as submission to necessity, for you cannot do two things with one sum of -money, as many a poor housekeeper has to ascertain daily. Dressmakers’ -bills for Katherine were not consistent with remittances to Stella, and -it was naturally the least important thing that was sacrificed. She had -accordingly lost a great deal of her bloom and presented an appearance -less fair, less graceful--perhaps less loveable--to the eyes of Dr. -Burnet as she rose from the lonely fireside in her black dress, slim and -straight, slimmer perhaps and straighter than of old--pale, without -either reflection or ornament about her, looking, he thought, -five-and-thirty, without any elasticity, prematurely settled down into -the rigid outlines of an old maid, when he went into the well-known -drawing-room in an October evening to tell her that at last the dread -visitor, anticipated yet not believed in for so long, was now certainly -at hand. - -Dr. Burnet had behaved extremely well during all these years. He had not -been like the rector. He had borne no malice, though he had greater -reason to do so had he chosen. He never now made use of her Christian -name and never allowed himself to be betrayed into any sign of intimacy, -never lingered in her presence, never even looked at the tea on the -little tea-table over which he had so often spent pleasant moments. He -was now severely professional, giving her his account of his patient in -the most succinct phrases and using medical terms, which in the long -course of her father’s illness Katherine had become acquainted with. But -he had been as attentive to Mr. Tredgold as ever, people said; he had -never neglected him, never hesitated to come at his call night or day, -though he was aware that he could do little or nothing, and that the -excellent nurse in whose hands the patient was was fully capable of -caring for him; yet he always came, putting a point of honour in his -sedulous attendance, that it never might be said of him that he had -neglected the father on account of the daughter’s caprice and failure. -It might be added that Mr. Tredgold was a little revenue to the -doctor--a sort of landed estate producing so much income yearly and -without fail--but this was a mean way of accounting for his perfect -devotion to his duty. He had never failed, however other persons might -fail. - -He came into the drawing-room very quietly and unannounced. He was not -himself quite so gallant a figure as he had been when Katherine had left -him _planté là_; he was a little stouter, not so perfect in his outline. -They had both suffered more or less from the progress of years. She was -thinner, paler, and he fuller, rougher--almost, it might be said, -coarser--from five years more of exposure to all-weathers and constant -occupation, without any restraining influence at home to make him think -of his dress, of the training of his beard, and other small matters. It -had been a great loss to him, even in his profession, that he had not -married. With a wife, and such a wife as Katherine Tredgold, he would -have been avowedly the only doctor, the first in the island, in a -position of absolute supremacy. As it was a quite inferior person, who -was a married man, ran him hard, although not fit to hold a candle to -Dr. Burnet. And this, too, he set down more or less to Katherine’s -account. It is to be hoped that he did not think of all this on the -particular evening the events of which I take so long to come to. And -yet I am afraid he did think of it, or at least was conscious of it all -in the midst of the deeper consciousness of his mission to-night. He -could scarcely tell whether it was relief or pain he was bringing to -her--a simpler or a more complex existence--and the sense of that enigma -mingled with all his other feelings. She rose up to meet him as he came -in. The room was dimly lighted; the fire was not bright. There was no -chill in the air to make it necessary. And I don’t know what it was -which made Katherine divine the moment she saw the doctor approaching -through the comparative gloom of the outer room that he was bringing her -news of something important. Mr. Tredgold had not been worse than usual -in the beginning of this attack; the nurse had treated it just as usual, -not more seriously than before. But she knew at once by the sound of the -doctor’s step, by something in the atmosphere about him, that the usual -had departed for ever and that what he came to tell her of was nothing -less than death. She rose up to meet him with a sort of awe, her lips -apart, her breath coming quick. - -“I see,” he said, “that you anticipate what I am going to say.” - -“No,” she said with a gasp, “I know of nothing--nothing more than -usual.” - -“That is all over,” he answered with a little solemnity. “I am sorry I -can give you so little hope--this time I fear it is the end.” - -“The end!” she cried, “the end!” She had known it from the first moment -of his approach, but this did not lessen the shock. She dropped again -upon her seat, and sat silent contemplating that fact--which no -reasoning, no explanation, could get over. The end--this morning -everything as usual, all the little cares, the hundred things he wanted, -the constant service--and afterwards nothing, silence, stillness, every -familiar necessity gone. Katherine’s heart seemed to stand still, the -wonder of it, the terror of it, the awe--it was too deep and too -appalling for tears. - -After awhile she inquired, in a voice that did not seem her own, “Is he -very ill? May I go to him now?” - -“He is not more ill than you have seen him before. You can go to him, -certainly, but there are some things that you must take into -consideration, Miss Tredgold. He is not aware of any change--he is not -at all anxious about himself. He thinks this is just the same as the -other attacks. If you think it necessary that he should be made aware of -his condition, either because of his worldly affairs, or--any other----” -Dr. Burnet was accustomed to death-beds. He was not overawed like -Katherine, and there seemed something ludicrous to him in the thought of -old Tredgold, an old man of the earth, earthly, having--other affairs. - -Katherine looked up at him, her eyes looking twice as large as usual in -the solemnity of their trouble and awe. There seemed nothing else in the -room but her eyes looking at him with an appeal, to which he had no -answer to give. “Would it make any difference--now?” she said. - -“I cannot tell what your views may be on that subject. Some are very -eager that the dying should know--some think it better not to disturb -them. It will do him no harm physically to be told; but you must be the -judge.” - -“I have not thought of it--as I ought,” she said. “Oh, Dr. Burnet, give -me your opinion, give me your own opinion! I do not seem able to think.” - -“It might give him a chance,” said the doctor, “to put right some wrong -he might otherwise leave behind him. If what you are thinking of is -that, he might put himself right in any spiritual point of view--at this -last moment.” - -Katherine rose up as if she were blind, feeling before her with her -hands. Her father, with all his imperfections--with nothing that was not -imperfection or worse than imperfection--with a mind that had room for -nothing but the lowest elements, who had never thought of anything -higher, never asked himself whither he was going---- She walked straight -forward, not saying anything, not able to bear another word. To put -himself right--at the last moment. She felt that she must hasten to him, -fly to him, though she did not know, being there, what she should do. - -The room was so entirely in its usual condition--the nurse settling for -the night, the medicines arranged in order, the fire made up, and the -nightlight ready to be lighted--that it seemed more and more impossible -to realise that this night there was likely to occur something -different, something that was not on the invalid’s programme. The only -thing that betrayed a consciousness of any such possibility was the look -which the nurse rapidly gave Katherine as she came in. “I am putting -everything as usual,” she said in a whisper, “but I think you should not -go to bed.” That was all--and yet out of everything thus settled and -habitual around him, he was going away, going absolutely away to no one -could tell where, perhaps this very night. Katherine felt herself -stupefied, confounded, and helpless. He was going away all alone, with -no directions, no preparations for the journey. What could she tell him -of the way? Could any guide be sent with him? Could any instinct lead -him? A man accustomed only to business, to the state of the stocks and -the money market. Her heart began to beat so fast that it sickened her, -and she was conscious of scarcely anything but its sound and the heaving -of her breast. - -The invalid, however, was not composed as usual. He was very restless, -his eyes shining from his emaciated face. “Ah, that’s you, Katie,” he -said; “it’s too late for you to be up--and the doctor back again. What -brings the doctor back again? Have you any more to do to me, eh, -to-night?” - -“Only to make sure that you’re comfortable,” Dr. Burnet said. - -“Oh, comfortable enough--but restless. I don’t seem as if I could lie -still. Here, Katie, as you’re here, change me a little--that’s better--a -hold of your shoulder--now I can push myself about. Never been restless -like this before, doctor. Nervous, I suppose you think?” - -“No, you’ve never been like this before,” the doctor said, with an -unconsciously solemn voice. - -“Oh, papa,” cried Katherine, “you are very ill; I fear you are very -ill.” - -“Nothing of the sort,” he cried, pushing her away by the shoulder he had -grasped; “nothing the matter with me--that is, nothing out of the -ordinary. Come here, you nurse. I want to lie on the other side. Nothing -like a woman that knows what she is about and has her living to make by -it. Dear they are--cost a lot of money--but I never begrudged money for -comfort.” - -“Papa,” said Katherine. What could she say? What words were possible to -break this spell, this unconsciousness and ignorance? It seemed to her -that he was about to fall over some dreadful precipice without knowing -it, without fearing it; was it better that he should know it, that he -should fear, when he was incapable of anything else? Should the acute -pang of mortal alarm before be added to--whatever there might be -afterwards? Wild words whirled through her head--about the great -judgment seat, about the reckoning with men for what they had done, and -the cry of the Prophet, “Prepare to meet thy God.” But how could this -restless old man prepare for anything, turning and returning upon his -bed. “Papa,” she repeated, “have you anything to say to me--nothing -about--about Stella?” - -He turned his face to her for a moment with the old familiar chuckle in -his throat. “About Stella--oh, you will hear plenty about Stella--in -time,” he said. - -“Not only about Stella, papa! Oh, about other things, about--about--” -she cried in a kind of despair, “about God.” - -“Oh,” he said, “you think I’m going to die.” The chuckle came again, an -awful sound. “I’m not; you were always a little fool. Tell her, doctor, -I’m going to sleep--tuck in the clothes, nurse, and put--out--the -light.” - -The last words fell from him drowsily, and calm succeeded to the endless -motion. There was another little murmur as of a laugh. Then the nurse -nodded her head from the other side of the bed, to show that he was -really going to sleep. Dr. Burnet put his hand on Katherine’s arm and -drew her into the dressing-room, leaving the door open between. “It may -last only a few minutes,” he said, “or it may last for ever; but we can -do nothing, neither you nor I. Sit down and wait here.” - -It did last for ever. The sleep at first was interrupted with little -wakings, and that chuckle which had been the accompaniment of his life -broke in two or three times, ghastly, with a sort of sound of triumph. -And then all sound died away. - -Katherine was awakened--she did not know if it was from a doze or a -dream--by a touch upon her arm. The doctor stood there in his large and -heavy vitality like an embodiment of life, and a faint blueness of dawn -was coming in at the window. “There was no pain,” he said, “no sort of -suffering or struggle. Half-past four exactly,” he had his watch in his -hand. “And now, Miss Tredgold, take this and go to bed.” - -“Do you mean?” Katherine cried, rising hastily, then falling back again -in extreme agitation, trembling from head to foot. - -“Yes, I mean it is all over, it is all _well_ over. Everything has been -done that could be done for him. And here is your maid to take care of -you; you must go to bed.” - -But Katherine did not go to bed. She went downstairs to the -drawing-room, her usual place, and sat by the dead fire, watching the -blue light coming in at the crevices of the shutters, and listening to -the steps of the doctor, quick and firm, going away upon the gravel -outside. And then she went and wandered all over the house from one room -to another, she could not tell why. It seemed to her that everything -must have changed in that wonderful change that had come to pass without -anyone being able to intervene, so noiselessly, so suddenly. She never -seemed to have expected _that_. Anything else, it seemed to her now, -might have happened but not that. Why, all the house had been full of -him, all life had been full of him yesterday; there had been nothing to -do but contrive what he should eat, how the temperature in the room -should be kept up, how everything should be arranged for his comfort. -And now he wanted nothing, nothing, nor was anything wanted for him. It -did not seem to be grief that moved her so much as wonder, an -intolerable pressure of surprise and perplexity that such a thing could -have happened with so many about to prevent anything from happening, and -that he should have been removed to some other place whom nobody could -imagine to be capable of other conditions than he had here. What had he -to do with the unseen, with sacred things, with heaven, with a spiritual -life? Nothing, nothing, she said to herself. It was not natural, it was -not possible. And yet it was true. When she at last lay down at the -persuasion of Mrs. Simmons and the weeping Hannah, in the face of the -new full shining day which had not risen for him, which cared for none -of these things, Katherine still got no relief of sleep. She lay on her -bed and stared at the light with no relief of tears either, with no -sense of grief--only wondering, wondering. She had not thought of this -change, although she knew that in all reason it must be coming. Still -less did she think of the new world which already began to turn its dewy -side to the light. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXV. - - -Mr. Tredgold had no relations to speak of, and not very many old -friends. Mr. Turny the elder, who was one of Mr. Tredgold’s executors, -came down for the funeral, and so did the solicitor, Mr. Sturgeon, who -was the head of a great city firm, and would certainly not have spared -the time had the fortune that was now to become a subject of so much -interest been less great. He brought with him a shabby man, who was in -his office and carried a black bag with papers, and also turned out to -be Mr. Tredgold’s brother, the only other member of the family who was -known. His appearance was a surprise to Katherine, who had not heard of -his existence. She was aware there had been aunts, married and bearing -different names, and that it was possible perhaps to find cousins with -those designations, which, however, she was not acquainted with; but an -uncle was a complete surprise to her. And indeed, to tell the truth, to -say “uncle” to this shambling individual in the long old great-coat, -which she recognised as a very ancient garment of her father’s, was not -a pleasant sensation. She shrank from the lean, grey, hungry, yet humble -being who evidently was very little at his ease sitting at the same -table with his master, though he attempted, from time to time, to -produce himself with a hesitating speech. “He was my brother, you -know--I was his brother, his only brother,” which he said several times -in the course of the long dreadful evening which preceded the funeral -day. Katherine in compassion carried off this new and terrible relative -into the drawing-room while the two men of business discoursed together. -Mr. Robert Tredgold did not like to be carried off from the wine. He saw -in this step precautionary measures to which he was accustomed, though -Katharine did not even know of any occasion for precaution--and followed -her sulkily, not to the drawing-room, but to that once gay little room -which had been the young ladies’ room in former days. Katherine had gone -back to it with a sentiment which she herself did not question or trace -to its origin, but which no doubt sprang from the consciousness in her -mind that Stella was on her way home, and that there was no obstacle now -in the way of her return. She would have been horrified to say in words -that her father was the obstacle who had been removed, and the shock and -awe of death were still upon her. But secretly her heart had begun to -rise at the thought of Stella, and that it would be her happy office to -bring Stella home. - -“It ain’t often I have the chance of a good glass of wine,” Robert -Tredgold said; “your poor father was a rare judge of wine, and then you -see he had always the money to spend on it. My poor brother would have -given me a chance of a glass of good wine if he’d brought me here.” - -“Would you like the wine brought here? I thought you would be happier,” -said Katherine, “with me than with those gentlemen.” - -“I don’t see,” he said, somewhat sullenly, “why I ain’t as good as they -are. Turny’s made a devil o’ money, just like my poor brother, but he’s -no better than us, all the same; and as for old Sturgeon, I know him -well enough, I hope. My poor brother would never have let that man have -all his business if it hadn’t been for me. I heard him say it myself. -‘You provide for Bob, and you shall have all as I can give you.’ Oh, he -knows which side his bread’s buttered on, does Sturgeon. Many a time -he’s said to me, ‘A little more o’ this, Bob Tredgold, and you shall -go,’ but I knew my brother was be’ind me, bless you. I just laughed in -his face. ‘Not while my brother’s to the fore,’ I’ve always said.” - -“But,” said Katherine, “poor papa is not, as you say, to the fore now.” - -“No; but he’s provided for me all right; he always said as he would -provide for me. I haven’t, perhaps, been as steady as I ought. He never -wanted me to show along of his fine friends. But for a couple of fellows -like that, that know all about me, I don’t see as I need have been -stopped of a good glass of my brother’s port wine.” - -“You shall not, indeed,” said Katherine, ringing the bell. - -“And I say,” said this uncomfortable uncle, “you can tell them to bring -the spirit case as well. I saw as there was a spirit case, with five -nice bottles, and lemons and sugar, and a kettle, you know, though there -ain’t nothing to set it upon as I can see in that bit of a -fireplace--uncomfortable thing, all shine and glitter and no use. I -daresay my poor brother had some sort of a ’ob for the hot water in any -room as he sat in--I say, old gentleman, bring us----” - -Katherine interposed with her orders, in haste, and turned the butler -hastily away. “You must remember,” she said, “that to-night is a very -sad and terrible night in this house.” - -“Ah! Were they all as fond of him as that?” the brother said. - -“Oh,” said Katherine, “if you are my uncle, as they say, you should -stand by me and help me; for there is sure to be a great deal of -trouble, however things turn out.” - -“I’ll stand by you! Don’t you be afraid, you can calculate on me. I -don’t mind a bit what I say to old Sturgeon nor Turny neither, specially -as I know he’s provided for me, my poor brother ’as, he always said as -he would. I don’t consider myself in old Sturgeon’s office not from this -day. My poor brother ’as provided for me, he always said he would; and -I’ll stand by you, my dear, don’t you be afraid. Hullo! here’s nothing -but the port wine--and not too much of that neither. I say, you fellow, -tell the old man to bring the spirits; and he can sit down himself and -’ave a glass; it’s a poor ’eart as never rejoices, and once in a way -it’ll do him no harm.” - -“The other gentlemen--have got the spirits,” the footman said, retiring, -very red in the face with laughter suppressed. - -“And what a poor house,” said Bob Tredgold, contemptuously, “to have but -one case of spirits! I’ve always noticed as your grand houses that are -all gilt and grandeur are the poorest--as concern the necessaries of -life.” - -Katherine left her uncle in despair with his half-filled bottle of port. -He was not a very creditable relation. She went to her own room and shut -herself in to think over her position. In the fulness of her thoughts -she forgot the dead master of the house, who lay there all silent, -having nothing now to do with all that was going on in it, he who a -little while ago had been supreme master of all. She did not know or ask -what he had done with his wealth, no question about it entered her mind. -She took it for granted that, Stella being cut off, it would come to -herself as the only other child--which was just the same as if it had -been left to Stella in their due and natural shares. All that was so -simple, there was no need to think of it. Even this dreadful uncle--if -her father had not provided for him Katherine would, there was no -difficulty about all that. If the money was hers, it would be hers only -for the purpose of doing everything with it which her father -ought--which if he had been in his right condition, unbiassed by anger -or offence, he would have done. He had always loved Stella best, and -Stella should have the best--the house, every advantage, more than her -share. - -Katherine sat down and began to think over the work she would have to do -in the ensuing week or so, till the _Aurungzebe_ arrived with Lady -Somers on board. The ship was due within a few days, and Katherine -intended to go to meet her sister, to carry her, before she landed even, -the news which, alas! she feared would only be good news to Stella. -Alas! was it not good news to Katherine too? She stopped and wept a few -bitter tears, but more for the pity of it, the horror of it, than for -grief. Stella had been his favourite, his darling, and yet it would be -good news to Stella. Her sister hoped that she would cry a little, that -her heart would ache a little with the thought of never more seeing her -father, never getting his forgiveness, nor any kind message or word from -him. But at the utmost that would be all, a few tears, a regret, an -exclamation of “poor papa!” and then joy at the good news, joy to be -delivered from poverty and anxiety, to be able to surround herself again -with all the beautiful things she loved, to provide for her children -(she had two by this time), and to replace her husband in his position. -Was it possible that she could weep long, that she could mourn much for -the father who had cast her off and whom she had not seen for six years, -with all this happiness behind? Katherine herself had but few tears to -shed. She was sad because she was not sufficiently sad, because it was -terrible that a human soul should go away out of the world and leave so -few regrets, so little sorrow behind. Even the old servants, the -housekeeper who had been with him for so many years, his personal -attendant, who had been very kind, who had taken great care of him, were -scarcely sorry. “I suppose, Miss, as you’ll be having Miss Stella home -now,” Mrs. Simmons said, though she had a white handkerchief in her hand -for appearance sake. And the man was chiefly anxious about his character -and the testimonials to be given him. “I hope as I never neglected my -duty. And master was an ’eavy ’andful, Miss,” he said, with relief, too, -in his countenance. Katherine thought she would be willing to give half -of all she had in the world to secure one genuine mourner, one who was -truly sorry for her father’s death. Was she herself sorry? Her heart -ached with the pity and the horror of it, but sorrow is a different -sentiment from that. - -In the meantime the solicitor and executor were in Mr. Tredgold’s -sitting-room which he had occupied so long. A fire had been lighted in -haste, to make the cold uninhabited place a little more cheerful. It was -lighted by a lamp which hung over the table, shaded so as to concentrate -its light on that spot, leaving all the rest of the room in the dark. -And the two forms on either side of it were not of a character to be -ennobled by the searching light. The solicitor was a snuffy man, with a -long lean throat and a narrow head, with tufts of thin, grey hair. He -had a ragged grey beard of the same description, long and ill grown, and -he wore spectacles pushed out from his eyes and projecting as if they -might fall off altogether. Mr. Turny had a shining bald head, which -reflected the light, bent, as it was, over the papers on the table. They -had been examining these papers, searching for the will which they -expected to find there, but had come as yet upon no trace of it. - -“I should have thought,” said Mr. Turny, “that he’d have had another -will drawn out as soon as that girl ran away--indeed I was in a great -mind to take steps----” He stopped here, reflecting that it was as well -perhaps to say nothing of Fred and what those steps were. But Mr. -Sturgeon had heard of the repeated visits of the family, and knew that -young Fred was “on the outlook,” as they said, and knew. - -“Ah, here it is at last,” Mr. Sturgeon said. He added, after a few -minutes, in a tone of disappointment: “No, it’s the old will of ten -years ago, the one I sent him down at his own request after the young -lady ran away. I kept expecting for a long time to have his instructions -about another, and even wrote to him on the subject. I suppose he must -have employed some man here. This, of course, must be mere waste paper -now.” - -“What was the purport of it?” Mr. Turny asked. - -“You must have heard at the time. It was not a will I approved--nothing -unnatural ever gets any support from me. They say lawyers are full of -dodges; it would have been better for me if I had put my principles in -my pocket many a time. Men have come to me with the most ridiculous -instructions, what I call wicked--they take a spite at some one, or some -boy behaves foolishly (to be sure, it’s a girl in this case, which is -more uncommon), and out he goes out of the will. I don’t approve of such -pranks for my part.” - -“You would like the good to share with the bad, and the guilty with the -innocent,” said Turny, not without a reflection of his own. - -“Not so much as that; but it doesn’t follow--always--that a boy is bad -because he has kicked over the traces in his youth--and if he is bad, -then he is the one above all that wants some provision made for him to -keep him from getting badder. There’s that poor wretch, Bob Tredgold; -I’ve kept him in my office, he thinks, because his brother always stood -up for him. Nothing of the kind; Tredgold would have been delighted to -hear he had tripped into the mire or gone down under an underground -railway train on his way home. And the poor beggar believes now that his -brother has provided for him--not a penny will he have, or I am -mistaken. I must try to get something for him out of the girls.” - -“The oldest girl, of course, will have it all?” Mr. Turny said. - -“I suppose so,” said the solicitor, “if he don’t prove intestate after -all; that’s always on the cards with that sort of man, indeed with every -sort of man. They don’t like to part with it even on paper, and give the -power into someone else’s hands. Women are rather different. It seems to -amuse them to give all their things away--on paper. I don’t know that -there’s much good searching further. He must have sent for some local -man, that would save him trouble. And then he knew I would remonstrate -if there was any ridiculous vengeance in his thoughts, which most likely -there would have been.” - -“What’s the scope of that old one, the one you’ve got in your hand?” - -“Oh, that!” said Mr. Sturgeon, looking at it as if it were a reptile. -“You remember, I am sure you must have heard it at the time, most of the -money was left to the other, what was her ridiculous name? Something -fantastic, I know.” - -“Stella,” the executor said, peering eagerly through his double gold -glasses at the paper, into which his fellow executor showed no -inclination to give him further insight. - -“That’s it, Stella! because she was his favourite--the eldest sister, to -my mind, being much the nicest of the two.” - -“She is a nice, quiet girl,” said Mr. Turny. And he thought with a -grudge of Fred, who might have been coming into this fine fortune if he -had been worth his salt. “There is this advantage in it,” he said, “it -makes a fine solid lump of money. Divide it, and it’s not half the -good.” - -“A man shouldn’t have a lot of children who entertains that idea,” said -Mr. Sturgeon. - -“That’s quite true. If Mr. Tredgold had kept up his business as I have -done; but you see I can provide for my boys without touching my capital. -They are both in the business, and smart fellows, too, I can tell you. -It does not suffer in their hands.” - -“We haven’t got girls going into business--yet,” said the solicitor; -“there is no saying, though, what we may see in that way in a year or -two; they are going it now, the women are.” - -“No girls of mine certainly shall ever do so. A woman’s sphere is ’ome. -Let ’em marry and look after their families, that is what I always say -to mine.” - -“They are best off who have none,” said the solicitor briefly. He was an -old bachelor, and much looked down upon by his city clients, who thought -little of a man who had never achieved a wife and belongings of his own. - -“Well, that depends,” Mr. Turny said. - -“I think we may as well go to bed,” said the other. “It’s not much of a -journey, but the coming is always a bother, and we’ll have a heavy day -to-morrow. I like to keep regular hours.” - -“Nothing like ’em,” said Mr. Turny, rising too; “no man ever succeeds in -business that doesn’t keep regular hours. I suppose you’ll have to find -out to-morrow if there’s been any other solicitor employed.” - -“Yes, I’ll see after that--funeral’s at two, I think?” - -“At two,” said the other. They lit their candles with some solemnity, -coming out one after the other into the lighted hall. The hall was -lighted, but the large staircase and corridors above were dark. They -separated at the head of the stairs and went one to the right and the -other to the left, Mr. Turny’s bald head shining like a polished globe -in the semi-darkness, and the solicitor, with his thin head and -projecting spectacles, looking like some strange bird making its way -through the night. Mr. Sturgeon passed the door within which his dead -client was lying, and hesitated a moment as he did so. “If we only knew -what was in that damned head of yours before the face was covered over,” -he said to himself. He was not in an easy condition of mind. It was -nothing to him; not a penny the poorer would he be for anything that -might happen to the Tredgold girls. Bob Tredgold would be turned off -into the workhouse, which was his proper place, and there would be an -end of him. But it was an ugly trick for that old beast to play, to get -some trumpery, country fellow, who no doubt would appear to-morrow, like -the cock-o’-the-walk, with his new will and all the importance of the -family solicitor. Family, indeed. They hadn’t a drop of blood in their -veins that was better than mud, though that eldest one was a nice girl. -It was something in her favour, too, that she would not have Fred Turny, -that City Swell. But the great point of offence with Mr. Sturgeon was -that the old beast should have called in some local man. - -Bob Tredgold, the only brother, was escorted upstairs by one of the -footmen a little later in the night. He was very affectionate with John -Thomas, and assured him of his continued friendship when he should have -come into his annuity. “Always promised to provide for me, don’t ye -know, did my poor brother; not capital ’cause of this, don’t ye know,” -and the unfortunate made the sign of lifting a glass to his mouth; -“‘nuity, very com-m-for-able, all the rest of my life. Stand a good -glass to any man. Come and see me, any time you’re there, down Finsbury -way.” John Thomas, who appreciated a joke, had a good laugh to himself -after he had deposited this _triste_ personage in the room which was so -much too fine for him. And then the footman remembered what it was that -was lying two or three doors off, locked in there with the lights -burning, and went softly with a pale face to his own den, feeling as if -Master’s bony hand might make a grab at his shoulder any moment as he -hurried down the stairs. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVI. - - -Mr. Sturgeon had carried off the old will with him from Mr. Tredgold’s -bureau, the document drawn up in his own office in its long blue -envelope, with all its details rigorously correct. He put it into his -own bag, the bag which Bob Tredgold had carried. Bob’s name was not in -it; there were no gracious particulars of legacy or remembrance. Perhaps -the one which he fully expected to be produced to-morrow would be more -humane. And yet in the morning he took this document out again and read -it all over carefully. There were one or two pencil-marks on it on the -margin, as of things that were meant to be altered, but no change -whatever, no scribbling even of other wishes or changed intentions. The -cross in pencil opposite Stella’s name was the only indication of any -altered sentiment, and that, of course, was of no consequence and meant -nothing. The solicitor read it over and put it back again carefully. If -by any chance there was no other will to propound! But that was a thing -not to be contemplated. The old beast, he said to himself, was not -surely such an old beast as that. - -Old Mr. Tredgold was buried on a bright October day, when everything -about was full of colour and sunshine. His own trees, the rare and -beautiful shrubs and foliage which had made his grounds a sight for -tourists, were all clad in gala robes, in tints of brown and yellow and -crimson, with feathery seedpods and fruit, hips and haws and golden -globes to protect the seed. As he was carried away from his own door a -gust of playful wind scattered over the blackness of the vehicle which -carried him a shower of those gay and fluttering leaves. If it had been -any fair creature one would have said it was Nature’s own tribute to -the dead, but in his case it looked more like a handful of coloured rags -thrown in mockery upon the vulgar hearse. - -And it was a curious group which gathered round the grave. The rector, -stately in his white robes, with his measured tones, who had indeed sat -at this man’s board and drank his wine, but had never been admitted to -speak a word of spiritual admonition or consolation (if he had any to -speak), and who still entertained in his heart a grudge against the -other all wrapped in black, who stood alone, the only mourner, opposite -to him, with the grave between them. Even at that moment, and while he -read those solemn words, Mr. Stanley had half an eye for Katherine, half -a thought for her loneliness, which even now he felt she had deserved. -And behind her was the doctor, who had stood by her through every stage -of her father’s lingering illness, certainly taking no personal -vengeance on her--far, oh far from that!--yet never forgetting that she -had dismissed him amid circumstances that made the dismissal specially -bitter--encouraged him, drawn him on, led him to commit himself, and -then tossed him away. He had been very kind to Katherine; he had omitted -no one thing that the tenderest friend could have done, but he had never -forgotten nor forgiven her for what she had done to him. Both of these -men thought of her as perhaps triumphant in her good fortune, holding -much power in her hands, able to act as a Providence to her sister and -to others, really a great lady now so far as money goes. The feeling of -both in their different way was hostile to Katherine. They both had -something against her; they were angry at the position which it was now -expected she would attain. They were not sorry for her loneliness, -standing by that grave. Both of them were keenly aware that it was -almost impossible for her to entertain any deep grief for her father. If -she had, it would have softened them perhaps. But they did not know what -profound depression was in her mind, or if they had known they would -have both responded with a careless exclamation. Depression that would -last for a day! Sadness, the effect of the circumstances, which would -soon be shaken off in her triumph. They both expected Katherine to be -triumphant, though I cannot tell why. Perhaps they both wished to think -ill of her if they could now that she was out of their reach, though she -had always been out of their reach, as much six years ago as to-day. - -The church, the churchyard, every inch of space, was full of people. -There is not very much to look at in Sliplin, and the great hearse with -its moving mass of flowers was as fine a sight as another. Flowers upon -that old curmudgeon, that old vile man with his money who had been of no -use to anyone! But there were flowers in plenty, as many as if he had -been beautiful like them. They were sent, it is to be supposed, to -please Katherine, and also from an instinctive tribute to the wealth -which gave him importance among his fellow-men, though if they could -have placed the sovereigns which these wreaths cost upon his coffin it -would have been a more appropriate offering. Sir John and Lady Jane sent -their carriage (that most remarkable of all expressions of sympathy) to -follow in the procession. That, too, was intended to please Katherine, -and the wreath out of their conservatory as a reminder that Stella was -to be provided for. Mr. Tredgold thus got a good deal of vicarious -honour in his last scene, and he would have liked it all had he been -there (as perhaps he was) to see. One thing, however, he would not have -liked would have been the apparition of Robert Tredgold, dressed for the -occasion in his brother’s clothes, and saying, “He was my brother. I’m -his only brother!” to whoever would listen. Bob was disappointed not to -give his niece his arm, to stand by her as chief mourner at the foot of -the grave. - -They all went into the drawing-room when they returned to the house. -Katherine had no thought of business on that particular day, and her -father’s room was too cold and dreary, and full as of a presence -invisible, which was not a venerable presence. She shuddered at the idea -of entering it; and probably because she was alone, and had no one to -suggest it to her, the idea of a will to be read, or arrangements to be -settled, did not enter into her mind. She thought they were coming to -take leave of her when they all trooped into the gay, much-decorated -room, with its gilding and resplendent mirrors. The blinds had been -drawn up, and it was all as bright as the ruddy afternoon and the -blazing fire could make it. She sat down in her heavy veil and cloak and -turned to them, expecting the little farewell speeches, and vulgar -consolations, and shaking of hands. But Mr. Sturgeon, the solicitor, -drew his chair towards the round table of Florentine work set in gay -gilding, and pushed away from before him the books and nick-nacks with -which it was covered. His black bag had somehow found its way to him, -and he placed it as he spoke between his feet. - -“I have had no opportunity all day of speaking to you, Miss Katherine,” -he said, “nor last night. You retired early, I think, and our search was -not very productive. You can tell me now, perhaps, what solicitor your -late father, our lamented friend, employed. He ought to have been here.” - -“He engaged no solicitor that I know of,” she replied. “Indeed, I have -always thought you had his confidence--more than anyone----” - -“I had,” said the solicitor. “I may say I had all his affairs in my -hands; but latterly I supposed---- There must surely be someone here.” - -“No one that I know of,” said Katherine. “We can ask Harrison if you -like. He knew everything that went on.” - -Here there uprose the voice of Bob Tredgold, who even at lunch had made -use of his opportunities. - -“I want to have the will read,” he said; “must have the will read. It’s -a deal to me is that will. I’m not going to be hung up any more in -suspense.” - -“Catch hold of this bag,” said the solicitor contemptuously, flinging it -to him. Mr. Sturgeon had extracted from it the long blue envelope which -he had found in Mr. Tredgold’s bureau--the envelope with his own stamp -on it. Mr. Turny fixed his eyes upon this at once. Those little round -eyes began to glisten, and his round bald head--the excitement of a -chance which meant money, something like the thrill of the gambler, -though the chance was not his, filled him with animation. Katherine sat -blank, looking on at a scene which she did not understand. - -“Harrison, will you tell this gentleman whether my father”--she made a -little pause over the words--“saw any solicitor from Sliplin, or did any -business privately?” - -“Within the last five or six years?” Mr. Sturgeon added. - -“No solicitor, sir,” the man answered at once, but with a gleam in his -eyes which announced more to say. - -“Go on, you have got something else in your mind. Let us hear what it -is, and with no delay.” - -“Master, sir,” said Harrison thus adjured, “he said to me more than -once, ‘I’m a going to send for Sturgeon,’ he says. Beg your pardon, sir, -for naming you like that, short.” - -“Go on--go on.” - -“And then he never did it, sir,” the man said. - -“That’s not the question. Had he any interview, to your knowledge, with -any solicitor here? Did he see anybody on business? Was there any -signing of documents? I suppose you must have known?” - -“I know everything, sir, as master did. I got him up, sir, and I put him -to bed. There was never one in the house as did a thing for him but me. -Miss Katherine she can tell as I never neglected him; never was out of -the way when he wanted me; had no ’olidays, sir.” Harrison’s voice -quivered as he gave this catalogue of his own perfections, as if with -pure self-admiration and pity he might have broken down. - -“It will be remembered in your favour,” said Mr. Sturgeon. “Now tell me -precisely what happened.” - -“Nothing at all happened, sir,” Harrison said. - -“What, nothing? You can swear to it? In all these five, six years, -nobody came from the village, town--whatever you call it--whom he -consulted with, who had any documents to be signed, nothing, nobody at -all?” - -“Nothing!” said Harrison with solemnity, “nothing! I’ll take my Bible -oath; now and then there was a gentleman subscribing for some charity, -and there was the doctor every day or most every day, and as many times -as I could count on my fingers there would be some one calling, that -gentleman, sir,” he said suddenly, pointing to Mr. Turny, who looked up -alarmed as if accused of something, “as was staying in the house.” - -“But no business, no papers signed?” - -“Hadn’t you better speak to the doctor, Sturgeon? He knew more of him -than anyone.” - -“Not more nor me, sir,” said Harrison firmly; “nobody went in or out of -master’s room that was unknown to me.” - -“This is all very well,” said Bob Tredgold, “but it isn’t the will. I -don’t know what you’re driving at; but it’s the will as we want--my poor -brother’s daughter here, and me.” - -“I think, Miss Katherine,” said the lawyer, “that I’d rather talk it -over with--with Mr. Turny, who is the other executor, and perhaps with -the doctor, who could tell us something of your father’s state of mind.” - -“What does it all mean?” Katherine said. - -“I’d rather talk it over first; there is a great deal of responsibility -on our shoulders, between myself and Mr. Turny, who is the other -executor. I am sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Katherine.” - -“Oh, it is of no consequence,” Katherine said. “Shall I leave you here? -Nobody will interrupt you, and you can send for me if you want me again. -But perhaps you will not want me again?” - -“Yes, I fear we shall want you.” The men stood aside while she went -away, her head bowed down under the weight of her veil. But Robert -Tredgold opposed her departure. He caught her by the cloak and held her -back. “Stop here,” he said, “stop here; if you don’t stop here none of -them will pay any attention to me.” - -“You fool!” cried the lawyer, pushing him out of the way, “what have you -got to say to it? Take up your bag, and mind your business; the will is -nothing to you.” - -“Don’t speak to him so,” cried Katherine. “You are all so well off and -he is poor. And never mind,” she said, touching for a moment with her -hand the arm of that unlovely swaying figure, “I will see that you are -provided for, whether it is in the will or not. Don’t have any fear.” - -The lawyer followed her with his eyes, with a slight shrug of his -shoulders and shake of his head. Dr. Burnet met her at the door as she -went away. - -“They have sent for me,” he said; “I don’t know why. Is there anything -wrong? Can I be of any use?” - -“I know of nothing wrong. They want to consult you, but I don’t -understand on what subject. It is a pity they should think it’s -necessary to go on with their business to-day.” - -“They have to go back to town,” he said. - -“Yes, to be sure, I suppose that is the reason,” she answered, and with -a slight inclination of her head she walked away. - -But no one spoke for a full minute after the doctor joined them; they -stood about in the much gilded, brightly decorated room, in the outer -portion outside that part which Katherine had separated for herself. Her -table, with its vase of flowers, her piano, the low chair in which she -usually sat, were just visible within the screen. The dark figures of -the men encumbered the foreground between the second fireplace and the -row of long windows opening to the ground. Mr. Sturgeon stood against -one of these in profile, looking more than ever like some strange bird, -with his projecting spectacles and long neck and straggling beard and -hair. - -“You sent for me, I was told,” Dr. Burnet said. - -“Ah, yes, yes.” Mr. Sturgeon turned round. He threw himself into one of -the gilded chairs. There could not have been a more inappropriate scene -for such an assembly. “We would like you to give us a little account of -your patient’s state, doctor,” he said, “if you will be so good. I don’t -mean technically, of course. I should like to know about the state of -his mind. Was he himself? Did he know what he was doing? Would you have -said he was able to take a clear view of his position, and to -understand his own intentions and how to carry them out?” - -“Do you mean to ask me if Mr. Tredgold was in full possession of his -faculties? Perfectly, I should say, and almost to the last hour.” - -“Did he ever confide in you as to his intentions for the future, Doctor? -I mean about his property, what he meant to do with it? A man often -tells his doctor things he will tell to no one else. He was very angry -with his daughter, the young lady who ran away, we know. He mentioned to -you, perhaps, that he meant to disinherit her--to leave everything to -her sister?” - -“My poor brother,” cried Bob Tredgold, introducing himself to Dr. Burnet -with a wave of his hand, “I’m his only brother, sir--swore always as -he’d well provide for me.” - -Dr. Burnet felt himself offended by the question; he had the instinctive -feeling so common in a man who moves in a limited local circle that all -his own affairs were perfectly known, and that the expectations he had -once formed, and the abrupt conclusion to which they had come, were -alluded to in this quite uncalled for examination. - -“Mr. Tredgold never spoke to me of his private affairs,” he said -sharply. “I had nothing to do with his money or how he meant to leave -it. The question was one of no interest to me.” - -“But, surely,” said the lawyer, “you must in the course of so long an -illness have heard him refer to it, make some remark on the subject--a -doctor often asks, if nothing more, whether the business affairs are all -in order, whether there might be something a man would wish to have -looked to.” - -“Mr. Tredgold was a man of business, which I am not. He knew what was -necessary much better than I did. I never spoke to him on business -matters, nor he to me.” - -There was another pause, and the two city men looked at each other while -Dr. Burnet buttoned up his coat significantly as a sign of departure. At -last Mr. Turny with his bald head shining said persuasively, “But, you -knew, he was very angry--with the girl who ran away.” - -“I knew only what all the world knew,” said Dr. Burnet. “I am a very -busy man, I have very little time to spare. If that is all you have to -ask me, I must beg you to----” - -“One minute,” said the solicitor, “the position is very serious. It is -very awkward for us to have no other member of the family, no one in -Miss Tredgold’s interest to talk it over with. I thought, perhaps, that -you, Dr. Burnet, being I presume, by this time, an old family friend as -well as----” - -“I can’t pretend to any such distinction,” he said quickly with an angry -smile, for indeed although he never showed it, he had never forgiven -Katherine. Then it occurred to him, though a little late, that these -personal matters might as well be kept to himself. He added quickly, “I -have, of course, seen Miss Tredgold daily, for many years.” - -“Well,” said Mr. Sturgeon, “that’s always something, as she has nobody -to stand by her, no relation, no husband--nothing but--what’s worse than -nothing,” he added with a contemptuous glance at Robert Tredgold, who -sat grasping his bag, and looking from one to another with curious and -bewildered eyes. - -Dr. Burnet grew red, and buttoned up more tightly than ever the buttons -he had undone. “If I can be of any use to Miss Tredgold,” he said. “Is -there anything disagreeable before her--any prohibition--against helping -her sister?” - -“Dr. Burnet,” said the solicitor imperiously, “we can find nothing among -Mr. Tredgold’s papers, and I have nothing, not an indication of his -wishes, except the will of eighteen hundred and seventy-one.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVII. - - -When Katherine came into the room again at the call of her father’s -solicitor it was with a sense of being unduly disturbed and interfered -with at a moment when she had a right to repose. She was perhaps half -angry with herself that her thoughts were already turning so warmly to -the future, and that Stella’s approaching arrival, and the change in -Stella’s fortunes which it would be in her power to make, were more and -more occupying the foreground of her mind, and crowding out with bright -colours the sombre spectacle which was just over, and all the troublous -details of the past. When a portion of one’s life has been brought to an -end by the closure of death, something to look forward to is the most -natural and best of alleviations. It breaks up the conviction of the -irrevocable, and opens to the soul once more the way before it, which, -on the other hand, is closed up and ended. Katherine had allowed that -thought to steal into her mind, to occupy the entire horizon. Stella was -coming home, not merely back, which was all that she had allowed herself -to say before, but home to her own house, or rather to that which was -something still more hers than her own by being her sister’s. There had -been, no doubt, grievances against Stella in Katherine’s mind, in the -days when her own life had been entirely overshadowed by her sister’s; -but these were long gone, long lost in boundless, remorseful -(notwithstanding that she had nothing to blame herself with) affection -and longing for Stella, who after all was her only sister, her only near -relation in the world. She had begun to permit herself to dwell on that -delightful thought. It had been a sort of forbidden pleasure while her -father lay dead in the house, and she had felt that every thought was -due to him, that she had not given him enough, had not shown that -devotion to him of which one reads in books, the triumph of filial love -over every circumstance. Katherine had not been to her father all that a -daughter might have been, and in these dark days she had much and -unjustly reproached herself with it. But now everything had been done -for him that he could have wished to be done, and his image had gone -aside amid the shadows of the past, and she had permitted herself to -look forward, to think of Stella and her return. It was a great -disturbance and annoyance to be called again, to be brought back from -the contemplation of those happier things to the shadow of the grave -once more--or, still worse, the shadow of business, as if she cared how -much money had come to her or what was her position. There would be -plenty--plenty to make Stella comfortable she knew, and beyond that what -did Katherine care? - -The men stood up again as she came in with an air of respect which -seemed to her exaggerated and absurd--old Mr. Turny, who had known her -from a child and had allowed her to open the door for him and run -errands for him many a day, and the solicitor, who in his infrequent -visits had never paid any attention to her at all. They stood on each -side letting her pass as if into some prison of which they were going to -defend the doors. Dr. Burnet, who was there too, closely buttoned and -looking very grave, gave her a seat; and then she saw her Uncle Robert -Tredgold sunk down in a chair, with Mr. Sturgeon’s bag in his arms, -staring about him with lack-lustre eyes. She gave him a little nod and -encouraging glance. How small a matter it would be to provide for that -unfortunate so that he should never need to carry Mr. Sturgeon’s bag -again! She sat down and looked round upon them with for the first time a -sort of personal satisfaction in the thought that she was so wholly -independent of them and all that it was in their power to do--the -mistress of her own house, not obliged to think of anyone’s pleasure but -her own. It was on her lips to say something hospitable, kind, such as -became the mistress of the house; she refrained only from the -recollection that, after all, it was her father’s funeral day. - -“Miss Tredgold,” said the solicitor, “we have now, I am sorry to say, a -very painful duty to perform.” - -Katherine looked at him without the faintest notion of his meaning, -encouraging him to proceed with a faint smile. - -“I have gone through your late lamented father’s papers most carefully. -As you yourself said yesterday, I have possessed his confidence for many -years, and all his business matters have gone through my hands. I -supposed that as I had not been consulted about any change in his will, -he must have employed a local solicitor. That, however, does not seem to -have been the case, and I am sorry to inform you, Miss Tredgold, that -the only will that can be found is that of eighteen hundred and -seventy-one.” - -“Yes?” said Katherine indifferently interrogative, as something seemed -to be expected of her. - -“Yes--the will of eighteen hundred and seventy-one--nearly eight years -ago--drawn out when your sister was in full possession of her empire -over your late father, Miss Tredgold.” - -“Yes,” said Katherine, but this time without any interrogation. She had -a vague recollection of that will, of Mr. Sturgeon’s visit to the house, -and the far-off sound of stormy interviews between her father and his -solicitor, of which the girls in their careless fashion, and especially -Stella, had made a joke. - -“You probably don’t take in the full significance of what I say.” - -“No,” said Katherine with a smile, “I don’t think that I do.” - -“I protested against it at the time. I simply cannot comprehend it now. -It is almost impossible to imagine that in present circumstances he -could have intended it to stand; but here it is, and nothing else. Miss -Tredgold, by this will the whole of your father’s property is left over -your head to your younger sister.” - -“To Stella!” she cried, with a sudden glow of pleasure, clapping her -hands. The men about sat and stared at her, Mr. Turny in such -consternation that his jaw dropped as he gazed. Bob Tredgold was by -this time beyond speech, glaring into empty space over the bag in his -arms. - -Then something, whether in her mind or out of it, suggested by the faces -round her struck Katherine with a little chill. She looked round upon -them again, and she was dimly aware that someone behind her, who could -only be Dr. Burnet, made a step forward and stood behind her chair. Then -she drew a long breath. “I am not sure that I understand yet. I am glad -Stella has it--oh, very glad! But do you mean that I--am left out? Do -you mean---- I am afraid,” she said, after a pause, with a little gasp, -“that is not quite just. Do you mean really everything--_every_thing, -Mr. Sturgeon?” - -“Everything. There is, of course, your mother’s money, which no one can -touch, and there is a small piece of land--to build yourself a cottage -on, which was all you would want, he said.” - -Katherine sat silent a little after this. Her first thought was that she -was balked then altogether in her first personal wish, the great delight -and triumph of setting Stella right and restoring to her her just share -in the inheritance. This great disappointment struck her at once, and -almost brought the tears to her eyes. Stella would now have it all of -her own right, and would never know, or at least believe, what had been -Katherine’s loving intention. She felt this blow. In a moment she -realised that Stella would not believe it--that she would think any -assertion to that effect to be a figment, and remained fully assured -that her sister would have kept everything to herself if she had had the -power. And this hurt Katherine beyond expression. She would have liked -to have had that power! Afterwards there came into her mind a vague -sense of old injustice and unkindness to herself, the contemptuous -speech about the cottage, and that this was all she would want. Her -father thought so; he had thought so always, and so had Stella. It never -occurred to Katherine that Stella would be anxious to do her justice, as -she would have done to Stella. That was an idea that never entered her -mind at all. She was thrown back eight years ago to the time when she -lived habitually in the cold shade. After all, was not that the one -thing that she had been certain of all her life? Was it not a spell -which had never been broken, which never could be broken? She murmured -to herself dully: “A cottage--which was all I should want.” - -“I said to your father at the time everything that could be said.” Mr. -Sturgeon wanted to show his sympathy, but he felt that, thoroughly as -everybody present must be persuaded that old Tredgold was an old beast, -it would not do to say so in his own house on his funeral day. - -The other executor said nothing except “Tchich, tchich!” but he wiped -his bald head with his handkerchief and internally thanked everything -that he knew in the place of God--that dark power called Providence and -other such--that Katherine Tredgold had refused to have anything to say -to his Fred. Dr. Burnet was not visible at all to Katherine except in a -long mirror opposite, where he appeared like a shadow behind her chair. - -“And this poor man,” said Katherine, looking towards poor Bob Tredgold, -with his staring eyes; “is there nothing for him?” - -“Not a penny. I could have told you that; I have told him that often -enough. I’ve known him from a boy. He shall keep his corner in my office -all the same. I didn’t put him there, though he thinks so, for his -brother’s sake.” - -“He shall have a home in the cottage--when it is built,” said Katherine, -with a curious smile; and then she became aware that in both these -promises, the lawyer’s and her own, there was a bitter tone--an -unexpressed contempt for the man who was her father, and who had been -laid in his grave that day. - -“I hope,” she said, “this is all that is necessary to-day; and may I -now, if you will not think it ungracious, bid you good-bye? I shall -understand it all better when I have a little time to think.” - -She paused, however, again after she had shaken hands with them. “There -is still one thing. I am going to meet my sister when she arrives. May I -have the--the happiness of telling her? I had meant to give her half, -and it is a little disappointment; but I should like at least to carry -the news. Thanks; you must address to her here. Of course she will come -at once here, to her own home.” - -She scarcely knew whose arm it was that was offered to her, but took it -mechanically and went out, not quite clear as to where she was going, in -the giddiness of the great change. - -“This is a strange hearing,” Dr. Burnet said. - -“How kind of you to stand by me! Yes, it is strange; and I was pleasing -myself with the idea of giving back the house and her share of -everything besides to Stella. I should have liked to do that.” - -“It is to be hoped,” he said, “that she will do the same by you.” - -“Oh, no!” she cried with a half laugh, “that’s impossible.” Then, after -a pause, “you know there’s a husband and children to be thought of. And -what I will have is really quite enough for me.” - -“There is one thing at your disposal as you please,” he said in a low -voice. “I have not changed, Katherine, all these years.” - -“Dr. Burnet! It makes one’s heart glad that you are so good a man!” - -“Make _me_ glad, that will be better,” he said. - -Katherine shook her head but said nothing. And human nature is so -strange that Dr. Burnet, after making this profession of devotion, which -was genuine enough, did not feel so sorry as he ought to have done that -she still shook her head as she disappeared up the great stairs. - -Katherine went into her room a very different woman from the Katherine -who had left it not half-an-hour before. Then she had entertained no -doubt that this was her own house in which she was, this her own room, -where in all probability she would live all her life. She had intended -that Stella should have the house, and yet that there should always be a -nook for herself in which the giver of the whole, half by right and -wholly by love, should remain, something more than a guest. Would -Stella think like that now that the tables were turned, that it was -Katherine who had nothing and she all? Katherine did not for a moment -imagine that this would be the case. Without questioning herself on the -subject, she unconsciously proved how little confidence she had in -Stella by putting away from her mind all idea of remaining here. She had -no home; she would have no home unless or until the cottage was built -for which her father had in mockery, not in kindness, left her the site. -She looked round upon all the familiar things which had been about her -all her life; already the place had taken another aspect to her. It was -not hers any longer, it was a room in her sister’s house. She wondered -whether Stella would let her take her favourite things--a certain little -cabinet, a writing table, some of the pictures. But she did not feel any -confidence that Stella would allow her to do so. Stella liked to have a -house nicely furnished, not to see gaps in the furniture. That was a -small matter, but it was characteristic of the view which Katherine -instinctively took of the whole situation. And it would be vain to say -that it did not affect her. It affected her strongly, but not as the -sudden deprivation of all things might be supposed to affect a sensitive -mind. She had no anticipation of any catastrophe of the kind, and yet -now that it had come she did not feel that she was unprepared for it. It -was not a thing which her mind rejected as impossible, which her heart -struggled against. Now that it had happened, it fitted in well enough to -the life that had gone before. - -Her father had never cared for her, and he had loved Stella. Stella was -the one to whom everything naturally came. Poor Stella had been -unnaturally depressed, thrown out of her triumphant place for these six -years; but her father, even when he had uttered that calm execration -which had so shaken Katherine’s nerves but never his, had not meant any -harm to Stella. He had not been able to do anything against her. -Katherine remembered to have seen him seated at his bureau with that -large blue envelope in his hand. This showed that he had taken the -matter into consideration; but it had not proved possible for him to -disinherit Stella--a thing which everybody concluded had been done as -soon as she left him. Katherine remembered vaguely even that she had -seen him chuckling over that document, locking it up in his drawer as if -there was some private jest of his own involved. It was the kind of jest -to please Mr. Tredgold. The idea of such a discovery, of the one sister -who was sure being disappointed, and the other who expected nothing -being raised to the heights of triumph, all by nothing more than a -scratch of his pen, was sure to please him. She could almost hear him -chuckling again at her own sudden and complete overthrow. When she came -thus far Katherine stopped herself suddenly with a quick flush and sense -of guilt. She would not consciously blame her father, but she retained -the impression on her mind of his chuckle over her discomfiture. - -Thus it will be seen that Katherine’s pain in the strange change was -reduced by the fact that there was no injured love to feel the smart. -She recognised that it was quite a thing that had been likely, though -she had not thought of it before, that it was a thing that other people -would recognise as likely when they heard of it. Nobody, she said to -herself, would be very much surprised. It was unnatural, now she came to -think of it, that she should have had even for a moment the upper hand -and the extreme gratification, not to say superiority, of restoring -Stella. Perhaps it was rather a mean thing to have desired it--to have -wished to lay Stella under such an obligation, and to secure for herself -that blessedness of giving which everybody recognised. Her mind turned -with a sudden impulse of shame to this wish, that had been so strong in -it. Everybody likes to give; it is a selfish sort of pleasure. You feel -yourself for the moment a good genius, a sort of providence, uplifted -above the person, whoever it may be, upon whom you bestow your bounty. -He or she has the inferior position, and probably does not like it at -all. Stella was too careless, too ready to grasp whatever she could get, -to feel this very strongly; but even Stella, instead of loving her -sister the better for hastening to her with her hands full, might have -resented the fact that she owed to Katherine’s gift what ought to have -been hers by right. It was perhaps a poor thing after all. Katherine -began to convince herself that it was a poor thing--to have wished to do -that. Far better that Stella should have what she had a right to by her -own right and not through any gift. - -Then Katherine began to try to take back the thread of the thoughts -which had been in her mind before she was called downstairs to speak to -those men. Her first trial resulted merely in a strong sensation of -dislike to “those men” and resentment, which was absurd, for, after all, -it was not they who had done it. She recalled them to her mind, or -rather the image of them came into it, with a feeling of angry -displeasure. Mr. Sturgeon, the solicitor, had in no way been offensive -to Katherine. He had been indignant, he had been sorry, he had been, in -fact, on her side; but she gave him no credit for that. And the bald -head of the other seemed to her to have a sort of twinkle as of mockery -in it, though, to tell the truth, poor Mr. Turny’s face underneath was -much troubled and almost ashamed to look at Katherine after being -instrumental in doing her so much harm. She wondered with an intuitive -perception whether he were not very glad now that she had refused Fred. -And then with a leap her mind went back to other things. Would they all -be very glad now? Would the Rector piously thank heaven, which for his -good had subjected him to so small a pang, by way of saving him later -from so great a disappointment? Would the doctor be glad? Even though he -had made that very nice speech to her--that generous and faithful -profession of attachment still--must not the doctor, too, be a little -glad? And then Katherine’s mind for a moment went circling back into -space, as it were--into an unknown world to which she had no clue. He -who had disappeared there, leaving no sign, would he ever hear, would he -ever think, could it touch him one way or another? Probably it would not -touch him in any way. He might be married to some woman; he might have a -family of children round him. He might say, “Oh, the Tredgolds! I used -to see a good deal of them. And so Lady Somers has the money after all? -I always thought that was how it would end.” And perhaps he would be -glad, too, that Katherine, who was the unlucky one, the one always left -in the cold shade, whatever happened, had never been anything more to -him than a passing fancy--a figure flitting by as in a dream. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVIII. - - -A whole week had still to pass before the arrival of the _Aurungzebe_. -After such a revolution and catastrophe as had happened, there is always -a feeling in the mind that the stupendous change that is about to ensue -should come at once. But it is very rare indeed that it does so. There -is an inevitable time of waiting, which to some spirits clinging to the -old is a reprieve, but to others an intolerable delay. Katherine was one -of those to whom the delay was intolerable. She would have liked to get -it all over, to deposit the treasure, as it were, at her sister’s feet, -and so to get away, she did not know where, and think of it no more. - -She was not herself, as she now assured herself, so very badly off. The -amount of her mother’s fortune was about five hundred a year--quite a -tolerable income for a woman alone, with nobody to think of but herself. -And as Katherine had not wanted the money, or at least more than a part -of it (for Mr. Tredgold had considered it right at all times that a girl -with an income of her own should pay for her own dress), a considerable -sum had accumulated as savings which would have been of great use to her -now, and built for her that cottage to which her father had doomed her, -had it not been that almost all of it had been taken during those five -years past for Stella, who was always in need, and had devoured the -greater part of Katherine’s income besides. She had thus no nest egg, -nothing to build the cottage, unless Stella paid her back, which was a -probability upon which Katherine did not much reckon. It was curious, -even to herself, to find that she instinctively did not reckon on Stella -at all. She was even angry with herself for this, and felt that she did -not do Stella justice, yet always recurred unconsciously to the idea -that there was nothing to look for, nothing to be reckoned on, but her -five hundred a year, which surely, she said to herself, would be quite -enough. She and old Hannah, from whom she did not wish to separate -herself, could live upon that, even with a residue for poor Robert -Tredgold, who had returned to his desk in the dreariest disappointment -and whose living was at Mr. Sturgeon’s mercy. Stella would not wish to -hear of that disreputable relation, and yet perhaps she might be got to -provide for him if only to secure that he should never cross her path. - -Katherine’s thoughts were dreary enough as she lived through these days, -in the house that was no longer hers; but she had a still harder -discipline to go through in the visits of her neighbours, among whom the -wonderful story of Mr. Tredgold’s will began to circulate at once. They -had been very kind to her, according to the usual fashion of neighbourly -kindness. There had been incessant visits and inquiries ever since the -interest of the place had been quickened by the change for the worse in -the old man’s state, and on his death Katherine had received many offers -of help and companionship, even from people she knew slightly. The -ladies about were all anxious to be permitted to come and “sit with -her,” to take care of her for a day, or more than a day, to ensure her -from being alone. Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay, though neither of these -ladies liked to disturb themselves for a common occasion, were ready at -an hour’s notice to have gone to her, to have been with her during the -trying period of the funeral, and they were naturally among the first to -enter the house when its doors were open, its shutters unbarred, and the -broad light of the common day streamed once more into the rooms. -Everything looked so exactly as it used to do, they remarked to each -other as they went in, leaving the Midge considerably the worse for -wear, and Mr. Perkins, the driver, none the better at the door. Exactly -the same! The gilding of the furniture in the gorgeous drawing-room was -not tarnished, nor the satin dimmed of its lustre, by Mr. Tredgold’s -death. The servants, perhaps, were a little less confident, shades of -anxiety were on the countenance of the butler and the footman; they did -not know whether they would be servants good enough for Lady Somers. -Even Mrs. Simmons--who did not, of course, appear--was doubtful whether -Lady Somers would retain her, notwithstanding all the dainties which -Simmons had prepared for her youth; and a general sense of uneasiness -was in the house. But the great drawing-room, with all its glow and -glitter, did not show any sympathetic shadow. The two fireplaces shone -with polished brass and steel, and the reflection of the blazing fires, -though the windows were open--which was a very extravagant arrangement -the ladies thought, though quite in the Tredgold way. And yet the old -gentleman was gone! and Katherine, hitherto the dispenser of many good -things and accustomed all her life to costly housekeeping, was left like -any poor lady with an income of five hundred a year. Both Mrs. Shanks -and Miss Mildmay, who put firebricks in their fireplaces and were very -frugal in all their ways, and paid their visits in the Midge, had as -much as that. No one could be expected to keep up a house of her own and -a couple of servants on that. But Stella surely would do something for -her sister, Mrs. Shanks said. Miss Mildmay was still shaking her head in -reply to this when they entered the drawing-room, where Katherine -advanced to meet them in her black dress. She had ceased to sit behind -the screens in that part of the room which she had arranged for herself. -The screens were folded back, the room was again one large room all -shining with its gilded chairs and cabinets, its Florentine tables, its -miles of glowing Aubusson carpet. She was the only blot upon its -brightness, with her heavy crape and her pale face. - -“My dear Katherine, my dearest Katherine,” the old ladies said, -enfolding her one after the other in the emphatic silence of a long -embrace. This was meant to express something more than words could -say--and, indeed, there were few words which could have adequately -expressed the feelings of the spectators. “So your old brute of a father -has gone at last, and a good riddance, and has cheated you out of every -penny he could take away from you, after making a slave of you all these -years!” Such words as these would have given but a feeble idea of the -feelings of these ladies, but it is needless to say that it would have -been impossible to say them except in some as yet undiscovered Palace of -Truth. But each old lady held the young one fast, and pressed a long -kiss upon her cheek, which answered the same purpose. When she emerged -from these embraces Katherine looked a little relieved, but still more -pale. - -“Katherine, my dear, it is impossible not to speak of it,” said Mrs. -Shanks; “you know it must be in our minds all the while. Are you going -to do anything, my dear child, to dispute this dreadful will?” - -“Jane Shanks and I,” said Miss Mildmay, “have talked of nothing else -since we heard of it; not that I believe you will do anything against -it, but I wish you had a near friend who would, Katherine. A near friend -is the thing. I have never been very much in favour of marrying, but I -should like you to marry for that.” - -“In order to dispute my father’s will?” said Katherine. “Dear Miss -Mildmay, you know I don’t want to be rude, but I will not even hear it -discussed.” - -“But Katherine, Katherine----” - -“Please not a word! I am quite satisfied with papa’s will. I had -intended to do--something of the sort myself, if I had ever had the -power. You know, which is something pleasanter to talk of, that the -_Aurungzebe_ has been signalled, and I am going to meet Stella -to-morrow.” - -The two old ladies looked at each other. “And I suppose,” said Mrs. -Shanks, “you will bring her home here.” - -“Stella has seen a great deal since she was here,” said Miss Mildmay, “I -should not think she would come, Katherine, if that is what you wish. -She will like something more in the fashion--or perhaps more out of the -fashion--in the grand style, don’t you know, like her husband’s old -house. She will turn up her nose at all this, and at all of us, and -perhaps at you too. Stella was never like you, Katherine. If she falls -into a great fortune all at once there will be no bounds to her. She’ll -probably sell this place, and turn you out.” - -“She may not like the place, and neither do I,” said Katherine like a -flash; “if she wishes to part with it I shall certainly not oppose her. -You must not speak so of my sister.” - -“And what shall you do, Katherine, my dear?” - -“I am going away,” cried Katherine; “I have always intended to go away. -I have a piece of land to build a cottage on.” She made a pause, for she -had never in words stated her intentions before. “Papa knew what I -should like,” she said, with the rising of a sob in her throat. The -sense of injury now and then overcame even her self-control. “In the -meantime perhaps we may go abroad, Hannah and I; isn’t it always the -right thing when you are in mourning and trouble to go abroad?” - -“My dear girl,” said Miss Mildmay solemnly, “how far do you think you -can go abroad you and your maid--upon five hundred a year?” - -“Can’t we?” said Katherine, confused; “oh, yes, we have very quiet ways. -I am not extravagant, I shall want no carriage or anything.” - -“Do you know how much a hotel costs, Katherine? You and your maid -couldn’t possibly live for less than a pound a day--a pound a day means -three hundred and sixty-five pounds a year--and that without a pin, -without a shoe, without a bit of ribbon or a button for your clothes, -still less with anything new to put on. How could you go abroad on that? -It is impossible--and with the ideas you have been brought up on, -everything so extravagant and ample--I can’t imagine what you can be -thinking of, a practical girl like you.” - -“She might go to a pension, Ruth Mildmay. Pensions are much cheaper than -hotels.” - -“I think I see Katherine in a pension! With a napkin done up in a ring -to last a week, and tablecloths to match!” - -“Well then,” said Katherine, with a feeble laugh, “if that is so I must -stay at home. Hannah and I will find a little house somewhere while my -cottage is building.” - -“Hannah can never do all the work of a house,” said Miss Mildmay, -“Hannah has been accustomed to her ease as well as you. You would need -at least a good maid of all work who could cook, besides Hannah; and -then there are rent and taxes, and hundreds of things that you never -calculate upon. You could not live, my dear, even in a cottage with two -maids, on five hundred a year.” - -“I think I had better not live at all!” cried Katherine, “if that is how -it is; and yet there must be a great many people who manage very well on -less than I have. Why, there are families who live on a pound a week!” - -“But not, my dear, with a lady’s maid and another,” Miss Mildmay said. - -Katherine was very glad when her friends went away. They would either of -them have received her into their own little houses with delight, for a -long visit--even with her maid, who, as everybody knows, upsets a little -house much more than the mistress. She might have sat for a month at a -time in either of the drawing-rooms under the green verandah, and looked -out upon the terrace gardens with the sea beyond, and thus have been -spared so much expense, a consideration which would have been fully in -the minds of her entertainers; but their conversation gave her an -entirely new view of the subject. Her little income had seemed to her to -mean plenty, even luxury. She had thought of travelling. She had thought -(with a little bitterness, yet amusement) of the cottage she would -build, a dainty little nest full of pretty things. It had never occurred -to her that she would not have money enough for all that, or that poor -old Hannah if she accompanied her mistress would have to descend from -the pleasant leisure to which she was accustomed. This new idea was not -a pleasant one. She tried to cast it away and to think that she would -not care, but the suggestion that even such a thing as the little -drawing-room, shadowed by the verandah, was above her reach gave her -undeniably a shock. It was not a pretty room; in the winter it was dark -and damp, the shabby carpet on a level with the leaf-strewn flags of the -verandah and the flower borders beyond. She had thought with compassion -of the inhabitants trying to be cheerful on a dull wintry day in the -corner between the window and the fire. And yet that was too fine--too -expensive for her now. Mrs. Shanks had two maids and a boy! and could -have the Midge when she liked in partnership with her friend. These -glories could not be for Katherine. Then she burst into a laugh of -ridicule at herself. Other women of her years in all the villages about -were working cheerfully for their husbands and babies, washing the -clothes and cooking the meals, busy and happy all day long. Katherine -could have done that she felt--but she did not know how she was to -vegetate cheerfully upon her five hundred a year. To be sure, as the -reader will perceive, who may here be indignant with Katherine, she knew -nothing about it, and was not so grateful as she ought to be for what -she had in comparison with what she had not. - -Lady Jane came to see her the same day, and Lady Jane was over-awed -altogether by the news. She had a scared look in her face. “I can only -hope that Stella will show herself worthy of our confidence and put -things right between you at once,” she said; but her face did not -express the confidence which she put into words. She asked all about the -arrival, and about Katherine’s purpose of meeting her sister at -Gravesend. “Shall you bring them all down here?” she said. - -“It will depend upon Stella. I should like to bring them all here. I -have had our old rooms prepared for the nurseries; and there are fires -everywhere to air the house. They will feel the cold very much, I -suppose. But if the fine weather lasts----. There is only one thing -against it, Stella may not care to come.” - -“Oh, Stella will come,” said Lady Jane, “the island is the right place, -don’t you know, to have a house in, and everybody she used to know will -see her here in her glory--and then her husband will be able to run up -to town--and begin to squander the money away. Charlie Somers is my own -relation, Katherine, but I don’t put much faith in him. I wish it had -been as we anticipated, and everything had been in your hands.” - -“You know what I should have done at once, Lady Jane, if it had----” - -“I know--not this, however, anyhow. I hope you would have had sense -enough to keep your share. It would have been far better in the long run -for Stella, she would always have had you to fall back upon. My heart is -broken about it all, Katherine. I blame myself now more than at the -first. I should never have countenanced them; and I never should if I -had thought it would bring disaster upon you.” - -“You need not blame yourself, Lady Jane, for this was the will of ’71; -and if you had never interfered at all, if there had been no Charles -Somers, and no elopement, it would have been just the same.” - -“There is something in that,” Lady Jane said. “And now I hope, I do -hope, that Stella--she is not like you, my dear Katherine. She has never -been brought up to think of any one but herself.” - -“She has been brought up exactly as I was,” Katherine said with a smile. - -“Ah yes, but it is different, quite different; the foolish wicked -preference which was shown for her, did good to you--you are a different -creature, and most likely it is more or less owing to that. Katherine, -you know there are things in which I think you were wrong. When that -good, kind man wanted to marry you, as indeed he does now----” - -“Not very much, I think, Lady Jane; which is all the better, as I do not -wish at all to marry him.” - -“I think you are making a mistake,” said Lady Jane. “He is not so -ornamental perhaps as Charlie Somers, but he is a far better man. Well, -then, I suppose there is nothing more to be said; but I can’t help -thinking that if you had a man to stand by you they would never have -propounded that will.” - -“Indeed,” said Katherine, “you must not think they had anything to do -with it; the will was propounded because it was the only one that was -there.” - -“I know that women always are imposed upon in business, where it is -possible to do it,” Lady Jane said in tones of conviction. And it was -with great reluctance that she went away, still with a feeling that it -was somehow Katherine’s fault, if not at bottom her own, for having -secretly encouraged Stella’s runaway match. “She had never thought of -this,” she declared, for a moment. She had been strongly desirous that -Stella should have her share, and she knew that Katherine would have -given her her share. As for Stella’s actions, no one could answer for -them. She might have a generous impulse or she might not; and Charlie -Somers, he was always agape for money. If he had the Duke of -Westminster’s revenues he would still open his mouth for more. “But you -may be sure I shall put their duty very plainly before them,” she said. - -“Oh, don’t, please don’t,” cried Katherine. “I do not want to have -anything from Stella’s pity--I am not to be pitied at all. I have a very -sufficient income of my own.” - -“A very sufficient income--for Mr. Tredgold’s daughter!” cried Lady -Jane, and she hurried away biting her lips to prevent a string of evil -names as long as her arm bursting from them. The old wretch! the old -brute! the old curmudgeon! were a few of the things she would have liked -to say. But it does not do to scatter such expressions about a man’s -house before he has been buried a week. These are decorums which are -essential to the very preservation of life. - -Then Katherine’s mind turned to the other side of the question, and she -thought of herself as Stella’s pensioner, of living on sufferance in -Stella’s house, with a portion of Stella’s money substracted from the -rest for her benefit. It would have been just the same had it been she -who had endowed Stella, as she had intended, and given her the house and -the half of the fortune. The same, and yet how different. Stella would -have taken everything her sister had given, and waited and craved for -more. But to Katherine it seemed impossible that she should take -anything from Stella. It would be charity, alms, a hundred ugly things; -it would have been mere and simple justice, as she would have felt it -had the doing of it been in her own hands. - -But it was not with any of these feelings, it was with the happiness of -real affection in seeing her sister again, and the excitement of a great -novelty and change and of a new chapter of life quite different from all -that she had known before, and probably better, more happy, more -comforting than any of her anticipations, that she set out next day to -meet Stella and to bring her home. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIX. - - -A river-sea between two widely separated banks, so calm that it was like -a sea of oil bulging towards the centre from over-fullness; a big ship -upon an even keel, moving along with almost imperceptible progress, the -distant hazy banks gliding slowly past; the ease and relief of a long -voyage over, not only on every face, but on every line of cordage; a -bustle of happy people rushing up upon deck to see how near home they -were, and of other people below crowding, bustling over portmanteaux to -be packed, and all the paraphernalia of the voyage to be put away. It -was a very curious scene to Katherine’s eyes, not to speak of the -swarming dark figures everywhere--the Lascars, who were the crew, the -gliding ayhas in their white wrappings. She was led to the cabin in -which Stella, half-dressed, was standing in the midst of piles of -clothes and other belongings, all thrown about in a confusion which it -seemed impossible ever to reduce to order, with a box or two open and -ready to receive the mass which never could be got in. She was so busy -that she could not at first be got to understand that somebody from -shore had come for her. And even then, though she gave a little cry and -made a little plunge at Katherine, it was in the midst of a torrent of -directions, addressed sometimes in English, sometimes in Hindostanee, to -an English maid and a Hindoo woman who encumbered the small cabin with -their presence. A pink-and-white--yet more white than pink--baby lay -sprawling, half out of its garments, upon the red velvet steamboat -couch. Katherine stood confused, disappointed, longing to take her -sister to her heart, and longing to snatch up the little creature who -was so new and so strange an element, yet suddenly caught, stopped, set -down, in the exaltation of her love and eagerness by the deadly -commonplace of the scene. Stella cried, with almost a shriek: - -“You, Katherine! Is it possible?” and gave her a hurried kiss; and then, -without drawing breath, called out to the women: “For goodness’ sake -take care what you’re doing. That’s my best lace. And put all the -muslins at the bottom--I sha’n’t want them here,” with a torrent of -other directions in a strange tongue to the white-robed ayah in the -background. Then--“Only wait,” Stella cried, “till I get a dress on. But -there is never anything ready when I want it. Give me that gown--any -gown--and look sharp, can’t you? I am never ready till half an hour -after everybody. I never can get a thing to put on.” - -“Don’t mind for to-day, Stella; anything will do for to-day. I have so -much to tell you.” - -“Oh!” said Stella, looking at her again, “I see. Your crape’s enough, -Kate, without a word. So it’s all over? Well, perhaps it is for the -best. It would have made me miserable if he had refused to see me. And -Charlie would have insisted--and---- Poor papa! so he’s gone--really -gone. Give me a handkerchief, quick! I was, of course, partly prepared. -It’s not such a shock as it might have been.” A tear fell from Stella’s -eyes upon the dress which her maid was arranging. She wiped it off -carefully, and then her eyes. “You see how careful I have to be -now-a-days,” she said; “I can’t have my dress spotted, I haven’t too -many of them _now_. Poor papa! Well, it is a good thing it has happened -when I have all the distractions of the journey to take off my mind. -Have you done now fumbling? Pin my veil properly. Now I’ll go on deck -with you, Katherine, and we’ll watch the ship getting in, and have our -talk.” - -“Mayn’t I kiss the baby first?” Katherine said. She had been looking at -that new and wonderful thing over the chaos of the baggage, unable to -get further than the cabin door. - -“Oh, you’ll see the baby after. Already you’re beginning to think of the -baby and not of me. I knew that was how it would be,” said Stella, -pettishly. She stepped over an open box, dragging down a pile of muslins -as she moved. “There’s no room to turn round here. Thank heaven we’ve -done with it at last. Now, Kate--Kate, tell me; it will be the first -thing Charlie will want to know. Did he relent to me at the last?” - -“There is so much to tell you, Stella.” - -“Yes--yes--about his illness and all. Poor papa! I am sure I am just as -sorry as if I knew all about it already. But Kate, dear, just one word. -Am I cut off in the will? That is what I want to know.” - -“No,” said Katherine, “you are not cut off in the will.” - -“Hurrah!” cried Stella, clapping her hands. It was but for one second, -and then she quieted down. “Oh, we have had such a time,” she cried, -“and Charlie always insinuating, when he didn’t say it outright, that it -was my fault, for, of course, we never, never believed, neither he nor -I, that papa would have held out. And so he did come to at the end? -Well, it is very hard, very hard to have been kept out of it so long but -I am glad we are to have what belongs to us now. Oh--h!” cried Stella, -drawing a long breath as she emerged on deck, leading the way, “here’s -the old Thames again, bless it, and the fat banks; and we’re at home, -and have come into our money. Hurrah!” - -“What are you so pleased about, Lady Somers? The first sight of ugly old -England and her grey skies,” said someone who met them. The encounter -sobered Stella, who paused a moment with a glance from her own coloured -dress to Katherine’s crape, and a sudden sense of the necessities of the -position. - -“They aren’t very much to be pleased about, are they?” she said. “Will -you find Charlie for me, please. Tell him my sister has come to meet us, -and that there’s news which he will like to hear.” - -“Stella,” cried Katherine, “there may not be much sorrow in your heart, -yet I don’t think you should describe your own father’s death as -something your husband will like to hear.” - -“It is not papa’s death, bless you,” cried Stella, lightly. “Oh, look, -they are getting out the ropes. We shall soon be there now--it is the -money, to be sure. You have never been hard up for money, Kate, or you -would know what it was. Look, there’s Charlie on the bridge with little -Job; we call him Job because he’s always been such a peepy-weepy little -fellow, always crying and cross for nothing at all; they say it was -because I was in such a temper and misery when he was coming, about -having no money, and papa’s cruelty. Charlie! That silly man has never -found him, though he might have known he was on the bridge. Cha--arlie!” -Stella made a tube of her two hands and shouted, and Katherine saw a -tall man on the bridge over their heads turn and look down. He did not -move, however, for some minutes till Stella’s gestures seemed to have -awakened his curiosity. He came down then, very slowly, leading with -much care an extremely small child, so small that it was curious to see -him on his legs at all, who clung to his hand, and whom he lifted down -the steep ladder stairs. - -“Well,” he said, “what’s the matter now?” when he came within speaking -distance. Katherine had scarcely known her sister’s husband in the days -of his courtship. She had not seen him more than three or four times, -and his image had not remained in her mind. She saw now a tall man a -little the worse for wear, with a drooping moustache, and lips which -drooped, too, at the corners under the moustache, with a look which was -slightly morose--the air of a discontented, perhaps disappointed, man. -His clothes were slightly shabby, perhaps because they were old clothes -worn for the voyage, his hair and moustache had that rusty dryness which -comes to hair which does not grow grey, and which gives a shabby air, -also as of old clothes, to those natural appendages. The only attractive -point about him was the child, the very, very small child which seemed -to walk between his feet--so close did it cling to him, and so very low -down. - -“Nothing’s the matter,” said Stella. “Here is Kate come to bid us -welcome home.” - -“O--oh,” he said, and lifted his limp hat by the crown; “it’s a long -time since we have met; I don’t know that I should have recognised -you.” His eyes went from her hat to her feet with a curious inspection -of her dress. - -“Yes,” said Katherine, “you are right; it is so. My father is dead.” - -A sudden glimmer sprang into his eyes and a redness to his face; it was -as if some light had flashed up over them; he gave his wife a keen look. -But decorum seemed more present with him than with Stella. He did not -put any question. He said mechanically, “I am sorry,” and stood waiting, -giving once more a glance at his wife. - -“All Kate has condescended to tell me,” said Stella, “is that I am not -out of the will. That’s the great thing, isn’t it? How much there’s for -us she doesn’t say, but there’s something for us. Tell him, Kate.” - -“There is a great deal for you,” Katherine said, quietly, “and a great -deal to say and to tell you; but it is very public and very noisy here.” - -The red light glowed up in Somers’ face. He lifted instinctively, as it -seemed, the little boy at his feet into his arms, as if to control and -sober himself. “We owe this,” he said, “no doubt to you, Miss Tredgold.” - -“You would have owed it to me had it been in my power,” said Katherine, -with one little flash of self-assertion, “but as it happens,” she added -hastily, “you do not owe anything to me. Stella will be as rich as her -heart can desire. Oh, can’t we go somewhere out of this noise, where I -can tell you, Stella? Or, if we cannot, wait please, wait for the -explanations. You have it; isn’t that enough? And may I not make -acquaintance with the children? And oh, Stella, haven’t you a word for -me?” - -Stella turned round lightly and putting her arms round Katherine kissed -her on both cheeks. “You dear old thing!” she said. And then, -disengaging herself, “I hope you ordered me some mourning, Kate. How can -I go anywhere in this coloured gown? Not to say that it is quite out of -fashion and shabby besides. I suppose I must have crape--not so deep as -yours, though, which is like a widow’s mourning. But crape is becoming -to a fair complexion. Oh, he won’t have anything to say to you, don’t -think it. He is a very cross, bad-tempered, uncomfortable little boy.” - -“Job fader’s little boy,” said the pale little creature perched upon his -father’s shoulder and dangling his small thin legs on Somers’ breast. He -would indeed have nothing to say to Katherine’s overtures. When she put -out her arms to him he turned round, and, clasping his arms round his -father’s head, hid his own behind it. Meanwhile a look of something -which looked like vanity--a sort of sublimated self-complacence--stole -over Sir Charles’ face. He was very fond of the child; also, he was very -proud of the fact that the child preferred him to everybody else in the -world. - -It was with the most tremendous exertion that the party at last was -disembarked, the little boy still on his father’s shoulder, the baby in -the arms of the ayah. The countless packages and boxes, which to the -last moment the aggrieved and distracted maid continued to pack with -items forgotten, came slowly to light one after another, and were -disposed of in the train, or at least on shore. Stella had forgotten -everything except the exhilaration of knowing that she had come into her -fortune as she made her farewells all round. “Oh, do you know? We have -had great news; we have come into our money,” she told several of her -dearest friends. She was in a whirl of excitement, delight, and regrets. -“We have had such a good time, and I’m so sorry to part; you must come -and see us,” she said to one after another. Everybody in the ship was -Stella’s friend. She had not done anything for them, but she had been -good-humoured and willing to please, and she was Stella! This was -Katherine’s involuntary reflection as she stood like a shadow watching -the crowd of friends, the goodbyes and hopes of future meeting, the -kisses of the ladies and close hand-clasping of the men. Nobody was so -popular as Stella. She was Stella, she was born to please; wherever she -went, whatever she did, it was always the same. Katherine felt proud of -her sister and subdued by her, and a little amused at the same time. -Stella--with her husband by her side, the pale baby crowing in its dark -nurse’s arms, and the little boy clinging round his father, the worried -English maid, the serene white-robed ayah, the soldier-servant curt and -wooden, expressing no feeling, and the heaps of indiscriminate baggage -which formed a sort of entrenchment round her--was a far more important -personage than Katherine could ever be. Stella did not require the -wealth which was now to be poured down at her feet to make her of -consequence. Without it, in her present poverty, was she not the admired -of all beholders--the centre of a world of her own? Her sister looked on -with a smile, with a certain admiration, half pleased with the -impartiality (after all) of the world, half jarred by the partiality of -nature. Her present want of wealth did not discredit Stella, but nature -somehow discredited Katherine and put her aside, whatever her qualities -might be. She looked on without any active feeling in these shades of -sentiment, neutral tinted, like the sky and the oily river, and the -greyness of the air, with a thread of interest and amusement running -through, as if she were looking on at the progress of a story--a story -in which the actors interested her, but in which there was no close -concern of her own. - -“Kate!” she heard Stella call suddenly, her voice ringing out (she had -never had a low voice) over the noise and bustle. “Kate, I forgot to -tell you, here’s an old friend of yours. There she is, there she is, -Mr.----. Go and speak to her for yourself.” - -Katherine did not hear the name, and had not an idea who the old friend -was. She turned round with a faint smile on her face. - -Well! There was nothing wonderful in the fact that he had come home with -them. He had, it turned out afterwards, taken his passage in the -_Aurungzebe_ without knowing that the Somers were going by it, or -anything about them. It would be vain to deny that Katherine was -startled, but she did not cling to anything for support, nor--except by -a sudden change of colour, for which she was extremely angry with -herself--betray any emotion. Her heart gave a jump, but then it became -quite quiet again. “We seem fated to meet in travelling,” she said, “and -nowhere else.” Afterwards she was very angry with herself for these last -words. She did not know why she said them--to round off her sentence -perhaps, as a writer often puts in words which he does not precisely -mean. They seemed to convey a complaint or a reproach which she did not -intend at all. - -“I have been hoping,” he said, “since ever I knew your sister was on -board that perhaps you might come, but----” He looked at Katherine in -her mourning, and then over the crowd to Stella, talking, laughing, full -of spirit and movement. “I was going to say that I--feared some sorrow -had come your way, but when I look at Lady Somers----” - -“It is that she does not realise it,” said Katherine. “It is true--my -father is dead.” - -He stood looking at her again, his countenance changing from red to -brown (which was now its natural colour). He seemed to have a hundred -things to say, but nothing would come to his lips. At last he stammered -forth, with a little difficulty it appeared, “I am--sorry--that anything -could happen to bring sorrow to you.” - -Katherine only answered him with a little bow. He was not sorry, nor was -Stella sorry, nor anyone else involved. She felt with a keen compunction -that to make up for this universal satisfaction over her father’s death -she ought to be sorry--more sorry than words could say. - -“It makes a great difference in my life,” she said simply, and while he -was still apparently struggling for something to say, the Somers party -got into motion and came towards the gangway, by which most of the -passengers had now landed. The little army pushed forward, various -porters first with numberless small packets and bags, then the man and -worried maid with more, then the ayah with the baby, then Lady Somers, -who caught Katherine by the arm and pushed through with her, putting her -sister in front, with the tall figure of the husband and the little boy -seated on his shoulder bringing up the rear. Job’s little dangling legs -were on a level with Stanford’s shoulder, and kicked him with a -friendly farewell as they passed, while Job’s father stretched out a -large hand and said, “Goodbye, old fellow; we’re going to the old place -in the Isle of Wight. Look us up some time.” Katherine heard these words -as she landed, with Stella’s hand holding fast to her arm. She was -amused, too, faintly to hear her sister’s husband’s instant adoption of -the old place in the Isle of Wight. Sir Charles did not as yet know any -more than that Stella was not cut off, that a great deal was coming to -her. Stella had not required any further information. She had managed to -say to him that of course to go to the Cliff would be the best thing, -now that it was Katherine’s. It would be a handy headquarters and save -money, and not be too far from town. - -The party was not fatigued as from an inland journey. They had all -bathed and breakfasted in such comfort as a steamship affords, so that -there was no need for any delay in proceeding to their journey’s end. -And the bustle and the confusion, and the orders to the servants, and -the arrangements about the luggage, and the whining of Job on his -father’s shoulder, and the screams of the baby when it was for a moment -moved from its nurse’s arms, and the sharp remarks of Sir Charles and -the continual talk of Stella--so occupied every moment that Katherine -found herself at home again with this large and exigent party before -another word on the important subject which was growing larger and -larger in her mind could be said. - - - - -CHAPTER XL. - - -The evening passed in a whirl, such as Katherine, altogether unused to -the strange mingled life of family occupations and self-indulgence, -could not understand. There was not a tranquil moment for the talk and -the explanations. Stella ran from room to room, approving and objecting. -She liked the state apartment with its smart furniture in which she had -herself been placed, but she did not like the choice of the rooms for -the babies, and had them transferred to others, and the furniture -altered and pulled about to suit their needs. The house had put on a -gala air for the new guests; there were fires blazing everywhere, -flowers everywhere, such as could be got at that advanced season. Stella -sent the chrysanthemums away, which were the chief point in the -decorations. “They have such a horrid smell. They make my head -ache--they remind me,” she said, “of everything that’s dreadful.” And -she stood over the worried maid while she opened the boxes, dragging out -the dresses by a corner and flinging them about on the floors. “I shall -not want any of those old things. Isn’t there a rag of a black that I -can wear now? Kate, you were dreadfully remiss not to order me some -things. How can I go downstairs and show myself in all my blues and -greens? Oh, yes, of course I require to be fitted on, but I’d rather -have an ill-fitting gown than none at all. I could wear one of yours, it -is true, but my figure is different from yours. I’m not all one straight -line from head to foot, as you are; and you’re covered over with crape, -which is quite unnecessary--nobody thinks of such a thing now. I’ll wear -_that_,” she added, giving a little kick to a white dress, which was one -of those she had dragged out by a flounce and flung on the floor. “You -can put some black ribbons to it, Pearson. Oh, how glad I shall be to -get rid of all those old things, and get something fit to wear, even if -it’s black. I shall telegraph at once to London to send someone down -about my things to-morrow, but I warn you I’m not going to wear mourning -for a whole year, Kate. No one thinks of such a thing now.” - -“You always look well in black, my lady, with your complexion,” said -Pearson, the maid. - -“Well, perhaps I do,” said Stella mollified. “Please run down and send -off the telegram, Kate; there is such a crowd of things to do.” - -And thus the day went on. At dinner there was perforce a little time -during which the trio were together; but then the servants were present, -making any intimate conversation impossible, and the talk that was was -entirely about the dishes, which did not please either Sir Charles or -his wife. Poor Mrs. Simmons, anxious to please, had with great care -compounded what she called and thought to be a curry, upon which both of -them looked with disgust. “Take it away,” they both said, after a -contemptuous examination of the dish, turning over its contents with the -end of a fork, one after the other. “Kate, why do you let that woman try -things she knows nothing about?” said Stella severely. “But you never -care what you eat, and you think that’s fine, I know. Old Simmons never -could do much but what English people call roast and boil--what any -savage could do! and you’ve kept her on all these years! I suppose you -have eaten meekly whatever she chose to set before you ever since I went -away.” - -“I think,” said Sir Charles in his moustache, “if I am to be here much -there will certainly have to be a change in the cook.” - -“You can do what you please, Stella--as soon as everything is settled,” -Katherine said. Her sister had taken her place without any question at -the head of the table; and Somers, perhaps unconsciously, had placed -himself opposite. Katherine had taken with some surprise and a -momentary hesitation a seat at the side, as if she were their -guest--which indeed she was, she said to herself. But she had never -occupied that place before; even in the time of Stella’s undoubted -ascendancy, Katherine had always sat at the head of the table. She felt -this as one feels the minor pricks of one’s great troubles. After -dinner, when she had calculated upon having time for her explanation, -Sir Charles took out his cigar case before the servants had left the -room. Stella interrupted him with a little scream. “Oh, Charles, Kate -isn’t used to smoke! She will be thinking of her curtains and all sorts -of things.” - -“If Kate objects, of course,” he said, cutting the end off his cigar and -looking up from the operation. - -Katherine objected, as many women do, not to the cigar but to the -disrespect. She said, “Stella is mistress. I take no authority upon me,” -with as easy an air as she could assume. - -“Come along and see the children,” Stella cried, jumping up, “you’ll -like that, or else you’ll pretend to like it,” she said as they went out -of the room together, “to please me. Now, you needn’t trouble to please -me in that way. I’m not silly about the children. There they are, and -one has to make the best of them, but it’s rather hard to have the boy a -teeny weeny thing like Job. The girl’s strong enough, but it don’t -matter so much for a girl. And Charlie is an idiot about Job. Ten to one -he will be upstairs as soon as we are, snatching the little wretch out -of his bed and carrying him off. They sit and croon for hours together -when there’s no one else to amuse Charlie. And I’m sure I don’t know -what is to become of him, for there will be nobody to amuse him here.” - -“But it must be so bad for the child, Stella. How can he be well if you -allow that to go on?” - -“Oh,” cried Stella, clapping her hands, “I knew you would be the very -model of a maiden aunt! Now you’ve found your real _rôle_ in life, Kate. -But don’t go crossing the ayah, for she won’t understand you, and you’ll -come to dreadful grief. Oh, the children! We should only disturb them -if we went in. I said that for an excuse to get you away. Come into my -room, and let’s look over my clothes. I am sure I have a black gown -somewhere. There was a royal mourning, don’t you know, and I had to get -one in a hurry to go to Government House in--unless Pearson has taken it -for herself. Black is becoming to my complexion, I know--but I don’t -like it all the same--it shows every mark, and it’s hot, and if you wear -crape it should always be quite fresh. This of yours is crumpled a -little. You’ll look like an old woman from the workhouse directly if you -wear crumpled crape--it is the most expensive, the most----” - -“You need not mind that now, Stella; and for papa’s sake----” - -“Good gracious! what a thing that is to say! I need never mind it! -Charlie will say I should always mind it. He says no income could stand -me. Are you there, Pearson? Well, it is just as well she isn’t; we can -look them over at our ease without her greedy eyes watching what she is -to have. She’ll have to get them all, I suppose, for they will be -old-fashioned before I could put them on again. Look here,” cried -Stella, opening the great wardrobe and pulling down in the most careless -way the things which the maid had placed there. She flung them on the -floor as before, one above the other. “This is one I invented myself,” -she said. “Don’t you think that grey with the silver is good? It had a -great _succès_. They say it looked like moonlight. By the bye,” she -added, “that might come in again. Grey with silver is mourning! What a -good thing I thought of that! It must have been an inspiration. I’ve -only worn it once, and it’s so fantastic it’s independent of the -fashion. It will come in quite well again.” - -“Stella, I do wish you would let me tell you how things are, and how it -all happened, and----” - -“Yes, yes,” cried Lady Somers, “another time! Here’s one, again, that -I’ve only worn once; but that will be of no use, for it’s pink--unless -we could make out somehow that it was mauve, there is very little -difference--a sort of blue shade cast upon it, which might be done by a -little draping, and it would make such a pretty mauve. There is very -little difference between the two, only mauve is mourning and pink -is--frivolity, don’t you know. Oh, Pearson, here you are! I suppose you -have been down at your supper? What you can do to keep you so long at -your supper I never can tell. I suppose you flirt with all the gentlemen -in the servants’ hall. Look here, don’t you think this pink, which I -have only worn once, could be made with a little trouble to look mauve? -I am sure it does already a little by this light.” - -“It is a very bright rose-pink, my lady,” said Pearson, not at all -disposed to see one of the freshest of her mistress’s dresses taken out -of her hands. - -“You say that because you think you will get it for yourself,” said Lady -Somers, “but I am certain with a little blue carefully arranged to throw -a shade it would make a beautiful mauve.” - -“Blue-and-pink are the Watteau mixture,” said Pearson, holding her -ground, “which is always considered the brightest thing you can wear.” - -“Oh, if you are obstinate about it!” cried the mistress. “But recollect -I am not at your mercy here, Pearson, and I shall refer it to Louise. -Kate, I’m dreadfully tired; I think I’ll go to bed. Remember I haven’t -been on solid ground for ever so long. I feel the motion of the boat as -if I were going up and down. You do go on feeling it, I believe, for -weeks after. Take off this tight dress, Pearson, quick, and let me get -to bed.” - -“Shall I sit by you a little after, and tell you, Stella?” - -“Oh goodness, no! Tell me about a death and all that happened, in the -very same house where it was, to make me nervous and take away my rest! -You quite forget that I am delicate, Kate! I never could bear the things -that you, a great, robust, middle-aged woman, that have never had any -drain on your strength, can go through. Do let me have a quiet night, my -first night after a sea voyage. Go and talk to Charlie, if you like, he -has got no nerves; and Pearson, put the lemonade by my bed, and turn -down the light.” - -Katherine left her sister’s room with the most curious sensations. She -was foiled at every point by Stella’s lightness, by her self-occupation, -the rapidity of her loose and shallow thoughts, and their devotion to -one subject. She recognised in a half-angry way the potency and -influence of this self-occupation. It was so sincere that it was almost -interesting. Stella found her own concerns full of interest; she had no -amiable delusions about them. She spoke out quite simply what she felt, -even about her children. She did not claim anything except boundless -indulgence for herself. And then it struck Katherine very strangely, it -must be allowed, to hear herself described as a great, robust, -middle-aged woman. Was that how Stella saw her--was she _that_, -probably, to other people? She laughed a little to herself, but it was -not a happy laugh. How misguided was the poet when he prayed that we -might see ourselves as others see us! Would not that be a dreadful -coming down to almost everybody, even to the fairest and the wisest. The -words kept flitting through Katherine’s mind without any will of hers. -“A great, robust, middle-aged woman.” She passed a long mirror in the -corridor (there were mirrors everywhere in Mr. Tredgold’s much decorated -house), and started a little involuntarily to see the slim black figure -in it gliding forward as if to meet her. Was this herself, Katherine, or -was it the ghost of what she had thought she was, a girl at home, -although twenty-nine? After all, middle-age does begin with the -thirties, Katherine said to herself. Dante was thirty-five only when he -described himself as at the _mezzo del cammin_. Perhaps Stella was -right. She was three years younger. As she went towards the stairs -occupied by these thoughts, she suddenly saw Sir Charles, a tall shadow, -still more ghost-like than herself, in the mirror, with a little white -figure seated on his shoulder. It was the little Job, the delicate boy, -his little feet held in his father’s hand to keep them warm, his arms -clinging round his father’s head as he sat upon his shoulder. Katherine -started when she came upon the group, and made out the little boy’s -small face and staring eyes up on those heights. Her brother-in-law -greeted her with a laugh: “You wouldn’t stop with me to smoke a cigar, -so I have found a companion who never objects. You like the smoke, don’t -you, Job?” - -“Job fader’s little boy,” said the small creature, in a voice with a -shiver in it. - -“Put a shawl round him, at least,” cried Katherine, going hastily to a -wardrobe in the corridor; “the poor little man is cold.” - -“Not a bit, are you, Job, with your feet in father’s hand?” - -“Indland,” said the child, with a still more perceptible shiver, -“Indland’s cold.” - -But he tried to kick at Katherine as she approached to put the shawl -round him, which Sir Charles stooped to permit, with an instinct of -politeness. - -“What, kick at a lady!” cried Sir Charles, giving the child a shake. -“But we are not used to all these punctilios. We shall do very well, I -don’t fear.” - -“It is very bad for the child--indeed, he ought to be asleep,” Katherine -could not but say. She felt herself the maiden aunt, as Stella had -called her, the robust middle-aged woman--a superannuated care-taking -creature who did nothing but interfere. - -“Oh, we’ll look after that, Job and I,” the father said, going on down -the stairs without even the fictitious courtesy of waiting till -Katherine should pass. She stood and watched them going towards the -drawing-room, the father and child. The devotion between them was a -pretty sight--no doubt it was a pretty sight. The group of the mother -and child is the one group in the world which calls forth human -sentiment everywhere; and yet the father and child is more moving, more -pathetic still, to most, certainly to all feminine, eyes. It seems to -imply more--a want in the infant life to which its mother is not first, -a void in the man’s. Is it that they seem to cling to each other for -want of better? But that would be derogatory to the father’s office. At -all events it is so. Katherine’s heart melted at this sight. The poor -little child uncared for in the midst of so much ease, awake with his -big excited eyes when he ought to have been asleep, exposed to the cold -to which he was unaccustomed, shivering yet not complaining, his father -carrying him away to comfort his own heart--negligent, but not -intentionally so, of the child’s welfare, holding him as his dearest -thing in the world. The ayah, on hearing the sound of voices, came to -the door of the room, expostulating largely in her unknown tongue, -gesticulating, appealing to the unknown lady. “He catch death--cold,” -she cried, and Katherine shook her head as she stood watching them, the -child recovering his spirits in the warmth of the shawl, his little -laugh sounding through the house. Oh, how bad it was for little Job! and -yet the conjunction was so touching that it went to her heart. She -hesitated for a moment. What would be the use of following them, of -endeavouring through Sir Charles’ cigar and Job’s chatter to give her -brother-in-law the needful information, joyful though it must be. She -did not understand these strange, eager, insouciant, money-grasping, yet -apparently indifferent people, who were satisfied with her curt -intimation of their restoration to wealth, even though they were -forever, as Lady Jane said, agape for more. She stood for a moment -hesitating, and then she turned away in the other direction to her own -room, and gave it over for the night. - -But Katherine’s cares were not over; in her room she found Mrs. Simmons -waiting for her, handkerchief in hand, with her cap a little awry and -her eyes red with crying. “I’m told, Miss Katherine,” said Simmons with -a sniff, “as Miss Stella, which they calls her ladyship, don’t think -nothing of my cookin’, and says I’m no better than a savage. I’ve bin in -this house nigh upon twenty years, and my things always liked, and me -trusted with everything; and that’s what I won’t take from no one, if it -was the Lord Chamberlain himself. I never thought to live to hear myself -called a savage--and it’s what I can’t put up with, Miss Katherine--not -to go again you. I wouldn’t cross you not for no money. I’ve ’ad my -offers, both for service and for publics, and other things. Mr. -Harrison, the butler, he have been very pressin’--but I’ve said just -this, and it’s my last word, I won’t leave Miss Katherine while she’s in -trouble. I know my dooty better nor that, I’ve always said.” - -“Thank you, Mrs. Simmons; you were always very good to me,” said -Katherine, “and you must not mind anything that is said at table. You -know Stella always was hasty, and never meant half she said.” - -“Folks do say, Miss Katherine,” said Simmons, “as it’s a going to be -Miss Stella’s house.” - -“Yes, it will be her house; but whether she will stay in it or not I -cannot tell you yet. It would be very nice for you, Simmons, to be left -here as housekeeper with a maid or two to attend you, and nothing to -do.” - -“I hope,” said Simmons, with again a sniff, “as I am not come so low -down as that--to be a caretaker, me at my time of life. And it don’t -seem to me justice as Miss Stella should have the house as she runned -away from and broke poor old master’s heart. He’s never been himself -from that day. I wonder she can show her face in it, Miss Katherine, -that I do! Going and calling old servants savages, as has been true and -faithful and stood by him, and done their best for him up to the very -last.” - -“You must not be offended, Simmons, by a foolish word; and you must not -speak so of my sister. She is my only sister, and I am glad she should -have everything, everything!” Katherine cried with fervour, the moisture -rising to her eyes. - -“Then, Miss Katherine, it’s more nor anyone else is, either in the -servants’ hall or the kitchen. Miss Stella, or her ladyship as they -calls her, is a very ’andsome young lady, and I knows it, and dreadful -spoiled she has been all her life. But she don’t have no consideration -for servants. And we’ll clear out, leastways I will for one, if she is -to be the Missus here.” - -“I hope you will wait first and see what she intends. I am sure she -would be very sorry, Simmons, to lose so good a servant as you.” - -“I don’t know as it will grieve her much--me as she has called no better -nor a savage; but she’ll have to stand it all the same. And the most of -the others, I warn you, Miss Katherine, will go with me.” - -“Don’t, dear Simmons,” said Katherine. “Poor Stella has been nearly -seven long years away, and she has been among black people, where--where -people are not particular what they say; don’t plunge her into trouble -with her house the moment she gets back.” - -“She ought to have thought of that,” cried Simmons, “afore she called a -white woman and a good Christian, I hope, a savage--a savage! I am not -one of them black people; and I doubt if the black people themselves -would put up with it. Miss Katherine, I won’t ask you for a character.” - -“Oh, Simmons, don’t speak of that.” - -“No,” said Simmons, dabbing her eyes, then turning to Katherine with an -insinuating smile, “because--because I’ll not want one if what I expect -comes to pass. Miss Katherine, you haven’t got no objections to me.” - -“You know I have not, Simmons! You know I have always looked to you to -stand by me and back me up.” - -“Your poor old Simmons, Miss Katherine, as made cakes for you, and them -apples as you were so fond of when you were small! And as was always -ready, no matter for what, if it was a lunch or if it was a supper, or a -picnic, or whatever you wanted, and never a grumble; if it was ever so -unreasonable, Miss Katherine, dear! If this house is Miss Stella’s -house, take me with you! I shouldn’t mind a smaller ’ouse. Fifteen is a -many to manage, and so long as I’ve my kitchenmaid I don’t hold with no -crowds in the kitchen. Take me with you, Miss Katherine--you might be -modest about it--seeing as you are not a married lady and no gentleman, -and a different style of establishment. But you will want a cook and a -housekeeper wherever you go--take me with you, Miss Katherine, dear.” - -“Dear Simmons,” said Katherine, “I have not money enough for that. I -shall not be rich now. I shall have to go into lodgings with Hannah--if -I can keep Hannah.” - -“You are joking,” said Simmons, withdrawing with wonder her handkerchief -from her eyes. “You, Mr. Tredgold’s daughter, you the eldest! Oh, Miss -Katherine, say it plain if you won’t have me, but don’t tell me that.” - -“But indeed it is true,” cried Katherine. “Simmons, you know what things -cost better than I do, and Mrs. Shanks says and Miss Mildmay----” - -“Oh, Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay! Them as you used to call the old -cats! Don’t you mind, Miss Katherine, what they say.” - -“Simmons, tell me,” asked Katherine, “what can I do, how many servants -can I keep, with five hundred a year?” - -Simmons’ countenance fell, her mouth opened in her consternation, her -jaw dropped. She knew very well the value of money. She gasped as she -repeated; “Five hundred a year!” - - - - -CHAPTER XLI. - - -The next morning the new world began frankly, as if it was nothing out -of the usual, as if it had already been for years. When Katherine, a -little late after her somewhat melancholy vigils, awoke, she heard -already the bustle of the houseful of people, so different from the -stillness which had been the rule for years. She heard doors opening and -shutting, steps moving everywhere, Sir Charles’ voice calling loudly -from below, the loud tinkling of Stella’s bell, which rang upstairs near -her maid’s room. Katherine’s first instinctive thought was a question -whether that maid would look less worried--whether, poor thing, she had -dreamt of bags and bandboxes all night. And then there came the little -quaver, thrilling the air of a child’s cry; poor little dissipated Job, -after his vigil with his father, crying to be awoke so early--the poor -little boy who had tried to kick at her with his little naked feet, so -white in the dimness of the corridor, on the night before. It was with -the strangest sensation that Katherine got hurriedly out of bed, with a -startled idea that perhaps her room might be wanted, in which there was -no reason. At all events, the house had passed into new hands, and was -hers no more. - -Hannah came to her presently, pale and holding her breath. She had seen -Job fly at the ayah, kicking her with the little feet on which she had -just succeeded in forcing a pair of boots. “He said as now he could hurt -her, as well as I could understand his talk. Oh! Miss Katherine, and -such a little teeny boy, and to do that! But I said as I knew you would -never let a servant be kicked in your house.” - -“Neither will my sister, Hannah--but they are all tired and strange, and -perhaps a little cross,” said Katherine, apologetically. She went -downstairs to find the breakfast-table in all the disorder that arises -after a large meal--the place at which little Job had been seated next -to his father littered by crumbs and other marks of his presence, and -the butler hastily bringing in a little tea-pot to a corner for her use. - -“Sir Charles, Miss Katherine, he’s gone out; he’s inspecting of the -horses in the stables; and my lady has had her breakfast in her room, -and it’s little master as has made such a mess of the table.” - -“Never mind, Harrison,” said Katherine. - -“I should like to say, Miss Katherine,” said Harrison, “as I’ll go, if -you please, this day month.” - -“Oh, don’t be in a hurry!” she cried. “I have been speaking to Mrs. -Simmons. Don’t desert the house in such haste. Wait till you see how -things go on.” - -“I’d stay with you Miss Katherine, to the last hour of my life; and I -don’t know as I couldn’t make up my mind to a medical gentleman’s -establishment, though it’s different to what I’ve been used to--but I -couldn’t never stop in a place like this.” - -“You don’t know in the least what is going to happen here. Please go -now, and leave me to my breakfast. I will speak to you later on.” - -A woman who is the mistress of her own house is compelled to endure -these attacks, but a woman suddenly freed from all the responsibilities -of ownership need not, at least, be subject to its drawbacks. Katherine -took her small meal with the sensation that it was already the bread of -others she was eating, which is always bitter. There had been no account -made of her usual place, of any of her habits. Harrison had hastily -arranged for her that corner at the lower end of the table, because of -the disarray at the other, the napkins flung about, the cloth dabbled -and stained. It was her own table no longer. Any philosophic mind will -think of this as a very trifling thing, but it was not trifling to -Katherine. The sensation of entire disregard, indifference to her -comfort, and to everything that was seemly, at once chilled and -irritated her; and then she stopped herself in her uncomfortable -thoughts with a troubled laugh and the question, was she, indeed, with -her strong objection to all this disorder, fitting herself, as Stella -said, for the position of maiden aunt? One thing was certain at least, -that for the position of dependent she never would be qualified. - -It was a mild and bright October day: the greyness of the afternoon had -not as yet closed in, the air was full of mid-day sunshine and life. Sir -Charles had come in from his inspection of “the offices” and all that -was outside. He had come up, with his large step and presence, to the -dressing-room in which Stella, wrapped in a quilted dressing-gown and -exclaiming at the cold, lay on a sofa beside the fire. She had emerged -from her bath and all those cares of the person which precede dressing -for the day, and was resting before the final fatigue of putting on her -gown. Katherine had been admitted only a few minutes before Sir Charles -appeared, and she had made up her mind that at last her communication -must be fully made now; though it did not seem very necessary, for they -had established themselves with such perfect ease in the house believing -it to be hers, that it would scarcely make any difference when they were -made aware that it was their own. Katherine’s mind, with a very natural -digression, went off into an unconsciously humorous question--what -difference, after all, it would have made if the house and the fortune -had been hers? They would have taken possession just the same, it was -evident, in any case--and she, could she ever have suggested to them to -go away. She decided no, with a rueful amusement. She should not have -liked Sir Charles as the master of her house, but she would have given -in to it. How much better that it should be as it was, and no question -on the subject at all! - -“I want you to let me tell you now about papa’s will.” - -“Poor papa!” said Stella. “I hope he was not very bad. At that age they -get blunted, and don’t feel. Oh, spare me as many of the details as you -can, please! It makes me wretched to hear of people being ill.” - -“I said papa’s will, Stella.” - -“Ah!” she cried, “that’s different. Charlie will like to know. He thinks -you’ve done nicely for us, Katherine. Of course many things would have -to be re-modelled if we stopped here; but in the meantime, while we -don’t quite know what we are going to do----” - -“I’d sell those old screws,” said Sir Charles, “they’re not fit for a -lady to drive. I shouldn’t like to see my wife behind such brutes. If -you like to give me _carte blanche_ I’ll see to it--get you something -you could take out Stella with, don’t you know!” - -“I wish,” said Katherine, with a little impatience, “that you would -allow me to speak, if it were only for ten minutes! Stella, do pray give -me a little attention; this is not my house, it is yours--everything is -yours. Do you hear? When papa died nothing was to be found but the will -of ’seventy-one, which was made before you went away. Everybody thought -he had changed it, but he had not changed it. You have got everything, -Stella, everything! Do you hear? Papa did not leave even a legacy to a -servant, he left nothing to me, nothing to his poor brother--everything -is yours.” - -Sir Charles stood leaning on the mantelpiece, with his back to the fire; -a dull red came over his face. “Oh, by Jove!” he said in his moustache. -Stella raised herself on her pillows. She folded her quilted -dressing-gown, which was Chinese and covered with wavy lines of dragons, -over her chest. - -“What do you mean by everything?” she said. “You mean a good bit of -money, I suppose; you told me so yesterday. As for the house, I don’t -much care for the house, Kate. It is rococo, you know; it is in dreadful -taste. You can keep it if you like. It could never be of any use to us.” - -“It isn’t a bad house,” said Sir Charles. He had begun to walk up and -down the room. “By Jove,” he said, “Stella is a cool one, but I’m not so -cool. Everything left to her? Do you mean all the money, all old -Tredgold’s fortune--all! I say, by Jove, don’t you know. That isn’t -fair!” - -“I don’t see why it isn’t fair,” said Stella; “I always knew that was -what papa meant. He was very fond of me, poor old papa! Wasn’t he, Kate? -He used to like me to have everything I wanted: there wasn’t one thing, -as fantastic as you please, but he would have let me have it--very -different from now. Don’t you remember that yacht--that we made no use -of but to run away from here? Poor old man!” Here Stella laughed, which -Katherine took for a sign of grace, believing and hoping that it meant -the coming of tears. But no tears came. “He must have been dreadfully -sorry at the end for standing out as he did, and keeping me out of it,” -she said with indignation, “all these years.” - -Sir Charles kept walking up and down the room, swearing softly into his -moustache. He retained some respect for ladies in this respect, it -appeared, for the only imprecation which was audible was a frequent -appeal to the father of the Olympian gods. “By Jove!” sometimes “By -Jupiter!” he said, and tugged at his moustache as if he would have -pulled it out. This was the house in which, bewildered, he had taken all -the shillings from his pocket and put them down on the table by way of -balancing Mr. Tredgold’s money. And now all Mr. Tredgold’s money was -his. He was not cool like Stella; a confused vision of all the glories -of this world--horses, race-meetings, cellars of wine, entertainments of -all kinds, men circling about him, not looking down upon him as a poor -beggar but up at him as no end of a swell, servants to surround him all -at once like a new atmosphere. He had expected something of the kind at -the time of his marriage, but those dreams had long abandoned him; now -they came back with a rush, not dreams any longer. Jove, Jupiter, George -(whoever that deity may be) he invoked in turns; his blood took to -coursing in his veins, it felt like quicksilver, raising him up, as if -he might have floated, spurning with every step the floor on which he -trod. - -“I who had always been brought up so different!” cried Stella, with a -faint whimper in her voice. “That never had been used to it! Oh, what a -time I have had, Kate, having to give up things--almost everything I -ever wanted--and to do without things, and to be continually thinking -could I afford it. Oh, I wonder how papa had the heart! You think I -should be grateful, don’t you? But I can’t help remembering that I’ve -been kept out of it, just when I wanted it most, all these years----” - -She made a pause, but nobody either contradicted or agreed with her. -Stella expected either the one or the other. Sir Charles went up and -down swearing by Jupiter and thinking in a whirl of all the fine things -before him, and Katherine sat at the end of the sofa saying nothing. In -sheer self-defence Stella had to begin again. - -“And nobody knows what it is beginning a house and all that without any -money. I had to part with my diamonds--those last ones, don’t you -remember, Kate? which he gave me to make me forget Charlie. Oh, how -silly girls are! I shouldn’t be so ready, I can tell you, to run away -another time. I should keep my diamonds. And I have not had a decent -dress since I went to India--not one. The other ladies got boxes from -home, but I never sent to Louise except once, and then she did so bother -me about a bill to be paid, as if it were likely I could pay bills when -we had no money for ourselves! Tradespeople are so unreasonable about -their bills, and so are servants, for that matter, going on about wages. -Why, there is Pearson--she waits upon me with a face like a mute at a -funeral all because she has not got her last half year’s wages! By the -way, I suppose she can have them now? They have got such a pull over us, -don’t you know, for they can go away, and when a maid suits you it is -such a bore when she wants to go away. I have had such experiences, all -through the want of money. And I can’t help feeling, oh how hard of him, -when he hadn’t really changed his mind at all, to keep me out of it for -those seven years! Seven years is a dreadful piece out of one’s life,” -cried Stella, “and to have it made miserable and so different to what -one had a right to expect, all for the caprice of an old man! Why did he -keep me out of it all these years?” And Stella, now thoroughly excited, -sobbed to herself over the privations that were past, from which her -father could have saved her at any moment had he pleased. - -“You ought to be pleased now at least,” said her husband. “Come, Stella, -my little girl, let’s shake hands upon it. We’re awfully lucky, and you -shall have a good time now.” - -“I think I ought to have a good time, indeed!” cried Stella. “Why, it’s -all mine! You never would have had a penny but for me. Who should have -the good of it, if not I? And I am sure I deserve it, after all I have -had to go through. Pearson, is that you?” she cried. “Bring me my -jewel-box. Look here,” she said, taking out a case and disclosing what -seemed to Katherine a splendid necklace of diamonds, “that’s what I’ve -been driven to wear!” She seized the necklace out of the case and flung -it to the other end of the room. The stones swung from her hand, -flashing through the air, and fell in a shimmer and sparkle of light -upon the carpet. “The odious, false things!” cried Stella. “Paris--out -of one of those shops, don’t you know? where everything is marked -‘Imitation.’ Charlie got them for me for about ten pounds. And that is -what I had to go to Government House in, and all the balls, and have -compliments paid me on my diamonds. ‘Yes, they are supposed to be of -very fine water,’ I used to say. I used to laugh at first--it seemed a -capital joke; but when you go on wearing odious glass things and have to -show them off as diamonds--for seven years!” - -Sir Charles paused in his walk, and stooped and picked them up. “Yes,” -he said, “I gave ten pounds for them, and we had a lot of fun out of -them, and you looked as handsome in them, Stella, as if they had been -the best. By Jove! to be imitation, they are deuced good imitation. I -don’t think I know the difference, do you?” He placed the glittering -thing on Katherine’s knee. He wanted to bring her into the conversation -with a clumsy impulse of kindness, but he did not know how to manage it. -Then, leaving them there, he continued his walk. He could not keep still -in his excitement, and Stella could not keep silence. The mock diamonds -made a great show upon Katherine’s black gown. - -“Oh, I wish you’d take them away! Give them to somebody--give them to -the children to play with. I’d give them to Pearson, but how could she -wear a _rivière_? Fancy my wearing those things and having nothing -better! You have no feeling, Kate; you don’t sympathise a bit. And to -think that everything might have been quite different, and life been -quite happy instead of the nightmare it was! Papa has a great, great -deal to answer for,” Stella said. - -“If that is all you think about it, I may go away,” said Katherine, “for -we shall not agree. You ought to speak very differently of your father, -who always was so fond of you, and now he’s given you everything. Poor -papa! I am glad he does not know.” - -“But he must have known very well,” cried Stella, “how he left me after -pretending to be so fond of me. Do you think either Charlie or I would -have done such a thing if we had not been deceived? And so was Lady -Jane--and everybody. There was not one who did not say he was sure to -send for us home, and see what has happened instead. Oh, he may have -made up for it now. But do you think that was being really fond of me, -Kate, to leave me out in India without a penny for seven years?” - -Katherine rose, and the glittering stones, which had only yesterday been -Lady Somers’ diamonds, and as such guarded with all the care -imaginable--poor Pearson having acquired her perennial look of worry as -much from that as anything, having had the charge of them--rattled with -a sound like glass, and fell on the floor, where they lay disgraced as -Katherine went hurriedly away. And there they were found by Pearson -after Lady Somers had finished her toilet and gone downstairs to lunch. -Pearson gave a kick at them where they lay--the nasty imitation things -that had cost her so many a thought--but then picked them up, with a -certain pity, yet awe, as if they might change again into something -dangerous in her very hands. - - - - -CHAPTER XLII. - - -Katherine had put herself unconsciously in her usual place at the head -of the luncheon table before Stella came downstairs. At the other end -was Sir Charles with little Job, set up on a pile of cushions beside -him. - -“Don’t wait for Stella, she’s always late,” said Somers, helping his son -from the dish before him; but at this moment Stella, rustling in a -coloured dress, came briskly in. - -“Oh, I say, Kate, let me have my proper place,” she said; “you can’t sit -down with Charlie opposite, it’s not decent. And oh the funny old room! -Did you ever see such a rococo house, Charlie, all gilding and ornament? -Poor papa could never have anything grand enough according to his views. -We must have it all pulled to pieces, I couldn’t live in such a place. -Eh? why, Kate, you don’t pretend you like it, you who always made a -fuss.” - -Katherine had transferred herself to a seat at the side of the table, -not without a quick sensation of self-reproach and that inevitable shame -upon being thus compelled to take a lower place which no philosophy can -get rid of. “I did not think where I was sitting,” she cried, in -instinctive apology; and then, “Let the poor house be, at least for the -first week, Stella,” she said. - -“Oh, that’s all sentiment and nonsense,” cried Lady Somers. “My -experience is when you’re going to change a thing, do it directly; or -else you just settle down and grow accustomed and think no more of it. -For goodness’ sake, Charlie, don’t stuff that child with all the most -improper things! He ought to have roast mutton and rice pudding, all the -doctors say; and you are ruining his constitution, you know you are. -Why isn’t there some roast mutton, William? Oh, Harrison! why can’t you -see that there’s some roast mutton or that sort of thing, when you’ve -got to feed a little boy.” - -“Me don’t like roast mutton,” cried Job, with a whine. “Me dine wid -fader; fader give Job nice tings.” - -“I’ll look after you, my boy,” said Sir Charles, at one end of the -table, while Harrison at the other, with a very solemn bow, discussed -his position. - -“It is not my place to horder the dinner, my lady; if your ladyship will -say what you requires, I will mention it to Mrs. Simmons.” - -“It is I who am in fault, I suppose, Stella,” cried Katherine, more -angry than she could have imagined possible. “Perhaps you will see -Simmons yourself to-morrow.” - -“Oh, not I!” cried Stella. “Fancy the bore of ordering dinner with an -old-fashioned English cook that would not understand a word one says. -You can do it, Charlie. Don’t give the child _pâté de foie gras_,” she -added, with a scream. “Who’s the doctor on the strength of the -establishment now, Kate? He’ll have to be called in very soon, I can -see, and the sooner Job has a bad liver attack the better, for then it -may be possible to get him properly looked after. And I must have an -English nurse that understands children, instead of that stupid ayah who -gives them whatever they cry for. Don’t you think it’s dreadful training -to give them whatever they cry for, Kate? You ought to know about -children, living all this while at home and never marrying or anything. -You must have gone in for charity or nursing, or Churchy things, having -nothing to do. Oh, I wish you would take Job in hand! He minds nobody -but his father, and his father stuffs him with everything he oughtn’t to -have, and keeps him up half the night. One of these days he’ll have such -a liver attack that it will cut him off, Charlie; and then you will have -the satisfaction of feeling that it’s you that have killed him, and you -will not be able to say I haven’t warned you hundreds of times.” - -“We’ve not come to any harm as yet, have we, Job?” said the father, -placing clandestinely another objectionable morsel on the child’s plate. - -“No, fader. Job not dut off yet,” cried, in his little shrill voice, the -unfortunate small boy. - -In this babble the rest of the mid-day meal was carried on, Stella’s -voice flowing like the principal part of the entertainment, interrupted -now and then by a bass note from her husband or a little cry from her -child, with a question to a servant and the respectful answer in an -aside now and then. Katherine sat quite silent listening, not so much -from intention as that there was no room for her to put in a word, and -no apparent need for any explanation or intervention. The Somerses took -calm possession, unsurprised, undisturbed by any question of right or -wrong, of kindness or unkindness. Nor did Katherine blame them; she felt -that they would have done exactly the same had the house and all that -was in it been hers, and the real circumstances of the case made it more -bearable and took away many embarrassments. She went out to drive with -Stella in the afternoon, Sir Charles accompanying them that he might see -whether the carriage horses were fit for his wife’s use. Stella had been -partly covered with Katherine’s garments to make her presentable, and -the little crape bonnet perched upon her fuzzy fair hair was happily -very becoming, and satisfied her as to her own appearance. “Mourning’s -not so very bad, after all,” she said, “especially when you are very -fair. You are a little too dark to look nice in it, Kate. I shouldn’t -advise you to wear crape long. It isn’t at all necessary; the rule now -is crape three months, black six, and then you can go into greys and -mauves. Mauve’s a lovely colour. It is just as bright as pink, though -it’s mourning; and it suits me down to the ground--I am so fair, don’t -you know.” - -“These brutes will never do,” said Sir Charles. “Is this the pace you -have been going, Miss Kate? Stella will not stand it, that’s clear. Not -a likely person to nod along like a hearse or an old dowager, is -she?--and cost just as much, the old fat brutes, as a proper turn-out.” - -“It’s the same old landau, I declare,” cried Stella, “that we used to -cram with people for picnics and dances and things. Mine was the -victoria. Have you kept the victoria all the time, Kate? Jervis made it -spin along I can tell you. And the little brougham I used to run about -in, that took us down to the yacht, don’t you remember, Charlie, that -last night; me in my wedding dress, though nobody suspected it--that is, -nobody but those that knew. What a lot there were, though,” cried -Stella, with a laugh, “that knew!--and what a dreadful bore, Kate, when -you would insist upon coming with me, and everybody guessing and -wondering how we’d get out of it. We did get out of it capitally, didn’t -we, all owing to my presence of mind.” - -“All’s well that ends well,” said Sir Charles. “We’ve both had a deuced -lot of doubts on that question--between times. Miss Kate, would you mind -telling me what kind of a figure it is, this fortune that Stella is -supposed to have come into? Hang me if I know; it might be hundreds or -it might be thousands. You see I’m a disinterested sort of fellow,” he -said, with an uneasy laugh. - -“The lawyer said,” Katherine explained, “that it could not be under, but -might be considerably over, fifty thousand a year.” - -Sir Charles was silent for a moment and grew very red, which showed up -his sunburnt brick-red complexion like a sudden dye of crimson. He -caught his breath a little, but with an effort at an indifferent tone -repeated, “Fifty thousand pounds!” - -“A year,” Katherine said. - -“Well!” cried Stella, “what are you sitting there for, like a stuck pig, -staring at me? Need there have been so much fuss about it if it had been -less than that? Papa wasn’t a man to leave a few hundreds, was he? I -wonder it’s so little, for my part. By the time you’ve got that old -barrack of yours done up, and a tidy little house in town, and all our -bills paid, good gracious, it’s nothing at all, fifty thousand a year! I -hope it will turn out a great deal more, Kate. I daresay your lawyer is -the sort of person to muddle half of it away in expenses and so forth. -Who is he? Oh, old Sturgeon that used to come down sometimes. Well, he -is not up to date, I am sure. He’ll be keeping the money in dreadful -consols or something, instead of making the best of it. You can tell him -that I shan’t stand that sort of thing. It shall be made the best of if -it is going to belong to me.” - -“And what have you, Miss Kate?” said her brother-in-law, “to balance -this fine fortune of Stella’s--for it is a fine fortune, and she knows -nothing about it, with her chatter.” - -“Oh, I know nothing about it; don’t I?” said Stella. “Papa didn’t think -so. He said I had a capital head for money, and that I was a chip of the -old block, and all that sort of thing. What has Kate got? Oh, she’s got -money of her own. I used to envy her so when we were girls. I had a deal -more than she had, for papa was always silly about me--dresses and -jewels and so forth that I had no business to have at that age; but Kate -had money of her own. I could always get plenty from papa, but she had -it of her own; don’t you remember, Kate? I always wished to be you; I -thought that it was a shame that you should have all that left to you -and me nothing. And if you come to that, so it was, for mamma was my -mother as well as Kate’s, and she had no business to leave her money to -one of us and take no notice of me.” - -“We are quits now, at all events, Stella,” said Katherine, with the best -sort of a smile which she could call up on her face. - -“Quits! I don’t think so at all,” cried Stella, “for you have had it and -I have been kept out of it for years and years. Quits, indeed; no, I’m -sure I don’t think so. I have always envied you for having mamma’s money -since I was twelve years old. I don’t deny I had more from papa; but -then it wasn’t mine. And now I have everything from papa, which is the -least he could do, having kept me out of it for so long; but not a penny -from my mother, which isn’t justice, seeing I am quite as much her child -as you.” - -“Shut up, Stella!” said Sir Charles, in his moustache. - -“Why should I shut up? It’s quite true that Katherine has had it since -she was fifteen; that’s--let me see--fourteen years, nearly the half of -her life, and no expenses to speak of. There must be thousands and -thousands in the bank, and so little to do with it. She’s richer than we -are, when all is said.” - -“Stella, you must remember,” cried Katherine excitedly in spite of -herself, “that the money in the bank was always----” - -“Oh, I knew you would say that,” cried Stella, in an aggrieved tone; -“you’ve lent it to me, haven’t you? Though not so very much of it, and -of course you will get it back. Oh, don’t be afraid, you will get it -back! It will be put among the other bills, and it will be paid with the -rest. I would rather be in debt to Louise or any one than to a sister -who is always thinking about what she has lent me. And it is not so very -much, either; you used to dole it out to me a hundred at a time, or even -fifty at a time, as if it were a great favour, while all the time you -were enjoying papa’s money, which by law was mine. I don’t think very -much of favours like that.” - -“I hope, Miss Tredgold,” said Sir Charles, lifting his hat, “that after -this very great injustice, as it seems to me, you will at least make -your home with us, and see if--if we can’t come to any arrangement. I -suppose it’s true that ladies alone don’t want very much, not like a -family--or--or two careless spendthrift sort of people like Stella and -me, but----” - -“Well, of course,” cried Stella, “I hope, Kate, you’ll pay us a visit -when--whenever you like, in short. I don’t say make your home with us, -as Charlie says, for I know you wouldn’t like it, and it’s a mistake, I -think, for relations to live together. You know yourself, it never -works. Charlie, do hold your tongue and let me speak. I know all about -it a great deal better than you do. To have us to fall back upon when -she wants it, to be able to write and say, take me in--which, of course, -I should always do if it were possible--that is the thing that would -suit Kate. Of course you will have rooms of your own somewhere. I -shouldn’t advise a house, for that is such a bother with servants and -things, and runs away with such a lot of money, but---- Oh, I declare, -there is the Midge, with the two old cats! Shall we have to stop and -speak if they see us? I am not going to do that. I heard of papa’s death -only yesterday, and I am not fit to speak to anybody as yet,” she cried, -pulling over her face the crape veil which depended from her bonnet -behind. And the two old ladies in the Midge were much impressed by the -spectacle of Stella driving out with her husband and her sister, and -covered with a crape veil, on the day after her return. “Poor thing,” -they said, “Katherine has made her come out to take the air; but she has -a great deal of feeling, and it has been a great shock to her. Did you -see how she was covered with that great veil? Stella was a little thing -that I never quite approved of, but she had a feeling heart.” - -Katherine was a little sick at heart with all the talk, with Stella’s -rattle running through everything, with the fulfilment of all her fears, -and the small ground for hope of any nobler thoughts. She was quite -decided never under any circumstances to take anything from her sister. -That from the first moment had been impossible. She had seen the whole -position very clearly, and made up her mind without a doubt or -hesitation. She was herself perfectly well provided for, she had said to -herself, she had no reason to complain; and she had known all along how -Stella would take it, exactly as she did, and all that would follow. But -a thing seldom happens exactly as you believe it will happen; and the -extreme ease with which this revolution had taken place, the absence of -excitement, of surprise, even of exultation, had the most curious effect -upon her. She was confounded by Stella’s calm, and yet she knew that -Stella would be calm. Nothing could be more like Stella than her -conviction that she herself, instead of being extraordinarily favoured, -was on the whole rather an injured person when all was said and done. -The whole of this had been in Katherine’s anticipations of the crisis. -And yet she was as bitterly disappointed as if she had not known Stella, -and as if her sister had been her ideal, and she had thought her -capable of nothing that was not lofty and noble. A visionary has always -that hope in her heart. It is always possible that in any new emergency -a spirit nobler and better than of old may be brought out. - -Katherine stole out in the early twilight to her favourite walk. The sea -was misty, lost in a great incertitude, a suffusion of blueness upon the -verge of the sand below, but all besides mist in which nothing could be -distinguished. The horizon was blurred all round, so that no one could -see what was there, though overhead there was a bit of sky clear enough. -The hour just melting out of day into night, the mild great world of -space, in which lay hidden the unseen sea and the sky, were soothing -influences, and she felt her involuntary anger, her unwilling -disappointment, die away. She forgot that there was any harm done. She -only remembered that Stella was here with her children, and that it was -so natural to have her in her own home. The long windows of the -drawing-room were full of light, so were those of Stella’s bedroom, and -a number of occupied rooms shining out into the dimness. It was perhaps -_rococo_, as they said, but it was warm and bright. Katherine had got -herself very well in hand before she heard a step near her on the -gravel, and looking up saw that her brother-in-law was approaching. She -had not been much in charity with Sir Charles Somers before, but he had -not shown badly in these curious scenes. He had made some surprised -exclamations, he had exhibited some kind of interest in herself. -Katherine was very lonely, and anxious to think well of someone. She was -almost glad to see him, and went towards him with something like -pleasure. - -“I have come to bring you in,” he said; “Stella fears that you will -catch cold. She says it is very damp, even on the top of the cliff.” - -“I don’t think I shall take cold; but I will gladly go in if Stella -wants me,” said Katherine; then, as Somers turned with her at the end of -her promenade, she said: “The house is _rococo_, I know; but I do hope -you will like it a little and sometimes live in it, for the sake of our -youth which was passed here.” - -“You don’t seem to think where you are to live yourself,” he said -hurriedly. “I think more of that. We seem to be putting you out of -everything. Shouldn’t you like it for yourself? You have more -associations with it than anyone I wish you would say you would like to -have it--for yourself----” - -“Oh, no,” said Katherine, “not for the world. I couldn’t keep it up, and -I should not like to have it--not for the world.” - -“I am afraid all this is dreadfully unjust. There should be -a--partition, there should be some arrangement. It isn’t fair. You were -always with the old man, and nursed him, and took care of him, and all -that----” - -“No,” said Katherine; “my father was a little peculiar--he liked to have -the nurse who was paid, as he said, for that. I have not any claim on -that ground. And then I have always had my own money, as Stella told -you. I am much obliged to you, but you really do not need to trouble -yourself about me.” - -“Are you really sure that is so?” he said in a tone between doubt and -relief. Then he looked round, shivering a little at the mist, and said -that Stella was looking for her sister, and that he thought it would be -much more comfortable if they went in to tea. - - - - -CHAPTER XLIII. - - -The public of Sliplin gave Lady Jane the _pas_. Though every individual -who had the least right of acquaintance with Lady Somers longed to call, -to see how she was looking, to see how she was taking it, to see the -dear babies, &c., &c., yet there was a universal consent, given tacitly, -that Lady Jane, not only as the head of the local society, but as having -been so deeply involved in Stella’s marriage, should come first; and, -accordingly, for two whole days the neighbours had refrained, even Mrs. -Shanks and Miss Mildmay holding back. When Lady Jane’s carriage appeared -at last, there was a little rustle of interest and excitement through -the place. The Stanhopes of the old Leigh House, who were half-way -between Steephill and Sliplin, saw it sweep past their lodge gates, and -ran in in a body to say to their mother, “Now, to-morrow we can call!” -and the same sentiment flew over the place from one house to another. -“Lady Jane has just driven down to the Cliff. I have just seen Lady -Jane’s carriage pass on her way to see Lady Somers.” “Well, that will be -a meeting!” some ladies said. It appeared to a number of them somehow -that it must have been Lady Jane’s machinations that secured Mr. -Tredgold’s fortune for his undutiful child--though, indeed, they could -not have told how. - -These days of seclusion would have been very dreary to Stella had she -not been occupied with her dressmaker, a visitor who is always more -exciting and delightful than any other. Louise, who had insisted so on -the payment of her little bill in Stella’s days of humiliation, was now -all obsequiousness, coming down herself to receive Lady Somers’ orders, -to fit Lady Somers’ mourning, to suggest everything that could be done -in the way of lightening it now, and changing it at the earliest -opportunity. Hours of delightful consultation as to Stella’s figure, -which she discussed as gravely as if it had been a matter of national -importance--as well as the stuffs which were to clothe it, and the -fashion in which they were to be made--flew over her head, during which -time her husband mooned about the stables, generally with little Job -upon his shoulder, and finally, unable to endure it any longer, went up -to town, where no doubt he was happy--though the wail of the little boy -left behind did not add to the peace of the house. The dressmaker had -been dismissed by the time that Lady Jane arrived, and Stella sat -contemplating her crape in all the mirrors round, and assuring herself -that when it was perfectly fresh as now, it was not so bad, and -unquestionably becoming to a very fair complexion. “I can’t say you look -very well in it, Kate; you are darker, and then yours is not quite -fresh. To be quite fresh is indispensable. If one was a widow, for -instance, and obliged to wear it, it ought to be renewed every week; but -I do think it’s becoming to me. It throws up one’s whiteness, don’t you -think, and brings out the colour,” said Stella standing before the -glass. “Oh, Kate, you are so unsympathetic; come and see what I mean,” -she cried. - -“Yes, I see--you look very nice, Stella. The black is becoming to -you--but, after all, we don’t wear crape to be becoming.” - -“Oh, Fudge!” cried Stella, “what do you wear it for? Because it’s the -custom, and you can’t help yourself. What does it matter to poor papa -what we wear? He always liked to see me in gay colours--he had too -florid a taste, if the truth must be told. If I hadn’t known better by -instinct (for I’m sure I never had any teaching), and if we hadn’t been -so fortunate as to fall into the hands of Louise, I should have been -dressed like ‘Arriet out for a holiday. It’s curious,” said Stella -reflectively, “taste is just born in some people and others you can’t -teach it to. I am so glad the first was my case. We labour under -disadvantages, you know, being our father’s daughters--that is, not me, -now everything has come straight, but you will, Kate, especially as you -have not got the money. To be papa’s daughter and yet not his heiress, -you know, is a kind of injury to people that might come after you. You -will be going into the world upon false pretences. I wonder now that you -did not marry somebody before it was all known.” - -“It was only known on the night of papa’s funeral, Stella. I could not -have married many people between then and now,” said Katherine, trying -to take this speech as lightly as it was made. - -“That is true--still you must have had people after you. With your -expectations, and a good-looking girl. You always were quite a -good-looking girl, Kate.” - -“I am grateful for your approbation, Stella.” - -“Only a little stuck-up looking--and--well, not quite so young as you -used to be. If I were you I would go in for that old fellow, don’t you -remember, whom papa got rid of in such a hurry--the man that came over -with us in the _Aurungzebe_. Somebody told me he had done very well out -there, and, of course, Charlie asked him to come and see us. And you -know you were his fancy, Kate; it was you, not me--don’t you remember -how everybody laughed? I should go in for him now if I were you. An old -affair like that is quite a nice foundation. And I hear he has done very -well, and he is just a suitable age, and it doesn’t really matter -that---- What is passing the window? Oh,” cried Stella, clapping her -hands, “the very same old landau that I remember all my life, and Lady -Jane in her war paint, just the same. Let’s prepare to receive cavalry!” -she cried. With a twist of her hand she drew two chairs into position, -one very low, graceful and comfortable for herself, another higher, with -elbows for Lady Jane. And Stella seated herself, with her fresh crape -falling about her in crisp folds, her fair face and frizzy locks coming -out of its blackness with great _éclat_, and her handkerchief in her -hand. It was as good as a play (she herself felt, for I doubt whether -Katherine relished the scene) to see her rise slowly and then drop, as -it were, as lightly as a feather, but beyond speech, into Lady Jane’s -arms, who, deeply impressed by this beautiful pose, clasped her and -kissed her and murmured, “My poor child; my poor, dear child!” with real -tears in her eyes. - -“But what a comfort it must be to your mind,” Lady Jane said, when she -had seated herself and was holding Stella’s hand, “to feel that there -could be nothing against you in his mind--no rancour, no -unkindness--only the old feeling that he loved you beyond everything; -that you were still his pet, his little one, his favourite----” Lady -Jane herself felt it so much that she was almost choked by a sob. - -“Oh, dear Lady Jane,” cried Stella, evidently gulping down her own, “if -I did not feel _that_, how could I ever have endured to come to this -house--to dear papa’s house--to my own old home! that I was so wicked as -to run away from, and so silly, never thinking. My only consolation is, -though Kate has so little, so very little, to tell me of that dreadful -time, that he must have forgiven me at the last.” - -It was a very dreadful recollection to obtrude into the mind of the -spectator in such a touching scene; but Katherine could not keep out of -her eyes the vision of an old man in his chair saying quite calmly, “God -damn them,” as he sat by his fireside. The thought made her shudder; it -was one never to be communicated to any creature; but Lady Jane -perceived the little tremulous movement that betrayed her, and naturally -misinterpreted its cause. - -“Yes,” she said, “my dear Stella, I am very happy for you; but there is -poor Katherine left out in the cold who has done so much for him all -these years.” - -Stella, as was so natural to her, went on with the catalogue of her own -woes without taking any notice of this. “Such a time as we have gone -through, Lady Jane! Oh, I have reflected many a time, if it had not been -for what everybody told us, I never, never, would have done so silly a -thing. You all said, you remember, that papa would not hold out, that he -could not get on without me, that he would be quite sure to send for me -home. And I was over-persuaded. India is a dreadful place. You have -double pay, but, oh, far more than double expenses! and as for dress, -you want as much, if not more, than you would in London, and tribes upon -tribes of servants that can do nothing. And then the children coming. -And Job that has never had a day’s health, and how he is to live in -England with a liver like a Strasburg goose, and his father stuffing him -with everything that is bad for him, I don’t know. It has been a -dreadful time; Kate has had all the good and I’ve had all the evil for -seven years--fancy, for seven long years.” - -“But you’ve had a good husband, at all events, Stella; and some pleasant -things,” Lady Jane murmured in self-defence. - -“Oh, Charlie! I don’t say that he is any worse than the rest. But fancy -me--me, Stella, that you knew as a girl with everything I could think -of--going to Government House over and over again in the same old dress; -and Paris diamonds that cost ten pounds when they were new.” - -At this dreadful picture Lady Jane bowed her head. What could she reply? -Katherine had not required to go anywhere a number of times in the same -old dress--but that was probably because she went to very few -places--nor in Paris diamonds at ten pounds, for she had not any -diamonds at all, false or true. To change the subject, which had taken a -turn more individual than was pleasant, she asked whether she might not -see the dear children? - -“Oh yes,” said Stella, “if they will come--or, at least, if Job will -come, for baby is too small to have a will of her own. Kate, do you -think that you could bring Job? It isn’t that it is any pleasure to see -him, I’m sure. When his father is here he will speak to no one else, and -when his father isn’t here he just cries and kicks everybody. I think, -Kate, he hates you less than the rest. Will you try and get him to come -if Lady Jane wants to see him? Why anybody should want to see him I am -sure is a mystery to me.” - -It was an ill-advised measure on Stella’s part, for Katherine had no -sooner departed somewhat unwillingly on her mission than Lady Jane -seized her young friend’s hand again: “Oh, Stella, I must speak to you, -I must, while she is away. Of course, you and Charlie have settled it -between you--you are going to set everything right for Katherine? It was -all settled on her side that if she got the money you should have your -share at once. And you will do the same at once, won’t you, without loss -of time, Charlie and you?” - -“You take away my breath,” cried Stella, freeing her hand. “What is it -that I have got to do in such a hurry? I hate a hurry; it makes me quite -ill to be pressed to do anything like running for a train. We only came -a few days ago, Lady Jane; we haven’t been a week at home. We haven’t -even seen the lawyer yet; and do you think Charlie and I discuss things -about money without loss of time--oh, no! we always like to take the -longest time possible. They have never been such very agreeable things, -I can tell you, Lady Jane, discussions about money between Charlie and -me.” - -“That, to be sure, in the past,” said Lady Jane, “but not now, my dear. -I feel certain he has said to you, ‘We must put things right for -Katherine--’ before now.” - -“Perhaps he has said something of the kind; but he isn’t at all a man to -be trusted in money matters, Charlie. I put very little faith in him. I -don’t know what the will is, as yet; but so far as I possibly can I -shall keep the management of the money in my own hands. Charlie would -make ducks and drakes of it if he had his way.” - -“But, my dear Stella, this is a matter that you cannot hesitate about -for a moment; the right and wrong of it are quite clear. We all thought -your father’s money would go to Katherine, who had never crossed him in -any way----” - -“What does that matter? It was me he was fond of!” Stella cried, with -disdain. - -“Well; so it has proved. But Katherine was prepared at once to give you -your share. You must give her hers, Stella--you must, and that at once. -You must not leave a question upon your own sense of justice, your -perception of right and wrong. Charlie!” cried Lady Jane with -excitement, “Charlie is a gentleman at least. He knows what is required -of him. I shall stay until he comes home, for I must speak to him at -once.” - -“That is his dog-cart, I suppose,” said Stella calmly, “passing the -window; but you must remember, Lady Jane, that the money is not -Charlie’s to make ducks and drakes with. I don’t know how the will is -drawn, but I am sure papa would not leave me in the hands of any man he -didn’t know. I shall have to decide for myself; and I know more about it -than Charlie does. Katherine has money of her own, which I never had. -She has had the good of papa’s money for these seven years, while I have -not had a penny. She says herself that she did not nurse him or devote -herself to him, beyond what was natural, that she should require -compensation for that. He liked the nurse that had her wages paid her, -and there was an end of it; which is exactly what I should say myself. I -don’t think it’s a case for your interference, or Charlie’s, or -anybody’s. I shall do what I think right, of course, but I can’t -undertake that it shall be what other people think right. Oh, Charlie, -there you are at last. And here’s Lady Jane come to see us and give us -her advice.” - -“Hallo, Cousin Jane,” said Sir Charles, “just got back from town, where -I’ve had a bit of a run since yesterday. Couldn’t stand it any longer -here; and I say, Stella, now you’ve got your panoply, let’s move up bag -and baggage, and have a bit of a lark.” - -“You are looking very well, Charlie,” said Lady Jane, “and so is Stella, -considering, and I am waiting to see the dear children. You’d better -come over to us, there is some shooting going on, and you are not -supposed to have many larks while Stella is in fresh crape. I have been -speaking to her about Katherine.” Here Lady Jane made a sudden and -abrupt stop by way of emphasis. - -“Oh, about Kate!” Sir Charles said, pulling his moustache. - -“Stella doesn’t seem to see, what I hope you see, that your honour’s -concerned. They say women have no sense of honour; I don’t believe that, -but there are cases. You, however, Charlie, you’re a gentleman; at least -you know what’s your duty in such a case.” - -Sir Charles pulled his moustache more than ever. “Deuced hard case,” he -said, “for Kate.” - -“Yes, there is no question about that; but for you, there is no question -about that either. It is your first duty, it is the only course of -action for a gentleman. As for Stella, if she does not see it, it only -proves that what’s bred in the bone--I’m sure I don’t want to say -anything uncivil. Indeed, Stella, it is only as your friend, your -_relation_,” cried Lady Jane, putting much emphasis on the word, “that I -allow myself to speak.” - -It cost Lady Jane something to call herself the relation of Mr. -Tredgold’s daughter, and it was intended that the statement should be -received with gratitude; but this Stella, Lady Somers, neither felt nor -affected. She was quite well aware that she had now no need of Lady -Jane. She was herself an extremely popular person wherever she went, of -that there could be no doubt--she had proved it over and over again in -the seven years of her humiliation. Popular at Government House, popular -at every station, wherever half-a-dozen people were assembled together. -And now she was rich. What need she care for anyone, or for any point of -honour, or the opinion of the county even, much less of a place like -Sliplin? Lady Jane could no longer either make her or mar her. She was -perfectly able to stand by herself. - -“It is very kind of you,” she said, “to say that, though it doesn’t come -very well after the other. Anyhow, I’m just as I’ve been bred, as you -say, though I have the honour to be Charlie’s wife. Lady Jane wants to -see Job; I wish you’d go and fetch him. I suppose Kate has not been able -to get that little sprite to come. You need not try,” said Stella -calmly, when Somers had left the room, “to turn Charlie against me, Lady -Jane. He is a fool in some things, but he knows on which side his bread -is buttered. If I have fifty thousand a year and he not half as many -farthings, you may believe he will think twice before he goes against -me. I am very proud to be your relation, of course, but it hasn’t a -money value, or anything that is of the first importance to us. Kate -won’t be the better, but the worse, for any interference. I have my own -ways of thinking, and I shall do what I think right.” - -“Oh, here is the dear baby at last!” cried Lady Jane, accomplishing her -retreat, though routed horse and foot, behind the large infant, looking -rather bigger than the slim ayah who carried her, who now came -triumphantly into the room, waving in her hand the rather alarming -weapon of a big coral, and with the true air of Stella’s child in -Stella’s house. A baby is a very good thing to cover a social defeat, -and this one was so entirely satisfactory in every particular that the -visitor had nothing to do but admire and applaud. “What a specimen for -India,” she cried; but this was before Job made his remarkable entrance -in the dimness of the twilight, which had begun by this time to veil the -afternoon light. - - - - -CHAPTER XLIV. - - -“Do away, me not do wid you, me fader’s boy,” said little Job, as -Katherine exerted her persuasions to bring him downstairs. - -“That is quite true, Job; but father has not come back yet. Come -downstairs with me, and we shall see him come back.” - -Job answered with a kick from the little boot which had just come in -somewhat muddy from a walk--a kick which, as it happened to touch a -tender point, elicited from Katherine a little cry. The child backed -against the ayah, holding her fast; then glared at Katherine with eyes -in which malice mingled with fright. “Me dlad to hurt you, me dlad to -hurt you!” he cried. It was evident that he expected a blow. - -“It is a pity to hurt anyone,” said Katherine; “but if it has made you -glad you shouldn’t be cross. Come with me downstairs.” - -“I hate you,” said the child. “You punith me moment I let ayah do.” - -“No, I shall not punish you. I shall only take you downstairs to see -your pretty mamma, and wait till father comes back. I think I hear the -dog-cart now. Hark! that is your father now.” - -The child ran to the window with a flush of eagerness. “Lift me up, lift -me up!” he cried. It did not matter to him who did this so long as he -got his will; and though he hit with his heels against Katherine’s -dress, he did not kick her again. “Fader, fader--me’s fader’s boy!” -cried little Job. The little countenance changed; it was no longer that -of a little gnome, but caught an angelic reflection. He waved his thin -small arms over his head from Katharine’s arms. “Fader, fader--Fader’s -tome back! Job’s good boy!” he cried. Then the little waving arm struck -against Katherine’s head, and he paused to look at her. The expression -of his face changed again. A quiver of fierce terror came upon it; he -was in the power of a malignant being stronger than himself. He looked -at her with a sort of impotent, disappointed fury. “Put me down, and -I’ll not kick you no more,” he said. - -“Certainly I’ll put you down. Will you come with me now and meet your -father?” Katherine said. - -He had his hand ready to seize her hair, to defend himself, but shrunk -away when she put him down without any more expressions of animosity, -and ran for the head of the staircase. At that dreadful passage, -however, the little creature paused. He was afraid for the descent; the -hall was not yet lighted up below, and it seemed a well of darkness into -which it was not wonderful that so small a being should be terrified to -go down. “Is fader there?” he said to Katherine, “will they hurt fader?” -There were vaguely visible forms in the hall, a gleam of vague daylight -from the doorway, and then it became dreadfully apparent to Job that -something must have happened to fader, who had disappeared within the -drawing-room. “Dhey have swallowed him up--Dhey have eaten him up!” he -cried. “Oh, fader, fader!” with a frantic shout, clinging to Katherine’s -knees. - -“No, no, my little boy. Your father has not been hurt. Come, we’ll go -down and find him,” Katherine said. When they were nearly at the foot of -the stairs, during which time he had clung to her with a little hot -grip, half piteous half painful, there suddenly sprung up in the dark -hall below, at the lighting of the lamp, a gleam of bright light, and -Sir Charles became visible at the foot of the stairs, coming towards -them. The child gave a shriek of joy and whirled himself from the top of -some half-dozen steps into his father’s arms. “You’re not eated up,” he -said; “fader, fader! Job fader’s boy.” - -“Has he been cross?” said Sir Charles. He held the little creature in -his arms lovingly, with a smile that irradiated his own heavy -countenance like a gleam of sunshine. - -“I hates her,” cried Job. “I kicked her. She dot nothing to do with me.” - -“Job, Job,” said the father gently, “you shouldn’t be so cross and so -hasty to a kind lady who only wanted to bring you to father. If you -behave like that she will never be kind to you again.” - -“I don’t tare. I hates ze lady,” Job said. - -His father lifted his eyes and shrugged his shoulders apologetically to -Katherine, and then laughed and carried his little son away. Decidedly, -whatever Katherine was to make a success in, it was not in the _rôle_ of -maiden aunt. - -Next day, to the distress and trouble of Katherine, early in the -afternoon there came a visitor whose appearance made Stella turn towards -her sister with an open-eyed look of malice and half ridicule. No; Lady -Somers did not intend it so. It was a look of significance, “I told you -so,” and call upon Katherine’s attention. The visitor was James -Stanford, their fellow-passenger by the _Aurungzebe_. He explained very -elaborately that Sir Charles had given him an invitation, and that, -finding himself on business of his own in the Isle of Wight, he had -taken advantage of it. He was not a man who could quickly make himself -at his ease. He seemed oppressed with a consciousness that he ought not -to be there, that he wanted some special permission, as if it had been -with some special purpose that he had come. - -“Oh, you need not apologise,” said Stella; “if you had not come then you -might have apologised. We expect everybody to come to see us. Fancy, -we’ve seen scarcely anyone for a week almost, except some old friends -who have lectured us and told us what was our duty. Do you like to be -told what is your duty, Mr. Stanford? I don’t; if I were ever so much -inclined to do it before, I should set myself against it then. That is -exactly how narrow country people do; they turn you against everything. -They tell you this and that as if you did not know it before, and make -you turn your back on the very thing you wanted to do.” - -“I don’t think,” said Stanford, “that I could be turned like that from -anything I wanted to do.” - -“Perhaps you are strong-minded,” said Stella. “I am not, oh, not a bit. -I am one of the old-fashioned silly women. I like to be left alone and -to do my own way. Perhaps it’s a silly way, but it’s mine. And so you -have had business on the island, Mr. Stanford? Have you seen that lady -again--that lady with the black eyes and the yellow hair? She will not -like it at all if she doesn’t see you. She was very attentive to you -during the voyage. Now, you can’t deny that she was attentive. She was a -great deal nicer to you than you deserved. And such a pretty woman! To -be sure that was not the natural colour of her hair. She had done -something to it; up at the roots you could see that it had once been -quite dark. Well, why not, if she likes yellow hair better? It is going -quite out of fashion, so there can be no bad object in it, don’t you -know.” - -Stella laughed largely, but her visitor did not respond. He looked more -annoyed, Katherine thought, than he had any occasion to be, and her -pride was roused, for it seemed to her that they both looked at herself -as if the woman who had paid attention to Mr. Stanford could have -anything to do with her. She changed the subject by asking him abruptly -if he felt the rigour of the English climate after his long life in -India. - -“Yes--no, a little,” he said. “They say that we bring so much heat with -us that we do not feel it for the first year, and as I shall have to go -back----” - -“Are you going back? Why should you go back?” said Stella. “I thought -you civil servants had such good times, not ordered about like soldiers. -They always said in the regiment that the civilians were so well off; -good pay and constant leave, and off to the hills whenever they liked, -and all sorts of indulgences.” - -“I am afraid the regiment romances,” said Stanford, “but I do not -complain. On the whole I like India. One is sure, or almost sure, of -being of some use, and there are many alleviations to the climate. If -that was all, I should not at all mind going out again----” - -“Ah, I understand,” said Stella. And then she added quickly, “I am so -sorry I can’t ask you to stay to dinner to-night. We have a grand -function coming off to-night. The lawyer is coming down, and we are to -hear how we stand, and how much money we are to have. I think I hear him -now, and I can’t let Charlie steal a march and tackle him before I am -there. Katherine, will you look after Mr. Stanford till I come back? I -don’t trust Charlie a step further than I see him. He might be doing -some silly thing and compromising me while I am sitting here talking, -but as soon as ever I can escape I will come back.” - -She rose as she spoke and gave Katherine a look--- a look significant, -malicious, such as any spectator might have read. Stanford had risen to -open the door, and perhaps he did not see it, but it left Katherine so -hot with angry feeling, so ashamed and indignant, that he could not fail -but perceive it when Stella had gone away. He looked at her a little -wistfully as he took his seat again. “I fear I am detaining you here -against your will,” he said. - -“Oh, no,” said Katherine, from the mist of her confusion, “it is -nothing. Stella has not yet got over the excitement of coming home. It -has been increased very much by some--incidents which she did not -expect. You have heard her story of course? They--eloped--and my father -was supposed to have cut her off and put her out of his will; but it -appears, on the contrary, that he has left everything to her. She only -heard of papa’s death, and of--this--when she got home.” - -There was a little pause, and then he said reflectively, with a curious -sort of regret, as if this brief narrative touched himself at some -point, “It seems, then, that fortune after all favours the brave.” - -“The brave?” said Katherine, surprised. “Oh, you mean because of their -running away? They have paid for it, they think, very severely in seven -years of poverty in India, but now--now Stella’s turn has come.” - -“I quite understand Lady Somers’ excitement without that. Even for -myself, this house has so many recollections. The mere thought of it -makes my heart beat when I am thousands of miles away. When I first -came, an uncouth boy--you will scarcely remember that, Miss Tredgold.” - -“Oh, I remember very well,” said Katherine, gradually recovering her -ease, and pleased with a suggestion of recollections so early that there -could be no embarrassment in them; “but not the uncouthness. We were -very glad to have you for a play-fellow, Stella and I.” - -“She was a little round ball of a girl,” he said. - -“But even then,” said Katherine, and paused. She had been about to say, -“expected to be the first,” but changed her expression, “was the -favourite of everybody,” she said. - -“Ah,” said Stanford, and then pursued his recollections. “I used to -count the days till I could come back. And then came the next stage. -Your father was kind to me when I was a boy. Afterwards, he was quite -right, he wanted to know what I was good for.” - -“He was what people call practical,” said Katherine. “Fortunately, he -did not think it necessary with us. We were accepted as useless -creatures, _objets de luxe_, which a rich man could afford to keep up, -and which did him more credit the gayer they were and the more costly. -Poor papa! It is not for us to criticise him, Mr. Stanford, in his own -house.” - -“No, indeed; but I am not criticising him. I am proving him to be right -by my own example. He thought everybody could conquer fortune as he -himself had done; but everybody cannot do that, any more than everybody -can write a great poem. You require special qualities, which he had. -Some go down altogether in the battle and are never more heard of; some -do, what perhaps he would have thought worse, like me.” - -“Why like you? Have you done badly? I have not heard so,” cried -Katherine, with a quick impulse of interest, which she showed in spite -of herself. - -“I have done,” he said, “neither well nor ill. I am of that company that -Dante was so contemptuous about, don’t you remember? I think he is too -hard upon them, _che senza infamia e senza gloria vive_. Don’t you think -there is a little excuse--a little pardon for them, Miss Tredgold? The -poor fellows aim at the best. They know it when they see it; they put -out their hands to it, but cannot grasp it. And then what should the -alternative be?” - -“It is a difficult question,” said Katherine with a smile, not knowing -what he would be at. He meant something, it was evident, beyond the mere -words. His eyes had a strained look of emotion, and there was a slight -quiver under the line of his moustache. She had not been used to -discussions of this kind. The metaphysics of life had little place in -the doctor’s busy mind, and still less in the noisy talk of the Sir -Charles Somers of existence. She did not feel herself quite equal to the -emergency. “I presume that a man who could not get the best, as you say, -would have to content himself with the best he could get. At least, that -is how it would come out in housekeeping, which is my sole science, you -know,” she said, with a faint laugh. - -“Yes,” he said, almost eagerly. “That is perhaps natural. But you don’t -know how a man despises himself for it. Having once known a better way, -to fall back upon something that is second or third best, that has been -my way. I have conquered nothing. I have made no fortune or career. I -have got along. A man would feel less ashamed of himself if he had made -some great downfall--if he had come to grief once and for all. To win or -lose, that’s the only worthy alternative. But we nobodies do neither--we -don’t win, oh, far from it! and haven’t the heart to -lose--altogether----” - -What did he mean? To do Katherine justice, she had not the smallest -idea. She kept her eyes upon him with a little curiosity, a little -interest. Her sense of embarrassment and consciousness had entirely -passed away. - -“You are surely much too severe a judge,” she said. “I never heard that -to come to grief, as you say, was a desirable end. If one cannot win, -one would at least be glad to retire decently--to make a retreat with -honour, not to fling up everything. You might live then to fight another -day, which is a thing commended in the finest poetry,” she added with a -laugh. - -He rose up and began to walk about the room. “You crush me all the more -by seeming to agree with me,” he said. “But if you knew how I feel the -contrast between what I am and what I was when last I was here! I went -away from your father burning with energy, feeling that I could face any -danger--that there was nothing I couldn’t overcome. I found myself off, -walking to London, I believe, before I knew. I felt as if I could have -walked to India, and overcome everything on the way! That was the heroic -for a moment developed. Of course, I had to come to my senses--to take -the train, to see about my berth, to get my outfit, &c. These hang -weights about a man’s neck. And then, of course, I found that fate does -not appear in one impersonation to be assaulted and overcome, as I -suppose I must have thought, and that a civil servant has got other -things to think of than fortune and fame. The soldiers have the -advantage of us in that way. They can take a bold step, as Somers did, -and carry out their ideal and achieve their victory----” - -“Don’t put such high-flown notions into my brother-in-law’s head. I -don’t think he had any ideal. He thought Stella was a very pretty girl. -They do these things upon no foundation at all, to make you shiver--a -girl and a man who know nothing of each other. But it does well enough -in most cases, which is a great wonder. They get on perfectly. Getting -on is, I suppose, the active form of that condition--_senza gloria e -senza infamia_--of which you were speaking?” Katherine had quite -recovered her spirits. The Italian, the reference to Dante, had startled -her at first, but had gradually re-awakened in her a multitude of gentle -thoughts. They had read Dante together in the old far past days of -youth. It is one of the studies, grave as the master is, which has -facilitated many a courtship, as Browning, scarcely less grave, does -also. - -The difficulties, to lay two heads together over, are so many, and the -poetry which makes the heart swell is so akin to every emotion. She -remembered suddenly a seat under one of the acacias where she had sat -with him over this study. She had always had an association with that -bench, but had not remembered till now that it flashed upon her what it -was. She could see it almost without changing her position from the -window. The acacia was ragged now, all its leaves torn from it by the -wind, the lawn in front covered with rags of foliage withered and -gone--not the scene she remembered, with the scent of the acacias in the -air, and the warm summer sunshine and the gleam of the sea. She was -touched by the recollection, stirred by it, emotions of many kinds -rising in her heart. No one had ever stirred or touched her heart but -this man--he, no doubt, more by her imagination than any reality of -feeling. But yet she remembered the quickened beat, the quickened breath -of her girlhood, and the sudden strange commotion of that meeting they -had had, once and no more, in the silence of the long years. And now, -again, and he in great excitement, strained to the utmost, his face and -his movements full of nervous emotion, turning towards her once more. - -“Miss Tredgold,” he said, but his lips were dry and parched. He stopped -again to take breath. “Katherine,” he repeated, then paused once more. -Whatever he had to say, it surely was less easy than a love tale. “I -came to England,” he said, bringing it out with a gasp, “in the first -place for a pretence, to bring home--my little child.” - -All the mist that was over the sea seemed to sweep in and surround -Katherine. She rose up instinctively, feeling herself wrapped in it, -stifled, blinded. “Your little child?” she said, with a strange muffled -cry. - - - - -CHAPTER XLV. - - -Mr. Sturgeon arrived that evening with all his accounts and papers. He -had not come, indeed, when Lady Somers left her sister to entertain -James Stanford and joined her husband in the room which he had -incontinently turned into a smoking-room, and which had already acquired -that prevailing odour of tobacco and whiskey from which Mr. Tredgold’s -house had hitherto afforded no refuge. Stella had no objection to these -odours. She told her husband that she had “scuttled” in order to leave -Kate alone with her visitor. “For that’s what he wants, of course,” she -said. “And Kate will be much better married. For one thing, with your -general invitations and nonsense she might take it into her head she was -to stay here, which would not suit my plans at all. I can’t bear a -sister always in the house.” - -“It seems hard,” said Sir Charles, “that you should take all her money -and not even give her house room. I think it’s a deuced hard case.” - -“Bosh!” said Stella; “I never took a penny of her money. Papa, I hope, -poor old man, had a right to do whatever he liked with his own. She had -it all her own way for seven long years. If she had been worth her salt -she could have made him do anything she pleased in that time. We used to -rely upon that, don’t you remember? And a pretty business it would have -been had we had nothing better to trust to. But he never meant to be -hard upon Stella, I was always sure of that. Poor old papa! It was nice -of him not to change his mind. But I can’t see that Katherine’s is any -very hard case, for it was settled like this from the first.” - -“A wrong thing isn’t made right because it’s been settled from the very -first,” said Sir Charles, oracularly. - -“Don’t be a fool, Charlie. Perhaps you’d like me to give it all away to -Kate? It is a good thing for you and your spoiled little monkey Job that -I am not such an idiot as that.” - -“We should have expected our share had she had it,” said Somers always -half inaudibly into his moustache. - -“I daresay. But how different was that! In the first place, she would -have had it in trust for me; in the second place, we’re a family and she -is a single person. And then she has money of her own; and then, at the -end of all, she’s Kate, you know, and I----” - -“You are Stella,” he cried, with a big laugh. “I believe you; and, by -Jove! I suppose that’s the only argument after all!” - -Stella took this, which seemed to be a compliment, very sedately. “Yes,” -she said, “I am Stella; you needn’t recommend Kate’s ways to me, nor -mine to Kate; we’ve always been different, and we always will be. If she -will marry this man it will save a great deal of trouble. We might make -her a nice present--I shouldn’t object to that. We might give her her -outfit: some of my things would do quite nicely; they are as good as new -and of no use to me; for certainly, whatever happens, we shall never go -to that beastly place again.” - -Sir Charles roared forth a large laugh, overpowered by the joke, though -he was not without a touch of shame. “By Jove! Stella, you are the one!” -he cried. - -And a short time after Mr. Sturgeon arrived. He had a great deal of -business to do, a great many things to explain. Stella caught with the -hereditary cleverness her father had discovered in her the involutions -of Mr. Tredgold’s investments, the way in which he had worked one thing -by means of or even against another, and in what artful ways he had held -the strings. - -“Blessed if I can make head or tail of it,” said Somers, reduced to -partial imbecility by his effort to understand. - -But Stella sat eager at the table with two red spots on her cheeks, -shuffling the papers about and entering into everything. - -“I should like to work it all myself, if I hadn’t other things to do,” -she said. - -“And excellently well you would do it,” said the lawyer with a bow. - -It was one of Stella’s usual successes. She carried everything before -her wherever she went. Mr. Sturgeon asked punctiliously for Miss -Tredgold, but he felt that Kate was but a feeble creature before her -sister, this bright being born to conquer the world. - -“And now,” he said, “Lady Somers, about other things.” - -“What things?” cried Stella. “So far as I know there are no other -things.” - -“Oh, yes, there are other things. There are some that you will no doubt -think of for the credit of your father, and some for your own. The -servants, for instance, were left without any remembrance. They are old -faithful servants. I have heard him say, if they were a large household -to keep up, that at least he was never cheated of a penny by them.” - -“That’s not much to say,” cried Stella; “anyone who took care could -ensure that.” - -“Your father thought it was, or he would not have repeated it so often. -There was not a penny for the servants, not even for Harrison, whose -care was beyond praise--and Mrs. Simmons, and the butler. It will be a -very small matter to give them a hundred pounds or two to satisfy them.” - -“A hundred pounds!” cried Stella. “Oh, I shouldn’t call that a small -matter! It is quite a sum of money. And why should they want hundreds of -pounds? They have had good wages, and pampered with a table as good as -anything we should think of giving to ourselves. Simmons is an -impertinent old woman. She’s given--I mean, I’ve given her notice. And -the butler the same. As for Harrison, to hear him you would think he was -papa’s physician and clergyman and everything all in one.” - -“He did a very great deal for him,” said the lawyer. “Then another -thing, Lady Somers, your uncle----” - -“My uncle! I never had an uncle,” cried Stella with a shriek. - -“But there is such a person. He is not a very creditable relation. Still -he ought not to be left to starve.” - -“I never heard of any uncle! Papa never spoke of anyone. He said he had -no relations, except some far-off cousins. How can I tell that this is -not some old imposition trumped up for the sake of getting money? Oh, I -am not going to allow myself to be fleeced so easily as that!” - -“It is no imposition. Bob Tredgold has been in my office for a long -number of years. I knew him as I knew your father when we were boys -together. The one took the right turning, the other the wrong--though -who can tell what is right and what is wrong with any certainty? One has -gone out of the world with great injustice, leaving a great deal of -trouble behind him; the other would be made quite happy with two pounds -a week till he dies.” - -“Two pounds a week--a hundred pounds a year!” cried Stella. “Mr. -Sturgeon, I suppose you must think we are made of money. But I must -assure you at once that I cannot possibly undertake at the very first -outset such heavy responsibility as that.” - -Sir Charles said nothing, but pulled his moustache. He had no habit of -making allowances or maintaining poor relations, and the demand seemed -overwhelming to him too. - -“These are things which concern your father’s credit, Lady Somers. I -think it would be worth your while to attend to them for his sake. The -other is for your own. You cannot allow your sister, Miss Katherine, to -go out into the world on five hundred a year while you have sixty -thousand. I am a plain man and only an attorney, and you are a beautiful -young lady, full, I have no doubt, of fine feelings. But I don’t think, -if you consider the subject, that for your own credit you can allow this -singular difference in the position of two sisters to be known.” - -Stella was silent for a moment. She was struck dumb by the man’s grave -face and his importance and the confidence of his tone. She said at -last, almost with a whimper, “It was none of my doing. I was not here; I -could not exercise any influence,” looking up at the old executor with -startled eyes. - -“Yes,” he said, “I am aware you were far away, and your sister ought to -have been the person to exercise influence. She did not, however,” he -added with a little impatience. “There are some people who are too good -for this world.” - -Too ineffectual--capable of neither good nor evil! Was it the same kind -of incapacity as the others were discussing in the other room? - -“I’ve been saying that, don’t you know, to my wife, about Miss Kate,” -said Sir Charles. - -“Oh, you’ve been saying!” cried Stella with a quick movement of -impatience. She paused again for a little, and then fixing her eyes upon -Mr. Sturgeon, said with some solemnity, “You wish me then, as soon as I -have got over the first wonder of it, and being so glad that papa had -forgiven me, to go right in his face and upset his last will?” - -The rectitude, the pathos, the high feeling that were in Stella’s voice -and attitude are things that no ordinary pen could describe. Her -father’s old executor looked at her startled. He took off his spectacles -to see her more clearly, and then he put them on again. His faculties -were not equal to this sudden strain upon them. - -“It would not be upsetting the will,” he said. - -“Would it not? But I think it would. Papa says a certain thing very -distinctly. You may say it is not just. Many people are turning upon -me--as if I had anything to do with it!--and saying it is unjust. But -papa made all his money himself, I suppose? And if he had a special way -in which he wished to spend it, why shouldn’t he be allowed to do that? -It is not any vanity in me to say he was fondest of me, Mr. -Sturgeon--everybody knew he was.” - -Mr. Sturgeon sat silent, revolving many things in his mind. He was one -of the few people who had seen old Tredgold after his daughter’s -flight; he had heard him say with the calmest countenance, and his hands -on his knees, “God damn them!” and though he was an attorney and old, -and had not much imagination, a shiver ran through Sturgeon’s mind, if -not through his body. Was it as a way of damning her that the old fellow -had let all this money come to his undutiful child? - -“So you see,” said Stella with grave triumph, as one who feels that she -has reasoned well, “I am tied up so that I cannot move. If you say, Will -I upset papa’s will? I answer, No, not for all the world! He says it -quite plain--there is no doubt as to what he meant. He kept it by him -for years and never changed it, though he was angry with me. Therefore I -cannot, whom he has trusted so much and been so kind to, upset his will. -Oh, no, no! If Katherine will accept a present, well, she shall have a -present,” cried Stella with a great air of magnanimity, “but I will do -nothing that would look like flying in the face of papa.” - -“By Jove! she is right there, don’t-ye-know,” said the heavy dragoon, -looking up at the man of law, with great pride in his clever wife. - -“I suppose she is--in a kind of way,” Mr. Sturgeon said. He was a -humiliated man--he was beaten even in argument. He did not know how to -answer this little sharp woman with her superficial logic. It was old -Tredgold’s money; if he wanted it to go in a particular way, why should -his will be gainsaid? He had wished it to go to Stella, he had -remorselessly cut out her sister; the quick-witted creature had the -adversary at a disadvantage. Old Tredgold had not been a just or noble -man. He had no character or credit to keep up. It was quite likely that -he fully intended to produce this very imbroglio, and to make both his -daughters unhappy. Not that Stella would make herself unhappy or disturb -her composure with feeling over the subject. She was standing against -the big chair covered with red velvet in which old Tredgold used to sit. -Nobody cared about that chair or had any associations with it; it had -been pushed out of the way because it was so big, and the mass of its -red cover threw up the figure of Stella before it with her black dress -and her fair crisped hair. She was triumphant, full of energy and -spirit, a princess come into her kingdom, not a new heir troubled with -the responsibilities of inheritance. It would not disturb her that -Katherine should have nothing, that poor old Bob Tredgold should starve. -She was quite strong enough to put her foot on both and never feel a -pang. - -“I am perhaps going beyond my instructions,” Mr. Sturgeon said. “Your -sister Katherine is a proud young woman, my Lady Stella--I mean my Lady -Somers; I doubt if she will receive presents even from you. Your -father’s will is a very wicked will. I remarked that to him when he made -it first. I was thankful to believe he had felt it to be so after your -ladyship ran away. Then I believed the thing would be reversed and Miss -Katherine would have had all; and I knew what her intentions were in -that case. It was only natural, knowing that you were two sisters, to -suppose that you would probably act in some degree alike.” - -“Not for people who know us, Mr. Sturgeon,” said Stella. “Kate and I -never did anything alike all our days. I may not be as good as Kate in -some things, but I am stronger than she is in being determined to stick -by what is right. I would not interfere with papa’s will for all the -world! I should think it would bring a curse on me. I have got children -of my own, and that makes me go much deeper into things than an -unmarried young woman like Kate can be supposed to do. Fancy Charlie, -our boy, turning on us and saying, You made mincemeat of grandpapa’s -will, why should I mind about yours? That is what I could not look -forward to--it would make me perfectly wretched,” Stella said. She stood -up, every inch of her height, with her head tossed back full of matronly -and motherly importance; but the force of the situation was a little -broken by a muffled roar of laughter from Sir Charles, who said-- - -“Go it, Stella! You’re going to be the death of me,” under his breath. - -“My husband laughs,” said Lady Somers with dignity, “because our boy is -a very little boy, and it strikes him as absurd; but this is precisely -the moment when the mind receives its most deep impressions. I would not -tamper with dear papa’s will if even there was no other reason, because -it would be such a fearfully bad example for my boy.” - -“I waive the question, I waive the question,” cried Mr. Sturgeon. “I -will talk it over with the other executor; but in the meantime I hope -you will reconsider what you have said on the other subject. There’s the -servants and there is poor old Bob.” - -“Oh, the servants! As they’re leaving, and a good riddance, give them -fifty pounds each and be done with them,” Stella said. - -“And Bob Tredgold?” - -“I never heard of that person; I don’t believe in him. I think you have -been taken in by some wretched impostor.” - -“Not likely,” said Mr. Sturgeon. “I have known him, poor fellow, from a -boy, and a more promising boy I can tell you than any other of his name. -He is a poor enough wretch now. You can have him here, if you like, and -judge of him for yourself.” - -“Stella,” said Sir Charles, pulling his wife’s dress. - -“Oh, Charlie, let me alone with your silly suggestions. I am sure Mr. -Sturgeon has been taken in. I am sure that papa----” - -“Look here,” said the husband, “don’t be a little fool. I’m not going to -stand a drunken old beast coming here saying he’s my wife’s relation. -Settle what he wants and be done. It’s not my affair? Oh, yes, some -things are my affair. Settle it here, I say. Mr. Sturgeon, she’s ready -to settle whatever you say.” - -Sir Charles had his wife’s wrist in his hand. She was far cleverer than -he was and much more steady and pertinacious, but when she got into that -grip Stella knew there was no more to be said. Thus she bought off the -powers of Nemesis, had there been any chance of their being put in -motion against her; and there was no further question of setting the -worst of examples to Job by upsetting his grandfather’s will. Stella -religiously watched over Mr. Tredgold’s fortune and kept every penny of -it to herself from that day. - -“And do you think of building that cottage, Miss Katherine, as your -father suggested?” Mr. Sturgeon asked as he rose from the dinner at -which he had been entertained, Lady Somers making herself very agreeable -to him and throwing a great deal of dust into his eyes. He was going -back to town by the last train, and he had just risen to go away. -Katherine had been as silent as Stella was gay. She had not shown well, -the old lawyer was obliged to admit, in comparison with her sister, the -effect no doubt of having lived all her life at Sliplin and never having -seen the great world, besides that of being altogether duller, dimmer -than Stella. She was a little startled when he spoke to her, and for a -moment did not seem to understand what was being said. - -“Oh, the cottage! I don’t think I can afford it. No, Mr. Sturgeon,” she -said at length. - -“Then I have a good opportunity of selling the bit of land for you,” he -said. “There is a new railway station wanted, and this is the very spot -that will be most suitable. I can make an excellent bargain if you put -it in my hands.” - -“There!” cried Stella, holding up a lively finger, “I told you! It is -always Kate that has the luck among us all!” - - - - -CHAPTER XLVI. - - -Katherine scarcely heard what Stanford said to her after that astounding -speech about his little child. She rose to her feet as if it had touched -some sudden spring in her; though she could no more have told why than -she could have told what it was that made her head giddy and her heart -beat. She had a momentary sense that she had been insulted; but that too -was so utterly unreasonable that she could not explain her conduct to -herself by it, any more than by any other rule. She did not know how she -managed to get out of the room, on what pretext, by what excuse to the -astonished visitor, whose look alone she saw in her mind afterwards, -startled and disturbed, with the eyelids puckered over his eyes. He had -been conscious, too, that she had received a shock; but he had not been -aware, any more than she was, what he had done to produce this -impression upon her. - -She ran upstairs to her own room, and concealed herself there in the -gathering twilight, in the darkest corner, as if somebody might come to -look for her. There had been a great many thoughts in that room through -these long years--thoughts that, perhaps, were sometimes impatient, -occasionally pathetic, conscious of the passing of her youth from her, -and that there had been little in it that was like the youth of other -women. To be sure, she might have married had she been so minded, which -is believed to be the chief thing in a young woman’s life; but that had -not counted for very much in Katherine’s. There had been one bit of -visionary romance, only one, and such a little one! but it had sufficed -to make a sort of shining, as of a dream, over her horizon. It had never -come nearer than the horizon; it had been a glimmer of colour, of -light, of poetry, and the unknown. It had never been anything, she said -to herself, with emphasis, putting her foot down firmly on the ground, -with a faint sound of purpose and meaning--never--anything! She was the -most desperate fool in the world to feel herself insulted, to feel as if -he had struck her in the face when he spoke of his little child. Why -should he not have a little child like any other man, and a kind wife -waiting for him, amid all the brightness of a home? Why not? Why not? -There was no reason in the world. The effect it produced upon her was -absurd in the last degree. It was an effect of surprise, of sudden -disillusion. She was not prepared for that disclosure. This was the only -way in which she could account for the ridiculous impression made upon -her mind by these few words. - -She had so much to do accounting to herself for this, that it was not -for a long time that she came to imagine what he would think of her -sudden start and flight. What could he think of it? Could he think she -was disappointed, that she had been building hopes upon his return? But -that was one of the thoughts that tend to madness, and have to be -crushed upon the threshold of the mind. She tried not to think of him at -all, to get rid of the impression which he had made on her. Certainly he -had not meant to insult her, certainly it was no blow in the face. There -had been some foolish sort of talk before--she could not recall it to -mind now--something that had nothing in the world to do with his -position, or hers, or that of anyone in the world, which probably was -only to pass the time; and then he had begun to speak to her about his -child. How natural to speak about his child! probably with the intention -of securing her as a friend for his child--she who had been a playmate -of his own childhood. If she had not been so ridiculous she would have -heard of the poor little thing brought from India (like little Job, but -that was scarcely an endearing comparison) to be left alone among -strangers. Poor little thing! probably he wanted her to be kind to it, -to be a friend to it--how natural that idea was!--his own playfellow, -the girl whom he had read Dante with in those days. But why, why did he -recall those days? It was that that made her feel--when he began -immediately after to speak of his child--as if he had given her a blow -in the face. - -Katherine went down to dinner as if she were a visitor in the house. She -passed the nursery door, standing wide open, with the baby making a -great whiteness in the middle of the room, and Job watching like an -ill-tempered little dog, ready to rush out with a snarl and bite at any -passer-by whom he disliked; and her sister’s door, where Stella’s voice -was audibly high and gay, sometimes addressing her maid, sometimes in a -heightened tone her husband, in his dressing-room at the other side. -They were the proprietors of the place, not Katherine. She knew that -very well, and wondered at herself that she should still be here, and -had made no other provision for her loneliness. She was a guest--a guest -on sufferance--one who had not even been invited. William, the -soldier-servant, was in possession of the hall. He opened the door for -her with a respectful tolerance. She was missus’s sister to William. In -the drawing-room was Mr. Sturgeon, who rose as she entered from the side -of the fire. He was going back by the train immediately after dinner, -and was in his old-fashioned professional dress, a long black coat and -large black tie. One looked for a visionary bag of papers at his feet or -in his hands. His influence had a soothing effect upon Katherine; it -brought her back to the practical. He told her what he had been able to -do--to get gratuities for the servants, and a pension, such as it was, -for poor old Bob Tredgold. “It will keep him in comfort if he can be -kept off the drink,” he said. All this brought her out of herself, yet -at the same time increased the sense in her of two selves, one very much -interested in all these inconsiderable arrangements, the other standing -by looking on. “But about your affairs, Miss Katherine, not a thing -could I do,” Mr. Sturgeon was beginning, when happily Sir Charles came -downstairs. - -“So much the better; my affairs have nothing to do with my sister,” -Katharine said hastily. And, indeed, it was plain neither they nor any -other intrusive affairs had much to do with Stella when she came in -radiant, the blackness of her dress making the whiteness of her arms and -throat almost too dazzling. She came in with her head held high, with a -swing and movement of her figure which embodied the supremacy she felt. -She understood now her own importance, her own greatness. It was her -natural position, of which she had been defrauded for some time without -ever giving up her pretensions to it; but now there was no further -possibility of any mistake. - -As I have already related the concluding incident of this party it is -unnecessary now to go through its details. But when Mr. Sturgeon had -gone to his train and Sir Charles to the smoking-room (though not -without an invitation to the ladies to accompany him) Stella suddenly -took her sister by the waist, and drew her close. “Well?” she said, in -her cheerful high tones, “have you anything to tell me, Kate?” - -“To tell you, Stella? I don’t know what I can tell you--you know the -house as well as I do--and as you are going to have new servants----” - -“Oh! if you think it is anything about the house, I doubt very much -whether I shall keep up the house, it’s _rococo_ to such a degree--and -all about it--the very gardens are _rococo_.” - -“It suits you very well, however,” Katherine said. “All this gilding -seems appropriate, like a frame to a picture.” - -“Do you think so?” said Stella, looking at herself in the great mirror -over the mantelpiece with a certain fondness. It was nice to be able to -see yourself like that wherever you turned, from head to foot. “But that -is not in the least what I was thinking of,” she said; “tell me about -yourself. Haven’t you something very particular to tell me--something -about your own self?” - -Katherine was surprised, yet but dimly surprised, not enough to cause -her any emotion. Her heart had become as still as a stone. - -“No,” she said; “I have nothing particular to tell you. I will leave -The Cliff when you like--is that what you mean? I have not as yet made -any plans, but as soon as you wish it----” - -“Oh, as for that,” said Stella, “we shall be going ourselves. Charlie -wants me to go to his horrid old place to see what can be done to it, -and we shall stay in town for a little. Town is town, don’t you know, -after you’ve been in India, even at the dullest time of the year. But -these old wretches of servants will have to stay out their month I -suppose, and if you like to stay while they’re here--of course, they -think a great deal more of you than of me. It will be in order as long -as they are here. After, I cannot answer for things. We may shut up the -house, or we may let it. It should bring in a fine rent, with the view -and all that. But I have not settled yet what I am going to do.” - -“My plans then,” said Katherine, faintly smiling, “will be settled -before yours, though I have not taken any step as yet.” - -“That’s just what I want to know,” cried Stella, “that is what I was -asking! Surely there’s nothing come between you and me, Kate, that would -keep you from telling me? As for papa’s will, that was his doing, not -mine. I cannot go against it, whatever anybody says--I can’t, indeed! -It’s a matter of conscience with me to do whatever he wished, now he is -dead. I didn’t when he was living, and that is just the reason why----” -Stella shut her mouth tight, that no breath of inconsistency might ever -come from it. Then once more putting her hand on Katherine’s waist, and -inclining towards her: “Tell me what has happened; do tell me, Kate!” - -“But nothing has happened, Stella.” - -“Nothing! That’s impossible. I left you alone with him on purpose. I saw -it was on his very lips, bursting to get it out; and he gave me such a -look--Oh, why can’t you fade away?--which isn’t a look I’m accustomed -to. And I don’t believe nothing has happened. Why, he came here for that -very purpose! Do you think he wanted to see me or Charlie? He was always -a person of very bad taste,” Stella said with a laugh. “He was always -your own, Kate. Come! don’t bear any malice about the will or that--but -tell.” - -“There is nothing whatever to tell. Mr. Stanford told me about his child -whom he has brought home.” - -“Yes, that was to rouse your pity. He thought as you are one of the -self-sacrificing people the idea of a baby to take care of--though it is -not a baby now--it’s about as old as Job----. The mother died when it -was born, you know, a poor little weakly thing. Did I never tell you -when I wrote? It must have gone out of my head, for I knew all about it, -the wedding and everything. How odd I didn’t tell you. I suppose you had -thought that he had been wearing the willow for you, my dear, all this -time!” - -“It is not of the slightest consequence what I thought--or if I thought -at all on the subject,” said Katherine, with, as she felt, a little of -the stiffness of dignity injured, which is always ludicrous to a -looker-on. - -“I’ll be sworn you did,” cried Stella, with a pealing laugh. “Oh, no, my -dear, there’s no such example now. And, Kate, you are old enough to know -better--you should not be such a goose at your age. The man has done -very well, he’s got an excellent appointment, and they say he’ll be a -member of Council before he dies. Think what a thing for you with your -small income! The pension alone is worth the trouble. A member of -Council’s widow has--why she has thousands a year! If it were only for -that, you will be a very silly girl, Kate, if you send James Stanford -away.” - -“Is it not time you joined your husband in the smoking-room, Stella? You -must have a great deal to talk about. And I am going to bed.” - -“I don’t believe a word of it,” Stella cried, “you want to get rid of me -and my common-sense view. That is always how it happens. People think I -am pretty and so forth, but they give me no credit for common-sense. Now -that’s just my quality. Look here, Kate. What will you be as an -unmarried woman with your income? Why, nobody! You will not be so well -off as the old cats. If you and your maid can live on it that’s all; -you will be of no consequence. I hear there’s a doctor who was after you -very furiously for a time, and would have you still if you would hold up -your little finger. But James Stanford would be far better. The position -is better in every way--and think of the widow’s pension! why it is one -of the prizes which anyone might be pleased to go in for. Kate, if you -marry you may do very well yet. Mind my words--but if you’re obstinate -and go in for fads, and turn your back on the world, and imagine that -you are going to continue a person of importance on five hundred a -year----” - -“I assure you, Stella, I have no such thought.” - -“What then--to be nobody? Do you think you will like to be nobody, Kate, -after all the respect that’s been paid to you, and at the head of a -large house, and carriages at your command, and all that--to drop down -to be Miss Tredgold, the old maid in lodgings with one woman servant? -Oh, I know you well enough for that. You will not like it, you will hate -it. Marry one of them, for Heaven’s sake! If you have a preference I am -sure I don’t object to that. But marry one of them, James Stanford for -choice! or else, mark my words, Kate Tredgold, you will regret it all -your life.” - -Katherine got free at last, with a laugh on her lips at the solemnity of -her sister’s address. If Stella had only known how little her -common-sense meant, or the extreme seriousness of these views with which -she endeavoured to move a mind so different from her own! Lady Somers -went off full of the importance of the question, to discuss it over -again with her husband, whose sense of humour was greatly tickled by the -suggestion that the pension which James Stanford’s widow might have if -he were made member of Council was an important matter to be taken into -consideration, while Katherine went back again to her room, passing once -more the nursery door where Job lay nervously half awake, calling out a -dreary “Zat oo, fader?” as her step sounded upon the corridor. But she -had no time to think of little Job in the midst of this darkness of her -own life. “What does it matter to me, what does it matter to me?” she -kept saying to herself as she went along--and yet it mattered so much, -it made so great a change! If she had never seen James Stanford again it -would not have mattered, indeed; but thus suddenly to find out that -while she had been making of him the one little rainbow in her sky--had -enshrined him as something far more than any actual lover, the very -image of love itself and fidelity, he had been the lover, the husband of -another woman, had gone through all the circle of emotion, had a child -to remind him for ever of what had been. Katherine, on her side, had -nothing save the bitter sense of an illusion fled. It was not anybody’s -fault. The man had done nothing he had not a perfect right to do--the -secret had not been kept from her by any malice or evil means--all was -quite natural, simple, even touching and sad. She ought to be sorry for -him, poor fellow! She was in a manner sorry for him--if only he had not -come to insult her with words that could have no meaning, words -repeated, which had answered before with another woman. The wrench of -her whole nature turning away from the secret thing that had been so -dear to her was more dreadful than any convulsion. She had cherished it -in her very heart of hearts, turned to it when she was weary, consoled -herself with it in the long, long endless flatness of those years that -were past. And it had all been a lie; there was nothing of the kind, -nothing to fall back upon, nothing to dream of. The man had not loved -her, he had loved his wife, as was most just and right. And she had been -a woman voluntarily deceived, a dreamer, a creature of vanity, -attributing to herself a power which she had never possessed. There is -no estimating the keenness of mortified pride with which a woman makes -such a discovery. Her thoughts have been dwelling on him with a -visionary longing which is not painful, which is sometimes happiness -enough to support the structure of a life for years; but his had not -been satisfied with this: the chain that held her had been nothing to -him; he had turned to other consolations and exhausted them, and then -came back. The woman’s instinct flung him from her, as she would have -flung some evil thing. She wrenched herself away twisting her very -heart out of its socket; that which had been, being shattered for ever -by this blow, could be no more. - -There was, as Stella said, no common-sense at all in the argument, or -proper appreciation of a position which, taking into consideration -everything, inclusive of the widow’s pension, was well worth any woman’s -while. - - - - -CHAPTER XLVII. - - -It is very difficult to change every circumstance of your life when a -sudden resolution comes upon you all in a moment. To restless people -indeed it is a comfort to be up and doing at once--but when there is no -one to do anything for but yourself, and you have never done anything -for yourself alone in all your life, then it is very hard to know how to -begin. To resolve that this day, this very hour you will arise and go; -that you will find out a new shelter, a new foundation on which, if not -to build a house, yet to pitch a tent; to transfer yourself and -everything that may belong to you out of the place where you have been -all your life, where every one of your little possessions has its place -and niche, into another cold unknown place to which neither you nor they -belong--how could anything be harder than that? It was so hard that -Katherine did not do it for day after day. She put it off every morning -till to-morrow. You may think that, with her pride, to be an undesired -visitor in her sister’s house would have been insupportable to her. But -she did not feel as if she had any pride. She felt that she could -support anything better than the first step out into the cold, the -decision where she was to go. - -The consequence of this was that the Somerses, always tranquilly -pursuing their own way, and put out in their reckoning by no one, were -the first to make that change. Sir Charles made an expedition to his own -old house of which all the Somerses were so proud, and found that it -could not only be made (by the spending of sixty thousand a year in it) -a very grand old house, but that even now it was in very tolerable order -and could receive his family whenever the family chose to inhabit it. -When he had made this discovery he was, it was only natural, very -anxious to go, to _faire valoir_ as far as was possible what was very -nearly his unique contribution to the family funds. There was some -little delay in order that fires might be lighted and servants obtained, -but it was still October when the party which had arrived from the -_Aurungzebe_ at the beginning of the month, departed again in something -of the same order, the ayah more cold, and Pearson more worried; for -though the latter had Lady Somers’ old _rivière_ in her own possession, -another _rivière_ of much greater importance was now in her care, and -her responsibilities instead of lessening were increased. It could -scarcely be said even that Stella was more triumphant than when she -arrived, the centre of all farewells and good wishes, at Tilbury Docks; -for she had believed then in good fortune and success as she did now, -and she had never felt herself disappointed. Sir Charles himself was the -member of the party who had changed most. There was no embarrassment -about him now, or doubt of that luck in which Stella was so confident. -He had doubted his luck from time to time in his life, but he did so no -longer. He carried down little Job on his shoulder from the nursery -regions. “I say, old chap,” he said, “you’ll have to give up your -nonsense now and be a gentleman. Take off your hat to your Aunt Kate, -like a man. If you kick I’ll twist one of those little legs off. Hear, -lad! You’re going home to Somers and you’ll have to be a man.” - -Job had no answer to make to this astounding address; he tried to kick, -but found his feet held fast in a pair of strong hands. “Me fader’s -little boy,” he said, trying the statement which had always hitherto -been so effectual. - -“So you are, old chap; but you’re the young master at Somers too,” said -the father, who had now a different meaning. Job drummed upon that very -broad breast as well as he could with his little imprisoned heels, but -he was not monarch of all he surveyed as before. “Good-bye, Kate,” Sir -Charles said. “Stay as long as ever you like, and come to Somers as soon -as you will. I’m master there, and I wish you were going to live with -us for good and all--but you and your sister know your own ways best.” - -“Good-bye, Charles. I shall always feel that you have been very kind.” - -“Oh, kind!” he cried, “but I’m only Stella’s husband don’t you know, and -I have to learn my place.” - -“Good-bye, Kate,” cried Stella, coming out with all her little jingle of -bracelets, buttoning her black gloves. “I am sure you will be glad to -get us out of the way for a bit to get your packing done, and clear out -all your cupboards and things. You’ll let me know when you decide where -you’re going, and keep that old wretch Simmons in order, and don’t give -her too flaming a character. You’ll be sending them all off with -characters as long as my arm, as if they were a set of angels. Mind you -have proper dinners, and don’t sink into tea as ladies do when they’re -alone. Good-bye, dear.” Stella kissed her sister with every appearance -of affection. She held her by the shoulders for a moment and looked into -her eyes. “Now, Kate, no nonsense! Take the good the Gods provide -you--don’t be a silly, neglecting your own interest. At your age you -really ought to take a common-sense view.” - -Kate stood at what had been so long her own door and watched them all -going away--Pearson and the soldier in the very brougham in which Stella -had driven to the yacht on the night of her elopement. That and the old -landau had got shabby chiefly for want of use in these long years. The -baby, now so rosy, crowed in the arms of the dark nurse, and Sir Charles -held his hat in his hand till he was almost out of sight. He was the -only one who had felt for her a little, who had given her an honest if -ineffectual sympathy. She felt almost grateful to him as he disappeared. -And now to think this strange chapter in her existence was over and -could never come again! Few, very few people in the world could have -gone through such an experience--to have everything taken from you, and -yet to have as yet given up nothing. She seemed to herself a shadow as -she stood at that familiar door. She had lived more or less naturally as -her sister’s dependent for the last week or two; the position had not -galled her; in her desolation she might have gone on and on, to avoid -the trouble of coming to a decision. But Stella was not one of the -aimless people who are afraid of making decisions, and no doubt Stella -was right. When a thing has to be done, it is better that it should be -done, not kept on continually hanging over one. Stella had energy enough -to make up half a dozen people’s minds for them. “Get us out of the way -for a bit to get your packing done”--these were the words of the lease -on which Katherine held this house, very succinctly set down. - -This was a curious interval which was just over, in many ways. -Katherine’s relation to Stella had changed strangely; it was the younger -sister now who was the prudent chaperon, looking after the other’s -interests--and other relationships had changed too. The sight of James -Stanford coming and going, who was constantly asked to dinner and as -constantly thrown in her way, but whom Katherine, put on her mettle, had -become as clever to avoid as Stella was to throw them together, was the -most anxious experience. It had done her good to see him so often -without seeing him, so to speak. It made her aware of various things -which she had not remarked in him before. Altogether this little episode -in life had enlarged her horizon. She had found out many things--or, -rather, she had found out the insignificance of many things that had -bulked large in her vision before. She went up and down the house and it -felt empty, as it never had felt in the old time when there was nobody -in it. It seemed to her that it had never been empty till now, when the -children, though they were not winning children, and Stella, though she -was so far from being a perfect person, had gone. There was no sound or -meaning left in it; it was an echoing and empty place. It was _rococo_, -as Stella said; a place made to display wealth, with no real beauty in -it. It had never been a home, as other people know homes. And now all -the faint recollections which had hung about it of her own girlhood and -of Stella’s were somehow obliterated. Old Mr. Tredgold and his -daughters were swept away. It was a house belonging to the Somerses, who -had just come back from India; it looked dreadfully forlorn and empty -now they had gone away, and bare also--a place that would be sold or let -in all probability to the first comer. Katherine shivered at the -disorder of all the rooms upstairs, with their doors widely opened and -all the signs of departure about. The household would always be -careless, perhaps, under Stella’s sway. There was the look of a -desecrated place, of a house in which nothing more could be private, -nothing sacred, in the air of its emptiness, with all those doors flung -open to the wall. - -She was called downstairs again, however, and had no time to indulge -these fancies--and glancing out at a window saw the familiar Midge -standing before the door; the voices of the ladies talking both together -were audible before she had reached the stairs. - -“Gone away? Yes, Harrison, we met them all--quite a procession--as we -came driving up; and did you see that dear baby, Ruth Mildmay, kissing -its little fat hand?” - -“I never thought they would make much of a stay,” said Miss Mildmay; -“didn’t suit, you may be sure; and mark my words, Jane Shanks----” - -“How’s Miss Katherine? Miss Katherine, poor dear, must feel quite dull -left alone by herself,” said Mrs. Shanks, not waiting to waste any -words. - -“I should have felt duller the other way,” said the other voice, audibly -moving into the drawing-room. Then Katherine was received by one after -another once more in a long embrace. - -“You dear!” Mrs. Shanks said--and Miss Mildmay held her by the shoulders -as if to impart a firmness which she felt to be wanting. - -“Now, Katherine, here you are on your own footing at last.” - -“Am I? It doesn’t feel like a very solid footing,” said Katherine with a -faint laugh. - -“I never thought,” said Mrs. Shanks, “that Stella would stay.” - -“It is I that have been telling you all the time, Jane Shanks, that she -would not stay. Why should she stay among all the people who know -exactly how she’s got it and everything about it? And the shameful -behaviour----” - -“Now,” said Katherine, “there must not be a word against Stella. Don’t -you know Stella is Stella, whatever happens? And there is no shameful -behaviour. If she had tried to force half her fortune upon me, do you -think I should have taken it? You know better than that, whatever you -say.” - -“Look here--this is what I call shameful behaviour,” cried Miss Mildmay, -with a wave of her hand. - -The gilded drawing-room with all its finery was turned upside down, the -curiosities carried off--some of them to be sold, some of them, that met -with Stella’s approval, to Somers. The screen with which Katherine had -once made a corner for herself in the big room lay on the floor half -covered with sheets of paper, being packed; a number of the pictures had -been taken from the walls. The room, which required to be very well kept -and cared for to have its due effect, was squalid and miserable, like a -beggar attired in robes of faded finery. Katherine had not observed the -havoc that had been wrought. She looked round, unconsciously following -the movement of Miss Mildmay’s hand, and this sudden shock did what -nothing had done yet. It was sudden and unlooked for, and struck like a -blow. She fell into a sudden outburst of tears. - -“This is what I call shameful behaviour,” Miss Mildmay said again, “and -Katherine, my poor child, I cannot bear, for one, that you should be -called on to live in the middle of this for a single day.” - -“Oh, what does it matter?” cried Katherine, with a laugh that was half -hysterical, through her tears. “Why should it be kept up when, perhaps, -they are not coming back to it? And why shouldn’t they get the advantage -of things which are pretty things and are their own? I might have -thought that screen was mine--for I had grown fond of it--and carried it -away with my things, which clearly I should have had no right to do, had -not Stella seen to it. Stella, you know, is a very clever girl--she -always was, but more than ever,” she said, the laugh getting the -mastery. It certainly was very quick, very smart of Lady Somers to take -the first step, which Katherine certainly never would have had decision -enough to do. - -“You ought to be up with her in another way,” said Miss Mildmay. -“Katherine, there’s a very important affair, we all know, waiting for -you to decide.” - -“And oh, my dear, how can you hesitate?” said Mrs. Shanks, taking her -hand. - -“It is quite easy to know why she hesitates. When a girl marries at -twenty, as you did, Jane Shanks, it’s plain sailing--two young fools -together and not a thought between them. But I know Katherine’s mind. -I’ve known James Stanford, man and boy, the last twenty years. He’s not -a Solomon, but as men go he’s a good sort of man.” - -“Oh, Ruth Mildmay, that’s poor praise! You should see him with that poor -little boy of his. It’s beautiful!” cried Mrs. Shanks with tears in her -eyes. - -“You’ve spoilt it all, you----” Miss Mildmay said in a fierce whisper in -her friend’s ear. - -“Why should I have spoilt it all? Katherine has excellent sense, we all -know; the poor man married--men always do: how can they help it, poor -creatures?--but as little harm was done as could be done, for she died -so very soon, poor young thing.” - -Katherine by this time was perfectly serene and smiling--too smiling and -too serene. - -“Katherine,” said Miss Mildmay, “if you hear the one side you should -hear the other. This poor fellow, James Stanford, came to Jane Shanks -and me before he went back to India the last time. He had met you on the -train or somewhere. He said he must see you whatever happened. I told -Jane Shanks at the time she was meddling with other people’s happiness.” - -“You were as bad as me, Ruth Mildmay,” murmured the other abashed. - -“Well, perhaps I was as bad. It was the time when--when Dr. Burnet was -so much about, and we hoped that perhaps---- And when he asked and -pressed and insisted to see you, that were bound hand and foot with your -poor father’s illness----” - -“We told him--we told the poor fellow--the poor victim. Oh, Ruth -Mildmay, I don’t think that I ever approved.” - -“Victim is nonsense,” said Miss Mildmay sharply; “the man’s just a man, -no better and no worse. We told him, it’s true, Katherine, that the -doctor was there night and day, that he spared no pains about your poor -father to please you--and it would be a dreadful thing to break it all -up and to take you from poor Mr. Tredgold’s bedside.” - -“No one need have given themselves any trouble about that,” said -Katherine, very pale; “I should never have left papa.” - -“Well, that was what _I_ said,” cried Mrs. Shanks. - -“So you see it was us who sent him away. Punish us, Katherine, don’t -punish the man. You should have seen how he went away! Afterwards, -having no hope, I suppose, and seeing someone that he thought he could -like, and wanting a home--and a family--and all that----” - -“Oh,” cried Mrs. Shanks with fervour, “there are always a hundred -apologies for a man.” Katherine had been gradually recovering herself -while this interchange went on. - -“Now let us say no more about Mr. Stanford,” she cried with a sudden -movement. “Come into the morning room, it is not in such disorder as -this, and there we can sit down and talk, and you can give me your -advice. I must decide at once between these two lodgings, now--oh,” she -cried, “but it is still worse here!” The morning room, the young ladies’ -room of old, had many dainty articles of furniture in it, especially an -old piano beautifully painted with an art which is now reviving. Sir -Charles had told his wife that it would suit exactly with the old -furniture of his mother’s boudoir at Somers, and with Stella to think -was to do. The workmen had at that moment brought the box in which the -piano was to travel, and filled the room, coaxing the dainty instrument -into the rough construction of boards that was to be its house. -Katherine turned her visitors away with a wild outbreak of laughter. She -laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks--all the men, and one or two -of the servants, and the two ladies standing about with the gravest -faces. “Oh, Stella is wonderful!” she said. - -They had their consultation afterwards in that grim chamber which had -been Mr. Tredgold’s, and which Somers had turned into a smoking-room. It -was the only place undisturbed where his daughter, thrown off by him -upon the world, could consult with her friends about the small maidenly -abode which was all she could afford henceforward. The visitors were -full of advice, they had a hundred things to say; but I am not sure that -Katherine’s mind had much leisure to pay attention to them. She thought -she saw her father there, sitting in his big chair by the table in which -his will was found--the will he had kept by him for years, but never had -changed. There she had so often seen him with his hands folded, his -countenance serene, saying “God damn them!” quite simply to himself. And -she, whom he had never cared for? Had he ever cursed her too, where he -sat, without animosity, and without compunction? She was very glad when -the ladies had said everything they could think of, although she had -derived but little benefit by it; and following them out of the room -turned the key sharply in the door. There was nothing there at least -which anyone could wish to take away. - - - - -CHAPTER XLVIII. - - -Katherine was restless that afternoon; there was not much to delight her -indoors, or any place where she could find refuge and sit down and rest, -or read, or write, or occupy herself in any natural way, unless it had -been in her own bedroom, and there Hannah was packing--a process which -promoted comfort as little as any of the others. This condition of the -house wounded her to the bottom of her heart. A few days, she said to -herself, could have made no difference. Stella need not have set the -workmen to work until the house at least was empty. It was a poor thing -to invite her sister to remain and then to make her home uninhabitable. -With anxious justice, indeed, she reminded herself that the house was -not uninhabitable--that she might still live in the drawing-room if she -pleased, after the screen and the pictures and the curiosities were -taken away; or in the morning-room, though the piano was packed in a -rough box; but yet, when all was said, it was not generous of Stella. -She had nowhere to sit down--nowhere to rest the sole of her foot. She -went out at last to the walk round the cliff. She had always been fond -of that, the only one in the family who cared for it. It was like a -thread upon which she had strung so many recollections--that time, long -ago, when papa had sent James Stanford away, and the many times when -Katherine, still so young, had felt herself “out of it” beside the -paramount presence of Stella, and had retired from the crowd of Stella’s -adorers to gaze out upon the view and comfort herself in the thought -that she had some one of her own who wanted not Stella, but Katherine. -And then there had been the day of Stella’s escapade, and then of -Stella’s elopement all woven round and round about the famous “view.” -Everything in her life was associated with it. That blue sky, that -shining headland with the watery sun picking it out like a cliff of -gold, the great vault of the sky circling over all, the dim horizon far -away lost in distance, in clouds and immeasurable circles of the sea. -Just now a little white sail was out as it might have been that fated -little _Stella_, the yacht which Mr. Tredgold sold after her last -escapade, and made a little money by, to his own extreme enjoyment. -Katherine walked up and down, with her eyes travelling over the familiar -prospect on which they had dwelt for the greater part of her life. She -was very lonely and forlorn; her heart was heavy and her vitality low, -she scarcely knew where she was going or what she might be doing -to-morrow. The future was to-morrow to her as it is to a child. She had -to make up her mind to come to some decision, and to-morrow she must -carry it out. - -It did not surprise her at all, on turning back after she had been there -for some time, at the end of her promenade to see a figure almost by her -side, which turned out to be that of Mr. Stanford. She was not surprised -to see him. She had seen him so often, they were quite accustomed to -meet. She spoke to him quite in a friendly tone, without any start or -alarm: “You have come--to see the last of them, Mr. Stanford?” It was -not a particularly appropriate speech, for there was no one here to see -the last of, unless it had been Katherine herself; but nevertheless -these were the words that came to her lips. - -“They seem to have gone very soon,” he said, which was not a brilliant -remark any more than her own. - -“Immediately after lunch,” said Katherine, severely practical, “that -they might get home in good time. You must always make certain -allowances when you travel with young children. But,” she added, with a -sudden rise of colour, “I should not attempt to enlighten you on that -subject.” - -“I certainly know what it is,” he said, with a grave face, “to consider -the interests of a little child.” - -“I know, I know,” cried Katherine with a sudden compunction, “I should -not have said that.” - -“I wish,” he said, “that you would allow me to speak to you on this -subject. No, it is not on this subject. I tried to say what was in my -heart before, but either you would not listen, or--I have a good deal to -say to you that cannot be said. I don’t know how. If I could but convey -it to you without saying it. It is only just to me that you should know. -It may be just--to another--that it should not be said.” - -“Let nothing be said,” she cried anxiously; “oh, nothing--nothing! Yet -only one thing I should like you to tell me. That time we met on the -railway--do you remember?” - -“Do I remember!” - -“Well; I wish to know this only for my own satisfaction. Were you -married _then_?” - -She stood still as she put the question in the middle of the walk; but -she did not look at him, she looked out to sea. - -He answered her only after a pause of some duration, and in a voice -which was full of pain. “Are you anxious,” he said, “Katherine, to make -me out not only false to you, but false to love and to every sentiment -in the world?” - -“I beg you will not think,” she cried, “that I blame you for anything. -Oh, no, no! You have never been false to me. There was never anything -between us. You were as free and independent as any man could be.” - -“Let me tell you then as far as I can what happened. I came back by the -train that same afternoon when you said you were coming, and you were -not there. I hung about hoping to meet you. Then I saw our two old -friends in the Terrace--and they told me that there were other -plans--that the doctor was very kind to your father for your sake, and -that you were likely----” - -Katherine waved her hand with great vivacity; she stamped her foot -slightly on the ground. What had this to do with it? It was not her -conduct that was in dispute, but his. Her meaning was so clear in her -face without words that he stopped as she desired. - -“I went back to India very much cast down. I was without hope. I was at -a lonely station and very dreary. I tried to say the other day how -strongly I believed in my heart that it was better to hold for the best, -even if you could never attain it, than to try to get a kind of -makeshift happiness with a second best.” - -“Mr. Stanford,” cried Katherine, with her head thrown back and her eyes -glowing, “from anything I can discern you are about to speak of a lady -of whom I know nothing; who is dead--which sums up everything; and whom -no one should dare to name, you above all, but with the most devout -respect.” - -He looked at her surprised, and then bowed his head. “You are right, -Miss Katherine,” he said; “my poor little wife, it would ill become me -to speak of her with any other feeling. I told you that I had much to -tell you which could not be said----” - -“Let it remain so then,” she cried with a tremble of excitement; “why -should it be discussed between you and me? It is no concern of mine.” - -“It’s a great, a very great concern of mine. Katherine, I must speak; -this is the first time in which I have ever been able to speak to you, -to tell you what has been in my heart--oh, not to-day nor yesterday--for -ten long years.” She interrupted him again with the impatient gesture, -the same slight stamp on the ground. “Am I to have no hearing,” he -cried, “not even to be allowed to tell you, the first and only time that -I have had the chance?” - -Katherine cleared her throat a great many times before she spoke. “I -will tell you how it looks from my point of view,” she said. “I used to -come out here many a time after you went away first, when we were told -that papa had sent you away. I was grateful to you. I thought it was -very, very fine of you to prefer me to Stella; afterwards I began to -think of you a little for yourself. The time we met made you a great -deal more real to me. It was imagination, but I thought of you often and -often when I came out here and walked about and looked at the view. The -view almost meant you--it was very vague, but it made me happy, and I -came out nearly every night. That is nearly ten years since, too; it was -nothing, and yet it was the chief I had to keep my life going upon. -Finally you come back, and the first thing you have to say to me is to -explain that, though you like me still and all that, you have been -married, you have had a child, and another life between whiles. Oh, no, -no, Mr. Stanford, that cannot be.” - -“Katherine! must I not say a word in my own defence?” - -“There is no defence,” she cried, “and no wrong. I am only not that kind -of woman. I am very sorry for you and the poor little child. But you -have that, it is a great deal. And I have nothing not even the view. I -am bidding farewell to the view and to all those recollections. It is -good-bye,” she said, waving her hand out to the sea, “to my youth as -well as to the cliff, and to all my visions as well as to you. Good-bye, -Mr. Stanford, good-bye. I think it is beginning to rain, and to-morrow I -am going away.” - -Was this the conclusion? Was it not a conclusion at all? Next day -Katherine certainly did go away. She went to a little house at some -distance from Sliplin--a little house in the country, half-choked in -fallen leaves, where she had thought she liked the rooms and the -prospect, which was no longer that of the bay and the headland, but of -what we call a home landscape--green fields and tranquil woods, a -village church within sight, and some red-roofed cottages. Katherine’s -rooms were on the upper floor, therefore not quite on a level with the -fallen leaves. It was a most _digne_ retirement for a lady, quite the -place for Katherine, many people thought; not like rooms in a town, but -with the privacy of her own garden and nobody to interfere with her. -There was a little pony carriage in which she could drive about, with a -rough pony that went capitally, quite as well as Mr. Tredgold’s -horses--growing old under the charge of the old coachman, who never was -in a hurry--would ever go. Lady Jane, who approved so highly, was -anxious to take a great deal of notice of Katherine. She sent the landau -to fetch her when, in the first week of her retirement, Katherine went -out to Steephill to lunch. But Katherine preferred the pony chaise. She -said her rooms were delightful, and the pony the greatest diversion. The -only grievance she had, she declared, was that there was nothing to find -fault with. “Now, to be a disinherited person and to have no grievance,” -she said, “is very hard. I don’t know what is to become of me.” Lady -Jane took this in some unaccountable way as a satirical speech, and felt -aggrieved. But I cannot say why. - - * * * * * - -It is a great art to know when to stop when you are telling a story--the -question of a happy or a not happy ending rests so much on that. It is -supposed to be the superior way nowadays that a story should end -badly--first, as being less complete (I suppose), and, second, as being -more in accord with truth. The latter I doubt. If there was ever any -ending in human life except the final one of all (which we hope is -exactly the reverse of an ending), one would be tempted rather to say -that there are not half so many _tours de force_ in fiction as there are -in actual life, and that the very commonest thing is the god who gets -out of the machine to help the actual people round us to have their own -way. But this is not enough for the highest class of fiction, and I am -aware that a hankering after a good end is a vulgar thing. Now, the good -ending of a novel means generally that the hero and heroine should be -married and sent off with blessings upon their wedding tour. What am I -to say? I can but leave this question to time and the insight of the -reader. If it is a fine thing for a young lady to be married, it must be -a finer thing still that she should have, as people say, two strings to -her bow. There are two men within her reach who would gladly marry -Katherine, ready to take up the handkerchief should she drop it in the -most maidenly and modest way. She had no need to go out into the world -to look for them. There they are--two honest, faithful men. If Katherine -marries the doctor, James Stanford will disappear (he has a year’s -furlough), and no doubt in India will marry yet another wife and be more -or less happy. If she should marry Stanford, Dr. Burnet will feel it, -but it will not break his heart. And then the two who make up their -minds to this step will live happy--more or less--ever after. What more -is there to be said? - -I think that few people quite understand, and no one that I know of, -except a little girl here and there, will quite sympathise with the -effect produced upon Katherine by her discovery of James Stanford’s -marriage. They think her jealous, they think her ridiculous, they say a -great many severe things about common-sense. A man in James Stanford’s -position, doing so well, likely to be a member of Council before he -dies, with a pension of thousands for his widow--that such a man should -be disdained because he had married, though the poor little wife was so -very discreet and died so soon, what could be more absurd? “If there had -been a family of _girls_,” Stella said, “you could understand it, for a -first wife’s girls are often a nuisance to a woman. But one boy, who -will be sent out into the world directly and do for himself and trouble -nobody----” Stella, however, always ends by saying that she never did -understand Katherine’s ways and never should, did she live a hundred -years. - -This is what Stella, for her part, is extremely well inclined to do. -Somers has been filled with all the modern comforts, and it is -universally allowed to be a beautiful old house, fit for a queen. -Perhaps its present mistress does not altogether appreciate its real -beauties, but she loves the size of it, and the number of guests it can -take in, and the capacity of the hall for dances and entertainments of -all kinds. She has, too, a little house in town--small, but in the heart -of everything--which Stella instinctively and by nature is, wherever she -goes. All that is facilitated by the possession of sixty thousand a -year, yet not attained; for there are, as everybody knows, many people -with a great deal more money who beat at these charmed portals of -society and for whom there is no answer, till perhaps some needy lady of -the high world takes them up. But Stella wanted no needy lady of -quality. She scoffed at the intervention of the Dowager Lady Somers, who -would, if she could, have patronised old Tredgold’s daughter; but Lady -Somers’ set were generally old cats to Stella, and she owed her -advancement solely to herself. She is success personified--in her house, -in her dress, in society, with her husband and all her friends. Little -whining Job was perhaps the only individual of all her surroundings who -retained a feeling of hostility as time went on against young Lady -Somers. Her sister has forgiven her freely, if there was anything to -forgive, and Sir Charles is quite aware that he has nothing to forgive, -and reposes serenely upon that thought, indifferent to flirtations, that -are light as air and mean nothing. Lady Somers is a woman upon whose -stainless name not a breath of malice has ever been blown, but Job does -not care for his mother. It is a pity, though it does not disturb her -much, and it is not easy to tell the reason--perhaps because she branded -him in his infancy with the name which sticks to him still. Such a name -does no harm in these days of nicknames, but it has, I believe, always -rankled in the boy’s heart. - -On the other hand, there is a great friendship still between Job and his -father, and he does not dislike his aunt. But this is looking further -afield than our story calls upon us to look. It is impossible that -Katherine can remain very long in a half rural, half suburban cottage in -the environs of Sliplin, with no diversion but the little pony carriage -and the visits of the Midge and occasionally of Lady Jane. The piece of -land which Mr. Sturgeon sold for her brought in a pleasant addition to -her income, and she would have liked to have gone abroad and to have -done many things; but what can be done, after all, by a lady and her -maid, even upon five hundred pounds a year? - - -THE END - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Mr. Tredgold, by Margaret Oliphant - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD MR. 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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/license - - -Title: Old Mr. Tredgold - -Author: Margaret Oliphant - -Release Date: July 19, 2017 [EBook #55155] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD MR. TREDGOLD *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="320" height="500" alt="cover" title="" /> -</p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="border: 2px black solid;margin:auto auto;max-width:50%; -padding:1%;"> -<tr><td> - -<p class="c">Contents</p> - -<p> -<a href="#CHAPTER_I">Chapter I., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_II"> II., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_III"> III., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"> IV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_V"> V., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"> VI., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"> VII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"> VIII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"> IX., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_X"> X., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"> XI., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"> XII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"> XIII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"> XIV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"> XV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"> XVI., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"> XVII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"> XVIII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"> XIX., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XX"> XX., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"> XXI., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"> XXII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"> XXIII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"> XXIV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"> XXV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"> XXVI., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"> XXVII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"> XXVIII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"> XXIX., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"> XXX., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI"> XXXI., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII"> XXXII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII"> XXXIII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV"> XXXIV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV"> XXXV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI"> XXXVI., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII"> XXXVII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII"> XXXVIII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX"> XXXIX., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XL"> XL., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XLI"> XLI., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XLII"> XLII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII"> XLIII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV"> XLIV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XLV"> XLV., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI"> XLVI., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII"> XLVII., </a> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII"> XLVIII., </a> -</p> - -<p class="c">(etext transcriber's note)</p></td></tr> -</table> - -<h1>OLD MR. TREDGOLD</h1> - -<p class="c">BY<br /> -MRS. OLIPHANT<br /> -AUTHOR OF “IN TRUST,” “MADAM,” ETC.<br /><br /> -LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.<br /> -LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY<br /> -1896<br /> -<i>All rights reserved</i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a>{1}</span></p> - -<p class="cb">OLD MR. TREDGOLD.</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">They</span> were not exactly of that conventional type which used to be common -whenever two sisters had to be described—the one dark and the other -fair, the one sunny and amiable, the other reserved and proud; the one -gay, the other melancholy, or at least very serious by nature. They were -not at all like Minna and Brenda in the “Pirate,” which used to be a -contrast dear to the imagination. But yet there was a very distinct -difference between them. Katherine was a little taller, a little bigger, -a little darker, than Stella. She was three years older but was supposed -to look ten. She was not so lively in her movements either of mind or -person, and she was supposed to be slow. The one who was all light threw -a shadow—which seems contradictory—on the other. They were the two -daughters of an old gentleman who had been that mysterious being called -a City man in his time. Not that there was anything at all mysterious -about old Mr. Tredgold; his daughters and his daughters’ friends were -fond of saying that he had come to London with the traditionary -half-crown in his pocket; but this was, as in so many cases, fabulous, -Mr. Tredgold having in fact come of a perfectly creditable Eastern -Counties family, his father being a well-to-do linen draper in Ipswich, -whose pride it was to have set forth all his boys comfortably, and done -everything for them that a father could do. But perhaps it is easier to -own to that half-crown and the myth of an origin sudden and -commercially-romantic without<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a>{2}</span> antecedents, than to a respectable shop -in a respectable town, with a number of relatives installed in other -shops, doing well and ready to claim the rights of relationship at -inconvenient moments. I do not know at all how fortunes are made “in the -City.” If you dig coals out of the bowels of the earth, or manufacture -anything, from cotton to ships, by which money is made, that is a -process which comes within the comprehension of the most limited -faculties; but making money in the City never seems to mean anything so -simple. It means handing about money, or goods which other people have -produced, to other third or fourth people, and then handing them back -again even to the Scriptural limits of seventy times seven; which is why -it appears so mysterious to the simple-minded.</p> - -<p>But, indeed, if anybody had investigated the matter, Mr. Tredgold’s -progress had been quite easy to follow, at least in the results. He had -gone from a house in Hampstead to a house in Kensington, and thence to -Belgravia, changing also his summer residences from Herne Bay to -Hastings, and thence to the wilds of Surrey, and then to the Isle of -Wight, where, having retired from the cares of business, he now lived in -one of those beautiful places, with one of the most beautiful prospects -in the world before him, which so often fall to the lot of persons who -care very little about beauty in any shape. The house stood on a cliff -which was almost a little headland, standing out from the line of the -downs between two of the little towns on the south side of that favoured -island. The grounds were laid out quite regardless of expense, so much -so that they were a show in the district, and tourists were admitted by -the gardeners when the family was absent, to see such a collection of -flowering shrubs and rare trees as was not to be found between that -point, let us say, and Mr. Hanbury’s gardens at Mortola. The sunny -platform of the cliff thus adorned to the very edge of the precipice was -the most delightful mount of vision, from which you could look along the -lovely coast at that spot not much inferior to the Riviera, with its -line of sunny towns and villages lying along the course of the bay on -one hand, and the darker cliffs clad with wood,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a>{3}</span> amid all the -picturesque broken ground of the Landslip on the other; and the dazzling -sea, with the additional glory of passing ships giving it a continual -interest, stretching out far into the distance, where it met the circle -of the globe, and merged as all life does in the indefinite Heaven -beyond—the Heaven, the Hades, the unknown—not always celestial, -sometimes dark with storm or wild with wind, a vague and indeterminate -distance from which the tempests and all their demons, as well as the -angels, come, yet the only thing that gives even a wistful satisfaction -to the eyes of those who sway with every movement of this swaying globe -in the undiscovered depths of air and sky.</p> - -<p>Very little attention, I am sorry to say, was paid to this beautiful -landscape by the family who had secured it for their special -delectation. The girls would take their visitors “to see the view,” who -cast a careless glance at it, and said, “How pretty!” and returned with -pleasure to the tennis or croquet, or even tea of the moment. Mr. -Tredgold, for his part, had chosen a room for himself on the sheltered -side of the house, as was perhaps natural, and shivered at the thought -of the view. There was always a wind that cut you to pieces, he said, on -that side of the cliff; and, truth to tell, I believe there was, the -proverbial softness of the climate of the Isle of Wight being a fond -delusion, for the most part, in the minds of its inhabitants. Katherine -was the only one who lingered occasionally over the great panorama of -the sea and coast; but I think it was when she felt herself a little -“out of it,” as people say, when Stella was appropriating everything, -and all the guests and all the lovers were circling round that little -luminary, and the elder sister was not wanted anywhere—except to fill -out tea perhaps, or look after the comforts of the others, which is a -<i>rôle</i> that may suit a staid person of forty, but at twenty-three is not -only melancholy but bewildering—it being always so difficult to see why -another should have all the good things, and yourself all the crosses of -life.</p> - -<p>In the circumstances of these two girls there was not even that cheap -way of relief which ends in blaming some one.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a>{4}</span> Even Providence could not -be blamed. Katherine, if you looked at her calmly, was quite as pretty -as Stella; she had a great deal more in her; she was more faithful, more -genuine and trustworthy; she played tennis as well or better; she had as -good a voice and a better ear; in short, it was quite incomprehensible -to any one why it was that Stella was the universal favourite and her -sister was left in the shade. But so it was. Katherine made up the set -with the worst players, or she was kept at the tea-table while the -merriest game was going on. She had the reversion of Stella’s partners, -who talked to her of her sister, of what a jolly girl, or what an -incipient angel she was, according to their several modes of speech. The -old ladies said that it was because Katherine was so unselfish; but I -should not like to brand a girl for whom I have a great regard with that -conventional title. She was not, to her own consciousness, unselfish at -all. She would have liked very much, if not to have the first place, at -least to share it, to have a retinue of her own, and champions and -admirers as well as Stella. She did not like the secondary position nor -even consent to it with any willingness; and the consequence was that -occasionally she retired and looked at the view with anything but happy -feelings; so that the appreciation of Nature, and of their good fortune -in having their lines thrown in such pleasant places, was very small and -scant indeed in this family, which outsiders were sometimes disposed to -envy for the beauty of their surroundings and for their wonderful view.</p> - -<p>The house which occupied this beautiful situation was set well back in -the grounds, so that it at least should not be contaminated by the view, -and it was an odd fantastic house, though by no means uncomfortable when -you got into the ways of it. A guest, unacquainted with these ways, -which consisted of all the very last so-called improvements, might -indeed spend a wretched day or night in his or her ignorance. I have -indeed known one who, on a very warm evening, found herself in a chamber -hermetically sealed to all appearance, with labels upon the windows -bearing the words<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a>{5}</span> “Close” and “Open,” but affording no information as -to how to work or move the complicated machinery which achieved these -operations; and when she turned to the bell for aid, there was a long -cord depending by the wall, at which she tugged and tugged in vain, not -knowing (for these were the early days of electrical appliances) that -all she had to do was to touch the little ivory circle at the end of the -cord. The result was a night’s imprisonment in what gradually became a -sort of Black Hole of Calcutta, without air to breathe or means of -appealing to the outside world. The Tredgolds themselves, however, I am -happy to say, had the sense in their own rooms to have the windows free -to open and shut according to the rules of Nature.</p> - -<p>The whole place was very elaborately furnished, with an amount of -gilding and ornament calculated to dazzle the beholder—inlaid cabinets, -carved furniture, and rich hangings everywhere, not a door without a -<i>portière</i>, not a window without the most elaborate sets of curtains. -The girls had not been old enough to control this splendour when it was -brought into being by an adroit upholsterer; and, indeed, they were -scarcely old enough even yet to have escaped from the spell of the awe -and admiration into which they had been trained. They felt the -flimsiness of the fashionable mode inspired by Liberty in comparison -with their solid and costly things, even should these be in worst taste, -and, as in everything a sense of superiority is sweet, they did not -attempt any innovations. But the room in which they sat together in the -evening was at least the most simply decorated in the house. There was -less gold, there were some smooth and simple tables on which the hand -could rest without carrying away a sharp impression of carved foliage or -arabesques. There were no china vases standing six feet high, and there -was a good deal of litter about such as is indispensable to the -happiness of girls. Mr. Tredgold had a huge easy-chair placed near to a -tall lamp, and the evening paper, only a few hours later than if he had -been in London, in his hands. He was a little old man with no appearance -to speak of—no features, no hair, and very<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a>{6}</span> little in the way of eyes. -How he had managed to be the father of two vigorous young women nobody -could understand; but vigorous young women are, however it has come -about, one of the commonest productions of the age, a fashion like any -other. Stella lay back in a deep chair near her father, and was at this -moment, while he filled the air of the room with the crinkling of his -paper as he folded back a leaf, lost in the utterance of a long yawn -which opened her mouth to a preternatural size, and put her face, which -was almost in a horizontal position thrown back and contemplating the -ceiling, completely out of drawing, which was a pity, for it was a -pretty face. Katherine showed no inclination to yawn—she was busy at a -table doing something—something very useless and of the nature of -trumpery I have no doubt; but it kept her from yawning at least.</p> - -<p>“Well, my pet,” Mr. Tredgold said, putting his hand on the arm of -Stella’s chair, “very tired, eh—tired of having nothing to do, and -sitting with your old father one night?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ve got plenty to do,” said Stella, getting over the yawn, and -smiling blandly upon the world; “and, as for one night I sit with you -for ever, you ungrateful old dad.”</p> - -<p>“What is in the wind now? What’s the next entertainment? You never mean -to be quiet for two days together?” the old gentleman said.</p> - -<p>“It is not our fault,” said Katherine. “The Courtnays have gone away, -the Allens are going, and Lady Jane has not yet come back.”</p> - -<p>“I declare,” cried Stella, “it’s humiliating that we should have to -depend on anybody for company, whether they are summer people or winter -people. What is Lady Jane to us? We are as good as any of them. It is -you who give in directly, Kate, and think there is nothing to be done. -I’ll have a picnic to-morrow, if it was only the people from the hotel; -they are better than nobody, and so pleased to be asked. I shan’t spend -another evening alone with papa.”</p> - -<p>Papa was not displeased by this sally. He laughed and chuckled in his -throat, and crinkled his newspaper more than<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a>{7}</span> ever. “What a little -hussy!” he cried. “Did you ever know such a little hussy, Kate?”</p> - -<p>Kate did not pay any attention at all to papa. She went on with her gum -and scissors and her trumpery, which was intended for a bazaar -somewhere. “The question is, Do you know the hotel people?” she said. -“You would not think a picnic of five or six much fun.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, five or six!” cried the other with a toss of her head; and she -sprang up from her chair with an activity as great as her former -listlessness, and rushed to a very fine ormolu table all rose colour and -gold, at which she sat down, dashing off as many notes. “The Setons at -the hotel will bring as many as that; they have officers and all kinds -of people about,” she cried, flinging the words across her shoulder as -she wrote.</p> - -<p>“But we scarcely know them, Stella; and Mrs. Seton I don’t like,” said -Katherine, with her gum-brush arrested in her hand.</p> - -<p>“Papa, am I to ask the people I want, or is Kate to dictate in -everything?” cried Stella, putting up another note.</p> - -<p>“Let the child have her way, Katie, my dear; you know she has always had -her way all her life.”</p> - -<p>Katherine’s countenance was perhaps not so amiable as Stella’s, who was -radiant with fun and expectation and contradiction. “I think I may -sometimes have my way too,” she said. “They are not nice people; they -may bring any kind of man, there is always a crowd of men about <i>her</i>. -Papa, I think we are much safer, two girls like us, and you never going -out with us, if we keep to people we know; that was always to be the -condition when you consented that Stella should send our invitations -without consulting you.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, my dear,” said the old gentleman, turning to his elder -daughter, “that is quite true, quite true;” then he caught Stella’s eye, -and added tremulously: “You must certainly have two or three people you -know.”</p> - -<p>“And what do you call Miss Mildmay?” cried Stella, “and Mrs. -Shanks?—aren’t they people we know?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, if she is asking them—the most excellent people and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a>{8}</span> knowing -everybody—I think—don’t you think, Katie?—that might do?”</p> - -<p>“Of course it will do,” cried Stella gaily. “And old Shanks and old -Mildmay are such fun; they always fight—and they hate all the people in -the hotels; and only think of their two old faces when they see Mrs. -Seton and all her men! It will be the best party we have had this whole -year.”</p> - -<p>Katherine’s ineffectual remonstrances were drowned in the tinkling as of -a cracked bottle of Mr. Tredgold’s laugh. He liked to hear the old -ladies called old cats and set to fight and spit at each other. It gave -him an agreeable sense of contrast with his own happy conditions; petted -and appealed to by the triumphant youth which belonged to him, and of -which he was so proud. The inferiority of the “old things” was pleasant -to the old man, who was older than they. The cackle of his laugh swept -every objection away. And then I think Katherine would have liked to -steal away outside and look at the view, and console herself with the -sight of the Sliplin lights and all the twinkling villages along the -coast; which, it will be seen, was no disinterested devotion to Nature, -but only a result of the sensation of being out of it, and not having, -which Stella had, her own way.</p> - -<p>“Well, you needn’t come unless you like,” cried Stella with defiance, as -they parted at the door between their respective rooms, a door which -Katherine, I confess, shut with some energy on this particular evening, -though it generally stood open night and day.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think I will,” Katherine cried in her impatience; but she -thought better of this before day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a>{9}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Stella</span> had always been the spoilt child of the Tredgold family. Her -little selfishnesses and passions of desire to have her own way, and -everything she might happen to want, had been so amusing that nobody had -chidden or thought for a moment (as everybody thought with Katherine) of -the bad effect upon her character and temper of having all these -passions satisfied and getting everything she stormed or cried for. Aunt -after aunt had passed in shadow, as it were, across the highly lighted -circle of Mr. Tredgold’s home life, all of them breaking down at last in -the impossibility of keeping pace with Stella, or satisfying her -impetuous little spirit; and governess after governess in the same way -had performed a sort of processional march through the house. Stella’s -perpetual flow of mockery and mimicry had all the time kept her father -in endless amusement. The mockery was not very clever, but he was easily -pleased and thought it capital fun. There was so much inhumanity in his -constitution, though he was a kind man in his way and very indulgent to -those who belonged to him, that he had no objection to see his own old -sister (though a good creature) outrageously mimicked in all her -peculiarities, much less the sisters of his late wife. Little Stella, -while still under the age of sixteen, had driven off all these ladies -and kept her father in constant amusement. “The little hussy!” he said, -“the little vixen!” and chuckled and laughed till it was feared he might -choke some time, being afflicted with bronchitis, in those convulsions -of delight. Katherine, who was the champion of the aunts, and wept as -one after the other departed, amused him greatly too. “She is an old -maid born!” he said, “and she sticks up for her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a>{10}</span> kind, but Stella will -have her pick, and marry a prince, and take off the old cats as long as -she lives.”</p> - -<p>“But if she lives,” said a severe governess who for some time kept the -household in awe, “she will become old too, and probably be an old cat -in the opinion of those that come after her.”</p> - -<p>“No fear,” cried the foolish old man—“no fear.” In his opinion Stella -would never be anything but pretty and young, and radiant with fun and -fascination.</p> - -<p>And since the period when the girls “came out” there had been nothing -but a whirl of gaiety in the house. They did not come out in the -legitimate way, by being presented to Her Majesty and thus placed on the -roll of society in the usual meaning of the word, but only by appearing -at the first important ball in the locality, and giving it so to be -understood that they were prepared to accept any invitations that might -come in their way. They had come out together, Stella being much too -masterful and impatient to permit any such step on Katherine’s part -without her, so that Katherine had been more than nineteen while Stella -was not much over sixteen when this important step took place. Three -years had passed since that time. Stella was twenty, and beginning to -feel like a rather <i>blasé</i> woman of the world; while Katherine at -twenty-three was supposed to be stepping back to that obscurity which -her father had prophesied for her, not far off from the region of the -old cats to which she was supposed to belong. Curiously enough, no -prince had come out of the unknown for the brighter sister. The only -suitor that had appeared had been for Katherine, and had been almost -laughed out of countenance, poor man, before he took his dismissal, -which was, indeed, rather given by the household in general than by the -person chiefly concerned. He was an Indian civilian on his way back to -some blazing station on the Plains, which was reason enough why he -should be repulsed by the family; but probably the annoying thought that -it was Katherine he wanted and not her sister had still more to do with -it.</p> - -<p>“It was a good thing at least that he had not the audacity to ask for -you, my pet,” Mr. Tredgold said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a>{11}</span></p> - -<p>“For me!” said Stella, with a little shriek of horror, “I should very -soon have given him his answer.” And Katherine, too, gave him his -answer, but in a dazed and bewildered way. She was not at all in love -with him, but it did glance across her mind that to be the first person -with some one, to have a house of her own in which she should be -supreme, and a man by her side who thought there was nobody like her—— -But, then, was it possible that any man should really think that? or -that any house could ever have this strange fascination of home which -held her fast she could not tell how or why? She acquiesced accordingly -in Mr. Stanford’s dismissal. But when she went out to look at the view -in her moments of discouragement her mind was apt to return to him, to -wonder sometimes what he was doing, where he was, or if he had found -some one to be his companion, and of whom he could think that there was -nobody like her in the world?</p> - -<p>In the meantime, however, on the morning which followed the evening -already recorded, Katherine had too much to do in the way of providing -for the picnic to have much time to think. Stella had darted into her -room half-dressed with a number of notes in her hand to tell her that -everybody was coming. “Mrs. Seton brings six including her husband and -herself—that makes four fresh new men besides little Seton, whom you -can talk to if you like, Kate; and there’s three from the Rectory, and -five from the Villa, and old Mildmay and Shanks to do propriety for -papa’s sake.”</p> - -<p>“I wish you would not speak of them in that way by their names. It does -not take much trouble to say Miss Mildmay and Mrs. Shanks.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll say the old cats, if you like,” Stella said with a laugh, “that’s -shorter still. Do stir up a little, and be quick and let us have a good -lunch.”</p> - -<p>“How am I to get cold chickens at an hour’s notice?” said Katherine. -“You seem to think they are all ready roasted in the poultry yard, and -can be put in the hampers straight off. I don’t know what Mrs. Pearson -will say.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a>{12}</span></p> - -<p>“She will only say what she has said a hundred times; but it always -comes right all the same,” cried Stella, retreating into her own room to -complete her toilette. And this was so true that Kate finished hers also -in comparative calm. She was the housekeeper <i>de jure</i>, and interviewed -Mrs. Pearson every morning with the profoundest gravity as if everything -depended upon her; but at bottom Katherine knew very well that it was -Mrs. Pearson who was the housekeeper <i>de facto</i>, and that she, like -everyone else, managed somehow that Miss Stella should have her way.</p> - -<p>“You know it’s just impossible,” said that authority a few minutes -later. “Start at twelve and tell me at nine to provide for nearly twenty -people! Where am I to get the chickens, not to speak of ham and cold -beef and all the rest? Do ye think the chickens in the yard are roasted -already?” cried the indignant housekeeper, using Katherine’s own -argument, “and that I have only to set them out in the air to cool?”</p> - -<p>“You see I did not know yesterday,” said the young mistress -apologetically; “it was a sudden thought of Miss Stella’s last night.”</p> - -<p>“She <i>is</i> a one for sudden thoughts!” cried Pearson, half-indignant, -half-admiring; and after a little more protestation that it was -impossible she began to arrange how it could be done. It was indeed so -usual an experience that the protests were stereotyped, so to speak. -Everything on the Cliff was sudden—even Katherine had acquired the -habit, and preferred an impromptu to any careful preparation of events. -“Then if anything is wrong we can say there was so very little time to -do it in,” she said with an instinct of recklessness foreign to her -nature. But Mrs. Pearson was wise and prudent and knew her business, so -that it was very seldom anything went wrong.</p> - -<p>On ordinary occasions every one knows how rare it is to have a -thoroughly fine day for the most carefully arranged picnic. The -association of rain with these festivities is traditional. There is -nothing that has so bad an effect upon the most settled weather. Clouds -blow up upon the sky and rain<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a>{13}</span> pours down at the very suggestion. But -that strange Deity which we call Providence, and speak of in the neuter -gender, is never more apparently capricious than in this respect. A -picnic which is thoroughly undesirable, which has nothing in its favour, -which brings people together who ought to be kept apart, and involves -mischief of every kind, is free from all the usual mischances. That day -dawned more brightly even than other days. It shone even cloudless, the -glass rising, the wind dropping as if for the special enjoyment of some -favourite of Heaven. It was already October, but quite warm, as warm as -June, the colour of autumn adding only a charm the more, and neither -chill nor cloud to dull the atmosphere. The sea shone like diamonds but -more brilliant, curve upon curve of light following each other with -every glittering facet in movement. The white cliff at the further point -of the bay shone with a dazzling whiteness beyond comparison with -anything else in sky or earth.</p> - -<p>At twelve o’clock the sun overhead was like a benediction, not too hot -as in July and August, just perfect everybody said; and the carriages -and the horses with their shiny coats, and the gay guests in every tint -of colour, with convivial smiles and pleasant faces, made the drive as -gay as Rotten Row when Mr. Tredgold came forth to welcome and speed -forth his guests. This was his own comparison often used, though the -good man had never known much of Rotten Row. He stood in the porch, -which had a rustical air though the house was so far from being -rustical, and surveyed all these dazzling people with pride. Though he -had been used for years now to such gay assemblages, he had never ceased -to feel a great pride in them as though of “an honour unto which he was -not born.” To see his girls holding out hospitality to all the grand -folks was an unceasing satisfaction. He liked to see them at the head of -everything, dispensing bounties. The objectionable lady who had brought -so many men in her train did not come near Mr. Tredgold, but bowed to -him from a safe distance, from his own waggonette in which she had -placed herself.</p> - -<p>“I am not going to be led like a lamb to that old bore,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a>{14}</span> she said to -her party, which swarmed about her and was ready to laugh at everything -she said; and they were all much amused by the old man’s bow, and by the -wave of his hand, with which he seemed to make his visitors free of his -luxuries.</p> - -<p>“The old bore thinks himself an old swell,” said someone else. “Tredgold -and Silverstamp, money changers,” said another. “Not half so -good—Tredgold and Wurst, sausage makers,” cried a third. They all -laughed so much, being easily satisfied in the way of wit, that Stella, -who was going to drive, came up flourishing her whip, to know what was -the joke.</p> - -<p>“Oh, only about a funny sign we saw on the way,” said Mrs. Seton, with a -glance all round, quenching the laughter. The last thing that could have -entered Stella’s mind was that these guests of hers, so effusive in -their acceptance of her invitation, so pleased to be there, with -everything supplied for their day’s pleasure, were making a jest of -anything that belonged to her. She felt that she was conferring a favour -upon them, giving them “a great treat,” which they had no right to -expect.</p> - -<p>“You must tell me about it on the way,” she said, beaming upon them with -gracious looks, which was the best joke of all, they all thought, -stifling their laughter.</p> - -<p>Mr. Tredgold sent a great many wreathed smiles and gracious gestures to -the waggonette which was full of such a distinguished company, and with -Stella and her whip just ready to mount the driving-seat. They were new -friends he was aware. The men were all fashionable, “a cut above” the -Sliplin or even the smaller county people. The old gentleman loved to -see his little Stella among them, with her little delightful swagger and -air of being A <small>I</small> everywhere. I hope nobody will think me responsible for -the words in which poor Mr. Tredgold’s vulgar little thoughts expressed -themselves. He did not swagger like Stella, but loved to see her -swaggering. He himself would have been almost obsequious to the fine -folks. He had a remnant of uneasy consciousness that he had no natural -right to all this splendour, which made him<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a>{15}</span> deeply delighted when -people who had a right to it condescended to accept it from his hand. -But he was proud too to know that Stella did not at all share this -feeling, but thought herself A <small>I</small>. So she was A <small>I</small>; no one there was fit -to hold a candle to her. So he thought, standing at his door waving his -hands, and calling out congratulations on the fine day and injunctions -to his guests to enjoy themselves.</p> - -<p>“Don’t spare anything—neither the horses nor the champagne; there is -plenty more where these came from,” he said.</p> - -<p>Then the waggonette dashed off, leading the way; and Katherine followed -in the landau with the clergyman’s family from the Rectory, receiving -more of Mr. Tredgold’s smiles and salutations, but not so enthusiastic.</p> - -<p>“Mind you make everybody comfortable, Kate,” he cried. “Have you plenty -of wraps and cushions? There’s any number in the hall; and I hope your -hampers are full of nice things and plenty of champagne—plenty of good -champagne; that’s what the ladies want to keep up their spirits. And -don’t be afraid of it. I have none but the best in my house.”</p> - -<p>The vehicle which came after the landau was something of the shandrydan -order, with one humble horse and five people clustering upon it.</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t you have one of our carriages!” he cried. “There’s a many in -the stables that we never use. You had only to say the word, and the -other waggonette would have been ready for you; far more comfortable -than that old rattle-trap. And, bless us! here is the midge—the midge, -I declare—with the two old—with two old friends; but, dear me, Mrs. -Shanks, how much better you would have been in the brougham!”</p> - -<p>“So I said,” said one of the ladies; “but Ruth Mildmay would not hear of -it. She is all for independence and our own trap, but I like comfort -best.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Miss Mildmay. “Indebted to our good friend we’ll always be -for many a nice party, and good dinner and good wine as well; but my -carriage must be my own, if it’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a>{16}</span> only a hired one; that is my opinion, -Mr. Tredgold, whatever any one may say.”</p> - -<p>“My dear good ladies,” said Mr. Tredgold, “this is Liberty Hall; you may -come as you please and do as you please; only you know there’s heaps of -horses in my stables, and when my daughters go out I like everything -about them to be nice—nice horses, nice carriages. And why should you -pay for a shabby affair that anybody can hire, when you might have my -brougham with all the last improvements? But ladies will have their -little whims and fads, we all know that.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Perkins,” cried Miss Mildmay out of the window to the driver of the -fly, “go on! We’ll never make up to the others if you don’t drive fast; -and the midge is not very safe when it goes along a heavy road.”</p> - -<p>“As safe as a coach, and we’re in very good time, Miss,” said Mr. -Perkins, waving his whip. Perkins felt himself to be of the party too, -as indeed he was of most parties along the half circle of the bay.</p> - -<p>“Ah, I told you,” cried Mr. Tredgold, with his chuckle, “you’d have been -much better in the brougham.” He went on chuckling after this last -detachment had driven unsteadily away. A midge is not a graceful nor -perhaps a very safe vehicle. It is like a section of an omnibus, a -square box on wheels wanting proportions, and I think it is used only by -elderly ladies at seaside places. As it jogged forth Mr. Tredgold -chuckled more and more. Though he had been so lavish in his offers of -the brougham, the old gentleman was not displeased to see his old -neighbours roll and shamble along in that uncomfortable way. It served -them right for rejecting the luxury he had provided. It served them -still more right for being poor. And yet there was this advantage in -their being poor, that it threw up the fact of his own wealth, like a -bright object on a dark background. He went back to his room after a -while, casting a glance and a shiver at the garden blazing with sunshine -and flowers which crowned the cliff. He knew there was always a little -shrewd breeze blowing round the corner somewhere, and the view might be -hanged for anything he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a>{17}</span> cared. He went indoors to his room, where there -was a nice little bit of fire. There was generally a little bit of fire -somewhere wherever he was. It was much more concentrated than the sun, -and could be controlled at his pleasure and suited him better. The sun -shone when it pleased, but the fire burned when Mr. Tredgold pleased. He -sat down and stretched himself out in his easy-chair and thought for a -minute or two how excellent it was to have such a plenty of money, so -many horses and carriages, and one of the nicest houses in the -island—the very nicest he thought—and to give Stella everything she -wanted. “She makes a fool of me,” he said to himself, chuckling. “If -that little girl wanted the Koh-i-Noor, I’d be game to send off somebody -careering over the earth to find out as good.” This was all for love of -Stella and a little for glory of himself; and in this mood he took up -his morning paper, which was his occupation for the day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a>{18}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">A picnic</span> is a very doubtful pleasure to people out of their teens, or at -least out of their twenties; and yet it remains a very popular -amusement. The grass is often damp, and it is a very forced and -uncomfortable position to sit with your plate on your knees and nothing -within your reach which you may reasonably want in the course of the -awkward meal. Mrs. Seton and the younger ladies, who were sedulously -attended upon, did not perhaps feel this so much; but then smart young -men, especially when themselves guests and attached to one particular -party, do not wait upon “the old cats” as they do upon the ladies of the -feast. Why Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay should have continued to partake -in these banquets, and spend their money on the midge to convey them -there, I am unable so much as to guess, for they would certainly have -been much more comfortable at home. But they did do so, in defiance of -any persuasion. They were not entirely ignorant that they were -considered old cats. The jibes which were current on the subject did not -always fly over their heads. They knew more or less why they were asked, -and how little any one cared for their presence. And yet they went to -every entertainment of the kind to which they were asked with a -steadiness worthy of a better cause. They were less considered even than -usual in this company, which was chiefly made up of strangers. They had -to scramble for the salad and help themselves to the ham. Cold chicken -was supposed to be quite enough for them without any accompaniment. The -<i>pâté de foie gras</i> was quite exhausted before it came their length, and -Miss Mildmay had to pluck at Mr. Seton’s coat and call his attention -half a dozen times before they got any champagne;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a>{19}</span> and yet they were -always ready to accept the most careless invitation, I cannot tell why. -They talked chiefly to each other, and took their little walks together -when the young ones dispersed or betook themselves to some foolish game. -“Oh, here are the old cats!” they could almost hear the girls say, when -the two ancient figures came in sight at the turn of the path; and -Stella would turn round and walk off in the opposite direction without -an attempt at concealment. But they did not take offence, and next time -were always ready to come again.</p> - -<p>That Mrs. Seton should have been ready to come was less wonderful, for -though she was old enough to be a little afraid of her complexion, and -was aware that damp was very bad for her neuralgia, it was indispensable -for her to have something to do, and the heavy blank of a day without -entertainment was dreadful to bear. And this was not for herself only -but for her court, or her tail, or whatever it may be called—the -retinue of young men whom she led about, and who had to be amused -whatever happened. Think of the expenditure of energy that is necessary -to amuse so many young active human creatures in a sitting-room in a -hotel for a whole morning, before lunch comes to relieve the intolerable -strain; or even in an afternoon before and after the blessed relief of -tea! They sprawl about upon the chairs, they block up the windows, they -gape for something to do, they expect to have funny things said to them -and to be made to laugh. What hard work for any woman whose whole -faculty consists in a capacity for saying every folly that comes into -her head with an audacity which is not accompanied by wit! “What a fool -you do look, Algy, with your mouth open like a little chick in a nest! -Do you expect me to pop a worm into it?” This speech made them all roar, -but it was not in itself amusing, the reader will perceive. And to go on -in that strain for hours is extremely fatiguing, more so than the -hardest work. Many people wondered why she should take the trouble to -have all these men about her, and to undertake the Herculean task of -entertaining them, which was a mystery quite as great as the -persistence<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a>{20}</span> of the elder ladies in going to feasts where they are -called old cats and receive no attention. The lightest of social -entertainments <i>donnent à penser</i> in this way. You would have thought -that Mrs. Seton would have welcomed the moment of relief which ensued -when the boys and girls ran off together in a sort of hide-and-seek -among the tufted slopes. But when she found that she was actually left -alone for a moment with only her husband to attend upon her, the lady -was not pleased at all.</p> - -<p>“Where have they all gone?” she cried. “What do they mean leaving me all -alone? Where’s Algy—and where’s Sir Charles—and all of them?”</p> - -<p>“There’s nobody but me, I’m afraid, Lottie,” said little Seton, who was -strengthening himself with another glass of champagne; “they’ve all gone -off with the young ones.”</p> - -<p>“The young ones!” Mrs. Seton cried, with a sort of suppressed shriek. -The eldest of the Stanley girls was seated at a little distance, -sedately employed in making a drawing, and Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay -sat resting upon a pile of carriage cushions which they had collected -together when the others went away. The old ladies were much occupied in -seeing that Perkins, the driver of the midge, had his share with the -other servants of the relics of the feast. And was she, the brilliant, -the gay, the lovely Lottie, left with these <i>débris</i> of humanity, -deserted by her kind? She rose up hastily and flourished her parasol -with an energy which nearly broke the ivory stick. “Have you no spirit -at all,” she cried, “to let your wife be neglected like this?” Katherine -was the one who met her in full career as she went down the winding -slopes—Katherine enjoying herself very moderately with none of the -stolen goods about her, in sole company of Evelyn Stanley and Gerrard, -her brother. “Where are all my party?” cried Mrs. Seton. “They will -never forgive me for deserting them. You stole a march upon me, Miss -Tredgold.” But certainly it was not Katherine who had stolen the march. -At this moment Stella appeared out of the bushes, flushed with fun and -laughter, her pretty hat pushed back upon her head, her pretty hair in a -little confusion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a>{21}</span></p> - -<p>“Oh, come along, come along!” she cried, seizing Mrs. Seton by the arm, -“here’s such a beautiful place to hide in; they are all after us, full -cry. Come, come, we must have you on our side.” Thus, again, it was -Stella that was on the amusing side where all the fun and the pleasure -was. Evelyn Stanley cast wistful eyes after the pair.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Katherine, do you mind me going, too? Hide-and-seek is such fun, -and we can walk here every day.”</p> - -<p>“Do you want to go, too, Gerrard?” Katherine said.</p> - -<p>“Not if I may walk with you,” said the youth, who was at the University -and felt himself superior. He was only a year younger than she was, and -he thought that a <i>grande passion</i> for a woman advanced in life was a -fine thing for a young man. He had made up his mind to keep by -Katherine’s side whatever happened. “I don’t care for that silly -nonsense,” he said; “it’s very well for these military fellows that have -not an idea in their heads. I always liked conversation best, and your -conversation, dear Katherine——”</p> - -<p>“Why, I cannot talk a bit,” she said with a laugh.</p> - -<p>It was on Gerrard’s lips to say, “But I can.” He had the grace, however, -not to utter that sentiment. “There are some people whose silence is -more eloquent than other people’s talk,” he said, which was a much -prettier thing to say.</p> - -<p>“Oh, why didn’t you come at first?” cried Stella in Mrs. Seton’s ear. -“They all think you are with me, only that you’ve got some very cunning -place to hide in: and here it is. I am sure they’ll never find us here.”</p> - -<p>“I hope they will, though,” said the elder lady, speaking in tones that -were not at all subdued. “You need not be so clever with your cunning -places. Of course we want them to find us; there is no fun in it if they -don’t.”</p> - -<p>Stella stared a little with widely opened eyes at her experienced -companion. She was still schoolgirl enough to rejoice in baffling the -other side, and liked the fun simply as Evelyn Stanley did, who was only -sixteen, and who came crowding in upon them whispering in her delight: -“They’ve run down the other way, the whole lot of them like sheep; they -have no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a>{22}</span> sense. Oh, hush! hush! speak low! they’ll never think of a -place like this.”</p> - -<p>“I shall make them think,” cried Mrs. Seton, and then she began to sing -snatches of songs, and whistled through the thicket to the astonishment -of the girls.</p> - -<p>“Oh, that is no fun at all,” said Evelyn.</p> - -<p>“Hush!” cried Stella, already better informed, “it isn’t any fun if they -don’t find us, after all.”</p> - -<p>And then the train of young men came rushing back with shouts, and the -romp went on. It was so far different from other romps that when the fun -flagged for a moment the faces of the players all grew blank again, as -if they had at once relapsed into the heavy dulness which lay behind, -which was rather astonishing to the younger ones, who loved the game for -its own sake. Stella, for her part, was much impressed by this recurring -relapse. How exquisite must be the fun to which they were accustomed, -which kept them going! She was painfully aware that she flagged too, -that her invention was not quick enough to think of something new before -the old was quite exhausted. She had thought of nothing better than to -go on, to hide again, when Mrs. Seton, yawning, sat down to fan herself, -and said what Stella thought the rudest things to her cavaliers.</p> - -<p>“Why does Charlie Somers look so like an ass?” she said. “Do you give it -up? Because he’s got thistles all round him and can’t get at ’em.”</p> - -<p>Stella stared while the young men burst into noisy laughter.</p> - -<p>“Is that a conundrum?” Stella said.</p> - -<p>They thought this was wit too, and roared again. And then once more all -the faces grew blank. It was her first experience of a kind of society -decidedly above her level, and it was impressive as well as alarming to -the inexperienced young woman. It had been her habit to amuse herself, -not doubting that in doing so she would best promote the amusement of -her guests. But Stella now began to feel the responsibilities of an -entertainer. It was not all plain sailing. She began to understand<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a>{23}</span> the -rush of reckless talk, the excited tones, the startling devices of her -new friend. In lack of anything better, the acceptance of a cigar on -Mrs. Seton’s part, and the attempt to induce Stella to try one too, -answered for a moment to the necessities of the situation. They were not -very particular as to the selection of things to amuse them, so long as -there was always something going on.</p> - -<p>Sir Charles Somers sat with her on the box as she drove home, and gave -her a number of instructions which at first Stella was disposed to -resent.</p> - -<p>“I have driven papa’s horses ever since I was born,” she said.</p> - -<p>“But you might drive much better,” said the young man, calmly putting -his hand on hers, moulding her fingers into a better grasp upon the -reins, as composedly as if he were touching the springs of an instrument -instead of a girl’s hand. She blushed, but he showed no sense of being -aware that this touch was too much. He was the one of the strangers whom -she liked best, probably because he was Sir Charles, which gave him a -distinction over the others, or at least it did so to Stella. This was -not, however, because she was unaccustomed to meet persons who shared -the distinction, for the island people were very tolerant of such -<i>nouveaux riches</i> as the Tredgolds, who were so very ready to add to -their neighbours’ entertainment. Two pretty girls with money are seldom -disdained in any community, and the father, especially as he was so well -advised as to keep himself out of society, was forgiven them, so that -the girls were sometimes so favoured as to go to a ball under Lady -Jane’s wing, and knew all “the best people.” But even to those who are -still more accustomed to rank than Stella, Sir Charles sounds better -than Mr. So-and-so; and he had his share of good looks, and of that ease -in society which even she felt herself to be a little wanting in. He did -not defer to the girl, or pay her compliments in any old-fashioned way. -He spoke to her very much as he spoke to the other young men, and -gripped her fingers to give them the proper grasp of the reins with as -much force of grip and as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a>{24}</span> perfect calm as if she had been a boy instead -of a girl. This rudeness has, it appears, its charm.</p> - -<p>“I shouldn’t have wondered if he had called me Tredgold,” Stella said -with a pretence at displeasure.</p> - -<p>“What a horrid man!” Katherine replied, to whom this statement was made.</p> - -<p>“Horrid yourself for thinking so,” cried her sister. “He is not a horrid -man at all, he is very nice. We are going to be great—pals. Why -shouldn’t we be great pals? He is a little tired of Lottie Seton and her -airs, he said. He likes nice honest girls that say what they mean, and -are not always bullying a fellow. Well, that is what he said. It is his -language, it is not mine. You know very well that is how men speak, and -Lottie Seton does just the same. I told him little thanks to him to like -girls better than an old married woman, and you should have seen how he -tugged his moustache and rolled in his seat with laughing. Lottie Seton -must have suspected something, for she called out to us what was the -joke?”</p> - -<p>“I did not know you were on such terms with Mrs. Seton, Stella, as to -call her by her Christian name.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, we call them all by their names. Life’s too short for Missis That -and Mr. This. Charlie asked me——”</p> - -<p>“Charlie! why, you never saw him till to-day.”</p> - -<p>“When you get to know a man you don’t count the days you’ve been -acquainted with him,” said Stella, tossing her head, but with a flush on -her face. She added: “I asked him to come over to lunch to-morrow and to -see the garden. He said it would be rare fun to see something of the -neighbourhood without Lottie Seton, who was always dragging a lot of -fellows about.”</p> - -<p>“Stella, what a very, very unpleasant man, to talk like that about the -lady who is his friend, and who brought him here!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, his friend!” cried Stella, “that is only your old-fashioned way. -She is no more his friend! She likes to have a lot of men following her -about everywhere, and they have got nothing to do, and are thankful to -go out anywhere to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a>{25}</span> spend the time; so it is just about as broad as it -is long. They do it to please themselves, and there is not a bit of love -lost.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t like those kind of people,” said Katherine.</p> - -<p>“They are the only kind of people,” Stella replied.</p> - -<p>This conversation took place from one room to another, the door standing -open while the girls performed a hasty toilette. All the picnic people -had been parted with at the gate with much demonstration of friendship -and a thousand thanks for a delightful day. Only the midge had deposited -its occupants at the door. The two old cats were never to be got rid of. -They were at that moment in another room, making themselves tidy, as -they said, with the supercilious aid of Katherine’s maid. Stella did not -part with hers in any circumstances, though she was about to dine in -something very like a dressing-gown with her hair upon her shoulders. -Mr. Tredgold liked to see Stella with her hair down, and she was not -herself averse to the spectacle of the long rippled locks falling over -her shoulders. Stella was one of the girls who find a certain enjoyment -in their own beauty even when there is nobody to see.</p> - -<p>“It was a very pleasant party on the whole to be such an impromptu,” -said Mrs. Shanks; “your girls, Mr. Tredgold, put such a spirit in -everything. Dear girls! Stella is always the most active and full of -fun, and Katherine the one that looks after one’s comfort. Don’t you -find the Stanleys, Kate, a little heavy in hand?—excellent good people, -don’t you know, always a stand-by, but five of them, fancy! Marion that -is always at her drawing, and Edith that can talk of nothing but the -parish, and that little romp Evelyn who is really too young and too -childish! Poor Mr. Stanley has his quiver too full, poor man, like so -many clergymen.”</p> - -<p>“If ever there was a man out of place—the Rector at a picnic!” said -Miss Mildmay, “with nobody for him to talk to. I’ll tell you what it is, -Mr. Tredgold, he thinks Kate is such a steady creature, he wants her for -a mother to his children; now see if I am not a true prophet before the -summer is out.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a>{26}</span></p> - -<p>Mr. Tredgold’s laugh, which was like the tinkling of a tin vessel, -reached Katherine’s ear at the other end of the table, but not the -speech which had called it forth.</p> - -<p>“Papa, the officers are coming here to-morrow to lunch—you don’t mind, -do you?—that is, Charlie Somers and Algy Scott. Oh, they are nice -enough; they are dreadfully dull at Newport. They want to see the garden -and anything there is to see. You know you’re one of the sights of the -island, papa.”</p> - -<p>“That is their fun,” said the old man. “I don’t know what they take me -for, these young fellows that are after the girls. Oh, they’re all after -the girls; they know they’ve got a good bit of money and so forth, and -think their father’s an easy-going old fool as soft as—Wait till we -come to the question of settlements, my good ladies, wait till then; -they’ll not find me so soft when we get there.”</p> - -<p>“It is sudden to think of settlements yet, Mr. Tredgold. The Rector, -poor man, has got nothing to settle, and as for those boys in the -garrison, they never saw the dear girls till to-day.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, I know what they are after,” said Mr. Tredgold. “My money, that is -what they are all after. Talk to me about coming to see over the garden -and so forth! Fudge! it is my money they are after; but they’ll find I -know a thing or two before it comes to that.”</p> - -<p>“Papa,” said Stella, “you are just an old suspicious absurd—What do -they know about your money? They never heard your name before. Of course -they had heard of <i>me</i>. The other battalion were all at the Ryde ball, -and took notes. They thought I was an American, that shows how little -they know about you.”</p> - -<p>“That means, Stella,” said Miss Mildmay, “everything that is fast and -fly-away. I wouldn’t brag of it if I were you.”</p> - -<p>“It means the fashion,” said Mrs. Shanks. “Dear Stella <i>is</i> like that, -with her nice clothes, and her way of rushing at everything, and never -minding. Now Katherine is English, no mistake about her—a good -daughter, don’t you know—and she’ll make an excellent wife.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a>{27}</span></p> - -<p>“But the man will have to put down his money, piece for piece, before he -shall have her, I can tell you,” said the master of the house. “Oh, I’m -soft if you like it, and over-indulgent, and let them have all their own -way; but there’s not a man in England that stands faster when it comes -to that.”</p> - -<p>Stella gave her sister a look, and a little nod of her head; her eyes -danced and her hair waved a little, so light and fluffy it was, with -that slight gesture. It seemed to say, We shall see! It said to -Katherine, “You might stand that, but it will not happen with me.” The -look and the gesture were full of a triumphant defiance. Stella was not -afraid that she would ever feel the restraining grip of her father’s -hand; and then she thought of that other grip upon her fingers, and -shook her shiny hair about her ears more triumphant still.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a>{28}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Stella</span>, however, courageous as she was, was not bold enough to address -Sir Charles and his companion as Charlie and Algy when they appeared, -not next day, but some days later; for their engagements with Mrs. Seton -and others of their friends were not so lightly to be pushed aside for -the attraction of her society as the girl supposed. It was a little -disappointing to meet them with their friends, not on the same sudden -level of intimacy which had been developed by the picnic, and to be -greeted indifferently, “like anybody else,” after that entertainment and -its sudden fervour of acquaintance. When, however, Mrs. Seton left the -hotel, and the young men had no longer that resource in their idleness, -they appeared at the Cliff without further invitation, and with an -evident disposition to profit by its hospitality which half flattered -and half offended the girls.</p> - -<p>“They have never even left cards,” said Katherine, after the picnic, -“but now that their friends have gone they remember that you asked them, -Stella.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” cried Stella, “that is so much the more friendly. Do you suppose -they haven’t hundreds of places to go to? And when they choose <i>us</i>, are -we to be disagreeable? I shan’t be so at least.”</p> - -<p>She ran downstairs indeed wreathed with smiles, and received them with -an eager gratification, which was very flattering to the young men, who -opened their eyes at the luxury of the luncheon and gave each other a -look which said that here was something worth the trouble. Old Mr. -Tredgold, in his shabby coat and his slippers, was a curious feature in -the group; but it was by no means out of keeping that a rich old<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a>{29}</span> -father, who had begun life with half a crown, should thus fulfil his -part, and the young men laughed at his jokes, and elevated an eyebrow at -each other across the table, with a sense of the fun of it, which -perplexed and disturbed the two young women, to whom they were still -figures unaccustomed, about whose modes and manners they were quite -unassured. Katherine took it all seriously, with an inclination towards -offence, though it is not to be supposed that the advent of two young -officers, more or less good-looking and a novelty in her life, should -not have exercised a little influence upon her also. But Stella was in a -state of suppressed excitement which made her eyes shine indeed, and -brightened her colour, but was not very pleasant to behold for anyone -who loved her. She was half offended with her father for the share he -took in the conversation, and angry with the young men who listened to -and applauded him, without remarking her own attempts to be witty. Her -voice, though it was a pretty voice, grew a little shrill in her -endeavours to attract their attention and to secure the loud outbursts -of laughter which had been used to accompany Mrs. Seton’s sallies. What -was it about Mrs. Seton which amused them? She said nothing remarkable, -except for rudeness and foolishness, and yet they laughed; but to -Stella’s funniest remarks they gave but a gape of inattention, and -concentrated their attention on her father—on papa! What could they -possibly see in him?</p> - -<p>It was consolatory, however, when they all went out into the garden -after lunch, to find that they came one on each side of her -instinctively with a just discrimination, leaving Katherine out. Stella, -to do her justice, did not want Katherine to be left entirely out. When -her own triumph was assured she was always willing that there should be -something for her sister. But it was well at least that the strangers -should recognise that she was the centre of everything. She led them, as -in duty bound, through all the rare trees and shrubs which were the -glory of the Cliff. “This papa had brought all the way from Brazil, or -somewhere. It is the first one that ever was grown in England; and just -look at those berries! Wain, the gardener,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a>{30}</span> has coaxed them to grow, -giving them all sorts of nice things to eat. Oh, I couldn’t tell you all -he has given them—old rags and rusty nails and all kinds of -confectioneries!”</p> - -<p>“Their dessert, eh?” said Sir Charles. He had stuck his glass in his -eye, but he looked gloomily at all the wonderful plants. Algy put up his -hand to his moustache, under which his mouth gaped more open than usual, -with a yawn. Stella remembered that Mrs. Seton had proposed to pop a -worm into it, and longed to make use, though at second hand, of that -famous witticism, but had not the courage. They looked about blankly -even while she discoursed, with roving yet vacant looks, seeking -something to entertain them. Stella could not entertain them—oh, -dreadful discovery! She did not know what to say; her pretty face began -to wear an anxious look, her colour became hectic, her eyes hollow with -eagerness, her voice loud and shrill with the strain. Mrs. Seton could -keep them going, could make them laugh at nothing, could maintain a -whirl of noisy talk and jest; but Stella could not amuse these two heavy -young men. Their opaque eyes went roving round the beautiful place in -search of some “fun,” their faces grew more and more blank. It was -Katherine, who did not pretend to be amusing, who had so very little to -say for herself, who interposed:</p> - -<p>“Don’t you think,” she said, “Stella, they might like to look at the -view? Sliplin Harbour is so pretty under the cliff, and then there are -some yachts.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, let’s look at the yachts,” the young men said, pushing forward with -a sudden impulse of interest. The bay was blazing in the afternoon -sunshine, the distant cliff a dazzle of whiteness striking sharp against -the blue of sky and sea; but the visitors did not pause upon anything so -insignificant as the view. They stumbled over each other in their -anxiety to see the little vessel which lay at the little pier, one white -sail showing against the same brilliant background. Whose was it? -Jones’s for a wager, the <i>Lively Jinny</i>. No, no, nothing of the sort. -Howard’s the <i>Inscrutable</i>, built for Napier, don’t you know, before he -went to the dogs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a>{31}</span></p> - -<p>Stella pressed forward into the discussion with questions which she did -not know to be irrelevant. What was the meaning of clipper-rigged? Did -raking masts mean anything against anyone’s character? Which was the -jib, and why should it be of one shape rather than another? The -gentlemen paid very little attention to her. They went on discussing the -identity of the toy ship with interest and fervour.</p> - -<p>“Why, I know her like the palm of my hand,” cried Sir Charles. “I -steered her through that last westerly gale, and a tough one it was. I -rather think if any one should know her, it’s I. The <i>Lively Jinny</i>, and -a livelier in the teeth of a gale I never wish to see.”</p> - -<p>“Pooh!” said the other. “You’re as blind as a bat, Charlie, everyone -knows; you wouldn’t know your best friend at that distance. It’s -Howard’s little schooner that he bought when poor Napier went to——”</p> - -<p>“I tell you it’s <i>Jinny</i>, the fetish of Jones’s tribe. I know her as -well as I know you. Ten to one in sovs.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll take you,” cried the other. “Howard’s, and a nice little craft; -but never answers her helm as she ought, that’s why he calls her the -<i>Inscrutable</i>.”</p> - -<p>“What a strange thing,” cried Stella, toiling behind them in her -incomprehension, “not to answer your helm! What is your helm, and what -does it say to you? Perhaps she doesn’t understand.”</p> - -<p>This, she thought, was <i>à la mode de</i> Mrs. Seton, but it produced no -effect, not even a smile.</p> - -<p>“You could see the figure-head with a glass,” said Captain Scott. -“Where’s the glass, Miss Tredgold? There ought to be a glass somewhere.”</p> - -<p>“Jove!” cried Sir Charles. “Fancy a look-out like this and no telescope. -What could the people be thinking of?”</p> - -<p>“You are very rude to call papa and me the people,” cried Stella, almost -in tears. “Who cares for a silly little cockle-shell of a boat? But it -is a good thing at least that it gives you something to talk -about—which I suppose you can understand.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a>{32}</span></p> - -<p>“Hullo!” said the one visitor to the other, under his breath, with a -look of surprise.</p> - -<p>“If it is only a glass that is wanted,” said Katherine, “why shouldn’t -we all have a look? There is a telescope, you know, upstairs.”</p> - -<p>Stella flashed out again under the protection of this suggestion. “I’ll -run,” she said, being in reality all compliance and deeply desirous to -please, “and tell one of the footmen to bring it down.”</p> - -<p>“Too much trouble,” and “What a bore for you to have us on your hands!” -the young men said.</p> - -<p>“Don’t, Stella,” said Katherine; “they had better go up to papa’s -observatory, where they can see it for themselves.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” cried the girl, “come along, let’s go to papa’s observatory, -that will be something for you to do. You always want something to do, -don’t you? Come along, come along!” Stella ran on before them with -heated cheeks and blazing eyes. It was not that she was angry with them, -but with herself, to think that she could not do what Mrs. Seton did. -She could not amuse them, or keep up to their high level of spirits, and -the vacancy of the look which came over both their faces—the mouth of -Algy under his moustache, the eyes of Charlie staring blankly about in -search of a sensation—were more than her nerves could bear. And yet she -was alarmed beyond measure, feeling her own prestige in question, by the -thought that they might never come again.</p> - -<p>Papa’s observatory was a terrace on the leads between the two gables -where the big telescope stood. Was it a pity, or was it not, that papa -was there in his shabby coat sniffing at the ships as they went out to -sea? He had an extended prospect on all sides, and he was watching a -speck on the horizon with much interest through the glass. “Perhaps you -young fellows have got some interest in the shipping like me?” he said. -“There, don’t you see the <i>Haitch</i> and the <i>Ho</i> on the pennant just -slipping out of sight? I have a deal of money in that ship. I like to -see them pass when it’s one I have an interest in. Put your little -peeper here, Stella, you’ll see her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a>{33}</span> yet. They pay very well with proper -care. You have to keep your wits about you, but that’s the case with all -investments. Want to see any particular ship, eh? I hope you’ve got some -money in ’em,” Mr. Tredgold said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, papa, take your horrid thing away; you know I never can see -anything,” cried Stella. “Now look, now look, Sir Charles! Remember, I -back you. The <i>Jenny</i> before the world.”</p> - -<p>“Miss Tredgold, put a sixpence on me,” said Algy; “don’t let a poor -fellow go into the ring unprotected. It’s Howard’s or nobody’s.”</p> - -<p>“Betting?” said Mr. Tredgold. “It is not a thing I approve of, but we -all do it, I suppose. That little boat, if that is what you’re thinking -of, belongs to none of those names. It’s neither the <i>Jones</i> nor the -<i>Howard</i>. It’s the <i>Stella</i>, after that little girl of mine, and it’s my -boat, and you can take a cruise in it if you like any day when there’s -no wind.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, papa,” cried Stella, “is it really, really for me?”</p> - -<p>“You little minx,” said the old man as she kissed him, “you little fair -weather flatterer, always pleased when you get something! I know you, -for all you think you keep it up so well. Papa’s expected always to be -giving you something—the only use, ain’t it? of an old man. It’s a bit -late in the season to buy a boat, but I got it a bargain, a great -bargain.”</p> - -<p>“Then it was Jones’s,” cried Sir Charles.</p> - -<p>“Then Howard was the man,” cried his friend.</p> - -<p>“That’s delightful,” cried Stella, clapping her hands. “Do keep it up! I -will put all my money on Sir Charles.” And they were so kind that they -laughed with her, admiring the skip and dance of excitement which she -performed for their pleasure. But when it turned out that Mr. Tredgold -did not know from whom he had bought the boat, and that the figure-head -had been removed to make room for a lovely wooden lady in white and gold -with a star on her forehead, speculation grew more and more lively than -ever. It was Stella, in the excitement of that unexpected success, who -proposed to run down to the pier to examine into the yacht and see if -any<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a>{34}</span> solution was possible. “We have a private way,” she cried. “I’ll -show you if you’d like to come; and I want to see my yacht, and if the -Stella on it is like me, and if it is pretty inside, and everything. -And, Kate, while we’re gone, you might order tea. Papa, did you say the -Stella on the figure-head was to be like me?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing that is wooden could be like you,” said Sir Charles graciously. -It was as if an oracle had spoken. Algy opened his mouth under his -moustache with a laugh or gape which made Stella long there and then to -repeat Mrs. Seton’s elegant jest. She was almost bold enough in the -flush of spirits which Sir Charles’s compliment had called forth.</p> - -<p>“I wish Stella would not rush about with those men,” said Katherine, as -the noise of their steps died away upon the stairs.</p> - -<p>“Jealous, eh?” said her father. “Well, I don’t wonder—and they can’t -both have her. One of them might have done the civil by you, Katie—but -they’re selfish brutes, you know, are men.”</p> - -<p>Katherine perhaps walked too solemnly away in the midst of this -unpalatable consolation, and was undutifully irritated by her father’s -tin-tinkle of a laugh. She was not jealous, but the feeling perhaps was -not much unlike that unlovely sentiment. She declared indignantly to -herself that she did not want them to “do the civil” to her, these dull -frivolous young men, and that it was in the last degree injurious to her -to suggest anything of the sort. It was hopeless to make her father see -what was her point of view, or realise her feelings—as hopeless as it -was to make Stella perceive how little fit it was that she should woo -the favour of these rude strangers. Mrs. Seton might do it with that -foolish desire to drag about a train with her, to pose as a conqueror, -to—— Katherine did not know what words to use. But Stella, a girl! -Stella, who was full of real charm, who was fit for so much better -things! On the whole, Katherine found it was better to fulfil the homely -duties that were hers and give her orders about the tea. It was the part -in life that was apportioned to her, and why should she object<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a>{35}</span> to it? -It might not be the liveliest, but surely it was a more befitting -situation than Stella’s rush after novelty, her strain to please. And -whom to please? People who sneered at them before their faces and did -not take pains to be civil—not even to Stella.</p> - -<p>It did her good to go out into the air, to select the spot under the -acacia where the tea-table stood so prettily, with its shining white. It -was still warm, extraordinary for October. She sat down there gazing out -upon the radiance of the sea and sky; the rocky fringe of sand was -invisible, and so was the town and harbour which lay at the foot of the -cliff; beyond the light fringe of the tamarisk trees which grew there as -luxuriantly as in warmer countries there was nothing but the sunny -expanse of the water, dazzling under the Western sun, which was by this -time low, shining level in the eyes of the solitary gazer. She saw, -almost without seeing it, the white sail of a yacht suddenly gleam into -the middle of the prospect before her, coming out all at once from the -haven under the hill. Someone was going out for a sail, a little late -indeed; but what could be more beautiful or tempting than this glorious -afternoon! Katherine sighed softly with a half sensation of envy. A -little puff of air came over her, blowing about the light acacia foliage -overhead, and bringing down a little shower of faintly yellow leaves. -The little yacht felt it even more than the acacia did. It seemed to -waver a little, then changed its course, following the impulse of the -breeze into the open. Katherine wondered indifferently who it could be. -The yachting people were mostly gone from the neighbourhood. They were -off on their longer voyages, or they had laid up their boats for the -season. And there had begun to grow a windy look, such as dwellers by -the sea soon learn to recognise about the sky. Katherine wished calmly -to herself in her ignorance of who these people were that they might not -go too far.</p> - -<p>She was sitting thus musing and wondering a little that Stella and her -cavaliers did not come back for tea, when the sound of her father’s -stick from the porch of the house startled her, and a loud discussion -with somebody which he seemed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a>{36}</span> be carrying on within. He came out -presently, limping along with his stick and with a great air of -excitement. “I said they were only to go when there was no wind. Didn’t -you hear me, Katie? When there was no wind—I said it as plain as -anything. And look at that; look at that!” He was stammering with -excitement, and could scarcely keep his standing in his unusual -excitement.</p> - -<p>“What is the matter, papa? Look at what? Oh, the boat. But we have -nothing to do with any boat,” she cried. “Why should you disturb -yourself? The people can surely take care of—— Papa! what is it?”</p> - -<p>He had sunk into a chair, one of those set ready on the grass for Stella -and her friends, and was growing purple in the face and panting for -breath. “You fool! you fool! Stella,” he cried, “Stella, my little girl. -Oh, I’ll be even with those young fools when I catch them. They want to -drown her. They want to run away with her. Stella! my little girl!”</p> - -<p>Katherine had awakened to the fact before these interrupted words were -half uttered. And naturally what she did was perfectly unreasonable. She -rushed to the edge of the cliff, waving aloft the white parasol in her -hand, beckoning wildly, and crying, “Come back, come back!” She called -all the servants, the gardener and his man, the footmen who were looking -out alarmed from the porch. “Go, go,” she cried, stamping her foot, “and -bring them back; go and bring them back!” There was much rushing and -running, and one at least of the men flung himself helter-skelter down -the steep stair that led to the beach, while the gardeners stood gazing -from the cliff. Katherine clapped her hands in her excitement, giving -wild orders. “Go! go! don’t stand there as if nothing could be done; go -and bring them back!”</p> - -<p>“Not to contradict you, Miss Katherine——” the gardener began.</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t speak to me—don’t stand talking—go, go, and bring them -back.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Tredgold had recovered his breath a little. “Let us think,” he -said—“let us think, and don’t talk nonsense, Kate.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a>{37}</span> There’s a breeze -blowing up, and where will it drive them to, gardener? Man, can’t you -tell where it’ll drive them to? Round by the Needles, I shouldn’t -wonder, the dangerousest coast. Oh, my little girl, my little girl! -Shall I ever see her again? And me that said they were never to go out -but when there was no wind.”</p> - -<p>“Not to the Needles, sir—not to the Needles when there’s a westerly -breeze. More likely round the cliffs Bembridge way; and who can stop ’em -when they’re once out? It’s only a little cruise; let ’em alone and -they’ll come home, with their tails be’ind them, as the rhyme says.”</p> - -<p>“And I said they were only to go out if there was no wind, gardener!” -The old gentleman was almost weeping with alarm and anxiety, but yet he -was comforted by what the man said.</p> - -<p>“They are going the contrary way,” cried Katherine.</p> - -<p>“Bless you, miss, that’s tacking, to catch the breeze. They couldn’t go -far, sir, could they? without no wind.”</p> - -<p>“And that’s just what I wanted, that they should not go far—just a -little about in the bay to please her. Oh, my little girl! She will be -dead with fright; she will catch her death of cold, she will.”</p> - -<p>“Not a bit, sir,” cried the gardener. “Miss Stella’s a very plucky one. -She’ll enjoy the run, she’ll enjoy the danger.”</p> - -<p>“The danger!” cried father and sister together.</p> - -<p>“What a fool I am! There ain’t none, no more than if they was in a duck -pond,” the gardener said.</p> - -<p>And, indeed, to see the white sail flying in the sunshine over the blue -sea, there did not seem much appearance of danger. With his first -apprehensions quieted down, Mr. Tredgold stumbled with the help of his -daughter’s arm to the edge of the cliff within the feathery line of the -tamarisk trees, attended closely by the gardener, who, as an islander -born, was supposed to know something of the sea. The hearts of the -anxious gazers fluctuated as the little yacht danced over the water, -going down when she made a little lurch and curtsey before the breeze, -and up when she went steadily by the wind, making one of those long -tacks which the gardener explained<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a>{38}</span> were all made, though they seemed to -lead the little craft so far away, with the object of getting back.</p> - -<p>“Them two young gentlemen, they knows what they’re about,” the gardener -said.</p> - -<p>“And there’s a sailor-man on board,” said Mr. Tredgold—“a man that -knows everything about it, one of the crew whose business it is——”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see no third man,” said the gardener doubtfully.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, yes, there’s a sailor-man,” cried the father. The old -gentleman spoke with a kind of sob in his throat; he was ready to cry -with weakness and trouble and exasperation, as the little vessel, -instead of replying to the cries and wailings of his anxiety by coming -right home as seemed to him the simplest way, went on tacking and -turning, sailing further and further off, then heeling over as if she -would go down, then fluttering with an empty sail that hung about the -mast before she struck off in another direction, but never turning back. -“They are taking her off to America!” he cried, half weeping, leaning -heavily on Katherine’s arm.</p> - -<p>“They’re tacking, sir, tacking, to bring her in,” said the gardener.</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t speak to me!” cried the unhappy father; “they are carrying -her off to America. Who was it said there was nothing between this and -America, Katie? Oh, my little girl! my little girl!”</p> - -<p>And it may be partly imagined what were the feelings of those -inexperienced and anxious people when the early October evening began to -fall, and the blue sky to be covered with clouds flying, gathering, and -dispersing before a freshening westerly gale.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a>{39}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">I will</span> not enter in detail into the feelings of the father and sister on -this alarming and dreadful night. No tragedy followed, the reader will -feel well assured, or this history would never have been written. But -the wind rose till it blew what the sailors called half a gale. It -seemed to Katherine a hurricane—a horrible tempest, in which no such -slender craft as that in which Stella had gone forth had a chance for -life; and indeed the men on the pier with their conjectures as to what -might have happened were not encouraging. She might have fetched Ventnor -or one of those places by a long tack. She might have been driven out to -the Needles. She mightn’t know her way with those gentlemen only as was -famous sailors with a fair wind, but not used to dirty weather. -Katherine spent all the night on the pier gazing out upon the waste of -water now and then lighted up by a fitful moon. What a change—what a -change from the golden afternoon! And what a difference from her own -thoughts!—a little grudging of Stella’s all-success, a little wounded -to feel herself always in the shade, and the horrible suggestion of -Stella’s loss, the dread that overwhelmed her imagination and took all -her courage from her. She stood on the end of the pier, with the -wind—that wind which had driven Stella forth out of sound and -sight—blowing her about, wrapping her skirts round her, loosing her -hair, making her hold tight to the rail lest she should be blown away. -Why should she hold tight? What did it matter, if Stella were gone, -whether she kept her footing or not? She could never take Stella’s place -with anyone. Her father would grudge her very existence that could not -be sacrificed to save Stella. Already he had begun to reproach her. Why -did you let her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a>{40}</span> go? What is the use of an elder sister to a girl if she -doesn’t interfere in such a case? And three years older, that ought to -have been a mother to her.</p> - -<p>Thus Mr. Tredgold had babbled in his misery before he was persuaded to -lie down to await news which nothing that could be done would make any -quicker. He had clamoured to send out boats—any number—after Stella. -He had insisted upon hiring a steamer to go out in quest of her; but -telegrams had to be sent far and wide and frantic messengers to -Ryde—even to Portsmouth—before he could get what he wanted. And in the -meantime the night had fallen, the wind had risen, and out of that -blackness and those dashing waves, which could be heard without being -seen, there came no sign of the boat. Never had such a night passed over -the peaceful place. There had been sailors and fishermen in danger many -a time, and distracted women on the pier; but what was that to the agony -of a millionaire who had been accustomed to do everything with his -wealth, and now raged and foamed at the mouth because he could do -nothing? What was all his wealth to him? He was as powerless as the poor -mother of that sailor-boy who was lost (there were so many, so many of -them), and who had not a shilling in the world. Not a shilling in the -world! It was exactly as if Mr. Tredgold had come to that. What could he -do with all his thousands? Oh, send out a tug from Portsmouth, send out -the fastest ferry-boat from Ryde, send out the whole fleet—fishing -cobles, pleasure boats—everything that was in Sliplin Harbour! Send -everything, everything that had a sail or an oar, not to say a steam -engine. A hundred pounds, a thousand pounds—anything to the man who -would bring Stella back!</p> - -<p>The little harbour was in wild commotion with all these offers. There -were not many boats, but they were all preparing; the men clattering -down the rolling shingle, with women after them calling to them to take -care, or not to go out in the teeth of the gale. “If you’re lost too -what good will that do?” they shrieked in the wind, their hair flying -like Katherine’s, but not so speechless as she was. The darkness, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a>{41}</span> -flaring feeble lights, the stir and noise on the shore, with these -shrieking voices breaking in, made a sort of Pandemonium unseen, taking -double horror from the fact that it was almost all sound and sensation, -made visible occasionally by the gleam of the moon between the flying -clouds. Mr. Tredgold’s house on the cliff blazed with lights from every -window, and a great pan of fire wildly blazing, sending up great shadows -of black smoke, was lit on the end of the pier—everything that could be -done to guide them back, to indicate the way. Nothing of that sort was -done when the fishermen were battling for their lives. But what did it -all matter, what was the good of it all? Millionaire and pauper stood on -the same level, hopeless, tearing their hair, praying their hearts out, -on the blind margin of that wild invisible sea.</p> - -<p>There was a horrible warning of dawn in the blackness when Stella, -soaked to the skin, her hair lashing about her unconscious face like -whips, and far more dead than alive, was at last carried home. I believe -there were great controversies afterwards between the steam-tug and the -fishing boats which claimed to have saved her—controversies which might -have been spared, since Mr. Tredgold paid neither, fortified by the -statement of the yachtsmen that neither had been of any use, and that -the <i>Stella</i> had at last blundered her way back of her own accord and -their superior management. He had to pay for the tug, which put forth by -his orders, but only as much as was barely necessary, with no such -gratuity as the men had hoped for; while to the fishers he would give -nothing, and Katherine’s allowance was all expended for six months in -advance in recompensing these clamorous rescuers who had not succeeded -in rescuing anyone.</p> - -<p>Stella was very ill for a few days; when she recovered the wetting and -the cold, then she was ill of the imagination, recalling more clearly -than at first all the horrors which she had passed through. As soon as -she was well enough to recover the use of her tongue she did nothing but -talk of this tremendous experience in her life, growing proud of it as -she got a little way beyond it and saw the thrilling character of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a>{42}</span> the -episode in full proportion. At first she would faint away, or rather, -almost faint away (between two which things there is an immense -difference), as she recalled the incidents of that night. But after a -while they became her favourite and most delightful subjects of -conversation. She entertained all her friends with the account of her -adventure as she lay pale, with her pretty hair streaming over her -pillow, not yet allowed to get up after all she had gone through, but -able to receive her habitual visitors.</p> - -<p>“The feeling that came over me when it got dark, oh! I can’t describe -what it was,” said Stella. “I thought it was a shadow at first. The sail -throws such a shadow sometimes; it’s like a great bird settling down -with its big wing. But when it came down all round and one saw it wasn’t -a shadow, but darkness—night!—oh, how horrible it was! I thought I -should have died, out there on the great waves and the water dashing -into the boat, and the cliffs growing fainter and fainter, and the -horrible, horrible dark!”</p> - -<p>“Stella dear, don’t excite yourself again. It is all over, God be -praised.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it’s all over. It is easy for you people to speak who have never -been lost at sea. It will never be over for me. If I were to live to be -a hundred I should feel it all the same. The hauling up and the hauling -down of that dreadful sail, carrying us right away out into the sea when -we wanted to get home, and then flopping down all in a moment, while we -rocked and pitched till I felt I must be pitched out. Oh, how I implored -them to go back! ‘Just turn back!’ I cried. ‘Why don’t you turn back? We -are always going further and further, instead of nearer. And oh! what -will papa say and Katherine?’ They laughed at first, and told me they -were tacking, and I begged them, for Heaven’s sake, not to tack, but to -run home. But they would not listen to me. Oh, they are all very nice -and do what you like when it doesn’t matter; but when it’s risking your -life, and you hate them and are miserable and can’t help yourself, then -they take their own way.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a>{43}</span></p> - -<p>“But they couldn’t help it either,” cried Evelyn, the rector’s daughter. -“They had to tack; they could not run home when the wind was against -them.”</p> - -<p>“What do I care about the wind?” cried Stella. “They should not have -made me go out if there was a wind. Papa said we were never to go out in -a wind. I told them so. I said, ‘You ought not to have brought me out.’ -They said it was nothing to speak of. I wonder what it is when it is -something to speak of! And then we shipped a sea, as they called it, and -I got drenched to the very skin. Oh, I don’t say they were not kind. -They took off their coats and put round me, but what did that do for me? -I was chilled to the very bone. Oh, you can’t think how dreadful it is -to lie and see those sails swaying and to hear the men moving about and -saying dreadful things to each other, and the boat moving up and down. -Oh!” cried Stella, clasping her hands together and looking as if once -more she was about almost to faint away.</p> - -<p>“Stella, spare yourself, dear. Try to forget it; try to think of -something else. It is too much for you when you dwell on it,” Katherine -said.</p> - -<p>“Dwell on it!” cried Stella, reviving instantly. “It is very clear that -<i>you</i> never were in danger of your life, Kate.”</p> - -<p>“I was in danger of <i>your</i> life,” cried Katherine, “and I think that was -worse. Oh, I could tell you a story, too, of that night on the pier, -looking out on the blackness, and thinking every moment—but don’t let -us think of it, it is too much. Thank God, it is all over, and you are -quite safe now.”</p> - -<p>“It is very different standing upon the pier, and no doubt saying to -yourself what a fool Stella was to go out; she just deserves it all for -making papa so unhappy, and keeping me out of bed. Oh, I know that was -what you were thinking! and being like me with only a plank between me -and—don’t you know? The one is very, very different from the other, I -can tell you,” Stella said, with a little flush on her cheek.</p> - -<p>And the Stanley girls who were her audience agreed with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a>{44}</span> her, with a -strong sense that to be the heroine of such an adventure was, after all, -when it was over, one of the most delightful things in the world. Her -father also agreed with her, who came stumping with his stick up the -stairs, his own room being below, and took no greater delight than to -sit by her bedside and hear her go over the story again and again.</p> - -<p>“I’ll sell that little beast of a boat. I’ll have her broken up for -firewood. To think I should have paid such a lot of money for her, and -her nearly to drown my little girl!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t do that, papa,” said Stella; “when it’s quite safe and there -is no wind I should like perhaps to go out in her again, just to see. -But to be sure there was no wind when we went out—just a very little, -just enough to fill the sail, they said; but you can never trust to a -wind. I said I shouldn’t go, only just for ten minutes to try how I -liked it; and then that horrid gale came on to blow, and they began to -tack, as they call it. Such nonsense that tacking, papa! when they began -it I said, ‘Why, we’re going further off than ever; what I want is to -get home.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“They paid no attention, I suppose—they thought they knew better,” said -Mr. Tredgold.</p> - -<p>“They always think they know better,” cried Stella, with indignation. -“And oh, when it came on to be dark, and the wind always rising, and the -water coming in, in buckets full! Were you ever at sea in a storm, -papa?”</p> - -<p>“Never, my pet,” said Mr. Tredgold, “trust me for that. I never let -myself go off firm land, except sometimes in a penny steamboat, that’s -dangerous enough. Sometimes the boilers blow up, or you run into some -other boat; but on the sea, not if I know it, Stella.”</p> - -<p>“But I have,” said the girl. “A steamboat! within the two banks of a -river! You know nothing, nothing about it, neither does Katherine. Some -sailors, I believe, might go voyages for years and never see anything so -bad as that night. Why, the waves were mountains high, and then you -seemed to slide down to the bottom as if you were going—oh! hold me, -hold me, papa, or I shall feel as if I were going again.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a>{45}</span></p> - -<p>“Poor little Stella,” said Mr. Tredgold, “poor little girl! What a thing -for her to go through, so early in life! But I’d like to do something to -those men. I’d like to punish them for taking advantage of a child like -that, all to get hold of my new boat, and show how clever they were with -their tacking and all that. Confound their tacking! If it hadn’t been -for their tacking she might have got back to dinner and saved us such a -miserable night.”</p> - -<p>“What was your miserable night in comparison to mine?” cried Stella, -scornfully. “I believe you both think it was as bad as being out at sea, -only because you did not get your dinner at the proper time and were -kept longer than usual out of bed.”</p> - -<p>“We must not forget,” said Katherine, “that after all, though they might -be to blame in going out, these gentlemen saved her life.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know about that,” said the old man. “I believe it was my tug -that saved her life. It was they that put her life in danger, if you -please. I’d like just to break them in the army, or sell them up, or -something; idle fellows doing nothing, strolling about to see what -mischief they can find to do.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, they are very nice,” said Stella. “You shan’t do anything to them, -papa. I am great chums with Charlie and Algy; they are such nice boys, -really, when you come to know them; they took off their coats to keep me -warm. I should have had inflammation of the lungs or something if I had -not had their coats. I was shivering so.”</p> - -<p>“And do you know,” said Katherine, “one of them is ill, as Stella -perhaps might have been if he had not taken off his coat.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, which is that?” cried Stella; “oh, do find out which is that? It -must be Algy, I think. Algy is the delicate one. He never is good for -much—he gives in, you know, so soon. He is so weedy, long, and thin, -and no stamina, that is what the others say.”</p> - -<p>“And is that all the pity you have for him, Stella? when it was to save -you—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a>{46}</span>—”</p> - -<p>“It was not to save me,” cried Stella, raising herself in her bed with -flushed cheeks, “it was to save himself! If I hadn’t been saved where -would they have been? They would have gone to the bottom too. Oh, I -can’t see that I’m so much obliged to them as all that! What they did -they did for themselves far more than for me. We were all in the same -boat, and if I had been drowned they would have been drowned too. I -hope, though,” she said, more amiably, “that Algy will get better if -it’s he that is ill. And it must be he. Charlie is as strong as a horse. -He never feels anything. Papa, I hope you will send him grapes and -things. I shall go and see him as soon as I am well.”</p> - -<p>“You go and see a young fellow—in his room! You shall do nothing of the -sort, Stella. Things may be changed from my time, and I suppose they -are, but for a girl to go and visit a young fellow—in his——”</p> - -<p>Stella smiled a disdainful and amused smile as she lay back on her -pillow. “You may be sure, papa,” she said, “that I certainly shall. I -will go and nurse him, unless he has someone already. I ought to nurse -the man who helped to save my life.”</p> - -<p>“You are a little self-willed, wrong-headed—— Katherine, you had -better take care. I will make you answer for it if she does anything so -silly—a chit of a girl! I’ll speak to Dr. Dobson. I’ll send to—to the -War Office. I’ll have him carted away.”</p> - -<p>“Is poor Algy here, Kate? Where is he—at the hotel? Oh, you dreadful -hard-hearted people to let him go to the hotel when you knew he had -saved my life. Papa, go away, and let me get dressed. I must find out -how he is. I must go to him, poor fellow. Perhaps the sight of me and to -see that I am better will do him good. Go away, please, papa.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll not budge a step,” cried the old gentleman. “Katie, Katie, she’ll -work herself into a fever. She’ll make herself ill, and then what shall -we do?”</p> - -<p>“I’m very ill already,” said Stella, with a cough. “I am being thrust -into my grave. Let them bring us together—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a>{47}</span>poor, poor Algy and me. Oh, -if we are both to be victims, let it be so! We will take each other’s -hands and go down—go down together to the——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Katie, can’t you stop her?” cried the father.</p> - -<p>Stella was sobbing with delicious despair over the thought of the two -delightful, dreadful funerals, and all the world weeping over her -untimely fate.</p> - -<p>Stella recovered rapidly when her father was put to the door. She said -with a pretty childish reverberation of her sob: “For you know, Kate, it -never was he—that would be the poignant thing, wouldn’t it?—it was not -he that I ever would have chosen. But to be united in—in a common fate, -with two graves together, don’t you know, and an inscription, and people -saying, ‘Both so young!’<span class="lftspc">”</span> She paused to dry her eyes, and then she -laughed. “There is nothing in him, don’t you know; it was Charlie that -did all the work. He was nearly as frightened as I was. Oh, I don’t -think anything much of Algy, but I shall go to see him all the same—if -it were only to shock papa.”</p> - -<p>“You had better get well yourself in the meantime,” said Katherine.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you cold, cold—toad! What do you care? It would have been better -for you if I had been drowned, Kate. Then you would have been the only -daughter and the first in the house, but now, you know, it’s Stella -again—always Stella. Papa is an unjust old man and makes favourites; -but you need not think, however bad I am, and however good you are, that -you will ever cure him of that.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a>{48}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">When</span> Stella was first able to appear out of the shelter of her father’s -grounds for a walk, she was the object of a sort of ovation—as much of -an ovation as it is possible to make in such a place. She was leaning on -her sister’s arm and was supported on the other side by a stick, as it -was only right a girl should be who had gone through so much. And she -was very prettily pale, and looked more interesting than words could -say, leaning heavily (if anything about Stella could be called heavy) -upon Katherine, and wielding her stick with a charming air of finding it -too much for her, yet at the same time finding it indispensable. There -was nobody in the place who did not feel the attraction of sympathy, and -the charm of the young creature who had been rescued from the very jaws -of death and restored to the family that adored her. To think what might -have been!—the old man broken-hearted and Katherine in deep mourning -going and coming all alone, and perhaps not even a grave for the -unfortunate Stella—lost at sea! Some of the ladies who thronged about -her, stopping her to kiss her and express the depths of sympathetic -anguish through which they had gone, declared that to think of it made -them shudder. Thank Heaven that everything had ended so well! Stella -took all these expressions of sympathy very sweetly. She liked to be the -chief person, to awaken so much emotion, to be surrounded by so many -flatteries. She felt, indeed, that she, always an interesting person, -had advanced greatly in the scale of human consideration. She was more -important by far since she had “gone through” that experience. They had -been so near to losing her; everybody felt now fully what it was to have -her. The rector had returned thanks publicly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a>{49}</span> in church, and every -common person about the streets curtsied or touched his hat with a -deeper sentiment. To think that perhaps she might have been -drowned—she, so young, so fair, so largely endowed with everything that -heart could desire! If her neighbours were moved by this sentiment, -Stella herself was still more deeply moved by it. She felt to the depths -of her heart what a thing it was for all these people that she should -have been saved from the sea.</p> - -<p>Public opinion was still more moved when it was known where Stella was -going when she first set foot outside the gates—to inquire after the -rash young man who, popular opinion now believed, had beguiled her into -danger. How good, how sweet, how forgiving of her! Unless, indeed, there -was something—something between them, as people say. This added a new -interest to the situation. The world of Sliplin had very much blamed the -young men. It had thought them inexcusable from every point of view. To -have taken an inexperienced girl out, who knew nothing about yachting, -just when that gale was rising! It was intolerable and not to be -forgiven. This judgment was modified by the illness of Captain Scott, -who, everybody now found, was delicate, and ought not to have exposed -himself to the perils of such an expedition. It must have been the other -who was to blame, but then the other conciliated everybody by his -devotion to his friend. And the community was in a very soft and amiable -mood altogether when Stella was seen to issue forth from her father’s -gates leaning on Katherine at one side and her stick on the other, to -ask for news of her fellow-sufferer. This mood rose to enthusiasm at the -sight of her paleness and at the suggestion that there probably was -something between Stella and Captain Scott. It was supposed at first -that he was an honourable, and a great many peerages fluttered forth. It -was a disappointment to find that he was not so; but at least his father -was a baronet, and himself an officer in a crack regiment, and he had -been in danger of his life. All these circumstances were of an -interesting kind.</p> - -<p>Stella, however, did not carry out this tender purpose at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a>{50}</span> once. When -she actually visited the hotel and made her way upstairs into Captain -Scott’s room her own convalescence was complete, and the other invalid -was getting well, and there was not only Katherine in attendance upon -her, but Sir Charles, who was now commonly seen with her in her walks, -and about whom Sliplin began to be divided in its mind whether it was he -and not the sick man between whom and Stella there was something. He was -certainly very devoted, people said, but then most men were devoted to -Stella. Captain Scott had been prepared for the visit, and was eager for -it, notwithstanding the disapproval of the nurse, who stood apart by the -window and looked daggers at the young ladies, or at least at Stella, -who took the chief place by the patient’s bedside and began to chatter -to him, trying her best to get into the right tone, the tone of Mrs. -Seton, and make the young man laugh. Katherine, who was not “in it,” -drew aside to conciliate the attendant a little.</p> - -<p>“I don’t hold with visits when a young man is so weak,” said the nurse. -“Do you know, miss, that his life just hung on a thread, so to speak? We -were on the point of telegraphing for his people, me and the doctor; and -he is very weak still.”</p> - -<p>“My sister will only stay a few minutes,” said Katherine. “You know she -was with them in the boat and escaped with her life too.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I can see, miss, as there was no danger of her life,” said the -nurse, indignant. “Look at her colour! I am not thinking anything of the -boat. A nasty night at sea is a nasty thing, but nothing for them that -can stand it. But he couldn’t stand it; that’s all the difference. The -young lady may thank her stars as she hasn’t his death at her door.”</p> - -<p>“It was her life that those rash young men risked by their folly,” said -Katherine, indignant in her turn.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no,” cried the nurse. “I know better than that. When he was off his -head he was always going over it. ‘Don’t, Charlie, don’t give in; -there’s wind in the sky. Don’t give in to her. What does she know?’ That -was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a>{51}</span> what he was always a-saying. And there she sits as bold as brass, -that is the cause.”</p> - -<p>“You take a great liberty to say so,” said Katherine, returning to her -sister’s side.</p> - -<p>Stella was now in full career.</p> - -<p>“Oh, do you remember the first puff—how it made us all start? How we -laughed at him for looking always at the sky! Don’t you remember, -Captain Scott, I kept asking you what you were looking for in the sky, -and you kept shaking your head?”</p> - -<p>Here Stella began shaking her head from side to side and laughing -loudly—a laugh echoed by the two young men, but faintly by the invalid, -who shook his head too.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I saw the wind was coming,” he said. “We ought not to have given -in to you, Miss Stella. It doesn’t matter now it’s all over, but it -wasn’t nice while it lasted, was it?”</p> - -<p>“Speak for yourself, Algy,” said Sir Charles. “You were never made for a -sailor. Miss Stella is game for another voyage to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, if you like,” cried Stella, “with a good man. I shall bargain for a -good man—that can manage sails and all that. What is the fun of going -out when the men with you won’t sit by you and enjoy it. And all that -silly tacking and nonsense—there should have been someone to do it, and -you two should have sat by me.”</p> - -<p>They both laughed at this and looked at each other. “The fun is in the -sailing—for us, don’t you know,” said Sir Charles. It was not necessary -in their society even to pretend to another motive. Curiously enough, -though Stella desired to ape that freedom, she was not—perhaps no woman -is—delivered from the desire to believe that the motive was herself, to -give her pleasure. She did not even now understand why her -fellow-sufferers should not acknowledge this as the cause of their -daring trip.</p> - -<p>“Papa wants to thank you,” she said, “for saving my life; but that’s -absurd, ain’t it, for you were saving your own. If you had let me drown, -you would have drowned too.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a>{52}</span></p> - -<p>“I don’t know. You were a bit in our way,” said Sir Charles. “We’d have -got on better without you, we should, by George! You were an awful -responsibility, Miss Stella. I shouldn’t have liked to have faced Lady -Scott if Algy had kicked the bucket; and how I should have faced your -father if you——”</p> - -<p>“If that was all you thought of, I shall never, never go out with you -again,” cried Stella with an angry flush. But she could not make up her -mind to throw over her two companions for so little. “It was jolly at -first, wasn’t it?” she said, after a pause, “until Al—Captain Scott -began to look up to the sky, and open his mouth for something to fall -in.”</p> - -<p>But they did not laugh at this, though Mrs. Seton’s similar witticism -had brought on fits of laughter. Captain Scott swore “By George!” softly -under his breath; Sir Charles whistled—a very little, but he did -whistle, at which sound Stella rose angry from her seat.</p> - -<p>“You don’t seem to care much for my visit,” she cried, “though it tired -me very much to come. Oh, I know now what is meant by fair-weather -friends. We were to be such chums. You were to do anything for me; and -now, because it came on to blow—which was not my fault——”</p> - -<p>Here Stella’s voice shook, and she was very near bursting into tears.</p> - -<p>“Don’t say that, Miss Stella; it’s awfully jolly to see you, and it’s -dreadful dull lying here.”</p> - -<p>“And weren’t all the old cats shocked!” cried Sir Charles. “Oh, fie!” -putting up his hands to his eyes, “to find you had been out half the -night along with Algy and me.”</p> - -<p>“I have not seen any old cats yet,” said Stella, recovering her temper, -“only the young kittens, and they thought it a most terrible -adventure—like something in a book. You don’t seem to think anything of -that, you boys; you are all full of Captain Scott’s illness, as if that -dreadful, dreadful sail was nothing, except just the way he caught cold. -How funny that is! Now I don’t mind anything about catching cold or -being in bed for a week; but the terrible sea, and the wind,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a>{53}</span> and the -dark—these are what I never can get out of my mind.”</p> - -<p>“You see you were in no danger to speak of; but Algy was, poor fellow. -He is only just clear of it now.”</p> - -<p>“<i>I</i> only got up for the first time a week ago,” said Stella, aggrieved; -but she did not pursue the subject. “Mrs. Seton is coming across to see -us—both the invalids, she says; and perhaps she is one of the old cats, -for she says she is coming to scold me as well as to pet me. I don’t -know what there is to scold about, unless perhaps she would have liked -better to go out with you herself.”</p> - -<p>“That is just like Lottie Seton,” they both said, and laughed as -Stella’s efforts never made them laugh. Why should they laugh at her -very name when all the poor little girl could do in that way left them -unmoved?</p> - -<p>“She’s a perfect dragon of virtue, don’t you know?” said Algy, opening -his wide mouth.</p> - -<p>“And won’t she give it to the little ’un!” said Sir Charles, with -another outburst.</p> - -<p>“I should like to know who is meant by the little ’un; and what it is -she can give,” said Stella with offence.</p> - -<p>They both laughed again, looking at each other. “She’s as jealous as the -devil, don’t you know?” and “Lottie likes to keep all the good things to -herself,” they said.</p> - -<p>Stella was partly mollified to think that Mrs. Seton was jealous. It was -a feather in her little cap. “I don’t know if you think that sail was a -good thing,” she said. “She might have had it for me. It is a pity that -she left so soon. You always seem to be much happier when you have her -near.”</p> - -<p>“She’s such fun, she’s not a bad sort. She keeps fellows going,” the -young men replied.</p> - -<p>“Well then,” said Stella, getting up quickly, “you’ll be amused, for she -is coming. I brought you some grapes and things. I don’t know if you’ll -find them amusing. Kate, I think I’m very tired. Coming out so soon has -thrown me back again. And these gentlemen don’t want any visits from us, -I feel sure.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a>{54}</span></p> - -<p>“Don’t say that, Miss Stella,” cried Sir Charles. “Algy’s a dull beggar, -that’s the truth. He won’t say what he thinks; but I hope you know me. -Here, you must have my arm downstairs. You don’t know the dark corners -as I do. Algy, you dumb dog, say a word to the pretty lady that has -brought you all these nice things. He means it all, Miss Stella, but -he’s tongue-tied.”</p> - -<p>“His mouth is open enough,” said Stella as she turned away.</p> - -<p>“Choke full of grapes, and that is the truth,” said his friend. “And -he’s been very bad really, don’t you know? Quite near making an end of -it. That takes the starch out of a man, and just for a bit of fun. It -wasn’t his fun, don’t you know? it was you and I that enjoyed it,” Sir -Charles said, pressing his companion’s hand. Yes, she felt it was he -whom she liked best, not Algy with his mouth full of grapes. His open -mouth was always a thing to laugh at, but it is dreary work laughing -alone. Sir Charles, on the other hand, was a handsome fellow, and he had -always paid a great deal more attention to Stella than his friend. She -went down the stairs leaning on his arm, Katherine following after a -word of farewell to the invalid. The elder sister begged the young man -to send to the Cliff for anything he wanted, and to come as soon as he -was able to move, for a change. “Papa bade me say how glad we should be -to have you.”</p> - -<p>Algy gaped at Katherine, who was supposed to be a sort of incipient old -maid and no fun at all, with eyes and mouth wide. “Oh, thanks!” he said. -He could not master this new idea. She had been always supposed to be -elderly and plain, whereas it appeared in reality that she was just as -pretty as the other one. He had to be left in silence to assimilate this -new thought.</p> - -<p>“Mind you tell me every word Lottie Seton says. She <i>is</i> fun when she is -proper, and she just can be proper to make your hair stand on end. Now -remember, Miss Stella, that’s a bargain. You are to tell me every word -she says.”</p> - -<p>“I shall do nothing of the sort; you must think much of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a>{55}</span> her indeed when -you want to hear every word. I wonder you didn’t go after her if you -thought so much of her as that.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, she’s very amusing,” said Sir Charles. “She doesn’t always -mean to be, bless you, but when she goes in for the right and proper -thing! Mrs. Grundy is not in it, by Jove! She’ll come to the hotel and -go on at Algy; but it’s with you that the fun will be. I should like to -borrow the servant’s clothes and get in a corner somewhere to hear. -Lottie never minds what she says before servants. It is as if they were -cabbages, don’t you know?”</p> - -<p>“You seem to know a great deal about Mrs. Seton, Sir Charles,” said -Stella severely; but he did not disown this or hesitate as Stella -expected. He said, “Yes, by Jove,” simply into his big moustache, -meaning Stella did not know what of good or evil. She allowed him to put -her into the carriage which was waiting without further remark. Stella -began to feel that it was by no means plain sailing with these young -soldiers. Perhaps they were not so silly with her as with Mrs. Seton, -perhaps Stella was not so clever; and certainly she did not take the -lead with them at all.</p> - -<p>“I think they are rude,” said Katherine; “probably they don’t mean any -harm. I don’t think they mean any harm. They are spoiled and allowed to -say whatever they like, and to have very rude things said to them. Your -Mrs. Seton, for instance——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t say my Mrs. Seton,” said Stella. “I hate Mrs. Seton. I wish -we had never known her. She is not one of our kind of people at all.”</p> - -<p>“But you would not have known these gentlemen whom you like but for Mrs. -Seton, Stella.”</p> - -<p>“How dare you say gentlemen whom I like? as if it was something wrong! -They are only boys to play about,” Stella said.</p> - -<p>Which, indeed, was not at all a bad description of the sort of sentiment -which fills many girlish minds with an inclination that is often very -wrongly defined. Boys to play about is a thing which every one likes. It -implies nothing perhaps, it means the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a>{56}</span> most superficial of sentiments. -It is to be hoped that it was only as boys to play about that Mrs. Seton -herself took an interest in these young men. But her promise of a visit -and a scold was perplexing to Stella. What was she to be scolded about, -she whom neither her father nor sister had scolded, though she had given -them such a night! And what a night she had given herself—terror, -misery, and cold, a cold, perhaps, quite as bad as Algy Scott’s, only -borne by her with so much more courage! This was what Stella was -thinking as she drove home. It was a ruddy October afternoon, very -delightful in the sunshine, a little chilly out of it, and it was -pleasant to be out again after her week’s imprisonment, and to look -across that glittering sea and feel what an experience she had gained. -Now she knew the other side of it, and had a right to shudder and tell -her awe-inspiring story whenever she pleased. “Oh, doesn’t it look -lovely, as if it could not harm anyone, but I could tell you another -tale!” This was a possession which never could be taken from her, -whoever might scold, or whoever complain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a>{57}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">“I only</span> wonder to find you holding up your head at all. Your people must -be very silly people, and no mistake. What, to spend a whole night out -in the bay with Charlie Somers and Algy Scott, and then to ask me what -you have done? Do you know what sort of character these boys have got? -They are nice boys, and I don’t care about their morals, don’t you know? -as long as they’re amusing. But then I’ve my husband always by me. Tom -would no more leave me with those men by myself—though they’re all well -enough with anyone that knows how to keep them in order; but a young -girl like you—it will need all that your friends can do to stand by you -and to whitewash you, Stella. Tom didn’t want me to come. ‘You keep out -of it. She has got people of her own,’ he said; but I felt I must. And -then, after all that, you lift up your little nozzle and ask what you -have done!”</p> - -<p>Stella sat up, very white, in the big easy-chair where she had been -resting when Mrs. Seton marched in. The little girl was so entirely -overwhelmed by the sudden downfall of all her pretensions to be a -heroine that after the first minute of defiance her courage was -completely cowed, and she could not find a word to say for herself. She -was a very foolish girl carried away by her spirits, by her false -conception of what was smart and amusing to do, and by the imperiousness -natural to her position as a spoilt child whose every caprice was -yielded to. But there was no harm, only folly, in poor little Stella’s -thoughts. She liked the company of the young men and the <i>éclat</i> which -their attendance gave her. To drag about a couple of officers in her -train was delightful to her. But further than that her innocent -imagination did not go. Her wild adventure<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a>{58}</span> in the yacht had never -presented itself to her as anything to be ashamed of, and Mrs. Seton’s -horrible suggestion filled her with a consternation for which there was -no words. And it gave her a special wound that it should be Mrs. Seton -who said it, she who had first introduced her to the noisy whirl of a -“set” with which by nature she had nothing to do.</p> - -<p>“It was all an accident,” Stella murmured at last; “everybody knows it -was an accident. I meant to go—for ten minutes—just to try—and then -the wind got up. Do you think I wanted to be drowned—to risk my life, -to be so ill and frightened to death? Oh!” the poor little girl cried, -with that vivid realisation of her own distress which is perhaps the -most poignant sentiment in the world—especially when it is -unappreciated by others. Mrs. Seton tossed her head; she was implacable. -No feature of the adventure moved her except to wrath.</p> - -<p>“Everybody knows what these accidents mean,” she said, “and as for your -life it was in no more danger than it is here. Charlie Somers knows the -bay like the palm of his hand. He is one of the best sailors going. I -confess I don’t understand what <i>he</i> did it for. Those boys will do -anything for fun; but it wasn’t very great fun, I should think—unless -it was the lark of the thing, just under your father’s windows and so -forth. I do think, Stella, you’ve committed yourself dreadfully, and I -shouldn’t wonder if you never got the better of it. <i>I</i> should never -have held up my head again if it had been me.”</p> - -<p>They were seated in the pretty morning-room opening upon the garden, -which was the favourite room of the two girls. The window was open to -admit the sunshine of a brilliant noon, but a brisk fire was burning, -for the afternoons were beginning to grow cold, when the sunshine was no -longer there, with the large breath of the sea. Mrs. Seton had arrived -by an early train to visit her friends, and had just come from Algy’s -sick bed to carry fire and flame into the convalescence of Stella. Her -injured virtue, her high propriety, shocked by such proceedings as had -been thus brought under her notice, were indescribable. She had given -the girl a careless<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a>{59}</span> kiss with an air of protest against that very -unmeaning endearment, when she came in, and this was how, without any -warning, she had assailed the little heroine. Stella’s courage was not -at all equal to the encounter. She had held her own with difficulty -before the indifference of the young men. She could not bear up at all -under the unlooked-for attack of her friend.</p> - -<p>“Oh, how cruel you are!—how unkind you are!—how dreadful of you to say -such things!” she cried. “As if I was merely sport for them like a—like -any sort of girl; a lark!—under my father’s windows——” It was too -much for Stella. She began to cry in spite of herself, in spite of her -pride, which was not equal to this strain.</p> - -<p>Katherine had come in unperceived while the conversation was going on.</p> - -<p>“I cannot have my sister spoken to so,” she said. “It is quite false in -the first place, and she is weak and nervous and not able to bear such -suggestions. If you have anything to say against Stella’s conduct it -will be better to say it to my father, or to me. If anybody was to -blame, it was your friends who were to blame. They knew what they were -about and Stella did not. They must be ignorant indeed if they looked -upon her as they would do upon”—Katherine stopped herself -hurriedly—“upon a person of experience—an older woman.”</p> - -<p>“Upon me, you mean!” cried Mrs. Seton. “I am obliged to you, Miss -Tredgold! Oh, yes! I have got some experience and so has she, if -flirting through a couple of seasons can give it. Two seasons!—more -than that. I am sure I have seen her at the Cowes ball I don’t know how -many times! And then to pretend she doesn’t know what men are, and what -people will say of such an escapade as that! Why, goodness, everybody -knows what people say; they will talk for a nothing at all, for a few -visits you may have from a friend, and nothing in it but just to pass -the time. And then to think she can be out a whole night with a couple -of men in a boat, and nothing said! Do you mean<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a>{60}</span> to say that you, who -are old enough, I am sure, for anything——”</p> - -<p>“Katherine is not much older than I am,” cried Stella, drying her tears. -“Katherine is twenty-three—Katherine is——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m sure, quite a perfect person! though you don’t always think so, -Stella; and twenty-three’s quite a nice age, that you can stand at for -ever so long. And you are a couple of very impudent girls to face it out -to me so, who have come all this way for your good, just to warn you. -Oh, if you don’t know what people say, I do! I have had it hot all round -for far more innocent things; but I’ve got Tom always to stand by me. -Who’s going to stand by you when it gets told all about how you went out -with Charlie Somers and Algy Scott all by yourself in a boat, and didn’t -come back till morning? You think perhaps it won’t be known? Why, it’s -half over the country already; the men are all laughing about it in -their clubs; they are saying which of ’em was it who played gooseberry? -They aren’t the sort of men to play gooseberry, neither Algy nor -Charlie. The old father will have to come down strong——”</p> - -<p>Poor Stella looked up at her sister with distracted eyes. “Oh, Kate, -what does she mean? What does she mean?” she cried.</p> - -<p>“We don’t want to know what she means,” cried Katherine, putting her -arms round her sister. “She speaks her own language, not one that we -understand. Stella, Stella dear, don’t take any notice. What are the men -in the clubs to you?”</p> - -<p>“I’d like to know,” said Mrs. Seton with a laugh, “which of us can -afford to think like that of the men in the clubs. Why, it’s there that -everything comes from. A good joke or a good story, that’s what they -live by—they tell each other everything! Who would care to have them, -or who would ask them out, and stand their impudence if they hadn’t -always the very last bit of gossip at their fingers’ ends? And this is -such a delicious story, don’t you know? Charlie Somers<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a>{61}</span> and Algy Scott -off in a little pleasure yacht with a millionaire’s daughter, and kept -her out all night, by Jove, in a gale of wind to make everything nice! -And now the thing is to see how far the old father will go. He’ll have -to do something big, don’t you know? but whether Charlie or Algy is to -be the happy man——”</p> - -<p>“Kate!” said Stella with a scream, hiding her head on her sister’s -shoulder. “Take me away! Oh, hide me somewhere! Don’t let me see -anyone—anyone! Oh, what have I done—what have I done, that anything so -dreadful should come to me.”</p> - -<p>“You have done nothing, Stella, except a little folly, childish folly, -that meant nothing. Will you let her alone, please? You have done enough -harm here. It was you who brought those—those very vulgar young men to -this house.”</p> - -<p>Even Stella lifted her tearful face in consternation at Katherine’s -boldness, and Mrs. Seton uttered a shriek of dismay.</p> - -<p>“What next—what next? Vulgar young men! The very flower of the country, -the finest young fellows going. You’ve taken leave of your senses, I -think. And to this house—oh, my goodness, what fun it is!—how they -will laugh! To <i>this</i> house——”</p> - -<p>“They had better not laugh in our hearing at least. This house is sacred -to those who live in it, and anyone who comes here with such hideous -miserable gossip may be prepared for a bad reception. Those vulgar -cads!” cried Katherine. “Oh, that word is vulgar too, I suppose. I don’t -care—they are so if any men ever were, who think they can trifle with a -girl’s name and make her father come down—with what? his money you -mean—it would be good sound blows if I were a man. And for what? to buy -the miserable beings off, to shut their wretched mouths, to——”</p> - -<p>“Katherine!” cried Stella, all aglow, detaching herself from her -sister’s arms.</p> - -<p>“Here’s heroics!” said Mrs. Seton; but she was overawed more or less by -the flashing eyes and imposing aspect of this young woman, who was no -“frump” after all, as appeared,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a>{62}</span> but a person to be reckoned with—not -Stella’s duenna, but something in her own right. Then she turned to -Stella, who was more comprehensible, with whom a friend might quarrel -and make it up again and no harm done. “My dear,” she said, “you are the -one of this family who understands a little, who can be spoken to—I -shan’t notice the rude things your sister says—I was obliged to tell -you, for it’s always best to hear from a friend what is being said about -you outside. You might have seen yourself boycotted, don’t you know? and -not known what it meant. But, I dare say, if we all stand by you, you’ll -not be boycotted for very long. You don’t mean to be rude, I hope, to -your best friends.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lottie! I hope you will stand by me,” cried Stella. “It was all an -accident, as sure, as sure——! I only took them to the yacht for -fun—and then I thought I should like to see the sails up—for fun. And -then—oh, it was anything but fun after that!” the girl cried.</p> - -<p>“I dare say. Were you sick?—did you make an exhibition of yourself? Oh, -I shall hear all about it from Algy—Charlie won’t say anything, so he -is the one, I suppose. Don’t forget he’s a very bad boy—oh, there isn’t -a good one between them! <i>I</i> shouldn’t like to be out with them alone. -But Charlie! the rows he has had everywhere, the scandals he has made! -Oh, my dear! If you go and marry Charlie Somers, Stella, which you’ll -have to do, I believe——”</p> - -<p>“He is the very last person she shall marry if she will listen to me!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you are too silly for anything, Katherine,” said Stella, slightly -pushing her away. “You don’t know the world, you are goody-goody. What -do you know about men? But I don’t want to marry anyone. I want to have -my fun. The sea was dreadful the other night, and I was terribly -frightened and thought I was going to be drowned. But yet it was fun in -a way. Oh, Lottie, you understand! One felt it was such a dreadful thing -to happen, and the state papa and everybody would be in! Still it is -very, very impudent to discuss me like that, as if I had been run away -with. I wasn’t in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a>{63}</span> least. It was I who wanted to go out. They said -the wind was getting up, but I didn’t care, I said. ‘Let’s try.’ It was -all for fun. And it was fun, after all.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, if you take it in that way,” said Mrs. Seton, “and perhaps it is -the best way just to brazen it out. Say what fun it was for everybody. -Don’t go in for being pale and having been ill and all that. Laugh at -Algy for being such a milksop. You are a clever little thing, Stella. I -am sure that is the best way. And if I were you I should smooth down the -old cats here—those old cats, you know, that came to the picnic—and -throw dust in the eyes of Lady Jane, and then you’ll do. I’ll fight your -battles for you, you may be sure. And then there is Charlie Somers. I -wouldn’t turn up my nose at Charlie Somers if I were you.”</p> - -<p>“He is nothing to me,” said Stella. “He has never said a word to me that -all the world—that Kate herself—mightn’t hear. When he does it’ll be -time enough to turn up my nose, or not. Oh, what do I care? I don’t want -to have anybody to stand up for me. I can do quite well by myself, thank -you. Kate, why should I sit here in a dressing gown? I am quite well. I -want the fresh air and to run about. You are so silly; you always want -to pet me and take care of me as if I were a child. I’m going out now -with Lottie to have a little run before lunch and see the view.”</p> - -<p>“Brava,” said Mrs. Seton, “you see what a lot of good I’ve done -her—that is what she wants, shaking up, not being petted and fed with -sweets. All right, Stella, run and get your frock on and I’ll wait for -you. You may be quite right, Miss Tredgold,” she said, when Stella had -disappeared, “to stand up for your family. But all the same it’s quite -true what I say.”</p> - -<p>“If it is true, it is abominable; but I don’t believe it to be true,” -Katherine cried.</p> - -<p>“Well, I don’t say it isn’t a shame. I’ve had abominable things said of -me. But what does that matter so long as your husband stands by you like -a brick, as Tom does? But if I were you, and Charlie Somers really comes -forward—it is just<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a>{64}</span> as likely he won’t, for he ain’t a marrying man, he -likes his fun like Stella—but if he does come forward——”</p> - -<p>“I hope he will have more sense than to think of such a thing. He will -certainly not be well received.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, if you stick to that! But why should you now? If she married it -would be the best thing possible for you. You ain’t bad looking, and I -shouldn’t wonder if you were only the age she says. But with Stella here -you seem a hundred, and nobody looks twice at you——”</p> - -<p>Katherine smiled, but the smile was not without bitterness. “You are -very kind to advise me for my good,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you mean I’m very impudent—perhaps I am! But I know what I’m -saying all the same. If Charlie Somers comes forward——”</p> - -<p>“Advise him not to do so, you who are fond of giving advice,” said -Katherine, “for my father will have nothing to say to him, and it would -be no use.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, your father!” said Mrs. Seton with contempt, and then she kissed -her hand to Stella, who came in with her hat on ready for the “run” she -had proposed. “Here she is as fresh as paint,” said that mistress of all -the elegancies of language—“what a good ’un I am for stirring up the -right spirit! You see how much of an invalid she is now! Where shall we -go for our run, Stella, now that you have made yourself look so killing? -You don’t mean, I should suppose, to waste that toilette upon me?”</p> - -<p>“We’ll go and look at the view,” said Stella, “that is all I am equal -to; and I’ll show you where we went that night.”</p> - -<p>“Papa will be ready for his luncheon in half an hour, Stella.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know, I know! Don’t push papa and his luncheon down my throat -for ever,” cried the girl. She too was a mistress of language. She went -out with her adviser arm-in-arm, clinging to her as if to her dearest -friend, while Katherine stood in the window, rather sadly, looking after -the pair. Stella had been restored to her sister by the half-illness of -her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a>{65}</span> rescue, and there was a pang in Katherine’s mind which was mingled -of many sentiments as the semi-invalid went forth hanging upon her worst -friend. Would nobody ever cling to Katherine as Stella, her only sister, -clung to this woman—this—woman! Katherine did not know what epithet to -use. If she had had bad words at her disposal I am afraid she would have -expended them on Mrs. Seton, but she had not. They were not in her way. -Was it possible this—woman might be right? Could Stella’s mad prank, if -it could be called so—rather her childish, foolish impulse, meaning no -harm—tell against her seriously with anybody in their senses? Katherine -could not believe it—it was impossible. The people who had known her -from her childhood knew that there was no harm in Stella. She might be -thoughtless, disregarding everything that came in the way of her -amusement, but after all that was not a crime. She was sure that such -old cats as Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay would never think anything of -the kind. But then there was Lady Jane. Lady Jane was not an old cat; -she was a very important person. When she spoke the word no dog ventured -to bark. But then her kindness to the Tredgold girls had always been a -little in the way of patronage. She was not of their middle-class world. -The side with which she would be in sympathy would be that of the young -men. The escapade in the boat would be to her their fun, but on Stella’s -it would not be fun. It would be folly of the deepest dye, perhaps—who -could tell?—depravity. In fiction—a young woman not much in society -instinctively takes a good many of her ideas from fiction—it had become -fashionable of late to represent wicked girls, girls without soul or -heart, as the prevailing type. Lady Jane might suppose that Stella, whom -she did not know very well, was a girl without soul or heart, ready to -do anything for a little excitement and a new sensation, without the -least reflection what would come of it. Nay, was not that the <i>rôle</i> -which Stella herself was proposing to assume? Was it not to a certain -extent her real character? This thought made Katherine’s heart ache. And -how if Lady Jane should think she had really compromised<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a>{66}</span> herself, -forfeited, if not her good name, yet the bloom that ought to surround -it? Katherine’s courage sank at the thought. And, on the other hand, -there was her father, who would understand none of these things, who -would turn anybody out of his house who breathed a whisper against -Stella, who would show Sir Charles himself the door.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a>{67}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">It</span> would be absurd to suppose that Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay had not -heard the entire story of Stella’s escape and all that led up to it, the -foolish venture and the unexpected and too serious punishment. They had -known all about it from the first moment. They had seen her running down -to the beach with her attendants after her, and had heard all about the -boat with the new figure-head which Mr. Tredgold had got a bargain and -had called after his favourite child. And they had said to each other as -soon as they had heard of it, “Mark my words! we shall soon hear of an -accident to that boat.” They had related this fact in all the -drawing-rooms in the neighbourhood with great, but modest, pride when -the accident did take place. But they had shown the greatest interest in -Stella, and made no disagreeable remarks as to the depravity of her -expedition. Nobody had been surprised at this self-denial at first, for -no one had supposed that there was any blame attaching to the young -party, two out of the three of whom had suffered so much for their -imprudence; for Stella’s cold and the shock to her nerves had at first -been raised by a complimentary doctor almost to the same flattering -seriousness as Captain Scott’s pneumonia. Now the event altogether had -begun to sink a little into the mild perspective of distance, as a thing -which was over and done with, though it would always be an exciting -reminiscence to talk of—the night when poor Stella Tredgold had been -carried out to sea by the sudden squall, “just in her white afternoon -frock, poor thing, without a wrap or anything.”</p> - -<p>This had been the condition of affairs before Mrs. Seton’s visit. I -cannot tell how it was breathed into the air that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a>{68}</span> adventure was by -no means such a simple matter, that Stella was somehow dreadfully in -fault, that it would be something against her all her life which she -would have the greatest difficulty in “living down.” Impossible to say -who sowed this cruel seed. Mrs. Seton declared afterwards that she had -spoken to no one, except indeed the landlady of the hotel where Captain -Scott was lying, and his nurse; but that was entirely about Algy, poor -boy. But whoever was the culprit, or by what methods soever the idea was -communicated, certain it is that the views of the little community were -completely changed after that moment. It began to be whispered about in -the little assemblies, over the tea-tables, and over the billiard-tables -(which was worse), that Stella Tredgold’s escapade was a very queer -thing after all. It was nonsense to say that she had never heard of the -existence of the <i>Stella</i> till that day, when it was well known that old -Tredgold bragged about everything he bought, and the lot o’ money, or -the little money he had given for it; for it was equally sweet to him to -get a great bargain or to give the highest price that had ever been -paid. That he should have held his tongue about this one thing, was it -likely? And she was such a daring little thing, fond of scandalising her -neighbours; and she was a little fast, there could be no doubt; at all -events, she had been so ever since she had made the acquaintance of that -Mrs. Seton—that Seton woman, some people said. Before her advent it -only had been high spirits and innocent nonsense, but since then Stella -had been infected with a love of sensation and had learned to like the -attendance of men—any men, it did not matter whom. If the insinuation -was of Mrs. Seton’s making, she was not herself spared in it.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay were by no means the last to be infected by -this wave of opinion. They lived close to each other in two little -houses built upon the hill side, with gardens in long narrow strips -which descended in natural terraces to the level of the high road. They -were houses which looked very weedy and damp in the winter time, being -surrounded by verandahs, very useful to soften the summer glow<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a>{69}</span> but not -much wanted in October when the wind blew heaps of withered leaves (if -you ventured to call those rays of gold and crimson withered) under the -shelter of their green trellises. There are few things more beautiful -than these same autumn leaves; but a garden is sadly “untidy,” as these -ladies lamented, when covered with them, flying in showers from somebody -else’s trees, and accumulating in heaps in the corners of the verandahs. -“The boy,” who was the drudge of Mrs. Shanks’ establishment, and “the -girl” who filled the same place in Miss Mildmay’s, swept and swept for -ever, but did not succeed in “keeping them down;” and indeed, when these -two ladies stepped outside in the sunny mornings, as often as not a leaf -or two lighted, an undesired ornament upon the frills of Mrs. Shanks’ -cap or in the scanty coils of Miss Mildmay’s hair. There was only a low -railing between the two gardens in order not to break the beauty of the -bank with its terraces as seen from below, and over this the neighbours -had many talks as they superintended on either side the work of the boy -and the girl, or the flowering of the dahlias which made a little show -on Mrs. Shanks’ side, or the chrysanthemums on the other. These winterly -flowers were what the gardens were reduced to in October, though there -were a few roses still to be found near the houses, and the gay summer -annuals were still clinging on to life in rags and desperation along the -borders, and a few sturdy red geraniums standing up boldly here and -there.</p> - -<p>“Have you heard what they are saying about Stella Tredgold?” said the -one lady to the other one of these mornings. Mrs. Shanks had a hood tied -over her cap, and Miss Mildmay a Shetland shawl covering her grey hair.</p> - -<p>“Have I heard of anything else?” said the other, shaking her head.</p> - -<p>“And I just ask you, Ruth Mildmay,” said Mrs. Shanks, “do you think that -little thing is capable of making up any plan to run off with a couple -of officers? Good gracious, why should she do such a thing? She can have -them as much as she likes at home. That silly old man will never stop -her, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a>{70}</span> feed them with the best of everything at breakfast, lunch, and -dinner, if they like—and then be astonished if people talk. And as for -Katherine—but I have no patience with Katherine,” the old lady said.</p> - -<p>“If it’s only a question what Stella Tredgold is capable of,” answered -Miss Mildmay, “she is capable of making the hair stand up straight on -our heads—and there is nothing she would like better than to do it.”</p> - -<p>“Ah,” said Mrs. Shanks, “she would find that hard with me; for I am -nearly bald on the top of my head.”</p> - -<p>“And don’t you try something for it?” said the other blandly. Miss -Mildmay was herself anxiously in search of “something” that might still -restore to her, though changed in colour, the abundance of the locks of -her youth.</p> - -<p>“I try a cap for it,” said the other, “which covers everything up -nicely. What the eye does not see the heart does not grieve—not like -you, Ruth Mildmay, that have so much hair. Did you feel it standing up -on end when you heard of Stella’s escapade?”</p> - -<p>“I formed my opinion of Stella’s escapade long ago,” said Miss Mildmay. -“I thought it mad—simply mad, like so many things she does; but I hoped -nobody would take any notice, and I did not mean to be the first to say -anything.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it just shows how innocent I am,” said Mrs. Shanks, “an old -married woman that ought to know better! Why, I never thought any harm -of it at all! I thought they had just pushed off a bit, three young -fools!”</p> - -<p>“But why did they push off a bit—that is the question? They might have -looked at the boat; but why should she go out, a girl with two men?”</p> - -<p>“Well, two was better than one, surely, Ruth Mildmay! If it had been -one, why, you might have said—but there’s safety in numbers—besides, -one man in a little yacht with a big sail. I hate those things myself,” -said Mrs. Shanks. “I would not put my foot in one of them to save my -life. They are like guns which no one believes are ever loaded till they -go off and kill you before you know.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a>{71}</span></p> - -<p>“I have no objection to yachting, for my part. My. Uncle Sir Ralph was a -great yachtsman. I have often been out with him. The worst of these -girls is that they’ve nobody to give them a little understanding of -things—nobody that knows. Old Tredgold can buy anything for them, but -he can’t tell them how to behave. And even Katherine, you know——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Katherine—I have no patience with Katherine. She lets that little -thing do whatever she pleases.”</p> - -<p>“As if any one could control Stella, a spoilt child if ever there was -one! May I ask you, Jane Shanks, what you intend to do?”</p> - -<p>“To do?” cried Mrs. Shanks, her face, which was a little red by nature, -paling suddenly. She stopped short in the very act of cutting a dahlia, -a large very double purple one, into which the usual colour of her -cheeks seemed to have gone.</p> - -<p>“Oh, for goodness’ sake take care of those earwigs,” cried Miss Mildmay. -“I hate dahlias for that—they are always full of earwigs. When I was a -little child I thought I had got one in my ear. You know the -nursery-maids always say they go into your ear. And the miserable night -I had! I have never forgotten it. There is one on the rails, I declare.”</p> - -<p>“Are we talking of earwigs—or of anything more important?” Mrs. Shanks -cried.</p> - -<p>“There are not many things more important, I can tell you, if you think -one has got into your ear. They say it creeps into your brain and eats -it up—and all sorts of horrible things. I was talking of going to the -Cliff to see what those girls were about, and what Stella has to say for -herself.”</p> - -<p>“To the Cliff!” Mrs. Shanks said.</p> - -<p>“Well,” said her neighbour sharply, “did you mean to give them up -without even asking what they had to say for themselves?”</p> - -<p>“I—give them up?—I never thought of such a thing. You go so fast, Ruth -Mildmay. It was only yesterday I heard of this talk, which never should -have gone from me. At the worst it’s a thing that might be gossiped -about; but to give them up—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a>{72}</span>—”</p> - -<p>“You wouldn’t, I suppose,” said Miss Mildmay sternly, “countenance -depravity—if it was proved to be true.”</p> - -<p>“If what was proved to be true? What is it they say against her?” Mrs. -Shanks cried.</p> - -<p>But this was not so easy to tell, for nobody had said anything except -the fact which everybody knew.</p> - -<p>“You know what is said as well as I do,” said Miss Mildmay. “Are you -going? Or do you intend to drop them? That is what I want to know.”</p> - -<p>“Has any one dropped them, yet?” her friend asked. There was a tremble -in her hand which held the dahlias. She was probably scattering earwigs -on every side, paying no attention. And her colour had not yet come -back. It was very rarely that a question of this importance came up -between the two neighbours. “Has Lady Jane said anything?” she asked in -tones of awe.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know and I don’t care,” cried Miss Mildmay boldly; for, maiden -lady as she was, and poor, she was one of those who did not give in to -Lady Jane. “For my part, I want to hear more about it before I decide -what to do.”</p> - -<p>“And so should I too,” said Mrs. Shanks, though still with bated breath. -“Oh, Ruth Mildmay, I do not think I could ever have the heart! Such a -little thing, and no mother, and such a father as Mr. Tredgold! I think -it is going to rain this afternoon. I should not mind for once having -the midge if you will share it, and going to call, and see what we can -see.”</p> - -<p>“I will share the midge if you like. I have other places where I must -call. I can wait for you outside if you like, or I might even go in with -you, for five minutes,” Miss Mildmay said severely, as if the shortness -of that term justified the impulse. And they drove out accordingly, in -the slumbrous afternoon, when most people were composing themselves -comfortably by the side of their newly-lighted fires, comforting -themselves that, as it had come on to rain, nobody would call, and that -they were quite free either to read a book or to nod over it till -tea-time. It rained softly, persistently, quietly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a>{73}</span> as the midge drove -along amid a mingled shower of water-drops and falling leaves. The -leaves were like bits of gold, the water-drops sparkled on the glass of -the windows. All was soft, weeping, and downfall, the trees standing -fast through the mild rain, scattering, with a sort of forlorn pleasure -in it, their old glories off them. The midge stumbled along, jolting -over the stones, and the old ladies seated opposite—for it held only -one on each side—nodded their heads at each other, partly because they -could not help it, partly to emphasise their talk. “That little thing! -to have gone wrong at her age! But girls now were not like what they -used to be—they were very different—not the least like what we used to -be in our time.”</p> - -<p>“Here is the midge trundling along the drive and the old cats coming to -inquire. They are sure to have heard everything that ever was said in -the world,” cried Stella, “and they are coming to stare at me and find -out if I look as if I felt it. They shall not see me at all, however I -look. I am not going to answer to them for what I do.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly not,” said Katherine. “If that is what they have come for, -you had better leave them to me.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know, either,” said Stella, “it rains, and nobody else will -come. They might be fun. I shall say everything I can think of to shock -them, Kate.”</p> - -<p>“They deserve it, the old inquisitors,” cried Kate, who was more -indignant than her sister; “but I think I would not, Stella. Don’t do -anything unworthy of yourself, dear, whatever other people may say.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! unworthy of myself!—I don’t know what’s worthy of myself—nothing -but nonsense, I believe. I should just like, however, for fun, to see -what the old cats have to say.”</p> - -<p>The old cats came in, taking some time to alight from the midge and -shake out their skirts in the hall. They were a little frightened, if -truth must be told. They were not sure of their force against the sharp -little claws sheathed in velvet of the little white cat-princess, on -whom they were going to make an inquisition, whether there was any stain -upon her coat of snow.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a>{74}</span></p> - -<p>“We need not let them see we’ve come for that, or have heard anything,” -Mrs. Shanks whispered in Miss Mildmay’s ear.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I shall let them see!” said the fiercer visitor; but nevertheless -she trembled too.</p> - -<p>They were taken into the young ladies’ room, which was on the ground -floor, and opened with a large window upon the lawn and its encircling -trees. It was perhaps too much on a level with that lawn for a house -which is lived in in autumn and winter as well as summer, and the large -window occupied almost one entire side of the room. Sometimes it was -almost too bright, but to-day, with the soft persistent rain pouring -down, and showers of leaves coming across the rain from time to time, as -if flying frightened before every puff of air, the effect of the vast -window and of the white and gold furniture was more dismal than bright. -There was a wood fire, not very bright either, but hissing faintly as it -smouldered, which did not add much to the comfort of the room. Katherine -was working at something as usual—probably something of no -importance—but it was natural to her to be occupied, while it was -natural for Stella to do nothing. The visitors instinctively remarked -the fact with the usual approval and disapproval.</p> - -<p>“Katherine, how do you do, my dear? We thought we were sure to find you -at home such a day. Isn’t it a wet day? raining cats and dogs; but the -midge is so good for that, one is so sheltered from the weather. Ruth -Mildmay thought it was just the day to find you; Jane Shanks was certain -you would be at home. Ah, Stella, you are here too!” they said both -together.</p> - -<p>“Did you think I shouldn’t be here too?” said Stella. “I am always here -too. I wonder why you should be surprised.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, indeed, Stella! We know that is not the case by any means. If you -were always with Katherine, it would be very, very much the better for -you. You would get into no scrapes if you kept close to Katherine,” Mrs. -Shanks said.</p> - -<p>“Do I get into scrapes?” cried Stella, tossing her young head. “Oh, I -knew there would be some fun when I saw the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a>{75}</span> midge coming along the -drive! Tell me what scrapes I have got into. I hope it is a very bad one -to-day to make your hair stand on end.”</p> - -<p>“My dear, you know a great deal better than we can tell you what things -people are saying,” said Miss Mildmay. “I did not mean to blurt it out -the first thing as Jane Shanks has done. It is scarcely civil, I -feel—perhaps you would yourself have been moved to give us some -explanation which would have satisfied our minds—and to Katherine it is -scarcely polite.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, please do not mind being polite to me!” cried Katherine, who was in -a white heat of resentment and indignation, her hands trembling as she -threw down her work. And Stella, that little thing, was completely at -her ease! “If there is anything to be said I take my full share with -Stella, whatever it may be.” And then there was a little pause, for tea -was brought in with a footman’s instinct for the most dramatic moment. -Tea singularly changed the face of affairs. Gossip may be exchanged over -the teacups; but to come fully prepared for mortal combat, and in the -midst of it to be served by your antagonist with a cup of tea, is -terribly embarrassing. Katherine, being excited and innocent, would have -left it there with its fragrance rising fruitlessly in the midst of the -fury melting the assailants’ hearts; but Stella, guilty and clever, saw -her advantage. Before she said anything more she sprang up from her -chair and took the place which was generally Katherine’s before the -little shining table. Mr. Tredgold’s tea was naturally the very best -that could be got for money, and had a fragrance which was delightful; -and there were muffins in a beautiful little covered silver dish, though -October is early in the season for muffins. “I’ll give you some tea -first,” cried the girl, “and then you can come down upon me as much as -you please.”</p> - -<p>And it was so nice after the damp drive, after the jolting of the midge, -in the dull and dreary afternoon! It was more than female virtue was -equal to, to refuse that deceiving cup. Miss Mildmay said faintly: “None -for me, please. I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a>{76}</span> going on to the——” But before she had ended this -assertion she found herself, she knew not how, with a cup in her hand.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Stella, my love,” cried Mrs. Shanks, “what tea yours is! And oh, -how much sweeter you look, and how much better it is, instead of putting -yourself in the way of a set of silly young officers, to sit there -smiling at your old friends and pouring out the tea!”</p> - -<p>Miss Mildmay gave a little gasp, and made a motion to put down the cup -again, but she was not equal to the effort.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it is the officers you object to!” cried Stella. “If it was curates -perhaps you would like them better. I love the officers! they are so -nice and big and silly. To be sure, curates are silly also, but they are -not so easy and nice about it.”</p> - -<p>Miss Mildmay’s gasp this time was almost like a choke. “Believe me,” she -said, “it would be much better to keep clear of young men. You girls now -are almost as bad as the American girls, that go about with them -everywhere—worse, indeed, for it is permitted there, and it is not -permitted here.”</p> - -<p>“That makes it all the nicer,” cried Stella; “it’s delightful because -it’s wrong. I wonder why the American girls do it when all the fun is -gone out of it!”</p> - -<p>“Depend upon it,” said Miss Mildmay, “it’s better to have nothing at all -to do with young men.”</p> - -<p>“But then what is to become of the world?” said the culprit gravely.</p> - -<p>“Stella!” cried Katherine.</p> - -<p>“It is quite true. The world would come to an end—there would be no -more——”</p> - -<p>“Stella, Stella!”</p> - -<p>“I think you are quite right in what you said, Jane Shanks,” said Miss -Mildmay. “It is a case that can’t be passed over. It is——”</p> - -<p>“I never said anything of the sort,” cried Mrs. Shanks, alarmed. “I said -we must know what Stella had to say for herself—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a>{77}</span>—”</p> - -<p>“And so you shall,” said Stella, with a toss of her saucy head. “I have -as much as ever you like to say for myself. There is nothing I won’t -say. Some more muffin, Mrs. Shanks—one little other piece. It is so -good, and the first of the season. But this is not enough toasted. Look -after the tea, Katherine, while I toast this piece for Miss Mildmay. It -is much nicer when it is toasted for you at a nice clear fire.”</p> - -<p>“Not any more for me,” cried Miss Mildmay decisively, putting down her -cup and pushing away her chair.</p> - -<p>“You cannot refuse it when I have toasted it expressly for you. It is -just as I know you like it, golden brown and hot! Why, here is another -carriage! Take it, take it, dear Miss Mildmay, before some one else -comes in. Who can be coming, Kate—this wet day?”</p> - -<p>They all looked out eagerly, speechless, at the pair of smoking horses -and dark green landau which passed close to the great window in the -rain. Miss Mildmay took the muffin mechanically, scarcely knowing what -she did, and a great consternation fell upon them all. The midge -outside, frightened, drew away clumsily from the door, and the ladies, -both assailed and assailants, gazed into each other’s eyes with a shock -almost too much for speech.</p> - -<p>“Oh, heavens,” breathed Mrs. Shanks, “do you see who it is, you -unfortunate children? It is Lady Jane herself—and how are you going to -stand up, you little Stella, before Lady Jane?”</p> - -<p>“Let her come,” said Stella defiant, yet with a hot flush on her cheeks.</p> - -<p>And, indeed, so it happened. Lady Jane did not pause to shake out her -skirts, which were always short enough for all circumstances. Almost -before the footman, who preceded her with awe, could open the door -decorously, she pushed him aside with her own hand to quicken his -movements, Lady Jane herself marched squarely into the expectant room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a>{78}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Lady Jane</span> walked into the room squarely, with her short skirts and her -close jacket. She looked as if she were quite ready to walk back the -four miles of muddy road between her house and the Cliff. And so indeed -she was, though she had no intention of doing so to-day. She came in, -pushing aside the footman, as I have said, who was very much frightened -of Lady Jane. When she saw the dark figures of Mrs. Shanks and Miss -Mildmay sitting against the large light of the window, she uttered a -suppressed sound of discontent. It might be translated by an “Oh,” or it -might be translated, as we so often do as the symbol of a sound, by a -“Humph.” At all events, it was a sound which expressed annoyance. “You -here!” it seemed to say; but Lady Jane afterwards shook hands with them -very civilly, it need not be said. For the two old cats were very -respectable members of society, and not to be badly treated even by Lady -Jane.</p> - -<p>“That was your funny little carriage, I suppose,” she said, when she had -seated herself, “stopping the way.”</p> - -<p>“Was it stopping the way?” cried Mrs. Shanks, “the midge? I am -astonished at Mr. Perkins. We always give him the most careful -instructions; but if he had found one of the servants to gossip with, he -is a man who forgets everything one may say.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t undertake what his motives were, but he was in the way, -blocking up the doors,” said Lady Jane; “all the more astonishing to my -men and my horses, as they were brought out, much against their will, on -the full understanding that nobody else would be out on such a day.”</p> - -<p>“It is a long way to Steephill,” said Miss Mildmay, “so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a>{79}</span> that we could -not possibly have known Lady Jane’s intentions, could we, Jane Shanks? -or else we might have taken care not to get into her way.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, the public roads are free to every one,” said Lady Jane, dismissing -the subject. “What rainy weather we have had, to be sure! Of course you -are all interested in that bazaar; if it goes on like this you will have -no one, not a soul to buy; and all the expense of the decorations and so -forth on our hands.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, the officers will come over from Newport,” said Miss Mildmay; -“anything is better than nothing. Whatever has a show of amusement will -attract the officers, and that will make the young ladies happy, so that -it will not be thrown away.”</p> - -<p>“What a Christian you are!” said Lady Jane. “You mean it is an ill wind -that blows nobody good. I have several cousins in the garrison, but I -don’t think I should care so much for their amusement as all that.”</p> - -<p>“Was there ever a place,” said Mrs. Shanks, with a certain tone of -humble admiration, which grated dreadfully upon her companion, “in which -you had not a number of cousins, Lady Jane? They say the Scotch are the -great people for having relatives everywhere, and my poor husband was a -Scotchman; but I’m sure he had not half so many as you.”</p> - -<p>Lady Jane answered curtly with a nod of her head and went on. “The rain -is spoiling everything,” she said. “The men, of course, go out in spite -of it when they can, but they have no pleasure in their work, and to -have a shooting party on one’s hands in bad weather is a hard task. They -look at you as if it were your fault, as if you could order good weather -as easily as you can order luncheon for them at the cover side.”</p> - -<p>“Dear me, that is not at all fair, is it, Ruth Mildmay? In my poor -husband’s lifetime, when we used to take a shooting regularly, I always -said to his friends, ‘Now, don’t look reproachfully at me if it’s bad -weather. We can’t guarantee<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a>{80}</span> the weather. You ought to get so many brace -if you have good luck. We’ll answer for that.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“You were a bold woman,” said Lady Jane; “so many brace without knowing -if they could fire a gun or not! That’s a rash promise. Sir John is not -so bold as that, I can tell you. He says, ‘There’s a bird or two about -if you can hit ’em.’ Katherine, you may as well let me see those things -of yours for my stall. It will amuse me a little this wet day.”</p> - -<p>“They are all upstairs, Lady Jane.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’ll go upstairs. Oh, don’t let me take you away from your -visitors. Stella, you can come with me and show them; not that I suppose -you know anything about them.”</p> - -<p>“Not the least in the world,” said Stella very clearly. Her face, so -delicately tinted usually, and at present paler than ordinary, was -crimson, and her attitude one of battle. She could propitiate and play -with the old cats, but she dare not either cajole or defy Lady Jane.</p> - -<p>“Then Katherine can come, and I can enjoy the pleasure of conversation -with you after. Shall I find you still here,” said Lady Jane, holding -out her hand graciously to the other ladies, “when I come downstairs -again?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, we must be going——”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Shanks was interrupted by Miss Mildmay’s precise tones. “Probably -you will find <i>me</i> here, Lady Jane; and I am sure it will be a mutual -pleasure to continue the conversation which——”</p> - -<p>“Then I needn’t say good-bye,” said the great lady calmly, taking -Katherine by the arm and pushing the girl before her. Stella stood with -her shoulders against the mantel-piece, very red, watching them as they -disappeared. She gave the others an angry look of appeal as the door -closed upon the more important visitor.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I wish you’d take me away with you in the midge!” she cried.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Stella,” cried Mrs. Shanks, shaking her head, “the times I have -heard you making your fun of the midge! But in a time of trouble one -finds out who are one’s real friends.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a>{81}</span></p> - -<p>Miss Mildmay was softened too, but she was not yet disposed to give in. -She had not been able to eat that special muffin which Stella had -re-toasted for her. Lady Jane, in declining tea curtly with a wave of -her hands, had made the tea-drinkers uncomfortable, and especially had -arrested the eating of muffins, which it is difficult to consume with -dignity unless you have the sympathy of your audience. It was cold now, -quite cold and unappetizing. It lay in its little plate with the air of -a thing rejected. And Miss Mildmay felt it was not consistent with her -position to ask even for half a cup of hot tea.</p> - -<p>“It has to be seen,” she said stiffly, “what friends will respond to the -appeal; everybody is not at the disposal of the erring person when and -how she pleases. I must draw a line——”</p> - -<p>“What do you say I have done, then?” cried Stella, flushing with lively -wrath. “Do you think I went out in that boat on purpose to be drowned or -catch my death? Do you think I wanted to be ill and sea-sick and make an -exhibition of myself before two men? Do you think I wanted them to see -me <i>ill</i>? Goodness!” cried Stella, overcome at once by the recollection -and the image, “could you like a man—especially if he was by way of -admiring you, and talking nonsense to you and all that—to see you <i>ill</i> -at sea? If you can believe that you can believe anything, and there is -no more for me to say.”</p> - -<p>The force of this argument was such that Miss Mildmay was quite startled -out of her usual composure and reserve. She stared at Stella for a -moment with wide-opened eyes.</p> - -<p>“I did not think of that,” she said in a tone of sudden conviction. -“There is truth in what you say—certainly there is truth in what you -say.”</p> - -<p>“Truth in it!” cried the girl. “If you had only seen me—but I am very -thankful you didn’t see me—leaning over the side of that dreadful boat, -not minding what waves went over me! When you were a girl and had men -after you, oh, Miss Mildmay, I ask you, would you have chosen to have -them to see you <i>then</i>?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a>{82}</span></p> - -<p>Miss Mildmay put the plate with the cold muffin off her knees. She set -down her empty cup. She felt the solemnity of the appeal.</p> - -<p>“No,” she said, “if you put it to me like that, Stella, I am obliged to -allow I should not. And I may add,” she went on, looking round the room -as if to a contradictory audience, “I don’t know any woman who would; -and that is my opinion, whatever anybody may say.” She paused a moment -with a little triumphant air of having conducted to a climax a potent -argument, looking round upon the baffled opponents. And then she came -down from that height and added in soft tones of affectionate reproach: -“But why did you go out with them at all, Stella? When I was a girl, as -you say, and had—I never, never should have exposed myself to such -risks, by going out in a boat with——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Miss Mildmay,” cried Stella, “girls were better in your time. You -have always told us so. They were not perhaps so fond of—fun; they were -in better order; they had more—more—” said the girl, fishing for a -word, which Mrs. Shanks supplied her with by a movement of her lips -behind Miss Mildmay’s back—“disciplined minds,” Stella said with an -outburst of sudden utterance which was perilously near a laugh.</p> - -<p>“And you had a mother, Ruth Mildmay?” said the plotter behind, in tender -notes.</p> - -<p>“Yes; I had a mother—an excellent mother, who would not have permitted -any of the follies I see around me. Jane Shanks, you have conquered me -with that word. Stella, my dear, count on us both to stand by you, -should that insolent woman upstairs take anything upon her. Who is Lady -Jane, I should like to know? The daughter of a new-made man—coals, or -beer, or something! A creation of this reign! Stella, this will teach -you, perhaps, who are your true friends.”</p> - -<p>And Miss Mildmay extended her arms and took the girl to her bosom. -Stella had got down on her knees for some reason of her own, which girls -who are fond of throwing themselves about may understand, and therefore -was within reach<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a>{83}</span> of this unexpected embrace, and I am afraid laughed -rather than sobbed on Miss Mildmay’s lap; but the slight heaving of her -shoulders in that position had the same effect, and sealed the bargain. -The two ladies lingered a little after this, hoping that Lady Jane might -come down. At least Miss Mildmay hoped so. Mrs. Shanks would have stolen -humbly out to get into the midge at a little distance along the drive, -not to disturb the big landau with the brown horses which stood large -before the door. But Miss Mildmay would have none of that; she ordered -the landau off with great majesty, and waved her hand indignantly for -Perkins to “come round,” as if the midge had been a chariot, a -manœuvre which Stella promoted eagerly, standing in the doorway to -see her visitors off with the most affectionate interest, while the -other carriage paced sullenly up and down.</p> - -<p>In the meantime Lady Jane had nearly completed her interview with -Katherine in the midst of the large assortment of trumpery set out in -readiness for the bazaar. “Oh, yes, I suppose they’ll do well enough,” -she said, turning over the many coloured articles into which the Sliplin -ladies had worked so many hours of their lives with careless hands. -“Mark them cheap; the people here like to have bargains, and I’m sure -they’re not worth much. Of course, it was not the bazaar things I was -thinking of. Tell me, Katherine, what is all this about Stella? I find -the country ringing with it. What has she done to have her name mixed up -with Charlie Somers and Algy Scott—two of the fastest men one knows? -What has the child been doing? And how did she come to know these men?”</p> - -<p>“She has been doing nothing, Lady Jane. It is the most wicked invention. -I can tell you exactly how it happened. A little yacht was lying in the -harbour, and they went up to papa’s observatory, as he calls it, to look -at it through his telescope, and papa himself was there, and he -said——”</p> - -<p>“But this is going very far back, surely? I asked you what Stella was -doing with these men.”</p> - -<p>“And I am telling you,” cried Katherine, red with indignation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a>{84}</span> “Papa -said it was his yacht, which he had just bought, and they began to argue -and bet about who it was from whom he had bought it, and he would not -tell them; and then Stella said——”</p> - -<p>“My dear Katherine, this elaborate explanation begins to make me -fear——”</p> - -<p>“Stella cried: ‘Come down and look at it, while Kate orders tea.’ You -know how careless she is, and how she orders me about. They ran down by -our private gate. It was to settle their bet, and I had tea laid out for -them—it was quite warm then—under the trees. Well,” said Katherine, -pausing to take breath, “the first thing I saw was a white sail moving -round under the cliff while I sat waiting for them to come back. And -then papa came down screaming that it was the <i>Stella</i>, his yacht, and -that a gale was blowing up. And then we spent the most dreadful evening, -and darkness came on and we lost sight of the sail, and I thought I -should have died and that it would kill papa.”</p> - -<p>Her breath went from her with this rapid narrative, uttered at full -speed to keep Lady Jane from interrupting. What with indignation and -what with alarm, the quickening of her heart was such that Katherine -could say no more. She stopped short and stood panting, with her hand -upon her heart.</p> - -<p>“And at what hour,” said Lady Jane icily, “did they come back?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I can’t tell what hour it was. It seemed years and years to me. I -got her back in a faint and wet to the skin, half dead with sickness and -misery and cold. Oh, my poor, poor little girl! And now here are wicked -and cruel people saying it is her fault. Her fault to risk her life and -make herself ill and drive us out of our senses, papa and me!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Stella would not care very much for her papa and you, so long as -she got her fun. So it was as bad as that, was it—a whole night at sea -along with these two men? I could not have imagined any girl would have -been such a fool.”</p> - -<p>“I will not hear my sister spoken of so. It was the men who were fools, -or worse, taking her out when a gale was rising.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a>{85}</span> What did she know -about the signs of a gale? She thought of nothing but two minutes in the -bay, just to see how the boat sailed. It was these men.”</p> - -<p>“What is the use of saying anything about the men? I dare say they -enjoyed it thoroughly. It doesn’t do them any harm. Why should they -mind? It is the girl who ought to look out, for it is she who suffers. -Good Heavens, to think that any girl should be such a reckless little -fool!”</p> - -<p>“Stella has done nothing to be spoken of in that way.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t speak to me!” said Lady Jane. “Haven’t I taken you both up -and done all I could to give you your chance, you two? And this is my -reward. Stella has done nothing? Why, Stella has just compromised -herself in the most dreadful way. You know what sort of a man Charlie -Somers is? No, you don’t, of course. How should you, not living in a set -where you were likely to hear? That’s the worst, you know, of going out -a little in one <i>monde</i> and belonging to another all the time.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what you mean, Lady Jane,” cried Katherine, on the edge of -tears.</p> - -<p>“No; there’s no need you should know what I mean. A girl, in another -position, that got to know Charlie Somers would have known more or less -what he was. You, of course, have the disadvantages of -both—acquaintance and then ignorance. Who introduced Charlie Somers to -your sister? The blame lies on her first of all.”</p> - -<p>“It was—they were all—at the hotel, and Stella thought it would be -kind to ask Mrs. Seton to a picnic we were giving——”</p> - -<p>“Lottie Seton!” cried Lady Jane, sitting down in the weakness of her -consternation. “Why, this is the most extraordinary thing of all!”</p> - -<p>“I see nothing extraordinary in the whole business,” said Katherine, in -a lofty tone.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear Katherine, for goodness’ sake don’t let me have any more of -your innocent little-girlishness. Of course <span class="pagenum"><a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a>{86}</span>you see nothing! You have -no eyes, no sense, no—— Lottie Seton!—she to give over two of her own -men to a pretty, silly, reckless little thing like Stella, just the kind -for them! Well, that is the last thing I should have expected. Why, -Lottie Seton is nothing without her tail. If they abandon her she is -lost. She is asked to places because she is always sure to be able to -bring a few men. What they can see in her nobody knows, but there it -is—that’s her faculty. And she actually gave over two of her very -choicest——”</p> - -<p>“You must excuse me, Lady Jane,” said Katherine, “if I don’t want to -hear any more of Mrs. Seton and her men. They are exceedingly rude, -stupid, disagreeable men. You may think it a fine thing for us to be -elevated to the sphere in which we can meet men like Sir Charles Somers. -I don’t think so. I think he is detestable. I think he believes women to -exist only for the purpose of amusing him and making him laugh, like an -idiot, as he is!”</p> - -<p>Lady Jane sat in her easy-chair and looked sardonically at the passion -of the girl, whose face was crimson, whose voice was breaking. She was, -with that horrible weakness which a high-spirited girl so resents in -herself, so near an outbreak of crying that she could scarcely keep the -tears within her eyes. The elder lady looked at her for some time in -silence. The sight troubled her a little, and amused her a little also. -It occurred to her to say, “You are surely in love with him yourself,” -which was her instinct, but for once forbore, out of a sort of awed -sense that here was a creature who was outside of her common rules.</p> - -<p>“He is not an idiot, however,” she said at last. “I don’t say he is -intellectual. He does think, perhaps, that women exist, &c. So do most -of them, my dear. You will soon find that out if you have anything to do -with men. Still, for a good little girl, I have always thought you were -nice, Katherine. It is for your sake more than hers that I feel inclined -to do that silly little Stella a good turn. How could she be such a -little fool? Has she lived on this cliff half her life and doesn’t know -when a gale’s coming on? The more shame to her, then! And I don’t doubt -that instead of being ashamed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a>{87}</span> she is quite proud of her adventure. And -I hear, to make things worse, that Algy Scott went and caught a bad cold -over it. That will make his mother and all her set furious with the -girl, and say everything about her. He’s not going to die—that’s a good -thing. If he had, she need never have shown her impertinent little nose -anywhere again. Lady Scott’s an inveterate woman. It will be bad enough -as it is. How are we to get things set right again?”</p> - -<p>“It is a pity you should take any trouble,” said Katherine; “things are -quite right, thank you. We have quite enough in what you call our own -<i>monde</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Well, and what do you find to object to in the word? It is a very good -word; the French understand that sort of thing better than we do. So you -have quite enough to make you happy in your own <i>monde</i>? I don’t think -so—and I know the world in general better than you do. And, what is -more, I am very doubtful indeed whether Stella thinks so.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no,” cried a little voice, and Stella, running in, threw herself -down at Lady Jane’s feet, in the caressing attitude which she had so -lately held in spite of herself at Miss Mildmay’s. “Stella doesn’t think -so at all. Stella will be miserable if you don’t take her up and put -things right for her, dear Lady Jane. I have been a dreadful little -fool. I know it, I know it; but I didn’t mean it. I meant nothing but a -little—fun. And now there is nobody who can put everything right again -but you, and only you.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a>{88}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Lady Jane Thurston</span> was a fine lady in due place and time; but on other -occasions she was a robust countrywoman, ready to walk as sturdily as -any man, or to undertake whatever athletic exercise was necessary. When -she had gone downstairs again, and been served with a cup of warm tea -(now those old cats were gone), she sent her carriage off that the -horses might be put under shelter, not to speak of the men, and walked -herself in the rain to the hotel, where the two young men were still -staying, Captain Scott being as yet unable to be moved. It was one of -those hotels which are so pretty in summer, all ivy and clematis, and -balconies full of flowers. But on a wet day in October it looked squalid -and damp, with its open doorway traversed by many muddy footsteps, and -the wreaths of the withered creepers hanging limp about the windows. -Lady Jane knew everybody about, and took in them all the interest which -a member of the highest class—quite free from any doubt about her -position—is able to take with so much more ease and naturalness than -any other. The difference between the Tredgolds, for instance, and Mrs. -Black of the hotel in comparison with herself was but slightly marked in -her mind. She was impartially kind to both. The difference between them -was but one of degree; she herself was of so different a species that -the gradations did not count. In consequence of this she was more -natural with the Blacks at the hotel than Katherine Tredgold, though in -her way a Lady Bountiful, and universal friend, could ever have been. -She was extremely interested to hear of Mrs. Black’s baby, which had -come most inopportunely, with a sick gentleman in the house, at least a -fortnight before it was expected, and went upstairs to see the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a>{89}</span> mother -and administer a word or two of rebuke to the precipitate infant before -she proceeded on her own proper errand. “Silly little thing, to rush -into this rain sooner than it could help,” she said, “but mind you don’t -do the same, my dear woman. Never trouble your head about the sick -gentleman. Don’t stir till you have got up your strength.” And then she -marched along the passages to the room in which Algy and Charlie sat, -glum and tired to death, looking out at the dull sky and the raindrops -on the window. They had invented a sort of sport with those same -raindrops, watching them as they ran down and backing one against the -other. There had just been a close race, and Algy’s man had won to his -great delight, when Lady Jane’s sharp knock came to the door; so that -she went in to the sound of laughter pealing forth from the sick -gentleman in such a manner as to reassure any anxious visitor as to the -state of his lungs, at least.</p> - -<p>“Well, you seem cheerful enough,” Lady Jane said.</p> - -<p>“Making the best of it,” said Captain Scott.</p> - -<p>“How do, Lady Jane? I say, Algy, there’s another starting. Beg pardon, -too excitin’ to stop. Ten to one on the little fellow. By George, looks -as if he knew it, don’t he now! Done this time, old man——”</p> - -<p>“Never took it,” said Algy, with a kick directed at his friend. “Shut -up! It’s awfully kind of you coming to see a fellow—in such -weather—Lady Jane!”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said composedly, placing herself in the easiest chair. “It -would be kind if I had come without a motive—but I don’t claim that -virtue. How are you, by the way? Better, I hope.”</p> - -<p>“Awfully well—as fit as a——, but they won’t let me budge in this -weather. I’ve got a nurse that lords it over me, and the doctor, don’t -you know?—daren’t stir, not to save my life.”</p> - -<p>“And occupying your leisure with elevating pastimes,” said Lady Jane.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be hard on a man when he’s down—nothing to do,” said Sir -Charles. “Desert island sort of thing—Algy<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a>{90}</span> educating mouse, and that -sort of thing; hard lines upon me.”</p> - -<p>“Does he know enough?” said Lady Jane with a polite air of inquiry. “I -am glad to find you both,” she added, “and not too busy evidently to -give me your attention. How did you manage, Algy, to catch such a bad -cold?”</p> - -<p>“Pneumonia, by Jove,” the young man cried, inspired by so inadequate a -description.</p> - -<p>“Well, pneumonia—so much the worse—and still more foolish for you who -have a weak chest. How did you manage to do it? I wonder if your mother -knows, and why is it I don’t find her here at your bedside?”</p> - -<p>“I say, don’t tell her, Lady Jane; it’s bad enough being shut up here, -without making more fuss, and the whole thing spread all over the -place.”</p> - -<p>“What is the whole thing?” said Lady Jane.</p> - -<p>“Went out in a bit of a yacht,” said Sir Charles, “clear up a bet, that -was why we did it. Caught in a gale—my fault, not Algy’s—says he saw -it coming—I——”</p> - -<p>“You were otherwise occupied, Charlie——”</p> - -<p>“Shut up!” Sir Charles was the speaker this time, with a kick in the -direction of his companion in trouble.</p> - -<p>“I am glad to see you’ve got some grace left,” said Lady Jane. “Not you, -Algy, you are beyond that—I know all about it, however. It was little -Stella Tredgold who ran away with you—or you with her.”</p> - -<p>Algy burst into a loud laugh. Sir Charles on his part said nothing, but -pulled his long moustache.</p> - -<p>“Which is it? And what were the rights of it? and was there any meaning -in it? or merely fun, as you call it in your idiotic way?”</p> - -<p>“By Jove!” was all the remark the chief culprit made. Algy on his sofa -kicked up his feet and roared again.</p> - -<p>“Please don’t think,” said Lady Jane, “that I am going to pick my words -to please you. I never do it, and especially not to a couple of boys -whom I have known since ever they were born, and before that. What do -you mean by it, if it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a>{91}</span> you, Charlie Somers? I suppose, by Algy’s -laugh, that he is not the chief offender this time. You know as well as -I do that you’re not a man to take little girls about. I suppose you -must have sense enough to know that, whatever good opinion you may have -of yourself. Stella Tredgold may be a little fool, but she’s a girl I -have taken up, and I don’t mean to let her be compromised. A girl that -knew anything would have known better than to mix up her name with -yours. Now what is the meaning of it? You will just be so good as to -inform me.”</p> - -<p>“Why, Cousin Jane, it was all the little thing herself.”</p> - -<p>“Shut up!” said Sir Charles again, with another kick at Algy’s foot.</p> - -<p>“Well!” said Lady Jane, very magisterially. No judge upon the bench -could look more alarming than she. It is true that her short skirts, her -strong walking shoes, her very severest hat and stiff feather that would -bear the rain, were not so impressive as flowing wigs and robes. She had -not any of the awe-inspiring trappings of the Law; but she was law all -the same, the law of society, which tolerates a great many things, and -is not very nice about motives nor forbidding as to details, but yet -draws the line—if capriciously—sometimes, yet very definitely, between -what can and what cannot be done.</p> - -<p>“Well,” came at length hesitatingly through the culprit’s big moustache. -“Don’t know, really—have got anything to say—no meaning at all. Bet to -clear up—him and me; then sudden thought—just ten minutes—try the -sails. No harm in that, Lady Jane,” he said, more briskly, recovering -courage, “afterwards gale came on; no responsibility,” he cried, -throwing up his hands.</p> - -<p>“Fact it was she that was the keenest. I shan’t shut up,” cried Algy; -“up to anything, that little thing is. Never minded a bit till it got -very bad, and then gave in, but never said a word. No fault of anybody, -that is the truth. But turned out badly—for me——”</p> - -<p>“And worse for her,” said Lady Jane—“that is, without me; all the old -cats will be down upon the girl” (which was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a>{92}</span> not true, the reader -knows). “She is a pretty girl, Charlie.”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles, though he was so experienced a person, coloured faintly and -gave a nod of his head.</p> - -<p>“Stunner, by Jove!” said Algy, “though I like the little plain one -better,” he added in a parenthesis.</p> - -<p>“And a very rich girl, Sir Charles,” Lady Jane said.</p> - -<p>This time a faint “O—Oh” came from under the big moustache.</p> - -<p>“A <i>very</i> rich girl. The father is an old curmudgeon, but he is made of -money, and he adores his little girl. I believe he would buy a title for -her high and think it cheap.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I say!” exclaimed Sir Charles, with a colour more pronounced upon -his cheek.</p> - -<p>“Yours is not anything very great in that way,” said the remorseless -person on the bench, “but still it’s what he would call a title, you -know; and I haven’t the least doubt he would come down very handsomely. -Old Tredgold knows very well what he is about.”</p> - -<p>“Unexpected,” said Sir Charles, “sort of serious jaw like this. Put it -off, if you don’t mind, till another time.”</p> - -<p>“No time like the present,” said Lady Jane. “Your father was a great -friend of mine, Charlie Somers. He once proposed to me—very much left -to himself on that occasion, you will say—but still it’s true. So I -might have been your mother, don’t you see. I know your age, therefore, -to a day. You are a good bit past thirty, and you have been up to -nothing but mischief all your life.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I say now!” exclaimed Sir Charles again.</p> - -<p>“Well, now here is a chance for you. Perhaps I began without thinking, -but now I’m in great earnest. Here is really a chance for you. Stella’s -not so nice as her sister, as Algy there (I did not expect it of him) -has the sense to see: but she’s much more in your way. She is just your -kind, a reckless little hot-headed—all for pleasure and never a thought -of to-morrow. But that sort of thing is not so risky when you have a -good fortune behind you, well tied down. Now,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a>{93}</span> Charlie, listen to me. -Here is a capital chance for you; a man at your age, if he is ever going -to do anything, should stop playing the fool. These boys even will soon -begin to think you an old fellow. Oh, you needn’t cry out! I know -generations of them, and I understand their ways. A man should stop -taking his fling before he gets to thirty-five. Why, Algy there would -tell you that, if he had the spirit to speak up.”</p> - -<p>“I’m out of it,” said Algy. “Say whatever you like, it has nothing to do -with me.”</p> - -<p>“You see,” said Lady Jane, with a little flourish of her hand, “the boy -doesn’t contradict me; he daren’t contradict me, for it’s truth. Now, as -I say, here’s a chance for you. Abundance of money, and a very pretty -girl, whom you like.” She made a pause here to emphasise her words. -“Whom—you—like. Oh, I know very well what I’m saying. I am going to -ask her over to Steephill and you can come too if you please; and if you -don’t take advantage of your opportunities, Sir Charles, why you have -less sense than even I have given you credit for, and that is a great -deal to say.”</p> - -<p>“Rather public, don’t you think, for this sort of thing? Go in and win, -before admiring audience. Don’t relish exhibition. Prefer own way.”</p> - -<p>This Sir Charles said, standing at the window, gazing out, apparently -insensible even of the raindrops, and turning his back upon his adviser.</p> - -<p>“Well, take your own way. I don’t mind what way you take, so long as you -take my advice, which is given in your very best interests, I can tell -you. Isn’t the regiment ordered out to India, Algy?” she said, turning -quickly upon the other. “And what do you mean to do?”</p> - -<p>“Go, of course,” he said—“the very thing for me, they say. And I’m not -going to shirk either; see some sport probably out there.”</p> - -<p>“And Charlie?” said Lady Jane. There was no apparent connection between -her previous argument and this question, yet the very distinct staccato -manner in which she said these words called the attention.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a>{94}</span></p> - -<p>Sir Charles, still standing by the window with his back to Lady Jane, -once more muttered, “By Jove!” under his breath, or under his moustache, -which came to the same thing.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Charlie! He’ll exchange, I suppose, and get out of it; too great a -swell for India, he is. And how could he live out of reach of Pall -Mall?”</p> - -<p>“Well, I hope you’ll soon be able to move, my dear boy; if the weather -keeps mild and the rain goes off you had better come up to Steephill for -a few days to get up your strength.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks, awf’lly,” said Captain Scott. “I will with pleasure; and Cousin -Jane, if that little prim one should be there——”</p> - -<p>“She shan’t, not for you, my young man, you have other things to think -of. As for Charlie, I shall say no more to him; he can come too if he -likes, but not unless he likes. Send me a line to let me know.”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles accompanied the visitor solemnly downstairs, but without -saying anything until they reached the door, where to his surprise no -carriage was waiting.</p> - -<p>“Don’t mean to say you walked—day like this?” he cried.</p> - -<p>“No; but the horses and the men are more used to take care of -themselves; they are to meet me at the Rectory. I am going there about -this ridiculous bazaar. You can walk with me, if you like,” she said.</p> - -<p>He seized a cap from the stand and lounged out after her into the rain. -“I say—don’t you know?” he said, but paused there and added no more.</p> - -<p>“Get it out,” said Lady Jane.</p> - -<p>After a while, as he walked along by her side, his hands deep in his -pockets, the rain soaking pleasantly into his thick tweed coat, he -resumed: “Unexpected serious sort of jaw that, before little beggar like -Algy—laughs at everything.”</p> - -<p>“There was no chance of speaking to you alone,” said Lady Jane almost -apologetically.</p> - -<p>“Suppose not. Don’t say see my way to it. Don’t deny, though—reason in -it.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a>{95}</span></p> - -<p>“And inclination, eh? not much of one without the other, if I am any -judge.”</p> - -<p>“First-rate judge, by Jove!” Sir Charles said.</p> - -<p>And he added no more. But when he took leave of Lady Jane at the Rectory -he took a long walk by himself in the rain, skirting the gardens of the -Cliff and getting out upon the downs beyond, where the steady downfall -penetrated into him, soaking the tweed in a kind of affectionate natural -way as of a material prepared for the purpose. He strolled along with -his hands in his pockets and the cap over his eyes as if it had been a -summer day, liking it all the better for the wetness and the big masses -of the clouds and the leaden monotone of the sea. It was all so dismal -that it gave him a certain pleasure; he seemed all the more free to -think of his own concerns, to consider the new panorama opened before -him, which perhaps, however, was not so new as Lady Jane supposed. She -had forced open the door and made him look in, giving all the details; -but he had been quite conscious that it had been there before, within -his reach, awaiting his inspection. There were a great many inducements, -no doubt, to make that fantastic prospect real if he could. He did not -want to go to India, though indeed it would have been very good for him -in view of his sadly reduced finances and considerably affected credit -in both senses of that word. He had not much credit at headquarters, -that he knew; he was not what people called a good officer. No doubt he -would have been brave enough had there been fighting to do, and he was -not disliked by his men; his character of a “careless beggar” being -quite as much for good as for evil among those partial observers; but -his credit in higher regions was not great. Credit in the other sense of -the word was a little failing too, tradesmen having a wonderful <i>flair</i> -as to a man’s resources and the rising and falling of his account at his -bankers. It would do him much good to go to India and devote himself to -his profession; but then he did not want to go. Was it last of all or -first of all that another motive came in, little Stella herself to wit, -though she broke down so much in her attempts to imitate Lottie Seton’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a>{96}</span> -ways, and was not amusing at all in that point of view? Stella had -perhaps behaved better on that impromptu yachting trip than she was -herself aware. Certainly she was far more guilty in the beginning of it -than she herself allowed. But when the night was dark and the storm -high, she had—what had she done? Behaved very well and made the men -admire her pluck, or behaved very badly and frightened them—I cannot -tell; anyhow, she had been very natural, she had done and said only what -it came into her head to say and to do, without any affectation or -thought of effect; and the sight of the little girl, very silly and yet -so entirely herself, scolding them, upbraiding them, though she was -indeed the most to blame, yet bearing her punishment not so badly after -all and not without sympathy for them, had somehow penetrated Charles -Somers’ very hardened heart. She was a nice little girl—she was a very -pretty little girl—she was a creature one would not tire of even if she -was not amusing like Lottie Seton. If a man was to have anything more to -do with her, it was to be hoped she never would be amusing like Lottie -Seton. He paced along the downs he never knew how long, pondering these -questions; but he was not a man very good at thinking. In the end he -came to no more than a very much strengthened conviction that Stella -Tredgold was a very pretty little girl.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a>{97}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">It</span> shut the mouths of all the gossips, or rather it afforded a new but -less exciting subject of comment, when it was known that Stella Tredgold -had gone off on a visit to Steephill. I am not sure that Mrs. Shanks and -Miss Mildmay did not feel themselves deceived a little. They had pledged -themselves to Stella’s championship in a moment of enthusiasm, -stimulated thereto by a strong presumption of the hostility of Lady -Jane. Miss Mildmay in particular had felt that she had a foeman worthy -of her steel, and that it would be an enterprise worth her while to -bring the girl out with flying colours from any boycotting or unfriendly -action directed by the great lady of the district; and to find that -Stella had been taken immediately under Lady Jane’s wing disturbed her -composure greatly. There was great talk over the railing between the -ladies, and even, as it became a little too cold for these outdoor -conferences, in the drawing-rooms in both houses, under the shade of the -verandah which made these apartments a little dark and gloomy at this -season of the year. But I must not occupy the reader’s time with any -account of these talks, for as a matter of fact the ladies had committed -themselves and given their promise, which, though offended, they were -too high-minded to take back. It conduced, however, to a general cooling -of the atmosphere about them, that what everybody in Sliplin and the -neighbourhood now discussed was not Stella’s escapade, but Stella’s -visit to Steephill, where there was a large party assembled, and where -her accomplices in that escapade were to be her fellow-guests. What did -this mean was now the question demanded? Had Lady Jane any intentions in -respect to Stella? Was there “anything between” her and either of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a>{98}</span> these -gentlemen? But this was a question to which no one as yet had any reply.</p> - -<p>Stella herself was so much excited by the prospect that all thought of -the previous adventure died out of her mind. Save at a garden party, she -had never been privileged to enter Lady Jane’s house except on the one -occasion when she and Katherine stayed all night after a ball; and then -there were many girls besides themselves, and no great attention paid to -them. But to be the favoured guest, almost the young lady of the house, -among a large company was a very different matter. Telegrams flew to -right and left—to dressmakers, milliners, glovers, and I don’t know how -many more. Stevens, the maid, whom at present she shared with Katherine, -but who was, of course, to accompany her to Steephill as her own -separate attendant, was despatched to town after the telegrams with more -detailed and close instructions. The girl shook off all thought both of -her own adventure and of her companions in it. She already felt herself -flying at higher game. There was a nephew of Lady Jane’s, a young earl, -who, it was known, was there, a much more important personage than any -trumpery baronet. This she informed her father, to his great delight, as -he gave her his paternal advice with much unction the evening before she -went away.</p> - -<p>“That’s right, Stella,” he said, “always fly at the highest—and them -that has most money. This Sir Charles, I wager you anything, he is after -you for your fortune. I dare say he hasn’t a penny. He thinks he can -come and hang up his hat and nothing more to do all his life. But he’ll -find he’s a bit mistaken with me.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t very nice of you, papa,” said Stella, “to think I am only run -after because I have money—or because you have money, for not much of -it comes to me.”</p> - -<p>“Ain’t she satisfied with her allowance?” said the old gentleman, -looking over Stella’s head at her elder sister. “It’s big enough. Your -poor mother would have dressed herself and me and the whole family off -half of what that little thing gets through. It is a deal better the -money should<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a>{99}</span> be in my hands, my pet. And if any man comes after you, -you may take your oath he shan’t have you cheap. He’ll have to put down -shillin’ for shillin’, I can tell you. You find out which is the one -that has the most money, and go for him. Bad’s the best among all them -new earls and things, but keep your eyes open, Stella, and mark the one -that’s best off.” Here he gave utterance to a huge chuckle. “Most people -would think she would never find that out; looks as innocent as a daisy, -don’t she, Katie? But she’s got the old stuff in her all the same.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what you call the old stuff,” said Stella, indignant; “it -must be very nasty stuff. What does your horrid money do for me? I have -not half enough to dress on, and you go over my bills with your -spectacles as if I were Simmons, the cook. If you had a chest full of -diamonds and rubies, and gave us a handful now and then, that is the -kind of richness I should like; but I have no jewels at all,” cried the -girl, putting up her hand to her neck, which was encircled by a modest -row of small pearls; “and they will all be in their diamonds and -things.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Tredgold’s countenance fell a little. “Is that true?” he said. -“Katie, is that true?”</p> - -<p>“Girls are not expected to wear diamonds,” said Katie; “at least, I -don’t think so, papa.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, what does she know? That’s all old-fashioned nowadays. Girls wear -just whatever they can get to wear, and why shouldn’t girls wear -diamonds? Don’t you think I should set them off better than Lady Jane, -papa?” cried Stella, tossing her young head.</p> - -<p>Mr. Tredgold was much amused by this question; he chuckled and laughed -over it till he nearly lost his breath. “All the difference between -parchment and white satin, ain’t there, Katie? Well, I don’t say as you -mightn’t have some diamonds. They’re things that always keep their -value. It’s not a paying investment, but, anyhow, you’re sure of your -capital. They don’t wear out, don’t diamonds. So that’s what you’re -after, Miss Stella. Just you mind what you’re<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a>{100}</span> about, and don’t send me -any young fool without a penny in his pocket, but a man that can afford -to keep you like you’ve been kept all your life. And I’ll see about the -jewels,” Mr. Tredgold said.</p> - -<p>The consequence of this conversation was that little Stella appeared at -Steephill, notwithstanding her vapoury and girlish toilettes of white -chiffon and other such airy fabrics, with a <i>rivière</i> of diamonds -sparkling round her pretty neck, which, indeed, did them much greater -justice than did Lady Jane. Ridiculous for a little girl, all the ladies -said—but yet impressive more or less, and suggestive of illimitable -wealth on the part of the foolish old man, who, quite unaware what was -suitable, bedizened his little daughter like that. And Stella was -excited by her diamonds and by the circumstances, and the fact that she -was the youngest there, and the most fun; for who would expect fun from -portly matrons or weather-beaten middle age, like Lady Jane’s? To do her -justice, she never or hardly ever thought, as she might very well have -done, that she was the prettiest little person in the party. On the -contrary, she was a little disposed to be envious of Lady Mary, the -niece of Lady Jane and sister of the Earl, who was not pretty in the -least, but who was tall, and had a figure which all the ladies’ maids, -including Stevens, admired much. “Oh, if you only was as tall as Lady -Mary, Miss Stella,” Stevens said. “Oh, I wish as you had that kind of -figger—her waist ain’t more than eighteen inches, for all as she’s so -tall.” Stella had felt nearly disposed to cry over her inferiority. She -was as light as a feather in her round and blooming youth, but she was -not so slim as Lady Mary. It was a consolation to be able to say to -herself that at least she was more fun.</p> - -<p>Lady Mary, it turned out, was not fun at all; neither most surely was -the young Earl. He talked to Stella, whom, and her diamonds, he -approached gravely, feeling that the claims of beauty were as real as -those of rank or personal importance, and that the qualification of -youth was as worthy of being taken into consideration as that of age, -for he was a philosopher<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a>{101}</span> about University Extension, and the great -advantage it was to the lower classes to share the culture of those -above them.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I am sure I am not cultured at all,” cried Stella. “I am as -ignorant as a goose. I can’t spell any big words, or do any of the -things that people do.”</p> - -<p>“You must not expect to take me in with professions of ignorance,” said -the Earl with a smile. “I know how ladies read, and how much they do -nowadays—perhaps in a different way from us, but just as important.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, no,” cried Stella; “it is quite true, I can’t spell a bit,” and -her eyes and her diamonds sparkled, and a certain radiance of red and -white, sheen of satin, and shimmer of curls, and fun and audacity, and -youth, made a sort of atmosphere round her, by which the grave youth, -prematurely burdened by the troubles of his country and the lower -classes, felt dazzled and uneasy, as if too warm a sun was shining full -upon him.</p> - -<p>“Where’s a book?” cried Algy Scott, who sat by in the luxury of his -convalescence. “Let’s try; I don’t believe any of you fellows could -spell this any more than Miss Stella—here you are—sesquipedalian. Now, -Miss Tredgold, there is your chance.”</p> - -<p>Stella put her pretty head on one side, and her hands behind her. This -was a sort of thing which she understood better than University -Extension. “S-e-s,” she began, and then broke off. “Oh, what is the next -syllable? Break it down into little, quite little syllables—<i>quip</i>—I -know that, q-u-i-p. There, oh, help me, help me, someone!” There was -quite a crush round the little shining, charming figure, as she turned -from one to another in pretended distress, holding out her pretty hands. -And then there were several tries, artificially unsuccessful, and the -greatest merriment in the knot which surrounded Stella, thinking it all -“great fun.” The Earl, with a smile on his face which was not so -superior as he thought, but a little tinged by the sense of being “out -of it,” was edged outside of this laughing circle, and Lady Mary came -and placed her arm within his to console him. The brother<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a>{102}</span> and sister -lingered for a moment looking on with a disappointed chill, though they -were so superior; but it became clear to his lordship from that moment, -though with a little envy in the midst of the shock and disapproval, -that Stella Tredgold, unable to spell and laughing over it with all -those fellows, was not the heroine for him.</p> - -<p>Lady Jane, indeed, would have been both angry and disappointed had the -case turned out otherwise; for her nephew was not poor and did not stand -in need of any <i>mésalliance</i>, whereas she had planned the whole affair -for Charlie Somers’ benefit and no other. And, indeed, the plan worked -very well. Sir Charles had no objection at all to the <i>rôle</i> assigned -him. Stella did not require to be approached with any show of deference -or devotion; she was quite willing to be treated as a chum, to respond -to a call more curt than reverential. “I say, come on and see the -horses.” “Look here, Miss Tredgold, let’s have a stroll before lunch.” -“Come along and look at the puppies.” These were the kind of invitations -addressed to her; and Stella came along tripping, buttoning up her -jacket, putting on a cap, the first she could find, upon her fluffy -hair. She was <i>bon camarade</i>, and did not “go in for sentiment.” It was -she who was the first to call him Charlie, as she had been on the eve of -doing several times in the Lottie Seton days, which now looked like the -age before the Flood to this pair.</p> - -<p>“Fancy only knowing you through that woman,” cried Stella; “and you -should have heard how she bullied me after that night of the sail!”</p> - -<p>“Jealous,” said Sir Charles in his moustache. “Never likes to lose any -fellow she knows.”</p> - -<p>“But she was not losing you!” cried Stella with much innocence. “What -harm could it do to her that you spent one evening with—anyone else?”</p> - -<p>“Knows better than that, does Lottie,” the laconic lover said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, stuff!” cried Stella. “It was only to make herself disagreeable. -But she never was any friend of mine.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a>{103}</span></p> - -<p>“Not likely. Lottie knows a thing or two. Not so soft as all that. Put -you in prison if she could—push you out of her way.”</p> - -<p>“But I was never in her way,” cried Stella.</p> - -<p>At which Sir Charles laughed loud and long. “Tell you what it is—as bad -as Lottie. Can’t have you talk to fellows like Uppin’ton. Great prig, -not your sort at all. Call myself your sort, Stella, eh? Since anyhow -you’re mine.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what you mean by your sort,” Stella said, but with -downcast eyes.</p> - -<p>“Yes, you do—chums—always get on. Awf’lly fond of you, don’t you know? -Eh? Marriage awf’l bore, but can’t be helped. Look here! Off to India if -you won’t have me,” the wooer said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Charlie!”</p> - -<p>“Fact; can’t stand it here any more—except you’d have me, Stella.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want,” said Stella with a little gasp, “to have any one—just -now.”</p> - -<p>“Not surprised,” said Sir Charles, “marriage awf’l bore. Glad regiment’s -ordered off; no good in England now. Knock about in India; get knocked -on the head most likely. No fault of yours—if you can’t cotton to it, -little girl.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Charlie! but I don’t want you to go to India,” Stella said.</p> - -<p>“Well, then, keep me here. There are no two ways of it,” he said more -distinctly than usual, holding out his hand.</p> - -<p>And Stella put her hand with a little hesitation into his. She was not -quite sure she wanted to do so. But she did not want him to go away. And -though marriage was an awf’l bore, the preparations for it were “great -fun.” And he was her sort—they were quite sure to get on. She liked him -better than any of the others, far better than that prig, Uffington, -though he was an earl. And it would be nice on the whole to be called my -Lady, and not Miss any longer. And Charlie was very nice; she liked him -far better than any of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a>{104}</span> the others. That was the refrain of Stella’s -thoughts as she turned over in her own room all she had done. To be -married at twenty is pleasant too. Some girls nowadays do not marry till -thirty or near it, when they are almost decrepit. That was what would -happen to Kate; if, indeed, she ever married at all. Stella’s mind then -jumped to a consideration of the wedding presents and who would give -her—what, and then to her own appearance in her wedding dress, walking -down the aisle of the old church. What a fuss all the Stanleys would be -in about the decorations; and then there were the bridesmaids to be -thought of. Decidedly the preliminaries would be great fun. Then, of -course, afterwards she would be presented and go into society—real -society—not this mere country house business. On the whole there was a -great deal that was desirable in it, all round.</p> - -<p>“Now have over the little prim one for me,” said Algy Scott. “I say, -cousin Jane, you owe me that much. It was I that really suffered for -that little thing’s whim—and to get no good of it; while Charlie—no, I -don’t want this one, the little prim one for my money. If you are going -to have a dance to end off with, have her over for me.”</p> - -<p>“I may have her over, but not for you, my boy,” said Lady Jane. “I have -the fear of your mother before my eyes, if you haven’t. A little -Tredgold girl for my Lady Scott! No, thank you, Algy, I am not going to -fly in your mother’s face, whatever you may do.”</p> - -<p>“Somebody will have to fly in her face sooner or later,” Algy said -composedly; “and, mind you, my mother would like to tread gold as well -as any one.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t abandon every principle, Algy. I can forgive anything but a pun.”</p> - -<p>“It’s such a very little one,” he said.</p> - -<p>And Lady Jane did ask Katherine to the dance, who was very much -bewildered by the state of affairs, by her sister’s engagement, which -everybody knew about, and the revolution which had taken place in -everything, without the least intimation being conveyed to those most -concerned. Captain<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a>{105}</span> Scott’s attentions to herself were the least of her -thoughts. She was impatient of the ball—impatient of further delay. -Would it all be so easy as Stella thought? Would the old man, as they -called him, take it with as much delight as was expected? She pushed -Algy away from her mind as if he had been a fly in the great -preoccupations of her thoughts.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a>{106}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">“Bravo</span>, Charlie!” said Lady Jane. “I never knew anything better or -quicker done. My congratulations! You have proved yourself a man of -sense and business. Now you’ve got to tackle the old man.”</p> - -<p>“Nothin’ of th’ sort,” said Sir Charles, with a dull blush covering all -that was not hair of his countenance. “Sweet on little girl. Like her -awf’lly; none of your business for me.”</p> - -<p>“So much the better, and I respect you all the more; but now comes the -point at which you have really to show yourself a hero and a man of -mettle—the old father——”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles walked the whole length of the great drawing-room and back -again. He pulled at his moustache till it seemed likely that it might -come off. He thrust one hand deep into his pocket, putting up the -corresponding shoulder. “Ah!” he said with a long-drawn breath, “there’s -the rub.” He was not aware that he was quoting anyone, but yet would -have felt more or less comforted by the thought that a fellow in his -circumstances might have said the same thing before him.</p> - -<p>“Yes, there’s the rub indeed,” said his sympathetic but amused friend -and backer-up. “Stella is the apple of his eye.”</p> - -<p>“Shows sense in that.”</p> - -<p>“Well, perhaps,” said Lady Jane doubtfully. She thought the little prim -one might have had a little consideration too, being partially -enlightened as to a certain attractiveness in Katherine through the -admiration of Algy Scott. “Anyhow, it will make it all the harder. But -that’s doubtful too. He will probably like his pet child to be Lady -Somers,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a>{107}</span> which sounds very well. Anyhow, you must settle it with him at -once. I can’t let it be said that I let girls be proposed to in my -house, and that afterwards the men don’t come up to the scratch.”</p> - -<p>“Not my way,” said Sir Charles. “Never refuse even it were a harder jump -than that.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you don’t know how hard a jump it is till you try,” said Lady Jane. -But she did not really expect that it would be hard. That old Tredgold -should not be pleased with such a marriage for his daughter did not -occur to either of them. Of course Charlie Somers was poor; if he had -been rich it was not at all likely that he would have wanted to marry -Stella; but Lady Somers was a pretty title, and no doubt the old man -would desire to have his favourite child so distinguished. Lady Jane was -an extremely sensible woman, and as likely to estimate the people round -her at their just value as anybody I know; but she could not get it out -of her head that to be hoisted into society was a real advantage, -however it was accomplished, whether by marriage or in some other way. -Was she right? was she wrong? Society is made up of very silly people, -but also there the best are to be met, and there is something in the -Freemasonry within these imaginary boundaries which is attractive to the -wistful imagination without. But was Mr. Tredgold aware of these -advantages, or did he know even what it was, or that his daughters were -not in it? This was what Lady Jane did not know. Somers, it need not be -said, did not think on the subject. What he thought of was that old -Tredgold’s money would enable him to marry, to fit out his old house as -it ought to be, and restore it to its importance in his county, and, in -the first place of all, would prevent the necessity of going to India -with his regiment. This, indeed, was the first thing in his mind, after -the pleasure of securing Stella, which, especially since all the men in -the house had so flattered and ran after her, had been very gratifying -to him. He loved her as well as he understood love or she either. They -were on very equal terms.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a>{108}</span></p> - -<p>Katherine did not give him any very warm reception when the exciting -news was communicated to her; but then Katherine was the little prim -one, and not effusive to any one. “She is always like that,” Stella had -said—“a stick! but she’ll stand up for me, whatever happens, all the -same.”</p> - -<p>“I say,” cried Sir Charles alarmed—“think it’ll be a hard job, eh? with -the old man, don’t you know?”</p> - -<p>“You will please,” said Stella with determination, “speak more -respectfully of papa. I don’t know if it’ll be a hard job or not—but -you’re big enough for that, or anything, I hope.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m big enough,” he said; but there was a certain faltering in his -tone.</p> - -<p>He did not drive with the two girls on their return to the Cliff the -morning after the ball, but walked in to Sliplin the five miles to pull -himself together. He had no reason that he knew of to feel anxious. The -girl—it was by this irreverent title that he thought of her, though he -was so fond of her—liked him, and her father, it was reported, saw -everything with Stella’s eyes. She was the one that he favoured in -everything. No doubt it was she who would have the bulk of his fortune. -Sir Charles magnanimously resolved that he would not see the other -wronged—that she should always have her share, whatever happened. He -remembered long afterwards the aspect of the somewhat muddy road, and -the hawthorn hedges with the russet leaves hanging to them still, and -here and there a bramble with the intense red of a leaf lighting up the -less brilliant colour. Yes, she should always have her share! He had a -half-conscious feeling that to form so admirable a resolution would do -him good in the crisis that was about to come.</p> - -<p>Mr. Tredgold stood at the door to meet his daughters when they came -home, very glad to see them, and to know that everybody was acquainted -with the length of Stella’s stay at Steephill, and the favour shown her -by Lady Jane, and delighted to have them back also, and to feel that -these two pretty creatures—and especially the prettiest of the -two—were his own private property, though there were no girls like -them, far or near. “Well,” he said, “so here you are back again—glad<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a>{109}</span> -to be back again I’ll be bound, though you’ve been among all the -grandees! Nothing like home, is there, Stella, after all?” (He said -’ome, alas! and Stella felt it as she had never done before.) “Well, you -are very welcome to your old pa. Made a great sensation, did you, little -’un, diamonds and all? How did the diamonds go down, eh, Stella? You -must give them to me to put in my safe, for they’re not safe, valuable -things like that, with you.”</p> - -<p>“Dear papa, do you think all that of the diamonds?” said Stella. “They -are only little things—nothing to speak of. You should have seen the -diamonds at Steephill. If you think they are worth putting in the safe, -pray do so; but I should not think of giving you the trouble. Well, we -didn’t come back to think of the safe and my little <i>rivière</i>, did we, -Kate? As for that, the pendant you have given her is handsomer of its -kind, papa.”</p> - -<p>“Couldn’t leave Katie out, could I? when I was giving you such a thing -as that?” said Mr. Tredgold a little confused.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I hope you don’t think I’m jealous,” cried Stella. “Kate doesn’t -have things half nice enough. She ought to have them nicer than mine, -for she is the eldest. We amused ourselves very well, thank you, papa. -Kate couldn’t move without Algy Scott after her wherever she turned. -You’ll have him coming over here to make love to you, papa.”</p> - -<p>“I think you might say a word of something a great deal more important, -Stella.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, let me alone with your seriousness. Papa will hear of that fast -enough, when you know Charlie is—— I’m going upstairs to take off my -things. I’ll bring the diamonds if I can remember,” she added, pausing -for a moment at the door and waving her hand to her father, who followed -her with delighted eyes.</p> - -<p>“What a saucy little thing she is!” he said. “You and I have a deal to -put up with from that little hussy, Katie, haven’t we? But there aren’t -many like her all the same, are there? We shouldn’t like it if we were -to lose her. She keeps everything going with her impudent little ways.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a>{110}</span></p> - -<p>“You are in great danger of losing her, papa. There is a man on the -road——”</p> - -<p>“What’s that—what’s that, Katie? A man that is after my Stella? A man -to rob me of my little girl? Well, I like ’em to come after her, I like -to see her with a lot at her feet. And who’s this one? The man with a -handle to his name?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; I suppose you would call it a handle. It was one of the men that -were out in the boat with her—Sir Charles——”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” said Mr. Tredgold, with his countenance falling. “And why didn’t -the t’other one—his lordship—come forward? I don’t care for none of -your Sir Charleses—reminds me of a puppy, that name.”</p> - -<p>“The puppies are King Charles’s, papa. I don’t know why the Earl did not -come forward; because he didn’t want to, I suppose. And, indeed, he was -not Stella’s sort at all.”</p> - -<p>“Stella’s sort! Stella’s sort!” cried the old man. “What right has -Stella to have a sort when she might have got a crown to put on her -pretty head. Coronet? Yes, I know; it’s all the same. And where is this -fellow? Do you mean that you brought him in my carriage, hiding him -somewhere between your petticoats? I will soon settle your Sir Charles, -unless he can settle shilling to shilling down.”</p> - -<p>“Sir Charles is walking,” said Katherine; “and, papa, please to remember -that Stella is fond of him, she is really fond of him; she is—in love -with him. At least I think so, otherwise—— You would not do anything -to make Stella unhappy, papa?”</p> - -<p>“You leave that to me,” said the old man; but he chuckled more than -ever.</p> - -<p>Katherine did not quite understand her father, but she concluded that he -was not angry—that he could not be going to receive the suitor -unfavourably, that there was nothing to indicate a serious shock of any -kind. She followed Stella upstairs, and went into her room to comfort -her with this assurance; for which I cannot say that Stella was at all -grateful.</p> - -<p>“Not angry? Why should he be angry?” the girl cried. “Serious? I never -expected him to be serious. What could<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a>{111}</span> he find to object to in Charlie? -I am not anxious about it at all.”</p> - -<p>Katherine withdrew into her own premises, feeling herself much humbled -and set down. But somehow she could not make herself happy about that -chuckle of Mr. Tredgold’s. It was not a pleasant sound to hear.</p> - -<p>Sir Charles Somers felt it very absurd that he should own a tremor in -his big bosom as he walked up the drive, all fringed with its rare -plants in every shade of autumn colour. It was not a long drive, and the -house by no means a “place,” but only a seaside villa, though (as Mr. -Tredgold hoped) the costliest house in the neighbourhood. The carriage -had left fresh marks upon the gravel, which were in a kind of a way the -footsteps of his beloved, had the wooer been sentimental enough to think -of that. What he did think of was whether the old fellow would see him -at once and settle everything before lunch, comfortably, or whether he -would walk into a family party with the girls hanging about, not -thinking it worth while to take off their hats before that meal was -over. There might be advantage in this. It would put a little strength -into himself, who was unquestionably feeling shaky, ridiculous as that -was, and would be the better, after his walk, of something to eat; and -it might also put old Tredgold in a better humour to have his luncheon -before this important interview. But, on the other hand, there was the -worry of the suspense. Somers did not know whether he was glad or sorry -when he was told that Mr. Tredgold was in his library, and led through -the long passages to that warm room which was at the back of the house. -A chair was placed for him just in front of the fire as he had foreseen, -and the day, though damp, was warm, and he had heated himself with his -long walk.</p> - -<p>“Sit down, sit down, Sir Charles,” said the old gentleman, whose -writing-table was placed at one side, where he had the benefit of the -warmth without the glare of the fire. And he leant amicably and -cheerfully across the corner of the table, and said, “What can I do for -you this morning?” rubbing his hands. He looked so like a genial -money-lender before<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a>{112}</span> the demands of the borrower are exposed to him, -that Sir Charles, much more accustomed to that sort of thing than to a -prospective father-in-law, found it very difficult not to propose, -instead of for Stella, that Mr. Tredgold should do him a little bill. He -got through his statement of the case in a most confused and complicated -way. It was indeed possible, if it had not been for the hint received -beforehand, that the old man would not have picked up his meaning; as it -was, he listened patiently with a calm face of amusement, which was the -most aggravating thing in the world.</p> - -<p>“Am I to understand,” he said at last, “that you are making me a -proposal for Stella, Sir Charles? Eh? It is for Stella, is it, and not -for any other thing? Come, that’s a good thing to understand each other. -Stella is a great pet of mine. She is a very great pet. There is nobody -in the world that I think like her, or that I would do so much for.”</p> - -<p>“M’ own feelings—to a nicety—but better expressed,” Sir Charles said.</p> - -<p>“That girl has had a deal of money spent on her, Sir Charles, first and -last; you wouldn’t believe the money that girl has cost me, and I don’t -say she ain’t worth it. But she’s a very expensive article and has been -all her life. It’s right you should look that in the face before we get -any forwarder. She has always had everything she has fancied, and she’ll -cost her husband a deal of money, when she gets one, as she has done -me.”</p> - -<p>This address made Somers feel very small, for what could he reply? To -have been quite truthful, the only thing he could have said would have -been, “I hope, sir, you will give her so much money that it will not -matter how expensive she is;” but this he could not say. “I know very -well,” he stammered, “a lady—wants a lot of things;—hope Stella—will -never—suffer, don’t you know?—through giving her to me.”</p> - -<p>Ah, how easy it was to say that! But not at all the sort of thing to -secure Stella’s comfort, or her husband’s either, which, on the whole, -was the most important of the two to Sir Charles.</p> - -<p>“That’s just what we’ve got to make sure of,” said old<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a>{113}</span> Tredgold, -chuckling more than ever. There was no such joke to the old man as this -which he was now enjoying. And he did not look forbidding or malevolent -at all. Though what he said was rather alarming, his face seemed to mean -nothing but amiability and content. “Now, look here, Sir Charles, I -don’t know what your circumstances are, and they would be no business of -mine, but for this that you’ve been telling me; you young fellows are -not very often flush o’ money, but you may have got it tied up, and that -sort of thing. I don’t give my daughter to any man as can’t count down -upon the table shillin’ for shillin’ with me.” This he said very -deliberately, with an emphasis on every word; then he made a pause, and, -putting his hand in his pocket, produced a large handful of coins, which -he proceeded to tell out in lines upon the table before him. Sir Charles -watched him in consternation for a moment, and then with a sort of -fascination followed his example. By some happy chance he had a quantity -of change in his pocket. He began with perfect gravity to count it out -on his side, coin after coin, in distinct rows. The room was quite -silent, the air only moved by the sound of a cinder falling now and then -on the hearth and the clink of the money as the two actors in this -strange little drama went on with the greatest seriousness counting out -coin after coin.</p> - -<p>When they had both finished they looked up and met each other’s eyes. -Then Mr. Tredgold threw himself back in his chair, kicking up his -cloth-shod feet. “See,” he cried, with a gurgle of laughter in his -throat, “that’s the style for me.”</p> - -<p>He was pleased to have his fine jest appreciated, and doubly amused by -the intense and puzzled gravity of his companion’s face.</p> - -<p>“Don’t seem to have as many as you,” Sir Charles said. “Five short, by -Jove.”</p> - -<p>“Shillin’s don’t matter,” said the old man; “but suppose every shillin’ -was five thousand pounds, and where would you be then? eh? perhaps you -would go on longer than I could. What do I know of your private affairs? -But that’s what the man that gets Stella will have to do—table down his -money,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a>{114}</span> cent for cent, five thousand for five thousand, as I do. I know -what my little girl costs a year. I won’t have her want for anything, if -it’s ever so unreasonable; so, my fine young man, though you’ve got a -handle to your name, unless you can show the colour of your money, my -daughter is not for you.”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles Somers’s eyes had acquired a heavy stare of astonishment and -consternation. What he said in his disappointment and horror he did not -himself know—only one part of it fully reached the outer air, and that -was the unfortunate words, “money of her own.”</p> - -<p>“Money of her own!” cried old Tredgold. “Oh, yes, she’s got money of her -own—plenty of money of her own—but not to keep a husband upon. No, nor -to keep herself either. Her husband’s got to keep her, when she gets -one. If I count out to the last penny of my fortune he’s got to count -with me. I’ll give her the equal. I’ll not stint a penny upon her; but -give my money or her money, it’s all the same thing, to keep up another -family, her husband and her children, and the whole race of them—no, -Sir Charles Somers,” cried Mr. Tredgold, hastily shuffling his silver -into his pocket, “that’s not good enough for me.”</p> - -<p>Saying which he jumped up in his cloth shoes and began to walk about the -room, humming to himself loudly something which he supposed to be a -tune. Sir Charles, for his part, sat for a long time gazing at his money -on the table. He did not take it up as Tredgold had done. He only stared -at it vacantly, going over it without knowing, line by line. Then he, -too, rose slowly.</p> - -<p>“Can’t count with you,” he said. “Know I can’t. Chance this—put down -what I put down—no more. Got to go to India in that case. Never mind, -Stella and I——”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you speak any more of Stella. I won’t have it. Go to India, -indeed—my little girl! I will see you—further first. I will see you at -the bottom of the sea first! No. If you can count with me, something -like, you can send your lawyer to me. If you can’t, do you think I’m a -man to put pounds again’ your shillin’s? Not I! And I advise you just<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a>{115}</span> -to give it up, Sir Charles Somers, and speak no more about Stella to -me.”</p> - -<p>It was with the most intense astonishment that Charlie Somers found -himself out of doors, going humbly back along that drive by which he had -approached so short a time before, as he thought, his bride, his -happiness, and his luncheon. He went dismally away without any of them, -stupefied, not half conscious what had happened; his tail more -completely between his legs, to use his own simile, than whipped dog -ever had. He had left all his shillings on the table laid out in two -shining rows. But he did not think of his shillings. He could not think. -His consternation made him speechless both in body and in soul.</p> - -<p>It was not till late in the afternoon, when he had regained his -self-command a little, that he began to ask himself the question, What -would Stella do? Ah, what would Stella do? That was another side of the -question altogether.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a>{116}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">There</span> was great consternation at Steephill when Somers came back, not -indeed so cowed as when he left the Cliff, but still with the aspect -more or less of a man who had been beaten and who was extremely -surprised to find himself so. He came back, to make it more remarkable, -while the diminished party were still at luncheon, and sat down humbly -in the lowest place by the side of the governess to partake of the -mutton and rice pudding which Lady Jane thought most appropriate when -the family was alone. Algy was the only stranger left of all the large -party which had dispersed that morning, the few remaining men having -gone out to shoot; and to Algy, as an invalid, the roast mutton was of -course quite appropriate.</p> - -<p>“What luck! without even your lunch!” they cried out—Algy with a roar -(the fellow was getting as strong as an elephant) of ridicule and -delight.</p> - -<p>“As you see,” said Sir Charles with a solemnity which he could not shake -off. The very governess divined his meaning, and that sharp little -Janey—the horrid little thing, a mite of fourteen. “Oh, didn’t Stella -ask you to stay to lunch? Didn’t they give you anything to eat after -your walk?” that precocious critic cried. And Sir Charles felt with a -sensation of hatred, wishing to kill them all, that his own aspect was -enough to justify all their jokes. He was as serious as a mustard-pot; -he could not conjure up a laugh on his face; he could not look careless -and indifferent or say a light word. His tail was between his legs; he -felt it, and he felt sure that everybody must see it, down to the little -boys, who, with spoonfuls of rice suspended, stared at him with round -blue eyes; and he dared not say, “Confound the little beggars!” before -Lady Jane.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a>{117}</span></p> - -<p>“What is the matter?” she asked him, hurrying him after luncheon to her -own room away from the mocking looks of the governess—she too mixing -herself up with it!—and the gibes of Algy. “For goodness’ sake,” she -cried, “don’t look as if you had been having a whipping, Charlie Somers! -What has been done to you? Have you quarrelled with Stella on the way?”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles walked to the window, pulling his moustache, and stood there -looking out, turning his back on Lady Jane. A window is a great resource -to a man in trouble. “Old man turned me off,” he said.</p> - -<p>“What? <i>What?</i> The old man turned you off? Oh!” cried Lady Jane in a -tone of relief; “so long as it was only the old man!”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles stood by the window for some time longer, and then he turned -back to the fire, near which Lady Jane had comfortably seated herself. -She was much concerned about him, yet not so much concerned as to -interfere with her own arrangements—her chair just at the right angle, -her screen to preserve her from the glare. She kept opening and looking -at the notes that lay on her table while she talked to him.</p> - -<p>“Oh, old Tredgold,” she said. “He was bound to object at first. About -money, I suppose? That of course is the only thing he knows anything -about. Did he ask you what you would settle upon her? You should have -said boldly, ‘Somerton,’ and left him to find out the rest. But I don’t -suppose you had the sense to stop his mouth like that. You would go and -enter into explanations.”</p> - -<p>“Never got so far,” said Sir Charles. “He that stopped my mouth. Game to -lay down pound for pound with him, or else no go.”</p> - -<p>“Pound for pound with him!” cried Lady Jane in consternation. She was so -much startled that she pushed back her chair from her writing-table, and -so came within the range of the fire and disorganized all her -arrangements. “Now I think of it,” she said, “(pull that screen this -way, Charlie) I have heard him say something like that. Pound for pound<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a>{118}</span> -with him! Why, the old——” (she made a pause without putting in the -word as so many people do), “is a millionaire!”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles, who was standing before the fire with his back to it, in -the habitual attitude of Englishmen, pulled his moustache again and -solemnly nodded his head.</p> - -<p>“And who does he think,” cried Lady Jane, carried away by her feelings, -“that could do <i>that</i> would ever go near him and his vulgar, common—— -Oh, I beg your pardon, Charlie, I am sure!” she said.</p> - -<p>“No pardon needed. Know what you mean,” Somers said with a wave of his -hand.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” said Lady Jane with emphasis, “I don’t mean the girls, or -else you may be sure I never should have taken them out or had them -here.” She made a little pause after this disclaimer, in the heat of -which there was perhaps just a little doubt of her own motives, checked -by the reflection that Katherine Tredgold at least was not vulgar, and -might have been anybody’s daughter. She went on again after a moment. -“But he is an old—— Oh! I would not pay the least attention to what he -said; he was bound to say that sort of thing at first. Do you imagine -for a moment that any man who could do <i>that</i> would please Stella? What -kind of man could do that? Only perhaps an old horror like himself, whom -a nice girl would never look at. Oh! I think I should be easy in my -mind, Charlie, if I were you. It is impossible, you know! There’s no -such man, no such <i>young</i> man. Can you fancy Stella accepting an old -fellow made of money? I don’t believe in it for a moment,” said Lady -Jane.</p> - -<p>“Old fellows got sons—sometimes,” said Sir Charles, “City men, rolling -in money, don’t you know?”</p> - -<p>“One knows all those sort of people,” said Lady Jane; “you could count -them on your fingers; and they go in for rank, &c., not for other -millionaires. No, Charlie, I don’t see any call you have to be so -discouraged. Why did you come in looking such a whipped dog? It will be -all over the island in no time and through the regiment that you have -been refused<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a>{119}</span> by Stella Tredgold. The father’s nothing. The father was -quite sure to refuse. Rather picturesque that about laying down pound -for pound, isn’t it? It makes one think of a great table groaning under -heaps of gold.”</p> - -<p>“Jove!” said Sir Charles. “Old beggar said shillin’ for shillin’. Had a -heap of silver—got it like a fool—didn’t see what he was driving -at—paid it out on the table.” He pulled his moustache to the very roots -and uttered a short and cavernous laugh. “Left it there, by Jove!—all -my change,” he cried; “not a blessed thruppenny to throw to little girl -at gate.”</p> - -<p>“Left it there?” said Lady Jane—“on the table?” Her gravity was -overpowered by this detail. “Upon my word, Charlie Somers, for all your -big moustache and your six feet and your experiences, I declare I don’t -think there ever was such a simpleton born.”</p> - -<p>Somers bore her laughter very steadily. He was not unused to it. The -things in which he showed himself a simpleton were in relation to the -things in which he was prematurely wise as three to a hundred; but yet -there were such things. And he was free to acknowledge that leaving his -seventeen shillings spread out on the millionaire’s table, or even -taking the millionaire’s challenge <i>au pied de la lettre</i>, was the act -of a simpleton. He stood tranquilly with his back to the fire till Lady -Jane had got her laugh out. Then she resumed with a sort of apology:</p> - -<p>“It was too much for me, Charlie. I could not help laughing. What will -become of all that money, I wonder? Will he keep it and put it to -interest? I should like to have seen him after you were gone. I should -like to have seen him afterwards, when Stella had her knife at his -throat, asking him what he meant by it. You may trust to Stella, my dear -boy. She will soon bring her father to reason. He may be all sorts of -queer things to you, but he can’t stand against her. She can twist him -round her little finger. If it had been Katherine I should not have been -so confident. But Stella—he never has refused anything to Stella since -ever she was born.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a>{120}</span></p> - -<p>“Think so, really?” said Somers through his moustache. He was beginning -to revive a little again, but yet the impression of old Tredgold’s -chuckling laugh and his contemptuous certainty was not to be got over -lightly. The gloom of the rejected was still over him.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I think so,” said Lady Jane. “Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, go on in -that hang-dog way. There’s nothing happened but what was to be expected. -Of course, the old curmudgeon would make an attempt to guard his -money-bags. I wish I were as sure of a company for Jack as I am of -Stella’s power to do anything she likes with her father. But if you go -down in this way at the first touch——”</p> - -<p>“No intention of going down,” said Sir Charles, piqued. “Marry her -to-morrow—take her out to India—then see what old beggar says.”</p> - -<p>“That, indeed,” cried Lady Jane—“that would be a fine revenge on him! -Don’t propose it to Stella if you don’t want her to accept, for she -would think it the finest fun in the world.”</p> - -<p>“By George!” Somers said, and a smile began to lift up the corners of -his moustache.</p> - -<p>“That would bring him to his senses, indeed,” Lady Jane said -reflectively; “but it would be rather cruel, Charlie. After all, he is -an old man. Not a very venerable old man, perhaps; not what you would -call a lovely old age, is it? but still—— Oh, I think it would be -cruel. You need not go so far as that. But we shall soon hear what -Stella says.”</p> - -<p>And it very soon was known what Stella said. Stella wrote in a whirlwind -of passion, finding nothing too bad to say of papa. An old bull, an old -pig, were the sweetest of the similes she used. She believed that he -wanted to kill her, to drag her by the hair of her head, to shut her up -in a dungeon or a back kitchen or something. She thought he must have -been changed in his sleep, for he was not in the very least like her own -old nice papa, and Kate thought so too. Kate could not understand it any -more than she could. But one thing was certain—that, let papa say what -he would or do what he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a>{121}</span> would, she (Stella) never would give in. She -would be true, whatever happened. And if she were locked up anywhere she -would trust in her Charlie to get her out. All her trust was in her -Charlie, she declared. She had got his money, his poor dear bright -shillings, of which papa had robbed him, and put them in a silk bag, -which she always meant to preserve and carry about with her. She called -it Charlie’s fortune. Poor dear, dear Charlie; he had left it all for -her. She knew it was for her, and she would never part with it, never! -This whirlwind of a letter amused Charlie very much; he did not mind -letting his friends read it. They all laughed over it, and declared that -she was a little brick, and that he must certainly stick to her whatever -happened. The old fellow was sure to come round, they all said; no old -father could ever stand out against a girl like that. She had him on -toast, everybody knew.</p> - -<p>These were the encouraging suggestions addressed to Sir Charles by his -most intimate friends, who encouraged him still more by their narratives -of how Lottie Seton tossed her head and declared that Charlie Somers had -been waiting all along for some rich girl to drop into his mouth. He had -always had an <i>arrière pensée</i>, she cried (whatever that might be), and -had never been at all amusin’ at the best of times. He was very amusin’ -now, however, with Stella’s letter in his pocket and this absorbing -question to discuss. The whole regiment addressed itself with all the -brain it possessed to the consideration of the subject, which, of -course, was so much the more urgent in consequence of the orders under -which it lay. To go or not to go to India, that was the rub, as Charlie -had said. Stella only complicated the question, which had been under -discussion before. He did not want to go; but then, on the other hand, -if he remained at home, his creditors would be rampant and he would be -within their reach, which would not be the case if he went to India. And -India meant double pay. And if it could be secured that Stella’s father -should send an expedition after them to bring them back within a year, -then going to India with Stella as a companion<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a>{122}</span> would be the best fun in -the world. To go for a year was one thing, to go as long as the regiment -remained, doing ordinary duty, was quite another. Everybody whom he -consulted, even Lady Jane, though she began to be a little frightened by -the responsibility, assured him that old Tredgold would never hold out -for a year. Impossible! an old man in shaky health who adored his -daughter. “Doubt if he’ll give you time to get on board before he’s -after you,” Algy said. “You’ll find telegrams at Suez or at Aden or -somewhere,” said another; and a third chaunted (being at once poetical -and musical, which was not common in the regiment) a verse which many of -them thought had been composed for the occasion:</p> - -<p> -“Come back, come back,” he cried in grief<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Across the stormy water,</span><br /> -“And I’ll forgive your Highland chief,<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">My daughter, O my daughter!”</span><br /> -</p> - -<p>“Though Charlie ain’t a Highland chief, you know,” said one of the -youngsters. “If it had been Algy, now!”</p> - -<p>All these things worked very deeply in the brain of Sir Charles Somers, -Baronet. He spent a great deal of time thinking of them. A year in India -would be great fun. Stella, for her part, was wild with delight at the -thought of it. If it could but be made quite clear that old Tredgold, -dying for the loss of his favourite child, would be sure to send for -her! Everybody said there was not a doubt on the subject. Stella, who -ought to know, was sure of it; so was Lady Jane, though she had got -frightened and cried, “Oh, don’t ask me!” when importuned the hundredth -time for her opinion. If a fellow could only be quite sure! Sometimes a -chilling vision of the “old beggar” came across Charlie’s mind, and the -courage began to ooze out at his fingers’ ends. That old fellow did not -look like an old fellow who would give in. He looked a dangerous old -man, an old man capable of anything. Charles Somers was by no means a -coward, but when he remembered the look which Mr. Tredgold had cast upon -him, all the strength went out of him. To marry an expensive wife<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a>{123}</span> who -had never been stinted in her expenses and take her out to India, and -then find that there was no relenting, remorseful father behind them, -but only the common stress and strain of a poor man’s life in a -profession, obliged to live upon his pay! What should he do if this -happened? But everybody around him assured him that it could not, would -not happen. Stella had the old gentleman “on toast.” He could not live -without her; he would send to the end of the world to bring her back; he -would forgive anything, Highland chief or whoever it might be. Even Lady -Jane said so. “Don’t ask me to advise you,” that lady cried. “I daren’t -take the responsibility. How can I tell whether Stella and you are fond -enough of each other to run such a risk? Old Mr. Tredgold? Oh, as for -old Mr. Tredgold, I should not really fear any lasting opposition from -him. He may bluster a little, he may try to be overbearing, he may think -he can frighten his daughter. But, of course, he will give in. Oh, yes, -he will give in. Stella is everything to him. She is the very apple of -his eye. It is very unjust to Katherine I always have said, and always -will say. But that is how it is. Stella’s little finger is more to him -than all the rest of the world put together. But please, please don’t -ask advice from me!”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles walked up and down the room, the room at Steephill, the room -at the barracks, wherever he happened to be, and pulled his moustache -almost till the blood came. But neither that intimate councillor, nor -his fellow-officers, nor his anxious friends gave him any definite -enlightenment. He was in love, too, in his way, which pushed him on, but -he was by no means without prudence, which held him back. If old -Tredgold did not break his heart, if he took the other one into Stella’s -place—for to be sure Katherine was his daughter also, though not equal -to Stella! If!—it is a little word, but there is terrible meaning in -it. In that case what would happen? He shuddered and turned away from -the appalling thought.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a>{124}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">“Kate</span>, Kate, Kate!” cried Stella. All had been quiet between the two -rooms connected by that open door. Katherine was fastening the ribbon at -her neck before the glass. This made her less ready to respond to -Stella’s eager summons; but the tone of the third repetition of her name -was so urgent that she dropped the ends of the ribbon and flew to her -sister. Stella was leaning half out of the open window. “Kate,” she -cried—“Kate, he has sent him away!”</p> - -<p>“Who is sent away?” cried Katherine, in amazement.</p> - -<p>Stella’s answer was to seize her sister by the arm and pull her half out -of the window, endangering her equilibrium. Thus enforced, however, -Katherine saw the figure of Sir Charles Somers disappearing round the -corner of a group of trees, which so entirely recalled the image, coarse -yet expressive, of a dog with its tail between its legs, that no -certainty of disappointment and failure could be more complete. The two -girls stared after him until he had disappeared, and then Stella drew -her sister in again, and they looked into each other’s eyes for a -moment. Even Stella the unsubduable was cowed; her face was pale, her -eyes round and staring with astonishment and trouble; the strength was -all taken out of her by bewilderment. What did it mean? Papa, papa, he -who had denied her nothing, who had been the more pleased the more -costly was the toy which she demanded! Had Charlie offended him? Had he -gone the wrong way to work? What could he possibly have done to receive -a rebuff from papa?</p> - -<p>“Of course I shall not stand it,” Stella cried, when she had recovered -herself a little. “He shall not have much<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a>{125}</span> peace of his life if he -crosses me. You let him dance upon you, Kate, and never said a -word—though I don’t suppose you cared, or surely you would have stood -out a little more than you did. But he shan’t dance upon me—he shall -soon find out the difference. I am going to him at once to ask what he -means.” She rushed towards the door, glowing anew with courage and -spirit, but then suddenly stopped herself, and came running back, -throwing herself suddenly on Katherine’s shoulders.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Kate, why should parents be so hard,” she said, shedding a few -tears—“and so hypocritical!” she exclaimed, rousing herself -again—“pretending to be ready to do everything, and then doing -nothing!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, hush, Stella!” cried Katherine, restraining her; “there is nothing -you have wanted till now that papa has not done.”</p> - -<p>“What!” cried the girl indignantly. “Diamonds and such wretched things.” -She made a gesture as if to pull something from her throat and throw it -on the floor, though the diamonds, naturally, at this hour in the -morning, were not there. “But the first thing I really want—the only -thing—oh, let me go, Kate, let me go and ask him what he means!”</p> - -<p>“Wait a little,” said Katherine—“wait a little; it may not be as bad as -we think; it may not be bad at all. Let us go down as if nothing had -happened. Perhaps Sir Charles has only—gone—to fetch something.”</p> - -<p>“Like that?” cried Stella; and then a something of the ridiculous in the -drooping figure came across her volatile mind. He was so like, so very -like, that dog with his tail between his legs. She burst out into a -laugh. “Poor Charlie, oh, poor Charlie! he looked exactly like—but I -will pay papa for this,” the girl cried.</p> - -<p>“Oh, not now,” said Katherine. “Remember, he is an old man—we must try -not to cross him but to soothe him. He may have been vexed to think of -losing you, Stella. He may have been—a little sharp; perhaps to try -to—break it off—for a time.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a>{126}</span></p> - -<p>“And you think he might succeed, I shouldn’t wonder,” Stella cried, -tossing her head high. To tell the truth, Katherine was by no means sure -that he might not succeed. She had not a great confidence in the depth -of the sentiment which connected her sister and Sir Charles. She -believed that on one side or the other that tie might be broken, and -that it would be no great harm. But she made no reply to Stella’s -question. She only begged her to have patience a little, to make no -immediate assault upon her father. “You know the doctor said he must be -very regular—and not be disturbed—in his meals and things.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, if it is lunch you are thinking of!” cried Stella, with great -disdain; but after a little she consented to take things quietly and -await the elucidation of events. The meal that followed was not, -however, a very comfortable meal. Mr. Tredgold came in with every -evidence of high spirits, but was also nervous, not knowing what kind of -reception he was likely to meet with. He was as evidently relieved when -they seated themselves at table without any questions, but it was a -relief not unmingled with excitement. He talked continuously and against -time, but he neither asked about their visit as he usually did, nor -about the previous night’s entertainment, nor Stella’s appearance nor -her triumphs. Stella sat very silent at her side of the table. And -Katherine thought that her father was a little afraid. He made haste to -escape as soon as the luncheon was over, and it was not a moment too -soon, for Stella’s excitement was no longer restrainable. “What has he -said to Charlie—what has he done to him?” she cried. “Do you think he -would dare send him away for good and never say a word to me? What is -the meaning of it, Kate? You would not let me speak, though it choked me -to sit and say nothing. Where is my Charlie? and oh, how dared he, how -dared he, to send him away?”</p> - -<p>Katherine suggested that he might still be lingering about waiting for -the chance of seeing one of them, and Stella darted out accordingly and -flew through the grounds, in and out of the trees, with her uncovered -head shining in the sun, but came<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a>{127}</span> back with no further enlightenment. -She then proceeded imperiously to her father’s room; where, however, she -was again stopped by the butler, who announced that master was having -his nap and was not to be disturbed. All this delayed the explanation -and prolonged the suspense, which was aggravated, as in so many cases, -by the arrival of visitors. “So you have got back, Stella, from your -grand visit? Oh, do tell us all about it!” It was perhaps the first -fiery ordeal of social difficulty to which that undisciplined little -girl had been exposed. And it was so much the more severe that various -other sentiments came in—pride in the visit, which was so much greater -a privilege than was accorded to the ordinary inhabitants of Sliplin; -pride, too, in a show of indifference to it, desire to make her own -glories known, and an equally strong desire to represent these glories -as nothing more than were habitual and invariable. In the conflict of -feeling Stella was drawn a little out of herself and out of the -consideration of her father’s unimaginable behaviour. Oh, if they only -knew the real climax of all those eager questions! If only a hint could -have been given of the crowning glory, of the new possession she had -acquired, and the rank to which she was about to be elevated!</p> - -<p>Stella did not think of “a trumpery baronet” now. It was the Earl whom -she thought trumpery, a creation of this reign, as Miss Mildmay said, -whereas the Somers went back to the Anglo-Saxons. Stella did not know -very well who the Anglo-Saxons were. She did not know that baronetcies -are comparatively modern inventions. She only knew that to be Lady -Somers was a fine thing, and that she was going to attain that dignity. -But then, papa—who was papa, to interfere with her happiness? what -could he do to stop a thing she had made up her mind to?—stood in the -way. It was papa’s fault that she could not make that thrilling, that -tremendous announcement to her friends. Her little tongue trembled on -the edge of it. At one moment it had almost burst forth. Oh, how silly -to be talking of Steephill, of the dance, of the rides, of going to the -covert side with the sportsmen’s luncheon—all these things which -unengaged persons, mere spectators of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a>{128}</span> life, make so much of—when she -had had it in her power to tell something so much more exciting, -something that would fly not only through Sliplin and all along the -coast but over the whole island before night! And to think she could not -tell it—must not say anything about it because of papa!</p> - -<p>Thus Stella fretted through the afternoon, determined, however, to “have -it out with papa” the moment her visitors were gone, and not, on the -whole, much afraid. He had never crossed her in her life before. Since -the time when Stella crying for it in the nursery was enough to secure -any delight she wanted, till now, when she stood on the edge of life and -all its excitements, nothing that she cared for had ever been refused -her. She had her little ways of getting whatever she wanted. It was not -that he was always willing or always agreed in her wishes; if that had -been so, the prospect before her would have been more doubtful; but -there were things which he did not like and had yet been made to consent -to because of Stella’s wish. Why should he resist her now for the first -time? There was no reason in it, no probability in it, no sense. He had -been able to say No to Charlie—that was quite another thing. Charlie -was very nice, but he was not Stella, though he might be Stella’s -chosen; and papa had, no doubt, a little spite against him because of -that adventure in the yacht, and because he was poor, and other things. -But Stella herself, was it possible that papa could ever hold head -against her, look her in the face and deny her anything? No, certainly -no! She was going over this in her mind while the visitors were talking, -and even when she was giving them an account of what she wore. Her new -white, and her diamonds—what diamonds! Oh, hadn’t they heard? A -<i>rivière</i> that papa had given her; not a big one, you know, like an old -lady’s—a little one, but such stones, exactly like drops of dew! As she -related this, her hopes—nay, certainties—sprang high. She had not -needed to hold up her little finger to have those jewels—a word had -done it, the merest accidental word. She had not even had the trouble of -wishing for them. And to imagine that he would be likely to cross her -now!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a>{129}</span></p> - -<p>“Stella! Stella! where are you going?” Katherine cried.</p> - -<p>“I am going—to have it out with papa.” The last visitor had just gone; -Stella caught the cloth on the tea-table in the sweep of her dress, and -disordered everything as she flew by. But Katherine, though so tidy, did -not stop to restore things to their usual trimness. She followed her -sister along the passage a little more slowly, but with much excitement -too. Would Stella conquer, as she usually did? or, for the first time in -her life, would she find a blank wall before her which nothing could -break down? Katherine could not but remember the curt intimation which -had been given to her that James Stanford had been sent away and was -never to be spoken of more. But then she was not Stella—she was very -different from Stella; she had always felt even (or fancied) that the -fact that James Stanford’s suit had been to herself and not to Stella -had something to do with his rejection. That anyone should have thought -of Katherine while Stella was by! She blamed herself for this idea as -she followed Stella flying through the long and intricate passages to -have it out with papa. Perhaps she had been wrong, Katherine said to -herself. If papa held out against Stella this time, she would feel sure -she had been wrong.</p> - -<p>Stella burst into the room without giving any indication of her -approach, and Katherine went in behind her—swept in the wind of her -going. But what they saw was a vacant room, the fire purring to itself -like a cat, with sleepy little starts and droppings, a level sunbeam -coming in broad at one window, and on the table two lines of silver -money stretched along the dark table-cloth and catching the eye. They -were irregular lines—one all of shillings straight and unbroken, the -other shorter, and made up with a half-crown and a sixpence. What was -the meaning of this? They consulted each other with their eyes.</p> - -<p>“I am coming directly,” said Mr. Tredgold from an inner room. The door -was open. It was the room in which his safe was, and they could hear him -rustling his paper, putting in or taking out something. “Oh, papa, make -haste! I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a>{130}</span> waiting for you,” Stella cried in her impatience. She could -scarcely brook at the last moment this unnecessary delay.</p> - -<p>He came out, but not for a minute more; and then he was wiping his lips -as if he had been taking something to support himself; which indeed was -the case, and he had need of it. He came in with a great show of -cheerfulness, rubbing his hands. “What, both of you?” he said, “I -thought it was only Stella. I am glad both of you are here. Then you can -tell me——”</p> - -<p>“Papa, I will tell you nothing, nor shall Kate, till you have answered -my question. What have you done to Charlie Somers? Where is he? where -have you sent him? and how—how—how da—how could you have sent him -away?”</p> - -<p>“That’s his money,” said the old gentleman, pointing to the table. -“You’d better pick it up and send it to him; he might miss it -afterwards. The fool thought he could lay down money with me; there’s -only seventeen shillings of it,” said Mr. Tredgold contemptuously—“not -change for a sovereign! But he might want it. I don’t think he had much -more in his pocket, and I don’t want his small change; no, nor nobody -else’s. You can pick it up and send it back.”</p> - -<p>“What does all this mean?” asked Stella in imperious tones, though her -heart quaked she could scarcely tell why. “Why have you Charlie Somers’s -money on your table? and why—why, have you sent him away?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Tredgold seated himself deliberately in his chair, first removing -the newspaper that lay in it, folding that and placing it carefully on a -stand by his side. “Well, my little girl,” he said, also taking off his -spectacles and folding them before he laid them down, “that’s a very -easy one to answer. I sent him away because he didn’t suit me, my dear.”</p> - -<p>“But he suited me,” cried Stella, “which is surely far more important.”</p> - -<p>“Well, my pet, you may think so, but I don’t. I gave him my reasons. I -say nothing against him—a man as I know nothing of, and don’t want to -know. It’s all the same who you send to me; they’ll just hear the same -thing. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a>{131}</span> man I give my little girl to will have to count out shillin’ -for shillin’ with me. That fellow took me at my word, don’t you -see?—took out a handful of money and began to count it out as grave as -a judge. But he couldn’t do it, even at that. Seventeen shillings! not -as much as change for a sovereign,” said Mr. Tredgold with a chuckle. “I -told him as he was an ass for his pains. Thousand pound for thousand -pound down, that’s my rule; and all the baronets in the kingdom—or if -they were dukes for that matter—won’t get me out of that.”</p> - -<p>“Papa, do you know what you are saying?” Stella was so utterly -bewildered that she did not at all know what she was saying in the -sudden arrest of all her thoughts.</p> - -<p>“I think so, pet; very well indeed, I should say. I’m a man that has -always been particular about business arrangements. Business is one -thing; feelings, or so forth, is another. I never let feelings come in -when it’s a question of business. Money down on the table—shillin’s, or -thousands, which is plainer, for thousands, and that’s all about it; the -man who can’t do that don’t suit me.”</p> - -<p>Stella stood with two red patches on her cheeks, with her mouth open, -with her eyes staring before the easy and complacent old gentleman in -his chair. He was, no doubt, conscious of the passion and horror with -which she was regarding him, for he shifted the paper and the spectacles -a little nervously to give himself a countenance; but he took no notice -otherwise, and maintained his easy position—one leg crossed over the -other, his foot swinging a little—even after she burst forth.</p> - -<p>“Papa, do you say this to me—to <i>me</i>? And I have given him my word, and -I love him, though you don’t know what that means. Papa, can you look me -in the face—me, Stella, and dare to say that you have sent my Charlie -away?”</p> - -<p>“My dear,” said Mr. Tredgold, “he ain’t your Charlie, and never will be. -He’s Sir Charles Somers, Bart., a fine fellow, but I don’t think we -shall see him here again, and I can look my little Stella quite well in -the face.”</p> - -<p>He did not like to do it, though. He gave her one glance, and then -turned his eyes to his paper again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a>{132}</span></p> - -<p>“Papa,” cried Stella, stamping her foot, “I won’t have it! I shall not -take it from you! Whatever you say, he shall come back here. I won’t -give him up, no, not if you should shut me up on bread and water—not if -you should put me in prison, or drag me by the hair of my head, or kill -me! which, I think, is what you must want to do.”</p> - -<p>“You little hussy! You never had so much as a whipping in your life, and -I am not going to begin now. Take her away, Katie. If she cries till -Christmas she won’t change me. Crying’s good for many things, but not -for business. Stella, you can go away.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, papa, how can you say Stella, and be so cruel!” Stella threw -herself down suddenly by his side and seized his hand, upon which she -laid down her wet cheek. “You have always done everything for Stella. -Never—never has my papa refused me anything. I am not used to it. I -can’t bear it! Papa, it is <i>me</i> whose heart you are breaking. Papa, -<i>me</i>! Stella, it is Stella!”</p> - -<p>“Kate, for goodness’ sake take her away. It is no use. She is not going -to come over me. Stella’s a very good name for anything else, but it’s -not a name in business. Go away, child. Take her away. But, Katie, if -there’s anything else she would like now, a new carriage, or a horse, or -a bracelet, or a lot of dresses, or anything—anything in that way——”</p> - -<p>Stella drew herself up to her full height; she dried her eyes; she -turned upon her father with that instinct of the drama which is so -strong in human nature. “I scorn all your presents; I will take -nothing—nothing, as long as I live, you cruel, cruel father,” she -cried.</p> - -<p>Later, when Mr. Tredgold had gone out in his Bath-chair for his -afternoon “turn,” Stella came back very quietly to his room and gathered -up poor Charlie’s shillings. She did not know very much about the value -of money, though she spent so much; indeed, if she had ever felt the -need of it it was in this prosaic form of a few shillings. She thought -he might want them, poor Charlie, whom she had not the faintest -intention of giving up, whatever papa might say.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a>{133}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">But</span> Stella neither shuddered nor hesitated. She was in the highest -spirits, flying everywhere, scarcely touching the ground with her feet. -“Oh, yes! I’m engaged to Sir Charles,” she said to all her friends. -“Papa won’t hear of it, but he will have to give in.”</p> - -<p>“Papas always give in when the young people hold out,” said some -injudicious sympathiser.</p> - -<p>“Don’t they?” cried Stella, giving a kiss to that lady. She was not in -the least discouraged. There was a great deal of gaiety going on at the -time, both in the village (as it was fashionable to call the town of -Sliplin) and in the county, and Stella met her Charlie everywhere, Mr. -Tredgold having no means, and perhaps no inclination, to put a stop to -this. He did not want to interfere with her pleasures. If she liked to -dance and “go on” with that fellow, let her. She should not marry him; -that was all. The old gentleman had no wish to be unkind to his -daughter. He desired her to have her fling like the rest, to enjoy -herself as much as was possible; only for this one thing he had put down -his foot.</p> - -<p>“When is that confounded regiment going away?” he asked Katherine.</p> - -<p>“Dear papa,” Katherine replied, “won’t you think it over again? Charlie -Somers has perhaps no money, but Stella is very fond of him, and he -of——”</p> - -<p>“Hold your tongue!” said old Tredgold. “Hold your confounded tongue! If -I don’t give in to her, do you think it”—with a dash—“likely that I -will to you?”</p> - -<p>Katherine retreated very quickly, for when her father began to swear she -was frightened. He did not swear in an ordinary<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a>{134}</span> way, and visions of -apoplexy were associated to her with oaths. Stella did not care. She -would have let him swear as long as he liked, and paid no attention. She -went to her parties almost every night, glittering in her <i>rivière</i> of -diamonds and meeting Sir Charles everywhere. They had all the airs of an -engaged couple, people said. And it was thought quite natural, for -nobody believed that old Tredgold would stand out. Thus, no one gave him -any warning of what was going on. The whole island was in a conspiracy -on behalf of the lovers. Nor was it like any other abetting of domestic -insurrection, for the opinion was unanimous that the father would give -in. Why, Stella could do anything with him. Stella was his favourite, as -he had shown on every possible occasion. Everybody knew it, even -Katherine, who made no struggle against the fact. To think of his having -the strength of mind really to deny Stella anything! It was impossible. -He was playing with her a little now, only for the pleasure of being -coaxed and wheedled, many people thought. But when the time came, of -course he would give in. So Stella thought, like everybody else. There -was nobody but Katherine and, as I have said, Somers himself who did not -feel quite sure. As time went on, the two ladies who went to all the -parties and saw everything—the two old cats, Mrs. Shanks and Miss -Mildmay—had many consultations on the subject over the invisible rail -of separation between their gardens. It was a very bright October, and -even the beginning of the next dreary month was far milder than usual, -and in the mornings, when the sun shone, these ladies were still to be -found on their terraces, caressing the last remnants of their flowers, -and cutting the last chrysanthemums or dahlias.</p> - -<p>“Stella danced every dance last night with that Sir Charles,” Miss -Mildmay said.</p> - -<p>“But she always does, my dear; and why shouldn’t she, when she is going -to marry him?”</p> - -<p>There was really no answer to this, which was so well ascertained a -fact, and which everybody knew.</p> - -<p>“But I wonder if old Mr. Tredgold knows how much they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a>{135}</span> are together! As -he never goes out himself, it is so easy to keep him deceived. I wonder, -Jane Shanks,” said Miss Mildmay, “whether you or I should say a word?”</p> - -<p>“You may say as many words as you please, Ruth Mildmay; but I shan’t,” -cried the other. “I would not interfere for the world.”</p> - -<p>“I am not the least afraid of interfering,” Miss Mildmay said; and she -succeeded in persuading her friend to go out in the midge once more, and -call at the Cliff, on an afternoon when the girls were known to be out -of the way.</p> - -<p>“We ought, I am sure, to congratulate you, Mr. Tredgold. We heard that -you did not approve, and, of course, it must be dreadful for you to -think of losing Stella; but as it is going on so long, we feel, at last, -that the engagement must be true.”</p> - -<p>“What engagement?” said the old man. He liked to amuse himself with the -two old cats. He put his newspaper away and prepared to “get his fun out -of them.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, the engagement between Stella and Sir Charles,” said Mrs. Shanks, -with bated breath.</p> - -<p>“Oh! they’re engaged, are they?” he said, with that laugh which was like -an electrical bell.</p> - -<p>“Dear Mr. Tredgold, it is given out everywhere. They are for ever -together. They dance every dance with one another.”</p> - -<p>“Confounded dull, I should think, for my little girl. You take my word, -she’ll soon tire of that,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, but she does not tire of it; you don’t go out with them, you don’t -see things. I assure you they are always together. If you don’t approve -of it, Mr. Tredgold, indeed—indeed you should put a stop to it. It -isn’t kind to dear Stella.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, stop, stop, Ruth Mildmay!” cried Mrs. Shanks. “Stella knows very -well just how far she can go. Stella would never do anything that was -displeasing to her dear papa. May I pour out the tea for you, dear Mr. -Tredgold, as the girls are not in?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Tredgold gave the permission with a wave of his hand, and hoped that -Miss Mildmay would say just as much as she pleased.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a>{136}</span></p> - -<p>“I like to know what my girls do when they’re out,” he said. “I like to -know that Stella is enjoying herself. That’s what they go out for. Just -to get themselves as much pleasure as is to be had, in their own way.”</p> - -<p>“But you would not wish them to compromise themselves,” said Miss -Mildmay. “Oh, I wouldn’t interfere for the world. But as you don’t go -out with them you ought to be told. I do hope you approve of Sir -Charles, Mr. Tredgold. He is a nice young man enough. He has been a -little fast; but so have they all; and he is old enough now to have more -sense. I am sure he will make you a very good son-in-law. So long as you -approve——”</p> - -<p>“I approve of my little girl enjoying herself,” said the old man. “Bring -some more muffins, John; there’s plenty in the house, I hope. I know why -you won’t take that piece, Miss Mildmay, because it is the last in the -plate, and you think you will never be married.” He accompanied this -with a tremendous tinkle of a laugh, as if it were the greatest joke in -the world.</p> - -<p>Miss Mildmay waved her hand with dignity, putting aside the foolish -jest, and also putting aside the new dish of muffins, which that dignity -would not permit her to touch.</p> - -<p>“The question is,” she said, “not my marriage, which does not concern -you, Mr. Tredgold, but dear Stella’s, which does.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Tredgold is so fond of his joke,” Mrs. Shanks said.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I’m fond of my joke, ain’t I? I’m a funny man. Many of the ladies -call me so. Lord! I like other people to have their fun too. Stella’s -welcome to hers, as long as she likes. She’s a kitten, she is; she goes -on playin’ and springin’ as long as anybody will fling a bit of string -at her. But she’s well in hand all the same. She knows, as you say, just -how far to go.”</p> - -<p>“Then she has your approval, we must all presume,” said Miss Mildmay, -rising from her chair, though Mrs. Shanks had not half finished her tea.</p> - -<p>“Oh, she’s free to have her fun,” Mr. Tredgold said.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a>{137}</span>What did it mean, her fun? This question was fully discussed between -the two ladies in the midge. Marriage is no fun, if it comes to that, -they both agreed, and the phrase was very ambiguous; but still, no man -in his senses, even Mr. Tredgold, could allow his young daughter to make -herself so conspicuous if he did not mean to consent in the end.</p> - -<p>“I am very glad to hear, Stella, that it is all right about your -marriage,” Mrs. Shanks said next time she met the girls. “Your papa -would not say anything very definite; but still, he knows all about it, -and you are to take your own way, as he says.”</p> - -<p>“Did he say I was to have my own way?” said Stella, in a flush of -pleasure.</p> - -<p>“At least, he said the same thing. Yes, I am sure that was what he -meant. He was full of his jokes, don’t you know? But that must have been -what he meant; and I am sure I wish you joy with all my heart, Stella, -dear.”</p> - -<p>Stella went dancing home after this, though Katherine walked very -gravely by her side.</p> - -<p>“I knew papa would give in at last. I knew he never would stand against -me, when he knew I was in earnest this time,” she cried.</p> - -<p>“Do you think he would tell Mrs. Shanks, after sending off both of us, -and frightening me?”</p> - -<p>“You are so easily frightened,” cried Stella. “Yes, I shouldn’t wonder -at all if he told Mrs. Shanks. He likes the two old cats; he knows they -will go and publish it all over the place. He would think I should hear -just as soon as if he had told me, and so I have. I will run in and give -him a kiss, for he is a dear old soul, after all.”</p> - -<p>Stella did run in and gave her father a tumultuous kiss, and roused him -out of a nap.</p> - -<p>“Oh, papa, you dear, you old darling—you best papa in the world!” she -cried.</p> - -<p>Mr. Tredgold felt a little cross at first, but the kiss and the praises -were sweet to him. He put his arms round her as she stood over him.</p> - -<p>“What have I done now?” he said, with his tinkling laugh.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a>{138}</span></p> - -<p>“You have done just what I wanted most—what it was dearest of you to -do,” she cried. “Mrs. Shanks told me. You told her, of course, dear -papa, because you knew it would be published directly all over the -place.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, the two old cats!” he said, tinkling more than ever. “That’s what -they made of it, is it? I said you might have your fun, my dear. You are -free to have your fun as much as ever you like. That’s what I said, and -that’s what I shall say as long as you’re amusing yourself, Stella. You -can have your fling; I shan’t stop you. Enjoy yourself as long as you -can, if that’s what you like,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, papa, what do you mean—what do you mean?” cried Stella. “Don’t you -mean, dear papa,” she continued, with renewed caresses, putting her arms -round his neck, pressing his bald head upon her breast, “that you’ll let -Charlie come—that he needn’t go to India, that we are to be married, -and that you’ll give us your blessing, and—and everything? That is what -you mean, isn’t it, dear papa?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t strangle me, child,” he said, coughing and laughing. “There’s -such a thing, don’t you know? as to be killed with kindness. I’ve told -you what I’ll do, my dear,” he continued. “I shall let you have your fun -as long as ever you like. You can dance with him down to the very ship’s -side, if you please. That won’t do any harm to me, but he don’t set a -foot in this house unless he’s ready to table pound for pound with me. -Where’s his shillin’s, by the way, Katie? He ought to have had his -shillin’s; he might have wanted them, poor man. Ah, don’t strangle me, I -tell you, Stella!”</p> - -<p>“I wish I could!” cried Stella, setting her little teeth. “You deserve -it, you old dreadful, dreadful——”</p> - -<p>“What is she saying, Kate? Never mind; it was swearing or something, I -suppose—all the fault of those old cats, not mine. I said she should -have her swing, and she can have her swing and welcome. That’s what she -wants, I suppose. You have always had your fun, Stella. You don’t know -what a thing it is to have your fun and nobody to oppose you. I never -had that in my life. I was always pulled up sharp.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a>{139}</span> Get along now, I -want my nap before dinner; but mind, I have said all I’m going to say. -You can have your fun, and he can table down pound for pound with me, if -he has the money—otherwise, not another word. I may be a funny man,” -said Mr. Tredgold, “but when I put my foot down, none of you will get it -up again, that’s all I have got to say.”</p> - -<p>“You are a very hard, cruel, tyrannical father,” said Stella, “and you -never will have any love from anyone as long as you live!”</p> - -<p>“We’ll see about that,” he said, with a grimace, preparing to fling his -handkerchief over his head, which was his way when he went to sleep.</p> - -<p>“Oh, papa!—oh, dear papa! Of course I did not mean that. I want no -fling and no fun, but to settle down with Charlie, and to be always -ready when you want me as long as I live.”</p> - -<p>“You shall settle down with some man as I approve of, as can count down -his hundreds and his thousands on the table, Stella. That’s what you are -going to do.”</p> - -<p>“Papa, you never would be so cruel to me, your little Stella? I will -have no man if I have not Charlie—never, never, if he had all the money -in the world.”</p> - -<p>“Well, there’s no hurry; you’re only twenty,” he said, blinking at her -with sleepy eyes. “I don’t want to get rid of you. You may give yourself -several years to have your fun before you settle down.”</p> - -<p>Stella, standing behind her father’s bald and defenceless head, looked -for a minute or two like a pretty but dreadful demon, threatening him -with a raised fist and appalling looks. Suddenly, however, there came a -transformation scene—her arms slid round his neck once more; she put -her cheek against his bald head. “Papa,” she said, her voice faltering -between fury and the newly-conceived plan, which, in its way, was fun, -“you gave me a kind of an alternative once. You said, if I didn’t have -Charlie——”</p> - -<p>“Well?” said the old man, waking up, with a gleam of amusement in his -eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a>{140}</span></p> - -<p>“I could have—you said it yourself—anything else I liked,” said -Stella, drooping over the back of his chair. Was she ashamed of herself, -or was she secretly overcome with something, either laughter or tears?</p> - -<p>“Stella,” cried Katharine, “do come away now and let papa rest.” The -elder sister’s face was full of alarm, but for what she was frightened -she could scarcely herself have said.</p> - -<p>“Let her get it out,” cried Mr. Tredgold. “Speak up, Stella, my little -girl; out with it, my pet. What would it like from its papa?”</p> - -<p>“You said I might have anything I liked—more diamonds, a lot of new -dresses——”</p> - -<p>“And so you shall,” he said, chuckling, till it was doubtful if he would -ever recover his breath. “That’s my little girl down to the -ground—that’s my pet! That’s the woman all over—just the woman I like! -You shall have all that—diamonds? Yes, if I’d to send out to wherever -they come from. And frocks? As many as you can set your face to. Give me -a kiss, Stella, and that’s a bargain, my dear.”</p> - -<p>“Very well, papa,” said Stella, with dignity, heaving a soft sigh. “You -will complete the parure, please; a handsome pendant, and a star for my -hair, and a bracelet—<i>but</i> handsome, really good, fit for one of the -princesses.”</p> - -<p>“As good as they make ’em, Stella.”</p> - -<p>“And I must have them,” she said languidly, “for that ball that is going -to be given to the regiment before they go away. As for the dresses,” -she added, with more energy, “papa, I shall fleece you—I shall rob you! -I will order everything I take a fancy to—everything that is nice, -everything that is dear. I shall ruin you!” she cried, clapping her -hands together with a sound like a pistol-shot over his head.</p> - -<p>Through all this the tinkling of his laugh had run on. It burst out now -and had a little solo of its own, disturbed by a cough, while the girls -were silent and listened. “That’s the sort of thing,” he cried. “That’s -my Stella—that’s my pet! Ruin me! I can stand it. Have them as dear as -they’re<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a>{141}</span> made. I’ll write for the diamonds to-night; and you shall go to -the ball all shinin’ from head to foot, my Stella—that’s what you’ve -always been since you were born—my little star!”</p> - -<p>Then she pulled the handkerchief over his head, gave him a kiss through -it, and hurried away.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Stella, Stella!” cried Katherine under her breath. She repeated the -words when they had gone into their own room. Stella, flushed and -excited, had thrown herself upon the stool before the piano and began to -play wildly, with jars and crashes of sound. “Oh, Stella, how dared you -do such a thing? How dared you barter away your love, for he is your -love, for diamonds and frocks? Oh, Stella, you are behaving very, very -badly. I am not fond of Charles Somers; but surely, if you care for him -at all, he is worth more than that. And how dared you—how dared you -sell him—to papa?”</p> - -<p>But Stella said never a word. She went on playing wild chords and making -crashes of dreadful sound, which, to Katherine, who was more or less a -musician, were beyond bearing. She seized her sister’s arm after a -moment and stopped her almost violently. “Stop that, stop that, and -answer me!” she cried.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you like my music, Kate? It was all out of my own head—what you -call improvising. I thought you would like me to go to the piano for -comfort. So it is an ease to one’s mind—it lets the steam off,” cried -Stella with a last crash, louder and more discordant than the others. -Then she abandoned the piano and threw herself down in a chair.</p> - -<p>“Wasn’t that a funny talk I had with papa? You may tell Charlie, if you -like, it will amuse him so. They would all think it the most glorious. I -shall tell it to everybody when I am on the——”</p> - -<p>Here Stella stopped, and gave her sister a half-inquiring, -half-malicious look, but found no response in Katherine’s grieved eyes.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what you mean, Stella,” she said. “If you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a>{142}</span> mean what papa -thinks, it is the most odious, humiliating bargain; if you mean -something else, it is—but I can’t say what it is, for I don’t know what -you mean. You are going to be a traitor one way or else another, either -to Charlie or to papa. I don’t know which is worse, to break that man’s -heart (for he is fond of you) by throwing him over at the last moment, -or to steal papa’s money and break his heart too.”</p> - -<p>“You needn’t trouble yourself so much about people’s hearts, Kate. How -do you know that Charlie would have me if he thought papa wouldn’t give -in? And, as for papa’s heart, he would only have to give in, and then -all would be right. It isn’t such a complicated matter as you think. You -are so fond of making out that things are complicated. I think them -quite simple. Papa has just to make up his mind which he likes best, me -or his money. He thinks he likes his money best. Well, perhaps later he -will find he doesn’t, and then he has only got to change. Where’s the -difficulty? As for me, you must just weave webs about me as long as you -please. I am not complicated—not a bit. I shall do what I like best. I -am not sure even now which I like best, but I shall know when the time -comes. And in the meantime I am laying up all the best evidence to judge -from. I shall send Stevens up to town for patterns to-morrow. I shall -get the very richest and the very dearest things that Madame has or can -get. Oh,” cried the girl, clapping her hands with true enjoyment, “what -fun it will be!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a>{143}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Everything</span> now began to converge towards the great ball which was to be -given in Sliplin to the regiment before it went off to India. It was in -its little way something like that great Brussels ball which came before -Waterloo. They were to embark next morning, these heroic soldiers. If -they were not going to fight, they were at least going to dare the -dangers of the deep in a troop-ship, which is not comfortable; and they -were fully impressed with their own importance as the heroes of the -moment. Lady Jane was at the head of the undertaking, along with certain -other magnates of the neighbourhood. Without them I doubt whether the -Sliplin people proper would have felt it necessary to give the Chestnuts -a ball; the officers had never been keen about the village parties. They -had gone to the Cliff, where everything smelt of gold, but they had not -cared for those little entertainments—for lawn tennis in the summer and -other mild dissipations at which their presence would have been an -excitement and delight. So that the good people in Sliplin had looked -rather coldly upon the suggestion at first. When it was settled, -however, and the greatness of the event was realised, the Sliplin people -warmed up into interest. A ball is a ball, however it is brought about.</p> - -<p>Mr. Tredgold subscribed liberally, and so of course Stella and Katherine -had been “in it” from the very first. They took the greatest interest in -the decorations, running up and down to the great hall in which it was -to be held, and superintending everything. Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay -also looked in a great many times in a day, and so did many other of the -Sliplin ladies, moved at last to “take an interest”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a>{144}</span> when it was no -longer possible that it should cost them anything.</p> - -<p>“I hear they have plenty of money for everything—too much indeed—so it -is just as well that we did not come forward. If we had come forward I -don’t know what the lists would have risen to. As it is, I hear there is -almost too much. Mr. Tredgold insists upon champagne—oceans of -champagne. I am sure I hope that the young men will behave properly. I -don’t approve of such rivers of wine. If they are fond of dancing, -surely they can enjoy their dancing without that.”</p> - -<p>This is a very general opinion among the ladies of country towns, and -gives a fine disinterested aspect to the pursuit of dancing for its own -sake; but no doubt the Chestnuts liked it better when there were oceans -of champagne.</p> - -<p>It had been known all along in the place that Stella Tredgold meant to -surpass herself on this occasion, which was a matter calling forth much -astonishment and speculation among her friends. It was also known, more -or less, that Sir Charles Somers had made his proposals to her father -and had been refused. All his own friends were well aware of the fact, -and it was not to be supposed that it should be a secret at Sliplin. Sir -Charles had been refused by Mr. Tredgold because he had no money, not by -Stella, who was very much in love with him, everybody said, as he was -with her. It was enough to see them together to be convinced of that. -And yet she meant to be the gayest of the gay at the ball on the eve of -parting with him! Some of the girls expected and hoped that evidences of -a broken heart would be visible even under the lovely white dress and -wonderful diamonds in which she was understood to be going to appear. So -ridiculous for a girl of her age to wear diamonds, the elder ladies -said; and they did not think there would be any evidences of a broken -heart. “She has no heart, that little thing; Lord Uffington will be -there, and she will go in for him, now that Sir Charles has failed.” It -must be admitted it was strange that she should show so much delight in -this ball and proclaim her intention of being dressed more gorgeously -than she had ever been in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a>{145}</span> her life on the eve of parting with her -lover. Was it to leave such an impression on his mind that he never -should forget her? was it to show she didn’t care? But nobody could -tell. Stella had always been an odd girl, they said, though indeed I do -not think that this was true.</p> - -<p>She was very much occupied on the day of the ball, still looking after -these decorations, and even made a dash across the country in her own -little brougham in the morning to get one particular kind of white -chrysanthemum which only grew in a cottage garden in the middle of the -island. She returned from this wild expedition about noon with the -brougham filled with the flowers, and a great air of triumph and -excitement. “Wasn’t it clever of me?” she cried. “I just remembered. We -saw them, don’t you recollect, Kate? the last time we were out that way. -They were just the things that were wanted for the head of the room. I -flew to the stables and called Andrews, and we were there—oh, I can’t -tell you how soon.”</p> - -<p>“Nice thing for my horse,” said Mr. Tredgold. “He’s a young devil, that -Andrews boy. I shall give him the sack if he doesn’t mind.”</p> - -<p>“It is my horse,” said Stella; “the brougham’s mine, and the boy’s mine. -You forget what you said, papa.”</p> - -<p>“There never was an extortioner like this little——” said Mr. Tredgold, -chuckling; “drives her horse to death and then feeds him with -sugar—just like women—it’s what they all do.”</p> - -<p>“I think,” said Katherine, “you might have found some chrysanthemums -nearer home.”</p> - -<p>“But you see I didn’t,” said Stella, with her usual impatience, breaking -into song and tossing her shining head as she walked away.</p> - -<p>“Doesn’t make much of the parting, and that fellow off to India, does -she?” said her father. “I knew how it would be; I never believe in a -girl’s swagger, bless you. She’s very fond of one man till she sees -another. You’ll find my lord will make all the running to-night.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a>{146}</span></p> - -<p>“And if Lord Uffington should propose for Stella,” said Katherine with -her grave air, “which I don’t think very likely, but, still, from your -point of view, papa, would you insist upon the same test with my -lord—as you call him—pound for pound on the table as you say, and that -sort of thing?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly I should—if he was a Royal Dook,” Mr. Tredgold said.</p> - -<p>“Then it is a pity,” said Katherine; but she said no more, nor would any -question bring forth the end of her sentence. She went out and took a -walk along the cliff, where there was that beautiful view. It was a very -fine day, one of those matchless days of early winter which are perhaps -the most beautiful of English weather. The sun was blazing, calling -forth the dazzling whiteness of that sharp cliff which was the furthest -point to the east, and lighting every wave as with the many coloured -facets of a diamond. There were one or two boats out, lying in the -light, or moving softly with the slight breeze, which was no more than a -little movement in the celestial air—as if suspended between earth and -heaven. And to think it was November, that grim month in which -everything is dismal! I don’t think Katherine was thinking very much -about the view, but she was soothed by it in the multitude of her -thoughts.</p> - -<p>She was out there again very late, between one and two in the morning, -after the ball. Stella had wanted to leave early, and would fain have -escaped before her sister. But Katherine balked her in this, without -having any particular reason for it. She felt only that when Stella went -away she must go too, and that though she had seemed so indifferent -there was now a great deal of excitement in Stella’s gaiety, which was -so unrestrained. They went off accordingly, leaving a crowd of -disappointed partners shouting complaints and good-nights after them. -When they entered the drive, where a sleepy woman came forth from the -lodge to let them in, Katherine noticed a dark figure which stole in -with the carriage.</p> - -<p>“Who is that?” she said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Katie, Katie dear, don’t say anything!” cried Stella,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a>{147}</span> putting a -hand upon her mouth. “It is Charlie come to say good-bye. I must say one -little word to him before he goes; do you think that I am made of -stone?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, no!” cried Katherine. “I have been wondering—I thought you had -got over—I didn’t know what to think.”</p> - -<p>“I shall never get over it,” said Stella, vehemently. She was crying -with her head against her sister’s shoulder. “Oh, Kate, don’t be hard -upon me, or say anything! I must—I must have one little half hour with -Charlie before he goes away.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed—indeed, I shall not say anything! I do feel for you, Stella. I -am sorry for him. But, oh, don’t stay long, dear, it will only prolong -the trouble. And it is so late, and people might say——”</p> - -<p>“How could people say if they didn’t know? And, Katie,” cried her -sister, “if you stay here to watch over us, while I bid him—I mean talk -to him yonder—what could anyone say? Won’t it be enough to quench every -evil tongue if you are there?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose it will,” said Katherine dubiously.</p> - -<p>She got down very dubiously from the brougham, from which Stella had -sprung like an arrow. And Andrews, who drove the warm little carriage -which was Stella’s, as he was more or less Stella’s man, turned -immediately and drove away, no doubt to relieve the gatekeeper, who was -waiting to close up after him. A sleepy footman had opened the door, and -stood waiting while Katherine, in her white cloak, lingered in the -porch. The fire was still burning in the hall, and the lamp bright. -Katherine told the man to go to bed, and that she would herself fasten -the door, and then she turned to the glory of the night, and the lawn, -and all the shrubberies, looking like frosted silver in the moonlight. -Stella had disappeared somewhere among the shadows with her lover. -Katherine heard a faint sound of steps, and thought she could perceive -still a gleam of whiteness among the trees. She stepped out herself upon -the walk. It sounded a little crisp under her foot,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a>{148}</span> for there was frost -in the air. The moon was glorious, filling earth and heaven with light, -and flinging the blackest shadows into all the corners. And the -stillness was such that the dropping of one of those last yellow leaves -slowly down through the air was like an event. She was warmly wrapped up -in her fur cloak, and, though the hour was eerie, the night was -beautiful, and the house with its open door, and the glow of the red -fire, and the light of the lamp, gave protection and fellowship. All the -rare trees, though sufficiently hardy to bear it, had shrunk a little -before that pennyworth of frost, though it was really nothing, not -enough to bind the moisture in a little hollow of the path, which -Katherine had to avoid as she walked up and down in her satin shoes. -After a while she heard the little click of the door at the foot of the -steep path which led to the beach, and concluded that Stella had let her -lover out that way, and would soon join her. But Katherine was in no -hurry; she was not cold, and she had never been out, she thought, in so -lovely a night. It carried her away to many thoughts; I will not venture -to allege that James Stanford was not one of them. It would have been -strange if she had not thought of him in these circumstances. She had -never had the chance of saying farewell to him; he had been quenched at -once by her father, and he had not had the spirit to come back, which, -she supposed, Sir Charles had. He had disappeared and made no sign. -Stella was more lucky than she was in every way. Poor Stella! who must -just have gone through one of the most terrible of separations! -“Partings that press the life from out young hearts!” Who was it that -said that? But still it must be better to have the parting than that he -should disappear like a shadow without a word, and be no more seen or -heard of—as if he were dead. And perhaps he was dead, for anything she -knew.</p> - -<p>But, what a long time Stella was coming back! If she had let him out at -that door, she surely should have found her way up the cliff before now. -Katherine turned in that direction, and stood still at the top of the -path and listened, but could hear nothing. Perhaps she had been mistaken -about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a>{149}</span> click of the door. It was very dark in that deep shadow—too -dark to penetrate into the gloom by herself without a lantern, -especially as, after all, she was not quite sure that Stella had gone -that way. She must at least wait a little longer before making any -search which might betray her sister. She turned back again, -accordingly, along the round of the broad cliff with its feathering edge -of tamarisks. Oh, what a wonderful world of light and stillness! The -white cliff to the east shone and flamed in the moonlight; it was like a -tall ghost between the blue sea and the blue sky, both of them so -indescribably blue—the little ripple breaking the monotony of one, the -hosts of stars half veiled in the superior radiance of the moon -diversifying the other. She had never been out on such a beautiful -night. It was a thing to remember. She felt that she should never forget -(though she certainly was not fond of him at all) the night of Charlie -Somers’s departure—the night of the ball, which had been the finest -Sliplin had ever known.</p> - -<p>As Katherine moved along she heard in the distance, beginning to make a -little roll of sound, the carriages of the people going away. She must -have been quite a long time there when she perceived this; the red fire -in the hall was only a speck now. A little anxious, she went back again -to the head of the path. She even ventured a few steps down into the -profound blackness. “Stella!” she cried in a low voice, “Stella!” Then -she added, still in a kind of whisper, “Come back, oh, come back; it is -getting so late.”</p> - -<p>But she got no reply. There were various little rustlings, and one sound -as of a branch that crushed under a step, but no step was audible. Could -they be too engrossed to hear her, or was Stella angry or miserable, -declining to answer? Katherine, in great distress, threaded her way back -among the trees that seemed to get in her way and take pleasure in -striking against her, as if they thought her false to her sister. She -was not false to Stella, she declared to herself indignantly; but this -was too long—she should not have stayed so long. Katherine began to -feel cold, with a chill that was not of the night. And then there -sounded into the clear shining air the stroke of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a>{150}</span> the hour. She had -never heard it so loud before. She felt that it must wake all the house, -and bring every one out to see if the girls had not come back. It would -wake papa, who was not a very good sleeper, and betray everything. -Three! “Stella, Stella! oh, for goodness’ sake, don’t stay any longer!” -cried Katherine, making a sort of funnel of her two hands, and sending -her voice down into the dark.</p> - -<p>After all, she said to herself, presently, three was not late for a -ball. The rest of the people were only beginning to go away. And a -parting which might be for ever! “It may be for years, and it may be for -ever.” The song came into her mind and breathed itself all about her, as -a song has a way of doing. Poor things, poor young things! and perhaps -they might never see each other again. “Partings that press the life -from out young hearts.” Katherine turned with a sigh and made a little -round of the cliff again, without thinking of the view. And then she -turned suddenly to go back, and looked out upon the wonderful round of -the sea and sky.</p> - -<p>There was something new in it now, something that had not been there -before—a tall white sail, like something glorified, like an angel with -one foot on the surface of the waves, and one high white wing uplifted. -She stood still with a sort of breathless admiration and rapture. Sea -and sky had been wonderful before, but they had wanted just that—the -white softly moving sail, the faint line of the boat. Where was it she -had seen just that before, suddenly coming into sight while she was -watching? It was when the <i>Stella</i>, when Stella—good heavens!—the -<i>Stella</i>, and Stella——</p> - -<p>Katherine uttered a great cry, and ran wildly towards the house. And -then she stopped herself and went back to the cliff and gazed again. It -might only be a fishing-boat made into a wonderful thing by the -moonlight. When she looked again it had already made a great advance in -the direction of the white cliff, to the east; it was crossing the bay, -gliding very smoothly on the soft waves. The <i>Stella</i>—could it be the -<i>Stella</i>?—and where was her sister? She gathered up her long white -dress more securely and plunged down the dark<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a>{151}</span> path towards the beach. -The door was locked, there was not a sound anywhere.</p> - -<p>“Stella!” she cried, louder than ever. “Stella! where are you?” but -nobody heard, not even in the sleeping house, where surely there must be -some one waking who could help her. This made her remember that Stevens, -the maid, must be waking, or at least not in bed. She hurried in, past -the dying fire in the hall, and up the silent stairs, the sleeping house -so still that the creak of a plank under her feet sounded like a shriek. -But there was no Stevens to be found, neither in the young ladies’ rooms -where she should have been, nor in her own; everything was very tidy, -there was not a brush nor a pocket-handkerchief out of place, and the -trim, white bed was not even prepared for any inhabitant. It was as if -it were a bed of death.</p> - -<p>Then Katherine bethought her to go again to the gardener’s wife in the -lodge, who had a lantern. She had been woke up before, perhaps it was -less harm to wake her up again (this was not logical, but Katherine was -above logic). Finally, the woman was roused, and her husband along with -her, and the lantern lighted, and the three made a circle of the -shrubberies. There was nothing to be found there. The man declared that -the door was not only locked but jammed, so that it would be very hard -to open it, and he unhesitatingly swore that it was the <i>Stella</i> which -was now gliding round beyond the Bunbridge cliffs.</p> - -<p>“How do you know it is the <i>Stella</i>? It might be any yacht,” cried -Katherine.</p> - -<p>The man did not condescend to make any explanation. “I just knows it,” -he said.</p> - -<p>It was proved presently by this messenger, despatched in haste to -ascertain, that the <i>Stella</i> was gone from the pier, and there was -nothing more to be said.</p> - -<p>The sight of these three, hunting in every corner, filling the grounds -with floating gleams of light, and voices and steps no longer subdued, -while the house lay open full of sleep, the lamp burning in the hall but -nobody stirring, was a strange<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a>{152}</span> sight. At length there was a sound heard -in the silent place. A window was thrown open, a night-capped head was -thrust into the air.</p> - -<p>“What the deuce is all this row about?” cried the voice of Mr. Tredgold. -“Who’s there? Look out for yourselves, whoever you are; I’m not going to -have strangers in my garden at this hour of the night.”</p> - -<p>And the old man, startled, put a climax to the confusion by firing -wildly into space. The gardener’s wife gave a shriek and fell, and the -house suddenly woke up, with candles moving from window to window, and -men and women calling out in different tones of fury and affright, “Who -is there? Who is there?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a>{153}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Not</span> only Sliplin, but the entire island was in commotion next day. -Stella Tredgold had disappeared in the night, in her ball dress, which -was the most startling detail, and seized the imagination of the -community as nothing else could have done. Those of them who had seen -her, so ridiculously over-dressed for a girl of her age, sparkling with -diamonds from head to foot, as some of these spectators said, -represented to themselves with the dismayed delight of excitement that -gleaming figure in the white satin dress which many people had remarked -was like a wedding dress, the official apparel of a bride. In this -wonderful garb she had stolen away down the dark private path from the -Cliff to the beach, and got round somehow over the sands and rocks to -the little harbour; and, while her sister was waiting for her on the -cold cliff in the moonlight, had put out to sea and fled away—Stella -the girl, and <i>Stella</i> the yacht, no one knew where. Was it her wedding -dress, indeed? or had she, the misguided, foolish creature, flung -herself into Charlie Somers’s life without any safeguard, trusting to -the honour of a man like that, who was a profligate and without honour, -as everybody knew.</p> - -<p>No one, however, except the most pessimistic—who always exist in every -society, and think the worst, and alas! prove in so many cases right, -because they always think the worst—believed in this. Indeed, it would -be only right to say that nobody believed Stella to have run away to -shame. There was a conviction in the general mind that a marriage -licence, if not a marriage certificate, had certainly formed part of her -baggage; and nobody expected that her father would be able to drag her -back “by the hair of her head,” as it was believed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a>{154}</span> the furious old man -intended to do. Mr. Tredgold’s fury passed all bounds, it was -universally said. He had discharged a gun into the group on the lawn, -who were searching for Stella in the shrubberies (<i>most</i> absurd of -them!), and wounded, it was said, the gardener’s wife, who kept the -lodge, and who had taken to her bed and made the worst of it, as such a -person would naturally do. And then he had stood at the open window in -his dressing-gown, shouting orders to the people as they -appeared—always under the idea that burglars had got into the grounds.</p> - -<p>“Have the girls come back? Is Stella asleep? Don’t let them disturb my -little Stella! Don’t let them frighten my pet,” he had cried, while all -the servants ran and bobbed about with lanterns and naked candles, -flaring and blowing out, and not knowing what they were looking for. A -hundred details were given of this scene, which no outsider had -witnessed, which the persons involved were not conscious of, but which -were nevertheless true. Even what Katherine said to her father crept out -somehow, though certainly neither he nor she reported the details of -that curious scene.</p> - -<p>When she had a little organised the helpless body of servants and told -them as far as she could think what to do—which was for half of them at -least to go back to bed and keep quiet; when she had sent a man she -could trust to make inquiries about the <i>Stella</i> at the pier, and -another to fetch a doctor for the woman who considered herself to be -dying, though she was, in fact, not hurt at all, and who made a -diversion for which Katherine was thankful, she went indoors with Mrs. -Simmons, the housekeeper, who was a person of some sense and not -helpless in an emergency as the others were. And Mrs. Simmons had really -something to tell. She informed Katherine as they went in together -through the cold house, where the candles they carried made faintly -visible the confusion of rooms abandoned for the night, with the ashes -of last night’s fires in the grate, and last night’s occupations in -every chair carelessly pushed aside, and table heaped with newspapers -and trifles, that she had been misdoubting as something<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a>{155}</span> was up with -Stevens at least. Stevens was the point at which the story revealed -itself to Mrs. Simmons. She had been holding her head very high, the -little minx. She had been going on errands and carrying letters as -nobody knew where they were to; and yesterday was that grand she -couldn’t contain herself, laughing and smiling to herself and dressed up -in her very best. She had gone out quite early after breakfast on the -day of the ball to get some bit of ribbon she wanted, but never came -back till past twelve, when she came in the brougham with Miss Stella, -and laughing so with her mistress in her room (you were out, Miss -Katherine) as it wasn’t right for a maid to be carrying on like that. -And out again as soon as you young ladies was gone to the ball, and -never come back, not so far as Mrs. Simmons knew. “Oh, I’ve misdoubted -as there was something going on,” the housekeeper said. Katherine, who -was shivering in the dreadful chill of the house in the dead of night, -in the confusion of this sudden trouble, was too much depressed and sick -at heart to ask why she had not been told of these suspicions. And then -her father’s voice calling to her was audible coming down the stairs. He -stood at the head of the staircase, a strange figure in his -dressing-gown and night-cap, with a candle held up in one hand and his -old gun embraced in the other arm.</p> - -<p>“Who’s there?” he cried, staring down in the darkness. “Who’s there? -Have you got ’em?—have you got ’em? Damn the fellows, and you too, for -keeping me waitin’!” He was foaming at the mouth, or at least sending -forth jets of moisture in his excitement. Then he gave vent to a sort of -broken shout—“Kath-i-rine!” astonishment and sudden terror driving him -out of familiarity into her formal name.</p> - -<p>“Yes, papa, I am coming. Go back to your room. I will tell you -everything—or, at least, all I know.” She was vaguely thankful in her -heart that the doctor would be there, that there would be some one to -fall back upon if it made him ill. Katherine seemed by this time to have -all feeling deadened in her. If she could only have gone to her own room -and lain down and forgotten everything, above all, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a>{156}</span> Stella was not -there breathing softly within the ever-open door between! She stopped a -moment, in spite of herself, at the window on the landing which looked -out upon the sea, and there, just rounding the white cliff, was that -moving speck of whiteness sharing in the intense illumination of the -moonlight, which even as she looked disappeared, going out of sight in a -minute as if it had been a cloud or a dream.</p> - -<p>“Have they got ’em, Katie? and what were you doing there at this time of -night, out on the lawn in your—— George!” cried the old man—“in your -ball finery? Have you just come back? Why, it’s near five in the -morning. What’s the meaning of all this? Is Stella in her bed safe? And -what in the name of wonder are you doing here?”</p> - -<p>“Papa,” said Katherine in sheer disability to enter on the real subject, -“you have shot the woman.”</p> - -<p>“Damn the woman!” he cried.</p> - -<p>“And there were no burglars,” she said with a sob. The cold, moral and -physical, had got into her very soul. She drew her fur cloak more -closely about her, but it seemed to give no warmth, and then she dropped -upon her knees by the cold fireplace, in which, as in all the rest, -there was nothing but the ashes of last night’s fire. Mr. Tredgold stood -leaning on the mantel-piece, and he was cold too. He bade her tell him -in a moment what was the matter, and what she had been doing out of the -house at this hour of the night—with a tremulous roar.</p> - -<p>“Papa! oh, how can I tell you! It is Stella—Stella——”</p> - -<p>“What!” he cried. “Stella ill? Stella ill? Send for the doctor. Call up -Simmons. What is the matter with the child? Is it anything bad that you -look so distracted? Good Lord—my Stella!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, have patience, sir,” said Mrs. Simmons, coming in with wood to make -a fire; “there’ll be news of her by the morning—sure there’ll be news -by the morning. Miss Katherine have done everything. And the sea is just -like a mill-pond, and her own gentlemen to see to her——”</p> - -<p>“The sea?” cried the old man. “What has the sea to do<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a>{157}</span> with my Stella?” -He aimed a clumsy blow at the housekeeper, kneeling in front of the -fire, with the butt end of the gun he still had in his hand, in his -unreflecting rage. “You old hag! what do you know about my Stella?” he -cried.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Simmons did not feel the blow which Katherine diverted, but she was -wounded by the name, and rose up with dignity, though not before she had -made a cheerful blaze. “I meant to have brought you some tea, Miss -Katherine, but if Master is going on with his abuse—— He did ought to -think a little bit of <i>you</i> as are far more faithful. What do I -know—more than that innocent lamb does of all their goings on?”</p> - -<p>“Katie,” cried Mr. Tredgold, “put that wretched woman out by the -shoulders. And why don’t you go to your sister? Doesn’t Stella go before -everything? Have you sent for the doctor? Where’s the doctor? And can’t -you tell me what is the matter with my child?”</p> - -<p>“If I’m a wretched woman,” cried Mrs. Simmons, “I ain’t fit to be at the -head of your servants, Mr. Tredgold; and I’m quite willing to go this -day month, sir, for it’s a hard place, though very likely better now -Miss Stella’s gone. As for Miss Stella, sir, it’s no doctor, but maybe a -clergyman as she is wanting; for she is off with her gentleman as sure -as I am standing here.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Tredgold gave an inarticulate cry, and felt vaguely for the gun -which was still within his arm; but he missed hold of it and it fell on -the floor, where the loaded barrel went off, scattering small shot into -all the corners. Mrs. Simmons flew from the room with a conviction, -which never left her, that she had been shot at, to meet the trembling -household flocking from all quarters to know the meaning of this second -report. Katherine, whose nerves were nearly as much shaken as those of -Mrs. Simmons, and who could not shut out from her mind the sensation -that some one must have been killed, shut the door quickly, she hardly -knew why; and then she came back to her father, who was lying back very -pale, and looking as if he were the person wounded, on the cushions of -his great chair.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a>{158}</span></p> - -<p>“What—what—does she mean?” he half said, half looked. “Is—is—it -true?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, papa!” cried Katherine, kneeling before him, trying to take his -hand. “I am afraid, I am afraid——”</p> - -<p>He pushed her off furiously. “You—afraid!” Impossible to describe the -scorn with which he repeated this word. “Is it—is it true?”</p> - -<p>Katherine could make no reply, and he wanted none, for thereupon he -burst into a roar of oaths and curses which beat down on her head like a -hailstorm. She had never heard the like before, nor anything in the -least resembling it. She tried to grasp at his hands, which he dashed -into the air in his fury, right and left. She called out his name, -pulled at his arm in the same vain effort. Then she sprang to her feet, -crying out that she could not bear it—that it was a horror and a shame. -Katherine’s cloak fell from her; she stood, a vision of white, with her -uncovered shoulders and arms, confronting the old man, who, with his -face distorted like that of a demoniac, sat volleying forth curses and -imprecations. Katherine had never been so splendidly adorned as Stella, -but a much smaller matter will make a girl look wonderful in all her -whiteness shining, in the middle of the gloom against the background of -heavy curtains and furniture, at such a moment of excitement and dismay. -It startled the doctor as he came in, as with the effect of a scene in a -play. And indeed he had a totally different impression of Katherine, who -had always been kept a little in the shade of the brightness of Stella, -from that day.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he said, coming in, energetic but calm, into the midst of all -this agitation, with a breath of healthful freshness out of the night, -“what is the matter here? I have seen the woman, Miss Katherine, and she -is really not hurt at all. If it had touched her eyes, though, it might -have been bad enough. Hullo! the gun again—gone off of itself this -time, eh? I hope you are not hurt—nor your father.”</p> - -<p>“We are in great trouble,” said Katherine. “Papa has been very much -excited. Oh, I am so glad—so glad you have come, doctor! Papa—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a>{159}</span>—”</p> - -<p>“Eh? what’s the matter? Come, Mr. Tredgold, you must get into bed—not a -burglar about, I assure you, and the man on the alert. What do you say? -Oh, come, come, my friend, you mustn’t swear.”</p> - -<p>To think he should treat as a jest that torrent of oaths that had made -Katherine tremble and shrink more than anything else that had happened! -It brought her, like a sharp prick, back to herself.</p> - -<p>“Don’t speak to me, d—— you,” cried the old man. “D—— you -all—d——”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said the doctor, “cursed be the whole concern, I know—and a -great relief to your mind, I shouldn’t wonder. But now there’s been -enough of that and you must get to bed.”</p> - -<p>He made Katherine a sign to go away, and she was thankful beyond -expression to do so, escaping into her own room, where there was a fire, -and where the head housemaid, very serious, waited to help her to -undress—“As Stevens, you are aware, Miss Katherine, ’as gone away.” The -door of the other room was open, the gleam of firelight visible within. -Oh, was it possible—was it possible that Stella was not there, that she -was gone away without a sign, out on the breadths of the moonlit sea, -from whence she might never come again? Katherine had not realised this -part of the catastrophe till now. “I think I can manage by myself, -Thompson,” she said faintly; “don’t let me keep you out of bed.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, there’s no question of bed now for us, Miss,” said Thompson with -emphasis; “it’s only an hour or two earlier than usual, that’s all. -We’ll get the more forwarder with our work—if any one can work, with -messengers coming and going, and news arriving, and all this trouble -about Miss Stella. I’m sure, for one, I couldn’t close my eyes.”</p> - -<p>Katherine vaguely wondered within herself if she were of more common -clay than Thompson, as she had always been supposed to be of more common -clay than her sister; for she felt that she would be very glad to close -her eyes and forget for a moment all this trouble. She said in a faint -voice, “We<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a>{160}</span> do not know anything about Miss Stella, Thompson, as yet. -She may have gone—up to Steephill with Lady Jane.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know, Miss, very well where she’s gone. She’s gone to that big -ship as sails to-morrow with all the soldiers. How she could do it, -along of all those men, I can’t think. I’m sure I couldn’t do it,” cried -Thompson. “Oh, I had my doubts what all them notes and messages was -coming to, and Stevens that proud she wouldn’t speak a word to nobody. -Well, I always thought as Stevens was your maid, Miss Katherine, as -you’re the eldest; but I don’t believe she have done a thing for you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, she has done all I wanted. I don’t like very much attendance. Now -that you have undone these laces, you may go. Thank you very much, -Thompson, but I really do not want anything more.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll go and get you some tea, Miss Katherine,” the woman said. Another -came to the door before she had been gone a minute. They were all most -eager to serve the remaining daughter of the house, and try to pick up a -scrap of news, or to state their own views at the same time. This one -put in her head at the door and said in a hoarse confidential whisper, -“Andrews could tell more about it than most, Miss, if you’d get hold of -him.”</p> - -<p>“Andrews!” said Katherine.</p> - -<p>“He always said he was Miss Stella’s man, and he’s drove her a many -places—oh, a many places—as you never knowed of. You just ast him -where he took her yesterday mornin’, Miss?”</p> - -<p>At this point Thompson came back, and drove the other skurrying away.</p> - -<p>When Katherine went back, in the warm dressing-gown which was so -comfortable, wrapping her round like a friend, to her father’s room, she -found the old man in bed, very white and tremulous after his passion, -but quiet, though his lips still moved and his cruel little red eyes -shone. Katherine had never known before that they were cruel eyes, but -the impression came upon her now with a force that made her shiver;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a>{161}</span> -they were like the eyes of a wild creature, small and impotent, which -would fain have killed but could not—with a red glare in them, -unwinking, fixed, full of malice and fury. The doctor explained to her, -standing by the fireplace, what he had done; while Katherine, listening, -saw across the room those fiery small eyes watching the conversation as -if they could read what it was in her face. She could not take her own -eyes away, nor refuse to be investigated by that virulent look.</p> - -<p>“I have given him a strong composing draught. He’ll go to sleep -presently, and the longer he sleeps the better. He has got his man with -him, which is the best thing for him; and now about you, Miss -Katherine.” He took her hand with that easy familiarity of the medical -man which his science authorises, and in which there is often as much -kindness as science. “What am I to do for you?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, nothing, doctor, unless you can suggest something. Oh, doctor, it -is of no use trying to conceal it from you—my sister is gone!” She -melted suddenly, not expecting them at all, thinking herself incapable -of them—into tears.</p> - -<p>“I know, I know,” he said. “It is a great shock for you, it is very -painful; but if, as I hear, he was violently against the marriage, and -she was violently determined on it, was not something of the kind to be -expected? You know your sister was very much accustomed to her own way.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, doctor, how can you say that!—as if you took it for granted—as if -it was not the most terrible thing that could happen! Eloped, only -imagine it! Stella! in her ball dress, and with that man!”</p> - -<p>“I hope there is nothing very bad about the man,” said the doctor with -hesitation.</p> - -<p>“And how are we to get her back? The ship sails to-morrow. If she is -once carried away in the ship, she will never, never—— Oh, doctor, can -I go? who can go? What can we do? Do tell me something, or I will go out -of my senses,” she cried.</p> - -<p>“Is there another room where we can talk? I think he is going to sleep,” -said the doctor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a>{162}</span></p> - -<p>Katherine, in her distress, had got beyond the power of the terrible -eyes on the bed, which still gleamed, but fitfully. Her father did not -notice her as she went out of the room. And by this time the whole house -was astir—fires lighted in all the rooms—to relieve the minds of the -servants, it is to be supposed, for nobody knew why. The tray that had -been carried to her room was brought downstairs, and there by the -perturbed fire of a winter morning, burning with preternatural vigilance -and activity as if eager to find out what caused it, she poured out the -hot tea for the doctor, and he ate bread and butter with the most -wholesome and hearty appetite—which was again a very curious scene.</p> - -<p>The Tredgolds were curiously without friends. There was no uncle, no -intimate to refer to, who might come and take the lead in such an -emergency. Unless Katherine could have conducted such inquiries herself, -or sent a servant, there was no one nearer than the doctor, or perhaps -the vicar, who had always been so friendly. He and she decided between -them that the doctor should go off at once, or at least as soon as there -was a train to take him, to the great ship which was to embark the -regiment early that morning, to discover whether Sir Charles Somers was -there; while the vicar, whom he could see and inform in the meantime, -should investigate the matter at home and at Steephill. The gardener, a -trustworthy man, had, as soon as his wife was seen to be “out of -danger,” as they preferred to phrase it—“scarcely hurt at all,” as the -doctor said—been sent off to trace the <i>Stella</i>, driving in a dog-cart -to Bunbridge, which was the nearest port she was likely to put in at. By -noon the doctor thought they would certainly have ascertained among them -all that was likely to be ascertained. He tried to comfort Katherine’s -mind by an assurance that no doubt there would be a marriage, that -Somers, though he had not a good character, would never—but stopped -with a kind of awe, perceiving that Katherine had no suspicion of the -possibility of any other ending, and condemning himself violently as a -fool for putting any such thought into her head; but he had not put any -such thought in her head, which was incapable<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a>{163}</span> of it. She had no -conception of anything that could be worse than the elopement. He -hastened to take refuge in something she did understand. “All this on -one condition,” he said, “that you go to bed and try to sleep. I will do -nothing unless you promise this, and you can do nothing for your sister. -There is nothing to be done; gazing out over the sea won’t bring the -yacht back. You must promise me that you will try to go to sleep. You -will if you try.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I will go to sleep,” Katharine said. She reflected again that -she was of commoner clay than Thompson, who could not have closed an -eye.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a>{164}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">It</span> proved not at all difficult to find out everything, or almost -everything, about the runaway pair. The doctor’s mission, though it -seemed likely to be the most important of all, did not produce very -much. In the bustle of the embarkation he had found it difficult to get -any information at all, but eventually he had found Captain Scott, whom -he had attended during his illness, and whom he now sent peremptorily -down below out of the cold. “If that’s your duty, you must not do it, -that’s all,” he had said with the decision of a medical man, though -whether he had secured his point or not, Katherine, ungratefully -indifferent to Algy, did not ascertain. But he found that Sir Charles -Somers had got leave and was going out with a P. and O. from Brindisi to -join his regiment when it should reach India.</p> - -<p>“It will cost him the eyes out of his head,” Algy said. “Lucky beggar, -he don’t mind what he spends now.”</p> - -<p>“Why?” the doctor asked, and was laughed at for not knowing that Charlie -had run off with old Tredgold’s daughter, who was good for any amount of -money, and, of course, would soon give in and receive the pair back -again into favour. “Are you so sure of that?” the doctor said. And Algy -had replied that his friend would be awfully up a tree if it didn’t turn -out so. The doctor shook his head in relating this story to Katherine. -“I have my doubts,” he said; but she knew nothing on that subject, and -was thinking of nothing but of Stella herself, and the dreadful thought -that she might see her no more.</p> - -<p>The vicar, on his side, had been busy with his inquiries too, and he had -found out everything with the greatest ease; in the first place from -Andrews, the young coachman, who declared<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a>{165}</span> that he had always taken his -orders from Miss Stella, and didn’t know as he was doing no wrong. -Andrews admitted very frankly that he had driven his young mistress to -the little church, one of the very small primitive churches of the -island near Steephill, where the tall gentleman with the dark moustaches -had met her, and where Miss Stevens had turned up with a big basketful -of white chrysanthemums. They had been in the church about half an hour, -and then they had come out again, and Miss Stevens and the young lady -had got into the brougham. The chrysanthemums had been for the -decoration of the ballroom, as everybody knew. Then he had taken Miss -Stevens to meet the last train for Ryde; and finally he had driven his -young ladies home with a gentleman on the box that had got down at the -gate, but whether he came any further or not Andrews did not know. The -vicar had gone on in search of information to Steephill Church, and -found that the old rector there, in the absence of the curate—he -himself being almost past duty by reason of old age—had married one of -the gentlemen living at the Castle to a young lady whose name he could -not recollect further than that it was Stella. The old gentleman had -thought it all right as it was a gentleman from the Castle, and he had a -special licence, which made everything straight. The register of the -marriage was all right in the books, as the vicar had taken care to see. -Of course it was all right in the books! Katherine was much surprised -that they should all make such a point of that, as if anything else was -to be thought of. What did it matter about the register? The thing was -that Stella had run away, that she was gone, that she had betrayed their -trust in her, and been a traitor to her home.</p> - -<p>But a girl is not generally judged very hardly when she runs away; it is -supposed to be her parents’ fault or her lover’s fault, and she but -little to blame. But when Katherine thought of her vigil on the cliff, -her long watch in the moonlight, without a word of warning or farewell, -she did not think that Stella was so innocent. Her heart was very sore -and wounded by the desertion. The power of love indeed! Was there no -love, then, but one? Did her home count for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a>{166}</span> nothing, where she had -always been so cherished; nor her father, who had loved her so dearly; -nor her sister, who had given up everything to her? Oh, no; perhaps the -sister didn’t matter! But at least her father, who could not bear that -she should want anything upon which she had set her heart! Katherine’s -heart swelled at the thought of all Stella’s contrivances to escape in -safety. She had carried all her jewels with her, those jewels which she -had partly acquired as the price of abandoning Sir Charles. Oh, the -treachery, the treachery of it! She could scarcely keep her countenance -while the gentlemen came with their reports. She felt her features -distorted with the effort to show nothing but sorrow, and to thank them -quietly for all the trouble they had taken. She would have liked to -stamp her foot, to dash her clenched hands into the air, almost to utter -those curses which had burst from her father. What a traitor she had -been! What a traitor! She was glad to get the men out of the house, who -were very kind, and wanted to do more if she would let them—to do -anything, and especially to return and communicate to Mr. Tredgold the -result of their inquiries when he woke from his long sleep. Katherine -said No, no, she would prefer to tell him herself. There seemed to be -but one thing she desired, and that was to be left alone.</p> - -<p>After this hot fit there came, as was natural, a cold one. Katherine -went upstairs to her own room, the room divided from that other only by -an open door, which they had occupied ever since they were children. -Then her loneliness came down upon her like a pall. Even with the thrill -of this news in all her frame, she felt a foolish impulse to go and call -Stella—to tell Stella all about it, and hear her hasty opinion. Stella -never hesitated to give her opinion, to pronounce upon every subject -that was set before her with rapid, unhesitating decisions. She would -have known exactly what to say on this subject. She would have taken the -girl’s part; she would have asked what right a man had because he was -your father to be such a tyrant. Katherine could hear the very tone in -which she would have condemned the unnatural parent, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a>{167}</span> see the -indignant gesture with which she would have lifted her head. And now -there was nobody, nothing but silence; the room so vacant, the trim bed -so empty and cold and white. It was like a bed of death, and Katherine -shivered. The creature so full of impulses and hasty thoughts and crude -opinions and life and brightness would never be there again. No, even if -papa would forgive—even if he would receive her back, there would be no -Stella any more. This would not be her place; the sisterly companionship -was broken, and life could never more be what it had been.</p> - -<p>She sat down on the floor in the middle of the desolation and cried -bitterly. What should she do without Stella? Stella had always been the -first to think of everything; the suggestion of what to do or say had -always been in her hands. Katherine did not deny to herself that she had -often thought differently from Stella, that she had not always accepted -either her suggestions or her opinions; but that was very different from -the silence, the absence of that clear, distinct, self-assured little -voice, the mind made up so instantaneously, so ready to pronounce upon -every subject. Even in this way of looking at it, it will be seen that -she was no blind admirer of her sister. She knew her faults as well as -anyone. Faults! she was made up of faults—but she was Stella all the -same.</p> - -<p>She had cried all her tears out, and was still sitting intent, with her -sorrowful face, motionless, in the reaction of excitement, upon the -floor, when Simmons, the housekeeper, opened the door, and looked round -for her, calling at last in subdued tones, and starting much to see the -lowly position in which her young mistress was. Simmons came attended by -the little jingle of a cup and spoon, which had been so familiar in the -ears of the girls in all their little childish illnesses, when Simmons -with the beef-tea or the arrowroot, or whatever it might be, was a -change and a little amusement to them, in the dreadful vacancy of a day -in bed. Mrs. Simmons, though she was a great personage in the house and -(actually) ordered the dinners and ruled over everything, -notwithstanding any fond illusions that Katherine might cherish on that -subject, had never<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a>{168}</span> delegated this care to anyone else, and Katherine -knew very well what was going to be said.</p> - -<p>“Miss Katherine, dear, sit up now and take this nice beef-tea. I’ve seen -it made myself, and it’s just as good as I know how. And you must take -something if you’re ever to get up your strength. Sit up, now, and eat -it as long as it’s nice and hot—do!” The address was at once -persuasive, imploring, and authoritative. “Sit up, now, Miss -Katherine—do!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Simmons, it isn’t beef-tea I want this time,” she said, stumbling -hastily to her feet.</p> - -<p>“No,” Simmons allowed with a sigh, “but you want your strength kep’ up, -and there’s nothing so strengthening. It’ll warm you too. It’s a very -cold morning and there’s no comfort in the house—not a fire burning as -it ought to, not a bit of consolation nowhere. We can’t all lay down and -die, Miss Katherine, because Miss Stella, bless her, has married a very -nice gentleman. He ain’t to your papa’s liking, more’s the pity, and -sorry I am in many ways, for a wedding in the house is a fine thing, and -such a wedding as Miss Stella’s, if she had only pleased your papa! It -would have been a sight to see. But, dear, a young lady’s fancy is not -often the same as an old gentleman’s, Miss Katherine. We must all own to -that. They thinks of one thing and the young lady, bless her, she thinks -of another. It’s human nature. Miss Stella’s pleased herself, she hasn’t -pleased Master. Well, we can’t change it, Miss Katherine, dear; but -she’s very ’appy, I don’t make a doubt of it, for I always did say as -Sir Charles was a very taking man. Lord bless us, just to think of it! I -am a-calling her Miss Stella, and it’s my Lady she is, bless her little -heart!”</p> - -<p>Though she despised herself for it, this gave a new turn to Katherine’s -thoughts too. Lady Somers! yes, that was what Stella was now. That -little title, though it was not an exalted one, would have an effect -upon the general opinion, however lofty might be the theories expressed, -as to the insignificance of rank. Rank; it was the lowest grade of -anything that could be called rank. And yet it would have a certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a>{169}</span> -effect on the general mind. She was even conscious of feeling it -herself, notwithstanding both the indignation and the sorrow in her -mind. “My sister, Lady Somers!” Was it possible that she could say it -with a certain pleasure, as if it explained more or less now (a question -which had always been so difficult) who the Tredgolds were, and what -they were worth in the island. Now Katherine suddenly realised that -people would say, “One of the daughters married Sir Charles Somers.” It -would be acknowledged that in that case the Tredgolds might be people to -know. Katherine’s pride revolted, yet her judgment recognised the truth -of it. And she wondered involuntarily if it would affect her father—if -he would think of that?</p> - -<p>“Is my father awake yet, Simmons?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Beginning to stir, Miss Katherine,” Dolby said. “How clever they are, -them doctors, with their sleeping draffs and things! Oh, I’m quite -opposed to ’em. I don’t think as it’s right to force sleep or anything -as is contrary to the Almighty’s pleasure. But to be such nasty stuff, -the effeck it do have is wonderful. Your papa, as was so excited like -and ready to shoot all of us, right and left, he has slep’ like a baby -all these hours. And waking up now, Dolby says, like a lamb, and ready -for his breakfast.”</p> - -<p>“I must go to him at once, Simmons,” cried Katherine, thrusting back -into Simmons’s hand the cup and the spoon.</p> - -<p>“You won’t do nothing of the sort, Miss, if so be as you’ll be guided by -me. He’ll not think of it just at once, and he’ll eat his breakfast, -which will do him a lot of good, and if he don’t see you, why, he’ll -never remember as anything’s up. And then when he comes to think, Dolby -will call you, Miss Katherine, if the doctor isn’t here first, which -would be the best way.”</p> - -<p>“I think I ought to go to him at once,” Katherine said. But she did not -do so. It was no pleasant task. His looks when he burst forth into those -oaths and curses (though she had herself felt not very long ago as if to -do the same might have been a relief to her surcharged and sickened -soul), and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a>{170}</span> when he lay, with his keen small eyes gleaming red with -passion, in his bed, looking at her, came back to her with a shudder. -Perhaps she had not a very elevated ideal of a father. The name did not -imply justice or even tenderness to her mind. Katherine was well aware -that he had never done her justice all her life. He had been -kind—enough; but his kindness had been very different from the love he -had shown to Stella. He had elevated the younger sister over the elder -since ever the children had known how to distinguish between good and -evil. But still he was papa. It might be that an uneasy feeling that she -was not proud of her father had visited the girl’s mind more than once, -when she saw him among other men; but still he was papa just as Stella -was Stella, and therefore like no one else, whatever they might say or -do. She did not like to go to him again, to renew his misery and her -own, to hear him curse the girl whom he had adored, to see that dreadful -look as if of a fiend in his face. Her own feelings had fallen into a -sort of quietude now by means of exhaustion, and of the slow, slow -moments, which felt every one of them as if it were an hour.</p> - -<p>It was some time longer before she was called. Mr. Tredgold had got up; -he had made his toilet, and gone down to his sitting-room, which -communicated with his bedroom by a little private staircase. And it was -only when he was there that his eyes fell on his clock, and he cried -with a start:</p> - -<p>“Half-past twelve, and I just come downstairs! What does this mean—what -does it mean? Why wasn’t I called at the right time?”</p> - -<p>“You had a—a restless night, sir,” said the man, trembling. (“Oh, -where’s that Miss Katherine, where’s that young person,” he said to -himself.)</p> - -<p>“A restless night! And why had I a restless night? No supper, eh? Never -eat supper now. Girls won’t let me. Hollo! I begin to remember. Wasn’t -there an alarm of burglars? And none of you heard, you deaf fools; -nobody but me, an old man! I let go one barrel at them, eh? Enough to -send them all flying. Great fun that. And then<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a>{171}</span> Katherine, -Katherine—what do I remember about Katherine? Stopped me before I could -do anything, saying there was nobody. Fool, to mind what she said; quite -sure there was somebody, eh? Can’t you tell me what it was?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t know, indeed, sir,” said the man, whose teeth were chattering -with fear.</p> - -<p>“Don’t know, indeed! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Speak out, you -fool. Was it burglars——”</p> - -<p>“No, sir. I think not, sir. I—don’t know what it was, sir. Something -about Miss—— about Miss——”</p> - -<p>“About whom?” the old man cried.</p> - -<p>“Oh, sir, have a little patience—it’s all right, it’s all right, -sir—just Miss Stella, sir, that—that is all right, sir—all safe, -sir,” the attendant cried.</p> - -<p>Old Tredgold sat upright in his chair; he put his elbows on the table to -support his head. “Miss Stella!” he said with a sudden hoarseness in his -voice.</p> - -<p>And then the man rushed out to summon Katherine, who came quietly but -trembling to the call.</p> - -<p>He uncovered his face as she came in. It was ghastly pale, the two -gleaming points of the eyes glimmering out of it like the eyes of a wild -beast. “Stella, Stella!” he said hoarsely, and, seizing Katherine by the -arm, pressed her down upon a low chair close to him. “What’s all this -cock and a bull story?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, papa!”</p> - -<p>He seized her again and shook her in his fury. “Speak out or I’ll—I’ll -kill you,” he said.</p> - -<p>Her arm was crushed as in an iron vice. Body and soul she trembled -before him. “Papa, let me go or I can say nothing! Let me go!”</p> - -<p>He gave her arm one violent twist and then he dropped it. “What are you -afraid of?” he said, with a gleam of those angry eyes. “Go on—go -on—tell me what happened last night.”</p> - -<p>Katherine’s narrative was confused and broken, and Mr. Tredgold was not -usually a man of very clear intelligence. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a>{172}</span> must have been that his -recollections, sent into the background of his mind by the extreme shock -of last night, and by the opiate which had helped him to shake it off, -had all the time been working secretly within him through sleeping and -waking, waiting only for the outer framework of the story now told him. -He understood every word. He took it all up point by point, marking them -by the beating of his hand upon the arm of his chair. “That’s how it -was,” he said several times, nodding his head. He was much clearer about -it than Katherine, who did not yet realise the sequence of events or -that Stella was already Charlie Somers’s wife when she came innocently -back with her white flowers, and hung about her father at his luncheon, -doing everything possible to please him; but he perceived all this -without the hesitation of a moment and with apparent composure. “It was -all over, then,” he said to himself; “she had done it, then. She took us -in finely, you and me, Kate. We are a silly lot—to believe what -everyone tells us. She was married to a fine gentleman before she came -in to us all smiling and pleasant;” and, then, speaking in the same even -tone, he suddenly cursed her, without even a pause to distinguish the -words.</p> - -<p>“Papa, papa!” Katherine cried, almost with a shriek.</p> - -<p>“What is it, you little fool? You think perhaps I’ll say ‘Bless you, my -children,’ and have them back? They think so themselves, I shouldn’t -wonder; they’ll find out the difference. What about those diamonds that -I gave her instead of him—instead of——” And here he laughed, and in -the same steady tone bade God curse her again.</p> - -<p>“I cannot hear you say that—I cannot, I cannot! Oh, God bless and take -care of my poor Stella! Oh, papa, little Stella, that you have always -been so fond of——”</p> - -<p>Mr. Tredgold’s arm started forth as if it would have given a blow. He -dashed his fist in the air, then subsided again and laughed a low laugh. -“I shan’t pay for those diamonds,” he said. “I’ll send them back, -I’ll—— And her new clothes that she was to get—God damn her. She -can’t have taken her clothes, flying off from a ball by night.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a>{173}</span></p> - -<p>“Oh, what are clothes, or money, or anything, in comparison with -Stella!” Katherine said.</p> - -<p>“Not much to you that don’t have to pay for them,” he said. “I shan’t -pay for them. Go and pack up the rags, don’t you hear? and bring me the -diamonds. She thinks we’ll send ’em after her.” And here the curse -again. “She shan’t have one of them, not one. Go and do what I tell you, -Katie. God damn her and her——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, papa, for the sake of everything that is good! Yes, I will go—I -will go. What does it matter? Her poor little frocks, her——”</p> - -<p>“They cost a deal of money all the same. And bring me the diamonds,” Mr. -Tredgold said.</p> - -<p>And then there suddenly flashed upon Katherine a strange revelation, a -ludicrous tragic detail which did not seem laughable to her, yet was -so——“The diamonds,” she said faltering, half turning back on her way -to the door.</p> - -<p>“Well! the diamonds?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, forgive her, forgive her! She never could have thought of that; she -never could have meant it. Papa, for God’s sake, forgive her, and don’t -say—<i>that</i> again. She was wearing them all at the ball. She was in her -ball dress. She had no time to change—she——”</p> - -<p>He seized and shook her savagely as if she had been confessing a theft -of her own, and then rose up with his habitual chuckle in his throat. -“George, she’s done me,” he said. “She’s got her fortune on her back. -She’s—she’s a chip of the old block, after all.” He dropped down again -heavily in his chair, and then with a calm voice, looking at Katherine, -said tranquilly, “God damn her” once more.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a>{174}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">It</span> was afterwards discovered that Stella had calculated her elopement in -a way which justified most perfectly the unwilling applause elicited -from her father—that she was a chip of the old block. She had -over-decorated herself, as had been remarked, it now appeared, by -everybody at the ball, on the night of her flight, wearing all the -diamonds she had got from her father as an equivalent for her lover—and -other things besides, everything she had that was valuable. It was -ridiculous enough to see a girl blazing in all those diamonds; but to -have her pearl necklace as well, adjusted as an ornament on her bodice, -and bracelets enough to go up almost to the elbow, was more absurd -still, and Katherine, it now appeared, was the only person who had not -observed this excess of jewellery. She remembered now vaguely that she -had felt Stella to be more radiant, more dazzling than ever, and had -wondered with a sort of dull ache whether it was want of heart, whether -it was over-excitement, or what it was which made her sister’s -appearance and aspect so brilliant on the very eve of her parting from -her lover. “Partings which press the life from out young hearts.” How -was it possible that she could be so bright, so gay, so full of life, -and he going away? She had felt this, but she had not noticed, which was -strange, the extraordinary number of Stella’s bracelets, or the manner -in which her pearls were fastened upon the bosom of her dress. This was -strange, but due chiefly perhaps to the fact that Stella had not shown -herself, as usual, for her sister’s admiration, but had appeared in a -hurry rather late, and already wrapped in her cloak.</p> - -<p>It was found, however, on examining her drawers, that Stella had taken -everything she had which was of any value. It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a>{175}</span> also discovered later -that she had taken advantage of her father’s permission to get as many -new frocks as she pleased—always to make up for the loss of Charlie—by -ordering for herself an ample <i>trousseau</i>, which had been sent to await -her to a London hotel. She had all these things now and the lover too, -which was so brilliant a practical joke that it kept the regiment in -laughter for a year; but was not so regarded at home, though Mr. -Tredgold himself was not able to refrain from a certain admiration when -he became fully aware of it, as has been seen. It afflicted Katherine, -however, with a dull, enduring pain in the midst of her longing for her -sister and her sense of the dreadful vacancy made by Stella’s absence. -The cheerful calculation, the peaceful looks with which Stella had hid -all her wiles and preparations gave her sister a pang, not acute but -profound—a constant ache which took away all the spring of her life. -Even when she tried to escape from it, making to herself all those -<i>banal</i> excuses which are employed in such circumstances—about love, to -which everything is permitted, and the lover’s entreaties, to which -nothing can be refused, and the fact that she had to live her own life, -not another’s, and was obeying the voice of Nature in choosing for -herself—all these things, which Katherine presented to herself as -consolations, were over and over again refused. If Stella had run away -in her little white frock and garden hat, her sister could have forgiven -her; but the <i>trousseau</i>, the maid, the diamonds, even the old pearls -which had been given to both of them, and still remained the chief of -Katherine’s possessions—that Stella should have settled and arranged -all that was more than Katherine could bear. She locked away her own -pearls, with what she felt afterwards to be a very absurd sentiment, and -vowed that she would never wear them again. There seemed a sort of -insult in the addition of that girlish decoration to all her other -ornaments. But this, the reader will perceive, was very high-flown on -Katherine’s part.</p> - -<p>A day or two after this tremendous crisis, which, I need not say, was by -far the most delightful public event which had occurred in Sliplin for -centuries, and which moved the very<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a>{176}</span> island to its centre, Lady Jane -called with solemnity at the Cliff. Lady Jane was better dressed on this -occasion than I believe she had ever been seen to be in the memory of -men. She was attired in black brocade with a train, and wore such a -mantle as everybody said must have been got for the occasion, since it -was like nothing that had ever been seen on Lady Jane’s shoulders -before. The furs, too, were unknown to Sliplin; perhaps she wore them in -more favoured places, perhaps she had borrowed them for the occasion. -The reason of all this display was beyond the divination of Katherine, -who received her visitor half with the suppressed resentment which she -felt she owed to everyone who could be supposed privy to Stella’s plans, -and half with the wistful longing for an old friend, a wiser and more -experienced person, to console herself. Katherine had abandoned the -young ladies’ room, with all its double arrangements and suggestions of -a life that was over. She sat in the large drawing-room, among the -costly, crowded furniture, feeling as if, though less expensive, she was -but one of them—a daughter needed, like the Italian cabinets, for the -due furnishing of the house.</p> - -<p>Lady Jane came in, feeling her way between the chairs and tables. It was -appropriate that so formal a visit should be received in this formal -place. She shook hands with Katherine, who held back visibly from the -usual unnecessary kiss. It marked at once the difference, and that the -younger woman felt herself elevated by her resentment, and was no longer -to be supposed to be in any way at Lady Jane’s feet.</p> - -<p>“How do you do?” said Lady Jane, carrying out the same idea. “How is -your father? I am glad to hear that he has, on the whole, not suffered -in health—nor you either, Katherine, I hope?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know about suffering in health. I am well enough,” the girl -said.</p> - -<p>“I perceive,” said Lady Jane, “by your manner that you identify me -somehow with what has happened. That is why I have come here to-day. You -must feel I don’t come as I usually do. In ordinary circumstances I -should probably have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a>{177}</span> sent for you to come to me. Katherine, I can see -that you think I’m somehow to blame, in what way, I’m sure I don’t -know.”</p> - -<p>“I have never expressed any blame. I don’t know that I have ever thought -anyone was to blame—except——”</p> - -<p>“Except—except themselves. You are right. They are very hot-headed, the -one as much as the other. I don’t mean to say that he—he is a sort of -relation of mine—has not asked my advice. If he has done so once he has -done it a hundred times, and I can assure you, Katherine, all that I -have said has been consistently ‘Don’t ask me.’ I have told him a -hundred times that I would not take any responsibility. I have said to -him, ‘I can’t tell how you will suit each other, or whether you will -agree, or anything.’ I have had nothing to do with it. I felt, as he was -staying in my house at the time, that you or your father might be -disposed to blame me. I assure you it would be very unjust. I knew no -more of what was going on on Wednesday last—no more than—than Snap -did,” cried Lady Jane. Snap was the little tyrant of the fields at -Steephill, a small fox terrier, and kept everything under his control.</p> - -<p>“I can only say that you have never been blamed, Lady Jane. Papa has -never mentioned your name, and as for me——”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Katherine, you; it is chiefly you I think of. I am sure you have -thought I had something to do with it.”</p> - -<p>Katherine made a pause. She was in a black dress. I can scarcely tell -why—partly, perhaps, from some exaggerated sentiment—actually because -Mrs. Simmons, who insisted on attending to her till someone could be got -to replace Stevens, had laid it out. And she was unusually pale. She had -not in reality “got over” the incident so well as people appeared to -hope.</p> - -<p>“To tell the truth,” she said, “all the world has seemed quite -insignificant to me except my sister. I have had so much to do thinking -of her that I have had no time for anything else.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a>{178}</span></p> - -<p>“That’s not very complimentary to people that have taken so great an -interest in you.” Lady Jane was quite discomposed by having the word -insignificant applied to her. She was certainly not insignificant, -whatever else she might be.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps it is not,” Katherine said. “I have had a great deal to think -of,” she added with a half appeal for sympathy.</p> - -<p>“I dare say. Is it possible that you never expected it? Didn’t you see -that night? All those jewels even might have told their story. I confess -that I was vaguely in a great fright; but I thought you must have been -in her confidence, Katherine, that is the truth.”</p> - -<p>“I in her confidence! Did you think I would have helped her -to—to—deceive everybody—to—give such a blow to papa?”</p> - -<p>“Is it such a blow to your papa? I am told he has not suffered in -health. Now I look at you again you are pale, but I don’t suppose you -have suffered in health either. Katherine, don’t you think you are -overdoing it a little? She has done nothing that is so very criminal. -And your own conduct was a little strange. You let her run off into the -dark shrubberies to say farewell to him, as I am told, and never gave -any alarm till you saw the yacht out in the bay, and must have known -they were safe from any pursuit. I must say that a girl who has behaved -like that is much more likely to have known all about it than an -outsider like me!”</p> - -<p>“I did not know anything about it,” cried Katherine—“nothing! Stella -did not confide in me. If she had done so—if she had told me——”</p> - -<p>“Yes; what would you have done then?” Lady Jane asked with a certain air -of triumph.</p> - -<p>Katherine looked blankly at her. She was wandering about in worlds not -realised. She had never asked herself that question. And yet perhaps her -own conduct, her patience in that moonlight scene was more extraordinary -in her ignorance than it would have been had she sympathised and known. -The question took her breath away, and she had no answer to give.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a>{179}</span></p> - -<p>“If she had told you that she had been married to Charlie Somers that -morning; that he was starting for India next day; that whatever her duty -to her father and yourself might have been (that’s nonsense; a girl has -no duty to her sister), her duty to her husband came first then. If she -had told you that at the last moment, Katherine, what would you have -done?”</p> - -<p>Katherine felt every possibility of reply taken from her. What could she -have done? Supposing Stella that night—that night in the moonlight, -which somehow seemed mixed up with everything—had whispered <i>that</i> in -her ear, instead of the lie about wishing to bid Charlie farewell. What -could she have done; what would she have done? With a gasp in her throat -she looked helplessly at her questioner. She had no answer to make.</p> - -<p>“Then how could you blame me?” cried Lady Jane, throwing off her -wonderful furs, loosening her mantle, beginning, with her dress tucked -up a little in front, to look more like herself. “What was to be done -when they had gone and taken it into their own hands? You can’t separate -husband and wife, though, Heaven knows, there are a great many that -would be too thankful if you could. But there they were—married. What -was to be done? I made sure when you would insist on driving home with -her, Katherine, that she must have told you.”</p> - -<p>“I was not expected, then, to drive home with her?” Katherine said -sharply. “It was intended that I should know nothing—nothing at all.”</p> - -<p>“I thought—I sincerely thought,” said Lady Jane, hanging her head a -little, “that she would have told you then. I suppose she was angry at -the delay.”</p> - -<p>Katherine’s heart was very sore. She had been the one who knew nothing, -from whom everything had been kept. It had been intended that she should -be left at the ball while Stella stole off with her bridegroom; and her -affectionate anxiety about Stella’s headache had been a bore, the -greatest bore, losing so much time and delaying the escape. And shut up -there with her sister, her closest friend, her inseparable companion<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a>{180}</span> of -so many years, there had not been even a whisper of the great thing -which had happened, which now stood between them and cut them apart for -ever. Katherine, in her life of the secondary person, the always -inferior, had learned unconsciously a great deal of self-repression; but -it taxed all her powers to receive this blow full on her breast and make -no sign. Her lips quivered a little; she clasped her hands tightly -together; and a hot and heavy moisture, which made everything awry and -changed, stood in her eyes.</p> - -<p>“Was that how it was?” she said at last when she had controlled her -voice to speak.</p> - -<p>“Katherine, dear child, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Nobody thought -that you would feel it——” Lady Jane added after a moment, “so much,” -and put out her hand to lay it on Katherine’s tightly-clasped hands.</p> - -<p>“Nobody thought of me, I imagine, at all,” said Katherine, withdrawing -from this touch, and recovering herself after that bitter and blinding -moment. “It would have been foolish to expect anything else. And it is -perhaps a good thing that I was not tried—that I was not confided in. I -might perhaps have thought of my duty to my father. But a woman who is -married,” she added quickly, with an uncontrollable bitterness, “has, I -suppose, no duties, except to the man whom—who has married her.”</p> - -<p>“He must always come first,” said Lady Jane with a little solemnity. She -was thunderstruck when Katherine, rising quickly to her feet and walking -about the room, gave vent to Brabantio’s exclamation before the Venetian -senators:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Look to her, thou: have a quick eye to see.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">She hath deceived her father and may thee.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Lady Jane was not an ignorant woman for her rank and position. She had -read the necessary books, and kept up a kind of speaking acquaintance -with those of the day. But it may be excused to her, a woman of many -occupations, if she did not remember whence this outburst came, and -thought it exceedingly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a>{181}</span> ridiculous and indeed of very doubtful taste, if -truth must be told.</p> - -<p>“I could not have thought you would be so merciless,” she said severely. -“I thought you were a kind creature, almost too kind. It is easy to see -that you have never been touched by any love-affair of your own.”</p> - -<p>Katherine laughed—there seemed no other reply to this assumption—and -came back and sat down quietly in her chair.</p> - -<p>“Was that all, Lady Jane?” she said. “You came to tell me you had -nothing to do with the step my sister has taken, and then that you knew -all about it, and that it was only I who was left out.”</p> - -<p>“You are a very strange girl, Katherine Tredgold. I excuse you because -no doubt you have been much agitated, otherwise I should say you were -very rude and impudent.” Lady Jane was gathering on again her panoply of -war—her magnificent town-mantle, the overwhelming furs which actually -belonged to her maid. “I knew nothing about the first step,” she said -angrily. “I was as ignorant of the marriage as you were. Afterwards, I -allow, they told me; and as there was nothing else to be done—for, of -course, as you confess, a woman as soon as she is married has no such -important duty as to her husband—I did not oppose the going away. I -advised them to take you into their confidence; afterwards, I allow, for -their sakes, I promised to keep you engaged, if possible, to see that -you had plenty of partners and no time to think.”</p> - -<p>Katherine was ashamed afterwards to remember how the prick of injured -pride stung her more deeply than even that of wounded affection. “So,” -she said, her cheeks glowing crimson, “it was to your artifice that I -owed my partners! But I have never found it difficult to get -partners—without your aid, Lady Jane!”</p> - -<p>“You will take everything amiss, however one puts it,” said Lady Jane. -And then there was a long pause, during which that poor lady struggled -much with her wraps without any help from Katherine, who sat like stone -and saw her difficulties without lifting so much as a little finger. -“You are to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a>{182}</span> excused,” the elder lady added, “for I do not think you -have been very well treated, though, to be sure, poor Stella must have -felt there was very little sympathy likely, or she certainly would have -confided in you. As for Charlie Somers——” Lady Jane gave an expressive -wave of her hand, as if consenting that nothing was to be expected from -him; then she dropped her voice and asked with a change of tone, “I -don’t see why it should make any difference between you and me, -Katherine. I have really had nothing to do with it—except at the very -last. Tell me now, dear, how your father takes it? Is he very much -displeased?”</p> - -<p>“Displeased is a weak word, Lady Jane.”</p> - -<p>“Well, angry then—enraged—any word you like; of course, for the moment -no word will be strong enough.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think,” said Katherine, “that he will ever allow her to enter -his house, or consent to see her again.”</p> - -<p>“Good Heavens!” cried Lady Jane. “Then what in the world is to become of -them? But I am sure you exaggerate—in the heat of the moment; and, of -course, Katherine, I acknowledge you have been very badly used,” she -said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a>{183}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Katherine</span> was perhaps not in very good condition after Lady Jane’s -visit, though that great personage found it, on the whole, satisfactory, -and felt that she had settled the future terms on which they were to -meet in quite a pleasant way—to receive the first letter which Stella -sent her, an epistle which arrived a day or two later. Stella’s epistle -was very characteristic indeed. It was dated from Paris:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“Dearest Kate,—I can’t suppose that you have not heard everything -about all that we have done and haven’t done. I don’t excuse myself -for not writing on the plea that you couldn’t possibly be anxious -about me, as you must have known all this by next morning, but I -can’t help feeling that you must have been angry, both you and -papa, and I thought it would perhaps be better just to let you cool -down. I know you have cause to be angry, dear; I ought to have told -you, and it was on my lips all the time; but I thought you might -think it your duty to make a row, and then all our plans might have -been turned upside down. What we had planned to do was to get -across to Southsea in the yacht, and go next morning by the first -train to London, and on here at once, which, with little -divergencies, we carried out. You see we have never been to say out -of reach; but it would have done you no good to try to stop us, -for, of course, from the moment I was Charlie’s wife my place was -with him. I know you never would have consented to such a marriage; -but it is perfectly all right, I can assure you—as good as if it -had come off in St. George’s, Hanover Square. And we have had a -delightful time. Stevens met me at Southsea with the few things I -wanted (apologies for taking her from you, but you never<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a>{184}</span> made so -much use of her as I did, and I don’t think you ever cared for -Stevens), and next day we picked up our things at London. I wish -you could see my things, they are beautiful. I hope papa won’t be -dreadfully angry that I took him at his word; and I am quite -frightened sometimes to think what it will all cost—the most -lovely <i>trousseau</i> all packed in such nice boxes—some marked cabin -and some—but that’s a trifle. The important thing is that the -clothes are charming, just what you would expect from Madame’s -tastes. I do hope that papa will not make any fuss about her bill. -They are not dear at all, for material and workmanship (can you say -workmanship, when it’s needlework, and all done by women?) are -simply splendid. I never saw such beautiful things.</p> - -<p>“And so here I am, Kate, a married woman, off to India with my -husband. Isn’t it wonderful? I can’t say that I feel much different -myself. I am the same old Stella, always after my fun. I shouldn’t -wonder in the least if after a while Charlie were to set up a way -of his own, and think he can stop me; but I don’t advise him to -try, and in the meantime he is as sweet as sugar and does exactly -what I like. It is nice, on the whole, to be called my Lady, and it -is very nice to see how respectful all the people are to a married -person, as if one had grown quite a great personage all at once. -And it is nicer still to turn a big man round your little finger, -even when you have a sort of feeling, as I have sometimes, that it -may not last. One wonderful thing is that he is always meeting -somebody he knows. People in society I believe know everybody—that -is, really everybody who ought to be known. This man was at school -with him, and that man belongs to one of his clubs, and another was -brother to a fellow in his regiment, and so on, and so on—so we -need never be alone unless we like: they turn up at every corner. -Of course, he knows the ladies too, but this is not a good time in -the year for them, for the grandees are at their country houses and -English people only passing through. We did see one gorgeous -person, who was a friend of his mother’s (who is dead, Heaven be -praised!), and to whom he introduced me,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a>{185}</span> but she looked at me -exactly as if she had heard that Charlie had married a barmaid, -with a ‘How do you do?’ up in the air—an odious woman. She was, of -course, Countess of Something or Other, and as poor as a Church -mouse. Papa could buy up dozens of such countesses; tell him I said -so.</p> - -<p>“You will wonder what we are doing knocking about in Paris when the -regiment is on the high seas; but Charlie could not take me, you -know, in a troopship, it would have been out of the question, and -we couldn’t possibly have spent our honeymoon among all those men. -So he got his leave and we are going by a P. and O. boat, which are -the best, and which we pick up at Brindisi, or at Suez, or -somewhere. I am looking forward to it immensely, and to India, -which is full of amusement, everybody tells me. I intend to get all -the fun I can for the next year, and then I hope, I do hope, dear -Katie, that papa may send for us home.</p> - -<p>“How is poor dear papa? You may think I am a little hypocrite, -having given him such a shock, but I did really hope he would see -some fun in it—he always had such a sense of humour. I have -thought of this, really, truly, in all I have done. About the -<i>trousseau</i> (which everybody thinks the greatest joke that ever -was), and about going off in the yacht, and all that, I kept -thinking that papa, though he would be very angry, would see the -fun. I planned it all for that—indeed, indeed, Kate, I did, -whatever you may think. To be sure, Charlie went for half in the -planning, and I can’t say I think he has very much sense of humour, -but, still, that was in my mind all the time. Was he very, very -angry when he found out? Did you wake him in the night to tell him -and risk an illness? If you did, I think you were very, very much -to blame. There is never any hurry in telling bad news. But you are -so tremendously straightforward and all that. I hope he only heard -in the morning, and had his good night’s rest and was not -disturbed. It was delicious this time in the yacht, as quiet almost -as a mill-pond—just a nice soft little air that carried us across -the bay and on to Southsea; such a delightful sail! I ought to have -thought of you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a>{186}</span> promenading about in the cold waiting for me -without any companion, but I really couldn’t, dear. Naturally we -were too much taken up with ourselves, and the joy of having got -off so nicely. But I do beg your pardon most sincerely, dear Katie, -for having left you out in the cold, really out in the -cold—without any figure of speech—like that.</p> - -<p>“But my thoughts keep going back constantly to dear papa. You will -miss me a little, I hope, but not as he will miss me. What does he -say? Was he very angry? Do you think he is beginning to come round? -Oh, dear Kate, I hope you take an opportunity when you can to say -something nice to him about me. Tell him Charlie wanted to be -married in London, but I knew what papa would think on this -subject, and simply insisted for his sake that it should be in the -little Steephill Church, where he could go himself, if he liked, -and see the register and make sure that it was all right. And I -have always thought of him all through. You may say it doesn’t look -very like it, but I have, I have, Kate. I am quite sure that he -will get very fond of Charlie after a time, and he will like to -hear me called Lady Somers; and now that my mind is set at rest and -no longer drawn this way and that way by love affairs, don’t you -know? I should be a better daughter to him than ever before. Do get -him to see this, Kate. You will have all the influence now that I -am away. It is you that will be able to turn him round your little -finger. And, oh, I hope, I hope, dear, that you will do it, and be -true to me! You have always been such a faithful, good sister, even -when I tried you most with my nonsense. I am sure I tried you, you -being so different a kind from such a little fool as Stella, and so -much more valuable and all that. Be sure to write to me before we -leave Paris, which will be in a week, to tell me how papa is, and -how he is feeling about me—and, <i>oh</i>, do be faithful to us, dear -Kate, and make him call us back within a year! Charlie does not -mind about his profession; he would be quite willing to give it up -and settle down, to be near papa. And then, you see, he has really -a beautiful old house of his own in the country, which he never<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a>{187}</span> -could afford to live in, where we could arrange the most charming -<i>appartement</i>, as the French say, for papa for part of the year.</p> - -<p>“Do, dearest Kate, write, write! and tell me all about the state of -affairs. With Charlie’s love,</p> - -<p class="c"> -“Your most affectionate sister,<br /> - -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">“<i>Stella (Lady) Somers</i>.”</span><br /> -</p></div> - -<p>“I have a letter from—Stella, papa,” said Katherine the same night.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” he said, with a momentary prick of his ears; then he composed -himself and repeated with the profoundest composure, “God damn her!” as -before.</p> - -<p>“Oh, papa, do not say that! She is very anxious to know how you are, and -to ask you—oh, with all her heart, papa—to forgive her.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Tredgold did not raise his head or show any interest. He only -repeated with the same calm that phrase again.</p> - -<p>“You have surely something else to say at the mention of her name than -that. Oh, papa, she has done very, very wrong, but she is so sorry—she -would like to fling herself at your feet.”</p> - -<p>“She had better not do that; I should kick her away like a football,” he -said.</p> - -<p>“You could never be cruel to Stella—your little Stella! You always -loved her the best of us two. I never came near her in one way nor -another.”</p> - -<p>“That is true enough,” said the old man.</p> - -<p>Katherine did not expect any better, but this calm daunted her. Even -Stella’s absence did not advance her in any way; she still occupied the -same place, whatever happened. It was with difficulty that she resumed -her questions.</p> - -<p>“And you will miss her dreadfully, papa. Only think, those long nights -that are coming—how you will miss her with her songs and her chatter -and her brightness! I am only a dull companion,” said Katherine, perhaps -a little, though not very reasonably, hoping to be contradicted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a>{188}</span></p> - -<p>“You are that,” said her father calmly.</p> - -<p>What was she to say? She felt crushed down by this disapproval, the calm -recognition that she was nobody, and that all her efforts to be -agreeable could never meet with any response. She did make many efforts, -far more than ever Stella had done. Stella had never taken any trouble; -her father’s comfort had in reality been of very little importance to -her. She had pleased him because she was Stella, just as Katherine, -because she was Katherine, did not please him. And what was there more -to be said? It is hard upon the unpleasing one, the one who never gives -satisfaction, but the fact remains.</p> - -<p>“You are very plain spoken,” said Katherine, trying to find a little -forlorn fun in the situation. “You don’t take much pains to spare my -feelings. Still, allowing that to be all true, and I don’t doubt it for -a moment, think how dull you will be in the evenings, papa! You will -want Stella a hundred times in an hour, you will always want her. This -winter, of course, they could not come back; but before another winter, -oh, papa, think for your own advantage—do say that you will forgive -her, and that they may come back!”</p> - -<p>“We may all be dead and gone before another winter,” Mr. Tredgold said.</p> - -<p>“That is true; but then, on the other hand, we may all be living and -very dull and in great, great need of something to cheer us up. Do hold -out the hope, papa, that you will forgive her, and send for her, and -have her back!”</p> - -<p>“What is she to give you for standing up for her like this?” said the -old man with his grim chuckling laugh.</p> - -<p>“To give—me?” Katherine was so astonished this time that she could not -think of any answer.</p> - -<p>“Because you needn’t lose your breath,” said her father, “for you’ll -lose whatever she has promised you. I’ve only one word to say about her, -and that I’ve said too often already to please you—God damn her,” her -father said.</p> - -<p>And Katherine gave up the unequal conflict—for the moment at least. It -was not astonishing, perhaps, that she spent<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a>{189}</span> a great deal of her time, -as much as the weather would allow, which now was grim November, -bringing up fog from land and sea, upon the cliff, where she walked up -and down sometimes when there was little visible except a grey expanse -of mist behind the feathery tracery of the tamarisk trees; sometimes -thinking of those two apparitions of the <i>Stella</i> in the bay, which now -seemed to connect with each other like two succeeding events in a story, -and sometimes of very different things. She began to think oftener than -she had ever done of her own lover, he whom she had not had time to -begin to love, only to have a curious half-awakened interest in, at the -time when he was sent so summarily about his business. Had he not been -sent about his business, probably Katherine might never have thought of -him at all. It was the sudden fact of his dismissal and the strange -discovery thus made, that there was one person in the world at least -whose mind was occupied with her and not with Stella, that gave him that -hold upon her mind which he had retained.</p> - -<p>She wondered now vaguely what would have happened had she done what -Stella had done? (It was impossible, because she had not thought of him -much, had not come to any conscious appropriation of him until after he -was gone; but supposing, for the sake of argument, that she had done -what Stella had done). She would have been cut off, she and he, and -nobody would have been much the worse. Stella, then, being the only girl -of the house, would have been more serious, would have been obliged to -think of things. She would have chosen someone better than Charlie -Somers, someone that would have pleased her father better; and he would -have kept his most beloved child, and all would have been well. From -that point of view it would perhaps have been better that Katherine -should have done evil that good might come. Was it doing evil to elope -from home with the man you loved, because your father refused him—if -you felt you could not live without him? That is a question very -difficult to solve. In the first place, Katherine, never having been, -let us say, very much in love herself, thought it was almost immodest<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a>{190}</span> -in a woman to say that she could not live without any man. It might be -that she loved a man who did not love her, or who loved somebody else, -and then she would be compelled, whatever she wished, to live without -him. But, on the other hand, there was the well-worn yet very reasonable -argument that it is the girl’s life and happiness that is concerned, not -the parents’, and that to issue a ukase like an emperor, or a bull like -a pope, that your child must give up the man who alone can make her -happy is tyrannical and cruel. You are commanded to obey your parents, -but there are limits to that command; a woman of, say, thirty for -instance (which to Katherine, at twenty-three, was still a great age), -could not be expected to obey like a child; a woman of twenty even was -not like a little girl. A child has to do what it is told, whether it -likes or not; but a woman—and when all her own life is in question?</p> - -<p>Those were thoughts which Katherine pondered much as she walked up and -down the path on the cliff. For some time she went out very little, -fearing always to meet a new group of interested neighbours who should -question her about Stella. She shrank from the demands, from the -criticisms that were sometimes very plain, and sometimes veiled under -pretences of interest or sympathy. She would not discuss her sister with -anyone, or her father, or their arrangements or family disasters, and -the consequence was that, during almost the whole of that winter she -confined herself to the small but varied domain which was such a world -of flowers in summer, and now, though the trees were bare, commanded all -the sun that enlivens a wintry sky, and all the aspects of the sea, and -all the wide expanse of the sky. There she walked about and asked -herself a hundred questions. Perhaps it would have been better for all -of them if she had run away with James Stanford. It would have cost her -father nothing to part with her; he would have been more lenient with -the daughter he did not care for. And Stella would have been more -thoughtful, more judicious, if there had been nobody at home behind her -to bear the responsibility of common life. And then, Katherine<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a>{191}</span> -wondered, with a gasp, as to the life that might have been hers had she -been James Stanford’s wife. She would have gone to India, too, but with -no <i>trousseau</i>, no diamonds, no gay interval at Paris. She would have -had only him, no more, to fill up her horizon and occupy her changed -life. She thought of this with a little shiver, wondering—for, to be -sure, she was not, so to speak, in love with him, but only interested in -him—very curious if it had been possible to know more about him, to get -to understand him. It was a singular characteristic in him that it was -she whom he had cared for and not Stella. He was the first and only -person who had done so—at least, the only man. Women, she was aware, -often got on better with her than with her sister; but that did not -surprise her, somehow, while the other did impress her deeply. Why -should he have singled out her, Katherine, to fall in love with? It -showed that he must be a particular kind of man, not like other people. -This was the reason why Katherine had taken so much interest in him, -thought so much of him all this time, not because she was in love with -him. And it struck her with quite a curious impression, made up of some -awe, some alarm, some pleasure, and a good deal of abashed amusement, to -think that she might, like Stella, have eloped with him—might have been -living with him as her sole companion for two or three years. She used -to laugh to herself and hush up her line of thinking abruptly when she -came to this point, and yet there was a curious attraction in it.</p> - -<p>Soon, however, the old routine, although so much changed, came back, the -usual visitors came to call, there were the usual little assemblages to -luncheon, which was the form of entertainment Mr. Tredgold preferred; -the old round of occupations began, the Stanley girls and the others -flowed and circled about her in the afternoon, and, before she knew, -Katherine was drawn again into the ordinary routine of life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a>{192}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> company in the house on the cliff was, however, very considerably -changed, though the visitors were not much lessened in number. It -became, perhaps, more <i>bourgeois</i>, certainly more village, than it had -been. Stella, a daring, audacious creature, with her beauty, which burst -upon the spectators at the first glance, and her absence of all reserve, -and her determination to be “in” everything that was amusing or -agreeable, had made her way among her social betters as her quieter and -more sensitive sister would never have done. Then the prestige which had -attached to them because of their wealth and that character of heiress -which attracts not only fortune-hunters who are less dangerous, but -benevolent match-makers and the mothers and sisters of impecunious but -charming young men, had been much dulled and sobered by the discovery -that the old father, despised of everybody, was not so easily to be -moved as was supposed. This was an astonishing and painful discovery, -which Lady Jane, in herself perfectly disinterested and wanting nothing -from old Tredgold, felt almost more than anyone. She had not entertained -the least doubt that he would give in. She did not believe, indeed, that -Stella and her husband would ever have been allowed to leave England at -all. She had felt sure that old Tredgold’s money would at once and for -ever settle all questions about the necessity of going to India with the -regiment for Charlie; that he would be able at once to rehabilitate his -old house, and to set up his establishment, and to settle into that -respectable country-gentleman life in which all a man’s youthful -peccadilloes are washed out and forgotten.</p> - -<p>Mr. Tredgold’s obstinacy was thus as great a blow to Lady Jane as if she -herself had been impoverished by it. She felt<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a>{193}</span> the ground cut from under -her feet, and her confidence in human nature destroyed. If you cannot -make sure of a vulgar old father’s weakness for his favourite child whom -he has spoiled outrageously all her life, of what can you make sure? -Lady Jane was disappointed, wounded, mortified. She felt less sure of -her own good sense and intuitions, which is a very humbling thing—not -to speak of the depreciation in men’s minds of her judgment which was -likely to follow. Indeed, it did follow, and that at once, people in -general being very sorry for poor Charlie Somers, who had been taken in -so abominably, and who never would have risked the expenses of married -life, and a wife trained up to every extravagance, if he had not felt -sure of being indemnified; and, what was still worse, they all agreed he -never would have taken such a strong step—for he was a cautious man, -was Charlie, notwithstanding his past prodigalities—if he had not been -so pushed forward and kept up to the mark by Lady Jane.</p> - -<p>The thing that Lady Jane really fell back on as a consolation in the -pressure of these painful circumstances was that she had not allowed -Algy to make himself ridiculous by any decisive step in respect to the -“little prim one,” as he called Katherine. This Lady Jane had sternly -put down her foot upon. She had said at once that Katherine was not the -favourite, that nothing could be known as to how the old man would leave -her, along with many other arguments which intimidated the young one. As -a patter of fact, Lady Jane, naturally a very courageous woman, was -afraid of Algy’s mother, and did not venture to commit herself in any -way that would have brought her into conflict with Lady Scott, which, -rather than any wisdom on her part, was the chief reason which had -prevented additional trouble on that score. Poor Charlie Somers had no -mother nor any female relation of importance to defend him. Lady Jane -herself ought to have been his defence, and it was she who had led him -astray. It was not brought against her open-mouthed, or to her face. But -she felt that it was in everybody’s mind, and that her reputation, or at -least her prestige, had suffered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a>{194}</span></p> - -<p>This it was that made her drop the Tredgolds “like a hot potato.” She -who had taken such an interest in the girls, and superintended Stella’s -<i>début</i> as if she had been a girl of her own, retreated from Katherine -as if from the plague. After the way they had behaved to poor dear -Charlie Somers and his wife, she said, she could have no more to do with -them. Lady Jane had been their great patroness, their only effectual -connection with the county and its grandeurs, so that the higher society -of the island was cast off at once from Katherine. I do not think she -felt it very much, or was even conscious for a long time that she had -lost anything. But still it was painful and surprising to her to be -dismissed with a brief nod, and “How d’ye do?” in passing, from Lady -Jane. She was troubled to think what she could have done to alienate a -woman whom she had always liked, and who had professed, as Katherine -knew, to think the elder sister the superior of the younger. That, -however, was of course a mere <i>façon de parler</i>, for Stella had always -been, Katherine reminded herself, the attraction to the house. People -might even approve of herself more, but it was Stella who was the -attraction—Stella who shocked and disturbed, and amused and delighted -everybody about; who was always inventing new things, festive surprises -and novelties, and keeping a whirl of life in the place. The neighbours -gave their serious approval to Katherine, but she did not amuse them or -surprise. They never had to speculate what she would do next. They knew -(she said to herself) that she would always do just the conventional -proper thing, whereas Stella never could be calculated upon, and had a -perpetual charm of novelty. Katherine was not sufficiently enlightened -to be aware that Stella’s way in its wildness was much the more -conventional of the two.</p> - -<p>But the effect was soon made very plain. The link between the Tredgolds -and the higher society of the island was broken. Perhaps it is -conventional, too, to call these good people the higher society, for -they were not high society in any sense of the word. There were a great -many stupid people among them. Those who were not stupid were little -elevated above<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a>{195}</span> the other classes except by having more beautiful -manners <i>when they chose</i>. Generally, they did not choose, and therefore -were worse than the humble people because they knew better. Their one -great quality was that they were the higher class. It is a great thing -to stand first, whatever nation or tribe, or tongue, or sect, or station -you may belong to. It is in itself an education: it saves even very -stupid people from many mistakes that even clever people make in other -spheres, and it gives a sort of habit of greatness—if I may use the -words—of feeling that there is nothing extraordinary in brushing -shoulders with the greatest at any moment; indeed, that it is certain -you will brush shoulders with them, to-day or to-morrow, in the natural -course of events. To know the people who move the world makes even the -smallest man a little bigger, makes him accustomed to the stature of the -gods.</p> - -<p>I am not sure that this tells in respect to the poets and painters and -so forth, who are what the youthful imagination always fixes on as the -flower of noble society. One thinks in maturer life that perhaps one -prefers not to come to too close quarters with these, any more than with -dignified clergymen, lest some of the bloom of one’s veneration might be -rubbed off. But one does not venerate in the same way the governors of -the world, the men who are already historical; and it is perhaps they -and their contemporaries from beyond all the seas, who, naturally -revolving in that sphere, give a kind of bigness, not to be found in -other spheres, to the highest class of society everywhere. One must -account to oneself somehow for the universal pre-eminence of an -aristocracy which consists of an enormous number of the most completely -commonplace, and even vulgar, individuals. It is not high, but it cannot -help coming in contact with the highest. Figures pass familiarly before -its eyes, and brush its shoulders in passing, which are wonders and -prodigies to other men. One wants an explanation, and this is the one -that commends itself to me. Therefore, to be cut off from this higher -class is an evil, whatever anyone may say.</p> - -<p>Katherine, in her wounded pride and in her youth, did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a>{196}</span> allow that -she thought so, I need not say. Her serious little head was tossed in -indignation as scornfully as Stella’s would have been. She recalled to -herself what dull people they were (which was quite true), and how -commonplace their talk, and asked heaven and earth why she should care. -Lottie Seton, for instance, with her retinue of silly young men: was she -a loss to anyone? It was different with Lady Jane, who was a person of -sense, and Katherine felt herself obliged to allow, different -someway—she could not tell how—from the village ladies. Yet Lady Jane, -though she disapproved highly of Mrs. Seton, for instance, never would -have shut her out, as she very calmly and without the least hesitation -shut out Katherine, of whom in her heart she did approve. It seemed to -the girl merely injustice, the tyranny of a preposterous convention, the -innate snobbishness (what other word is there?) of people in what is -called society. And though she said little, she felt herself dropped out -of that outer ledge of it, upon which Lady Jane’s patronage had posed -her and her sister, with an angry pang. Stella belonged to it now, -because she had married a pauper, a mercenary, fortune-hunting, and -disreputable man; but she, who had done no harm, who was exactly the -same Katherine as ever, was dropped.</p> - -<p>There were other consequences of this which were more harmful still. -People who were connected in business with Mr. Tredgold, who had always -appeared occasionally in the house, but against whom Stella had set her -little impertinent face, now appeared in greater numbers, and with -greater assurance than ever; and Mr. Tredgold, no longer held under -subjection by Stella, liked to have them. With the hold she had on the -great people, Stella had been able to keep these others at a distance, -for Stella had that supreme distinction which belongs to aristocracy of -being perfectly indifferent whether she hurt other people’s feelings or -not; but Katherine possessed neither the one advantage nor the -other—neither the hold upon society nor the calm and indifference. And -the consequence naturally was that she was pushed to the wall. The city -people came more and more; and she had to be kind to them, to receive<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a>{197}</span> -them as if she liked it. When I say she had to do it, I do not mean that -Katherine was forced by her father, but that she was forced by herself. -There is an Eastern proverb that says “A man can act only according to -his nature.” It was no more possible for Katherine to be uncivil, to -make anyone feel that he or she was unwelcome, to “hurt their feelings,” -as she would have said, than to read Hebrew or Chinese.</p> - -<p>So she was compelled to be agreeable to the dreadful old men who sat and -talked stocks and premiums, and made still more dreadful jokes with her -father, making him chuckle till he almost choked; and to the old women -who criticised her housekeeping, and told her that a little bit of onion -(or something else) would improve this dish, or just a taste of brandy -that, and who wondered that she did not control the table in the -servants’ hall, and give them out daily what was wanted. Still more -terrible were the sons and daughters who came, now one, now another; the -first making incipient love to her, the other asking about the officers, -and if there were many balls, and men enough, or always too many ladies, -as was so often the case. The worst part of her new life was these -visits upon which she now exercised no control. Stella had done so. -Stella had said, “Now, papa, I cannot have those old guys of yours here; -let the men come from Saturday to Monday and talk shop with you if you -like, but we can’t have the women, nor the young ones. There I set down -my foot,” and this she had emphasised with a stamp on the carpet, which -was saucy and pretty, and delighted the old man. But Mr. Tredgold was no -fool, and he knew very well the difference between his daughters. He -knew that Katherine would not put down her foot, and if she had -attempted to do so, he would have laughed in her face—not a delighted -laugh of acquiescence as with Stella, but a laugh of ridicule that she -could suppose he would be taken in so easily. Katherine tried quietly to -express to her father her hope that he would not inflict these guests -upon her. “You have brought us up so differently, papa,” she would say -with hesitation, while he replied, “Stuff and nonsense! they are just as -good as you are.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a>{198}</span></p> - -<p>“Perhaps,” said Katharine. “Mrs. Simmons, I am sure, is a much better -woman than I am; but we don’t ask her to come in to dinner.”</p> - -<p>“Hold your impudence!” her father cried, who was never choice in his -expressions. “Do you put my friends on a level with your servants?” He -would not have called them her servants in any other conversation, but -in this it seemed to point the moral better.</p> - -<p>“They are not so well bred, papa,” she said, which was a speech which -from Stella would have delighted the old man, but from Katherine it made -him angry.</p> - -<p>“Don’t let me hear you set up such d—— d pretensions,” he cried. “Who -are you, I wonder, to turn up your nose at the Turnys of Lothbury? There -is not a better firm in London, and young Turny’s got his grandfather’s -money, and many a one of your grand ladies would jump at him. If you -don’t take your chance when you find it, you may never have another, my -fine lady. None of your beggars with titles for me. My old friends -before all.”</p> - -<p>This was a fine sentiment indeed, calculated to penetrate the most -callous heart; but it made Katherine glow all over, and then grow chill -and pale. She divined what was intended—that there were designs to -unite her, now the representative of the Tredgolds, with the heir of the -house of Turny. There was no discrepancy of fortune there. Old Turny -could table thousand by thousand with Mr. Tredgold, and it was a match -that would delight both parties. Why should Katherine have felt so -violent a pang of offended pride? Mr. Turny was no better and no worse -in origin than she. The father of that family was her father’s oldest -friend; the young people had been brought up with “every -advantage”—even a year or two of the University for the eldest son, -who, however, when he was found to be spending his time in vanities with -other young men like himself—not with the sons of dukes and earls, -which might have made it bearable—was promptly withdrawn accordingly, -but still could call himself an Oxford man. The girls had been to school -in France and in Germany, and had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a>{199}</span> learned their music in Berlin and -their drawing in Paris. They were far better educated than Katherine, -who had never had any instructor but a humble governess at home. How, -then, did it come about that the idea of young Turny having the -insolence to think of her should have made Katherine first red with -indignation, then pale with disgust? I cannot explain it, neither could -she to herself; but so it was. We used to hear a great deal about -nature’s noblemen in the days of sentimental fiction. But there -certainly is such a thing as a natural-born aristocrat, without any -foundation for his or her instinct, yet possessing it as potently as the -most highly descended princess that ever breathed. Katherine’s -grand-father, as has been said, had been a respectable linen-draper, -while the Turnys sprung from a house of business devoting itself to the -sale of crockery at an adjoining corner; yet Katherine felt herself as -much insulted by the suggestion of young Turny as a suitor as if she had -been a lady of high degree and he a low-born squire. There are more -things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.</p> - -<p>Two or three of such suitors crossed her path within a short time. -Neither of the sisters might have deserved the attentions of these -gentlemen had they been likely to share their father’s wealth; but now -that the disgrace of one was generally known, and the promotion of the -other as sole heiress generally counted upon, this was what happened to -Katherine. She was exceedingly civil in a superior kind of way, with an -air noble that indeed sat very well upon her, and a dignity worthy of a -countess at least to these visitors: serious and stately with the -mothers, tolerant with the fathers, gracious with the daughters, but -altogether unbending with the sons. She would have none of them. Two -other famous young heroes of the city (both of whom afterwards married -ladies of distinguished families, and who has not heard of Lady Arabella -Turny?) followed the first, but with the same result. Mr. Tredgold was -very angry with his only remaining child. He asked her if she meant to -be an infernal fool too. If so,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a>{200}</span> she might die in a ditch for anything -her father cared, and he would leave all his money to a hospital.</p> - -<p>“A good thing too. Far better than heaping all your good money, that -you’ve worked and slaved for, on the head of a silly girl. Who are you, -I wonder,” he said, “to turn up your dashed little nose? Why, you’re not -even a beauty like the other; a little prim thing that would never get a -man to look twice at you but for your father’s money at your back. But -don’t you make too sure of your father’s money—to keep up your -grandeur,” he cried. Nevertheless, though he was so angry, Mr. Tredgold -was rather pleased all the same to see his girl turn up her nose at his -friends’ sons. She was not a bit better than they were—perhaps not so -good. And he was very angry, yet could not but feel flattered too at the -hang-dog looks with which the Turnys and others went away—“tail between -their legs,” he said to himself; and it tickled his fancy and pride, -though he was so much displeased.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a>{201}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Perhaps</span> the village society into which Katherine was now thrown was not -much more elevating than the Turnys, &c.; but it was different. She had -known it all her life, for one thing, and understood every allusion, and -had almost what might be called an interest in all the doings of the -parish. The fact that the old Cantrells had grown so rich that they now -felt justified in confessing it, and were going to retire from the -bakery and set up as private gentlefolks while their daughter and -son-in-law entered into possession of the business, quite entertained -her for half an hour while it was being discussed by Miss Mildmay and -Mrs. Shanks over their tea. Katherine had constructed for herself in the -big and crowded drawing-room, by means of screens, a corner in which -there was both a fireplace and a window, and which looked like an inner -room, now that she had taken possession of it. She had covered the -gilded furniture with chintzes, and the shining tables with embroidered -cloths. The fire always burned bright, and the window looked out over -the cliff and the fringe of tamarisks upon the sea. The dual chamber, -the young ladies’ room, with all its contrivances for pleasure and -occupation, was shut up, as has been said, and this was the first place -which Katherine had ever had of her very own.</p> - -<p>She did not work nearly so much for bazaars as she had done in the old -Stella days. Then that kind of material occupation (though the things -produced were neither very admirable in themselves nor of particular use -to anyone) gave a sort of steady thread, flimsy as it was, to run -through her light and airy life. It meant something if not much. <i>Elle -fait ses robes</i>—which is the last height of the good girl’s excellence -in modern<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a>{202}</span> French—would have been absurd; and to make coats and cloaks -for the poor by Stella’s side would have been extremely inappropriate, -not to say that such serious labours are much against the exquisite -disorder of a modern drawing-room, therefore the bazaar articles had to -do. But now there was no occasion for the bazaars—green and gilt paper -stained her fingers no more. She had no one to keep in balance; no one -but herself, who weighed a little if anything to the other side, and -required, if anything, a touch of frivolity, which, to be sure, the -bazaars were quite capable of furnishing if you took them in that way. -She read a great deal in this retreat of hers; but I fear to say it was -chiefly novels she read. And she had not the least taste for -metaphysics. And anything about Woman, with a capital letter, daunted -her at once. She was very dull sometimes—what human creature is -not?—but did not blame anyone else for it, nor even fate. She chiefly -thought it was her own fault, and that she had indeed no right to be -dull; and in this I think she showed herself to be a very reasonable -creature.</p> - -<p>Now that Lady Jane’s large landau never swept up to the doors, one of -the most frequent appearances there was that convenient but unbeautiful -equipage called the midge. It was not a vehicle beloved of the -neighbourhood. The gardener’s wife, now happily quite recovered from the -severe gunshot wound she had received on the night of Stella’s -elopement, went out most reluctantly, taking a very long time about it, -to open the gate when it appeared. She wanted to know what was the good -of driving that thing in, as was no credit to be seen anywhere, when -them as used it might just as well have got out outside the gate and -walked. The ladies did not think so at all. They were very particular to -be driven exactly up to the door and turned half round so that the door -which was at the end, not the side of the vehicle, should be opposite -the porch; and they would sometimes keep it waiting an hour, a -remarkable object seen from all the windows, while they sat with poor -Katherine and cheered her up. These colloquies always began with -inquiries after her sister.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a>{203}</span></p> - -<p>“Have you heard again from Stella? Where is she now, poor child? Have -you heard of their safe arrival? And where is the regiment to be -quartered? And what does she say of the climate? Does she think it will -agree with her? Are they in the plains, where it is so hot, or near the -hills, where there is always a little more air?”</p> - -<p>Such was the beginning in every case, and then the two ladies would draw -their chairs a little nearer, and ask eagerly in half-whispers, “And -your papa, Katherine? Does he show any signs of relenting? Does he ever -speak of her? Don’t you think he will soon give in? He must give in -soon. Considering how fond he was of Stella, I cannot understand how he -has held out so long.”</p> - -<p>Katherine ignored as much as she could the latter questions.</p> - -<p>“I believe they are in quite a healthy place,” she said, “and it amuses -Stella very much, and the life is all so new. You know she is very fond -of novelty, and there are a great many parties and gaieties, and of -course she knows everybody. She seems to be getting on very well.”</p> - -<p>“And very happy with her husband, I hope, my dear—for that is the great -thing after all.”</p> - -<p>“Do you expect Stella to say that she is not happy with her husband, -Jane Shanks? or Katherine to repeat it if she did? All young women are -happy with their husbands—that’s taken for granted—so far as the world -is concerned.”</p> - -<p>“I think, Ruth Mildmay, it is you who should have been Mrs. Shanks,” -cried the other, with a laugh.</p> - -<p>“Heaven forbid! You may be quite sure that had I ever been tempted that -way, I should only have changed for a better, not a worse name.”</p> - -<p>“Stella,” cried Katherine to stop the fray, “seems to get on capitally -with Charlie. She is always talking of him. I should think they were -constantly together, and enjoying themselves very much indeed.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, it is early days,” Miss Mildmay said, with a shake of her head. -“And India is a very dissipated place. There are always things going on -at an Indian station that keep people<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a>{204}</span> from thinking. By-and-by, when -difficulties come—— But you must always stand her friend and keep her -before your father’s eyes. I don’t know if Jane Shanks has told you—but -the news is all over the town—the Cantrells have taken that place, you -know, with the nice paddock and garden; the place the doctor was -after—quite a gentleman’s little place. I forget the name, but it is -near the Rectory—don’t you know?—a little to the right; quite a -gentleman’s house.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose Mr. Cantrell considers himself a gentleman now,” Katherine -said, glad of the change of subject.</p> - -<p>“Why, he’s a magistrate,” said Mrs. Shanks, “and could buy up the half -of us—isn’t that the right thing to say when a man has grown rich in -trade?”</p> - -<p>“It is a thing papa says constantly,” said Katherine; “and I suppose, as -that is what has happened to himself——”</p> - -<p>“O my dear Katherine! you don’t suppose that for one moment! fancy dear -Mr. Tredgold, with his colossal fortune—a merchant prince and all -that—compared to old Cantrell, the baker! Nobody could ever think of -making such a comparison!”</p> - -<p>“It just shows how silly it is not to make up your mind,” said Miss -Mildmay. “I know the doctor was after that house—much too large a house -for an unmarried man, I have always said, but it was not likely that he -would think anything of what I said—and now it is taken from under his -very nose. The Cantrells did not take long to make up their minds! They -go out and in all day long smiling at each other. I believe they think -they will quite be county people with that house.”</p> - -<p>“It is nice to see them smiling at each other—at their age they were -just as likely to be spitting fire at each other. I shall call certainly -and ask her to show me over the house. I like to see such people’s -houses, and their funny arrangements and imitations, and yet the -original showing through all the same.”</p> - -<p>“And does George Cantrell get the shop?” Katherine asked. She had known -George Cantrell all her life—better<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a>{205}</span> than she knew the young gentlemen -who were to be met at Steephill and in whom it would have been natural -to be interested. “He was always very nice to us when we were little,” -she said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear child, you must not speak of George Cantrell. He has gone -away somewhere—nobody knows where. He fell in love with his mother’s -maid-of-all-work—don’t you know?—and married her and put the house of -Cantrell to shame. So there are no shops nor goodwills for George. He -has to work as what they call a journeyman, after driving about in his -nice cart almost like a gentleman.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose,” said Miss Mildmay, “that even in the lower classes grades -must tell. There are grades everywhere. When I gave the poor children a -tea at Christmas, the carpenter’s little girls were not allowed to come -because the little flower-woman’s children were to be there.”</p> - -<p>“For that matter we don’t know anything about the doctor’s grade, Ruth -Mildmay. He might be a baker’s son just like George for anything we -know.”</p> - -<p>“That is true,” said the other. “You can’t tell who anybody is nowadays. -But because he is a doctor—which I don’t think anything of as a -profession—none of my belongings were ever doctors, I know nothing -about them—he might ask any girl to marry him—anybody——”</p> - -<p>“Surely, his education makes some difference,” Katherine said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, education! You can pick up as much education as you like at any -roadside now. And what does that kind of education do for you?—walking -hospitals where the worst kind of people are collected together, and -growing familiar with the nastiest things and the most horrible! Will -that teach a man the manners of a gentleman?” Miss Mildmay asked, -raising her hands and appealing to earth and heaven.</p> - -<p>At this point in the conversation the drawing-room door opened, and -someone came in knocking against the angles of the furniture. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a>{206}</span> -“May I announce myself?” a voice said. “Burnet—Dr., as I stand in the -directory. John was trying to catch the midge, which had bolted, and -accordingly I brought myself in. How do you do, Miss Katherine? It is -very cold outside.”</p> - -<p>“The midge bolted!” both the ladies cried with alarm, rushing to the -window.</p> - -<p>“Nothing of the sort,” cried Mrs. Shanks, who was the more nimble. “It -is there standing as quiet as a judge. Fancy the midge bolting!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, have they got it safe again?” he said. “But you ladies should not -drive such a spirited horse.”</p> - -<p>“Fancy——” Mrs. Shanks began, but the ground was cut from under her -feet by her more energetic friend.</p> - -<p>“Katherine,” she said, “you see what a very good example this is of what -we were saying. It is evident the doctor wants us to bolt after the -midge—if you will forgive me using such a word.”</p> - -<p>“On the contrary,” said the doctor, “I wish you to give me your advice, -which I am sure nobody could do better. I want you to tell me whether -you think the Laurels would be a good place for me to set up my -household gods.”</p> - -<p>“The Laurels! oh, the Laurels——” cried Mrs. Shanks, eager to speak, -but anxious at the same time to spare Dr. Burnet’s feelings.</p> - -<p>“The Cantrells have bought the Laurels,” said Miss Mildmay, quickly, -determined to be first.</p> - -<p>“The Cantrells—the bakers!” he cried, his countenance falling.</p> - -<p>“Yes, indeed, the Cantrells, the bakers—people who know their own mind, -Dr. Burnet. They went over the house yesterday, every corner, from the -drawing-room to the dustbin; and they were delighted with it, and they -settled everything this morning. They are going to set up a carriage, -and, in short, to become county people—if they can,” Miss Mildmay said.</p> - -<p>“They are very respectable,” said Mrs. Shanks. “Of course, Ruth Mildmay -is only laughing when she speaks of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a>{207}</span> county people—but I should like to -ask her, after she has got into it, to show me the house.”</p> - -<p>“The Cantrells—the bakers!” cried Dr. Burnet, with a despair which was -half grotesque, “in <i>my</i> house! This is a very dreadful thing for me, -Miss Katherine, though I see that you are disposed to laugh. I have been -thinking of it for some time as my house. I have been settling all the -rooms, where this was to be and where that was to be.” Here he paused a -moment, and gave her a look which was startling, but which Katherine, -notwithstanding her experience with the Turnys, etc., did not -immediately understand. And then he grew a little red under his somewhat -sunburnt weather-beaten complexion, and cried—“What am I to do? It -unsettles everything. The Cantrells! in my house.”</p> - -<p>“You see, it doesn’t do to shilly-shally, doctor,” said Miss Mildmay. -“You should come to the point. While you think about it someone else is -sure to come in and do it. And the Cantrells are people that know their -own minds.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, indeed,” he said—“yes, indeed,” shaking his head. “Poor -George—they know their own minds with a vengeance. That poor fellow now -is very likely to go to the dogs.”</p> - -<p>“No; he will go to London,” said the other old lady. “I know some such -nice people there in the same trade, and I have recommended him to them. -You know the people, Katherine—they used to send us down such nice -French loaves by the parcel post, that time when I quarrelled with the -old Cantrells, don’t you remember, about——”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think there is any other house about Sliplin that will suit you -now, Dr. Burnet,” said Miss Mildmay. “You will have to wait a little, -and keep on the look-out.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose so,” he said dejectedly, thrusting his hands down to the -depths of his pockets, as if it were possible that he should find some -consolation there.</p> - -<p>And he saw the two ladies out with great civility, putting them into the -midge with a care for their comfort which melted their hearts.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a>{208}</span></p> - -<p>“I should wait a little now, if I were you,” said Miss Mildmay, gripping -his hand for a moment with the thin old fingers, which she had muffled -up in coarse woollen gloves drawn on over the visiting kid. “I should -wait a little, since you have let this chance slip.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think so?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Ruth Mildmay,” said Mrs. Shanks, when they had driven away. “This is -not treating me fairly. There is something private between you and that -young man which you have never disclosed to me.”</p> - -<p>“There is nothing private,” said Miss Mildmay. “Do you think I’m an -improper person, Jane Shanks? There is nothing except that I’ve got a -pair of eyes in my head.”</p> - -<p>Dr. Burnet went slowly back to the drawing-room, where Katherine had -promised him a cup of tea. His step sounded differently, and when he -knocked against the furniture the sound was dull. He looked a different -man altogether. He had come in so briskly, half an hour before, that -Katherine was troubled for him.</p> - -<p>“I am afraid you are very much disappointed about the house,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Miss Katherine, I am. I had set my heart on it somehow—and on -other things connected with it,” he said.</p> - -<p>She was called Miss Katherine by everybody in consequence of the dislike -of her father to have any sign of superiority over her sister shown to -his eldest daughter. Miss Katherine and Miss Stella meant strict -equality. Neither of them was ever called Miss Tredgold.</p> - -<p>“I am very sorry,” she said, with her soft sympathetic voice.</p> - -<p>He looked at her, and she for a moment at him, as she gave him his cup -of tea. Again she was startled, almost confused, by his look, but could -not make out to herself the reason why. Then she made a little effort to -recover herself, and said, with a half laugh, half shiver, “You are -thinking how we once took tea together in the middle of the night.”</p> - -<p>“On that dreadful morning?” he said. “No, I don’t<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a>{209}</span> know that I was, but -I shall never forget it. Don’t let me bring it back to your mind.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I think of it often enough. And I don’t believe -I ever thanked you, Dr. Burnet, for all you did for me, leaving -everything to go over to Portsmouth, you that are always so busy, to -make those inquiries—which were of so little good—and explaining -everything to the Rector, and sending him off too.”</p> - -<p>“And his inquiries were of some use, though mine were not,” he said. -“Well, we are both your very humble servants, Miss Katherine: I will say -that for him. If Stanley could keep the wind from blowing upon you too -roughly he would do so, and it’s the same with me.”</p> - -<p>Katherine looked up with a sudden open-eyed glance of pleasure and -gratitude. “How very good of you to say that!” she cried. “How kind, how -beautiful, to think it! It is true I am very solitary now. I haven’t -many people to feel for me. I shall always be grateful and happy to -think that you have so kind a feeling for me, you two good men.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, as for the goodness,” he said. And then he remembered Miss -Mildmay’s advice, and rubbed his hands over his eyes as if to take -something out of them which he feared was there. Katherine sat down and -looked at him very kindly, but her recollection was chiefly of the -strong white teeth with which he had eaten the bread-and-butter in the -dark of the winter morning after <i>that</i> night. It was the only breakfast -he was likely to have, going off as he did on her concerns, and he had -been called out of his bed in the middle of the night, and had passed a -long time by her father’s bedside. All these things made the simple -impromptu meal very necessary; but still she had kept the impression on -her mind of his strong teeth taking a large bite of the -bread-and-butter, which was neither sentimental nor romantic. This was -about all that passed between them on that day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a>{210}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> village society in Sliplin was not to be despised, especially by a -girl who had no pretensions, like Katherine. When a person out of the -larger world comes into such a local society, it is inevitable that he -or she should look upon it with a more or less courteous contempt, and -that the chief members should condole with him or her upon the -inferiority of the new surroundings, and the absence of those -intellectual and other advantages which he or she is supposed to have -tasted in London, for example. But, as a matter of fact, the -intellectual advantages are much more in evidence on the lower than on -the higher ground. Lady Jane, no doubt, had her own particular box from -Mudie’s and command of all the magazines, &c., at first hand; but then -she read very little, having the Mudie books chiefly for her governess, -and glancing only at some topic of the day, some great lady’s -predilections on Society and its depravity, or some fad which happened -to be on the surface for the moment, and which everybody was expected to -be able to discuss. Whereas the Sliplin ladies read all the books, vying -with each other who should get them first, and were great in the -<i>Nineteenth Century</i> and the <i>Fortnightly</i>, and all the more weighty -periodicals. They were members of mutual improvement societies, and of -correspondence classes, and I don’t know all what. Some of them studied -logic and other appalling subjects through the latter means, and many of -them wrote modest little essays and chronicles of their reading for the -press. When the University Extension Lectures were set up quite a -commotion was made in the little town. Mr. Stanley, the rector, and Dr. -Burnet were both on the committee, and everybody went to hear the -lectures. They were<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a>{211}</span> one year on the History of the Merovingians, and -another year on Crockery—I mean Pottery, or rather Ceramic Art—and a -third upon the Arctic Circle. They were thus calculated to produce a -broad general intelligence, people said, though it was more difficult to -see how they extended the system of the Universities, which seldom -devote themselves to such varied studies. But they were very popular, -especially those which were illustrated by the limelight.</p> - -<p>All the ladies in Sliplin who had any respect for themselves attended -these lectures, and a number read up the subjects privately, and wrote -essays, the best of which were in their turn read out at subsequent -meetings for the edification of the others. I think, however, these -essays were rarely appreciated except by the families of the writers. -But it may be easily perceived that a great deal of mental activity was -going on where all this occurred.</p> - -<p>The men of the community took a great deal less trouble in the -improvement of their minds—two or three of them came to the lectures, a -rather shame-faced minority amid the ranks of the ladies, but not one, -so far as I have heard, belonged to a mutual improvement society, or -profited by a correspondence class, or joined a Reading Union. Whether -this was because they were originally better educated, or naturally had -less intellectual enthusiasm, I cannot tell. In other places it might -have been supposed to be because they had less leisure; but that was -scarcely to be asserted in Sliplin, where nobody, or hardly anybody, had -anything to do. There was a good club, and very good billiard tables, -which perhaps supplied an alternative; but I would not willingly say -anything to the prejudice of the gentlemen, who were really, in a -general way, as intelligent as the ladies, though they did so much less -for the improvement of their minds. Now, the people whom Katherine -Tredgold had met at Steephill did none of these things—the officers and -their society as represented by Charlie Somers and Algy Scott, and their -original leader, Mrs. Seton, were, it is needless to state, absolutely -innocent of any such efforts. Therefore Katherine, as may be said, had -gained<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a>{212}</span> rather than lost by being so much more drawn into this -intellectually active circle when dropped by that of Lady Jane.</p> - -<p>The chief male personages in this society were certainly the doctor and -the clergyman. Curates came and curates went, and some of them were -clever and some the reverse; but Mr. Stanley and Dr. Burnet went on for -ever. They were of course invariably of all the dinner parties, but -there the level of intelligence was not so high—the other gentlemen in -the town and the less important ones in the country coming in as a more -important element. But in the evening parties, which were popular in -Sliplin during the winter, and the afternoon-tea parties which some -people, who did not care to go out at night, tried hard to introduce in -their place, they were supreme. It was astonishing how the doctor, so -hard-worked a man, managed to find scraps of time for so many of these -assemblages. He was never there during the whole of these symposia. He -came very late or he went away very early, he put in half an hour -between two rounds, or he ran in for ten minutes while he waited for his -dog-cart. But the occasions were very rare on which he did not appear -one time or another during the course of the entertainment. Mr. Stanley, -of course, was always on the spot. He was a very dignified clergyman, -though he had not risen to any position in the Church beyond that of -Rector of Sliplin. He preached well, he read well, he looked well, he -had not too much to do; he had brought up his motherless family in the -most beautiful way, with never any entanglement of governesses or -anything that could be found fault with for a moment. Naturally, being -the father of a family, the eldest of which was twenty-two, he was not -in his first youth; but very few men of forty-seven looked so young or -so handsome and well set up. He took the greatest interest in the mental -development of the Sliplin society, presiding at the University -Extension as well as all the other meetings, and declaring publicly, to -the great encouragement of all the other students, that he himself had -“learned a great deal” from the Merovingians lectures and the Ceramic -lectures, and those on the Arctic regions.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a>{213}</span></p> - -<p>Mr. Stanley had three daughters, and a son who was at Cambridge; and a -pretty old Rectory with beautiful rooms, and everything very graceful -and handsome about him. The young people were certainly a drawback to -any matrimonial aspirations on his part; but it was surmised that he -entertained them all the same. Miss Mildmay was one of the people who -was most deeply convinced on this subject. She had an eye which could -see through stone walls in this particular. She knew when a man -conceived the idea of asking a woman to marry him before he knew it -himself. When she decided that a thing was to be (always in this line) -it came to pass. Her judgment was infallible. She knew all the -signs—how the man was being wrought up to the point of proposing, and -what the woman’s answer was going to be—and she took the keenest -interest in the course of the little drama. It was only a pity that she -had so little exercise for her faculty in that way, for there were few -marriages in Sliplin. The young men went away and found their wives in -other regions; the young women stayed at home, or else went off on -visits where, when they had any destiny at all, they found their fate. -It was therefore all the more absorbing in its interest when anything of -the kind came her way. Stella’s affair had been outside her orbit, and -she had gained no advantage from it; but the rector and the doctor and -Katherine Tredgold were a trio that kept her attention fully awake.</p> - -<p>There was a party in the Rectory about Christmas, at which all Sliplin -was present. It was a delightful house for a party. There was a pretty -old hall most comfortably warmed—which is a rare attraction in -halls—with a handsome oak staircase rising out of it, and a gallery -above which ran along two sides. The drawing-room was also a beautiful -old room, low, but large, with old furniture judiciously mingled with -new, and a row of recessed windows looking to the south and clothed -outside with a great growth of myrtle, with pink buds still visible at -Christmas amid the frost and snow. Inside it was bright with many lamps -and blazing fires; and there were several rooms to sit in, according to -the dispositions of the guests—the hall where the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a>{214}</span> young people -gathered together, the drawing-rooms to which favoured people went when -they were bidden to go up higher, and Mr. Stanley’s study, where a group -of sybarites were always to be found, for it was the warmest and most -luxurious of all. The hall made the greatest noise, for Bertie was there -with various of his own order, home, like himself, for Christmas, and -clusters of girls, all chattering at the tops of their voices, and -urging each other to the point of proposing a dance, for which the hall -was so suitable, and quite large enough. The drawing-room was full of an -almost equally potent volume of sound, for everybody was talking, though -the individual voices might be lower in tone. But in the study it was -more or less quiet. The Rector himself had taken Katherine there to show -her some of his books. “It would be absurd to call them priceless,” he -said, “for any chance might bring a set into the market, and then, of -course, a price would be put upon them, varying according to the -dealer’s knowledge and the demand; but they are rare, and for a poor man -like me to have been able to get them at all is—well, I think that, -with all modesty, it is a feather in my cap; I mean, to get them at a -price within my means.”</p> - -<p>“It is only people who know that ever get bargains, I think,” Katherine -said, in discharge of that barren duty of admiration and approval on -subjects we do not understand, which makes us all responsible for many -foolish speeches. Mr. Stanley’s fine taste was not quite pleased with -the idea that his last acquisition was a bargain, but he let that pass.</p> - -<p>“Yes; I think that, without transgressing the limits of modesty, I may -allow that to be the case. It holds in everything; those who know what a -friend is attain to the best friends; those who can appreciate a noble -woman——”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” said Katherine, a little startled, “that is carrying the principle -perhaps too far. I was thinking of china, you know, and things of that -sort—when you see an insignificant little pot which you would not give -sixpence for, and suddenly a connoisseur comes in who puts down the -sixpence in a great hurry and carries it off rejoicing—and you hear -afterwards that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a>{215}</span> it was priceless, too, though not, of course,” she -added apologetically, “like your books.”</p> - -<p>“Quite true, quite true,” said the Rector blandly; “but I maintain my -principle all the same, and the real prize sometimes stands unnoticed -while some rubbish is chosen instead. I hope,” he added in a lower tone, -“that you have good news from your sister, Miss Katherine, and at this -season of peace and forgiveness that your father is thinking a little -more kindly——”</p> - -<p>“My father says very little on the subject,” Katherine said. She knew -what he did say, which nobody else did, and the recollection made her -shiver. It was very concise, as the reader knows.</p> - -<p>“We must wait and hope—he has such excellent—perceptions,” said the -Rector, stumbling a little for a word, “and so much—good sense—that I -don’t doubt everything will come right.” Then he added, bending over -her, “Do you think that I could be of any use?” He took her hand for a -moment, half fatherly in his tender sympathy. “Could I help you, -perhaps, to induce him——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, no!” cried Katherine, drawing her hand away; her alarm, -however, was not for anything further that the Rector might say to -herself, but in terror at the mere idea of anyone ever hearing what Mr. -Tredgold said.</p> - -<p>“Ah, well,” he said with a sigh, “another time—perhaps another time.” -And then by way of changing the subject Katherine hurried off to a -little display of drawings on the table. Charlotte Stanley, the Rector’s -eldest daughter, had her correspondence class like the other ladies; but -it was a Drawing Union. She was devoted to art. She had made little -drawings since ever she could remember in pencil and in slate-pencil, -and finally in colour. Giotto could not have begun more spontaneously; -and she was apt to think that had she been taken up as Giotto was, she, -too, might have developed as he did. But short of that the Drawing Union -was her favourite occupation. The members sent little portfolios about -from one to another marked by pretty fictitious names. Charlotte<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a>{216}</span> signed -herself Fenella, though it would have been difficult to tell why; for -she was large and fair. The portfolio, with all the other ladies’ -performances, was put out to delight the guests, and along with that -several drawings of her own. She came up hastily to explain them, not, -perhaps, altogether to her father’s satisfaction, but he yielded his -place with his usual gentleness.</p> - -<p>“We send our drawings every month,” said the young artist, “and they are -criticised first and then sent round. Mr. Strange, of the Water Colour -Society, is our critic. He is quite distinguished; here is his little -note in the corner. ‘Good in places, but the sky is heavy, and there is -a want of atmospheric effect’—that is Fair Rosamond’s. Oh, yes, I know -her other name, but we are not supposed to mention them; and this is one -of mine—see what he says: ‘Great improvement, shows much desire to -learn, but too much stippling and great hardness in parts.’ I confess I -am too fond of stippling,” Charlotte said. “And then every month we have -a composition. ‘The Power of Music’ was the subject last time—that or -‘Sowing the Seed.’ I chose the music. You will think, perhaps, it is -very simple.” She lifted a drawing in which a little child in a red -frock and blue pinafore stood looking up at a bird of uncertain race in -a cage. “You see what he says,” Charlotte continued—“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Full of good -intention, the colour perhaps a little crude, but there is much feeling -in the sketch.’ Now, feeling was precisely what I aimed at,” she said.</p> - -<p>Katherine was no judge of drawing any more than she was of literature, -and though the little picture did not appeal to her (for there were -pictures at the Cliff, and she had lived in the same room with several -Hunts and one supreme scrap of Turner—bought a bargain on the -information that it was a safe investment many years ago—and therefore -had an eye more cultivated than she was aware of) she was impressed by -her friend’s achievement, and thought it was a great thing to employ -your time in such elevated ways. Evelyn, who was only seventeen and very -frolicsome, wrote essays for the Mutual<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a>{217}</span> Improvement Society. This -filled Katherine, who did nothing particular, with great respect. She -found a little knot of them consulting and arguing what they were to say -in the next paper, and she was speechless with admiration. Inferior! -Lady Jane did not think much of the Sliplin people. She had warned the -girls in the days of her ascendency not to “mix themselves up” with the -village folk, not to conduct themselves as if they belonged to the -nobodies. But Lady Jane had never, Katherine felt sure, written an essay -in her life. She had her name on the Committee of the University -Extension centre at Sliplin, but she never attended a lecture. She it -was who was inferior, she and her kind: if intellect counted for -anything, surely, Katherine thought, the intellect was here.</p> - -<p>And then Dr. Burnet, came flying in, bringing a gust of fresh air with -him. Though he had but a very short time to spare, he made his way to -her through all the people who detained him. “I am glad to see you here; -you don’t despise the village parties,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Despise them!—but I am not nearly good enough for them. I feel so -small and so ignorant—they are all thinking of so many things—essays -and criticisms and I don’t know what. It is they who should despise me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t think very much of the essays—nor would you if you saw -them,” Dr. Burnet said.</p> - -<p>“I tell you all,” said Miss Mildmay, “though you are so grand with your -theories and so forth, it is the old-fashioned girls who know nothing -about such nonsense that the gentlemen like best.”</p> - -<p>“The gentlemen—what gentlemen?” said Katherine, not at all comforted by -this side of the question, and, indeed, not very clear what was meant.</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t pretend to be a little fool,” said Miss Mildmay. She was -quite anxious to promote what she considered to be Katherine’s two -chances—the two strings she had to her bow—but to put up with this -show of ignorance was too much for her. She went off angrily to where -her companion sat,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a>{218}</span> yawning a little over an entertainment which -depended so entirely for its success upon whether you had someone nice -to talk to or not. “Kate Tredgold worries me,” she said. “She pretends -she knows nothing, when she is just as well up to it as either you or -I.”</p> - -<p>“I am up to nothing,” said Mrs. Shanks; “I only know what you say; and I -don’t believe Mr. Tredgold would give his daughter and only heiress to -either of them—if Stella is cut off, poor thing——”</p> - -<p>“Stella will not be cut off,” said Miss Mildmay. “Mark my words. He’ll -go back to her sooner or later; and what a good thing if Katherine had -someone to stand by her before then!”</p> - -<p>“If you saw two straws lying together in the road you would think there -was something between them,” cried Mrs. Shanks, yawning more than ever. -“Oh, Ruth Mildmay, fancy our being brought out on a cold night and -having to pay for the Midge and all that, and nothing more in it than to -wag our heads at each other about Katherine Tredgold’s marriage, if it -ever comes off!”</p> - -<p>“Let me take you in to supper,” said the rector, approaching with his -arm held out.</p> - -<p>And then Mrs. Shanks felt that there was compensation in all things. She -was taken in one of the first, she said afterwards; not the very -first—she could not expect that, with Mrs. Barry of Northcote present, -and General Skelton’s wife. The army and the landed gentry naturally -were first. But Miss Mildmay did not follow till long after—till the -doctor found her still standing in a corner, with that grim look of -suppressed scorn and satirical spectatorship with which the proud -neglected watch the vulgar stream pressing before them.</p> - -<p>“Have you not been <i>in</i> yet?” the doctor said.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Miss Mildmay. “You see, I am not young to go with the girls, -nor married to go with the ladies who are at the head of society. I only -stand and look on.”</p> - -<p>“That is just my case,” said Dr. Burnet. “I am not young to go with the -girls, nor married to disport myself with Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a>{219}</span> Barry or such magnates. -Let us be jolly together, for we are both in the same box.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you let that girl slip through your fingers,” said Miss Mildmay -solemnly, as she went “in” on his arm.</p> - -<p>“Will she ever come within reach of my fingers?” the doctor said, -shaking his head.</p> - -<p>“You are not old, like that Stanley man; you’ve got no family dragging -you back. I should not stand by if I were you, and let her be seduced -into this house as the stepmother!” said Miss Mildmay with energy.</p> - -<p>“Don’t talk like that in the man’s house. He is a good man, and we are -just going to eat his sandwiches.”</p> - -<p>“If there are any left,” Miss Mildmay said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a>{220}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Thus</span> it will be seen that Katherine’s new position as the only daughter -of her father was altogether like a new beginning of life, though she -had been familiar with the place and the people for years. Stella had -been the leader in everything, as has been said. When she went to a -party at the Rectory, she turned it into a dance or a romp at once, and -kept the Drawing Union and the Mutual Improvement Society quite in the -background. Even the books which for a year or two back the rector would -have liked to show Katherine privately, beguiling her into separate -talks, had been thrust aside necessarily when Katherine was imperiously -demanded for Sir Roger de Coverley or a round game. Therefore these more -studious and elevated occupations of the little community came upon her -now with the force of a surprise. Her own home was changed to her also -in the most remarkable way. Stella was not a creature whom anyone fully -approved of, not even her sister. She was very indifferent to the -comfort and wishes of others; she loved her own amusement by whatever -way it could be best obtained. She was restrained by no scruples about -the proprieties, or the risk—which was one of Katherine’s chief -terrors—of hurting other people’s feelings. She did what she liked, -instantaneously, recklessly, at any risk. And her father himself, though -he chuckled and applauded and took a certain pride in her cleverness -even when she cheated and defied him, did not pretend to approve of -Stella; but she carried her little world with her all the same. There -was a current, a whirl of air about her rapid progress. The stiller -figures were swept on with her whether they liked it or not; and, as a -matter of fact, they generally did like it when fairly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a>{221}</span> afloat upon that -quick-flowing, rippling, continuous stream of youth and life.</p> - -<p>But now that all this movement and variety had departed nothing could be -imagined more dull than Mr. Tredgold’s house on the Cliff. It was like a -boat cast ashore—no more commotion of the sea and waves, no more risk -of hurricane or tempest, no need to shout against the noise of a -cyclone, or to steer in the teeth of a gale. It was all silent, all -quiet, nothing to be done, no tides to touch the motionless mass or -tinkle against the dull walls of wood. When Katherine received her -guests from the city, she felt as if she were showing them over a museum -rather than a house. “This is the room we used to sit in when my sister -was at home; I do not use it now.” How often had she to say such words -as these! And when the heavy tax of these visits had been paid she found -herself again high and dry, once more stranded, when the last carriage -had driven away.</p> - -<p>But the rush of little parties and festivities about Christmas, when all -the sons and brothers were at home, into which she was half forced by -the solicitations of her neighbours, and half by her own forlorn longing -to see and speak to somebody, made a not unwelcome change. The ladies in -Sliplin, especially those who had sons, had always been anxious to -secure the two Miss Tredgolds, the two heiresses, for every -entertainment, and there was nothing mercenary in the increased -attention paid to Katherine. She would have been quite rich enough with -half her father’s fortune to have fulfilled the utmost wishes of any -aspirant in the village. The doctor and the rector had both thought of -Katherine before there was any change in her fortunes—at the time when -it was believed that Stella would have the lion’s share of the money, as -well as, evidently, of the love. In that they were quite unlike the city -suitors, who only found her worth their while from the point of view of -old Tredgold’s entire and undivided fortune. Indeed, it is to be feared -that Sliplin generally would have been overawed by the greatness of her -heiresshood had it grasped this idea. But still nobody believed in the -disinheriting of Stella. They believed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a>{222}</span> that she would be allowed to -repent at leisure of her hasty marriage, but never that she would be -finally cut off. The wooing of the rector and that of the doctor had -only reached an acuter stage because now Katherine was alone. They felt -that she was solitary and downcast, and wanted cheering and a companion -to indemnify her for what she had lost, and this naturally increased the -chances of the fortunate man who should succeed.</p> - -<p>Mr. Stanley would (perhaps) have been alarmed at the idea of offering -the position of stepmother to his children to Mr. Tredgold’s sole -heiress; although he would not, perhaps, have thought that in justice to -his family he could have asked her to share his lot had it not been -evident that she must have her part of her father’s fortune. He was a -moderate man—modest, as he would himself have said—and he had made up -his mind that Katherine in Stella’s shadow would have made a perfect -wife for him. Therefore he had been frightened rather than elated by the -change in her position; but with the consciousness of his previous -sentiments, which were so disinterested, he had got over that, and now -felt that in her loneliness a proposal such as he had to make might be -even more agreeable than in other circumstances. The doctor was in -something of the same mind. He was not at all like Turny and Company. He -felt the increased fortune to be a drawback, making more difference -between them than had existed before, but yet met this difficulty like a -man, feeling that it might be got over. He would probably have hesitated -more if she had been cut off without a shilling as Stella was supposed, -but never believed, to be.</p> - -<p>Neither of these gentlemen had any idea of that formula upon which Mr. -Tredgold stood. The money on the table, thousand for thousand, would -have been inconceivable to them. Indeed, they did not believe, -notwithstanding the experience of Sir Charles Somers, that there would -be much difficulty in dealing with old Tredgold. He might tie up his -money, and these good men had no objection—they did not want to grasp -at her money. Let him tie it up! They would neither of them have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a>{223}</span> -opposed that. As to further requirements on his part they were tranquil, -neither of them being penniless, or in the condition, they both felt, to -be considered fortune-hunters at all. The curious thing was that they -were each aware of the other’s sentiments, without hating each other, or -showing any great amount of jealousy. Perhaps the crisis had not come -near enough to excite this; perhaps it was because they were neither of -them young, and loved with composure as they did most things; yet the -doctor had some seven years the advantage of the rector, and was -emphatically a young man still, not middle-aged at all.</p> - -<p>It was partly their unconscious influence that drew Katherine into the -way of life which was approved by all around her. The doctor persuaded -her to go to the ambulance class, which she attended weekly, very sure -that she never would have had the courage to apply a tourniquet or even -a bandage had a real emergency occurred. “Now, Stella could have done -it,” she said within herself. Stella’s hands would not have trembled, -nor her heart failed her. It was the rector who recommended her to join -the Mutual Improvement Society, offering to look over her essays, and to -lend her as many books as she might require. And it was under the -auspices of both that Katherine appeared at the University Extension -Lectures, and learned all about the Arctic regions and the successive -expeditions that had perished there. “I wish it had been India,” she -said on one occasion; “I should like to know about India, now that -Stella is there.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t doubt in the least that after Christmas we might get a series -on India. It is a great, a most interesting subject; what do you think, -Burnet?”</p> - -<p>Burnet entirely agreed with him. “Nothing better,” he said; “capital -contrast to the ice and the snow.”</p> - -<p>And naturally Katherine was bound to attend the new series which had -been so generously got up for her. There were many pictures and much -limelight, and everybody was delighted with the change.</p> - -<p>“What we want in winter is a nice warm blazing sun, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a>{224}</span> not something -colder than we have at home,” cried Mrs. Shanks.</p> - -<p>And Katherine sat and looked at the views and wondered where Stella was, -and then privately to herself wondered where James Stanford was, and -what he could be doing, and if he ever thought now of the old days. -There was not very much to think of, as she reflected when she asked -herself that question; but still she did ask it under her breath.</p> - -<p>“Remember, Miss Katherine, that all my books are at your service,” said -the rector, coming in to the end of the drawing-room where Katherine had -made herself comfortable behind the screens; “and if you would like me -to look at your essay, and make perhaps a few suggestions before you -send it in——”</p> - -<p>“I was not writing any essay. I was only writing to—my sister,” said -Katherine.</p> - -<p>“To be sure. It is the India mail day, I remember. Excuse me for coming -to interrupt you. What a thing for her to have a regular correspondent -like you! You still think I couldn’t be of any use to say a word to your -father? You know that I am always at your disposition. Anything I can -do——”</p> - -<p>“You are very good, but I don’t think it would be of any use.” Katherine -shivered a little, as she always did at the dreadful thought of anyone -hearing what her father said.</p> - -<p>“I am only good to myself when I try to be of use to you,” the rector -said, and he added, with a little vehemence, “I only wish you would -understand how dearly I should like to think that you would come to me -in any emergency, refer to me at once, whatever the matter might be——”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, Mr. Stanley, I understand, and I do,” she said, raising her -eyes to his gratefully. “You remember how I appealed to you that -dreadful time, and how much—how much you did for us?”</p> - -<p>“Ah, you sent Burnet to me,” he said, “that’s not exactly the same. Of -course, I did what I could; but what I should like would be that you -should come with full confidence to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a>{225}</span> tell me anything that vexes you, or -to ask me to do anything you want done, like——”</p> - -<p>“I know,” she said. “Like Charlotte and Evelyn. And, indeed, I should, -indeed I will—trust me for that.”</p> - -<p>The rector drew back, as if she had flung in his face the vase of clear -water which was waiting on the table beside her for the flowers she -meant to put in it. He gave an impatient sigh and walked to the window, -with a little movement of his hands which Katherine did not understand.</p> - -<p>“Oh, has it begun to snow?” she said, for the sky was very grey, as if -full of something that must soon overflow and fall, and everybody had -been expecting snow for twenty-four hours past.</p> - -<p>“No, it has not begun to snow,” he said. “It is pelting hailstones—no, -I don’t mean that; nothing is coming down as yet—at least, out of the -sky. Perhaps I had better leave you to finish your letter.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, there is no hurry about that. There are hours yet before post-time, -and I have nearly said all I have to say. I have been telling her I am -studying India. It is a big subject,” Katherine said. “And how kind you -and Dr. Burnet were, getting this series of lectures instead of another -for me—though I think everybody is interested, and the pictures are -beautiful with the limelight.”</p> - -<p>“I should have thought of it before,” said the rector. “As for Burnet, -he wanted some scientific series about evolution and that sort of thing. -Medical men are always mad after science, or what they believe to be -such. But as soon as I saw how much you wished it——”</p> - -<p>“A thing one has something to do with is always so much the more -interesting,” Katherine said, half apologetically.</p> - -<p>“I hope you know that if it were left to me I should choose only those -subjects that you are interested in.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no,” cried Katherine, “not so much as that. You are so kind, you -want to please and interest us all.”</p> - -<p>“Kindness is one thing; but there are other motives that tell still more -strongly.” The rector went to and from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a>{226}</span> window, where Katherine -believed him to be looking out for the snow, which lingered so long, to -the table, where she still trifled with her pen in her hand, and had not -yet laid it down to put the flowers which lay in a little basket into -water. The good clergyman was more agitated than he should have thought -possible. Should he speak? He was so much wound up to the effort that it -seemed as if it must burst forth at any moment, in spite of himself; -but, on the other hand, he was afraid lest he might precipitate matters. -He watched her hands involuntarily every time he approached her, and -then he said to himself that when she had put down the pen and begun to -arrange the flowers, he would make the plunge, but not till then. That -should be his sign.</p> - -<p>It was a long time before this happened. Katherine held her pen as if it -had been a shield, though she was not at all aware of the importance -thus assigned to it. She had a certain sense of protection in its use. -She thought that if she kept up the fiction of continuing her letter Mr. -Stanley would go away; and somehow she did not care for him so much as -usual to-day. She had always had every confidence in him, and would have -gone to him at any time, trusting to his sympathy and kindness; but to -be appealed to to do this, as if it were some new thing, confused her -mind. Why, of course she had faith in him, but she did not like the look -with which he made that appeal. Why should he look at her like that? He -had known her almost all her life, and taught her her Catechism and her -duty, which, though they may be endearing things, are not endearing in -that way. If Katherine had been asked in what way, she would probably -have been unable to answer; but yet in her heart she wished very much -that Mr. Stanley would go away.</p> - -<p>At last, when it seemed to her that this was hopeless—that he would not -take the hint broadly furnished by her unfinished letter—she did put -down the pen, and, pushing her writing-book away, drew towards her the -little basket of flowers from the conservatory, which the gardener -brought her every day. They were very waxen and winterly, as flowers -still are in January, and she took them up one by one, arranging them so -as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a>{227}</span> to make the most of such colour as there was. The rector had turned -at the end of his little promenade when she did so, and came back -rapidly when he heard the little movement. She was aware of the -quickened step, and said, smiling, “Well, has the snow begun at last?”</p> - -<p>“There is no question of snow,” he said hurriedly, and Katherine heard -with astonishment the panting of his breath, and looked up—to see a -very flushed and anxious countenance directed towards her. Mr. Stanley -was a handsome man of his years, but his was a style which demanded calm -and composure and the tranquillity of an even mind to do it justice. He -was excited now, which was very unbecoming; his cheeks were flushed, his -lips parted with hasty breathing. “Katherine,” he said, “it is something -much more important than—any change outside.” He waved his hand almost -contemptuously at the window, as if the snow was a slight affair, not -worth mentioning. “I am afraid,” he said, standing with his hand on the -table looking down upon her, yet rather avoiding her steady, -half-wondering look, “that you are too little self-conscious to have -observed lately—any change in me.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” she said faltering, looking up at him; “is there -anything the matter, really? I have thought once or twice—that you -looked a little disturbed.”</p> - -<p>It flashed into her mind that there might be something wrong in the -family, that Bertie might have been extravagant, that help might be -wanted from her rich father. Oh, poor Mr. Stanley! if his handsome -stately calm should be disturbed by such a trouble as that? Katherine’s -look grew very kind, very sympathising as she looked up into his face.</p> - -<p>“I have often, I am sure, looked disturbed. Katherine, it is not a small -matter when a man like me finds his position changed in respect to—one -like yourself—by an overmastering sentiment which has taken possession -of him he knows not how, and which he is quite unable to restrain.”</p> - -<p>“Rector!” cried Katherine astonished, looking up at him with even more -feeling than before. “Mr. Stanley! have I done anything?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a>{228}</span></p> - -<p>“That shows,” he cried, with something like a stamp of his foot and an -impatient movement of his hand, “how much I have to contend with. You -think of me as nothing but your clergyman—a—a sort of pedagogue—and -your thought is that he is displeased—that there is something he is -going to find fault with——”</p> - -<p>“No,” she said. “You are too kind to find fault; but—— I am sure I -never neglect anything you say to me. Tell me what it is—and I—I will -not take offence. I will do my very best——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, how hard it is to make you understand! You put me on a -pedestal—whereas it is you who—— Katherine! do you know that you are -not a little girl any longer, but a woman, and a—most attractive one? I -have struggled against it, knowing that was not the light in which I can -have appeared to you, but it’s too strong for me. I have come to tell -you of a feeling which has existed for years on my part—and to ask -you—if there is any possibility, any hope, to ask you—to marry me——” -The poor rector! his voice almost died away in his throat. He put one -knee to the ground—not, I need not say, with any prayerful intention, -but only to put himself on the same level with her, with his hands on -the edge of her table, and gazed into her face.</p> - -<p>“To—— What did you say, Mr. Stanley?” she asked, with horror in her -eyes.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be hasty, for the sake of heaven! Don’t condemn me unheard. I -know all the disparities, all the—— But, Katherine, my love for you is -more than all that. I have been trying to keep it down for years. I -said, to marry me—to marry me, my dear and only——”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean that you are on your knees to me, a girl whom you have -catechised?” cried Katherine severely, holding her head high.</p> - -<p>The rector stumbled up in great confusion to his feet. “No, I did not -mean that. I was not kneeling to you. I was only—— Oh, Katherine, how -small a detail is this! God knows I do not want to make myself absurd in -your<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a>{229}</span> eyes. I am much older than you are. I am—but your true lover -notwithstanding—for years; and your most fond and faithful—— -Katherine! if you will be my wife——”</p> - -<p>“And the mother of Charlotte and Bertie!” said Katherine, looking at him -with shining eyes. “Charlotte is a year younger than I am. She comes -between Stella and me; and Bertie thinks he is in love with me too. Is -it <i>that</i> you come and offer to a girl, Mr. Stanley? Oh, I know. Girls -who are governesses and poor have it offered to them and are grateful. -But I am as well off as you are. And do you think it likely that I would -want to change my age and be my own mother for the sake of—what? Being -married? I don’t want to be married. Oh, Mr. Stanley, it is wicked of -you to confuse everything—to change all our ways of looking at each -other—to——” Katherine almost broke down into a torrent of angry -tears, but controlled herself for wrath’s sake.</p> - -<p>The rector stood before her with his head down, as sorely humiliated a -man as ever clergyman was. “If you take it in that light, what can I -say? I had hoped you would not take it in that light. I am not an old -man. I have not been accustomed to—apologise for myself,” he said, with -a gleam of natural self-assertion. He, admired of ladies for miles -round—to the four seas, so to speak—on every hand. He could have told -her things! But the man was <i>digne</i>; he was no traitor nor ungrateful -for kindness shown him. “If you think, Katherine, that the accident of -my family and of a very early first marriage is so decisive, there is -perhaps nothing more to be said. But many men only begin life at my age; -and I think it is ungenerous—to throw my children in my teeth—when I -was speaking to you—of things so different——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mr. Stanley,” cried Katherine, subdued, “I am very, very sorry. I -did not mean to throw—anything in your teeth. But how could anyone -forget Charlotte and Bertie and Evelyn and the rest? Do you call them an -accident—all the family?” Katherine’s voice rose till it was almost -shrill in the thought of this injury to her friends. “But I only think<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a>{230}</span> -of you as their father and my clergyman—and always very, very kind,” -she said.</p> - -<p>The flowers had never yet got put into the water. She had thrown them -down again into the basket. The empty vase stood reproachfully full and -useless, reflecting in its side a tiny sparkle of the firelight; and the -girl sitting over them, and the man standing by her, had both of them -downcast heads, and did not dare to look at each other. This group -continued for a moment, and then he moved again towards the window. “It -has begun at last,” he said in a strange changed tone. “It is snowing -fast.”</p> - -<p>And the rector walked home in a blinding downfall, and was a white man, -snow covered, when he arrived at home, where his children ran out to -meet him, exclaiming at his beard which had grown white, and his hair, -which, when his hat was taken off, exhibited a round of natural colour -fringed off with ends of snow. The family surrounded him with -chatterings and caresses, pulling off his coat, unwinding his scarf, -shaking off the snow, leading him into the warm room by the warm fire, -running off for warm shoes and everything he could want. An accident! -The accident of a family! He submitted with a great effort over himself, -but in his heart he would have liked to push them off, the whole band of -them, into the snow.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a>{231}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">It</span> will perhaps be thought very unfeeling of Katherine to have received -as she did this unlooked for elderly lover. All Sliplin, it is true, -could have told her for some time past that the Rector was in love with -her, and meant to make her an offer, and Miss Mildmay believed that she -had been aware of it long before that. But it had never occurred to -Katherine that the father of Charlotte and Gerard was occupied with -herself in any way, or that such an idea could enter his mind. He had -heard her say her catechism! He had given Charlotte in her presence the -little sting of a reproof about making a noise, and other domestic sins -which Katherine was very well aware she was intended to share. In the -<i>douceurs</i> which, there was no denying, he had lately shed about, she -had thought of nothing but a fatherly intention to console her in her -changed circumstances; and to think that all the time this old -middle-aged man, this father of a family, had it in his mind to make her -his wife! Katherine let her flowers lie drooping, and paced up and down -the room furious, angry even with herself. Forty-five is a tremendous -age to three-and-twenty; and it was the first time she had ever received -a proposal straight in the face, so to speak. Turny and Company had -treated with her father, but had retreated from before her own severe -aspect when she gave it to be seen how immovable she was. And to think -that her first veritable proposal should be this—a thing that filled -her with indignation! What! did the man suppose for a moment that she, -his daughter’s friend, would marry him? Did all men think that a girl -would do anything to be married?—or what did they think?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a>{232}</span></p> - -<p>Katherine could not realise that Mr. Stanley to the Rector was not at -all the same person that he was to her. The Rector thought himself in -the prime of life, and so he was. The children belonged to him and he -was accustomed to them, and did not, except now and then, think them a -great burden; but himself was naturally the first person in his -thoughts. He knew that he was a very personable man, that his voice was -considered beautiful, and his aspect (in the pulpit) imposing. His -features were good, his height was good, he was in full health and -vigour. Why shouldn’t he have asked anybody to marry him? The idea that -it was an insult to a girl never entered his mind. And it was no insult. -He was not even poor or in pursuit of her wealth. No doubt her wealth -would make a great difference, but that was not in the least his motive, -for he had thought of her for years. And in his own person he was a man -any woman might have been proud of. All this was very visible to him.</p> - -<p>But to Katherine it only appeared that Mr. Stanley was forty-five, that -he was the father of a girl as old as herself, and of a young man, whom -she had laughed at, indeed, but who also had wished to make love to her. -What would Gerard say? This was the first thing that changed Katherine’s -mood, that made her laugh. It brought in a ludicrous element. What -Charlotte would say was not half so funny. Charlotte would be horrified, -but she would probably think that any woman might snatch at a man so -admired as her father, and the fear of being put out of her place would -occupy her and darken her understanding. But the thought of Gerard made -Katherine laugh and restored her equilibrium. Strengthened by this new -view she came down from her pinnacle of indignation and began to look -after the things she had to do. The snow went on falling thickly, a -white moving veil across every one of the windows; the great flickering -flakes falling now quickly, now slowly, and everything growing whiter -and whiter against the half-seen grey of the sky. This whiteness shut in -the house, encircling it as with a flowing mantle. Nobody would come -near the house that afternoon, nobody<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a>{233}</span> would come out that could help -it—not even the midge was likely to appear along the white path. The -snow made an end of visitors, and Katherine felt herself shut up within -it, condemned not to hear any voice or meet with any incident for the -rest of the day. It was not a cheering sensation. She finished her -letter to Stella, and paused and wondered whether she should tell her -what had happened; but she fortunately remembered that a high standard -of honour forbade the disclosure of secrets like this, which were the -secrets of others as well as her own. She had herself condemned from -that high eminence with much indignation the way in which other girls -blazoned such secrets. She would not be like one of them. And besides, -Stella and her husband would laugh and make jokes in bad taste and hold -up the Rector to the laughter of the regiment, which would not be fair -though Katherine was so angry with him. When she had finished her letter -she returned to the flowers, and finally arranged them as she had -intended to do long ago. And then she went and stood for a long time at -the window watching the snow falling. It was very dull to see nobody, to -be alone, all alone, for all these hours. There was a new novel fresh -from Mudie’s on the table, which was always something to look forward -to; but even a novel is but a poor substitute for society when you have -been so shaken and put out of your <i>assiette</i> as Katherine had been by a -personal incident. Would she have told anyone if anyone had come? She -said to herself, “No, certainly not.” But as she was still thrilling and -throbbing all over, and felt it almost impossible to keep still, I -cannot feel so sure as she was that she would not have followed a -multitude to do evil, and betrayed her suitor’s secret by way of -relieving her own mind. But I am sure that she would have felt very -sorry had she done so as soon as the words were out of her mouth.</p> - -<p>She had seated herself by the fire and taken up her novel, not with the -content and pleasure which a well-conditioned girl ought to exhibit at -the sight of a new story in three volumes (in which form it is always -most welcome, according<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a>{234}</span> to my old-fashioned ideas) and a long afternoon -to enjoy it in, but still with resignation and a pulse beating more -quietly—when there arose sounds which indicated a visit after all. -Katherine listened eagerly, then subsided as the footsteps and voices -faded again, going off to the other end of the house.</p> - -<p>“Dr. Burnet to see papa,” she said half with relief, half with -expectation. She had no desire to see Dr. Burnet. She could not -certainly to him breathe the faintest sigh of a revelation, or relieve -her mind by the most distant hint of anything that had happened. Still, -he was somebody. It was rather agreeable to give him tea. The bread and -butter disappeared so quickly, and it had come to be such a familiar -operation to watch those strong white teeth getting through it. -Certainly he had wonderful teeth. Katherine gave but a half attention to -her book, listening to the sounds in the house. Her father’s door -closed, he had gone in, and then after a while the bell rang and the -footsteps became audible once more in the corridor. She closed her book -upon her hand wondering if he would come this way, or—— He was coming -this way! She pushed her chair away from the hearth, feeling that, what -with the past excitement and the glow of the fire, her cheeks were -ablaze.</p> - -<p>But Dr. Burnet did not seem to see this when he came in. She had gone to -the window by that time to look out again upon the falling snow. It was -falling, falling, silent and white and soft, in large flakes like -feathers, or rather like white swan’s down. He joined her there and they -stood looking at it together, and saying to each other how it seemed to -close round the house and wrap everything up as in a downy mantle.</p> - -<p>“I like to see it,” the doctor said, “which is very babyish, I know. I -like to see that flutter in the air and the great soft flakes dilating -as they fall. But it puts a great stop to everything. You have had no -visitors, I suppose, to-day?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, before it came on,” said Katherine; and then she added in a -voice which she felt to be strange even while she spoke, “The Rector was -here.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a>{235}</span></p> - -<p>That was all—not another word did she say; but Dr. Burnet gave her a -quick look, and he knew as well as the reader knows what had happened. -The Rector, then, had struck his blow. No doubt it was by deliberate -purpose that he had chosen a day threatening snow, when nobody was -likely to interrupt him. And he had made his explanation and it had not -been well received. The doctor divined all this and his heart gave a -jump of pleasure, though Katherine had not said a word, and indeed had -not looked at him, but stood steadily with a blank countenance in which -there was nothing to be read, gazing out upon the snow. Sometimes a -blank countenance displays more than the frankest speech.</p> - -<p>“He is a handsome man—for his time of life,” Dr. Burnet said, he could -not tell why.</p> - -<p>“Yes?” said Katherine, as if she were waiting for further evidence; and -then she added, “It is droll to think of that as being a quality of the -Rector—just as you would say it of a boy.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think that handsome is as handsome does, Miss Katherine? I -should not have expected that of you. I always thought you made a great -point of good looks.”</p> - -<p>“I like nice-looking people,” she said, and in spite of herself gave a -glance aside at the doctor, who in spite of those fine teeth and very -good eyes and other points of advantage, could not have been called -handsome by the most partial of friends.</p> - -<p>“You are looking at me,” he said with a laugh, “and the reflection is -obvious, though perhaps it is only my vanity that imagines you to have -made it. I am not much to brag of, I know it. I am very ’umble. A man -who knows he is good-looking must have a great advantage in life to -begin with. It must give him so much more confidence wherever he makes -his appearance—at least for the first time.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think so?” she said. “I should think one would forget it so -quickly, both the possessor himself and those who look at him. If people -are <i>nice</i> you think of that and not of their beauty, unless—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a>{236}</span>—”</p> - -<p>“Unless what, Miss Katherine? You can’t think how interesting this talk -is to me. Tell me something on which an ugly man can rest and take -courage. You are thinking of John Wilkes’ famous saying that he only -wanted half-an-hour’s start of the handsomest man——”</p> - -<p>“Who was John Wilkes?” said Katherine with the serenest ignorance. “I -suppose one of the men one ought to know; but then I know so little. -After a year of the Mutual Improvement Society——”</p> - -<p>“Don’t trouble about that,” cried the doctor, “but my ambulance classes -are really of the greatest use. I do hope you will attend them. Suppose -there was an accident before your eyes—on the lawn there, and nobody -within reach—what should you do?”</p> - -<p>“Tremble all over and be of use to nobody,” Katherine said with a -shudder.</p> - -<p>“That is just what I want to obviate—that is just what ought to be -obviated. You, with your light touch and your kind heart and your quick -eye——”</p> - -<p>“Have I a quick eye and a light touch?” said Katherine with a laugh; -“and how do you know? It is understood that every girl must have a kind -heart. On the whole, I would rather write an essay, I think, than be -called upon to render first aid. My hand is not at all steady if my -touch is light.”</p> - -<p>She lifted one of the vases as she spoke to change its position and her -hand shook. He looked at it keenly, and she, not thinking of so sudden a -test, put down the vase in a hurry with a wave of colour coming over her -face.</p> - -<p>“That’s not natural, that’s worry, that’s excitement,” Dr. Burnet said.</p> - -<p>“The outlook is not very exciting, is it?” cried Katherine; “one does -not come in the way of much excitement at Sliplin, and I have not even -seen Miss Mildmay and Mrs. Shanks. No, it is natural, doctor. So you see -how little use it would be to train me. Come to the fire and have some -tea.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a>{237}</span></p> - -<p>“I must not give myself this pleasure too often,” he said. “I find -myself going back to it in imagination when I am out in the wilds. It is -precious cold in my dog-cart facing the wind, Miss Katherine. I say to -myself, Now the tea is being brought in in the drawing-room on the -Cliff, now it is being poured out. I smell the fragrance of it driving -along the bitter downs; and then I go and order some poor wretch the -beastliest draught that can be compounded to avenge myself for getting -no tea.”</p> - -<p>“You should give them nothing but nice things, then, when you do have -tea—as now,” said Katherine.</p> - -<p>He came after her to where the little tea-table shone and sparkled in -the firelight, and took from her hand the cup of tea she offered him, -and stood with his back to the fire holding it in his hand. His groom -was driving his dog-cart round and round the snowy path, crossing the -window from time to time, a dark apparition amid the falling of the -snow. What the thoughts of the groom might be, looking in through the -great window on this scene of comfort, the figure of Katherine in her -pretty dress and colour stooping over the table, and his master behind -standing against the firelight with his cup of tea, nobody asked. -Perhaps he was making little comparisons as to his lot, perhaps only -thinking of the time when he should be able to thrust his hands into his -pockets and the doctor should have the reins. Yet Dr. Burnet did not -ignore his groom. “There,” he said, “is fate awaiting me. This time she -has assumed the innocent form of John Dobbs, my groom. I have got ten -miles to drive, there and back, to see Mrs. Crumples, who could do -perfectly well without me, and then to the Chine for a moment to -ascertain if the new man there has digested his early dinner, and then -to Steephill to look after the servants’ hall. I am not good enough, -except on an emergency, for the family or Lady Jane.”</p> - -<p>“I would not go more, then, if it is only for the servants’ hall,” cried -Katherine.</p> - -<p>“Why not?” he said. “I consider Mrs. Cole, the cook, is quite as -valuable a member of society as Lady Jane. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a>{238}</span> world would not come to -an end if Lady Jane were absent for a day, or laid up, but it would very -nearly—at Steephill—if anything happened to the cook.”</p> - -<p>“You said you were ’umble, Dr. Burnet, and I did not believe you. I see -that you are really so, now.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, there I disagree with you,” he said, a little flush on his face. “I -am ’umble about my personal appearance, but I only don’t mind with Lady -Jane. She thinks of me merely as the general practitioner from Sliplin, -which shows she doesn’t know anything—for I am more than a general -practitioner.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” cried Katherine quickly, half with a generous desire not to -leave him to sing his own praises, and half with a wondering scorn that -he should think it worth the while; “you will be a great physician one -of these days.”</p> - -<p>“I hope so,” he said quietly. Then, after a while, “But I am still more -than that; at least, what would seem more in Lady Jane’s eyes. I am not -a doctor only, Miss Katherine. I have not such a bad little estate -behind me. My uncle has it now, but I’m the man after him; and a family -a good deal better known than the Uffingtons, who are not a century -old.” He said this with a little excitement, and a flourish in his hand -of the teaspoon with which he had been stirring his tea.</p> - -<p>Jim Dobbs, driving past the window, white with snow, yet looking like a -huge blackness in the solidity of the group, he and his high coat and -his big horse amid the falling feathers, caught the gesture and wondered -within himself what the doctor could be about; while Katherine, looking -up at him from the tea-table, was scarcely less surprised. Why should he -tell her this? Why at all? Why now? The faint wonder in her look made -Dr. Burnet blush.</p> - -<p>“What a fool I am! As if you cared about that,” he said with a stamp of -his foot, in impatience with himself, and shame.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I care about it. I am glad to hear of it. But—Dr. Burnet, let -me give you another cup of tea.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a>{239}</span></p> - -<p>“But,” he said, “you think what have I to do with the man’s antecedents? -You see I want you to know that I can put my foot forward -sometimes—like——” he paused for a moment and laughed, putting down -his cup hastily. “No more! No more! I must tear myself from this -enchanted cliff, or Jim Dobbs will mistake the window for the stable -door—like my elderly friend, Miss Katherine,” he said over his shoulder -as he went away.</p> - -<p>Like—his elderly friend? Who was his elderly friend, and what did the -doctor mean? Katherine watched from the window while Burnet got into his -dog-cart and whirled away at a very different pace from that of his -groom. She could not see this from her window, but listened till the -sounds died away, looking out upon the snow. What a fascination that -snow had, falling, falling, without any dark object now to disturb its -absolute possession of the world! Katherine stood for a long time -watching before she went back to her novel, which was only when the -lamps were brought in, changing the aspect of the place. Did she care -for Dr. Burnet’s revelations, or divine the object of them? In the first -place not at all; in the second, I doubt whether she took the trouble to -ask herself the question.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a>{240}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">But</span> though Dr. Burnet had been ’umble about his position at Steephill, -and considered himself only as the physician of the servants’ hall, he -was not invariably left in that secondary position. On this particular -snowy evening, when master and horse and man were all eager to get home -in view of the drifting of the snow, which was already very deep, and -the darkness of the night, which made it dangerous, Lady Jane—who was -alone at Steephill, i.e. without any house party, and enjoying the sole -society of Sir John, her spouse, which was not lively—bethought herself -that she would like to consult the doctor. She did not pretend that she -had more than a cold, but then a cold may develop into anything, as all -the world knows. It was better to have a talk with Dr. Burnet than not -to say a word to anybody, and to speak of her cold rather than not to -speak at all. Besides, she did want to hear something of old Tredgold, -and whether Katherine was behaving well, and what chance there might be -for Stella. The point of behaviour in Katherine about which Lady Jane -was anxious was whether or not she was keeping her sister’s claims -before her father—her conduct in other respects was a matter of -absolute indifference to her former patroness.</p> - -<p>“I have not been in Sliplin for quite a long time,” she said. “It may be -a deficiency in me, but, you know, I don’t very much affect your -village, Dr. Burnet.”</p> - -<p>“No; few people do; unless they want it, or something in it,” the doctor -said as he made out his prescription, of which I think <i>eau sucrée</i>, or -something like it, was the chief ingredient.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what I should want in it or with it,” said<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a>{241}</span> Lady Jane with -a touch of impatience. And then she added, modifying her tone, “Tell me -about the Tredgolds, Dr. Burnet. How is the old man? Not a very -satisfactory patient, I should think—so fond of his own way; especially -when you have not Stella at hand to make him amenable.”</p> - -<p>“He is not a bad patient,” said Dr. Burnet. “He does not like his own -way better than most old men. He allows himself to be taken good care of -on the whole.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I am glad to hear so good an opinion of him. I thought he was very -headstrong. Now, you know, I don’t want you to betray your patient’s -secrets, Dr. Burnet.”</p> - -<p>“No,” he said; “and it wouldn’t matter, I fear, if you did,” he -continued after a pause; “but I know no secrets of the Tredgolds, so I -am perfectly safe——”</p> - -<p>“That’s rather rude,” said Lady Jane, “but of course it’s the right -thing to say; and of course also you know all about Stella and her -elopement and the dreadful disappointment. I confess, for my own part, I -did not think he could stand out against her for a day.”</p> - -<p>“He is a man who knows his own mind very clearly, Lady Jane.”</p> - -<p>“So it appears. And will he hold out, do you think, till the bitter end? -Can Katherine do nothing? Couldn’t she do something if she were to try? -I mean for those poor Somers—they are great friends of mine. He is, you -know, a kind of relation. And poor Stella! Do tell me, Dr. Burnet, do -you think there is no hope? Couldn’t you do something yourself? A doctor -at a man’s bedside has great power.”</p> - -<p>“It is not a power I would ever care to exercise,” Dr. Burnet said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you are too scrupulous! And when you consider how poor they are, -doctor!—really badly off. Why, they have next to nothing! The pay, of -course, is doubled in India, but beyond that—— Think of Charlie Somers -living on his pay! And then there is, Stella the most expensive little -person, accustomed to every luxury you can think of, and never used to -deny herself anything. It is extremely hard<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a>{242}</span> lines for them, certain as -they were that her father—— Oh, I can’t help thinking, Dr. Burnet, -that Katherine could do something if she chose.”</p> - -<p>“Then you may be quite at ease, Lady Jane, for I am sure she will -choose—to do a hardness to anyone, let alone her sister——”</p> - -<p>“Ah, Dr. Burnet,” cried Lady Jane, shaking her head, “it is so difficult -to tell in what subtle forms self-interest will get in. Now there is one -thing that I wish I could see as a way of settling the matter. I should -like to see Katherine Tredgold married to some excellent, honourable -man. Oh, I am not without sources of information. I have heard a little -bird here and there. What a good thing if there was such a man, who -would do poor little Stella justice and give her her share! Half of Mr. -Tredgold’s fortune would be a very handsome fortune. It would make all -the difference to—say, a rising professional man.”</p> - -<p>Dr. Burnet pretended to make a little change in the prescription he had -been writing. His head was bent over the writing-table, which was an -advantage.</p> - -<p>“I have no doubt half of Mr. Tredgold’s fortune would be very nice to -have,” he said, “but unfortunately Miss Katherine is not married, nor do -I know who are the candidates for her hand.”</p> - -<p>“I assure you,” said Lady Jane, “if there was such a person I should -take care to do everything I could to further his views. I have not seen -much of Katherine lately, but I should make a point of asking her and -him to meet here. There is nothing I would not do to bring such a thing -about, and—and secure her happiness, you know. You will scarcely -believe it, but it is the truth, that Katherine was always the one I -liked best.”</p> - -<p>What a delightful, satisfactory, successful lie one can sometimes tell -by telling the truth. Dr. Burnet, who loved Katherine Tredgold, was -touched by this last speech—there was the ring of sincerity in the -words; and though Lady Jane had not in the least the welfare of -Katherine in her head at this moment, still, these words were -undoubtedly true.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a>{243}</span></p> - -<p>He sat for some time making marks with the pen on the paper before him, -and Lady Jane was so much interested in his reply that she did not press -for it, but sat quite still, letting him take his time.</p> - -<p>“Have you any idea,” he said, making as though he were about to alter -the prescription for the third time, “on what ground Mr. Tredgold -refused Sir Charles Somers, who was not ineligible as marriages go?” His -extreme coolness, and the slight respect with which he spoke had a quite -subduing influence upon Lady Jane. “Was it—for his private character, -perhaps?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing of the sort,” cried Lady Jane. “Do you know Charlie Somers is a -cousin of mine, Dr. Burnet?”</p> - -<p>“That,” said the doctor, “though an inestimable advantage, would not -save him from having had—various things said about him, Lady Jane.”</p> - -<p>“No,” she said with a laugh. “I acknowledge it. Various things have been -said of him. The reason given was simply ludicrous. I don’t know if -Charlie invented it—but I don’t think he was clever enough to invent -it. It was something about putting money down pound for pound, or -shilling for shilling, or some nonsense, and that he would give Stella -to nobody that couldn’t do that. On the face of it that is folly, you -know.”</p> - -<p>“I am not so sure that it is folly. I have heard him say something of -the kind; meaning, I suppose, that any son-in-law he would accept would -have to be as wealthy as himself.”</p> - -<p>“But that is absolute madness, Dr. Burnet! Good heavens! who that was as -rich as old Tredgold could desire to be old Tredgold’s son-in-law? It is -against all reason. A man might forgive to the girls who are so nice in -themselves that they had such a father; but what object could one as -rich as himself—— Oh! it is sheer idiocy, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Not to him; and he, after all, is the person most concerned,” said Dr. -Burnet, with his head cast down and rather a dejected look about him -altogether. The thought was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a>{244}</span> cheerful to himself any more than to -Lady Jane, and as a matter of fact he had not realised it before.</p> - -<p>“But it cannot be,” she cried, “it cannot be; it is out of the question. -Oh, you are a man of resource; you must find out some way to baffle this -old curmudgeon. There must, there must,” she exclaimed, “be some way out -of it, if you care to try.”</p> - -<p>“Trying will not invent thousands of pounds, alas! nor can the man who -has the greatest fund of resource but no money do it anyhow,” said Dr. -Burnet sententiously. “There may be a dodge——”</p> - -<p>“That is what I meant. There must be a dodge to—to get you out of it,” -she cried.</p> - -<p>“It is possible that the man whose existence you divine might not care -to get a wife—if she would have him to begin with—by a dodge, Lady -Jane.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, rubbish!” cried the great lady, “we are not so high-minded as all -that. I am of opinion that in that way anything, everything can be done. -Charlie Somers is a fool and Stella another; but to a sensible pair with -an understanding between them and plenty of time to work—and an old -sick man,” Lady Jane laid an involuntary emphasis on the word sick—then -stopped and reddened visibly, though her countenance was rather -weather-beaten and did not easily show.</p> - -<p>“A sick man—to be taken advantage of? No, I think that would scarcely -do,” he said. “A sensible pair with an understanding, indeed—but then -the understanding—there’s the difficulty.”</p> - -<p>“No,” cried Lady Jane, anxiously cordial to wipe away the stain of her -unfortunate suggestion. “Not at all—the most natural thing in the -world—where there is real feeling, Dr. Burnet, on one side, and a -lonely, sensitive girl on the other——”</p> - -<p>“A lonely, sensitive girl,” he repeated. And then he looked up in Lady -Jane’s face with a short laugh—but made no further remark.</p> - -<p>Notwithstanding the safeguard of her complexion, Lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a>{245}</span> Jane this time -grew very red indeed; but having nothing to say for herself, she was -wise and made no attempt to say it. And he got up, having nothing -further to add by any possibility to his prescription, and put it into -her hand.</p> - -<p>“I must make haste home,” he said, “the snow is very blinding, and the -roads by this time will be scarcely distinguishable.”</p> - -<p>“I am sorry to have kept you so long—with my ridiculous cold, which is -really nothing. But Dr. Burnet,” she said, putting her hand on his -sleeve, “you will think of what I have said. Let justice be done to -those poor Somers. Their poverty is something tragic. They had so little -expectation of anything of the kind.”</p> - -<p>“It is most unlikely that I can be of any use to them, Lady Jane,” he -said a little stiffly, as he accepted her outstretched hand.</p> - -<p>Perhaps Lady Jane had more respect for him than ever before. She held -his prescription in her hand and looked at it for a moment.</p> - -<p>“I think I’ll take it,” she said to herself as if making a heroic -resolution. She had really a little cold.</p> - -<p>As for the doctor, he climbed up into his dog-cart and took the reins -from the benumbed hands of Jim, who was one mass of whiteness now -instead of the black form sprinkled over with flakes of white which he -had appeared at the Cliff. It was a difficult thing to drive home -between the hedges, which were no longer visible, and with the big -snow-flakes melting into his eyes and confusing the atmosphere, and he -had no time to think as long as he was still out in the open country, -without even the lights of Sliplin to guide him. It was very cold, and -his hands soon became as benumbed as Jim’s, with the reins not sensible -at all through his big gloves to his chilled fingers.</p> - -<p>“I think we should turn to the left, here?” he said to Jim, who answered -“Yessir,” with his teeth chattering, “or do you think it should perhaps -be to the right?”</p> - -<p>Jim said “Yessir,” again, dull to all proprieties.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a>{246}</span></p> - -<p>If Jim had been by himself he would probably have gone to sleep, and -allowed the mare to find her own way home, which very likely she would -have done; but Dr. Burnet could not trust to such a chance. To think -much of what had been said to him was scarcely possible in these -circumstances. But when the vague and confused glimmer of the Sliplin -lights through the snow put his mind at rest, it cannot but be said that -Dr. Burnet found a great many thoughts waiting to seize hold upon him. -He was not perhaps surprised that Lady Jane should have divined his -secret. He had no particular desire to conceal it, and though he did not -receive Lady Jane’s offer with enthusiasm, he could not but feel that -her friendship and assistance would be of great use to him—in fact, if -not with Katherine, at least with other things. It would be good for him -professionally, even this one visit, and the prescription for Lady Jane, -not for Mrs. Cole, which must be made up at the chemist’s, would do him -good. A man who held the position of medical attendant at Steephill -received a kind of warrant of skill from the fact, which would bring -other patients of distinction. When Dr. Burnet got home, and got into -dry and comfortable clothes, and found no impatient messenger awaiting -him, it was with a grateful sense of ease that he gave himself up to the -study of this subject by the cheerful fire. His mind glanced over the -different suggestions of Lady Jane, tabulating and classifying them as -if they had been scientific facts. There was that hint about the old -sick man, which she had herself blushed for before it was fully uttered, -and at which Dr. Burnet now grinned in mingled wrath and ridicule. To -take advantage of an old sick man—as being that old man’s medical -attendant and desirous of marrying his daughter—was a suggestion at -which Burnet could afford to laugh, though fiercely, and with an -exclamation not complimentary to the intentions of Lady Jane. But there -were other things which required more careful consideration.</p> - -<p>Should he follow these other suggestions, he asked himself? Should he -become a party to her plan, and get her support,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a>{247}</span> and accept the -privileges of a visitor at her house as she had almost offered, and meet -Katherine there, which would probably be good for Katherine in other -ways as well as for himself? There was something very tempting in this -idea, and Dr. Burnet was not mercenary in his feeling towards Katherine, -nor indisposed to do “justice to Stella” in the almost incredible case -that it ever should be in his power to dispose of Mr. Tredgold’s -fortune. He could not help another short laugh to himself at the -absurdity of the idea. He to dispose of Mr. Tredgold’s fortune! So many -things were taken for granted in this ridiculous hypothesis. Katherine’s -acceptance and consent for one thing, of which he was not at all sure. -She had evidently sent the Rector about his business, which made him -glad, yet gave him a little thrill of anxiety too, for, though he was -ten years younger than the Rector, and had no family to encumber him, -yet Mr. Stanley, on the other hand, was a handsome man, universally -pleasing, and perhaps more desirable in respect to position than an -ordinary country practitioner—a man who dared not call his body, at -least, whatever might be said of his soul, his own; and who had as yet -had no opportunity of distinguishing himself. If she repulsed the one so -summarily, would she not have in all probability the same objections to -the other? At twenty-three a man of thirty-five is slightly elderly as -well as one of forty-seven.</p> - -<p>Supposing, however, that Katherine should make no objection, which was a -very strong step for a man who did not in the least believe that at the -present moment she had even thought of him in that light—there was her -father to be taken into account. He had heard Mr. Tredgold say that -about the thousand for thousand told down on the table, and he had heard -it from the two ladies of the midge; but without, perhaps, paying much -attention or putting any great faith in it. How could he table thousand -for thousand against Mr. Tredgold? The idea was ridiculous. He had the -reversion of that little, but ancient, estate in the North, of which he -had been at such pains to inform Katherine; and he had a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a>{248}</span> money -from his mother; and his practice, which was a good enough practice, but -not likely to produce thousands for some time at least to come. He had -said there might be a dodge—and, as a matter of fact, there had blown -across his mind a suggestion of a dodge, how he might perhaps persuade -his uncle to “table” the value of Bunhope on his side. But what was the -value of Bunhope to the millions of old Tredgold? He might, perhaps, say -that he wanted nothing more with Katherine than the equivalent of what -he brought; but he doubted whether the old man would accept that -compromise. And certainly, if he did so, there could be no question of -doing justice to Stella out of the small share he would have of her -father’s fortune. No; he felt sure Mr. Tredgold would exact the entire -pound of flesh, and no less; that he would no more reduce his daughter’s -inheritance than her husband’s fortune, and that no dodge would blind -the eyes of the acute, businesslike old man.</p> - -<p>This was rather a despairing point of view, from which Dr. Burnet tried -to escape by thinking of Katherine herself, and what might happen could -he persuade her to fall in love with him. That would make everything so -much more agreeable; but would it make it easier? Alas! falling in love -on Stella’s part had done no good to Somers; and Stella, though now cast -off and banished, had possessed a far greater influence over her father -than Katherine had ever had. Dr. Burnet was by no means destitute of -sentiment in respect to her. Indeed, it is very probable that had -Katherine had no fortune at all he would still have wished, and taken -earlier more decisive steps, to make her aware that he wished to secure -her for his wife; but the mere existence of a great fortune changes the -equilibrium of everything. And as it was there, Dr. Burnet felt that to -lose it, if there was any possible way of securing it, would be a great -mistake. He was the old man’s doctor, who ought to be grateful to him -for promoting his comfort and keeping him alive; and he was Katherine’s -lover, and the best if not the only one there was. And he had free -access to the house at all seasons, and a comfortable standing in the -drawing-room as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_249" id="page_249"></a>{249}</span> well as in the master’s apartment. Surely something -must be made of these advantages by a man with his eyes open, neglecting -no opportunity. And, on the other hand, there was always the chance that -old Tredgold might die, thus simplifying matters. The doctor’s final -decision was that he would do nothing for the moment, but wait and -follow the leading of circumstances; always keeping up his watch over -Katherine, and endeavouring to draw her interest, perhaps in time her -affections, towards himself—while, on the other hand, it would commit -him to nothing to accept Lady Jane’s help, assuring her that—in the -case which he felt to be so unlikely of ever having any power in the -matter—he would certainly do “justice to Stella” as far as lay in his -power.</p> - -<p>When he had got to this conclusion the bell rang sharply, and, alas! Dr. -Burnet, who had calculated on going to bed for once in comfort and -quiet, had to face the wintry world again and go out into the snow.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_250" id="page_250"></a>{250}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Katherine’s</span> life at Sliplin was in no small degree affected by the -result of the Rector’s unfortunate visit. How its termination became -known nobody could tell. No one ventured to say “She told me herself,” -still less, “He told me.” Yet everybody knew. There were some who had -upheld that the Rector had too much respect for himself ever to put -himself in the position of being rejected by old Tredgold’s daughter; -but even these had to acknowledge that this overturn of everything -seemly and correct had really happened. It was divined, perhaps, from -Mr. Stanley’s look, who went about the parish with his head held very -high, and an air of injury which nobody had remarked in him before. For -it was not only that he had been refused. That is a privilege which no -law or authority can take from a free-born English girl, and far would -it have been from the Rector’s mind to deny to Katherine this right; but -it was the manner in which it had been exercised which gave him so deep -a wound. It was not as the father of Charlotte and Evelyn that Mr. -Stanley had been in the habit of regarding himself, nor that he had been -regarded. His own individuality was too remarkable and too attractive, -he felt with all modesty, to lay him under such a risk; and yet here was -a young woman in his own parish, in his own immediate circle, who -regarded him from that point of view, and who looked upon his proposal -as ridiculous and something like an insult to her youth. Had she said -prettily that she did not feel herself good enough for such a position, -that she was not worthy—but that she was aware of the high compliment -he had paid her, and never would forget it—which was the thing that any -woman with a due sense of fitness would have said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_251" id="page_251"></a>{251}</span> he might have -forgiven her. But Katherine’s outburst of indignation, her anger to have -been asked to be the stepmother of Charlotte and Evelyn her playfellows, -her complete want of gratitude or of any sense of the honour done her, -had inflicted a deep blow upon the Rector. That he should be scorned as -a lover seemed to him impossible, that a woman should be so insensible -to every fact of life. He did not get over it for a long time, nor am I -sure that he ever did get over it; not the disappointment, which he bore -like a man, but the sense of being scorned. So long as he lived he never -forgave Katherine that insult to his dearest feelings.</p> - -<p>And thus Katherine’s small diversions were driven back into a still -narrower circle. She could not go to the Rectory, where the girls were -divided between gratitude to her for not having turned their life upside -down, and wrath against her for not having appreciated papa; nor could -she go where she was sure to meet him, and to catch his look of offended -pride and wounded dignity. It made her way very hard for her to have to -think and consider, and even make furtive enquiries whether the Stanleys -would be there before going to the mildest tea party. When Mrs. Shanks -invited her to meet Miss Mildmay, she was indeed safe. Yet even there -Mr. Stanley might come in to pay these ladies a call, or Charlotte -appear with her portfolio of drawings, or Evelyn fly in for a moment on -her way to the post. She went even to that very mild entertainment with -a quiver of anxiety. The great snowstorm was over which had stopped -everything, obliterating all the roads, and making the doctor’s dog-cart -and the butcher’s and baker’s carts the only vehicles visible about the -country—which lay in one great white sheet, the brilliancy of which -made the sea look muddy where it came up with a dull colour upon the -beach. Everything, indeed, looked dark in comparison with that dazzling -cloak of snow, until by miserable human usage the dazzling white changed -into that most squalid of all squalid things, the remnant of a snowstorm -in England, drabbled by all kinds of droppings, powdered with dust of -smoke and coal, churned into the chillest and most dreadful<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_252" id="page_252"></a>{252}</span> of mud. The -island had passed through that horrible phase after a brief delicious -ecstasy of skating, from which poor Katherine was shut out by the same -reasons already given, but now had emerged green and fresh, though cold, -with a sense of thankfulness which the fields seemed to feel, and the -birds proclaimed better and more than the best of the human inhabitants -could do.</p> - -<p>The terrace gardens of Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay shone with this -refreshed and brightened greenness, and the prospect from under the -verandah of their little houses was restored to its natural colour. The -sea became once more the highest light in the landscape, the further -cliffs were brown, the trees showed a faint bloom of pushing buds and -rising sap, and glowed in the light of the afternoon sun near its -setting. Mrs. Shanks’ little drawing room was a good deal darkened by -its little verandah, but when the western sun shone in, as it was doing, -the shade of the little green roof was an advantage even in winter; and -it was so mild after the snow that the window was open, and a thrush in -a neighbouring shrubbery had begun to perform a solo among the bushes, -exactly, as Mrs. Shanks said, like a fine singer invited for the -entertainment of the guests.</p> - -<p>“It isn’t often you hear a roulade like that,” she said. “I consider -Miss Sherlock was nothing to it.” Miss Sherlock was a professional lady -who had been paying a visit in Sliplin, and who at afternoon teas and -evening parties, being very kind and ready to “oblige,” had turned the -season into a musical one, and provided for the people who were so kind -as to invite her, an entertainment almost as cheap as that of the thrush -in Major Toogood’s shrubbery.</p> - -<p>“I hope the poor thing has some crumbs,” said Miss Mildmay. “I always -took great pains to see that there was plenty of bread well peppered put -out for them during the snow.”</p> - -<p>“Was Miss Sherlock so very good?” said Katherine. “I was unfortunate, I -never heard her, even at her concert. Oh, yes, I had tickets—but I did -not go.”</p> - -<p>“That is just what we want to talk to you about, my dear<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_253" id="page_253"></a>{253}</span> Katherine. -Fancy a great singer in Sliplin, and the Cliff not represented, not a -soul there. Oh, if poor dear Stella had but been here, she would not -have stayed away when there was anything to see or hear.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I am a poor creature in comparison,” said Katherine, “but you know -it isn’t nice to go to such places alone.”</p> - -<p>“If there was any need to go alone! You know we would have called for -you in the midge any time; but that’s ridiculous for you with all your -carriages; it would have been more appropriate for you to call for us. -Another time, Katherine, my dear——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know how kind you are; it was not precisely for want of some one -to go with.”</p> - -<p>“Jane Shanks,” said Miss Mildmay, “what is the use of pretences between -us who have known the child all her life? It is very well understood in -Sliplin, Katherine, that there must be some motive in your seclusion. -You have some reason, you cannot conceal it from us who know you, for -shutting yourself up as you do.”</p> - -<p>“What reason? Is it not a good enough reason that I am alone now, and -that to be reminded of it at every moment is—oh, it is hard,” said -Katherine, tears coming into her eyes. “It is almost more than I can -bear.”</p> - -<p>“Dear child!” Mrs. Shanks said, patting her hand which rested on the -table. “We shouldn’t worry her with questions, should we?” But there was -no conviction in her tone, and Katherine, though her self-pity was quite -strong enough to bring that harmless water to her eyes, was quite aware -not only that she did not seclude herself because of Stella, but also -that her friends were not in the least deceived.</p> - -<p>“I ask no questions,” said Miss Mildmay, “I hope I have a head on my -shoulders and a couple of eyes in it. I don’t require information from -Katherine! What I’ve got to say is that she mustn’t do it. Most girls -think very little of refusing a man; sometimes they continue good -friends, sometimes they don’t. When a man sulks it shows he was much in -earnest, and is really a compliment. But to stay at home morning and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_254" id="page_254"></a>{254}</span> -night because there is a man in the town who is furious with you for not -marrying him; why, that’s a thing that is not to be allowed to go on, -not for a day——”</p> - -<p>“Nobody has any right to say that there is any man whom——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t redden up, Katherine, and flash your eyes at me! I have known -you since you were <i>that</i> high, and I don’t care a brass button what you -say. Do you think I don’t know all about you, my dear? Do you think that -there’s a thing in Sliplin which I don’t know or Jane Shanks doesn’t -know? Bless us, what is the good of us, two old cats, as I know you call -us——”</p> - -<p>“Miss Mildmay!” cried Katherine; but as it was perfectly true, she -stopped there and had not another word to say.</p> - -<p>“Yes, that’s my name, and <i>her</i> name is Mrs. Shanks; but that makes no -difference. We are the two old cats. I have no doubt it was to Stella we -owed the title, and I don’t bear her any malice nor you either. Neither -does Jane Shanks. We like you, on the contrary, my dear; but if you -think you can throw dust in our eyes—— Why, there is the Rector’s -voice through the partition asking for me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” said Katherine, “I must go, really I must go; this is the time -when papa likes me to go to him. I have stayed too long, I really, -really must go now——”</p> - -<p>“Sit down, sit down, dear. It is only her fun. There is nobody speaking -through the partition. The idea! Sliplin houses are not very well built, -but I hope they are better than that.”</p> - -<p>“I must have been mistaken,” said Miss Mildmay grimly. “I believe after -all it is only Jane Shanks’ boy; he has a very gruff manly voice, though -he is such a little thing, and a man’s voice is such a rarity in these -parts that he deceives me. Well, Katherine, the two old cats hear -everything. If it does not come to me it comes to <i>her</i>. My eyes are the -sharpest, I think, but she hears the best. You can’t take us in. We know -pretty well all that has happened to you, though you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_255" id="page_255"></a>{255}</span> have been so very -quiet about it. There was that young city man whom you wouldn’t have, -and I applaud you for it. But he’ll make a match with somebody of much -more consequence than you. And then there is poor Mr. Stanley. The -Stanleys are as thankful to you as they can be, and well they may. Why, -it would have turned the whole place upside down. A young very rich wife -at the Rectory and the poor girls turned out of doors. It just shows how -little religion does for some people.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, stop! stop!” cried Mrs. Shanks. “What has his religion to do with -it? It’s not against any man’s religion to fall in love with a nice -girl.”</p> - -<p>“Please don’t say any more on this subject,” cried Katherine; “if you -think it’s a compliment to me to be fallen in love with—by an old -gentleman!—— But I never said a word about the Rector. It is all one -of your mistakes. You do make mistakes sometimes, Miss Mildmay. You took -little Bobby’s voice for—a clergyman’s.” It gave more form to the -comparison to say a clergyman than merely a man.</p> - -<p>“So I did,” said Miss Mildmay, “that will always be remembered against -me; but you are not going to escape, Katherine Tredgold, in that way. I -shall go to your father, if you don’t mind, and tell him everything, and -that you are shutting yourself up and seeing nobody, because of—— -Well, if it is not because of that, what is it? It is not becoming, it -is scarcely decent that a girl of your age should live so much alone.”</p> - -<p>“Please let me go, Mrs. Shanks,” said Katherine. “Why should you upbraid -me? I do the best I can; it is not my fault if there is nobody to stand -by me.”</p> - -<p>“We shall all stand by you, my dear,” said Mrs. Shanks, following her to -the door, “and Ruth Mildmay is never so cross as she seems. We will -stand by you, in the midge or otherwise, wherever you want to go. At all -times you may be sure of us, Katherine, either Ruth Mildmay or me.”</p> - -<p>But when the door was closed upon Katherine Mrs. Shanks rushed back to -the little drawing-room, now just sinking into<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_256" id="page_256"></a>{256}</span> greyness, the last ray -of the sunset gone. “You see,” she cried, “it’s all right, I to——”</p> - -<p>But she was forestalled with a louder “I told you so!” from Miss -Mildmay; “didn’t I always say it?” that lady concluded triumphantly. -Mrs. Shanks might begin the first, but it was always her friend who -secured the last word.</p> - -<p>Katherine walked out into the still evening air, a little irritated, a -little disgusted, and a little amused by the offer of these two -chaperons and the midge to take her about. She had to walk through the -High Street of Sliplin, and everybody was out at that hour. She passed -Charlotte Stanley with her portfolio under her arm, who would probably -have rushed to her and demanded a glance at the sketches even in the -open road, or that Katherine should go in with her to the stationer’s to -examine them at her ease on the counter; but who passed now with an -awkward bow, having half crossed the road to get out of her way, yet -sending a wistful smile nevertheless across what she herself would have -called the middle distance. “Now what have I done to Charlotte?” -Katherine said to herself. If there was anyone who ought to applaud her, -who ought to be grateful to her, it was the Rector’s daughters. She went -on with a sort of rueful smile on her lips, and came up without -observing it to the big old landau, in which was seated Lady Jane. -Katherine was hurrying past with a bow, when she was suddenly greeted -from that unexpected quarter with a cry of “Katherine! where are you -going so fast?” which brought her reluctantly back.</p> - -<p>“My dear Katherine! what a long time it is since we have met,” said Lady -Jane.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Katherine sedately. “That is very true, it is a long time.”</p> - -<p>“You mean to say it is my fault by that tone! My dear, you have more -horses and carriages, and a great deal more time and youth and all that -than I. Why didn’t you come to see me? If you thought I was huffy or -neglectful, why didn’t you come and tell me so? I should have thought -that was the right thing to do.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_257" id="page_257"></a>{257}</span></p> - -<p>“I should not have thought it becoming,” cried Katherine, astonished by -this accost, “from me to you. I am the youngest and far the -humblest——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, fiddlesticks!” cried the elder lady, “that’s not true humility, -that’s pride, my dear. I was an old friend; and though poor dear Stella -always put herself in the front, you know it was you I liked best, -Katherine. Well, when will you come, now? Come and spend a day or two, -which will be extremely dull, for we’re all alone; but you can tell me -of Stella, as well as your own little affairs.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know that I can leave papa,” Katherine said, with a little -remnant of that primness which had been her distinction in Captain -Scott’s eyes.</p> - -<p>“Nonsense! He will spare you to me,” said Lady Jane with calm certainty. -“Let me see, what day is this, Tuesday? Then I will come for you on -Saturday. You can send over that famous little brougham with your maid -and your things, and keep it if you like, for we have scarcely anything -but dog-carts, except this hearse. Saturday; and don’t show bad breeding -by making any fuss about it,” Lady Jane said.</p> - -<p>Katherine felt that the great lady was right, it would have been bad -breeding; and then her heart rose a little in spite of herself at the -thought of the large dull rooms at Steephill in which there was no -gilding, nor any attempt to look finer than the most solid needs of life -demanded, and where Lady Jane conducted the affairs of life with a much -higher hand than any of the Sliplin ladies. After being so long shut up -in Sliplin, and now partly out of favour in it, the ways of Lady Jane -seemed bigger, the life more easy and less self-conscious, and she -consented with a little rising of her heart. She was a little surprised -that Lady Jane, with her large voice, should have shouted a cordial -greeting to the doctor as he passed in his dog-cart. “I am going to -write to you,” she cried, nodding her head at him; but no doubt this was -about some little ailment in the nursery, for with Katherine, a young -lady going on a visit to Steephill, what could it have to do?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_258" id="page_258"></a>{258}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> doctor had made himself a very important feature in Katherine’s life -during those dull winter days. After the great snowstorm, which was a -thing by which events were dated for long after, in the island, and -which was almost coincident with the catastrophe of the Rector; he had -become more frequent in his visits to Mr. Tredgold and consequently to -the tea-table of Mr. Tredgold’s lonely daughter. While the snow lasted, -and all the atmospheric influences were at their worst, it stood to -reason that an asthmatical, rheumatical, gouty old man wanted more -looking after than usual; and it was equally clear that a girl a little -out of temper and out of patience with life, who was disposed to shut -herself up and retire from the usual amusements of her kind, would also -be much the better for the invasion into her closed-up world of life and -fresh air in the shape of a vigorous and personable young man, who, if -not perhaps so secure in self-confidence and belief in his own -fascinations as the handsome (if a little elderly) Rector, had not -generally been discouraged by the impression he knew himself to have -made. And Katherine had liked those visits, that was undeniable; the -expectation of making a cup of tea for the doctor had been pleasant to -her. The thought of his white strong teeth and the bread and butter -which she never got out of her mind, was now amusing, not painful; she -had seen him so often making short work of the little thin slices -provided for her own entertainment. And he told her all that was going -on, and gave her pieces of advice which his profession warranted. He got -to know more of her tastes, and she more of his in this way, than -perhaps was the case with any two young people in the entire island, and -this in the most simple, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_259" id="page_259"></a>{259}</span> most natural way. If there began to get a -whisper into the air of Dr. Burnet’s devotion to his patient on the -Cliff and its possible consequences, that was chiefly because the -doctor’s inclinations had been suspected before by an observant public. -And indeed the episode of the Rector had afforded it too much -entertainment to leave the mind of Sliplin free for further remark in -respect to Katherine and her proceedings. And Mr. Tredgold’s asthma -accounted for everything in those more frequent visits to the Cliff. All -the same, it was impossible that there should not be a degree of -pleasant intimacy and much self-revelation on both sides during these -half hours, when, wrapped in warmth and comfort and sweet society, Dr. -Burnet saw his dog-cart promenading outside in the snow or during the -deeper miseries of the thaw, with the contrast which enhances present -pleasure. He became himself more and more interested in Katherine, his -feelings towards her being quite genuine, though perhaps enlivened by -her prospects as an heiress. And if there had not been that vague -preoccupation in Katherine’s mind concerning James Stanford, the -recollection not so much of him as of the many, many times she had -thought of him, I think it very probable indeed that she would have -fallen in love with the doctor; indeed, there were moments when his -image pushed Stanford very close, almost making that misty hero give -way. He was a very misty hero, a shadow, an outline, indefinite, never -having given much revelation of himself; and Dr. Burnet was very -definite, as clear as daylight, and in many respects as satisfactory. It -would have been very natural indeed that the one should have effaced the -other.</p> - -<p>Dr. Burnet did not know anything of James Stanford. He thought of -Katherine as a little shy, a little cold, perhaps from the persistent -shade into which she had been cast by her sister, unsusceptible as -people say; but he did not at all despair of moving her out of that -calm. He had thought indeed that there were indications of the internal -frost yielding, before his interview with Lady Jane. With Lady Jane’s -help he thought there was little doubt of success. But even that -security made him cautious. It was evident that she was a girl<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_260" id="page_260"></a>{260}</span> with -whom one must not attempt to go too fast. The Rector had tried to carry -the fort by a <i>coup de main</i>, and he had perished ingloriously in the -effort. Dr. Burnet drew himself in a little after he acquired the -knowledge of that event, determined not to risk the same fate. He had -continued his visits but he had been careful to give them the most -friendly, the least lover-like aspect, to arouse no alarms. When he -received the salutation of Lady Jane in passing, and her promise that he -should hear from her, his sober heart gave a bound, which was reflected -unconsciously in the start of the mare making a dash forward by means of -some magnetism, it is to be supposed conveyed to her by the reins from -her master’s hand—so that he had to exert himself suddenly with hand -and whip to reduce her to her ordinary pace again. If the manœuvre -had been intentional it would have been clever as showing his skill and -coolness in the sight of his love and of his patroness. It had the same -effect not being intentional at all.</p> - -<p>I am not sure either whether it was Lady Jane’s intention to enhance the -effect of Dr. Burnet by the extreme dulness of the household background -upon which she set him, so to speak, to impress the mind of Katherine. -There was no party at Steephill. Sir John, though everything that was -good and kind, was dull; the tutor, who was a young man fresh from the -University, and no doubt might have been very intellectual or very -frivolous had there been anything to call either gifts out, was dull -also because of having little encouragement to be anything else. Lady -Jane indeed was not dull, but she had no call upon her for any exertion; -and the tone of the house was humdrum beyond description. The old -clergyman dined habitually at Steephill on the Sunday evenings, and he -was duller still, though invested to Katherine with a little interest as -the man who had officiated at her sister’s marriage. But he could not be -got to recall the circumstance distinctly, nor to master the fact that -this Miss Tredgold was so closely related to the young lady whom he had -made into Lady Somers. “Dear! dear! to think of that!” he had said when -the connection had been explained to him, but what he meant<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_261" id="page_261"></a>{261}</span> by that -exclamation nobody knew. I think it very likely that Lady Jane herself -was not aware how dull her house was when in entire repose, until she -found it out by looking through the eyes of a chance guest like -Katherine. “What in thunder did you mean by bringing that poor girl here -to bore her to death, when there’s nobody in the house?” Sir John said, -whose voice was like a westerly gale. “Really, Katherine, I did not -remember how deadly dull we were,” Lady Jane said apologetically. “It -suits us well enough—Sir John and myself; but it’s a shame to have -asked you here when there’s nobody in the house, as he says. And Sunday -is the worst of all, when you can’t have even your needlework to amuse -you. But there are some people coming to dinner to-morrow.” Katherine -did her best to express herself prettily, and I don’t think even that -she felt the dulness so much as she was supposed to do. The routine of a -big family house, the machinery of meals and walks and drives and other -observances, the children bursting in now and then, the tutor appearing -from time to time tremendously <i>comme il faut</i>, and keeping up his -equality, Sir John, not half so careful, rolling in from the inspection -of his stables or his turnips with a noisy salutation, “You come out -with me after lunch, Miss Tredgold, and get a blow over the downs, far -better for you than keeping indoors.” And then after that blow on the -downs, afternoon tea, and Mr. Montgomery rubbing his hands before the -fire, while he asked, without moving, whether he should hand the kettle. -All this was mildly amusing, in the proportion of its dulness, for a -little while. We none of us, or at least few of us, feel heavily this -dull procession of the hours when it is our own life; when it is -another’s, our perceptions are more clear.</p> - -<p>“But there are people coming to dinner to-morrow,” Lady Jane said. There -was something in the little nod she gave, of satisfaction and -knowingness, which Katherine did not understand or attempt to -understand. No idea of Dr. Burnet was associated with Steephill. She was -not aware that he was on visiting terms there—he had told her that he -attended the servants’ hall—so that it was with a little start of -surprise that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_262" id="page_262"></a>{262}</span> raising her eyes from a book she was looking at, she -found him standing before her, holding out his hand as the guests -gathered before dinner. The party was from the neighbourhood—county, -or, at least, country people—and when Dr. Burnet was appointed to take -Katherine in to dinner, that young lady, though she knew the doctor so -well and liked him so much, did not feel that it was any great -promotion. She thought she might have had somebody newer, something that -belonged less to her own routine of existence, which is one of the -mistakes often made by very astute women of the world like Lady Jane. -There was young Fortescue, for instance, a mere fox-hunting young -squire, not half so agreeable as Dr. Burnet, whom Katherine would have -preferred. “He is an ass; he would not amuse her in the very least,” -Lady Jane had said. But Sir John, who was not clever at all, divined -that something new, though an ass, would have amused Katherine more. -Besides, Lady Jane had her motives, which she mentioned to nobody.</p> - -<p>Dr. Burnet did the very best for himself that was possible. He gave -Katherine a report of her father, he told her the last thing that had -transpired at Sliplin since her departure, he informed her who all the -people were at table, pleased to let her see that he knew them all. -“That’s young Fortescue who has just come in to his estate, and he -promises to make ducks and drakes of it,” Dr. Burnet said. Katherine -looked across the table at the young man thus described. She was not -responsible for him in any way, nor could it concern her if he did make -ducks and drakes of his estate, but she would have preferred to make -acquaintance with those specimens of the absolutely unknown. A little -feeling suddenly sprang up in her heart against Dr. Burnet, because he -was Dr. Burnet and absolutely above reproach. She would have sighed for -Dr. Burnet, for his quick understanding and the abundance he had to say, -had she been seated at young Fortescue’s side.</p> - -<p>After dinner, when she had talked a little to all the ladies and had -done her duty, Lady Jane caught Katherine’s hand and drew her to a seat -beside herself, and then she beckoned<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_263" id="page_263"></a>{263}</span> to Dr. Burnet, who drew a chair -in front of them and sat down, bending forward till his head, Katherine -thought, was almost in Lady Jane’s lap. “I want,” she said, “Katherine, -to get Dr. Burnet on our side—to make him take up our dear Stella’s -interests as you do, my dear, and as in my uninfluential way I should -like to do too.”</p> - -<p>“How can Dr. Burnet take up Stella’s interests?” cried Katherine, -surprised and perhaps a little offended too.</p> - -<p>“My dear Katherine, a medical man has the most tremendous -opportunities—all that the priest had in old times, and something -additional which belongs to himself. He can often say a word when none -of the rest of us would dare to do so. I have immense trust in a medical -man. He can bring people together that have quarrelled, and—and -influence wills, and—do endless things. I always try to have the doctor -on my side.”</p> - -<p>“Miss Katherine knows,” said Dr. Burnet, trying to lead out of the -subject, for Lady Jane’s methods were entirely, on this occasion, too -straightforward, “that the medical man in this case is always on her -side. Does not Mrs. Swanson, Lady Jane, sing very well? I have never -heard her. I am not very musical, but I love a song.”</p> - -<p>“Which is a sign that you are not musical. You are like Sir John,” said -Lady Jane, as if that was the worst that could be said. “Still, if that -is what you mean, Dr. Burnet, you can go and ask her, on my part. He is -very much interested in you all, I think, Katherine,” she added when he -had departed on this mission. “We had a talk the other day—about you -and Stella and the whole matter. I think, if he ever had it in his -power, that he would see justice done her, as you would yourself.”</p> - -<p>“He is very friendly, I daresay,” said Katherine, “but I can’t imagine -how he could ever have anything in his power.”</p> - -<p>“There is no telling,” Lady Jane said. “I think he is quite a -disinterested man, if any such thing exists. Now, we must be silent a -little, for, of course, Mrs. Swanson is going to sing; she is not likely -to neglect an opportunity. She has a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_264" id="page_264"></a>{264}</span> good voice, so far as that goes, -but little training. It is just the thing that pleases Sir John. And he -has planted himself between us and the piano, bless him! now we can go -on with our talk. Katherine, I don’t think you see how important it is -to surround your father with people who think the same as we do about -your poor sister.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Katherine, “it has not occurred to me; my father is not very -open to influence.”</p> - -<p>“Then do you give up Stella’s cause? Do you really think it is hopeless, -Katherine?”</p> - -<p>“How could I think so?” cried the girl with a keen tone in her voice -which, though she spoke low, was penetrating, and to check which, Lady -Jane placed her hand on Katherine’s hand and kept it there with a faint -“shsh.” “You know what I should instantly do,” she added, “if I ever had -it in my power.”</p> - -<p>“Dear Katherine! but your husband might not see it in that light.”</p> - -<p>“He should—or he should not be—my husband,” said Katherine with a -sudden blush. She raised her eyes unwillingly at this moment and caught -the gaze of Dr. Burnet, who was standing behind the great bulk of Sir -John, but with his face towards the ladies on the sofa. Katherine’s -heart gave a little bound, half of affright. She had looked at him and -he at her as she said the words. An answering gleam of expression, an -answering wave of colour, seemed to go over him (though he could not -possibly hear her) as she spoke. It was the first time that this idea -had been clearly suggested to her, but now so simply, so potently, as if -she were herself the author of the suggestion. She was startled out of -her self-possession. “Oh,” she cried with agitation, “I like her voice! -I am like Sir John; let us listen to the singing.” Lady Jane nodded her -head, pressed Katherine’s hand, and did what was indeed the first wise -step she had taken, stepped as noiselessly as possible to another -corner, where, behind her fan, she could talk to a friend more likely to -respond to her sentiments and left Dr. Burnet to take her place.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_265" id="page_265"></a>{265}</span></p> - -<p>“Is this permitted? It is too tempting to be lost,” he said in a -whisper, and then he too relapsed into silence and attention. Katherine, -I fear, did not get any clear impression of the song. Her own words went -through her head, involuntarily, as though she had touched some spring -which went on repeating them: “My husband—my husband.” Her white dress -touched his blackness as he sat down beside her. She drew away a little, -her heart beating loudly, in alarm, mingled with some other feeling -which she could not understand, but he did not say another word until -the song was over, and all the applause, and the moment of commotion in -which the singer returned to her seat, and the groups of the party -changed and mingled. Then he said suddenly, “I hope you will not think, -Miss Katherine, that I desired Lady Jane to drag me in head and -shoulders to your family concerns. I never should have been so -presumptuous. I do trust you will believe that.”</p> - -<p>“I never should have thought so, Dr. Burnet,” said Katherine, faltering -with that commotion which was she hoped entirely within herself and -apparent to no one. Then she added as she assured her voice, “It would -not have been presumptuous. You know so much of us already, and of -<i>her</i>, and took so much part——”</p> - -<p>“I am your faithful servant,” he said, “ready to be sent on any errand, -or to take any part you wish, but I do not presume further than that.” -Then he rose quickly, as one who is moved by a sudden impulse. “Miss -Katherine, will you let me take you to the conservatory to see Lady -Jane’s great aloe? They used to say it blossomed only once in a hundred -years.”</p> - -<p>“But that’s all nonsense, you know,” said Mr. Montgomery the tutor; “see -them all about the Riviera at every corner. Truth, they kill ’emselves -when they’re about it.”</p> - -<p>“Which comes to the same thing. Will you come?” said Dr. Burnet, -offering his arm.</p> - -<p>“But, my dear fellow, Miss Tredgold has seen it three or four times,” -said this very unnecessary commentator.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_266" id="page_266"></a>{266}</span></p> - -<p>“Never mind. She has not seen what I am going to show her,” said the -doctor with great self-possession. Lady Jane followed them with her eyes -as they went away into the long conservatory, which was famous in the -islands and full of lofty palms and tropical foliage. Her middle-aged -bosom owned a little tremor; was he going to put it to her, then and -there? Lady Jane had offered assistance, even co-operation, but this -prompt action took away her breath.</p> - -<p>“I should like to see the aloe, too,” said the lady by her side.</p> - -<p>“So you shall, presently,” said Lady Jane, “but we must not make a move -yet, for there is Lady Freshwater going to sing. Mr. Montgomery, ask -Lady Freshwater from me whether she will not sing us one of her -delightful French songs. She has such expression, and they are all as -light as air of course, not serious music. Look at Sir John, he is -pleased, but he likes it better when it is English, and he can make out -the words. He is a constant amusement when he talks of music—and he -thinks he understands it, poor dear.”</p> - -<p>She kept talking until she had watched Lady Freshwater to the piano, and -heard her begin. And then Lady Jane felt herself entitled to a little -rest. She kept one eye on the conservatory to see that nobody -interrupted the botanical exposition which was no doubt going on there. -Would he actually propose—on the spot, all at once, with the very sound -of the conversation and of Lady Freshwater’s song in their ears? Was it -possible that a man should go so fast as that? Now that it had come to -this point Lady Jane began to get a little compunctious, to ask herself -whether she might not have done better for Katherine than a country -doctor, without distinction, even though he might have a wealthy uncle -and a family place at his back? Old Tredgold’s daughter was perhaps too -great a prize to be allowed to drop in that commonplace way. On the -other hand, if Lady Jane had exerted herself to get Katherine a better -match, was it likely that a man—if a man of our <i>monde</i>—would have -consented to such an arrangement about Stella as Dr. Burnet was willing -to make? If the fortune<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_267" id="page_267"></a>{267}</span> had been Stella’s, Lady Jane was quite certain -that Charlie Somers would have consented to no such settlement. And -after all, would not Katherine be really happier with a man not too much -out of her own <i>monde</i>, fitted for village life, knowing all about her, -and not likely to be ashamed of his father-in-law? With this last -argument she comforted her heart.</p> - -<p>And Katherine went into the conservatory to see the aloe, which that -malevolent tutor declared she had already seen so often, with her heart -beating rather uncomfortably, and her hand upon Dr. Burnet’s arm.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_268" id="page_268"></a>{268}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">But</span> though Lady Jane had so fully made up her mind to it, and awaited -the result with so much excitement, and though Katherine herself was -thrilled with an uneasy consciousness, and Dr. Burnet’s looks gave every -sanction to the idea, he did not on that evening under the tall aloe, -which had begun to burst the innumerable wrappings of its husk, in the -Steephill conservatory, declare his love or ask Katherine to be his -wife. I cannot tell the reason why—I think there came over him a chill -alarm as to how he should get back if by any accident his suit was -unsuccessful. It was like the position which gave Mr. Puff so much -trouble in the <i>Critic</i>. He could not “exit praying.” How was he to get -off the stage? He caught the eyes of an old lady who was seated near the -conservatory door. They were dull eyes, with little speculation in them, -but they gave a faint glare as the two young people passed; and the -doctor asked himself with a shudder, How could he meet their look when -he came back if——? How indeed could he meet anybody’s look—Lady -Jane’s, who was his accomplice, and who would be very severe upon him if -he did not succeed, and jolly Sir John’s, who would slap him on the -shoulder and shout at him in his big voice? His heart sank to his boots -when he found himself alone with the object of his affections amid the -rustling palms. He murmured something hurriedly about something he -wanted to say to her, but could not here, where they were liable to -interruption at any moment, and then he burst into a display of -information about the aloe which was very astounding to Katherine. She -listened, feeling the occasion <i>manqué</i>, with a sensation of relief. I -think it quite probable that in the circumstances, and amid the tremor<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_269" id="page_269"></a>{269}</span> -of sympathetic excitement derived from Lady Jane, and the general -tendency of the atmosphere, Katherine might have accepted Dr. Burnet. -She would probably have been sorry afterwards, and in all probability it -would have led to no results, but I think she would have accepted him -that evening had he had the courage to put it to the touch; and he, for -his part, would certainly have done it had he not been seized with that -tremor as to how he was to get off the stage.</p> - -<p>He found it very difficult to explain this behaviour to Lady Jane -afterwards, who, though she did not actually ask the question, pressed -him considerably about the botanical lecture he had been giving.</p> - -<p>“I have sat through a French <i>café chantant</i> song in your interests, -with all the airs and graces,” she said with a look of disgust, “to give -you time.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know,” said Dr. Burnet—it was at the moment of taking his -leave, and he knew that he must soon escape, which gave him a little -courage—“you have done everything for me—you have been more than kind, -Lady Jane.”</p> - -<p>“But if it is all to come to nothing, after I had taken the trouble to -arrange everything for you!”</p> - -<p>“It was too abrupt,” he said, “and I funked it at the last. How was I to -get back under everybody’s eyes if it had not come off?”</p> - -<p>“It would have come off,” she said hurriedly, under her breath, with a -glance at Katherine. Then, in her usual very audible voice, she said, -“Must you go so early, Dr. Burnet? Then good-night; and if your mare is -fresh take care of the turning at Eversfield Green.”</p> - -<p>He did not know what this warning meant, and neither I believe did she, -though it was a nasty turning. And then he drove away into the winter -night, with a sense of having failed, failed to himself and his own -expectations, as well as to Lady Jane’s. He had not certainly intended -to take any decisive step when he drove to Steephill, but yet he felt -when he left it that the occasion was <i>manqué</i>, and that he had perhaps -risked everything by his lack of courage. This is not a pleasant<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_270" id="page_270"></a>{270}</span> -thought to a man who is not generally at a loss in any circumstances, -and whose ways have generally, on the whole, been prosperous and -successful. He was a fool not to have put it to the touch, to be -frightened by an old lady’s dull eyes which probably would have noticed -nothing, or the stare of the company which was occupied by its own -affairs and need not have suspected even that his were at a critical -point. Had he been a little bolder he might have been carrying home with -him a certainty which would have kept him warmer than any great-coat; -but then, on the other hand, he might have been departing shamed and -cast down, followed by the mocking glances of that assembly, and with -Rumour following after him as it followed the exit of the Rector, -breathing among all the gossips that he had been rejected; upon which he -congratulated himself that he had been prudent, that he had not exposed -himself at least so far. Finally he began to wonder, with a secret smile -of superiority, how the Rector had got off the scene? Did he “exit -praying”?—which would at least have been suitable to his profession. -The doctor smiled grimly under his muffler; he would have laughed if it -had not been for Jim by his side, who sat thinking of nothing, looking -out for the Sliplin lights and that turning about which Lady Jane had -warned his master. If it had not been for Jim, indeed, Dr. Burnet, -though so good a driver, would have run the mare into the bank of stones -and roadmakers’ materials which had been accumulated there for the -repair of the road. “Exit praying”?—no, the Rector, to judge from his -present aspect of irritated and wounded pride, could not have done that. -“Exit cursing,” would have been more like it. The doctor did burst into -a little laugh as he successfully steered round the Eversfield corner, -thanks to the observation of his groom, and Jim thought this was the -reason of the laugh. At all events, neither the praying nor the cursing -had come yet for Dr. Burnet, and he was not in any hurry. He said to -himself that he would go and pay old Tredgold a visit next morning, and -tell him of the dinner party at Steephill and see how the land lay.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_271" id="page_271"></a>{271}</span></p> - -<p>I cannot tell whether Mr. Tredgold had any suspicion of the motives -which made his medical man so very attentive to him, but he was always -glad to see the doctor, who amused him, and whose vigorous life and -occupation it did the old gentleman good to see.</p> - -<p>“Ah, doctor, you remind me of what I was when I was a young man—always -at it night and day. I didn’t care not a ha’penny for pleasure; work was -pleasure for me—and makin’ money,” said the old man with a chuckle and -a slap on the pocket where, metaphorically, it was all stored.</p> - -<p>“You had the advantage over me, then,” the doctor said.</p> - -<p>“Why, you fellows must be coining money,” cried the patient; “a golden -guinea for five minutes’ talk; rich as Creosote you doctors ought to -grow—once you get to the top of the tree. Must be at the top o’ the -tree first, I’ll allow—known on ‘Change, you know, and that sort of -thing. You should go in for royalties, doctor; that’s the way to get -known.”</p> - -<p>“I should have no objection, Mr. Tredgold, you may be sure, if the -royalties would go in for me; but there are two to be taken into account -in such a bargain.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, that’s easily done,” said the old man. “Stand by when there’s some -accident, doctor—there’s always accidents; and be on the spot at the -proper time.”</p> - -<p>“Unless I were to hire someone to get up the accident—— Would you go so -far as to recommend that?”</p> - -<p>Old Tredgold laughed and resumed the former subject. “So you took my -Katie in to dinner? Well, I’m glad of that. I don’t approve of young -prodigals dangling about my girls; they may save themselves the trouble. -I’ve let ’em know my principles, I hope, strong enough. If I would not -give in to my little Stella, it stands to reason I won’t for Kate. So my -Lady Jane had best keep her fine gentlemen to herself.”</p> - -<p>“You may make your mind quite easy, sir,” said the doctor; “there were -nothing but county people, and very heavy county people into the -bargain.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_272" id="page_272"></a>{272}</span></p> - -<p>“County or town, I don’t think much of ’em,” said old Tredgold; “not -unless they can table their money alongside of me; that’s my principle, -Dr. Burnet—pound for pound, or you don’t get a daughter of mine. It’s -the only safe principle. Girls are chiefly fools about money; though -Stella wasn’t, mind you—that girl was always a chip o’ the old block. -Led astray, she was, by not believing I meant what I said—thought she -could turn me round her little finger. That’s what they all think,” he -said with a chuckle, “till they try—till they try.”</p> - -<p>“You see it is difficult to know until they do try,” said Dr. Burnet; -“and if you will excuse me saying it, Mr. Tredgold, Miss Stella had -every reason to think she could turn you round her little finger. She -had only to express a wish——”</p> - -<p>“I don’t deny it,” said the old man with another chuckle—“I don’t deny -it. Everything they like—until they come to separatin’ me from my -money. I’ll spend on them as much as any man; but when it comes to -settlin’, pound by pound—you’ve heard it before.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes, I’ve heard it before,” the doctor said with a half groan, “and -I suppose there are very few men under the circumstances——”</p> - -<p>“Plenty of men! Why there’s young Fred Turny—fine young fellow—as -flashy as you like with his rings and his pins, good cricketer and all -that, though I think it’s nonsense, and keeps a young fellow off his -business. Why, twice the man that Somers fellow was! Had him down for -Stella to look at, and she as good as turned him out of the house. Oh, -she was an impudent one! Came down again the other day, on spec, looking -after Katie; and bless you, she’s just as bad, hankering after them -military swells, too, without a copper. I’m glad to know my Lady Jane -understands what’s what and kept her out of their way.”</p> - -<p>“There were only county people—young Fortescue, who has a pretty -estate, and myself.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_273" id="page_273"></a>{273}</span></p> - -<p>“Oh, you don’t count,” said old Mr. Tredgold; “we needn’t reckon you. -Young Fortescue, eh? All land, no money. Land’s a very bad investment in -these days. I think I’ll have nothing to do with young Fortescue. Far -safer money on the table; then you run no risks.”</p> - -<p>“Young Fortescue is not a candidate, I believe,” said Dr. Burnet with a -smile much against the grain.</p> - -<p>“A candidate for what?—the county? I don’t take any interest in -politics except when they affect the market. Candidate, bless you, -they’re all candidates for a rich girl! There’s not one of ’em, young or -old, but thinks ‘That girl will have a lot of money.’ Why, they tell me -old Stanley—old enough to be her father—has been after Katie, old -fool!” the old man said.</p> - -<p>Dr. Burnet felt himself a little out of countenance. He said, “I do not -believe, sir, for a moment, that the Rector, if there is any truth in -the rumour, was thinking of Miss Katherine’s money.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, tell that to the—moon, doctor! I know a little better than that. -Her money? why it’s her money everybody is thinking of. D’ye think my -Lady Jane would pay her such attention if it wasn’t for her money? I -thought it was all broken off along of Stella, but she thinks better -luck next time, I suppose. By George!” cried the old man, smiting the -table with his fist, “if she brings another young rake to me, and thinks -she’ll get over me—— By George, doctor! I’ve left Stella to taste how -she likes it, but I’d turn the other one—that little white proud -Katie—out of my house.” There was a moment during which the doctor held -himself ready for every emergency, for old Tredgold’s countenance was -crimson and his eyes staring. He calmed down, however, quickly, having -learned the lesson that agitation was dangerous for his health, and with -a softened voice said, “You, now, doctor, why don’t you get married? -Always better for a doctor to be married. The ladies like it, and you’d -get on twice as well with a nice wife.”</p> - -<p>“Probably I should,” said Dr. Burnet, “but perhaps, if the lady happened -to have any money—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_274" id="page_274"></a>{274}</span>—”</p> - -<p>“Don’t take one without,” the old man interrupted.</p> - -<p>“I should be considered a fortune-hunter, and I shouldn’t like that.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you!” said Mr. Tredgold, “you don’t count—that’s another pair of -shoes altogether. As for your young Fortescue, I should just like to see -him fork out, down upon the table, thousand for thousand. If he can do -that, he’s the man for me.”</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>You don’t count!’ What did the old beggar mean by that?” Dr. Burnet -asked himself as he took the reins out of Jim’s hand and drove away. Was -it contempt, meaning that the doctor was totally out of the question? or -was it by any possibility an encouragement with the signification that -he as a privileged person might be permitted to come in on different -grounds? In another man’s case Dr. Burnet would have rejected the latter -hypothesis with scorn, but in his own he was not so sure. What was the -meaning of that sudden softening of tone, the suggestion, “You, now, -doctor, why don’t you get married?” almost in the same breath with his -denunciation of any imaginary pretender? Why was he (Burnet) so -distinctly put in a different category? He rejected the idea that this -could mean anything favourable to himself, and then he took it back -again and caressed it, and began to think it possible. <i>You</i> don’t -count. Why shouldn’t he count? <i>He</i> was not a spendthrift like Charlie -Somers; <i>he</i> was not all but bankrupt; on the contrary, he was -well-to-do and had expectations. He was in a better position than the -young military swells whom Mr. Tredgold denounced; he was far better off -than the Rector. Why shouldn’t he count? unless it was meant that the -rule about those pounds on the table, &c., did not count where he was -concerned, that he was to be reckoned with from a different point of -view. The reader may think this was great folly on Dr. Burnet’s part, -but when you turn over anything a hundred times in your mind it is sure -to take new aspects not seen at first. And then Mr. Tredgold’s words -appeared to the doctor’s intelligence quite capable of a special -interpretation. He was, as a matter of fact,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_275" id="page_275"></a>{275}</span> a much more important -person to Mr. Tredgold than any fashionable young swell who might demand -Katherine in marriage. He, the doctor, held in his hands, in a measure, -the thread of life and death. Old Tredgold’s life had not a very -enjoyable aspect to the rest of the world, but he liked it, and did not -want it to be shortened by a day. And the doctor had great power over -that. The old man believed in him thoroughly—almost believed that so -long as he was there there was no reason why he should die. Was not that -an excellent reason for almost believing, certainly for allowing, that -he might want to make so important a person a member of his family on -terms very different from those which applied to other people, who could -have no effect upon his life and comfort at all? “You don’t count!” Dr. -Burnet had quite convinced himself that this really meant all that he -could wish it to mean before he returned from his morning round. He took -up the question <i>à plusieurs reprises</i>; after every visit working out -again and again the same line of argument: You don’t count; I look to -you to keep me in health, to prolong my life, to relieve me when I am in -any pain, and build me up when I get low, as you have done for all these -years; you don’t count as the strangers do, you have something to put -down on the table opposite my gold—your skill, your science, your art -of prolonging life. To a man like you things are dealt out by another -measure. Was it very foolish, very ridiculous, almost childish of Dr. -Burnet? Perhaps it was, but he did not see it in that light.</p> - -<p>He passed the Rector as he returned home, very late for his hurried -luncheon as doctors usually are, and he smiled with a mixed sense of -ridicule and compassion at the handsome clergyman, who had not yet -recovered his complacency or got over that rending asunder of his <i>amour -propre</i>. Poor old fellow! But it was very absurd of him to think that -Katherine would have anything to say to him with his grown-up children. -And a little while after, as he drove through the High Street, he saw -young Fortescue driving into the stables at the Thatched House Hotel, -evidently with the intention of putting up there.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_276" id="page_276"></a>{276}</span></p> - -<p>“Ah!” he said to himself, “young Fortescue, another candidate!” The -doctor was no wiser than other people, and did not consider that young -Fortescue had been introduced for the first time to Katherine on the -previous night, and could not possibly by any rule of likelihood be on -his way to make proposals to her father the next morning. This dawned -upon him after a while, and he laughed again aloud to the great -disturbance of the mind of Jim, who could not understand why his master -should laugh right out about nothing at all twice on successive days. -Was it possible that much learning had made the doctor mad, or at least -made him a little wrong in the head? And, indeed, excessive thinking on -one subject has, we all know, a tendency that way.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_277" id="page_277"></a>{277}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Lady Jane</span> gave Katherine a great deal of good advice before she allowed -her to return home. They talked much of Stella, as was natural, and of -the dreadful discovery it was to her to find that after all she had no -power over her father, and that she must remain in India with her -husband for the sake of the mere living instead of returning home in -triumph as she had hoped, and going to court and having the advantage at -once of her little title and of her great fortune.</p> - -<p>“The worst is that she seems to have given up hope,” Lady Jane said. “I -tell her that we all agreed we must give your father a year; but she has -quite made up her mind that he never will relent at all.”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid I am of her opinion,” said Katherine; “not while he lives. -I hope indeed—that if he were ill—if he were afraid of—of anything -happening——”</p> - -<p>“And you, of course, would be there to keep him up in his good -intentions, Katherine? Oh, don’t lose an opportunity! And what a good -thing for you to have a sensible understanding man like Dr. Burnet to -stand by you. I am quite sure he will do everything he can to bring your -father to a proper frame of mind.”</p> - -<p>“If he had anything to do with it!” said Katherine a little surprised.</p> - -<p>“A doctor, my dear, has always a great deal to do with it. He takes the -place that the priest used to take. The priest you need not send for -unless you like, but the doctor you must have there. And I have known -cases in which it made all the difference—with a good doctor who made a -point of standing up for justice. Dr. Burnet is a man of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_278" id="page_278"></a>{278}</span> excellent -character, not to speak of his feeling for you, which I hope is apparent -enough.”</p> - -<p>“Lady Jane! I don’t know what you mean.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Lady Jane with composure, “there is no accounting for the -opaqueness of girls in some circumstances. You probably did not remark -either, Katherine, the infatuation of that unfortunate Rector, which you -should have done, my dear, and stopped him before he came the length of -a proposal, which is always humiliating to a man. But I was speaking of -the doctor. He takes a great interest in poor Stella; he would always -stand up for her in any circumstances, and you may find him of great use -with your father at any—any crisis—which let us hope, however, will -not occur for many a long year.”</p> - -<p>Lady Jane’s prayer was not, perhaps, very sincere. That old Tredgold -should continue to cumber the ground for many years, and keep poor -Stella out of her money, was the very reverse of her desire; but the old -man was a very tough old man, and she was afraid it was very likely that -it would be so.</p> - -<p>“I think,” said Katherine with a little heat, “that it would be well -that neither Dr. Burnet nor any other stranger should interfere.”</p> - -<p>“I did not say interfere,” said Lady Jane; “everything of that kind -should be done with delicacy. I only say that it will be a great thing -for you to have a good kind man within reach in case of any emergency. -Your father is, we all know, an old man, and one can never tell what may -happen—though I think, for my part, that he is good for many years. -Probably you will yourself be married long before that, which I will -rejoice to see for my part. You have no relations to stand by you, no -uncle, or anything of that sort? I thought not; then, my dear, I can -only hope that you will find a good man——”</p> - -<p>“Thank you for the good wish,” said Katherine with a laugh. “I find it -is a good man to look after Stella’s interests rather than anything that -will please me that my friends wish.”</p> - -<p>“My dear,” said Lady Jane with a little severity, “I should not have -expected such a speech from you. I have always<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_279" id="page_279"></a>{279}</span> thought a good quiet man -of high principles would be far more suitable for you than anything like -Charlie Somers, for example. Charlie Somers is my own relation, but I’m -bound to say that if I proposed to him to secure to his sister-in-law -half of his wife’s fortune I shouldn’t expect a very gracious answer. -These sort of men are always so hungry for money—they have such -quantities of things to do with it. A plain man with fewer needs and -more consideration for others—— Katherine, don’t think me interested -for Stella only. You know I like her, as well as feeling partly -responsible; but you also know, my dear, that of the two I always -preferred you.”</p> - -<p>“You are very kind,” said Katherine; but she was not grateful—there was -no <i>effusion</i> in her manner. Many girls would have thrown themselves -upon Lady Jane’s neck with an enthusiasm of response. But this did not -occur to Katherine, nor did she feel the gratitude which she did not -express.</p> - -<p>“And I should like, I confess, to see you happily married, my dear,” -said Lady Jane impressively. “I don’t think I know any girl whom I -should be more glad to see settled; but don’t turn away from an honest, -plain man. That is the sort of man that suits a girl like you best. You -are not a butterfly, and your husband shouldn’t be of the butterfly -kind. A butterfly man is a dreadful creature, Katherine, when he -outgrows his season and gets old. There’s Algy Scott, for example, my -own cousin, who admired you very much—you would tire of him in a week, -my dear, or any of his kind; they would bore you to death in ten days.”</p> - -<p>“I have no desire, Lady Jane, to try how long it would take to be bored -to death by——”</p> - -<p>“And you are very wise,” Lady Jane said. “Come and let’s look at the -aloe and see how much it has unfolded since <i>that</i> night. And is it -quite certain, Katherine, that you must go to-morrow? Well, you have had -a very dull visit, and I have done nothing but bore you with my dull -advice. But Sir John will be broken-hearted to lose you, and you will -always find the warmest welcome at Steephill. Friends are friends, my -dear, however dull they may be.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_280" id="page_280"></a>{280}</span></p> - -<p>Katherine went home with her whole being in a state of animation, which -is always a good thing for the mind even when it is produced by -disagreeable events. The spirit of men, and naturally of women also, is -apt to get stagnant in an undisturbed routine, and this had been -happening to her day by day in the home life which so many things had -concurred to make motionless. The loss of Stella, the double break with -society, in the first place on that account, in the second because of -the Rector, her partial separation from Steephill on one side and from -the village on the other, had been, as it were, so many breakages of -existence to Katherine, who had not sufficient initiative or sufficient -position to make any centre for herself. Now the ice that had been -gathered over her was broken in a multitude of pieces, if not very -agreeably, yet with advantage to her mind. Katherine reflected with no -small sense of contrariety and injustice of the continued comparison -with Stella which apparently was to weigh down all her life. Lady Jane -had invited her, not for her own attractiveness—though she did not -doubt that Lady Jane’s real sentiment at bottom was, as she said, one of -partiality for Katherine—but to be put into the way she should go in -respect to Stella and kept up to her duty. That Stella should not -suffer, that she should eventually be secured in her fortune, that was -the object of all her friends. It was because he would be favourable to -Stella that Lady Jane had thrust Dr. Burnet upon her, indicating him -almost by name, forcing her, as it were, into his arms. Did Dr. Burnet -in the same way consider that he was acting in Stella’s interests when -he made himself agreeable to her sister? Katherine’s heart—a little -wounded, sore, mortified in pride and generosity (as if she required to -be pushed on, to be excited and pricked up into action for -Stella!)—seemed for a moment half disposed to throw itself on the other -side, to call back the Rector, who would probably think it right that -Stella should be punished for her disobedience, or to set up an -immovable front as an unmarried woman, adopting that <i>rôle</i> which has -become so common now-a-days. She would, she felt, have nobody -recommended to her for her husband<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_281" id="page_281"></a>{281}</span> whose chief characteristic was that -he would take care of Stella. It was an insult to herself. She would -marry nobody at second-hand on Stella’s account. Better, far better, -marry nobody at all, which was certainly her present inclination, and so -be free to do for Stella, when the time came, what she had always -intended, of her own accord and without intervention.</p> - -<p>I think all the same that Lady Jane was quite right, and that the -butterfly kind of man—the gallant, gay Algy or any of his -fellows—would have been quite out of Katherine’s way; also that a man -like Dr. Burnet would have been much in her way. But to Katherine these -calculations seemed all, more or less, insulting. Why an elderly -clergyman with a grown-up family should suppose himself to be on an -equality with her, a girl of twenty-three, and entitled to make her an -offer, so very much at second-hand, of his heart and home, which was too -full already; and why, in default of him, a country practitioner with no -particular gifts or distinction should be considered the right thing for -Katherine, gave her an angry sense of antagonism to the world. This, -then, was all she was supposed to be good for—the humdrum country life, -the humdrum, useful wife of such a man. And that everything that was -pleasant and amusing and extravagant and brilliant should go to Stella: -that was the award of the world. Katherine felt very angry as she drove -home. She had no inclination towards any “military swell.” She did not -admire her brother-in-law nor his kind; she (on the whole) liked Dr. -Burnet, and had a great respect for his profession and his -much-occupied, laborious, honourable life. But to have herself set down -beforehand as a fit mate only for the doctor or the clergyman, this was -what annoyed the visionary young person, whose dreams had never been -reduced to anything material, except perhaps that vague figure of James -Stanford, who was nobody, and whom she scarcely knew!</p> - -<p>Yet all this shaking up did Katherine good. If she had been more -pleasantly moved she would perhaps scarcely have been so effectually -startled out of the deadening routine of her life. The process was not -pleasant at all, but it made her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_282" id="page_282"></a>{282}</span> blood course more quickly through her -veins, and quickened her pulses and cleared her head. She was received -by her father without much emotion—with the usual chuckle and “Here you -are!” which was his most affectionate greeting.</p> - -<p>“Well, so you’ve got home,” he said. “Find home more comfortable on the -whole, eh, Katie? Better fires, better cooking, more light, eh? I -thought you would. These grand folks, they have to save on something; -here you’re stinted in nothing. Makes a difference, I can tell you, in -life.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think there is much stinting in anything, papa, at Steephill.”</p> - -<p>“Not for the dinner party, perhaps. I never hold with dinner parties. -They don’t suit me; sitting down to a large meal when you ought to be -thinking of your bed. But Sir John puts his best foot forward, eh, for -that? Saves up the grapes, I shouldn’t wonder, till they go bad, for one -blow-out, instead of eating ’em when he wants ’em, like we do, every -day.”</p> - -<p>This speech restored the equilibrium of Katherine’s mind by turning the -balance of wit to the other side.</p> - -<p>“You are not at all just to Sir John, papa. You never are when you don’t -know people. He is very honest and kind, and takes very little trouble -about his dinner parties. They were both very kind to me.”</p> - -<p>“Asked young Fortescue to meet you, I hear. A young fellow with a lot of -poor land and no money. Meaning to try me on another tack this time, I -suppose. Not if he had a hundred miles of downs, Katie; you remember -that. Land’s a confounded bad investment. None of your encumbered -estates for me.”</p> - -<p>“You need not distress yourself, papa. I never spoke to Mr. Fortescue,” -said Katherine.</p> - -<p>There was a little offence in her tone. She had not forgiven Lady Jane -for the fact that Mr. Fortescue, the only young man of the party, had -not been allotted to her for dinner, as she felt would have been the -right thing. Katherine thought him very red in the face, weatherbeaten, -and dull—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_283" id="page_283"></a>{283}</span>so far as appearances went; but she was piqued and offended -at having been deprived of her rights. Did Lady Jane not think her good -enough, <i>par exemple</i>, for young Fortescue? And her tone betrayed her, -if Mr. Tredgold had taken any trouble to observe her tone.</p> - -<p>“He need not come here to throw dust in my eyes—that’s all,” said the -old man. “I want none of your landed fellows—beggars! with more to give -out than they have coming in. No; the man that can put down his money on -the table——”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you think I have heard enough of your money down on the table?” -said Katherine, very red and uncomfortable. “No one is likely to trouble -you about me, papa, so we may leave the money alone, on the table or off -it.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not so sure about that. There’s young Fred Turny would like nothing -better. And a capital fellow that. Plenty of his own, and going into all -the best society, and titled ladies flinging themselves at his head. -Mind you, I don’t know if you keep shilly-shallying, whether he’ll stand -it long—a young fellow like that.”</p> - -<p>“He knows very well there is no shilly-shallying about me,” said -Katherine.</p> - -<p>And she left her father’s room thinking within herself that though Lady -Jane’s way of recommending a plain man was not pleasant, yet the other -way was worse. Fred Turny, it was certain, would not hear of dividing -his wife’s fortune with her sister, should her father’s will give it all -to herself; neither would Charlie Somers, Lady Jane assured her. Would -Dr. Burnet do this? Katherine, possessed for the moment of a prejudice -against the doctor, doubted, though that was the ground on which he was -recommended. Would any man do so? There was one man she thought (of whom -she knew nothing) who would; who cared nothing about the money; whose -heart had chosen herself while Stella was there in all her superior -attractions. Katherine felt that this man, of whom she had seen so -little, who had been out of the country for nearly four years, from whom -she had never received a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_284" id="page_284"></a>{284}</span> letter, and scarcely even could call to mind -anything he had ever said to her, was the one man whom she could trust -in all the world.</p> - -<p>Dr. Burnet came that afternoon, as it was his usual day for visiting Mr. -Tredgold. He was very particular in keeping to his days. It was a -beautiful spring-like afternoon, and the borders round the house were -full of crocuses, yellow and blue and white. The window was open in -Katherine’s corner, and all the landscape outside bright with the -westering light.</p> - -<p>“What a difference,” he said, “from that snowstorm—do you remember the -snowstorm? It is in this way an era for me—as, indeed, it was in the -whole island. We all begin to date by it: before the snowstorm, or at -the time of the snowstorm.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder,” said Katherine, scarcely conscious of what she was saying, -“why it was an era to you?”</p> - -<p>“Ah, that I cannot tell you now. I will, perhaps, if you will let me, -sometime. Come out and look at the crocuses. This is just the moment, -before the sun goes down.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, they shut when the sun goes down,” Katherine said, stepping out -from the window.</p> - -<p>The air had all the balm of spring, and the crocuses were all the -colours of hope. It is delightful to come out of winter into the first -gleam of the reviving year.</p> - -<p>“We are nothing if not botanical,” said the doctor. “You remember the -aloe. It is a fine thing but it is melancholy, for its blossoming is its -death. It is like the old fable of the phœnix. When the new comes the -old dies. And a very good thing too if we did not put our ridiculous -human sentiment into everything.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think human sentiment is ridiculous?” said Katherine, half -disposed to back him up, half to argue it out.</p> - -<p>“Of course I don’t!” said the doctor with vehemence; and then he laughed -and said, “We are talking like a book. But I am glad you went to -Steephill; there is not any such sentiment there.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_285" id="page_285"></a>{285}</span></p> - -<p>“Do you think, then, I am liable to be attacked by fits of sentiment? I -don’t think so,” she said, and then she invited the doctor to leave the -crocuses and to come in to tea.</p> - -<p>I think it was that day that Dr. Burnet informed Katherine that her -father had symptoms of illness more or less serious. He hoped that he -might be able to stave off their development, and Mr. Tredgold might yet -have many years of tolerable health before him. “But if I am right,” he -said, “I fear he will not have the calm life he has had. He will be -likely to have sudden attacks, and suffer a good deal, from time to -time. I will always be at hand, of course, and ready night and day. And, -as I tell you, great alleviations are possible. I quite hope there will -be many intervals of comfort. But, on the other hand, a catastrophe is -equally possible. If he has any affairs to attend to, it would perhaps -be—a good thing—if he could be persuaded to—look after them, as a -matter of prudence, without giving him any alarm.”</p> - -<p>Such an intimation makes the heart beat of those to whom the angel of -death is thus suddenly revealed hovering over their home; even when -there is no special love or loss involved. The bond between Mr. Tredgold -and his children was not very tender or delicate, and yet he was her -father. Katherine’s heart for a moment seemed to stand still. The colour -went out of her face, and the eyes which she turned with an appealing -gaze to the doctor filled with tears.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Dr. Burnet!” she said.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be alarmed; there is nothing to call for any immediate -apprehension. It is only if you want to procure any modification—any -change in a will, or detail of that kind.”</p> - -<p>“You mean about Stella,” she said. “I don’t know what he has done about -Stella; he never tells me anything. Is it necessary to trouble him, -doctor? If he has not changed his will it will be all right; if he has -destroyed it without making another it will still be all right, for some -one told me that in that case we should share alike—is that the law? -Then no harm can come to Stella. Oh, that we should be discussing in -this calm way what might happen—after!” Two big<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_286" id="page_286"></a>{286}</span> tears fell from -Katherine’s eyes. “If the worst were to happen even,” she said; “if -Stella were left out—it would still be all right, doctor, so long as I -was there to see justice done.”</p> - -<p>“Dear Katherine!” he said, just touching her hand for a moment. She -scarcely perceived in her agitation that he had left out the prefix, and -the look which he gave her made no impression on her preoccupied mind. -“You will remember,” he said, “that I am to be called instantly if -anything unusual happens, and that I shall always be ready—to do the -best I can for him, and to stand by you—to the end.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_287" id="page_287"></a>{287}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">This</span> made again a delay in Dr. Burnet’s plans. You cannot begin to make -love to a girl when you have just told her of the serious illness, not -likely to end in anything but death, which is hovering over her father. -It is true that old Tredgold was not, could not, be the object of any -passionate devotion on the part of his daughter. But even when the tie -is so slight that, once broken, it has but a small effect on life, yet -the prospect of that breaking is always appalling, more or less worse -than the event itself. All that a man can say in such circumstances, Dr. -Burnet said—that he would be at her service night or day, that -everything he could do or think of he would do, and stand by her to the -last. That was far more appropriate than professions of love, and it was -a little trying to him to find that she had not even noticed how he -looked at her, or that he said, “Dear Katherine!” which, to be sure, he -had no right to say. She was not even aware of it! which is discouraging -to a man.</p> - -<p>Dr. Burnet was a good doctor, he knew what he was about; and it was not -long before his prophecy came true. Mr. Tredgold was seized with an -alarming attack in the spring, which brought him to the very verge of -the grave, and from which at one time it was not expected he would ever -rally. The old man was very ill, but very strong in spirit, and fought -with his disease like a lion; one would have said a good old man to see -him lying there with no apparent trouble on his mind, nothing to -pre-occupy time or draw him away from the immediate necessity of -battling for his life, which he did with a courage worthy of a better -cause. His coolness, his self-possession, his readiness to second every -remedy, and give himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_288" id="page_288"></a>{288}</span> every chance, was the admiration of the -watchers, doctors, and nurses alike, who were all on the alert to help -him, and conquer the enemy. Could there be a better cause than fighting -for your life? Not one at least of more intimate interest for the -combatant; though whether it is worth so much trouble when a man is over -seventy, and can look forward to nothing better than the existence of an -invalid, is a question which might well be debated. Mr. Tredgold, -however, had no doubt on the subject. He knew that he possessed in this -life a great many things he liked—what he would have in another he had -very little idea. Probably, according to all that he had ever heard, -there would be no money there, and if any difference between the beggar -and the rich man, a difference in favour of the former. He did not at -all desire to enter into that state of affairs. And the curious thing -was that it could never be discovered that he had anything on his mind. -He did not ask for Stella, as the large circle of watchers outside who -read the bulletins at the lodge, and discussed the whole matter with the -greatest interest, feeling it to be as good as a play, fondly hoped. He -never said a word that could be construed into a wish for her, never, -indeed, mentioned her name. He did not even desire to have Katherine by -him, it was said; he preferred the nurses, saying in his characteristic -way that they were paid for it, that it was their business, and that he -never in anything cared for amateurs; he said amateurs, as was natural, -and it was exactly the sentiment which everybody had expected from Mr. -Tredgold. But never to ask for Stella, never to call upon her at his -worst moment, never to be troubled by any thought of injustice done to -her, that was the extraordinary thing which the community could not -understand. Most people had expected a tragic scene of remorse, -telegrams flying over land and sea, at the cost of a sovereign a -word—but what was that to Mr. Tredgold?—calling Stella home. The good -people were confounded to hear, day by day, that no telegram had been -sent. It would have been a distinction for the little post-office in -Sliplin to have a telegram of such a character to transmit to India. The -postmistress awaited,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_289" id="page_289"></a>{289}</span> feeling as if she were an inferior, but still -very important, personage in the play, attending her call to go on. But -the call never came. When the patient was at his worst various ladies in -the place, and I need not say Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay, had many -whispered conferences with the people at the post. “No telegram yet? Is -it possible?”</p> - -<p>“No, indeed, ma’am, not a word.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder at you for expecting it now,” cried Miss Mildmay, angry at the -failure of all those hopes which she had entertained as warmly as -anyone. “What use would it be. She couldn’t come now; he’ll be gone, -poor man, weeks and weeks before Stella could be here.”</p> - -<p>But Mr. Tredgold did not go, and then it began to be understood that he -never meant nor expected to go, and that this was the reason why he did -not disturb himself about Stella. The spectators were half satisfied, -yet half aggrieved, by this conclusion, and felt, as he got slowly -better, that they had been cheated out of their play; however, he was an -old man, and the doctor shook his head over all the triumphant accounts -of his recovery which were made in the local papers; and there was yet -hope of a tragedy preceded by a reconciliation, and the restoration of -Stella to all her rights. Dr. Burnet was, throughout the whole illness, -beyond praise. He was at the Cliff at every available moment, watching -every symptom. Not a day elapsed that he did not see Katherine two or -three times to console her about her father, or to explain anything new -that had occurred. They were together so much that some people said they -looked as if they had been not only lovers but married for years, so -complete seemed their confidence in each other and the way they -understood each other. A glance at Dr. Burnet’s face was enough for -Katherine. She knew what it meant without another word; while he divined -her anxiety, her apprehensions, her depression, as the long days went on -without any need of explanation. “As soon as the old man is well enough -there will, of course, be a marriage,” it was generally said. “And, of -course, the doctor will go and live there,” said Mrs. Shanks, “such a -comfort<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_290" id="page_290"></a>{290}</span> to have the doctor always on the spot—and what a happy thing -for poor Mr. Tredgold that it should be his son-in-law—a member of his -family.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Tredgold will never have a son-in-law in his house,” said Miss -Mildmay, “if Katherine is expecting that she is reckoning without her -father. I don’t believe <i>that</i> will ever be a marriage whatever you may -say. What! send off Sir Charles Somers, a man with something at least to -show for himself, and take in Dr. Burnet? I think, Jane Shanks, that you -must be off your head!”</p> - -<p>“Sir Charles Somers could never have been of any use to poor, dear Mr. -Tredgold,” said Mrs. Shanks, a little abashed, “and Dr. Burnet is. What -a difference that makes!”</p> - -<p>“It may make a difference—but it will not make that difference; and I -shouldn’t like myself to be attended by my son-in-law,” said the other -lady. “He might give you a little pinch of something at a critical -moment; or he might change your medicine; or he might take away a -pillow—you can’t tell the things that a doctor might do—which could -never be taken hold of, and yet——”</p> - -<p>“Ruth Mildmay!” cried Mrs. Shanks, “for shame of yourself, do you think -Dr. Burnet would murder the man?”</p> - -<p>“No; I don’t think he would murder the man,” said Miss Mildmay -decidedly, but there was an inscrutable look in her face, “there are -many ways of doing a thing,” she said, nodding her head to herself.</p> - -<p>It appeared, however, that this time at least Dr. Burnet was not going -to have the chance, whether he would have availed himself of it or not. -Mr. Tredgold got better. He came round gradually, to the surprise of -everybody but himself. When he was first able to go out in his bath -chair he explained the matter to the kind friends who hastened to -congratulate him, in the most easy way. “You all thought I was going to -give in this time,” he said, “but I never meant to give in. Nothing like -making up your mind to it. Ask the doctor. I said from the beginning, ‘I -ain’t going to die this bout, don’t you think it.’ <i>He</i> thought -different; ignorant pack, doctors,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_291" id="page_291"></a>{291}</span> not one of ’em knows a thing. Ask -him. He’ll tell you it wasn’t him a bit, nor his drugs neither, but me -as made up my mind.”</p> - -<p>The doctor had met the little procession and was walking along by Mr. -Tredgold’s chair. He laughed and nodded his head in reply, “Oh yes, he -is quite right. Pluck and determination are more than half of the -battle,” he said. He looked across the old man’s chair to Katherine on -the other side, who said hastily: “I don’t know what we should have done -without Dr. Burnet, papa.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, that’s all very well,” said old Tredgold. “Pay each other -compliments, that’s all right. He’ll say, perhaps, I’d have been dead -without your nursing, Katie. Not a bit of it! Always prefer a woman that -is paid for what she does and knows her duty. Yes, here I am, Rector, -getting all right, in spite of physic and doctors—as I always meant to -do.”</p> - -<p>“By the blessing of God,” said the Rector, with great solemnity. He had -met the group unawares round a corner, and to see Burnet and Katherine -together, triumphant, in sight of all the world, was bitter to the -injured man. That this common country doctor should be preferred to -himself added an additional insult, and he would have gone a mile round -rather than meet the procession. Being thus, however, unable to help -himself, the Rector grew imposing beyond anything that had ever been -seen of him. He looked a Bishop, at least, as he stood putting forth no -benediction, but a severe assertion that belied the words. “By the -blessing of God,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” said old Mr. Tredgold, taken aback. “Oh yes, that’s what you say. -I don’t mean to set myself against that. Never know, though, do you, how -it’s coming—queer thing to reckon on. But anyhow, here I am, and ten -pounds for the poor, Rector, if you like, to show as I don’t go against -that view.”</p> - -<p>“I hope the improvement will continue,” the Rector said, with his nose -in the air. “Good morning, Miss Katherine, I congratulate you with all -my heart.”</p> - -<p>On what did he congratulate her? The doctor, though his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_292" id="page_292"></a>{292}</span> complexion was -not delicate, coloured high, and so did Katherine, without knowing -exactly what was the reason; and Sliplin, drawing its own conclusions, -looked on. The only indifferent person was Mr. Tredgold, always sure of -his own intentions and little concerned by those of others, to whom -blushes were of as little importance as any other insignificant trifles -which did not affect himself.</p> - -<p>It was perhaps this little incident which settled the question in the -mind of the community. The Rector had congratulated the pair in open -day; then, of course, the conclusion was clear that all the -preliminaries were over—that they were engaged, and that Mr. Tredgold, -who had rejected Sir Charles Somers, was really going to accept the -doctor. The Rector, who, without meaning it, thus confirmed and -established everything that had been mere imagination up to this time, -believed it himself with all the virulence of an injured man. And -Katherine, when Dr. Burnet had departed on his rounds and she was left -to accompany her father home, almost believed herself that it must be -true. He had said nothing to her which could be called a definite -proposal, and she had certainly given no acceptance, no consent to -anything of the kind, yet it was not impossible that without any -intention, without any words, she had tacitly permitted that this should -be. Looking back, it seemed to her, that indeed they had been always -together during these recent days, and a great many things had passed -between them in their meetings by her father’s bedside, outside his -door, or in the hall, at all times of the night and day. And perhaps a -significance might be given to words which she had not attached to them. -She was a little alarmed—confused—not knowing what had happened. She -had met his eyes full of an intelligence which she did not feel that she -shared, and she had seen him redden and herself had felt a hot colour -flushing to her face. She did not know why she blushed. It was not for -Dr. Burnet; it was from the Rector’s look—angry, half malignant, full -of scornful meaning. “I congratulate you!” Was that what it meant, and -that this thing had really happened which had been floating in the air -so long?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_293" id="page_293"></a>{293}</span></p> - -<p>When she returned to the Cliff, Katherine did not go in, but went along -the edge of the path, as she had done so often when she had anything in -her mind. All her thinkings had taken place there in the days when she -had often felt lonely and “out of it,” when Stella was in the ascendant -and everything had rolled on in accordance with her lively views. She -had gone there with so many people to show them “the view,” who cared -nothing for the view, and had lingered afterwards while they returned to -more noisy joys, to think with a little sigh that there was someone in -the world, though she knew not where, who might have preferred to linger -with her, but had been sent away from her, never to be seen more. And -then there had been the night of Stella’s escapade in the little yacht, -and then of Stella’s second flight with her husband, and of many a day -beside when Katherine’s heart had been too full to remain quietly -indoors, and when the space, the sky, the sea, had been her consolers. -She went there now, and with a languor which was half of the mind and -half of the body walked up and down the familiar way. The tamarisks were -beginning to show a little pink flush against the sea. It was not warm -enough yet to develop the blossom wholly, but yet it showed with a tinge -of colour against the blue, and all the flowering shrubs were coming -into blossom and flowers were in every crevice of the rocks. It was the -very end of April when it is verging into May, and the air was soft and -full of the sweetness of the spring.</p> - -<p>But Katherine’s mind was occupied with other things. She thought of Dr. -Burnet and whether it was true that she was betrothed to him and would -marry him and have him for her companion always from this time forth. -Was it true? She asked herself the question as if it had been someone -else, some other girl of whom she had heard this, but almost with less -interest than if it had been another girl. She would, indeed, scarcely -have been moved had she heard that the doctor had been engaged to -Charlotte Stanley or to anyone else in the neighbourhood. Was it true -that it was she, Katherine Tredgold, who was engaged to him? The -Rector’s fierce look<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_294" id="page_294"></a>{294}</span> had made her blush, but she did not blush now when -she thought over this question alone. Was she going to marry Dr. Burnet? -Katherine felt indifferent about it, as if she did not care. He would be -useful to papa; he would be a friend to Stella—he would not oppose her -in anything she might do for her sister. Why not he as well as another? -It did not seem to matter so very much, though she had once thought, as -girls do, that it mattered a great deal. There was Charlie Somers, for -whom (though without intending it) Stella had sacrificed everything. Was -he better worth than Dr. Burnet? Certainly, no. Why not, then, Dr. -Burnet as well as another? Katherine said to herself. It was curious how -little emotion she felt—her heart did not beat quicker, her breath came -with a kind of languid calm. There were no particular objections that -she knew of. He was a good man; there was nothing against him. Few -country doctors were so well bred, and scarcely anyone so kind. His -appearance was not against him either. These were all negatives, but -they seemed to give her a certain satisfaction in the weariness of soul. -Nothing against him, not even in her own mind. On the contrary, she -approved of Dr. Burnet. He was kind, not only to her, but to all. He -spared no trouble for his patients, and would face the storm, hurrying -out in the middle of the night for any suffering person who sent for him -without hesitation or delay. Who else could say the same thing? Perhaps -the Rector would do it too if he were called upon. But Katherine was not -disposed to discuss with herself the Rector’s excellencies, whereas it -seemed necessary to put before herself, though languidly, all that she -had heard to the advantage of the doctor. And how many good things she -had heard! Everybody spoke well of him, from the poorest people up to -Lady Jane, who had as good as pointed him out in so many words as the -man whom Katherine should marry. Was she about to marry him? Had it -somehow been all settled?—though she could not recollect how or when.</p> - -<p>She was tired by the long strain of her father’s illness, not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_295" id="page_295"></a>{295}</span> so much -by absolute nursing, though she had taken her share of that (but Mr. -Tredgold, as has been said, preferred a nurse who was paid for her work -on the ordinary business principle), as by the lengthened tension of -mind and body, the waiting and watching and suspense. This no doubt was -one great reason for her languid, almost passive, condition. Had Dr. -Burnet spoken then she would have acquiesced quite calmly, and indeed -she was not at all sure whether it might not have so happened already.</p> - -<p>So she pursued her musing with her face towards the lawn and the -shrubberies. But when Katherine turned to go back along the edge of the -cliff towards the house, her eyes, as she raised them, were suddenly -struck almost as by a blow, by the great breadth of the sea and the sky, -the moving line of the coast, the faint undulation of the waves, the -clouds upon the horizon white in flakes of snowy vapour against the -unruffled blue. It was almost as if someone had suddenly stretched a -visionary hand out of the distance, and struck her lightly, quickly, to -bring her back to herself. She stood still for a moment with a shiver, -confused, astonished, awakened—and then shook herself as if to shake -something, some band, some chain, some veil that had been wound round -her, away.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_296" id="page_296"></a>{296}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">But</span> whether the result of this awaking would have told for anything in -Katherine’s life had it not been for another incident which happened -shortly after, it would be impossible to say. She forgot the impression -of that sudden stroke of nature, and when she went back to her father, -who was a little excited by his first outing, there revived again so -strong an impression of the need there was of the doctor and his care, -and the importance of his position in the house as a sort of <i>deus ex -machinâ</i>, always ready to be appealed to and to perform miracles at -pleasure, that the former state of acquiescence in whatever he might -demand as the price of his services, came back strongly to her mind, and -the possibility was that there would have been no hesitation on her -part, though no enthusiasm, had he seized the opportunity during one of -the days of that week, and put his fate to the touch. But a number of -small incidents supervened; and there is a kind of luxury in delay in -these circumstances which gains upon a man, the pleasure of the -unacknowledged, the delightful sense of feeling that he is sure of a -favourable response, without all the responsibilities which a favourable -response immediately brings into being. The moment that he asked and -Katherine consented, there would be the father to face, and all the -practical difficulties of the position to be met. He would have to take -“the bull by the horns.” This is a very different thing from those -preliminaries, exciting but delightful, which form the first step. To -declare your sentiments to the girl you love, to receive that assent and -answering confession of which you are almost sure—only so much -uncertainty in it as makes the moment thrilling with an alarm and -timidity which is more<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_297" id="page_297"></a>{297}</span> sweet than confidence. That is one thing; but -what follows is quite another; the doctor a little “funked,” as he -himself said, that next important step. There was no telling what might -come out of that old demon of a father. Sometimes Dr. Burnet thought -that he was being encouraged, that he had become so necessary to Mr. -Tredgold that the idea of securing his attendance would be jumped at by -the old man; and sometimes he thought otherwise. He was, in fact, though -a brave man, frightened of the inevitable second step. And therefore he -let the matter linger, finding much delight in the happy unconsciousness -that he was risking nothing, that she understood him and all his -motives, and that his reward was certain, when he did make up his mind -to ask for it at last.</p> - -<p>Things were in this condition when one day, encouraged by her father’s -improvement, Katherine went to town, as everybody in the country is -bound to do, to go through that process which is popularly known as -“shopping.” In previous years Stella’s enterprise and activity had -provided clothes for every season as much in advance as fashion -permitted, so that there never was any sudden necessity. But Katherine -had never been energetic in these ways, and the result was that the -moment arrived, taking her a little unawares, in which even Katherine -was forced to see that she had nothing to wear. She went to town, -accordingly, one morning in the beginning of June, attended by the maid -who was no more than an elderly promoted upper housemaid, who had -succeeded Stevens. Katherine had not felt herself equal to a second -Stevens entirely for herself, indeed, she had been so well trained by -Stella, who always had need of the services of everybody about her, that -she was very well able to dispense with a personal attendant altogether. -But it was an admirable and honourable retirement for Hannah to give up -the more active work of the household and to become Miss Katherine’s -maid, and her conscientious efforts to fulfil the duties of her new -position were entertaining at least. A more perfect guardian, if any -guardian had been necessary, of all the decorums could not have been -than was this highly respectable<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_298" id="page_298"></a>{298}</span> person who accompanied her young -mistress to London with a sense of having a great responsibility upon -her shoulders. As a matter of fact, no guardian being in the least -necessary, it was Katherine who took care of her, which came to exactly -the same thing and answered all purposes.</p> - -<p>The train was on this occasion rather full, and the young lady and her -maid were put into a compartment in which were already two passengers, a -lady and gentleman, at the other extremity of the carriage, to all -appearance together. But it soon turned out that they were not together. -The lady got out at one of the little stations at which they stopped, -and then, with a little hesitation, the gentleman rose and came over to -the side on which Katherine was. “It is long since we have met,” he said -in a voice which had a thrill in it, noticeable even to Hannah, who -instinctively retired a little, leaving the place opposite Katherine at -his disposition (a thing, I need not remark, which was quite improper, -and ought not to have been done. Hannah could not for a long time -forgive herself, when she thought it over, but for the moment she was -dominated by the voice). “I have not seen you,” he repeated, with a -little faltering, “for years. Is it permitted to say a word to you, Miss -Tredgold?”</p> - -<p>The expression of his eyes was not a thing to be described. It startled -Katherine all the more that she had of late been exposed to glances -having a similar meaning, yet not of that kind. She looked at him almost -with a gasp. “Mr. Stanford! I thought you were in India?”</p> - -<p>“So I was,” he said, “and so I am going to be in a few months more. What -a curious unexpected happi—I mean occurrence—that I should have met -you—quite by accident.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes, quite by accident,” she said.</p> - -<p>“I have been in the island,” he said, “and near Sliplin for a day or -two, where it would have been natural to see you, and then when I was -coming away in desp—without doing so, what a chance that of all places -in the world you should have been put into this carriage.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_299" id="page_299"></a>{299}</span></p> - -<p>He seemed so astonished at this that it was very difficult to get over -it. Katherine took it with much more composure, and yet her heart had -begun to beat at the first sound of his voice.</p> - -<p>He asked her a great many questions about her father, about Stella; -even, timidly, about herself, though it soon became apparent that this -was not from any need of information. He had heard about Stella’s -marriage, “down there,” with a vague indication of the point at which -their journey began; and that Mr. Tredgold had been ill, and that—— -But he did not end that sentence. It was easily to be perceived that he -had acquired the knowledge somewhere that Katherine was -still—Katherine—and took a great satisfaction in the fact. And then he -began to tell her about himself. He had done very well, better than -could have been expected. He had now a very good appointment, and his -chief was very kind to him. “There are no fortunes to be made now in -India—or, at least, not such as we used to hear were once made. The -life is different altogether. It is not a long martyrdom and lakhs of -rupees, but a very passable existence and frequent holidays home. Better -that, I think.”</p> - -<p>“Surely much better,” said Katherine.</p> - -<p>“I think so. And then there are the hills—Simla, and so forth, which -never were thought of in my father’s time. They had to make up their -minds and put up with everything. We have many alleviations—the ladies -have especially,” he added, with a look that said a great deal more. Why -should he add by his looks so much importance to that fact? And how was -it that Katherine, knowing nothing of the life in India, took up his -meaning in the twinkling of an eye?</p> - -<p>“But the ladies,” she said, “don’t desert the plains where their—their -husbands are, I hope, to find safety for themselves on the hills?”</p> - -<p>“I did not mean that,” he said, with a flush of colour all over his -brown face (Katherine compared it, in spite of herself, to Dr. Burnet’s -recent blush, with conclusions not favourable to the latter). “I mean -that it is such a comfort to men<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_300" id="page_300"></a>{300}</span> to think that—what is most precious -to them in the world—may be placed in safety at any critical moment.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder if that is Charlie Somers’ feeling,” Katharine said with an -involuntary laugh. It was not that she meant to laugh at Charlie Somers; -it was rather the irrestrainable expression of a lightening and rising -of her own heart.</p> - -<p>“No doubt every man must,” James Stanford said.</p> - -<p>And they went on talking, he telling her many things which she did not -fully understand or even receive into her mind at all, her chief -consciousness being that this man—her first love—was the only one who -had felt what a true lover should, the only one to whom her heart made -any response. She did not even feel this during the course of that too -rapid journey. She felt only an exhilaration, a softening and expansion -of her whole being. She could not meet his eyes as she met Dr. Burnet’s; -they dazzled her; she could not tell why. Her heart beat, running on -with a tremulous accompaniment to those words of his, half of which her -intelligence did not master at the time, but which came to her after by -degrees. He told her that he was soon going back to India, and that he -would like to go and see Stella, to let her know by an independent -testimony how her sister was. Might he write and give her his report? -Might he come—this was said hurriedly as the train dashed into the -precincts of London, and the end of the interview approached—to Sliplin -again one day before he left on the chance of perhaps seeing her—to -inquire for Mr. Tredgold—to take anything she might wish to send to -Lady Somers? Katherine felt the flush on her own face to be -overwhelming. Ah, how different from that half-angry confused colour -which she had been conscious of when the Rector offered his -congratulations!</p> - -<p>“Oh no,” she said with a little shake of her head, and a sound of pathos -in her voice of which she was quite conscious; “my father is ill; he is -better now, but his condition is serious. I am very—sorry—I am -distressed—to say so—but he must not be disturbed, he must not. I have -escaped for a little to-day. I—had to come. But at home I am -altogether<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_301" id="page_301"></a>{301}</span> taken up by papa. I cannot let you—lose your time—take the -trouble—of coming for nothing. Oh, excuse me—I cannot——” Katherine -said.</p> - -<p>And he made no reply, he looked at her, saying a thousand things with -his eyes. And then there came the jar of the arrival. He handed her out, -he found a cab for her, performing all the little services that were -necessary, and then he held her hand a moment while he said goodbye.</p> - -<p>“May I come and see you off? May I be here when you come back?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, no!” Katherine said, she did not know why. “I don’t know when -we go back; it perhaps might not be till to-morrow—it might not be -till—that is, no, you must not come, Mr. Stanford—I—cannot help it,” -she said.</p> - -<p>Still he held her hand a moment. “It must still be hope then, nothing -but hope,” he said.</p> - -<p>She drove away through London, leaving him, seeing his face wherever she -looked. Ah, that was what the others had wanted to look like but had not -been able—that was—all that one wanted in this world; not the Tredgold -money, nor the fortune of the great City young man, nor the Rector’s -dignity, nor Dr. Burnet’s kindness—nothing but that, it did not matter -by what accompanied. What a small matter to be poor, to go away to the -end of the earth, to be burned by the sun and wasted by the heat, to -endure anything, so long as you had <i>that</i>. She trembled and was -incoherent when she tried to speak. She forgot where to tell the cabman -to go, and said strange things to Hannah, not knowing what she said. Her -heart beat and beat, as if it was the only organ she possessed, as if -she were nothing but one pulse, thumping, thumping with a delicious -idiocy, caring for nothing, and thinking of nothing. Thinking of -nothing, though rays and films of thought flew along in the air and made -themselves visible to her for a moment. Perhaps she should never see him -again; she had nothing to do with him, there was no link between them; -and yet, so to speak, there was nothing else but him in the world. She -saw the tall tower of the Parliament in a mist that somehow<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_302" id="page_302"></a>{302}</span> encircled -James Stanford’s face, and broad Whitehall was full of that vapour in -which any distinctions of other feature, of everything round about her, -was lost.</p> - -<p>How curious an effect to be produced upon anyone so reasonable, so -sensible as Katherine! After a long time, she did not know how long, she -was recalled to common day by her arrival at the dressmaker’s where she -had to get out and move and speak, all of which she seemed to do in a -dream. And then the day turned round and she had to think of her journey -back again. Why did she tell him not to come? It would have harmed -nobody if he had come. Her father had not forbidden her to see him, and -even had he forbidden her, a girl who was of age, who was nearly -twenty-four, who had after all a life of her own to think of, should she -have refrained from seeing him on that account? All her foundations were -shaken, not so much by feeling of her own as by the sight and certainty -of his feeling. She would not desert her father, never, never run away -from him like Stella. But at least she might have permitted herself to -see James Stanford again. She said to herself, “I may never marry him; -but now I shall marry nobody else.” And why had she not let him come, -why might they not at least have understood each other? The influence of -this thought was that Katherine did not linger for the afternoon train, -to which Stanford after all did go, on the chance of seeing her, of -perhaps travelling with her again, but hurried off by the very first, -sadly disappointing poor Hannah, who had looked forward to the glory of -lunching with her young mistress in some fine pastrycook’s as Stevens -had often described. Far from this, Hannah was compelled to snatch a bun -at the station, in the hurry Miss Katherine was in; and why should she -have hurried? There was no reason in the world. To be in London, and yet -not in London, to see nothing, not even the interior of Verey’s, went to -Hannah’s heart. Nor was Katherine’s much more calm when she began to -perceive that her very impetuosity had probably been the reason why she -did not see him again; for who could suppose that she who had spoken of -perhaps not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_303" id="page_303"></a>{303}</span> going till to-morrow, should have fled back again in an -hour, by a slow train in which nobody who could help it ever went?</p> - -<p>By that strange luck which so often seems to regulate human affairs, Dr. -Burnet chose this evening of all others for the explanation of his -sentiments. He paid Mr. Tredgold an evening visit, and found him very -well; and then he went out to join Katherine, whom he saw walking on the -path that edged the cliff. It was a beautiful June evening, serene and -sweet, still light with the lingering light of day, though the moon was -already high in the sky. There was no reason any longer why Dr. Burnet -should restrain his feelings. His patient was well; there was no longer -any indecorum, anything inappropriate, in speaking to Katherine of what -she must well know was nearest to his heart. He, too, had been conscious -of the movement in the air—the magnetic communication from him to her -on the day of Mr. Tredgold’s first outing, when they had met the Rector, -and he had congratulated them. To Katherine it had seemed almost as if -in some way unknown to herself everything had been settled between them, -but Dr. Burnet knew different. He knew that nothing had been settled, -that no words nor pledge had passed between them; but he had little -doubt what the issue would be. He felt that he had the matter in his own -hands, that he had only to speak and she to reply. It was a foregone -conclusion, nothing wanting but the hand and seal.</p> - -<p>Katherine had scarcely got beyond the condition of dreaming in which she -had spent the afternoon. She was a little impatient when she saw him -approaching. She did not want her thoughts to be disturbed. Her thoughts -were more delightful to her than anything else at this moment, and she -half resented the appearance of the doctor, whom her mind had forsaken -as if he had never been. The dreaming state in which she was, the -preoccupation with one individual interest is a cruel condition of mind. -At another moment she would have read Dr. Burnet’s meaning in his eyes, -and would have been prepared at least for what was coming—she who knew -so well<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_304" id="page_304"></a>{304}</span> what was coming, who had but a few days ago acquiesced in what -seemed to be fate. But now, when he began to speak, Katherine was -thunderstruck. A sort of rage sprang up in her heart. She endeavoured to -stop him, to interrupt the words on his lips, which was not only cruel -but disrespectful to a man who was offering her his best, who was laying -himself, with a warmth which he had scarcely known to be in him, at her -feet. He was surprised at his own ardour, at the fire with which he made -his declaration, and so absorbed in that that he did not for the first -moment see how with broken exclamations and lifted hands she was keeping -him off.</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t, doctor! Oh, don’t say so, don’t say so!” were the strange -words that caught his ear at last; and then he shook himself up, so to -speak, and saw her standing beside him in the gathering dimness of the -twilight, her face not shining with any sweetness of assent, but half -convulsed with pain and shame, her hands held up in entreaty, her lips -giving forth these words, “Oh, don’t say so!”</p> - -<p>It was his turn to be struck dumb. He drew up before her with a sudden -pause of consternation.</p> - -<p>“What?” he cried—“<i>what?</i>” not believing his ears.</p> - -<p>And thus they stood for a moment speechless, both of them. She had -stopped him in the middle of his love tale, which he had told better and -with more passion than he was himself sensible of. She had stopped him, -and now she did not seem to have another word to say.</p> - -<p>“It is my anxiety which is getting too much for me,” he said. “You -didn’t say that, Katherine—not that? You did not mean to interrupt -me—to stop me? No. It is only that I am too much in earnest—that I am -frightening myself——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Dr. Burnet!” she cried, instinctively putting her hands together. -“It is I who am to blame. Oh, do not be angry with me. Let us part -friends. Don’t—don’t say that any more!”</p> - -<p>“Say what?—that I love you, that I want you to be my wife? Katherine, I -have a right to say it! You have known<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_305" id="page_305"></a>{305}</span> for a long time that I was going -to say it. I have been silent because of—for delicacy, for love’s sake; -but you have known. I know that you have known!” he cried almost -violently, though in a low voice.</p> - -<p>She had appealed to him like a frightened girl; now she had to collect -her forces as a woman, with her dignity to maintain. “I will not -contradict you,” she said. “I cannot; it is true. I can only ask you to -forgive me. How could I stop you while you had not spoken? Oh no, I will -not take that excuse. If it had been last night it might have been -otherwise, but to-day I know better. I cannot—it is impossible! -Don’t—oh don’t let us say any more.”</p> - -<p>“There is a great deal more to be said!” he cried. “Impossible! How is -it impossible? Last night it would have been possible, but to-day—— -You are playing with me, Katherine! Why should it be impossible to-day?”</p> - -<p>“Not from anything in you, Dr. Burnet,” she said; “from something in -myself.”</p> - -<p>“From what in yourself? Katherine, I tell you you are playing with me! I -deserve better at your hands.”</p> - -<p>“You deserve—everything!” she cried, “and I—I deserve nothing but that -you should scorn me. But it is not my fault. I have found out. I have -had a long time to think; I have seen things in a new light. Oh, accept -what I say! It is impossible—impossible!”</p> - -<p>“Yet it was possible yesterday, and it may be possible to-morrow?”</p> - -<p>“No, never again!” she said.</p> - -<p>“Do you know,” said the doctor stonily, “that you have led me on, that -you have given me encouragement, that you have given me almost a -certainty?—and now to cast me off, without sense, without reason——”</p> - -<p>The man’s lip quivered under the sting of this disappointment and -mortification. He began not to know what he was saying.</p> - -<p>“Let us not say any more—oh, let us not say any more! That was unkind -that you said. I could give you no certainty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_306" id="page_306"></a>{306}</span> for I had none; and -to-day—I know that it is impossible! Dr. Burnet, I cannot say any -more.”</p> - -<p>“But, Miss Tredgold,” he cried in his rage, “there is a great deal more -to be said! I have a right to an explanation! I have a right to—— Good -heavens, do you mean that nothing is to come of it after all?” he -cried.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_307" id="page_307"></a>{307}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">It</span> turned out that there was indeed a great deal more to be said. Dr. -Burnet came back after the extraordinary revelation of that evening. He -left Katherine on the cliff in the silvery light of the lingering day, -with all the tender mists of her dream dispersed, to recognise the -dreadful fact that she had behaved very badly to a man who had done -nothing but good to her. It was for this he had been so constant night -and day. No man in the island had been so taken care of, so surrounded -with vigilant attention, as old Mr. Tredgold—not for the fees he gave -certainly, which were no more than those of any other man, not for love -of him, but for Katherine. And now Katherine refused to pay the -price—nay, more, stood up against any such plea—as if he had no right -to ask her or to be considered more than another man. Dr. Burnet would -not accept his dismissal, he would not listen to her prayer to say no -more of it. He would not believe that it was true, or that by reasoning -and explanation it might not yet be made right.</p> - -<p>There were two or three very painful interviews in that corner of the -drawing-room where Katherine had established herself, and which had so -many happy associations to him. He reminded her of how he had come there -day after day during the dreary winter, of that day of the snowstorm, of -other days, during which things had been said and allusions made in -which now there was no meaning. Sometimes he accused her vehemently of -having played hot and cold with him, of having led him on, of having -permitted him up to the very last to believe that she cared for him. And -to some of these accusations Katherine did not know how to reply. She -had not led him on, but she had permitted a great deal to be implied if -not said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_308" id="page_308"></a>{308}</span> and she had acquiesced. She could not deny that she had -acquiesced even in her own mind. If she had confessed to him how little -of her heart was in it at any time, or that it was little more than a -mental consent as to something inevitable, that would have been even -less flattering to him than her refusal; this was an explanation she -could not make. And her whole being shrank from a disclosure of that -chance meeting on the railway and the self-revelation it brought with -it. As a matter of fact the meeting on the railway had no issue any more -than the other. Nothing came of it. There was nothing to tell that could -be received as a reason for her conduct. She could only stand silent and -pale, and listen to his sometimes vehement reproaches, inalterable only -in the fact that it could not be.</p> - -<p>There had been a very stormy interview between them one of those -evenings after he had left her father. He was convinced at last that it -was all over, that nothing could be done, and the man’s mortification -and indignant sense of injury had subsided into a more profound feeling, -into the deeper pang of real affection rejected and the prospects of -home and happiness lost.</p> - -<p>“You have spoiled my life,” he had said to her. “I have nothing to look -forward to, nothing to hope for. Here I am and here I shall be, the same -for ever—a lonely man. Home will never mean anything to me but dreary -rooms to work in and rest in; and you have done it all, not for any -reason, not with any motive, in pure wantonness.” It was almost more -than he could bear.</p> - -<p>“Forgive me,” Katherine said. She did not feel guilty to that extent, -but she would not say so. She was content to put up with the imputation -if it gave him any comfort to call her names.</p> - -<p>And then he had relented. After all had been said that could be said, he -had gone back again to the table by which she was sitting, leaning her -head on her arm and half covering it with her hand. He put his own hand -on the same table and stooped a little towards her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_309" id="page_309"></a>{309}</span></p> - -<p>“All this,” he said with difficulty, “will of course make no difference. -You will send for me when I am wanted for your father all the same.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Dr. Burnet!” was all she said.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” he said almost roughly, “you will send for me night or day -all the same. It makes no difference. You may forsake me, but I will not -forsake you.” And with that, without a word of leavetaking or any -courtesy, he went away.</p> - -<p>Was that how she was to be represented to herself and the world now and -for ever? Katherine sat with her head on her hand and her thoughts were -bitter. It seemed hard, it seemed unjust, yet what could she say? She -had not encouraged this man to love her or build his hopes upon her, but -yet she had made no stand against it; she had permitted a great deal -which, if she had not been so much alone, could not have been. Was it -her fault that she was alone? Could she have been so much more than -honest, so presumptuous and confident in her power, as to bid him pause, -to reject him before he asked her? These self-excusing thoughts are -self-accusing, as everybody knows. All her faults culminated in the fact -that whereas she was dully acquiescent before, after that going to -London the thing had become impossible. From that she could not save -herself—it was the only truth. One day the engagement between them was -a thing almost consented to and settled; next day it was a thing that -could not be, and that through no fault in the man. He had done nothing -to bring about such a catastrophe. It was no wonder that he was angry, -that he complained loudly of being deceived and forsaken. It was -altogether her fault, a fault fantastic, without any reason, which -nothing she could say would justify. And indeed how could she say -anything? It was nothing—a chance encounter, a conversation with her -maid sitting by, and nothing said that all the world might not hear.</p> - -<p>There was the further sting in all this that, as has been said, nothing -had come, nothing probably would ever come, of that talk. Time went on -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_310" id="page_310"></a>{310}</span>and there was no sign—not so much as a note to say—— What was there -to say? Nothing! And yet Katherine had not been able to help a faint -expectation that something would come of it. As a matter of fact -Stanford came twice to Sliplin with the hope of seeing Katherine again, -but he did not venture to go to the house where his visits had been -forbidden, and either Katherine did not go out that day or an evil fate -directed her footsteps in a different direction. The second time Mr. -Tredgold was ill again and nothing could possibly be seen of her. He -went to Mrs. Shanks’, whom he knew, but that lady was not encouraging. -She told him that Katherine was all but engaged to Dr. Burnet, that he -had her father’s life in his hands, and that nothing could exceed his -devotion, which Katherine was beginning to return. Mrs. Shanks did not -like lovers to be unhappy; if she could have married Katherine to both -of them she would have done so; but that being impossible, it was better -that the man should be unhappy who was going away, not he who remained. -And this was how it was that Katherine saw and heard no more of the man -whose sudden appearance had produced so great an effect upon her, and -altered at a touch what might have been the current of her life.</p> - -<p>It was not only Dr. Burnet who avenged his wrongs upon her. Lady Jane -came down in full panoply of war to ask what Katherine meant by it.</p> - -<p>“Yes, you did encourage him,” she said. “I have seen it with my own -eyes—if it were no more than that evening at my own house. He asked you -to go into the conservatory with him on the most specious pretext, with -his intentions as plainly written in his face as ever man’s were. And -you went like a lamb, though you must have known——”</p> - -<p>“But, Lady Jane,” said Katherine, “he said nothing to me, whatever his -intentions may have been.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Lady Jane with a little snort of displeasure; “I suppose you -snubbed him when you got him there, and he was frightened to speak. That -is exactly what I object to. You have blown hot and blown cold, made him -feel quite sure of you, and then knocked him down again like a ninepin. -All that may be forgiven if you take a man at the end. But to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_311" id="page_311"></a>{311}</span> refuse -him when it comes to the point at last, after having played him off and -on so long—it is unpardonable, Katherine, unpardonable.”</p> - -<p>“I am very sorry,” Katherine said, though indeed Lady Jane’s reproaches -did not touch her at all. “It is a fact that I might have consented a -few days ago; no, not happily, but with a kind of dull acquiescence -because everybody expected it.”</p> - -<p>“Then you allow that everybody had a right to expect it?”</p> - -<p>“I said nothing about any right. You did all settle for me it appears -without any will of mine; but I saw on thinking that it was impossible. -One has after all to judge for oneself. I don’t suppose that Dr. Burnet -would wish a woman to—to marry him—because her friends wished it, Lady -Jane.”</p> - -<p>“He would take you on any terms, Katherine, after all that has come and -gone.”</p> - -<p>“No one shall have me on any terms,” cried Katherine. “It shall be -because I wish it myself or not at all.”</p> - -<p>“You have a great opinion of yourself,” said Lady Jane. “Under such a -quiet exterior I never saw a young woman more self-willed. You ought to -think of others a little. Dr. Burnet is far the best man you can marry -in so many different points of view. Everybody says he has saved your -father’s life. He is necessary, quite necessary, to Mr. Tredgold; and -how are you to call him in as a doctor after disappointing him so? And -then there is Stella. He would have done justice to Stella.”</p> - -<p>“It will be strange,” cried Katherine, getting up from her seat in her -agitation, “if I cannot do justice to Stella without the intervention of -Dr. Burnet—or any man!”</p> - -<p>Lady Jane took this action as a dismissal, and rose up, too, with much -solemnity. “You will regret this step you have taken,” she said, -“Katherine, not once but all your life.”</p> - -<p>The only person who did not take a similar view was the Rector, upon -whom the news, which of course spread in the same incomprehensible way -as his own failure had done, had a very consolatory effect. It restored -him, indeed, to much of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_312" id="page_312"></a>{312}</span> his original comfort and self-esteem to know -that another man had been treated as badly as himself—more badly -indeed, for at least there had been no blowing hot and cold with him. He -said that Miss Katherine Tredgold was a singular young lady, and -evidently, though she had the grace to say little about them, held some -of the advanced ideas of the time. “She feels herself called to avenge -the wrongs of her sex,” he said with a bitterness which was mitigated by -the sense that another man was the present sufferer. But from most of -her neighbours she received nothing but disapproval—disapproval which -was generally unexpressed in words, for Katherine gave little opening -for verbal remonstrance, but was not less apparent for that.</p> - -<p>Miss Mildmay was, I think, the only one who took approvingly something -of the same view. “If she is capricious,” that lady said, “there is -plenty of caprice on the other side; loving and riding away and so -forth; let them just try how they like it for once! I don’t object to a -girl showing a little spirit, and doing to them as others have been done -by. It is a very good lesson to the gentlemen.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Ruth Mildmay!” said Mrs. Shanks half weeping; “as if it could ever -be a good thing to make a man unhappy for life!”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Shanks felt that she knew more about it than anyone else, which -would have been delightful but for the other consciousness that her -intervention had done no good. She had not served Dr. Burnet, but she -had sacrificed the other lover. And she had her punishment in not daring -to whisper even to her nearest friend her special knowledge, or letting -it be seen she knew—which but for her action in sending young Stanford -away would have been a greater satisfaction than words can tell.</p> - -<p>The result was that Katherine had a season of great discomfort and even -unhappiness. She had freed herself from that passive submissiveness to -fate into which she had been about to fall, but she had got nothing -better in its place. She thought that he could not care much, since he -had never even<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_313" id="page_313"></a>{313}</span> tried to see or communicate with her, and she was -ashamed of the rush with which her heart had gone out to him. She had -not, she hoped, betrayed it, but she was herself aware of it, which was -bad enough. And now that momentary episode was over and nothing had come -of it—it was as if it had not been.</p> - -<p>After this there came a long period of suspense and waiting in -Katharine’s life. Her father had one attack of illness after another, -through all of which she was, if not the guiding spirit, at least the -head and superintendent of all that went on in the house. The character -of the house had changed when Stella left it. It changed still more now. -It became a sick house, the home of an invalid. Even the city people, -the old money-making friends, ceased to come from Saturday to Monday -when it became known among them that old Mr. Tredgold was subject to a -seizure at any time, and might be taken ill at last with all his friends -sitting round him. This is not a thing that anyone likes to face, -especially people who were, as old as he was, and perhaps, they could -not tell, might be liable to seizures too. When this occasional society -failed at the Cliff all other kinds of society failed too. Few people -came to the house—a decorous caller occasionally, but nothing more. It -was a very dull life for Katherine, everybody allowed, and some kind -people held periodical consultations with each other as to what could be -done for her, how she could be delivered from the monotony and misery of -her life; but what could anyone do? The rector and the doctor were the -most prominent men in Sliplin. A girl who had ill-treated them both -could only be asked out with extreme discretion, for it was almost -impossible to go anywhere without meeting one or other of these -gentlemen. But the ladies might have spared themselves these -discussions, for whatever invitations Katherine received she accepted -none of them. She would not go to Steephill again, though Lady Jane was -magnanimous and asked her. She would go nowhere. It showed that she had -a guilty conscience, people said; and yet that it must be very dull for -Katherine was what everybody lamenting allowed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_314" id="page_314"></a>{314}</span></p> - -<p>She had trouble, too, from another quarter, which was perhaps worst of -all. As the months, went on and ran into years, Stella’s astonishment -that she was not recalled, her complaints, her appeals and denunciation -of her sister as able to help her if she would do so, became manifold -and violent. She accused Katherine of the most unlikely things, of -shutting up their father, and preventing him from carrying out his -natural impulses—of being her, Stella’s, enemy when she had so often -pledged herself to be her friend, even of having encouraged her, Stella, -in the rash step she had taken, with intent to profit by it, and build -her own fortune on her sister’s ruin. Any stranger who had read these -letters would have supposed that Katherine had been the chief agent in -Stella’s elopement—that it had been she that had arranged everything, -and flattered Stella with hopes of speedy recall, only to betray her. -Katherine was deeply moved by this injustice and unkindness at first, -but soon she came to look at them with calm, and to take no notice of -the outcries which were like outcries of a hurt child. There were so -many things that called forth pity that the reproaches were forgotten. -Stella’s life—which had been so triumphant and gay, and which she had -intended and expected should be nothing but a course of triumph and -gaiety—had fallen into very different lines from any she had -anticipated. After she had upbraided her sister for keeping her out of -her rights, and demanded with every threat she could think of their -restoration, and that Katherine should conspire no more against her, her -tone would sink into one of entreaty, so that the epistle which had -begun like an indictment ended like a begging letter. Stella wanted -money, always money; money to keep her position, money to pay her debts, -money at last for what she called the common necessaries of life. There -was scarcely a mail which did not bring over one of these appeals, which -tore Katherine’s heart. Though she was the daughter of so rich a man, -she had very little of her own. Her allowance was very moderate, for Mr. -Tredgold, though he was liberal enough, loved to be cajoled and -flattered out of his money, as Stella had done—an art which Katherine -had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_315" id="page_315"></a>{315}</span> never possessed. She had a little from her mother, not enough to be -called a fortune, and this she sent almost entirely to her sister. She -sent the greater part of her allowance to Lady Somers, content to -confine herself to the plainest dress, in order to satisfy the wants of -one who had always had so many wants. It was thus that her best years, -the years of her brightest bloom and what ought to have been the most -delightful of her life, passed drearily away.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_316" id="page_316"></a>{316}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> regiment had been six years in India and was ordered home before -that lingering and perpetually-recurring malady of Mr. Tredgold’s came -to an end. It had come and gone so often—each seizure passing off in -indeed a reduced condition of temporary relief and comfort, but still -always in a sort of recovery—that the household had ceased to be -alarmed by them as at first. He was a most troublesome patient, and all -had to be on the alert when he was ill, from his personal attendant down -to the grooms, who might at a moment’s notice be sent scouring over the -country after the doctor, without whom the old man did not think he -could breathe when his attacks came on, and this notwithstanding the -constant presence of the professional nurse, who was now a regular -inmate; but the certainty that he would “come round” had by this time -got finally established in the house. This gave a sense of security, but -it dispelled the not altogether unpleasant solemnity of excitement with -which a household of servants await the end of an illness which may -terminate in death. There was nothing solemn about it at all—only -another of master’s attacks!—and even Katherine was now quite -accustomed to be called up in the middle of the night, or sent for to -her father’s room at any moment, as the legitimate authority, without -any thrill of alarm as to how things might end. Nobody was afraid of his -life, until suddenly the moment came when the wheel was broken at the -cistern and the much frayed thread of life snapped at last.</p> - -<p>These had been strange years. Fortunately the dark times that pass over -us come only one day at a time, and we are not aware that they are to -last for years, or enabled to grasp them and consent that so much of -life should be spent in that way.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_317" id="page_317"></a>{317}</span> It would no doubt have appalled -Katherine, or any other young woman, to face steadily so long a period -of trouble and give herself up to live it through, consenting that all -the brightness and almost all the interest of existence should drop from -her at the moment when life is usually at its fairest. She would have -done it all the same, for what else could she do? She could not leave -her father to go through all these agonies of ending life by himself, -even though she was of so little use to him and he had apparently such -small need of natural affection or support. Her place was there under -all circumstances, and no inducement would have made her leave it; but -when Katherine looked back upon that course of years it appalled her as -it had not done when it was in course of passing day by day. She was -twenty-three when it began and she was twenty-nine when it came to an -end. She had been old for her age at the first, and she was still older -for her age in outward appearance, though younger in heart, at the -last—younger in heart, for there had been no wear and tear of actual -life any more than if she had spent these years in a convent, and older -because of the seclusion from society and even the severe self-restraint -in the matter of dress, which, however, was not self-restraint so much -as submission to necessity, for you cannot do two things with one sum of -money, as many a poor housekeeper has to ascertain daily. Dressmakers’ -bills for Katherine were not consistent with remittances to Stella, and -it was naturally the least important thing that was sacrificed. She had -accordingly lost a great deal of her bloom and presented an appearance -less fair, less graceful—perhaps less loveable—to the eyes of Dr. -Burnet as she rose from the lonely fireside in her black dress, slim and -straight, slimmer perhaps and straighter than of old—pale, without -either reflection or ornament about her, looking, he thought, -five-and-thirty, without any elasticity, prematurely settled down into -the rigid outlines of an old maid, when he went into the well-known -drawing-room in an October evening to tell her that at last the dread -visitor, anticipated yet not believed in for so long, was now certainly -at hand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_318" id="page_318"></a>{318}</span></p> - -<p>Dr. Burnet had behaved extremely well during all these years. He had not -been like the rector. He had borne no malice, though he had greater -reason to do so had he chosen. He never now made use of her Christian -name and never allowed himself to be betrayed into any sign of intimacy, -never lingered in her presence, never even looked at the tea on the -little tea-table over which he had so often spent pleasant moments. He -was now severely professional, giving her his account of his patient in -the most succinct phrases and using medical terms, which in the long -course of her father’s illness Katherine had become acquainted with. But -he had been as attentive to Mr. Tredgold as ever, people said; he had -never neglected him, never hesitated to come at his call night or day, -though he was aware that he could do little or nothing, and that the -excellent nurse in whose hands the patient was was fully capable of -caring for him; yet he always came, putting a point of honour in his -sedulous attendance, that it never might be said of him that he had -neglected the father on account of the daughter’s caprice and failure. -It might be added that Mr. Tredgold was a little revenue to the -doctor—a sort of landed estate producing so much income yearly and -without fail—but this was a mean way of accounting for his perfect -devotion to his duty. He had never failed, however other persons might -fail.</p> - -<p>He came into the drawing-room very quietly and unannounced. He was not -himself quite so gallant a figure as he had been when Katherine had left -him <i>planté là</i>; he was a little stouter, not so perfect in his outline. -They had both suffered more or less from the progress of years. She was -thinner, paler, and he fuller, rougher—almost, it might be said, -coarser—from five years more of exposure to all-weathers and constant -occupation, without any restraining influence at home to make him think -of his dress, of the training of his beard, and other small matters. It -had been a great loss to him, even in his profession, that he had not -married. With a wife, and such a wife as Katherine Tredgold, he would -have been avowedly the only doctor, the first in the island, in a -position of absolute supremacy. As it was a quite inferior person, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_319" id="page_319"></a>{319}</span> -was a married man, ran him hard, although not fit to hold a candle to -Dr. Burnet. And this, too, he set down more or less to Katherine’s -account. It is to be hoped that he did not think of all this on the -particular evening the events of which I take so long to come to. And -yet I am afraid he did think of it, or at least was conscious of it all -in the midst of the deeper consciousness of his mission to-night. He -could scarcely tell whether it was relief or pain he was bringing to -her—a simpler or a more complex existence—and the sense of that enigma -mingled with all his other feelings. She rose up to meet him as he came -in. The room was dimly lighted; the fire was not bright. There was no -chill in the air to make it necessary. And I don’t know what it was -which made Katherine divine the moment she saw the doctor approaching -through the comparative gloom of the outer room that he was bringing her -news of something important. Mr. Tredgold had not been worse than usual -in the beginning of this attack; the nurse had treated it just as usual, -not more seriously than before. But she knew at once by the sound of the -doctor’s step, by something in the atmosphere about him, that the usual -had departed for ever and that what he came to tell her of was nothing -less than death. She rose up to meet him with a sort of awe, her lips -apart, her breath coming quick.</p> - -<p>“I see,” he said, “that you anticipate what I am going to say.”</p> - -<p>“No,” she said with a gasp, “I know of nothing—nothing more than -usual.”</p> - -<p>“That is all over,” he answered with a little solemnity. “I am sorry I -can give you so little hope—this time I fear it is the end.”</p> - -<p>“The end!” she cried, “the end!” She had known it from the first moment -of his approach, but this did not lessen the shock. She dropped again -upon her seat, and sat silent contemplating that fact—which no -reasoning, no explanation, could get over. The end—this morning -everything as usual, all the little cares, the hundred things he wanted, -the constant<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_320" id="page_320"></a>{320}</span> service—and afterwards nothing, silence, stillness, every -familiar necessity gone. Katherine’s heart seemed to stand still, the -wonder of it, the terror of it, the awe—it was too deep and too -appalling for tears.</p> - -<p>After awhile she inquired, in a voice that did not seem her own, “Is he -very ill? May I go to him now?”</p> - -<p>“He is not more ill than you have seen him before. You can go to him, -certainly, but there are some things that you must take into -consideration, Miss Tredgold. He is not aware of any change—he is not -at all anxious about himself. He thinks this is just the same as the -other attacks. If you think it necessary that he should be made aware of -his condition, either because of his worldly affairs, or—any other——” -Dr. Burnet was accustomed to death-beds. He was not overawed like -Katherine, and there seemed something ludicrous to him in the thought of -old Tredgold, an old man of the earth, earthly, having—other affairs.</p> - -<p>Katherine looked up at him, her eyes looking twice as large as usual in -the solemnity of their trouble and awe. There seemed nothing else in the -room but her eyes looking at him with an appeal, to which he had no -answer to give. “Would it make any difference—now?” she said.</p> - -<p>“I cannot tell what your views may be on that subject. Some are very -eager that the dying should know—some think it better not to disturb -them. It will do him no harm physically to be told; but you must be the -judge.”</p> - -<p>“I have not thought of it—as I ought,” she said. “Oh, Dr. Burnet, give -me your opinion, give me your own opinion! I do not seem able to think.”</p> - -<p>“It might give him a chance,” said the doctor, “to put right some wrong -he might otherwise leave behind him. If what you are thinking of is -that, he might put himself right in any spiritual point of view—at this -last moment.”</p> - -<p>Katherine rose up as if she were blind, feeling before her with her -hands. Her father, with all his imperfections—with nothing that was not -imperfection or worse than imperfection—with a mind that had room for -nothing but the lowest elements,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_321" id="page_321"></a>{321}</span> who had never thought of anything -higher, never asked himself whither he was going—— She walked straight -forward, not saying anything, not able to bear another word. To put -himself right—at the last moment. She felt that she must hasten to him, -fly to him, though she did not know, being there, what she should do.</p> - -<p>The room was so entirely in its usual condition—the nurse settling for -the night, the medicines arranged in order, the fire made up, and the -nightlight ready to be lighted—that it seemed more and more impossible -to realise that this night there was likely to occur something -different, something that was not on the invalid’s programme. The only -thing that betrayed a consciousness of any such possibility was the look -which the nurse rapidly gave Katherine as she came in. “I am putting -everything as usual,” she said in a whisper, “but I think you should not -go to bed.” That was all—and yet out of everything thus settled and -habitual around him, he was going away, going absolutely away to no one -could tell where, perhaps this very night. Katherine felt herself -stupefied, confounded, and helpless. He was going away all alone, with -no directions, no preparations for the journey. What could she tell him -of the way? Could any guide be sent with him? Could any instinct lead -him? A man accustomed only to business, to the state of the stocks and -the money market. Her heart began to beat so fast that it sickened her, -and she was conscious of scarcely anything but its sound and the heaving -of her breast.</p> - -<p>The invalid, however, was not composed as usual. He was very restless, -his eyes shining from his emaciated face. “Ah, that’s you, Katie,” he -said; “it’s too late for you to be up—and the doctor back again. What -brings the doctor back again? Have you any more to do to me, eh, -to-night?”</p> - -<p>“Only to make sure that you’re comfortable,” Dr. Burnet said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, comfortable enough—but restless. I don’t seem as if I could lie -still. Here, Katie, as you’re here, change me a little—that’s better—a -hold of your shoulder—now I can push<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_322" id="page_322"></a>{322}</span> myself about. Never been restless -like this before, doctor. Nervous, I suppose you think?”</p> - -<p>“No, you’ve never been like this before,” the doctor said, with an -unconsciously solemn voice.</p> - -<p>“Oh, papa,” cried Katherine, “you are very ill; I fear you are very -ill.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing of the sort,” he cried, pushing her away by the shoulder he had -grasped; “nothing the matter with me—that is, nothing out of the -ordinary. Come here, you nurse. I want to lie on the other side. Nothing -like a woman that knows what she is about and has her living to make by -it. Dear they are—cost a lot of money—but I never begrudged money for -comfort.”</p> - -<p>“Papa,” said Katherine. What could she say? What words were possible to -break this spell, this unconsciousness and ignorance? It seemed to her -that he was about to fall over some dreadful precipice without knowing -it, without fearing it; was it better that he should know it, that he -should fear, when he was incapable of anything else? Should the acute -pang of mortal alarm before be added to—whatever there might be -afterwards? Wild words whirled through her head—about the great -judgment seat, about the reckoning with men for what they had done, and -the cry of the Prophet, “Prepare to meet thy God.” But how could this -restless old man prepare for anything, turning and returning upon his -bed. “Papa,” she repeated, “have you anything to say to me—nothing -about—about Stella?”</p> - -<p>He turned his face to her for a moment with the old familiar chuckle in -his throat. “About Stella—oh, you will hear plenty about Stella—in -time,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Not only about Stella, papa! Oh, about other things, about—about—” -she cried in a kind of despair, “about God.”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” he said, “you think I’m going to die.” The chuckle came again, an -awful sound. “I’m not; you were always a little fool. Tell her, doctor, -I’m going to sleep—tuck in the clothes, nurse, and put—out—the -light.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_323" id="page_323"></a>{323}</span></p> - -<p>The last words fell from him drowsily, and calm succeeded to the endless -motion. There was another little murmur as of a laugh. Then the nurse -nodded her head from the other side of the bed, to show that he was -really going to sleep. Dr. Burnet put his hand on Katherine’s arm and -drew her into the dressing-room, leaving the door open between. “It may -last only a few minutes,” he said, “or it may last for ever; but we can -do nothing, neither you nor I. Sit down and wait here.”</p> - -<p>It did last for ever. The sleep at first was interrupted with little -wakings, and that chuckle which had been the accompaniment of his life -broke in two or three times, ghastly, with a sort of sound of triumph. -And then all sound died away.</p> - -<p>Katherine was awakened—she did not know if it was from a doze or a -dream—by a touch upon her arm. The doctor stood there in his large and -heavy vitality like an embodiment of life, and a faint blueness of dawn -was coming in at the window. “There was no pain,” he said, “no sort of -suffering or struggle. Half-past four exactly,” he had his watch in his -hand. “And now, Miss Tredgold, take this and go to bed.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean?” Katherine cried, rising hastily, then falling back again -in extreme agitation, trembling from head to foot.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I mean it is all over, it is all <i>well</i> over. Everything has been -done that could be done for him. And here is your maid to take care of -you; you must go to bed.”</p> - -<p>But Katherine did not go to bed. She went downstairs to the -drawing-room, her usual place, and sat by the dead fire, watching the -blue light coming in at the crevices of the shutters, and listening to -the steps of the doctor, quick and firm, going away upon the gravel -outside. And then she went and wandered all over the house from one room -to another, she could not tell why. It seemed to her that everything -must have changed in that wonderful change that had come to pass without -anyone being able to intervene, so noiselessly, so suddenly. She never -seemed to have expected <i>that</i>. Anything<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_324" id="page_324"></a>{324}</span> else, it seemed to her now, -might have happened but not that. Why, all the house had been full of -him, all life had been full of him yesterday; there had been nothing to -do but contrive what he should eat, how the temperature in the room -should be kept up, how everything should be arranged for his comfort. -And now he wanted nothing, nothing, nor was anything wanted for him. It -did not seem to be grief that moved her so much as wonder, an -intolerable pressure of surprise and perplexity that such a thing could -have happened with so many about to prevent anything from happening, and -that he should have been removed to some other place whom nobody could -imagine to be capable of other conditions than he had here. What had he -to do with the unseen, with sacred things, with heaven, with a spiritual -life? Nothing, nothing, she said to herself. It was not natural, it was -not possible. And yet it was true. When she at last lay down at the -persuasion of Mrs. Simmons and the weeping Hannah, in the face of the -new full shining day which had not risen for him, which cared for none -of these things, Katherine still got no relief of sleep. She lay on her -bed and stared at the light with no relief of tears either, with no -sense of grief—only wondering, wondering. She had not thought of this -change, although she knew that in all reason it must be coming. Still -less did she think of the new world which already began to turn its dewy -side to the light.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_325" id="page_325"></a>{325}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Mr. Tredgold</span> had no relations to speak of, and not very many old -friends. Mr. Turny the elder, who was one of Mr. Tredgold’s executors, -came down for the funeral, and so did the solicitor, Mr. Sturgeon, who -was the head of a great city firm, and would certainly not have spared -the time had the fortune that was now to become a subject of so much -interest been less great. He brought with him a shabby man, who was in -his office and carried a black bag with papers, and also turned out to -be Mr. Tredgold’s brother, the only other member of the family who was -known. His appearance was a surprise to Katherine, who had not heard of -his existence. She was aware there had been aunts, married and bearing -different names, and that it was possible perhaps to find cousins with -those designations, which, however, she was not acquainted with; but an -uncle was a complete surprise to her. And indeed, to tell the truth, to -say “uncle” to this shambling individual in the long old great-coat, -which she recognised as a very ancient garment of her father’s, was not -a pleasant sensation. She shrank from the lean, grey, hungry, yet humble -being who evidently was very little at his ease sitting at the same -table with his master, though he attempted, from time to time, to -produce himself with a hesitating speech. “He was my brother, you -know—I was his brother, his only brother,” which he said several times -in the course of the long dreadful evening which preceded the funeral -day. Katherine in compassion carried off this new and terrible relative -into the drawing-room while the two men of business discoursed together. -Mr. Robert Tredgold did not like to be carried off from the wine. He saw -in this step precautionary measures to which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_326" id="page_326"></a>{326}</span> he was accustomed, though -Katharine did not even know of any occasion for precaution—and followed -her sulkily, not to the drawing-room, but to that once gay little room -which had been the young ladies’ room in former days. Katherine had gone -back to it with a sentiment which she herself did not question or trace -to its origin, but which no doubt sprang from the consciousness in her -mind that Stella was on her way home, and that there was no obstacle now -in the way of her return. She would have been horrified to say in words -that her father was the obstacle who had been removed, and the shock and -awe of death were still upon her. But secretly her heart had begun to -rise at the thought of Stella, and that it would be her happy office to -bring Stella home.</p> - -<p>“It ain’t often I have the chance of a good glass of wine,” Robert -Tredgold said; “your poor father was a rare judge of wine, and then you -see he had always the money to spend on it. My poor brother would have -given me a chance of a glass of good wine if he’d brought me here.”</p> - -<p>“Would you like the wine brought here? I thought you would be happier,” -said Katherine, “with me than with those gentlemen.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see,” he said, somewhat sullenly, “why I ain’t as good as they -are. Turny’s made a devil o’ money, just like my poor brother, but he’s -no better than us, all the same; and as for old Sturgeon, I know him -well enough, I hope. My poor brother would never have let that man have -all his business if it hadn’t been for me. I heard him say it myself. -‘You provide for Bob, and you shall have all as I can give you.’ Oh, he -knows which side his bread’s buttered on, does Sturgeon. Many a time -he’s said to me, ‘A little more o’ this, Bob Tredgold, and you shall -go,’ but I knew my brother was be’ind me, bless you. I just laughed in -his face. ‘Not while my brother’s to the fore,’ I’ve always said.”</p> - -<p>“But,” said Katherine, “poor papa is not, as you say, to the fore now.”</p> - -<p>“No; but he’s provided for me all right; he always said as he would -provide for me. I haven’t, perhaps, been as steady<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_327" id="page_327"></a>{327}</span> as I ought. He never -wanted me to show along of his fine friends. But for a couple of fellows -like that, that know all about me, I don’t see as I need have been -stopped of a good glass of my brother’s port wine.”</p> - -<p>“You shall not, indeed,” said Katherine, ringing the bell.</p> - -<p>“And I say,” said this uncomfortable uncle, “you can tell them to bring -the spirit case as well. I saw as there was a spirit case, with five -nice bottles, and lemons and sugar, and a kettle, you know, though there -ain’t nothing to set it upon as I can see in that bit of a -fireplace—uncomfortable thing, all shine and glitter and no use. I -daresay my poor brother had some sort of a ’ob for the hot water in any -room as he sat in—I say, old gentleman, bring us——”</p> - -<p>Katherine interposed with her orders, in haste, and turned the butler -hastily away. “You must remember,” she said, “that to-night is a very -sad and terrible night in this house.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! Were they all as fond of him as that?” the brother said.</p> - -<p>“Oh,” said Katherine, “if you are my uncle, as they say, you should -stand by me and help me; for there is sure to be a great deal of -trouble, however things turn out.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll stand by you! Don’t you be afraid, you can calculate on me. I -don’t mind a bit what I say to old Sturgeon nor Turny neither, specially -as I know he’s provided for me, my poor brother ’as, he always said as -he would. I don’t consider myself in old Sturgeon’s office not from this -day. My poor brother ’as provided for me, he always said he would; and -I’ll stand by you, my dear, don’t you be afraid. Hullo! here’s nothing -but the port wine—and not too much of that neither. I say, you fellow, -tell the old man to bring the spirits; and he can sit down himself and -’ave a glass; it’s a poor ’eart as never rejoices, and once in a way -it’ll do him no harm.”</p> - -<p>“The other gentlemen—have got the spirits,” the footman said, retiring, -very red in the face with laughter suppressed.</p> - -<p>“And what a poor house,” said Bob Tredgold, contemptuously, “to have but -one case of spirits! I’ve always noticed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_328" id="page_328"></a>{328}</span> as your grand houses that are -all gilt and grandeur are the poorest—as concern the necessaries of -life.”</p> - -<p>Katherine left her uncle in despair with his half-filled bottle of port. -He was not a very creditable relation. She went to her own room and shut -herself in to think over her position. In the fulness of her thoughts -she forgot the dead master of the house, who lay there all silent, -having nothing now to do with all that was going on in it, he who a -little while ago had been supreme master of all. She did not know or ask -what he had done with his wealth, no question about it entered her mind. -She took it for granted that, Stella being cut off, it would come to -herself as the only other child—which was just the same as if it had -been left to Stella in their due and natural shares. All that was so -simple, there was no need to think of it. Even this dreadful uncle—if -her father had not provided for him Katherine would, there was no -difficulty about all that. If the money was hers, it would be hers only -for the purpose of doing everything with it which her father -ought—which if he had been in his right condition, unbiassed by anger -or offence, he would have done. He had always loved Stella best, and -Stella should have the best—the house, every advantage, more than her -share.</p> - -<p>Katherine sat down and began to think over the work she would have to do -in the ensuing week or so, till the <i>Aurungzebe</i> arrived with Lady -Somers on board. The ship was due within a few days, and Katherine -intended to go to meet her sister, to carry her, before she landed even, -the news which, alas! she feared would only be good news to Stella. -Alas! was it not good news to Katherine too? She stopped and wept a few -bitter tears, but more for the pity of it, the horror of it, than for -grief. Stella had been his favourite, his darling, and yet it would be -good news to Stella. Her sister hoped that she would cry a little, that -her heart would ache a little with the thought of never more seeing her -father, never getting his forgiveness, nor any kind message or word from -him. But at the utmost that would be all, a few tears, a regret, an -exclamation of “poor papa!” and then joy at the good<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_329" id="page_329"></a>{329}</span> news, joy to be -delivered from poverty and anxiety, to be able to surround herself again -with all the beautiful things she loved, to provide for her children -(she had two by this time), and to replace her husband in his position. -Was it possible that she could weep long, that she could mourn much for -the father who had cast her off and whom she had not seen for six years, -with all this happiness behind? Katherine herself had but few tears to -shed. She was sad because she was not sufficiently sad, because it was -terrible that a human soul should go away out of the world and leave so -few regrets, so little sorrow behind. Even the old servants, the -housekeeper who had been with him for so many years, his personal -attendant, who had been very kind, who had taken great care of him, were -scarcely sorry. “I suppose, Miss, as you’ll be having Miss Stella home -now,” Mrs. Simmons said, though she had a white handkerchief in her hand -for appearance sake. And the man was chiefly anxious about his character -and the testimonials to be given him. “I hope as I never neglected my -duty. And master was an ’eavy ’andful, Miss,” he said, with relief, too, -in his countenance. Katherine thought she would be willing to give half -of all she had in the world to secure one genuine mourner, one who was -truly sorry for her father’s death. Was she herself sorry? Her heart -ached with the pity and the horror of it, but sorrow is a different -sentiment from that.</p> - -<p>In the meantime the solicitor and executor were in Mr. Tredgold’s -sitting-room which he had occupied so long. A fire had been lighted in -haste, to make the cold uninhabited place a little more cheerful. It was -lighted by a lamp which hung over the table, shaded so as to concentrate -its light on that spot, leaving all the rest of the room in the dark. -And the two forms on either side of it were not of a character to be -ennobled by the searching light. The solicitor was a snuffy man, with a -long lean throat and a narrow head, with tufts of thin, grey hair. He -had a ragged grey beard of the same description, long and ill grown, and -he wore spectacles pushed out from his eyes and projecting as if they -might fall off altogether.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_330" id="page_330"></a>{330}</span> Mr. Turny had a shining bald head, which -reflected the light, bent, as it was, over the papers on the table. They -had been examining these papers, searching for the will which they -expected to find there, but had come as yet upon no trace of it.</p> - -<p>“I should have thought,” said Mr. Turny, “that he’d have had another -will drawn out as soon as that girl ran away—indeed I was in a great -mind to take steps——” He stopped here, reflecting that it was as well -perhaps to say nothing of Fred and what those steps were. But Mr. -Sturgeon had heard of the repeated visits of the family, and knew that -young Fred was “on the outlook,” as they said, and knew.</p> - -<p>“Ah, here it is at last,” Mr. Sturgeon said. He added, after a few -minutes, in a tone of disappointment: “No, it’s the old will of ten -years ago, the one I sent him down at his own request after the young -lady ran away. I kept expecting for a long time to have his instructions -about another, and even wrote to him on the subject. I suppose he must -have employed some man here. This, of course, must be mere waste paper -now.”</p> - -<p>“What was the purport of it?” Mr. Turny asked.</p> - -<p>“You must have heard at the time. It was not a will I approved—nothing -unnatural ever gets any support from me. They say lawyers are full of -dodges; it would have been better for me if I had put my principles in -my pocket many a time. Men have come to me with the most ridiculous -instructions, what I call wicked—they take a spite at some one, or some -boy behaves foolishly (to be sure, it’s a girl in this case, which is -more uncommon), and out he goes out of the will. I don’t approve of such -pranks for my part.”</p> - -<p>“You would like the good to share with the bad, and the guilty with the -innocent,” said Turny, not without a reflection of his own.</p> - -<p>“Not so much as that; but it doesn’t follow—always—that a boy is bad -because he has kicked over the traces in his youth—and if he is bad, -then he is the one above all that wants some provision made for him to -keep him from getting badder.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_331" id="page_331"></a>{331}</span> There’s that poor wretch, Bob Tredgold; -I’ve kept him in my office, he thinks, because his brother always stood -up for him. Nothing of the kind; Tredgold would have been delighted to -hear he had tripped into the mire or gone down under an underground -railway train on his way home. And the poor beggar believes now that his -brother has provided for him—not a penny will he have, or I am -mistaken. I must try to get something for him out of the girls.”</p> - -<p>“The oldest girl, of course, will have it all?” Mr. Turny said.</p> - -<p>“I suppose so,” said the solicitor, “if he don’t prove intestate after -all; that’s always on the cards with that sort of man, indeed with every -sort of man. They don’t like to part with it even on paper, and give the -power into someone else’s hands. Women are rather different. It seems to -amuse them to give all their things away—on paper. I don’t know that -there’s much good searching further. He must have sent for some local -man, that would save him trouble. And then he knew I would remonstrate -if there was any ridiculous vengeance in his thoughts, which most likely -there would have been.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the scope of that old one, the one you’ve got in your hand?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, that!” said Mr. Sturgeon, looking at it as if it were a reptile. -“You remember, I am sure you must have heard it at the time, most of the -money was left to the other, what was her ridiculous name? Something -fantastic, I know.”</p> - -<p>“Stella,” the executor said, peering eagerly through his double gold -glasses at the paper, into which his fellow executor showed no -inclination to give him further insight.</p> - -<p>“That’s it, Stella! because she was his favourite—the eldest sister, to -my mind, being much the nicest of the two.”</p> - -<p>“She is a nice, quiet girl,” said Mr. Turny. And he thought with a -grudge of Fred, who might have been coming into this fine fortune if he -had been worth his salt. “There is this advantage in it,” he said, “it -makes a fine solid lump of money. Divide it, and it’s not half the -good.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_332" id="page_332"></a>{332}</span></p> - -<p>“A man shouldn’t have a lot of children who entertains that idea,” said -Mr. Sturgeon.</p> - -<p>“That’s quite true. If Mr. Tredgold had kept up his business as I have -done; but you see I can provide for my boys without touching my capital. -They are both in the business, and smart fellows, too, I can tell you. -It does not suffer in their hands.”</p> - -<p>“We haven’t got girls going into business—yet,” said the solicitor; -“there is no saying, though, what we may see in that way in a year or -two; they are going it now, the women are.”</p> - -<p>“No girls of mine certainly shall ever do so. A woman’s sphere is ’ome. -Let ’em marry and look after their families, that is what I always say -to mine.”</p> - -<p>“They are best off who have none,” said the solicitor briefly. He was an -old bachelor, and much looked down upon by his city clients, who thought -little of a man who had never achieved a wife and belongings of his own.</p> - -<p>“Well, that depends,” Mr. Turny said.</p> - -<p>“I think we may as well go to bed,” said the other. “It’s not much of a -journey, but the coming is always a bother, and we’ll have a heavy day -to-morrow. I like to keep regular hours.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing like ’em,” said Mr. Turny, rising too; “no man ever succeeds in -business that doesn’t keep regular hours. I suppose you’ll have to find -out to-morrow if there’s been any other solicitor employed.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I’ll see after that—funeral’s at two, I think?”</p> - -<p>“At two,” said the other. They lit their candles with some solemnity, -coming out one after the other into the lighted hall. The hall was -lighted, but the large staircase and corridors above were dark. They -separated at the head of the stairs and went one to the right and the -other to the left, Mr. Turny’s bald head shining like a polished globe -in the semi-darkness, and the solicitor, with his thin head and -projecting spectacles, looking like some strange bird making its way -through the night. Mr. Sturgeon passed the door within which his dead -client was lying, and hesitated a moment as he did so. “If<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_333" id="page_333"></a>{333}</span> we only knew -what was in that damned head of yours before the face was covered over,” -he said to himself. He was not in an easy condition of mind. It was -nothing to him; not a penny the poorer would he be for anything that -might happen to the Tredgold girls. Bob Tredgold would be turned off -into the workhouse, which was his proper place, and there would be an -end of him. But it was an ugly trick for that old beast to play, to get -some trumpery, country fellow, who no doubt would appear to-morrow, like -the cock-o’-the-walk, with his new will and all the importance of the -family solicitor. Family, indeed. They hadn’t a drop of blood in their -veins that was better than mud, though that eldest one was a nice girl. -It was something in her favour, too, that she would not have Fred Turny, -that City Swell. But the great point of offence with Mr. Sturgeon was -that the old beast should have called in some local man.</p> - -<p>Bob Tredgold, the only brother, was escorted upstairs by one of the -footmen a little later in the night. He was very affectionate with John -Thomas, and assured him of his continued friendship when he should have -come into his annuity. “Always promised to provide for me, don’t ye -know, did my poor brother; not capital ’cause of this, don’t ye know,” -and the unfortunate made the sign of lifting a glass to his mouth; -“<span class="lftspc">’</span>nuity, very com-m-for-able, all the rest of my life. Stand a good -glass to any man. Come and see me, any time you’re there, down Finsbury -way.” John Thomas, who appreciated a joke, had a good laugh to himself -after he had deposited this <i>triste</i> personage in the room which was so -much too fine for him. And then the footman remembered what it was that -was lying two or three doors off, locked in there with the lights -burning, and went softly with a pale face to his own den, feeling as if -Master’s bony hand might make a grab at his shoulder any moment as he -hurried down the stairs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_334" id="page_334"></a>{334}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Mr. Sturgeon</span> had carried off the old will with him from Mr. Tredgold’s -bureau, the document drawn up in his own office in its long blue -envelope, with all its details rigorously correct. He put it into his -own bag, the bag which Bob Tredgold had carried. Bob’s name was not in -it; there were no gracious particulars of legacy or remembrance. Perhaps -the one which he fully expected to be produced to-morrow would be more -humane. And yet in the morning he took this document out again and read -it all over carefully. There were one or two pencil-marks on it on the -margin, as of things that were meant to be altered, but no change -whatever, no scribbling even of other wishes or changed intentions. The -cross in pencil opposite Stella’s name was the only indication of any -altered sentiment, and that, of course, was of no consequence and meant -nothing. The solicitor read it over and put it back again carefully. If -by any chance there was no other will to propound! But that was a thing -not to be contemplated. The old beast, he said to himself, was not -surely such an old beast as that.</p> - -<p>Old Mr. Tredgold was buried on a bright October day, when everything -about was full of colour and sunshine. His own trees, the rare and -beautiful shrubs and foliage which had made his grounds a sight for -tourists, were all clad in gala robes, in tints of brown and yellow and -crimson, with feathery seedpods and fruit, hips and haws and golden -globes to protect the seed. As he was carried away from his own door a -gust of playful wind scattered over the blackness of the vehicle which -carried him a shower of those gay and fluttering leaves. If it had been -any fair creature one would have said it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_335" id="page_335"></a>{335}</span> Nature’s own tribute to -the dead, but in his case it looked more like a handful of coloured rags -thrown in mockery upon the vulgar hearse.</p> - -<p>And it was a curious group which gathered round the grave. The rector, -stately in his white robes, with his measured tones, who had indeed sat -at this man’s board and drank his wine, but had never been admitted to -speak a word of spiritual admonition or consolation (if he had any to -speak), and who still entertained in his heart a grudge against the -other all wrapped in black, who stood alone, the only mourner, opposite -to him, with the grave between them. Even at that moment, and while he -read those solemn words, Mr. Stanley had half an eye for Katherine, half -a thought for her loneliness, which even now he felt she had deserved. -And behind her was the doctor, who had stood by her through every stage -of her father’s lingering illness, certainly taking no personal -vengeance on her—far, oh far from that!—yet never forgetting that she -had dismissed him amid circumstances that made the dismissal specially -bitter—encouraged him, drawn him on, led him to commit himself, and -then tossed him away. He had been very kind to Katherine; he had omitted -no one thing that the tenderest friend could have done, but he had never -forgotten nor forgiven her for what she had done to him. Both of these -men thought of her as perhaps triumphant in her good fortune, holding -much power in her hands, able to act as a Providence to her sister and -to others, really a great lady now so far as money goes. The feeling of -both in their different way was hostile to Katherine. They both had -something against her; they were angry at the position which it was now -expected she would attain. They were not sorry for her loneliness, -standing by that grave. Both of them were keenly aware that it was -almost impossible for her to entertain any deep grief for her father. If -she had, it would have softened them perhaps. But they did not know what -profound depression was in her mind, or if they had known they would -have both responded with a careless exclamation. Depression that would -last for a day! Sadness, the effect of the circumstances,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_336" id="page_336"></a>{336}</span> which would -soon be shaken off in her triumph. They both expected Katherine to be -triumphant, though I cannot tell why. Perhaps they both wished to think -ill of her if they could now that she was out of their reach, though she -had always been out of their reach, as much six years ago as to-day.</p> - -<p>The church, the churchyard, every inch of space, was full of people. -There is not very much to look at in Sliplin, and the great hearse with -its moving mass of flowers was as fine a sight as another. Flowers upon -that old curmudgeon, that old vile man with his money who had been of no -use to anyone! But there were flowers in plenty, as many as if he had -been beautiful like them. They were sent, it is to be supposed, to -please Katherine, and also from an instinctive tribute to the wealth -which gave him importance among his fellow-men, though if they could -have placed the sovereigns which these wreaths cost upon his coffin it -would have been a more appropriate offering. Sir John and Lady Jane sent -their carriage (that most remarkable of all expressions of sympathy) to -follow in the procession. That, too, was intended to please Katherine, -and the wreath out of their conservatory as a reminder that Stella was -to be provided for. Mr. Tredgold thus got a good deal of vicarious -honour in his last scene, and he would have liked it all had he been -there (as perhaps he was) to see. One thing, however, he would not have -liked would have been the apparition of Robert Tredgold, dressed for the -occasion in his brother’s clothes, and saying, “He was my brother. I’m -his only brother!” to whoever would listen. Bob was disappointed not to -give his niece his arm, to stand by her as chief mourner at the foot of -the grave.</p> - -<p>They all went into the drawing-room when they returned to the house. -Katherine had no thought of business on that particular day, and her -father’s room was too cold and dreary, and full as of a presence -invisible, which was not a venerable presence. She shuddered at the idea -of entering it; and probably because she was alone, and had no one to -suggest it to her, the idea of a will to be read, or arrangements to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_337" id="page_337"></a>{337}</span> -settled, did not enter into her mind. She thought they were coming to -take leave of her when they all trooped into the gay, much-decorated -room, with its gilding and resplendent mirrors. The blinds had been -drawn up, and it was all as bright as the ruddy afternoon and the -blazing fire could make it. She sat down in her heavy veil and cloak and -turned to them, expecting the little farewell speeches, and vulgar -consolations, and shaking of hands. But Mr. Sturgeon, the solicitor, -drew his chair towards the round table of Florentine work set in gay -gilding, and pushed away from before him the books and nick-nacks with -which it was covered. His black bag had somehow found its way to him, -and he placed it as he spoke between his feet.</p> - -<p>“I have had no opportunity all day of speaking to you, Miss Katherine,” -he said, “nor last night. You retired early, I think, and our search was -not very productive. You can tell me now, perhaps, what solicitor your -late father, our lamented friend, employed. He ought to have been here.”</p> - -<p>“He engaged no solicitor that I know of,” she replied. “Indeed, I have -always thought you had his confidence—more than anyone——”</p> - -<p>“I had,” said the solicitor. “I may say I had all his affairs in my -hands; but latterly I supposed—— There must surely be someone here.”</p> - -<p>“No one that I know of,” said Katherine. “We can ask Harrison if you -like. He knew everything that went on.”</p> - -<p>Here there uprose the voice of Bob Tredgold, who even at lunch had made -use of his opportunities.</p> - -<p>“I want to have the will read,” he said; “must have the will read. It’s -a deal to me is that will. I’m not going to be hung up any more in -suspense.”</p> - -<p>“Catch hold of this bag,” said the solicitor contemptuously, flinging it -to him. Mr. Sturgeon had extracted from it the long blue envelope which -he had found in Mr. Tredgold’s bureau—the envelope with his own stamp -on it. Mr. Turny fixed his eyes upon this at once. Those little round -eyes began to glisten, and his round bald head—the excitement<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_338" id="page_338"></a>{338}</span> of a -chance which meant money, something like the thrill of the gambler, -though the chance was not his, filled him with animation. Katherine sat -blank, looking on at a scene which she did not understand.</p> - -<p>“Harrison, will you tell this gentleman whether my father”—she made a -little pause over the words—“saw any solicitor from Sliplin, or did any -business privately?”</p> - -<p>“Within the last five or six years?” Mr. Sturgeon added.</p> - -<p>“No solicitor, sir,” the man answered at once, but with a gleam in his -eyes which announced more to say.</p> - -<p>“Go on, you have got something else in your mind. Let us hear what it -is, and with no delay.”</p> - -<p>“Master, sir,” said Harrison thus adjured, “he said to me more than -once, ‘I’m a going to send for Sturgeon,’ he says. Beg your pardon, sir, -for naming you like that, short.”</p> - -<p>“Go on—go on.”</p> - -<p>“And then he never did it, sir,” the man said.</p> - -<p>“That’s not the question. Had he any interview, to your knowledge, with -any solicitor here? Did he see anybody on business? Was there any -signing of documents? I suppose you must have known?”</p> - -<p>“I know everything, sir, as master did. I got him up, sir, and I put him -to bed. There was never one in the house as did a thing for him but me. -Miss Katherine she can tell as I never neglected him; never was out of -the way when he wanted me; had no ’olidays, sir.” Harrison’s voice -quivered as he gave this catalogue of his own perfections, as if with -pure self-admiration and pity he might have broken down.</p> - -<p>“It will be remembered in your favour,” said Mr. Sturgeon. “Now tell me -precisely what happened.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing at all happened, sir,” Harrison said.</p> - -<p>“What, nothing? You can swear to it? In all these five, six years, -nobody came from the village, town—whatever you call it—whom he -consulted with, who had any documents to be signed, nothing, nobody at -all?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing!” said Harrison with solemnity, “nothing! I’ll take my Bible -oath; now and then there was a gentleman<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_339" id="page_339"></a>{339}</span> subscribing for some charity, -and there was the doctor every day or most every day, and as many times -as I could count on my fingers there would be some one calling, that -gentleman, sir,” he said suddenly, pointing to Mr. Turny, who looked up -alarmed as if accused of something, “as was staying in the house.”</p> - -<p>“But no business, no papers signed?”</p> - -<p>“Hadn’t you better speak to the doctor, Sturgeon? He knew more of him -than anyone.”</p> - -<p>“Not more nor me, sir,” said Harrison firmly; “nobody went in or out of -master’s room that was unknown to me.”</p> - -<p>“This is all very well,” said Bob Tredgold, “but it isn’t the will. I -don’t know what you’re driving at; but it’s the will as we want—my poor -brother’s daughter here, and me.”</p> - -<p>“I think, Miss Katherine,” said the lawyer, “that I’d rather talk it -over with—with Mr. Turny, who is the other executor, and perhaps with -the doctor, who could tell us something of your father’s state of mind.”</p> - -<p>“What does it all mean?” Katherine said.</p> - -<p>“I’d rather talk it over first; there is a great deal of responsibility -on our shoulders, between myself and Mr. Turny, who is the other -executor. I am sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Katherine.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it is of no consequence,” Katherine said. “Shall I leave you here? -Nobody will interrupt you, and you can send for me if you want me again. -But perhaps you will not want me again?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I fear we shall want you.” The men stood aside while she went -away, her head bowed down under the weight of her veil. But Robert -Tredgold opposed her departure. He caught her by the cloak and held her -back. “Stop here,” he said, “stop here; if you don’t stop here none of -them will pay any attention to me.”</p> - -<p>“You fool!” cried the lawyer, pushing him out of the way, “what have you -got to say to it? Take up your bag, and mind your business; the will is -nothing to you.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t speak to him so,” cried Katherine. “You are all<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_340" id="page_340"></a>{340}</span> so well off and -he is poor. And never mind,” she said, touching for a moment with her -hand the arm of that unlovely swaying figure, “I will see that you are -provided for, whether it is in the will or not. Don’t have any fear.”</p> - -<p>The lawyer followed her with his eyes, with a slight shrug of his -shoulders and shake of his head. Dr. Burnet met her at the door as she -went away.</p> - -<p>“They have sent for me,” he said; “I don’t know why. Is there anything -wrong? Can I be of any use?”</p> - -<p>“I know of nothing wrong. They want to consult you, but I don’t -understand on what subject. It is a pity they should think it’s -necessary to go on with their business to-day.”</p> - -<p>“They have to go back to town,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Yes, to be sure, I suppose that is the reason,” she answered, and with -a slight inclination of her head she walked away.</p> - -<p>But no one spoke for a full minute after the doctor joined them; they -stood about in the much gilded, brightly decorated room, in the outer -portion outside that part which Katherine had separated for herself. Her -table, with its vase of flowers, her piano, the low chair in which she -usually sat, were just visible within the screen. The dark figures of -the men encumbered the foreground between the second fireplace and the -row of long windows opening to the ground. Mr. Sturgeon stood against -one of these in profile, looking more than ever like some strange bird, -with his projecting spectacles and long neck and straggling beard and -hair.</p> - -<p>“You sent for me, I was told,” Dr. Burnet said.</p> - -<p>“Ah, yes, yes.” Mr. Sturgeon turned round. He threw himself into one of -the gilded chairs. There could not have been a more inappropriate scene -for such an assembly. “We would like you to give us a little account of -your patient’s state, doctor,” he said, “if you will be so good. I don’t -mean technically, of course. I should like to know about the state of -his mind. Was he himself? Did he know what he was doing? Would you have -said he was able to take a clear<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_341" id="page_341"></a>{341}</span> view of his position, and to -understand his own intentions and how to carry them out?”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean to ask me if Mr. Tredgold was in full possession of his -faculties? Perfectly, I should say, and almost to the last hour.”</p> - -<p>“Did he ever confide in you as to his intentions for the future, Doctor? -I mean about his property, what he meant to do with it? A man often -tells his doctor things he will tell to no one else. He was very angry -with his daughter, the young lady who ran away, we know. He mentioned to -you, perhaps, that he meant to disinherit her—to leave everything to -her sister?”</p> - -<p>“My poor brother,” cried Bob Tredgold, introducing himself to Dr. Burnet -with a wave of his hand, “I’m his only brother, sir—swore always as -he’d well provide for me.”</p> - -<p>Dr. Burnet felt himself offended by the question; he had the instinctive -feeling so common in a man who moves in a limited local circle that all -his own affairs were perfectly known, and that the expectations he had -once formed, and the abrupt conclusion to which they had come, were -alluded to in this quite uncalled for examination.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Tredgold never spoke to me of his private affairs,” he said -sharply. “I had nothing to do with his money or how he meant to leave -it. The question was one of no interest to me.”</p> - -<p>“But, surely,” said the lawyer, “you must in the course of so long an -illness have heard him refer to it, make some remark on the subject—a -doctor often asks, if nothing more, whether the business affairs are all -in order, whether there might be something a man would wish to have -looked to.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Tredgold was a man of business, which I am not. He knew what was -necessary much better than I did. I never spoke to him on business -matters, nor he to me.”</p> - -<p>There was another pause, and the two city men looked at each other while -Dr. Burnet buttoned up his coat significantly as a sign of departure. At -last Mr. Turny with his bald head shining said persuasively, “But, you -knew, he was very angry—with the girl who ran away.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_342" id="page_342"></a>{342}</span></p> - -<p>“I knew only what all the world knew,” said Dr. Burnet. “I am a very -busy man, I have very little time to spare. If that is all you have to -ask me, I must beg you to——”</p> - -<p>“One minute,” said the solicitor, “the position is very serious. It is -very awkward for us to have no other member of the family, no one in -Miss Tredgold’s interest to talk it over with. I thought, perhaps, that -you, Dr. Burnet, being I presume, by this time, an old family friend as -well as——”</p> - -<p>“I can’t pretend to any such distinction,” he said quickly with an angry -smile, for indeed although he never showed it, he had never forgiven -Katherine. Then it occurred to him, though a little late, that these -personal matters might as well be kept to himself. He added quickly, “I -have, of course, seen Miss Tredgold daily, for many years.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Mr. Sturgeon, “that’s always something, as she has nobody -to stand by her, no relation, no husband—nothing but—what’s worse than -nothing,” he added with a contemptuous glance at Robert Tredgold, who -sat grasping his bag, and looking from one to another with curious and -bewildered eyes.</p> - -<p>Dr. Burnet grew red, and buttoned up more tightly than ever the buttons -he had undone. “If I can be of any use to Miss Tredgold,” he said. “Is -there anything disagreeable before her—any prohibition—against helping -her sister?”</p> - -<p>“Dr. Burnet,” said the solicitor imperiously, “we can find nothing among -Mr. Tredgold’s papers, and I have nothing, not an indication of his -wishes, except the will of eighteen hundred and seventy-one.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_343" id="page_343"></a>{343}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">When</span> Katherine came into the room again at the call of her father’s -solicitor it was with a sense of being unduly disturbed and interfered -with at a moment when she had a right to repose. She was perhaps half -angry with herself that her thoughts were already turning so warmly to -the future, and that Stella’s approaching arrival, and the change in -Stella’s fortunes which it would be in her power to make, were more and -more occupying the foreground of her mind, and crowding out with bright -colours the sombre spectacle which was just over, and all the troublous -details of the past. When a portion of one’s life has been brought to an -end by the closure of death, something to look forward to is the most -natural and best of alleviations. It breaks up the conviction of the -irrevocable, and opens to the soul once more the way before it, which, -on the other hand, is closed up and ended. Katherine had allowed that -thought to steal into her mind, to occupy the entire horizon. Stella was -coming home, not merely back, which was all that she had allowed herself -to say before, but home to her own house, or rather to that which was -something still more hers than her own by being her sister’s. There had -been, no doubt, grievances against Stella in Katherine’s mind, in the -days when her own life had been entirely overshadowed by her sister’s; -but these were long gone, long lost in boundless, remorseful -(notwithstanding that she had nothing to blame herself with) affection -and longing for Stella, who after all was her only sister, her only near -relation in the world. She had begun to permit herself to dwell on that -delightful thought. It had been a sort of forbidden pleasure while her -father lay dead in the house, and she had felt that every thought was -due to him, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_344" id="page_344"></a>{344}</span> she had not given him enough, had not shown that -devotion to him of which one reads in books, the triumph of filial love -over every circumstance. Katherine had not been to her father all that a -daughter might have been, and in these dark days she had much and -unjustly reproached herself with it. But now everything had been done -for him that he could have wished to be done, and his image had gone -aside amid the shadows of the past, and she had permitted herself to -look forward, to think of Stella and her return. It was a great -disturbance and annoyance to be called again, to be brought back from -the contemplation of those happier things to the shadow of the grave -once more—or, still worse, the shadow of business, as if she cared how -much money had come to her or what was her position. There would be -plenty—plenty to make Stella comfortable she knew, and beyond that what -did Katherine care?</p> - -<p>The men stood up again as she came in with an air of respect which -seemed to her exaggerated and absurd—old Mr. Turny, who had known her -from a child and had allowed her to open the door for him and run -errands for him many a day, and the solicitor, who in his infrequent -visits had never paid any attention to her at all. They stood on each -side letting her pass as if into some prison of which they were going to -defend the doors. Dr. Burnet, who was there too, closely buttoned and -looking very grave, gave her a seat; and then she saw her Uncle Robert -Tredgold sunk down in a chair, with Mr. Sturgeon’s bag in his arms, -staring about him with lack-lustre eyes. She gave him a little nod and -encouraging glance. How small a matter it would be to provide for that -unfortunate so that he should never need to carry Mr. Sturgeon’s bag -again! She sat down and looked round upon them with for the first time a -sort of personal satisfaction in the thought that she was so wholly -independent of them and all that it was in their power to do—the -mistress of her own house, not obliged to think of anyone’s pleasure but -her own. It was on her lips to say something hospitable, kind, such as -became the mistress of the house; she refrained only from the -recollection that, after all, it was her father’s funeral day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_345" id="page_345"></a>{345}</span></p> - -<p>“Miss Tredgold,” said the solicitor, “we have now, I am sorry to say, a -very painful duty to perform.”</p> - -<p>Katherine looked at him without the faintest notion of his meaning, -encouraging him to proceed with a faint smile.</p> - -<p>“I have gone through your late lamented father’s papers most carefully. -As you yourself said yesterday, I have possessed his confidence for many -years, and all his business matters have gone through my hands. I -supposed that as I had not been consulted about any change in his will, -he must have employed a local solicitor. That, however, does not seem to -have been the case, and I am sorry to inform you, Miss Tredgold, that -the only will that can be found is that of eighteen hundred and -seventy-one.”</p> - -<p>“Yes?” said Katherine indifferently interrogative, as something seemed -to be expected of her.</p> - -<p>“Yes—the will of eighteen hundred and seventy-one—nearly eight years -ago—drawn out when your sister was in full possession of her empire -over your late father, Miss Tredgold.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Katherine, but this time without any interrogation. She had -a vague recollection of that will, of Mr. Sturgeon’s visit to the house, -and the far-off sound of stormy interviews between her father and his -solicitor, of which the girls in their careless fashion, and especially -Stella, had made a joke.</p> - -<p>“You probably don’t take in the full significance of what I say.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Katherine with a smile, “I don’t think that I do.”</p> - -<p>“I protested against it at the time. I simply cannot comprehend it now. -It is almost impossible to imagine that in present circumstances he -could have intended it to stand; but here it is, and nothing else. Miss -Tredgold, by this will the whole of your father’s property is left over -your head to your younger sister.”</p> - -<p>“To Stella!” she cried, with a sudden glow of pleasure, clapping her -hands. The men about sat and stared at her, Mr. Turny in such -consternation that his jaw dropped as he gazed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_346" id="page_346"></a>{346}</span> Bob Tredgold was by -this time beyond speech, glaring into empty space over the bag in his -arms.</p> - -<p>Then something, whether in her mind or out of it, suggested by the faces -round her struck Katherine with a little chill. She looked round upon -them again, and she was dimly aware that someone behind her, who could -only be Dr. Burnet, made a step forward and stood behind her chair. Then -she drew a long breath. “I am not sure that I understand yet. I am glad -Stella has it—oh, very glad! But do you mean that I—am left out? Do -you mean—— I am afraid,” she said, after a pause, with a little gasp, -“that is not quite just. Do you mean really everything—<i>every</i>thing, -Mr. Sturgeon?”</p> - -<p>“Everything. There is, of course, your mother’s money, which no one can -touch, and there is a small piece of land—to build yourself a cottage -on, which was all you would want, he said.”</p> - -<p>Katherine sat silent a little after this. Her first thought was that she -was balked then altogether in her first personal wish, the great delight -and triumph of setting Stella right and restoring to her her just share -in the inheritance. This great disappointment struck her at once, and -almost brought the tears to her eyes. Stella would now have it all of -her own right, and would never know, or at least believe, what had been -Katherine’s loving intention. She felt this blow. In a moment she -realised that Stella would not believe it—that she would think any -assertion to that effect to be a figment, and remained fully assured -that her sister would have kept everything to herself if she had had the -power. And this hurt Katherine beyond expression. She would have liked -to have had that power! Afterwards there came into her mind a vague -sense of old injustice and unkindness to herself, the contemptuous -speech about the cottage, and that this was all she would want. Her -father thought so; he had thought so always, and so had Stella. It never -occurred to Katherine that Stella would be anxious to do her justice, as -she would have done to Stella. That was an idea that never entered her -mind at all. She was thrown back eight years ago to the time when she -lived habitually in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_347" id="page_347"></a>{347}</span> cold shade. After all, was not that the one -thing that she had been certain of all her life? Was it not a spell -which had never been broken, which never could be broken? She murmured -to herself dully: “A cottage—which was all I should want.”</p> - -<p>“I said to your father at the time everything that could be said.” Mr. -Sturgeon wanted to show his sympathy, but he felt that, thoroughly as -everybody present must be persuaded that old Tredgold was an old beast, -it would not do to say so in his own house on his funeral day.</p> - -<p>The other executor said nothing except “Tchich, tchich!” but he wiped -his bald head with his handkerchief and internally thanked everything -that he knew in the place of God—that dark power called Providence and -other such—that Katherine Tredgold had refused to have anything to say -to his Fred. Dr. Burnet was not visible at all to Katherine except in a -long mirror opposite, where he appeared like a shadow behind her chair.</p> - -<p>“And this poor man,” said Katherine, looking towards poor Bob Tredgold, -with his staring eyes; “is there nothing for him?”</p> - -<p>“Not a penny. I could have told you that; I have told him that often -enough. I’ve known him from a boy. He shall keep his corner in my office -all the same. I didn’t put him there, though he thinks so, for his -brother’s sake.”</p> - -<p>“He shall have a home in the cottage—when it is built,” said Katherine, -with a curious smile; and then she became aware that in both these -promises, the lawyer’s and her own, there was a bitter tone—an -unexpressed contempt for the man who was her father, and who had been -laid in his grave that day.</p> - -<p>“I hope,” she said, “this is all that is necessary to-day; and may I -now, if you will not think it ungracious, bid you good-bye? I shall -understand it all better when I have a little time to think.”</p> - -<p>She paused, however, again after she had shaken hands with them. “There -is still one thing. I am going to meet my sister when she arrives. May I -have the—the happiness of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_348" id="page_348"></a>{348}</span> telling her? I had meant to give her half, -and it is a little disappointment; but I should like at least to carry -the news. Thanks; you must address to her here. Of course she will come -at once here, to her own home.”</p> - -<p>She scarcely knew whose arm it was that was offered to her, but took it -mechanically and went out, not quite clear as to where she was going, in -the giddiness of the great change.</p> - -<p>“This is a strange hearing,” Dr. Burnet said.</p> - -<p>“How kind of you to stand by me! Yes, it is strange; and I was pleasing -myself with the idea of giving back the house and her share of -everything besides to Stella. I should have liked to do that.”</p> - -<p>“It is to be hoped,” he said, “that she will do the same by you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no!” she cried with a half laugh, “that’s impossible.” Then, after -a pause, “you know there’s a husband and children to be thought of. And -what I will have is really quite enough for me.”</p> - -<p>“There is one thing at your disposal as you please,” he said in a low -voice. “I have not changed, Katherine, all these years.”</p> - -<p>“Dr. Burnet! It makes one’s heart glad that you are so good a man!”</p> - -<p>“Make <i>me</i> glad, that will be better,” he said.</p> - -<p>Katherine shook her head but said nothing. And human nature is so -strange that Dr. Burnet, after making this profession of devotion, which -was genuine enough, did not feel so sorry as he ought to have done that -she still shook her head as she disappeared up the great stairs.</p> - -<p>Katherine went into her room a very different woman from the Katherine -who had left it not half-an-hour before. Then she had entertained no -doubt that this was her own house in which she was, this her own room, -where in all probability she would live all her life. She had intended -that Stella should have the house, and yet that there should always be a -nook for herself in which the giver of the whole, half by right and -wholly by love, should remain, something more than a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_349" id="page_349"></a>{349}</span> guest. Would -Stella think like that now that the tables were turned, that it was -Katherine who had nothing and she all? Katherine did not for a moment -imagine that this would be the case. Without questioning herself on the -subject, she unconsciously proved how little confidence she had in -Stella by putting away from her mind all idea of remaining here. She had -no home; she would have no home unless or until the cottage was built -for which her father had in mockery, not in kindness, left her the site. -She looked round upon all the familiar things which had been about her -all her life; already the place had taken another aspect to her. It was -not hers any longer, it was a room in her sister’s house. She wondered -whether Stella would let her take her favourite things—a certain little -cabinet, a writing table, some of the pictures. But she did not feel any -confidence that Stella would allow her to do so. Stella liked to have a -house nicely furnished, not to see gaps in the furniture. That was a -small matter, but it was characteristic of the view which Katherine -instinctively took of the whole situation. And it would be vain to say -that it did not affect her. It affected her strongly, but not as the -sudden deprivation of all things might be supposed to affect a sensitive -mind. She had no anticipation of any catastrophe of the kind, and yet -now that it had come she did not feel that she was unprepared for it. It -was not a thing which her mind rejected as impossible, which her heart -struggled against. Now that it had happened, it fitted in well enough to -the life that had gone before.</p> - -<p>Her father had never cared for her, and he had loved Stella. Stella was -the one to whom everything naturally came. Poor Stella had been -unnaturally depressed, thrown out of her triumphant place for these six -years; but her father, even when he had uttered that calm execration -which had so shaken Katherine’s nerves but never his, had not meant any -harm to Stella. He had not been able to do anything against her. -Katherine remembered to have seen him seated at his bureau with that -large blue envelope in his hand. This showed that he had taken the -matter into consideration; but it had not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_350" id="page_350"></a>{350}</span> proved possible for him to -disinherit Stella—a thing which everybody concluded had been done as -soon as she left him. Katherine remembered vaguely even that she had -seen him chuckling over that document, locking it up in his drawer as if -there was some private jest of his own involved. It was the kind of jest -to please Mr. Tredgold. The idea of such a discovery, of the one sister -who was sure being disappointed, and the other who expected nothing -being raised to the heights of triumph, all by nothing more than a -scratch of his pen, was sure to please him. She could almost hear him -chuckling again at her own sudden and complete overthrow. When she came -thus far Katherine stopped herself suddenly with a quick flush and sense -of guilt. She would not consciously blame her father, but she retained -the impression on her mind of his chuckle over her discomfiture.</p> - -<p>Thus it will be seen that Katherine’s pain in the strange change was -reduced by the fact that there was no injured love to feel the smart. -She recognised that it was quite a thing that had been likely, though -she had not thought of it before, that it was a thing that other people -would recognise as likely when they heard of it. Nobody, she said to -herself, would be very much surprised. It was unnatural, now she came to -think of it, that she should have had even for a moment the upper hand -and the extreme gratification, not to say superiority, of restoring -Stella. Perhaps it was rather a mean thing to have desired it—to have -wished to lay Stella under such an obligation, and to secure for herself -that blessedness of giving which everybody recognised. Her mind turned -with a sudden impulse of shame to this wish, that had been so strong in -it. Everybody likes to give; it is a selfish sort of pleasure. You feel -yourself for the moment a good genius, a sort of providence, uplifted -above the person, whoever it may be, upon whom you bestow your bounty. -He or she has the inferior position, and probably does not like it at -all. Stella was too careless, too ready to grasp whatever she could get, -to feel this very strongly; but even Stella, instead of loving her -sister the better for hastening to her with her hands full, might have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_351" id="page_351"></a>{351}</span> -resented the fact that she owed to Katherine’s gift what ought to have -been hers by right. It was perhaps a poor thing after all. Katherine -began to convince herself that it was a poor thing—to have wished to do -that. Far better that Stella should have what she had a right to by her -own right and not through any gift.</p> - -<p>Then Katherine began to try to take back the thread of the thoughts -which had been in her mind before she was called downstairs to speak to -those men. Her first trial resulted merely in a strong sensation of -dislike to “those men” and resentment, which was absurd, for, after all, -it was not they who had done it. She recalled them to her mind, or -rather the image of them came into it, with a feeling of angry -displeasure. Mr. Sturgeon, the solicitor, had in no way been offensive -to Katherine. He had been indignant, he had been sorry, he had been, in -fact, on her side; but she gave him no credit for that. And the bald -head of the other seemed to her to have a sort of twinkle as of mockery -in it, though, to tell the truth, poor Mr. Turny’s face underneath was -much troubled and almost ashamed to look at Katherine after being -instrumental in doing her so much harm. She wondered with an intuitive -perception whether he were not very glad now that she had refused Fred. -And then with a leap her mind went back to other things. Would they all -be very glad now? Would the Rector piously thank heaven, which for his -good had subjected him to so small a pang, by way of saving him later -from so great a disappointment? Would the doctor be glad? Even though he -had made that very nice speech to her—that generous and faithful -profession of attachment still—must not the doctor, too, be a little -glad? And then Katherine’s mind for a moment went circling back into -space, as it were—into an unknown world to which she had no clue. He -who had disappeared there, leaving no sign, would he ever hear, would he -ever think, could it touch him one way or another? Probably it would not -touch him in any way. He might be married to some woman; he might have a -family of children round him. He might say, “Oh,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_352" id="page_352"></a>{352}</span> the Tredgolds! I used -to see a good deal of them. And so Lady Somers has the money after all? -I always thought that was how it would end.” And perhaps he would be -glad, too, that Katherine, who was the unlucky one, the one always left -in the cold shade, whatever happened, had never been anything more to -him than a passing fancy—a figure flitting by as in a dream.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_353" id="page_353"></a>{353}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">A whole</span> week had still to pass before the arrival of the <i>Aurungzebe</i>. -After such a revolution and catastrophe as had happened, there is always -a feeling in the mind that the stupendous change that is about to ensue -should come at once. But it is very rare indeed that it does so. There -is an inevitable time of waiting, which to some spirits clinging to the -old is a reprieve, but to others an intolerable delay. Katherine was one -of those to whom the delay was intolerable. She would have liked to get -it all over, to deposit the treasure, as it were, at her sister’s feet, -and so to get away, she did not know where, and think of it no more.</p> - -<p>She was not herself, as she now assured herself, so very badly off. The -amount of her mother’s fortune was about five hundred a year—quite a -tolerable income for a woman alone, with nobody to think of but herself. -And as Katherine had not wanted the money, or at least more than a part -of it (for Mr. Tredgold had considered it right at all times that a girl -with an income of her own should pay for her own dress), a considerable -sum had accumulated as savings which would have been of great use to her -now, and built for her that cottage to which her father had doomed her, -had it not been that almost all of it had been taken during those five -years past for Stella, who was always in need, and had devoured the -greater part of Katherine’s income besides. She had thus no nest egg, -nothing to build the cottage, unless Stella paid her back, which was a -probability upon which Katherine did not much reckon. It was curious, -even to herself, to find that she instinctively did not reckon on Stella -at all. She was even angry with herself for this, and felt that she did -not do Stella justice, yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_354" id="page_354"></a>{354}</span> always recurred unconsciously to the idea -that there was nothing to look for, nothing to be reckoned on, but her -five hundred a year, which surely, she said to herself, would be quite -enough. She and old Hannah, from whom she did not wish to separate -herself, could live upon that, even with a residue for poor Robert -Tredgold, who had returned to his desk in the dreariest disappointment -and whose living was at Mr. Sturgeon’s mercy. Stella would not wish to -hear of that disreputable relation, and yet perhaps she might be got to -provide for him if only to secure that he should never cross her path.</p> - -<p>Katherine’s thoughts were dreary enough as she lived through these days, -in the house that was no longer hers; but she had a still harder -discipline to go through in the visits of her neighbours, among whom the -wonderful story of Mr. Tredgold’s will began to circulate at once. They -had been very kind to her, according to the usual fashion of neighbourly -kindness. There had been incessant visits and inquiries ever since the -interest of the place had been quickened by the change for the worse in -the old man’s state, and on his death Katherine had received many offers -of help and companionship, even from people she knew slightly. The -ladies about were all anxious to be permitted to come and “sit with -her,” to take care of her for a day, or more than a day, to ensure her -from being alone. Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay, though neither of these -ladies liked to disturb themselves for a common occasion, were ready at -an hour’s notice to have gone to her, to have been with her during the -trying period of the funeral, and they were naturally among the first to -enter the house when its doors were open, its shutters unbarred, and the -broad light of the common day streamed once more into the rooms. -Everything looked so exactly as it used to do, they remarked to each -other as they went in, leaving the Midge considerably the worse for -wear, and Mr. Perkins, the driver, none the better at the door. Exactly -the same! The gilding of the furniture in the gorgeous drawing-room was -not tarnished, nor the satin dimmed of its lustre, by Mr. Tredgold<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_355" id="page_355"></a>{355}</span>’s -death. The servants, perhaps, were a little less confident, shades of -anxiety were on the countenance of the butler and the footman; they did -not know whether they would be servants good enough for Lady Somers. -Even Mrs. Simmons—who did not, of course, appear—was doubtful whether -Lady Somers would retain her, notwithstanding all the dainties which -Simmons had prepared for her youth; and a general sense of uneasiness -was in the house. But the great drawing-room, with all its glow and -glitter, did not show any sympathetic shadow. The two fireplaces shone -with polished brass and steel, and the reflection of the blazing fires, -though the windows were open—which was a very extravagant arrangement -the ladies thought, though quite in the Tredgold way. And yet the old -gentleman was gone! and Katherine, hitherto the dispenser of many good -things and accustomed all her life to costly housekeeping, was left like -any poor lady with an income of five hundred a year. Both Mrs. Shanks -and Miss Mildmay, who put firebricks in their fireplaces and were very -frugal in all their ways, and paid their visits in the Midge, had as -much as that. No one could be expected to keep up a house of her own and -a couple of servants on that. But Stella surely would do something for -her sister, Mrs. Shanks said. Miss Mildmay was still shaking her head in -reply to this when they entered the drawing-room, where Katherine -advanced to meet them in her black dress. She had ceased to sit behind -the screens in that part of the room which she had arranged for herself. -The screens were folded back, the room was again one large room all -shining with its gilded chairs and cabinets, its Florentine tables, its -miles of glowing Aubusson carpet. She was the only blot upon its -brightness, with her heavy crape and her pale face.</p> - -<p>“My dear Katherine, my dearest Katherine,” the old ladies said, -enfolding her one after the other in the emphatic silence of a long -embrace. This was meant to express something more than words could -say—and, indeed, there were few words which could have adequately -expressed the feelings of the spectators. “So your old brute of a father -has gone at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_356" id="page_356"></a>{356}</span> last, and a good riddance, and has cheated you out of every -penny he could take away from you, after making a slave of you all these -years!” Such words as these would have given but a feeble idea of the -feelings of these ladies, but it is needless to say that it would have -been impossible to say them except in some as yet undiscovered Palace of -Truth. But each old lady held the young one fast, and pressed a long -kiss upon her cheek, which answered the same purpose. When she emerged -from these embraces Katherine looked a little relieved, but still more -pale.</p> - -<p>“Katherine, my dear, it is impossible not to speak of it,” said Mrs. -Shanks; “you know it must be in our minds all the while. Are you going -to do anything, my dear child, to dispute this dreadful will?”</p> - -<p>“Jane Shanks and I,” said Miss Mildmay, “have talked of nothing else -since we heard of it; not that I believe you will do anything against -it, but I wish you had a near friend who would, Katherine. A near friend -is the thing. I have never been very much in favour of marrying, but I -should like you to marry for that.”</p> - -<p>“In order to dispute my father’s will?” said Katherine. “Dear Miss -Mildmay, you know I don’t want to be rude, but I will not even hear it -discussed.”</p> - -<p>“But Katherine, Katherine——”</p> - -<p>“Please not a word! I am quite satisfied with papa’s will. I had -intended to do—something of the sort myself, if I had ever had the -power. You know, which is something pleasanter to talk of, that the -<i>Aurungzebe</i> has been signalled, and I am going to meet Stella -to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>The two old ladies looked at each other. “And I suppose,” said Mrs. -Shanks, “you will bring her home here.”</p> - -<p>“Stella has seen a great deal since she was here,” said Miss Mildmay, “I -should not think she would come, Katherine, if that is what you wish. -She will like something more in the fashion—or perhaps more out of the -fashion—in the grand style, don’t you know, like her husband’s old -house. She will turn up her nose at all this, and at all of us, and -perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_357" id="page_357"></a>{357}</span> at you too. Stella was never like you, Katherine. If she falls -into a great fortune all at once there will be no bounds to her. She’ll -probably sell this place, and turn you out.”</p> - -<p>“She may not like the place, and neither do I,” said Katherine like a -flash; “if she wishes to part with it I shall certainly not oppose her. -You must not speak so of my sister.”</p> - -<p>“And what shall you do, Katherine, my dear?”</p> - -<p>“I am going away,” cried Katherine; “I have always intended to go away. -I have a piece of land to build a cottage on.” She made a pause, for she -had never in words stated her intentions before. “Papa knew what I -should like,” she said, with the rising of a sob in her throat. The -sense of injury now and then overcame even her self-control. “In the -meantime perhaps we may go abroad, Hannah and I; isn’t it always the -right thing when you are in mourning and trouble to go abroad?”</p> - -<p>“My dear girl,” said Miss Mildmay solemnly, “how far do you think you -can go abroad you and your maid—upon five hundred a year?”</p> - -<p>“Can’t we?” said Katherine, confused; “oh, yes, we have very quiet ways. -I am not extravagant, I shall want no carriage or anything.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know how much a hotel costs, Katherine? You and your maid -couldn’t possibly live for less than a pound a day—a pound a day means -three hundred and sixty-five pounds a year—and that without a pin, -without a shoe, without a bit of ribbon or a button for your clothes, -still less with anything new to put on. How could you go abroad on that? -It is impossible—and with the ideas you have been brought up on, -everything so extravagant and ample—I can’t imagine what you can be -thinking of, a practical girl like you.”</p> - -<p>“She might go to a pension, Ruth Mildmay. Pensions are much cheaper than -hotels.”</p> - -<p>“I think I see Katherine in a pension! With a napkin done up in a ring -to last a week, and tablecloths to match!”</p> - -<p>“Well then,” said Katherine, with a feeble laugh, “if that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_358" id="page_358"></a>{358}</span> is so I must -stay at home. Hannah and I will find a little house somewhere while my -cottage is building.”</p> - -<p>“Hannah can never do all the work of a house,” said Miss Mildmay, -“Hannah has been accustomed to her ease as well as you. You would need -at least a good maid of all work who could cook, besides Hannah; and -then there are rent and taxes, and hundreds of things that you never -calculate upon. You could not live, my dear, even in a cottage with two -maids, on five hundred a year.”</p> - -<p>“I think I had better not live at all!” cried Katherine, “if that is how -it is; and yet there must be a great many people who manage very well on -less than I have. Why, there are families who live on a pound a week!”</p> - -<p>“But not, my dear, with a lady’s maid and another,” Miss Mildmay said.</p> - -<p>Katherine was very glad when her friends went away. They would either of -them have received her into their own little houses with delight, for a -long visit—even with her maid, who, as everybody knows, upsets a little -house much more than the mistress. She might have sat for a month at a -time in either of the drawing-rooms under the green verandah, and looked -out upon the terrace gardens with the sea beyond, and thus have been -spared so much expense, a consideration which would have been fully in -the minds of her entertainers; but their conversation gave her an -entirely new view of the subject. Her little income had seemed to her to -mean plenty, even luxury. She had thought of travelling. She had thought -(with a little bitterness, yet amusement) of the cottage she would -build, a dainty little nest full of pretty things. It had never occurred -to her that she would not have money enough for all that, or that poor -old Hannah if she accompanied her mistress would have to descend from -the pleasant leisure to which she was accustomed. This new idea was not -a pleasant one. She tried to cast it away and to think that she would -not care, but the suggestion that even such a thing as the little -drawing-room, shadowed by the verandah, was above her reach gave her -undeniably a shock. It was not a pretty room;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_359" id="page_359"></a>{359}</span> in the winter it was dark -and damp, the shabby carpet on a level with the leaf-strewn flags of the -verandah and the flower borders beyond. She had thought with compassion -of the inhabitants trying to be cheerful on a dull wintry day in the -corner between the window and the fire. And yet that was too fine—too -expensive for her now. Mrs. Shanks had two maids and a boy! and could -have the Midge when she liked in partnership with her friend. These -glories could not be for Katherine. Then she burst into a laugh of -ridicule at herself. Other women of her years in all the villages about -were working cheerfully for their husbands and babies, washing the -clothes and cooking the meals, busy and happy all day long. Katherine -could have done that she felt—but she did not know how she was to -vegetate cheerfully upon her five hundred a year. To be sure, as the -reader will perceive, who may here be indignant with Katherine, she knew -nothing about it, and was not so grateful as she ought to be for what -she had in comparison with what she had not.</p> - -<p>Lady Jane came to see her the same day, and Lady Jane was over-awed -altogether by the news. She had a scared look in her face. “I can only -hope that Stella will show herself worthy of our confidence and put -things right between you at once,” she said; but her face did not -express the confidence which she put into words. She asked all about the -arrival, and about Katherine’s purpose of meeting her sister at -Gravesend. “Shall you bring them all down here?” she said.</p> - -<p>“It will depend upon Stella. I should like to bring them all here. I -have had our old rooms prepared for the nurseries; and there are fires -everywhere to air the house. They will feel the cold very much, I -suppose. But if the fine weather lasts——. There is only one thing -against it, Stella may not care to come.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Stella will come,” said Lady Jane, “the island is the right place, -don’t you know, to have a house in, and everybody she used to know will -see her here in her glory—and then her husband will be able to run up -to town—and begin to squander the money away. Charlie Somers is my own -relation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_360" id="page_360"></a>{360}</span> Katherine, but I don’t put much faith in him. I wish it had -been as we anticipated, and everything had been in your hands.”</p> - -<p>“You know what I should have done at once, Lady Jane, if it had——”</p> - -<p>“I know—not this, however, anyhow. I hope you would have had sense -enough to keep your share. It would have been far better in the long run -for Stella, she would always have had you to fall back upon. My heart is -broken about it all, Katherine. I blame myself now more than at the -first. I should never have countenanced them; and I never should if I -had thought it would bring disaster upon you.”</p> - -<p>“You need not blame yourself, Lady Jane, for this was the will of ’71; -and if you had never interfered at all, if there had been no Charles -Somers, and no elopement, it would have been just the same.”</p> - -<p>“There is something in that,” Lady Jane said. “And now I hope, I do -hope, that Stella—she is not like you, my dear Katherine. She has never -been brought up to think of any one but herself.”</p> - -<p>“She has been brought up exactly as I was,” Katherine said with a smile.</p> - -<p>“Ah yes, but it is different, quite different; the foolish wicked -preference which was shown for her, did good to you—you are a different -creature, and most likely it is more or less owing to that. Katherine, -you know there are things in which I think you were wrong. When that -good, kind man wanted to marry you, as indeed he does now——”</p> - -<p>“Not very much, I think, Lady Jane; which is all the better, as I do not -wish at all to marry him.”</p> - -<p>“I think you are making a mistake,” said Lady Jane. “He is not so -ornamental perhaps as Charlie Somers, but he is a far better man. Well, -then, I suppose there is nothing more to be said; but I can’t help -thinking that if you had a man to stand by you they would never have -propounded that will.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed,” said Katherine, “you must not think they had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_361" id="page_361"></a>{361}</span> anything to do -with it; the will was propounded because it was the only one that was -there.”</p> - -<p>“I know that women always are imposed upon in business, where it is -possible to do it,” Lady Jane said in tones of conviction. And it was -with great reluctance that she went away, still with a feeling that it -was somehow Katherine’s fault, if not at bottom her own, for having -secretly encouraged Stella’s runaway match. “She had never thought of -this,” she declared, for a moment. She had been strongly desirous that -Stella should have her share, and she knew that Katherine would have -given her her share. As for Stella’s actions, no one could answer for -them. She might have a generous impulse or she might not; and Charlie -Somers, he was always agape for money. If he had the Duke of -Westminster’s revenues he would still open his mouth for more. “But you -may be sure I shall put their duty very plainly before them,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t, please don’t,” cried Katherine. “I do not want to have -anything from Stella’s pity—I am not to be pitied at all. I have a very -sufficient income of my own.”</p> - -<p>“A very sufficient income—for Mr. Tredgold’s daughter!” cried Lady -Jane, and she hurried away biting her lips to prevent a string of evil -names as long as her arm bursting from them. The old wretch! the old -brute! the old curmudgeon! were a few of the things she would have liked -to say. But it does not do to scatter such expressions about a man’s -house before he has been buried a week. These are decorums which are -essential to the very preservation of life.</p> - -<p>Then Katherine’s mind turned to the other side of the question, and she -thought of herself as Stella’s pensioner, of living on sufferance in -Stella’s house, with a portion of Stella’s money substracted from the -rest for her benefit. It would have been just the same had it been she -who had endowed Stella, as she had intended, and given her the house and -the half of the fortune. The same, and yet how different. Stella would -have taken everything her sister had given, and waited and craved for -more. But to Katherine it seemed impossible<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_362" id="page_362"></a>{362}</span> that she should take -anything from Stella. It would be charity, alms, a hundred ugly things; -it would have been mere and simple justice, as she would have felt it -had the doing of it been in her own hands.</p> - -<p>But it was not with any of these feelings, it was with the happiness of -real affection in seeing her sister again, and the excitement of a great -novelty and change and of a new chapter of life quite different from all -that she had known before, and probably better, more happy, more -comforting than any of her anticipations, that she set out next day to -meet Stella and to bring her home.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_363" id="page_363"></a>{363}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">A river-sea</span> between two widely separated banks, so calm that it was like -a sea of oil bulging towards the centre from over-fullness; a big ship -upon an even keel, moving along with almost imperceptible progress, the -distant hazy banks gliding slowly past; the ease and relief of a long -voyage over, not only on every face, but on every line of cordage; a -bustle of happy people rushing up upon deck to see how near home they -were, and of other people below crowding, bustling over portmanteaux to -be packed, and all the paraphernalia of the voyage to be put away. It -was a very curious scene to Katherine’s eyes, not to speak of the -swarming dark figures everywhere—the Lascars, who were the crew, the -gliding ayhas in their white wrappings. She was led to the cabin in -which Stella, half-dressed, was standing in the midst of piles of -clothes and other belongings, all thrown about in a confusion which it -seemed impossible ever to reduce to order, with a box or two open and -ready to receive the mass which never could be got in. She was so busy -that she could not at first be got to understand that somebody from -shore had come for her. And even then, though she gave a little cry and -made a little plunge at Katherine, it was in the midst of a torrent of -directions, addressed sometimes in English, sometimes in Hindostanee, to -an English maid and a Hindoo woman who encumbered the small cabin with -their presence. A pink-and-white—yet more white than pink—baby lay -sprawling, half out of its garments, upon the red velvet steamboat -couch. Katherine stood confused, disappointed, longing to take her -sister to her heart, and longing to snatch up the little creature who -was so new and so strange<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_364" id="page_364"></a>{364}</span> an element, yet suddenly caught, stopped, set -down, in the exaltation of her love and eagerness by the deadly -commonplace of the scene. Stella cried, with almost a shriek:</p> - -<p>“You, Katherine! Is it possible?” and gave her a hurried kiss; and then, -without drawing breath, called out to the women: “For goodness’ sake -take care what you’re doing. That’s my best lace. And put all the -muslins at the bottom—I sha’n’t want them here,” with a torrent of -other directions in a strange tongue to the white-robed ayah in the -background. Then—“Only wait,” Stella cried, “till I get a dress on. But -there is never anything ready when I want it. Give me that gown—any -gown—and look sharp, can’t you? I am never ready till half an hour -after everybody. I never can get a thing to put on.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t mind for to-day, Stella; anything will do for to-day. I have so -much to tell you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” said Stella, looking at her again, “I see. Your crape’s enough, -Kate, without a word. So it’s all over? Well, perhaps it is for the -best. It would have made me miserable if he had refused to see me. And -Charlie would have insisted—and—— Poor papa! so he’s gone—really -gone. Give me a handkerchief, quick! I was, of course, partly prepared. -It’s not such a shock as it might have been.” A tear fell from Stella’s -eyes upon the dress which her maid was arranging. She wiped it off -carefully, and then her eyes. “You see how careful I have to be -now-a-days,” she said; “I can’t have my dress spotted, I haven’t too -many of them <i>now</i>. Poor papa! Well, it is a good thing it has happened -when I have all the distractions of the journey to take off my mind. -Have you done now fumbling? Pin my veil properly. Now I’ll go on deck -with you, Katherine, and we’ll watch the ship getting in, and have our -talk.”</p> - -<p>“Mayn’t I kiss the baby first?” Katherine said. She had been looking at -that new and wonderful thing over the chaos of the baggage, unable to -get further than the cabin door.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’ll see the baby after. Already you’re beginning to think of the -baby and not of me. I knew that was how it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_365" id="page_365"></a>{365}</span> would be,” said Stella, -pettishly. She stepped over an open box, dragging down a pile of muslins -as she moved. “There’s no room to turn round here. Thank heaven we’ve -done with it at last. Now, Kate—Kate, tell me; it will be the first -thing Charlie will want to know. Did he relent to me at the last?”</p> - -<p>“There is so much to tell you, Stella.”</p> - -<p>“Yes—yes—about his illness and all. Poor papa! I am sure I am just as -sorry as if I knew all about it already. But Kate, dear, just one word. -Am I cut off in the will? That is what I want to know.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Katherine, “you are not cut off in the will.”</p> - -<p>“Hurrah!” cried Stella, clapping her hands. It was but for one second, -and then she quieted down. “Oh, we have had such a time,” she cried, -“and Charlie always insinuating, when he didn’t say it outright, that it -was my fault, for, of course, we never, never believed, neither he nor -I, that papa would have held out. And so he did come to at the end? -Well, it is very hard, very hard to have been kept out of it so long but -I am glad we are to have what belongs to us now. Oh—h!” cried Stella, -drawing a long breath as she emerged on deck, leading the way, “here’s -the old Thames again, bless it, and the fat banks; and we’re at home, -and have come into our money. Hurrah!”</p> - -<p>“What are you so pleased about, Lady Somers? The first sight of ugly old -England and her grey skies,” said someone who met them. The encounter -sobered Stella, who paused a moment with a glance from her own coloured -dress to Katherine’s crape, and a sudden sense of the necessities of the -position.</p> - -<p>“They aren’t very much to be pleased about, are they?” she said. “Will -you find Charlie for me, please. Tell him my sister has come to meet us, -and that there’s news which he will like to hear.”</p> - -<p>“Stella,” cried Katherine, “there may not be much sorrow in your heart, -yet I don’t think you should describe your own father’s death as -something your husband will like to hear.”</p> - -<p>“It is not papa’s death, bless you,” cried Stella, lightly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_366" id="page_366"></a>{366}</span> “Oh, look, -they are getting out the ropes. We shall soon be there now—it is the -money, to be sure. You have never been hard up for money, Kate, or you -would know what it was. Look, there’s Charlie on the bridge with little -Job; we call him Job because he’s always been such a peepy-weepy little -fellow, always crying and cross for nothing at all; they say it was -because I was in such a temper and misery when he was coming, about -having no money, and papa’s cruelty. Charlie! That silly man has never -found him, though he might have known he was on the bridge. Cha—arlie!” -Stella made a tube of her two hands and shouted, and Katherine saw a -tall man on the bridge over their heads turn and look down. He did not -move, however, for some minutes till Stella’s gestures seemed to have -awakened his curiosity. He came down then, very slowly, leading with -much care an extremely small child, so small that it was curious to see -him on his legs at all, who clung to his hand, and whom he lifted down -the steep ladder stairs.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he said, “what’s the matter now?” when he came within speaking -distance. Katherine had scarcely known her sister’s husband in the days -of his courtship. She had not seen him more than three or four times, -and his image had not remained in her mind. She saw now a tall man a -little the worse for wear, with a drooping moustache, and lips which -drooped, too, at the corners under the moustache, with a look which was -slightly morose—the air of a discontented, perhaps disappointed, man. -His clothes were slightly shabby, perhaps because they were old clothes -worn for the voyage, his hair and moustache had that rusty dryness which -comes to hair which does not grow grey, and which gives a shabby air, -also as of old clothes, to those natural appendages. The only attractive -point about him was the child, the very, very small child which seemed -to walk between his feet—so close did it cling to him, and so very low -down.</p> - -<p>“Nothing’s the matter,” said Stella. “Here is Kate come to bid us -welcome home.”</p> - -<p>“O—oh,” he said, and lifted his limp hat by the crown; “it’s a long -time since we have met; I don’t know that I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_367" id="page_367"></a>{367}</span> should have recognised -you.” His eyes went from her hat to her feet with a curious inspection -of her dress.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Katherine, “you are right; it is so. My father is dead.”</p> - -<p>A sudden glimmer sprang into his eyes and a redness to his face; it was -as if some light had flashed up over them; he gave his wife a keen look. -But decorum seemed more present with him than with Stella. He did not -put any question. He said mechanically, “I am sorry,” and stood waiting, -giving once more a glance at his wife.</p> - -<p>“All Kate has condescended to tell me,” said Stella, “is that I am not -out of the will. That’s the great thing, isn’t it? How much there’s for -us she doesn’t say, but there’s something for us. Tell him, Kate.”</p> - -<p>“There is a great deal for you,” Katherine said, quietly, “and a great -deal to say and to tell you; but it is very public and very noisy here.”</p> - -<p>The red light glowed up in Somers’ face. He lifted instinctively, as it -seemed, the little boy at his feet into his arms, as if to control and -sober himself. “We owe this,” he said, “no doubt to you, Miss Tredgold.”</p> - -<p>“You would have owed it to me had it been in my power,” said Katherine, -with one little flash of self-assertion, “but as it happens,” she added -hastily, “you do not owe anything to me. Stella will be as rich as her -heart can desire. Oh, can’t we go somewhere out of this noise, where I -can tell you, Stella? Or, if we cannot, wait please, wait for the -explanations. You have it; isn’t that enough? And may I not make -acquaintance with the children? And oh, Stella, haven’t you a word for -me?”</p> - -<p>Stella turned round lightly and putting her arms round Katherine kissed -her on both cheeks. “You dear old thing!” she said. And then, -disengaging herself, “I hope you ordered me some mourning, Kate. How can -I go anywhere in this coloured gown? Not to say that it is quite out of -fashion and shabby besides. I suppose I must have crape—not so deep as -yours, though, which is like a widow’s mourning. But crape<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_368" id="page_368"></a>{368}</span> is becoming -to a fair complexion. Oh, he won’t have anything to say to you, don’t -think it. He is a very cross, bad-tempered, uncomfortable little boy.”</p> - -<p>“Job fader’s little boy,” said the pale little creature perched upon his -father’s shoulder and dangling his small thin legs on Somers’ breast. He -would indeed have nothing to say to Katherine’s overtures. When she put -out her arms to him he turned round, and, clasping his arms round his -father’s head, hid his own behind it. Meanwhile a look of something -which looked like vanity—a sort of sublimated self-complacence—stole -over Sir Charles’ face. He was very fond of the child; also, he was very -proud of the fact that the child preferred him to everybody else in the -world.</p> - -<p>It was with the most tremendous exertion that the party at last was -disembarked, the little boy still on his father’s shoulder, the baby in -the arms of the ayah. The countless packages and boxes, which to the -last moment the aggrieved and distracted maid continued to pack with -items forgotten, came slowly to light one after another, and were -disposed of in the train, or at least on shore. Stella had forgotten -everything except the exhilaration of knowing that she had come into her -fortune as she made her farewells all round. “Oh, do you know? We have -had great news; we have come into our money,” she told several of her -dearest friends. She was in a whirl of excitement, delight, and regrets. -“We have had such a good time, and I’m so sorry to part; you must come -and see us,” she said to one after another. Everybody in the ship was -Stella’s friend. She had not done anything for them, but she had been -good-humoured and willing to please, and she was Stella! This was -Katherine’s involuntary reflection as she stood like a shadow watching -the crowd of friends, the goodbyes and hopes of future meeting, the -kisses of the ladies and close hand-clasping of the men. Nobody was so -popular as Stella. She was Stella, she was born to please; wherever she -went, whatever she did, it was always the same. Katherine felt proud of -her sister and subdued by her, and a little amused at the same time. -Stella—with her husband by her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_369" id="page_369"></a>{369}</span> side, the pale baby crowing in its dark -nurse’s arms, and the little boy clinging round his father, the worried -English maid, the serene white-robed ayah, the soldier-servant curt and -wooden, expressing no feeling, and the heaps of indiscriminate baggage -which formed a sort of entrenchment round her—was a far more important -personage than Katherine could ever be. Stella did not require the -wealth which was now to be poured down at her feet to make her of -consequence. Without it, in her present poverty, was she not the admired -of all beholders—the centre of a world of her own? Her sister looked on -with a smile, with a certain admiration, half pleased with the -impartiality (after all) of the world, half jarred by the partiality of -nature. Her present want of wealth did not discredit Stella, but nature -somehow discredited Katherine and put her aside, whatever her qualities -might be. She looked on without any active feeling in these shades of -sentiment, neutral tinted, like the sky and the oily river, and the -greyness of the air, with a thread of interest and amusement running -through, as if she were looking on at the progress of a story—a story -in which the actors interested her, but in which there was no close -concern of her own.</p> - -<p>“Kate!” she heard Stella call suddenly, her voice ringing out (she had -never had a low voice) over the noise and bustle. “Kate, I forgot to -tell you, here’s an old friend of yours. There she is, there she is, -Mr.——. Go and speak to her for yourself.”</p> - -<p>Katherine did not hear the name, and had not an idea who the old friend -was. She turned round with a faint smile on her face.</p> - -<p>Well! There was nothing wonderful in the fact that he had come home with -them. He had, it turned out afterwards, taken his passage in the -<i>Aurungzebe</i> without knowing that the Somers were going by it, or -anything about them. It would be vain to deny that Katherine was -startled, but she did not cling to anything for support, nor—except by -a sudden change of colour, for which she was extremely angry with -herself—betray any emotion. Her heart gave a jump, but then it became<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_370" id="page_370"></a>{370}</span> -quite quiet again. “We seem fated to meet in travelling,” she said, “and -nowhere else.” Afterwards she was very angry with herself for these last -words. She did not know why she said them—to round off her sentence -perhaps, as a writer often puts in words which he does not precisely -mean. They seemed to convey a complaint or a reproach which she did not -intend at all.</p> - -<p>“I have been hoping,” he said, “since ever I knew your sister was on -board that perhaps you might come, but——” He looked at Katherine in -her mourning, and then over the crowd to Stella, talking, laughing, full -of spirit and movement. “I was going to say that I—feared some sorrow -had come your way, but when I look at Lady Somers——”</p> - -<p>“It is that she does not realise it,” said Katherine. “It is true—my -father is dead.”</p> - -<p>He stood looking at her again, his countenance changing from red to -brown (which was now its natural colour). He seemed to have a hundred -things to say, but nothing would come to his lips. At last he stammered -forth, with a little difficulty it appeared, “I am—sorry—that anything -could happen to bring sorrow to you.”</p> - -<p>Katherine only answered him with a little bow. He was not sorry, nor was -Stella sorry, nor anyone else involved. She felt with a keen compunction -that to make up for this universal satisfaction over her father’s death -she ought to be sorry—more sorry than words could say.</p> - -<p>“It makes a great difference in my life,” she said simply, and while he -was still apparently struggling for something to say, the Somers party -got into motion and came towards the gangway, by which most of the -passengers had now landed. The little army pushed forward, various -porters first with numberless small packets and bags, then the man and -worried maid with more, then the ayah with the baby, then Lady Somers, -who caught Katherine by the arm and pushed through with her, putting her -sister in front, with the tall figure of the husband and the little boy -seated on his shoulder bringing up the rear. Job’s little dangling legs -were on a level with Stanford’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_371" id="page_371"></a>{371}</span> shoulder, and kicked him with a -friendly farewell as they passed, while Job’s father stretched out a -large hand and said, “Goodbye, old fellow; we’re going to the old place -in the Isle of Wight. Look us up some time.” Katherine heard these words -as she landed, with Stella’s hand holding fast to her arm. She was -amused, too, faintly to hear her sister’s husband’s instant adoption of -the old place in the Isle of Wight. Sir Charles did not as yet know any -more than that Stella was not cut off, that a great deal was coming to -her. Stella had not required any further information. She had managed to -say to him that of course to go to the Cliff would be the best thing, -now that it was Katherine’s. It would be a handy headquarters and save -money, and not be too far from town.</p> - -<p>The party was not fatigued as from an inland journey. They had all -bathed and breakfasted in such comfort as a steamship affords, so that -there was no need for any delay in proceeding to their journey’s end. -And the bustle and the confusion, and the orders to the servants, and -the arrangements about the luggage, and the whining of Job on his -father’s shoulder, and the screams of the baby when it was for a moment -moved from its nurse’s arms, and the sharp remarks of Sir Charles and -the continual talk of Stella—so occupied every moment that Katherine -found herself at home again with this large and exigent party before -another word on the important subject which was growing larger and -larger in her mind could be said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_372" id="page_372"></a>{372}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> evening passed in a whirl, such as Katherine, altogether unused to -the strange mingled life of family occupations and self-indulgence, -could not understand. There was not a tranquil moment for the talk and -the explanations. Stella ran from room to room, approving and objecting. -She liked the state apartment with its smart furniture in which she had -herself been placed, but she did not like the choice of the rooms for -the babies, and had them transferred to others, and the furniture -altered and pulled about to suit their needs. The house had put on a -gala air for the new guests; there were fires blazing everywhere, -flowers everywhere, such as could be got at that advanced season. Stella -sent the chrysanthemums away, which were the chief point in the -decorations. “They have such a horrid smell. They make my head -ache—they remind me,” she said, “of everything that’s dreadful.” And -she stood over the worried maid while she opened the boxes, dragging out -the dresses by a corner and flinging them about on the floors. “I shall -not want any of those old things. Isn’t there a rag of a black that I -can wear now? Kate, you were dreadfully remiss not to order me some -things. How can I go downstairs and show myself in all my blues and -greens? Oh, yes, of course I require to be fitted on, but I’d rather -have an ill-fitting gown than none at all. I could wear one of yours, it -is true, but my figure is different from yours. I’m not all one straight -line from head to foot, as you are; and you’re covered over with crape, -which is quite unnecessary—nobody thinks of such a thing now. I’ll wear -<i>that</i>,” she added, giving a little kick to a white dress, which was one -of those she had dragged out by a flounce and flung on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_373" id="page_373"></a>{373}</span> the floor. “You -can put some black ribbons to it, Pearson. Oh, how glad I shall be to -get rid of all those old things, and get something fit to wear, even if -it’s black. I shall telegraph at once to London to send someone down -about my things to-morrow, but I warn you I’m not going to wear mourning -for a whole year, Kate. No one thinks of such a thing now.”</p> - -<p>“You always look well in black, my lady, with your complexion,” said -Pearson, the maid.</p> - -<p>“Well, perhaps I do,” said Stella mollified. “Please run down and send -off the telegram, Kate; there is such a crowd of things to do.”</p> - -<p>And thus the day went on. At dinner there was perforce a little time -during which the trio were together; but then the servants were present, -making any intimate conversation impossible, and the talk that was was -entirely about the dishes, which did not please either Sir Charles or -his wife. Poor Mrs. Simmons, anxious to please, had with great care -compounded what she called and thought to be a curry, upon which both of -them looked with disgust. “Take it away,” they both said, after a -contemptuous examination of the dish, turning over its contents with the -end of a fork, one after the other. “Kate, why do you let that woman try -things she knows nothing about?” said Stella severely. “But you never -care what you eat, and you think that’s fine, I know. Old Simmons never -could do much but what English people call roast and boil—what any -savage could do! and you’ve kept her on all these years! I suppose you -have eaten meekly whatever she chose to set before you ever since I went -away.”</p> - -<p>“I think,” said Sir Charles in his moustache, “if I am to be here much -there will certainly have to be a change in the cook.”</p> - -<p>“You can do what you please, Stella—as soon as everything is settled,” -Katherine said. Her sister had taken her place without any question at -the head of the table; and Somers, perhaps unconsciously, had placed -himself opposite. Katherine had taken with some surprise and a -momentary<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_374" id="page_374"></a>{374}</span> hesitation a seat at the side, as if she were their -guest—which indeed she was, she said to herself. But she had never -occupied that place before; even in the time of Stella’s undoubted -ascendancy, Katherine had always sat at the head of the table. She felt -this as one feels the minor pricks of one’s great troubles. After -dinner, when she had calculated upon having time for her explanation, -Sir Charles took out his cigar case before the servants had left the -room. Stella interrupted him with a little scream. “Oh, Charles, Kate -isn’t used to smoke! She will be thinking of her curtains and all sorts -of things.”</p> - -<p>“If Kate objects, of course,” he said, cutting the end off his cigar and -looking up from the operation.</p> - -<p>Katherine objected, as many women do, not to the cigar but to the -disrespect. She said, “Stella is mistress. I take no authority upon me,” -with as easy an air as she could assume.</p> - -<p>“Come along and see the children,” Stella cried, jumping up, “you’ll -like that, or else you’ll pretend to like it,” she said as they went out -of the room together, “to please me. Now, you needn’t trouble to please -me in that way. I’m not silly about the children. There they are, and -one has to make the best of them, but it’s rather hard to have the boy a -teeny weeny thing like Job. The girl’s strong enough, but it don’t -matter so much for a girl. And Charlie is an idiot about Job. Ten to one -he will be upstairs as soon as we are, snatching the little wretch out -of his bed and carrying him off. They sit and croon for hours together -when there’s no one else to amuse Charlie. And I’m sure I don’t know -what is to become of him, for there will be nobody to amuse him here.”</p> - -<p>“But it must be so bad for the child, Stella. How can he be well if you -allow that to go on?”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” cried Stella, clapping her hands, “I knew you would be the very -model of a maiden aunt! Now you’ve found your real <i>rôle</i> in life, Kate. -But don’t go crossing the ayah, for she won’t understand you, and you’ll -come to dreadful grief. Oh, the children! We should only disturb them -if<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_375" id="page_375"></a>{375}</span> we went in. I said that for an excuse to get you away. Come into my -room, and let’s look over my clothes. I am sure I have a black gown -somewhere. There was a royal mourning, don’t you know, and I had to get -one in a hurry to go to Government House in—unless Pearson has taken it -for herself. Black is becoming to my complexion, I know—but I don’t -like it all the same—it shows every mark, and it’s hot, and if you wear -crape it should always be quite fresh. This of yours is crumpled a -little. You’ll look like an old woman from the workhouse directly if you -wear crumpled crape—it is the most expensive, the most——”</p> - -<p>“You need not mind that now, Stella; and for papa’s sake——”</p> - -<p>“Good gracious! what a thing that is to say! I need never mind it! -Charlie will say I should always mind it. He says no income could stand -me. Are you there, Pearson? Well, it is just as well she isn’t; we can -look them over at our ease without her greedy eyes watching what she is -to have. She’ll have to get them all, I suppose, for they will be -old-fashioned before I could put them on again. Look here,” cried -Stella, opening the great wardrobe and pulling down in the most careless -way the things which the maid had placed there. She flung them on the -floor as before, one above the other. “This is one I invented myself,” -she said. “Don’t you think that grey with the silver is good? It had a -great <i>succès</i>. They say it looked like moonlight. By the bye,” she -added, “that might come in again. Grey with silver is mourning! What a -good thing I thought of that! It must have been an inspiration. I’ve -only worn it once, and it’s so fantastic it’s independent of the -fashion. It will come in quite well again.”</p> - -<p>“Stella, I do wish you would let me tell you how things are, and how it -all happened, and——”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes,” cried Lady Somers, “another time! Here’s one, again, that -I’ve only worn once; but that will be of no use, for it’s pink—unless -we could make out somehow that it was mauve, there is very little -difference—a sort of blue shade cast upon it, which might be done by a -little draping, and it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_376" id="page_376"></a>{376}</span> would make such a pretty mauve. There is very -little difference between the two, only mauve is mourning and pink -is—frivolity, don’t you know. Oh, Pearson, here you are! I suppose you -have been down at your supper? What you can do to keep you so long at -your supper I never can tell. I suppose you flirt with all the gentlemen -in the servants’ hall. Look here, don’t you think this pink, which I -have only worn once, could be made with a little trouble to look mauve? -I am sure it does already a little by this light.”</p> - -<p>“It is a very bright rose-pink, my lady,” said Pearson, not at all -disposed to see one of the freshest of her mistress’s dresses taken out -of her hands.</p> - -<p>“You say that because you think you will get it for yourself,” said Lady -Somers, “but I am certain with a little blue carefully arranged to throw -a shade it would make a beautiful mauve.”</p> - -<p>“Blue-and-pink are the Watteau mixture,” said Pearson, holding her -ground, “which is always considered the brightest thing you can wear.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, if you are obstinate about it!” cried the mistress. “But recollect -I am not at your mercy here, Pearson, and I shall refer it to Louise. -Kate, I’m dreadfully tired; I think I’ll go to bed. Remember I haven’t -been on solid ground for ever so long. I feel the motion of the boat as -if I were going up and down. You do go on feeling it, I believe, for -weeks after. Take off this tight dress, Pearson, quick, and let me get -to bed.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I sit by you a little after, and tell you, Stella?”</p> - -<p>“Oh goodness, no! Tell me about a death and all that happened, in the -very same house where it was, to make me nervous and take away my rest! -You quite forget that I am delicate, Kate! I never could bear the things -that you, a great, robust, middle-aged woman, that have never had any -drain on your strength, can go through. Do let me have a quiet night, my -first night after a sea voyage. Go and talk to Charlie, if you like, he -has got no nerves; and Pearson, put the lemonade by my bed, and turn -down the light.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_377" id="page_377"></a>{377}</span></p> - -<p>Katherine left her sister’s room with the most curious sensations. She -was foiled at every point by Stella’s lightness, by her self-occupation, -the rapidity of her loose and shallow thoughts, and their devotion to -one subject. She recognised in a half-angry way the potency and -influence of this self-occupation. It was so sincere that it was almost -interesting. Stella found her own concerns full of interest; she had no -amiable delusions about them. She spoke out quite simply what she felt, -even about her children. She did not claim anything except boundless -indulgence for herself. And then it struck Katherine very strangely, it -must be allowed, to hear herself described as a great, robust, -middle-aged woman. Was that how Stella saw her—was she <i>that</i>, -probably, to other people? She laughed a little to herself, but it was -not a happy laugh. How misguided was the poet when he prayed that we -might see ourselves as others see us! Would not that be a dreadful -coming down to almost everybody, even to the fairest and the wisest. The -words kept flitting through Katherine’s mind without any will of hers. -“A great, robust, middle-aged woman.” She passed a long mirror in the -corridor (there were mirrors everywhere in Mr. Tredgold’s much decorated -house), and started a little involuntarily to see the slim black figure -in it gliding forward as if to meet her. Was this herself, Katherine, or -was it the ghost of what she had thought she was, a girl at home, -although twenty-nine? After all, middle-age does begin with the -thirties, Katherine said to herself. Dante was thirty-five only when he -described himself as at the <i>mezzo del cammin</i>. Perhaps Stella was -right. She was three years younger. As she went towards the stairs -occupied by these thoughts, she suddenly saw Sir Charles, a tall shadow, -still more ghost-like than herself, in the mirror, with a little white -figure seated on his shoulder. It was the little Job, the delicate boy, -his little feet held in his father’s hand to keep them warm, his arms -clinging round his father’s head as he sat upon his shoulder. Katherine -started when she came upon the group, and made out the little boy’s -small face and staring eyes up on those heights. Her brother-in-law -greeted her with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_378" id="page_378"></a>{378}</span> a laugh: “You wouldn’t stop with me to smoke a cigar, -so I have found a companion who never objects. You like the smoke, don’t -you, Job?”</p> - -<p>“Job fader’s little boy,” said the small creature, in a voice with a -shiver in it.</p> - -<p>“Put a shawl round him, at least,” cried Katherine, going hastily to a -wardrobe in the corridor; “the poor little man is cold.”</p> - -<p>“Not a bit, are you, Job, with your feet in father’s hand?”</p> - -<p>“Indland,” said the child, with a still more perceptible shiver, -“Indland’s cold.”</p> - -<p>But he tried to kick at Katherine as she approached to put the shawl -round him, which Sir Charles stooped to permit, with an instinct of -politeness.</p> - -<p>“What, kick at a lady!” cried Sir Charles, giving the child a shake. -“But we are not used to all these punctilios. We shall do very well, I -don’t fear.”</p> - -<p>“It is very bad for the child—indeed, he ought to be asleep,” Katherine -could not but say. She felt herself the maiden aunt, as Stella had -called her, the robust middle-aged woman—a superannuated care-taking -creature who did nothing but interfere.</p> - -<p>“Oh, we’ll look after that, Job and I,” the father said, going on down -the stairs without even the fictitious courtesy of waiting till -Katherine should pass. She stood and watched them going towards the -drawing-room, the father and child. The devotion between them was a -pretty sight—no doubt it was a pretty sight. The group of the mother -and child is the one group in the world which calls forth human -sentiment everywhere; and yet the father and child is more moving, more -pathetic still, to most, certainly to all feminine, eyes. It seems to -imply more—a want in the infant life to which its mother is not first, -a void in the man’s. Is it that they seem to cling to each other for -want of better? But that would be derogatory to the father’s office. At -all events it is so. Katherine’s heart melted at this sight. The poor -little child uncared for in the midst of so much ease, awake with his -big<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_379" id="page_379"></a>{379}</span> excited eyes when he ought to have been asleep, exposed to the cold -to which he was unaccustomed, shivering yet not complaining, his father -carrying him away to comfort his own heart—negligent, but not -intentionally so, of the child’s welfare, holding him as his dearest -thing in the world. The ayah, on hearing the sound of voices, came to -the door of the room, expostulating largely in her unknown tongue, -gesticulating, appealing to the unknown lady. “He catch death—cold,” -she cried, and Katherine shook her head as she stood watching them, the -child recovering his spirits in the warmth of the shawl, his little -laugh sounding through the house. Oh, how bad it was for little Job! and -yet the conjunction was so touching that it went to her heart. She -hesitated for a moment. What would be the use of following them, of -endeavouring through Sir Charles’ cigar and Job’s chatter to give her -brother-in-law the needful information, joyful though it must be. She -did not understand these strange, eager, insouciant, money-grasping, yet -apparently indifferent people, who were satisfied with her curt -intimation of their restoration to wealth, even though they were -forever, as Lady Jane said, agape for more. She stood for a moment -hesitating, and then she turned away in the other direction to her own -room, and gave it over for the night.</p> - -<p>But Katherine’s cares were not over; in her room she found Mrs. Simmons -waiting for her, handkerchief in hand, with her cap a little awry and -her eyes red with crying. “I’m told, Miss Katherine,” said Simmons with -a sniff, “as Miss Stella, which they calls her ladyship, don’t think -nothing of my cookin’, and says I’m no better than a savage. I’ve bin in -this house nigh upon twenty years, and my things always liked, and me -trusted with everything; and that’s what I won’t take from no one, if it -was the Lord Chamberlain himself. I never thought to live to hear myself -called a savage—and it’s what I can’t put up with, Miss Katherine—not -to go again you. I wouldn’t cross you not for no money. I’ve ’ad my -offers, both for service and for publics, and other things. Mr. -Harrison, the butler, he have been very pressin’—but I’ve<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_380" id="page_380"></a>{380}</span> said just -this, and it’s my last word, I won’t leave Miss Katherine while she’s in -trouble. I know my dooty better nor that, I’ve always said.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, Mrs. Simmons; you were always very good to me,” said -Katherine, “and you must not mind anything that is said at table. You -know Stella always was hasty, and never meant half she said.”</p> - -<p>“Folks do say, Miss Katherine,” said Simmons, “as it’s a going to be -Miss Stella’s house.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it will be her house; but whether she will stay in it or not I -cannot tell you yet. It would be very nice for you, Simmons, to be left -here as housekeeper with a maid or two to attend you, and nothing to -do.”</p> - -<p>“I hope,” said Simmons, with again a sniff, “as I am not come so low -down as that—to be a caretaker, me at my time of life. And it don’t -seem to me justice as Miss Stella should have the house as she runned -away from and broke poor old master’s heart. He’s never been himself -from that day. I wonder she can show her face in it, Miss Katherine, -that I do! Going and calling old servants savages, as has been true and -faithful and stood by him, and done their best for him up to the very -last.”</p> - -<p>“You must not be offended, Simmons, by a foolish word; and you must not -speak so of my sister. She is my only sister, and I am glad she should -have everything, everything!” Katherine cried with fervour, the moisture -rising to her eyes.</p> - -<p>“Then, Miss Katherine, it’s more nor anyone else is, either in the -servants’ hall or the kitchen. Miss Stella, or her ladyship as they -calls her, is a very ’andsome young lady, and I knows it, and dreadful -spoiled she has been all her life. But she don’t have no consideration -for servants. And we’ll clear out, leastways I will for one, if she is -to be the Missus here.”</p> - -<p>“I hope you will wait first and see what she intends. I am sure she -would be very sorry, Simmons, to lose so good a servant as you.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know as it will grieve her much—me as she has called no better -nor a savage; but she’ll have to stand it all<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_381" id="page_381"></a>{381}</span> the same. And the most of -the others, I warn you, Miss Katherine, will go with me.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t, dear Simmons,” said Katherine. “Poor Stella has been nearly -seven long years away, and she has been among black people, where—where -people are not particular what they say; don’t plunge her into trouble -with her house the moment she gets back.”</p> - -<p>“She ought to have thought of that,” cried Simmons, “afore she called a -white woman and a good Christian, I hope, a savage—a savage! I am not -one of them black people; and I doubt if the black people themselves -would put up with it. Miss Katherine, I won’t ask you for a character.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Simmons, don’t speak of that.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Simmons, dabbing her eyes, then turning to Katherine with an -insinuating smile, “because—because I’ll not want one if what I expect -comes to pass. Miss Katherine, you haven’t got no objections to me.”</p> - -<p>“You know I have not, Simmons! You know I have always looked to you to -stand by me and back me up.”</p> - -<p>“Your poor old Simmons, Miss Katherine, as made cakes for you, and them -apples as you were so fond of when you were small! And as was always -ready, no matter for what, if it was a lunch or if it was a supper, or a -picnic, or whatever you wanted, and never a grumble; if it was ever so -unreasonable, Miss Katherine, dear! If this house is Miss Stella’s -house, take me with you! I shouldn’t mind a smaller ’ouse. Fifteen is a -many to manage, and so long as I’ve my kitchenmaid I don’t hold with no -crowds in the kitchen. Take me with you, Miss Katherine—you might be -modest about it—seeing as you are not a married lady and no gentleman, -and a different style of establishment. But you will want a cook and a -housekeeper wherever you go—take me with you, Miss Katherine, dear.”</p> - -<p>“Dear Simmons,” said Katherine, “I have not money enough for that. I -shall not be rich now. I shall have to go into lodgings with Hannah—if -I can keep Hannah.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_382" id="page_382"></a>{382}</span></p> - -<p>“You are joking,” said Simmons, withdrawing with wonder her handkerchief -from her eyes. “You, Mr. Tredgold’s daughter, you the eldest! Oh, Miss -Katherine, say it plain if you won’t have me, but don’t tell me that.”</p> - -<p>“But indeed it is true,” cried Katherine. “Simmons, you know what things -cost better than I do, and Mrs. Shanks says and Miss Mildmay——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay! Them as you used to call the old -cats! Don’t you mind, Miss Katherine, what they say.”</p> - -<p>“Simmons, tell me,” asked Katherine, “what can I do, how many servants -can I keep, with five hundred a year?”</p> - -<p>Simmons’ countenance fell, her mouth opened in her consternation, her -jaw dropped. She knew very well the value of money. She gasped as she -repeated; “Five hundred a year!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_383" id="page_383"></a>{383}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> next morning the new world began frankly, as if it was nothing out -of the usual, as if it had already been for years. When Katherine, a -little late after her somewhat melancholy vigils, awoke, she heard -already the bustle of the houseful of people, so different from the -stillness which had been the rule for years. She heard doors opening and -shutting, steps moving everywhere, Sir Charles’ voice calling loudly -from below, the loud tinkling of Stella’s bell, which rang upstairs near -her maid’s room. Katherine’s first instinctive thought was a question -whether that maid would look less worried—whether, poor thing, she had -dreamt of bags and bandboxes all night. And then there came the little -quaver, thrilling the air of a child’s cry; poor little dissipated Job, -after his vigil with his father, crying to be awoke so early—the poor -little boy who had tried to kick at her with his little naked feet, so -white in the dimness of the corridor, on the night before. It was with -the strangest sensation that Katherine got hurriedly out of bed, with a -startled idea that perhaps her room might be wanted, in which there was -no reason. At all events, the house had passed into new hands, and was -hers no more.</p> - -<p>Hannah came to her presently, pale and holding her breath. She had seen -Job fly at the ayah, kicking her with the little feet on which she had -just succeeded in forcing a pair of boots. “He said as now he could hurt -her, as well as I could understand his talk. Oh! Miss Katherine, and -such a little teeny boy, and to do that! But I said as I knew you would -never let a servant be kicked in your house.”</p> - -<p>“Neither will my sister, Hannah—but they are all tired and strange, and -perhaps a little cross,” said Katherine, apologetically.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_384" id="page_384"></a>{384}</span> She went -downstairs to find the breakfast-table in all the disorder that arises -after a large meal—the place at which little Job had been seated next -to his father littered by crumbs and other marks of his presence, and -the butler hastily bringing in a little tea-pot to a corner for her use.</p> - -<p>“Sir Charles, Miss Katherine, he’s gone out; he’s inspecting of the -horses in the stables; and my lady has had her breakfast in her room, -and it’s little master as has made such a mess of the table.”</p> - -<p>“Never mind, Harrison,” said Katherine.</p> - -<p>“I should like to say, Miss Katherine,” said Harrison, “as I’ll go, if -you please, this day month.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t be in a hurry!” she cried. “I have been speaking to Mrs. -Simmons. Don’t desert the house in such haste. Wait till you see how -things go on.”</p> - -<p>“I’d stay with you Miss Katherine, to the last hour of my life; and I -don’t know as I couldn’t make up my mind to a medical gentleman’s -establishment, though it’s different to what I’ve been used to—but I -couldn’t never stop in a place like this.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t know in the least what is going to happen here. Please go -now, and leave me to my breakfast. I will speak to you later on.”</p> - -<p>A woman who is the mistress of her own house is compelled to endure -these attacks, but a woman suddenly freed from all the responsibilities -of ownership need not, at least, be subject to its drawbacks. Katherine -took her small meal with the sensation that it was already the bread of -others she was eating, which is always bitter. There had been no account -made of her usual place, of any of her habits. Harrison had hastily -arranged for her that corner at the lower end of the table, because of -the disarray at the other, the napkins flung about, the cloth dabbled -and stained. It was her own table no longer. Any philosophic mind will -think of this as a very trifling thing, but it was not trifling to -Katherine. The sensation of entire disregard, indifference to her -comfort, and to everything that was seemly, at once chilled and -irritated her; and then she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_385" id="page_385"></a>{385}</span> stopped herself in her uncomfortable -thoughts with a troubled laugh and the question, was she, indeed, with -her strong objection to all this disorder, fitting herself, as Stella -said, for the position of maiden aunt? One thing was certain at least, -that for the position of dependent she never would be qualified.</p> - -<p>It was a mild and bright October day: the greyness of the afternoon had -not as yet closed in, the air was full of mid-day sunshine and life. Sir -Charles had come in from his inspection of “the offices” and all that -was outside. He had come up, with his large step and presence, to the -dressing-room in which Stella, wrapped in a quilted dressing-gown and -exclaiming at the cold, lay on a sofa beside the fire. She had emerged -from her bath and all those cares of the person which precede dressing -for the day, and was resting before the final fatigue of putting on her -gown. Katherine had been admitted only a few minutes before Sir Charles -appeared, and she had made up her mind that at last her communication -must be fully made now; though it did not seem very necessary, for they -had established themselves with such perfect ease in the house believing -it to be hers, that it would scarcely make any difference when they were -made aware that it was their own. Katherine’s mind, with a very natural -digression, went off into an unconsciously humorous question—what -difference, after all, it would have made if the house and the fortune -had been hers? They would have taken possession just the same, it was -evident, in any case—and she, could she ever have suggested to them to -go away. She decided no, with a rueful amusement. She should not have -liked Sir Charles as the master of her house, but she would have given -in to it. How much better that it should be as it was, and no question -on the subject at all!</p> - -<p>“I want you to let me tell you now about papa’s will.”</p> - -<p>“Poor papa!” said Stella. “I hope he was not very bad. At that age they -get blunted, and don’t feel. Oh, spare me as many of the details as you -can, please! It makes me wretched to hear of people being ill.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_386" id="page_386"></a>{386}</span></p> - -<p>“I said papa’s will, Stella.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” she cried, “that’s different. Charlie will like to know. He thinks -you’ve done nicely for us, Katherine. Of course many things would have -to be re-modelled if we stopped here; but in the meantime, while we -don’t quite know what we are going to do——”</p> - -<p>“I’d sell those old screws,” said Sir Charles, “they’re not fit for a -lady to drive. I shouldn’t like to see my wife behind such brutes. If -you like to give me <i>carte blanche</i> I’ll see to it—get you something -you could take out Stella with, don’t you know!”</p> - -<p>“I wish,” said Katherine, with a little impatience, “that you would -allow me to speak, if it were only for ten minutes! Stella, do pray give -me a little attention; this is not my house, it is yours—everything is -yours. Do you hear? When papa died nothing was to be found but the will -of ’seventy-one, which was made before you went away. Everybody thought -he had changed it, but he had not changed it. You have got everything, -Stella, everything! Do you hear? Papa did not leave even a legacy to a -servant, he left nothing to me, nothing to his poor brother—everything -is yours.”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles stood leaning on the mantelpiece, with his back to the fire; -a dull red came over his face. “Oh, by Jove!” he said in his moustache. -Stella raised herself on her pillows. She folded her quilted -dressing-gown, which was Chinese and covered with wavy lines of dragons, -over her chest.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean by everything?” she said. “You mean a good bit of -money, I suppose; you told me so yesterday. As for the house, I don’t -much care for the house, Kate. It is rococo, you know; it is in dreadful -taste. You can keep it if you like. It could never be of any use to us.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t a bad house,” said Sir Charles. He had begun to walk up and -down the room. “By Jove,” he said, “Stella is a cool one, but I’m not so -cool. Everything left to her? Do you mean all the money, all old -Tredgold’s fortune—all! I say, by Jove, don’t you know. That isn’t -fair!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t see why it isn’t fair,” said Stella; “I always knew<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_387" id="page_387"></a>{387}</span> that was -what papa meant. He was very fond of me, poor old papa! Wasn’t he, Kate? -He used to like me to have everything I wanted: there wasn’t one thing, -as fantastic as you please, but he would have let me have it—very -different from now. Don’t you remember that yacht—that we made no use -of but to run away from here? Poor old man!” Here Stella laughed, which -Katherine took for a sign of grace, believing and hoping that it meant -the coming of tears. But no tears came. “He must have been dreadfully -sorry at the end for standing out as he did, and keeping me out of it,” -she said with indignation, “all these years.”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles kept walking up and down the room, swearing softly into his -moustache. He retained some respect for ladies in this respect, it -appeared, for the only imprecation which was audible was a frequent -appeal to the father of the Olympian gods. “By Jove!” sometimes “By -Jupiter!” he said, and tugged at his moustache as if he would have -pulled it out. This was the house in which, bewildered, he had taken all -the shillings from his pocket and put them down on the table by way of -balancing Mr. Tredgold’s money. And now all Mr. Tredgold’s money was -his. He was not cool like Stella; a confused vision of all the glories -of this world—horses, race-meetings, cellars of wine, entertainments of -all kinds, men circling about him, not looking down upon him as a poor -beggar but up at him as no end of a swell, servants to surround him all -at once like a new atmosphere. He had expected something of the kind at -the time of his marriage, but those dreams had long abandoned him; now -they came back with a rush, not dreams any longer. Jove, Jupiter, George -(whoever that deity may be) he invoked in turns; his blood took to -coursing in his veins, it felt like quicksilver, raising him up, as if -he might have floated, spurning with every step the floor on which he -trod.</p> - -<p>“I who had always been brought up so different!” cried Stella, with a -faint whimper in her voice. “That never had been used to it! Oh, what a -time I have had, Kate, having to give up things—almost everything I -ever wanted—and to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_388" id="page_388"></a>{388}</span> do without things, and to be continually thinking -could I afford it. Oh, I wonder how papa had the heart! You think I -should be grateful, don’t you? But I can’t help remembering that I’ve -been kept out of it, just when I wanted it most, all these years——”</p> - -<p>She made a pause, but nobody either contradicted or agreed with her. -Stella expected either the one or the other. Sir Charles went up and -down swearing by Jupiter and thinking in a whirl of all the fine things -before him, and Katherine sat at the end of the sofa saying nothing. In -sheer self-defence Stella had to begin again.</p> - -<p>“And nobody knows what it is beginning a house and all that without any -money. I had to part with my diamonds—those last ones, don’t you -remember, Kate? which he gave me to make me forget Charlie. Oh, how -silly girls are! I shouldn’t be so ready, I can tell you, to run away -another time. I should keep my diamonds. And I have not had a decent -dress since I went to India—not one. The other ladies got boxes from -home, but I never sent to Louise except once, and then she did so bother -me about a bill to be paid, as if it were likely I could pay bills when -we had no money for ourselves! Tradespeople are so unreasonable about -their bills, and so are servants, for that matter, going on about wages. -Why, there is Pearson—she waits upon me with a face like a mute at a -funeral all because she has not got her last half year’s wages! By the -way, I suppose she can have them now? They have got such a pull over us, -don’t you know, for they can go away, and when a maid suits you it is -such a bore when she wants to go away. I have had such experiences, all -through the want of money. And I can’t help feeling, oh how hard of him, -when he hadn’t really changed his mind at all, to keep me out of it for -those seven years! Seven years is a dreadful piece out of one’s life,” -cried Stella, “and to have it made miserable and so different to what -one had a right to expect, all for the caprice of an old man! Why did he -keep me out of it all these years?” And Stella, now thoroughly excited, -sobbed to herself over the privations that were<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_389" id="page_389"></a>{389}</span> past, from which her -father could have saved her at any moment had he pleased.</p> - -<p>“You ought to be pleased now at least,” said her husband. “Come, Stella, -my little girl, let’s shake hands upon it. We’re awfully lucky, and you -shall have a good time now.”</p> - -<p>“I think I ought to have a good time, indeed!” cried Stella. “Why, it’s -all mine! You never would have had a penny but for me. Who should have -the good of it, if not I? And I am sure I deserve it, after all I have -had to go through. Pearson, is that you?” she cried. “Bring me my -jewel-box. Look here,” she said, taking out a case and disclosing what -seemed to Katherine a splendid necklace of diamonds, “that’s what I’ve -been driven to wear!” She seized the necklace out of the case and flung -it to the other end of the room. The stones swung from her hand, -flashing through the air, and fell in a shimmer and sparkle of light -upon the carpet. “The odious, false things!” cried Stella. “Paris—out -of one of those shops, don’t you know? where everything is marked -‘Imitation.’ Charlie got them for me for about ten pounds. And that is -what I had to go to Government House in, and all the balls, and have -compliments paid me on my diamonds. ‘Yes, they are supposed to be of -very fine water,’ I used to say. I used to laugh at first—it seemed a -capital joke; but when you go on wearing odious glass things and have to -show them off as diamonds—for seven years!”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles paused in his walk, and stooped and picked them up. “Yes,” -he said, “I gave ten pounds for them, and we had a lot of fun out of -them, and you looked as handsome in them, Stella, as if they had been -the best. By Jove! to be imitation, they are deuced good imitation. I -don’t think I know the difference, do you?” He placed the glittering -thing on Katherine’s knee. He wanted to bring her into the conversation -with a clumsy impulse of kindness, but he did not know how to manage it. -Then, leaving them there, he continued his walk. He could not keep still -in his excitement, and Stella could not keep silence. The mock diamonds -made a great show upon Katherine’s black gown.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_390" id="page_390"></a>{390}</span></p> - -<p>“Oh, I wish you’d take them away! Give them to somebody—give them to -the children to play with. I’d give them to Pearson, but how could she -wear a <i>rivière</i>? Fancy my wearing those things and having nothing -better! You have no feeling, Kate; you don’t sympathise a bit. And to -think that everything might have been quite different, and life been -quite happy instead of the nightmare it was! Papa has a great, great -deal to answer for,” Stella said.</p> - -<p>“If that is all you think about it, I may go away,” said Katherine, “for -we shall not agree. You ought to speak very differently of your father, -who always was so fond of you, and now he’s given you everything. Poor -papa! I am glad he does not know.”</p> - -<p>“But he must have known very well,” cried Stella, “how he left me after -pretending to be so fond of me. Do you think either Charlie or I would -have done such a thing if we had not been deceived? And so was Lady -Jane—and everybody. There was not one who did not say he was sure to -send for us home, and see what has happened instead. Oh, he may have -made up for it now. But do you think that was being really fond of me, -Kate, to leave me out in India without a penny for seven years?”</p> - -<p>Katherine rose, and the glittering stones, which had only yesterday been -Lady Somers’ diamonds, and as such guarded with all the care -imaginable—poor Pearson having acquired her perennial look of worry as -much from that as anything, having had the charge of them—rattled with -a sound like glass, and fell on the floor, where they lay disgraced as -Katherine went hurriedly away. And there they were found by Pearson -after Lady Somers had finished her toilet and gone downstairs to lunch. -Pearson gave a kick at them where they lay—the nasty imitation things -that had cost her so many a thought—but then picked them up, with a -certain pity, yet awe, as if they might change again into something -dangerous in her very hands.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_391" id="page_391"></a>{391}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Katherine</span> had put herself unconsciously in her usual place at the head -of the luncheon table before Stella came downstairs. At the other end -was Sir Charles with little Job, set up on a pile of cushions beside -him.</p> - -<p>“Don’t wait for Stella, she’s always late,” said Somers, helping his son -from the dish before him; but at this moment Stella, rustling in a -coloured dress, came briskly in.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I say, Kate, let me have my proper place,” she said; “you can’t sit -down with Charlie opposite, it’s not decent. And oh the funny old room! -Did you ever see such a rococo house, Charlie, all gilding and ornament? -Poor papa could never have anything grand enough according to his views. -We must have it all pulled to pieces, I couldn’t live in such a place. -Eh? why, Kate, you don’t pretend you like it, you who always made a -fuss.”</p> - -<p>Katherine had transferred herself to a seat at the side of the table, -not without a quick sensation of self-reproach and that inevitable shame -upon being thus compelled to take a lower place which no philosophy can -get rid of. “I did not think where I was sitting,” she cried, in -instinctive apology; and then, “Let the poor house be, at least for the -first week, Stella,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, that’s all sentiment and nonsense,” cried Lady Somers. “My -experience is when you’re going to change a thing, do it directly; or -else you just settle down and grow accustomed and think no more of it. -For goodness’ sake, Charlie, don’t stuff that child with all the most -improper things! He ought to have roast mutton and rice pudding, all the -doctors say; and you are ruining his constitution, you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_392" id="page_392"></a>{392}</span> know you are. -Why isn’t there some roast mutton, William? Oh, Harrison! why can’t you -see that there’s some roast mutton or that sort of thing, when you’ve -got to feed a little boy.”</p> - -<p>“Me don’t like roast mutton,” cried Job, with a whine. “Me dine wid -fader; fader give Job nice tings.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll look after you, my boy,” said Sir Charles, at one end of the -table, while Harrison at the other, with a very solemn bow, discussed -his position.</p> - -<p>“It is not my place to horder the dinner, my lady; if your ladyship will -say what you requires, I will mention it to Mrs. Simmons.”</p> - -<p>“It is I who am in fault, I suppose, Stella,” cried Katherine, more -angry than she could have imagined possible. “Perhaps you will see -Simmons yourself to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, not I!” cried Stella. “Fancy the bore of ordering dinner with an -old-fashioned English cook that would not understand a word one says. -You can do it, Charlie. Don’t give the child <i>pâté de foie gras</i>,” she -added, with a scream. “Who’s the doctor on the strength of the -establishment now, Kate? He’ll have to be called in very soon, I can -see, and the sooner Job has a bad liver attack the better, for then it -may be possible to get him properly looked after. And I must have an -English nurse that understands children, instead of that stupid ayah who -gives them whatever they cry for. Don’t you think it’s dreadful training -to give them whatever they cry for, Kate? You ought to know about -children, living all this while at home and never marrying or anything. -You must have gone in for charity or nursing, or Churchy things, having -nothing to do. Oh, I wish you would take Job in hand! He minds nobody -but his father, and his father stuffs him with everything he oughtn’t to -have, and keeps him up half the night. One of these days he’ll have such -a liver attack that it will cut him off, Charlie; and then you will have -the satisfaction of feeling that it’s you that have killed him, and you -will not be able to say I haven’t warned you hundreds of times.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_393" id="page_393"></a>{393}</span></p> - -<p>“We’ve not come to any harm as yet, have we, Job?” said the father, -placing clandestinely another objectionable morsel on the child’s plate.</p> - -<p>“No, fader. Job not dut off yet,” cried, in his little shrill voice, the -unfortunate small boy.</p> - -<p>In this babble the rest of the mid-day meal was carried on, Stella’s -voice flowing like the principal part of the entertainment, interrupted -now and then by a bass note from her husband or a little cry from her -child, with a question to a servant and the respectful answer in an -aside now and then. Katherine sat quite silent listening, not so much -from intention as that there was no room for her to put in a word, and -no apparent need for any explanation or intervention. The Somerses took -calm possession, unsurprised, undisturbed by any question of right or -wrong, of kindness or unkindness. Nor did Katherine blame them; she felt -that they would have done exactly the same had the house and all that -was in it been hers, and the real circumstances of the case made it more -bearable and took away many embarrassments. She went out to drive with -Stella in the afternoon, Sir Charles accompanying them that he might see -whether the carriage horses were fit for his wife’s use. Stella had been -partly covered with Katherine’s garments to make her presentable, and -the little crape bonnet perched upon her fuzzy fair hair was happily -very becoming, and satisfied her as to her own appearance. “Mourning’s -not so very bad, after all,” she said, “especially when you are very -fair. You are a little too dark to look nice in it, Kate. I shouldn’t -advise you to wear crape long. It isn’t at all necessary; the rule now -is crape three months, black six, and then you can go into greys and -mauves. Mauve’s a lovely colour. It is just as bright as pink, though -it’s mourning; and it suits me down to the ground—I am so fair, don’t -you know.”</p> - -<p>“These brutes will never do,” said Sir Charles. “Is this the pace you -have been going, Miss Kate? Stella will not stand it, that’s clear. Not -a likely person to nod along like a hearse or an old dowager, is -she?—and cost just as much, the old fat brutes, as a proper turn-out.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_394" id="page_394"></a>{394}</span></p> - -<p>“It’s the same old landau, I declare,” cried Stella, “that we used to -cram with people for picnics and dances and things. Mine was the -victoria. Have you kept the victoria all the time, Kate? Jervis made it -spin along I can tell you. And the little brougham I used to run about -in, that took us down to the yacht, don’t you remember, Charlie, that -last night; me in my wedding dress, though nobody suspected it—that is, -nobody but those that knew. What a lot there were, though,” cried -Stella, with a laugh, “that knew!—and what a dreadful bore, Kate, when -you would insist upon coming with me, and everybody guessing and -wondering how we’d get out of it. We did get out of it capitally, didn’t -we, all owing to my presence of mind.”</p> - -<p>“All’s well that ends well,” said Sir Charles. “We’ve both had a deuced -lot of doubts on that question—between times. Miss Kate, would you mind -telling me what kind of a figure it is, this fortune that Stella is -supposed to have come into? Hang me if I know; it might be hundreds or -it might be thousands. You see I’m a disinterested sort of fellow,” he -said, with an uneasy laugh.</p> - -<p>“The lawyer said,” Katherine explained, “that it could not be under, but -might be considerably over, fifty thousand a year.”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles was silent for a moment and grew very red, which showed up -his sunburnt brick-red complexion like a sudden dye of crimson. He -caught his breath a little, but with an effort at an indifferent tone -repeated, “Fifty thousand pounds!”</p> - -<p>“A year,” Katherine said.</p> - -<p>“Well!” cried Stella, “what are you sitting there for, like a stuck pig, -staring at me? Need there have been so much fuss about it if it had been -less than that? Papa wasn’t a man to leave a few hundreds, was he? I -wonder it’s so little, for my part. By the time you’ve got that old -barrack of yours done up, and a tidy little house in town, and all our -bills paid, good gracious, it’s nothing at all, fifty thousand a year! I -hope it will turn out a great deal more, Kate. I daresay your<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_395" id="page_395"></a>{395}</span> lawyer is -the sort of person to muddle half of it away in expenses and so forth. -Who is he? Oh, old Sturgeon that used to come down sometimes. Well, he -is not up to date, I am sure. He’ll be keeping the money in dreadful -consols or something, instead of making the best of it. You can tell him -that I shan’t stand that sort of thing. It shall be made the best of if -it is going to belong to me.”</p> - -<p>“And what have you, Miss Kate?” said her brother-in-law, “to balance -this fine fortune of Stella’s—for it is a fine fortune, and she knows -nothing about it, with her chatter.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know nothing about it; don’t I?” said Stella. “Papa didn’t think -so. He said I had a capital head for money, and that I was a chip of the -old block, and all that sort of thing. What has Kate got? Oh, she’s got -money of her own. I used to envy her so when we were girls. I had a deal -more than she had, for papa was always silly about me—dresses and -jewels and so forth that I had no business to have at that age; but Kate -had money of her own. I could always get plenty from papa, but she had -it of her own; don’t you remember, Kate? I always wished to be you; I -thought that it was a shame that you should have all that left to you -and me nothing. And if you come to that, so it was, for mamma was my -mother as well as Kate’s, and she had no business to leave her money to -one of us and take no notice of me.”</p> - -<p>“We are quits now, at all events, Stella,” said Katherine, with the best -sort of a smile which she could call up on her face.</p> - -<p>“Quits! I don’t think so at all,” cried Stella, “for you have had it and -I have been kept out of it for years and years. Quits, indeed; no, I’m -sure I don’t think so. I have always envied you for having mamma’s money -since I was twelve years old. I don’t deny I had more from papa; but -then it wasn’t mine. And now I have everything from papa, which is the -least he could do, having kept me out of it for so long; but not a penny -from my mother, which isn’t justice, seeing I am quite as much her child -as you.”</p> - -<p>“Shut up, Stella!” said Sir Charles, in his moustache.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_396" id="page_396"></a>{396}</span></p> - -<p>“Why should I shut up? It’s quite true that Katherine has had it since -she was fifteen; that’s—let me see—fourteen years, nearly the half of -her life, and no expenses to speak of. There must be thousands and -thousands in the bank, and so little to do with it. She’s richer than we -are, when all is said.”</p> - -<p>“Stella, you must remember,” cried Katherine excitedly in spite of -herself, “that the money in the bank was always——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I knew you would say that,” cried Stella, in an aggrieved tone; -“you’ve lent it to me, haven’t you? Though not so very much of it, and -of course you will get it back. Oh, don’t be afraid, you will get it -back! It will be put among the other bills, and it will be paid with the -rest. I would rather be in debt to Louise or any one than to a sister -who is always thinking about what she has lent me. And it is not so very -much, either; you used to dole it out to me a hundred at a time, or even -fifty at a time, as if it were a great favour, while all the time you -were enjoying papa’s money, which by law was mine. I don’t think very -much of favours like that.”</p> - -<p>“I hope, Miss Tredgold,” said Sir Charles, lifting his hat, “that after -this very great injustice, as it seems to me, you will at least make -your home with us, and see if—if we can’t come to any arrangement. I -suppose it’s true that ladies alone don’t want very much, not like a -family—or—or two careless spendthrift sort of people like Stella and -me, but——”</p> - -<p>“Well, of course,” cried Stella, “I hope, Kate, you’ll pay us a visit -when—whenever you like, in short. I don’t say make your home with us, -as Charlie says, for I know you wouldn’t like it, and it’s a mistake, I -think, for relations to live together. You know yourself, it never -works. Charlie, do hold your tongue and let me speak. I know all about -it a great deal better than you do. To have us to fall back upon when -she wants it, to be able to write and say, take me in—which, of course, -I should always do if it were possible—that is the thing that would -suit Kate. Of course you will have rooms of your own somewhere. I -shouldn’t advise a house,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_397" id="page_397"></a>{397}</span> for that is such a bother with servants and -things, and runs away with such a lot of money, but—— Oh, I declare, -there is the Midge, with the two old cats! Shall we have to stop and -speak if they see us? I am not going to do that. I heard of papa’s death -only yesterday, and I am not fit to speak to anybody as yet,” she cried, -pulling over her face the crape veil which depended from her bonnet -behind. And the two old ladies in the Midge were much impressed by the -spectacle of Stella driving out with her husband and her sister, and -covered with a crape veil, on the day after her return. “Poor thing,” -they said, “Katherine has made her come out to take the air; but she has -a great deal of feeling, and it has been a great shock to her. Did you -see how she was covered with that great veil? Stella was a little thing -that I never quite approved of, but she had a feeling heart.”</p> - -<p>Katherine was a little sick at heart with all the talk, with Stella’s -rattle running through everything, with the fulfilment of all her fears, -and the small ground for hope of any nobler thoughts. She was quite -decided never under any circumstances to take anything from her sister. -That from the first moment had been impossible. She had seen the whole -position very clearly, and made up her mind without a doubt or -hesitation. She was herself perfectly well provided for, she had said to -herself, she had no reason to complain; and she had known all along how -Stella would take it, exactly as she did, and all that would follow. But -a thing seldom happens exactly as you believe it will happen; and the -extreme ease with which this revolution had taken place, the absence of -excitement, of surprise, even of exultation, had the most curious effect -upon her. She was confounded by Stella’s calm, and yet she knew that -Stella would be calm. Nothing could be more like Stella than her -conviction that she herself, instead of being extraordinarily favoured, -was on the whole rather an injured person when all was said and done. -The whole of this had been in Katherine’s anticipations of the crisis. -And yet she was as bitterly disappointed as if she had not known Stella, -and as if her sister had been her ideal, and she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_398" id="page_398"></a>{398}</span> thought her -capable of nothing that was not lofty and noble. A visionary has always -that hope in her heart. It is always possible that in any new emergency -a spirit nobler and better than of old may be brought out.</p> - -<p>Katherine stole out in the early twilight to her favourite walk. The sea -was misty, lost in a great incertitude, a suffusion of blueness upon the -verge of the sand below, but all besides mist in which nothing could be -distinguished. The horizon was blurred all round, so that no one could -see what was there, though overhead there was a bit of sky clear enough. -The hour just melting out of day into night, the mild great world of -space, in which lay hidden the unseen sea and the sky, were soothing -influences, and she felt her involuntary anger, her unwilling -disappointment, die away. She forgot that there was any harm done. She -only remembered that Stella was here with her children, and that it was -so natural to have her in her own home. The long windows of the -drawing-room were full of light, so were those of Stella’s bedroom, and -a number of occupied rooms shining out into the dimness. It was perhaps -<i>rococo</i>, as they said, but it was warm and bright. Katherine had got -herself very well in hand before she heard a step near her on the -gravel, and looking up saw that her brother-in-law was approaching. She -had not been much in charity with Sir Charles Somers before, but he had -not shown badly in these curious scenes. He had made some surprised -exclamations, he had exhibited some kind of interest in herself. -Katherine was very lonely, and anxious to think well of someone. She was -almost glad to see him, and went towards him with something like -pleasure.</p> - -<p>“I have come to bring you in,” he said; “Stella fears that you will -catch cold. She says it is very damp, even on the top of the cliff.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think I shall take cold; but I will gladly go in if Stella -wants me,” said Katherine; then, as Somers turned with her at the end of -her promenade, she said: “The house is <i>rococo</i>, I know; but I do hope -you will like it a little and sometimes live in it, for the sake of our -youth which was passed here.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_399" id="page_399"></a>{399}</span></p> - -<p>“You don’t seem to think where you are to live yourself,” he said -hurriedly. “I think more of that. We seem to be putting you out of -everything. Shouldn’t you like it for yourself? You have more -associations with it than anyone I wish you would say you would like to -have it—for yourself——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no,” said Katherine, “not for the world. I couldn’t keep it up, and -I should not like to have it—not for the world.”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid all this is dreadfully unjust. There should be -a—partition, there should be some arrangement. It isn’t fair. You were -always with the old man, and nursed him, and took care of him, and all -that——”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Katherine; “my father was a little peculiar—he liked to have -the nurse who was paid, as he said, for that. I have not any claim on -that ground. And then I have always had my own money, as Stella told -you. I am much obliged to you, but you really do not need to trouble -yourself about me.”</p> - -<p>“Are you really sure that is so?” he said in a tone between doubt and -relief. Then he looked round, shivering a little at the mist, and said -that Stella was looking for her sister, and that he thought it would be -much more comfortable if they went in to tea.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_400" id="page_400"></a>{400}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> public of Sliplin gave Lady Jane the <i>pas</i>. Though every individual -who had the least right of acquaintance with Lady Somers longed to call, -to see how she was looking, to see how she was taking it, to see the -dear babies, &c., &c., yet there was a universal consent, given tacitly, -that Lady Jane, not only as the head of the local society, but as having -been so deeply involved in Stella’s marriage, should come first; and, -accordingly, for two whole days the neighbours had refrained, even Mrs. -Shanks and Miss Mildmay holding back. When Lady Jane’s carriage appeared -at last, there was a little rustle of interest and excitement through -the place. The Stanhopes of the old Leigh House, who were half-way -between Steephill and Sliplin, saw it sweep past their lodge gates, and -ran in in a body to say to their mother, “Now, to-morrow we can call!” -and the same sentiment flew over the place from one house to another. -“Lady Jane has just driven down to the Cliff. I have just seen Lady -Jane’s carriage pass on her way to see Lady Somers.” “Well, that will be -a meeting!” some ladies said. It appeared to a number of them somehow -that it must have been Lady Jane’s machinations that secured Mr. -Tredgold’s fortune for his undutiful child—though, indeed, they could -not have told how.</p> - -<p>These days of seclusion would have been very dreary to Stella had she -not been occupied with her dressmaker, a visitor who is always more -exciting and delightful than any other. Louise, who had insisted so on -the payment of her little bill in Stella’s days of humiliation, was now -all obsequiousness, coming down herself to receive Lady Somers’ orders, -to fit Lady Somers’ mourning, to suggest everything that could be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_401" id="page_401"></a>{401}</span> done -in the way of lightening it now, and changing it at the earliest -opportunity. Hours of delightful consultation as to Stella’s figure, -which she discussed as gravely as if it had been a matter of national -importance—as well as the stuffs which were to clothe it, and the -fashion in which they were to be made—flew over her head, during which -time her husband mooned about the stables, generally with little Job -upon his shoulder, and finally, unable to endure it any longer, went up -to town, where no doubt he was happy—though the wail of the little boy -left behind did not add to the peace of the house. The dressmaker had -been dismissed by the time that Lady Jane arrived, and Stella sat -contemplating her crape in all the mirrors round, and assuring herself -that when it was perfectly fresh as now, it was not so bad, and -unquestionably becoming to a very fair complexion. “I can’t say you look -very well in it, Kate; you are darker, and then yours is not quite -fresh. To be quite fresh is indispensable. If one was a widow, for -instance, and obliged to wear it, it ought to be renewed every week; but -I do think it’s becoming to me. It throws up one’s whiteness, don’t you -think, and brings out the colour,” said Stella standing before the -glass. “Oh, Kate, you are so unsympathetic; come and see what I mean,” -she cried.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I see—you look very nice, Stella. The black is becoming to -you—but, after all, we don’t wear crape to be becoming.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Fudge!” cried Stella, “what do you wear it for? Because it’s the -custom, and you can’t help yourself. What does it matter to poor papa -what we wear? He always liked to see me in gay colours—he had too -florid a taste, if the truth must be told. If I hadn’t known better by -instinct (for I’m sure I never had any teaching), and if we hadn’t been -so fortunate as to fall into the hands of Louise, I should have been -dressed like ‘Arriet out for a holiday. It’s curious,” said Stella -reflectively, “taste is just born in some people and others you can’t -teach it to. I am so glad the first was my case. We labour under -disadvantages, you know, being our<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_402" id="page_402"></a>{402}</span> father’s daughters—that is, not me, -now everything has come straight, but you will, Kate, especially as you -have not got the money. To be papa’s daughter and yet not his heiress, -you know, is a kind of injury to people that might come after you. You -will be going into the world upon false pretences. I wonder now that you -did not marry somebody before it was all known.”</p> - -<p>“It was only known on the night of papa’s funeral, Stella. I could not -have married many people between then and now,” said Katherine, trying -to take this speech as lightly as it was made.</p> - -<p>“That is true—still you must have had people after you. With your -expectations, and a good-looking girl. You always were quite a -good-looking girl, Kate.”</p> - -<p>“I am grateful for your approbation, Stella.”</p> - -<p>“Only a little stuck-up looking—and—well, not quite so young as you -used to be. If I were you I would go in for that old fellow, don’t you -remember, whom papa got rid of in such a hurry—the man that came over -with us in the <i>Aurungzebe</i>. Somebody told me he had done very well out -there, and, of course, Charlie asked him to come and see us. And you -know you were his fancy, Kate; it was you, not me—don’t you remember -how everybody laughed? I should go in for him now if I were you. An old -affair like that is quite a nice foundation. And I hear he has done very -well, and he is just a suitable age, and it doesn’t really matter -that—— What is passing the window? Oh,” cried Stella, clapping her -hands, “the very same old landau that I remember all my life, and Lady -Jane in her war paint, just the same. Let’s prepare to receive cavalry!” -she cried. With a twist of her hand she drew two chairs into position, -one very low, graceful and comfortable for herself, another higher, with -elbows for Lady Jane. And Stella seated herself, with her fresh crape -falling about her in crisp folds, her fair face and frizzy locks coming -out of its blackness with great <i>éclat</i>, and her handkerchief in her -hand. It was as good as a play (she herself felt, for I doubt whether -Katherine relished<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_403" id="page_403"></a>{403}</span> the scene) to see her rise slowly and then drop, as -it were, as lightly as a feather, but beyond speech, into Lady Jane’s -arms, who, deeply impressed by this beautiful pose, clasped her and -kissed her and murmured, “My poor child; my poor, dear child!” with real -tears in her eyes.</p> - -<p>“But what a comfort it must be to your mind,” Lady Jane said, when she -had seated herself and was holding Stella’s hand, “to feel that there -could be nothing against you in his mind—no rancour, no -unkindness—only the old feeling that he loved you beyond everything; -that you were still his pet, his little one, his favourite——” Lady -Jane herself felt it so much that she was almost choked by a sob.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear Lady Jane,” cried Stella, evidently gulping down her own, “if -I did not feel <i>that</i>, how could I ever have endured to come to this -house—to dear papa’s house—to my own old home! that I was so wicked as -to run away from, and so silly, never thinking. My only consolation is, -though Kate has so little, so very little, to tell me of that dreadful -time, that he must have forgiven me at the last.”</p> - -<p>It was a very dreadful recollection to obtrude into the mind of the -spectator in such a touching scene; but Katherine could not keep out of -her eyes the vision of an old man in his chair saying quite calmly, “God -damn them,” as he sat by his fireside. The thought made her shudder; it -was one never to be communicated to any creature; but Lady Jane -perceived the little tremulous movement that betrayed her, and naturally -misinterpreted its cause.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said, “my dear Stella, I am very happy for you; but there is -poor Katherine left out in the cold who has done so much for him all -these years.”</p> - -<p>Stella, as was so natural to her, went on with the catalogue of her own -woes without taking any notice of this. “Such a time as we have gone -through, Lady Jane! Oh, I have reflected many a time, if it had not been -for what everybody told us, I never, never, would have done so silly a -thing. You all said, you remember, that papa would not hold out, that he -could not get on without me, that he would be quite<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_404" id="page_404"></a>{404}</span> sure to send for me -home. And I was over-persuaded. India is a dreadful place. You have -double pay, but, oh, far more than double expenses! and as for dress, -you want as much, if not more, than you would in London, and tribes upon -tribes of servants that can do nothing. And then the children coming. -And Job that has never had a day’s health, and how he is to live in -England with a liver like a Strasburg goose, and his father stuffing him -with everything that is bad for him, I don’t know. It has been a -dreadful time; Kate has had all the good and I’ve had all the evil for -seven years—fancy, for seven long years.”</p> - -<p>“But you’ve had a good husband, at all events, Stella; and some pleasant -things,” Lady Jane murmured in self-defence.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Charlie! I don’t say that he is any worse than the rest. But fancy -me—me, Stella, that you knew as a girl with everything I could think -of—going to Government House over and over again in the same old dress; -and Paris diamonds that cost ten pounds when they were new.”</p> - -<p>At this dreadful picture Lady Jane bowed her head. What could she reply? -Katherine had not required to go anywhere a number of times in the same -old dress—but that was probably because she went to very few -places—nor in Paris diamonds at ten pounds, for she had not any -diamonds at all, false or true. To change the subject, which had taken a -turn more individual than was pleasant, she asked whether she might not -see the dear children?</p> - -<p>“Oh yes,” said Stella, “if they will come—or, at least, if Job will -come, for baby is too small to have a will of her own. Kate, do you -think that you could bring Job? It isn’t that it is any pleasure to see -him, I’m sure. When his father is here he will speak to no one else, and -when his father isn’t here he just cries and kicks everybody. I think, -Kate, he hates you less than the rest. Will you try and get him to come -if Lady Jane wants to see him? Why anybody should want to see him I am -sure is a mystery to me.”</p> - -<p>It was an ill-advised measure on Stella’s part, for Katherine<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_405" id="page_405"></a>{405}</span> had no -sooner departed somewhat unwillingly on her mission than Lady Jane -seized her young friend’s hand again: “Oh, Stella, I must speak to you, -I must, while she is away. Of course, you and Charlie have settled it -between you—you are going to set everything right for Katherine? It was -all settled on her side that if she got the money you should have your -share at once. And you will do the same at once, won’t you, without loss -of time, Charlie and you?”</p> - -<p>“You take away my breath,” cried Stella, freeing her hand. “What is it -that I have got to do in such a hurry? I hate a hurry; it makes me quite -ill to be pressed to do anything like running for a train. We only came -a few days ago, Lady Jane; we haven’t been a week at home. We haven’t -even seen the lawyer yet; and do you think Charlie and I discuss things -about money without loss of time—oh, no! we always like to take the -longest time possible. They have never been such very agreeable things, -I can tell you, Lady Jane, discussions about money between Charlie and -me.”</p> - -<p>“That, to be sure, in the past,” said Lady Jane, “but not now, my dear. -I feel certain he has said to you, ‘We must put things right for -Katherine—’ before now.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps he has said something of the kind; but he isn’t at all a man to -be trusted in money matters, Charlie. I put very little faith in him. I -don’t know what the will is, as yet; but so far as I possibly can I -shall keep the management of the money in my own hands. Charlie would -make ducks and drakes of it if he had his way.”</p> - -<p>“But, my dear Stella, this is a matter that you cannot hesitate about -for a moment; the right and wrong of it are quite clear. We all thought -your father’s money would go to Katherine, who had never crossed him in -any way——”</p> - -<p>“What does that matter? It was me he was fond of!” Stella cried, with -disdain.</p> - -<p>“Well; so it has proved. But Katherine was prepared at once to give you -your share. You must give her hers, Stella—you must, and that at once. -You must not leave a question upon your own sense of justice, your -perception of right and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_406" id="page_406"></a>{406}</span> wrong. Charlie!” cried Lady Jane with -excitement, “Charlie is a gentleman at least. He knows what is required -of him. I shall stay until he comes home, for I must speak to him at -once.”</p> - -<p>“That is his dog-cart, I suppose,” said Stella calmly, “passing the -window; but you must remember, Lady Jane, that the money is not -Charlie’s to make ducks and drakes with. I don’t know how the will is -drawn, but I am sure papa would not leave me in the hands of any man he -didn’t know. I shall have to decide for myself; and I know more about it -than Charlie does. Katherine has money of her own, which I never had. -She has had the good of papa’s money for these seven years, while I have -not had a penny. She says herself that she did not nurse him or devote -herself to him, beyond what was natural, that she should require -compensation for that. He liked the nurse that had her wages paid her, -and there was an end of it; which is exactly what I should say myself. I -don’t think it’s a case for your interference, or Charlie’s, or -anybody’s. I shall do what I think right, of course, but I can’t -undertake that it shall be what other people think right. Oh, Charlie, -there you are at last. And here’s Lady Jane come to see us and give us -her advice.”</p> - -<p>“Hallo, Cousin Jane,” said Sir Charles, “just got back from town, where -I’ve had a bit of a run since yesterday. Couldn’t stand it any longer -here; and I say, Stella, now you’ve got your panoply, let’s move up bag -and baggage, and have a bit of a lark.”</p> - -<p>“You are looking very well, Charlie,” said Lady Jane, “and so is Stella, -considering, and I am waiting to see the dear children. You’d better -come over to us, there is some shooting going on, and you are not -supposed to have many larks while Stella is in fresh crape. I have been -speaking to her about Katherine.” Here Lady Jane made a sudden and -abrupt stop by way of emphasis.</p> - -<p>“Oh, about Kate!” Sir Charles said, pulling his moustache.</p> - -<p>“Stella doesn’t seem to see, what I hope you see, that your<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_407" id="page_407"></a>{407}</span> honour’s -concerned. They say women have no sense of honour; I don’t believe that, -but there are cases. You, however, Charlie, you’re a gentleman; at least -you know what’s your duty in such a case.”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles pulled his moustache more than ever. “Deuced hard case,” he -said, “for Kate.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, there is no question about that; but for you, there is no question -about that either. It is your first duty, it is the only course of -action for a gentleman. As for Stella, if she does not see it, it only -proves that what’s bred in the bone—I’m sure I don’t want to say -anything uncivil. Indeed, Stella, it is only as your friend, your -<i>relation</i>,” cried Lady Jane, putting much emphasis on the word, “that I -allow myself to speak.”</p> - -<p>It cost Lady Jane something to call herself the relation of Mr. -Tredgold’s daughter, and it was intended that the statement should be -received with gratitude; but this Stella, Lady Somers, neither felt nor -affected. She was quite well aware that she had now no need of Lady -Jane. She was herself an extremely popular person wherever she went, of -that there could be no doubt—she had proved it over and over again in -the seven years of her humiliation. Popular at Government House, popular -at every station, wherever half-a-dozen people were assembled together. -And now she was rich. What need she care for anyone, or for any point of -honour, or the opinion of the county even, much less of a place like -Sliplin? Lady Jane could no longer either make her or mar her. She was -perfectly able to stand by herself.</p> - -<p>“It is very kind of you,” she said, “to say that, though it doesn’t come -very well after the other. Anyhow, I’m just as I’ve been bred, as you -say, though I have the honour to be Charlie’s wife. Lady Jane wants to -see Job; I wish you’d go and fetch him. I suppose Kate has not been able -to get that little sprite to come. You need not try,” said Stella -calmly, when Somers had left the room, “to turn Charlie against me, Lady -Jane. He is a fool in some things, but he knows on which side his bread -is buttered. If I have fifty thousand a year<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_408" id="page_408"></a>{408}</span> and he not half as many -farthings, you may believe he will think twice before he goes against -me. I am very proud to be your relation, of course, but it hasn’t a -money value, or anything that is of the first importance to us. Kate -won’t be the better, but the worse, for any interference. I have my own -ways of thinking, and I shall do what I think right.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, here is the dear baby at last!” cried Lady Jane, accomplishing her -retreat, though routed horse and foot, behind the large infant, looking -rather bigger than the slim ayah who carried her, who now came -triumphantly into the room, waving in her hand the rather alarming -weapon of a big coral, and with the true air of Stella’s child in -Stella’s house. A baby is a very good thing to cover a social defeat, -and this one was so entirely satisfactory in every particular that the -visitor had nothing to do but admire and applaud. “What a specimen for -India,” she cried; but this was before Job made his remarkable entrance -in the dimness of the twilight, which had begun by this time to veil the -afternoon light.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_409" id="page_409"></a>{409}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">“Do</span> away, me not do wid you, me fader’s boy,” said little Job, as -Katherine exerted her persuasions to bring him downstairs.</p> - -<p>“That is quite true, Job; but father has not come back yet. Come -downstairs with me, and we shall see him come back.”</p> - -<p>Job answered with a kick from the little boot which had just come in -somewhat muddy from a walk—a kick which, as it happened to touch a -tender point, elicited from Katherine a little cry. The child backed -against the ayah, holding her fast; then glared at Katherine with eyes -in which malice mingled with fright. “Me dlad to hurt you, me dlad to -hurt you!” he cried. It was evident that he expected a blow.</p> - -<p>“It is a pity to hurt anyone,” said Katherine; “but if it has made you -glad you shouldn’t be cross. Come with me downstairs.”</p> - -<p>“I hate you,” said the child. “You punith me moment I let ayah do.”</p> - -<p>“No, I shall not punish you. I shall only take you downstairs to see -your pretty mamma, and wait till father comes back. I think I hear the -dog-cart now. Hark! that is your father now.”</p> - -<p>The child ran to the window with a flush of eagerness. “Lift me up, lift -me up!” he cried. It did not matter to him who did this so long as he -got his will; and though he hit with his heels against Katherine’s -dress, he did not kick her again. “Fader, fader—me’s fader’s boy!” -cried little Job. The little countenance changed; it was no longer that -of a little gnome, but caught an angelic reflection. He waved<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_410" id="page_410"></a>{410}</span> his thin -small arms over his head from Katharine’s arms. “Fader, fader—Fader’s -tome back! Job’s good boy!” he cried. Then the little waving arm struck -against Katherine’s head, and he paused to look at her. The expression -of his face changed again. A quiver of fierce terror came upon it; he -was in the power of a malignant being stronger than himself. He looked -at her with a sort of impotent, disappointed fury. “Put me down, and -I’ll not kick you no more,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Certainly I’ll put you down. Will you come with me now and meet your -father?” Katherine said.</p> - -<p>He had his hand ready to seize her hair, to defend himself, but shrunk -away when she put him down without any more expressions of animosity, -and ran for the head of the staircase. At that dreadful passage, -however, the little creature paused. He was afraid for the descent; the -hall was not yet lighted up below, and it seemed a well of darkness into -which it was not wonderful that so small a being should be terrified to -go down. “Is fader there?” he said to Katherine, “will they hurt fader?” -There were vaguely visible forms in the hall, a gleam of vague daylight -from the doorway, and then it became dreadfully apparent to Job that -something must have happened to fader, who had disappeared within the -drawing-room. “Dhey have swallowed him up—Dhey have eaten him up!” he -cried. “Oh, fader, fader!” with a frantic shout, clinging to Katherine’s -knees.</p> - -<p>“No, no, my little boy. Your father has not been hurt. Come, we’ll go -down and find him,” Katherine said. When they were nearly at the foot of -the stairs, during which time he had clung to her with a little hot -grip, half piteous half painful, there suddenly sprung up in the dark -hall below, at the lighting of the lamp, a gleam of bright light, and -Sir Charles became visible at the foot of the stairs, coming towards -them. The child gave a shriek of joy and whirled himself from the top of -some half-dozen steps into his father’s arms. “You’re not eated up,” he -said; “fader, fader! Job fader’s boy.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_411" id="page_411"></a>{411}</span></p> - -<p>“Has he been cross?” said Sir Charles. He held the little creature in -his arms lovingly, with a smile that irradiated his own heavy -countenance like a gleam of sunshine.</p> - -<p>“I hates her,” cried Job. “I kicked her. She dot nothing to do with me.”</p> - -<p>“Job, Job,” said the father gently, “you shouldn’t be so cross and so -hasty to a kind lady who only wanted to bring you to father. If you -behave like that she will never be kind to you again.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t tare. I hates ze lady,” Job said.</p> - -<p>His father lifted his eyes and shrugged his shoulders apologetically to -Katherine, and then laughed and carried his little son away. Decidedly, -whatever Katherine was to make a success in, it was not in the <i>rôle</i> of -maiden aunt.</p> - -<p>Next day, to the distress and trouble of Katherine, early in the -afternoon there came a visitor whose appearance made Stella turn towards -her sister with an open-eyed look of malice and half ridicule. No; Lady -Somers did not intend it so. It was a look of significance, “I told you -so,” and call upon Katherine’s attention. The visitor was James -Stanford, their fellow-passenger by the <i>Aurungzebe</i>. He explained very -elaborately that Sir Charles had given him an invitation, and that, -finding himself on business of his own in the Isle of Wight, he had -taken advantage of it. He was not a man who could quickly make himself -at his ease. He seemed oppressed with a consciousness that he ought not -to be there, that he wanted some special permission, as if it had been -with some special purpose that he had come.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you need not apologise,” said Stella; “if you had not come then you -might have apologised. We expect everybody to come to see us. Fancy, -we’ve seen scarcely anyone for a week almost, except some old friends -who have lectured us and told us what was our duty. Do you like to be -told what is your duty, Mr. Stanford? I don’t; if I were ever so much -inclined to do it before, I should set myself against it then. That is -exactly how narrow country people do; they turn you against everything. -They tell you this and that as if you did<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_412" id="page_412"></a>{412}</span> not know it before, and make -you turn your back on the very thing you wanted to do.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think,” said Stanford, “that I could be turned like that from -anything I wanted to do.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you are strong-minded,” said Stella. “I am not, oh, not a bit. -I am one of the old-fashioned silly women. I like to be left alone and -to do my own way. Perhaps it’s a silly way, but it’s mine. And so you -have had business on the island, Mr. Stanford? Have you seen that lady -again—that lady with the black eyes and the yellow hair? She will not -like it at all if she doesn’t see you. She was very attentive to you -during the voyage. Now, you can’t deny that she was attentive. She was a -great deal nicer to you than you deserved. And such a pretty woman! To -be sure that was not the natural colour of her hair. She had done -something to it; up at the roots you could see that it had once been -quite dark. Well, why not, if she likes yellow hair better? It is going -quite out of fashion, so there can be no bad object in it, don’t you -know.”</p> - -<p>Stella laughed largely, but her visitor did not respond. He looked more -annoyed, Katherine thought, than he had any occasion to be, and her -pride was roused, for it seemed to her that they both looked at herself -as if the woman who had paid attention to Mr. Stanford could have -anything to do with her. She changed the subject by asking him abruptly -if he felt the rigour of the English climate after his long life in -India.</p> - -<p>“Yes—no, a little,” he said. “They say that we bring so much heat with -us that we do not feel it for the first year, and as I shall have to go -back——”</p> - -<p>“Are you going back? Why should you go back?” said Stella. “I thought -you civil servants had such good times, not ordered about like soldiers. -They always said in the regiment that the civilians were so well off; -good pay and constant leave, and off to the hills whenever they liked, -and all sorts of indulgences.”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid the regiment romances,” said Stanford, “but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_413" id="page_413"></a>{413}</span> I do not -complain. On the whole I like India. One is sure, or almost sure, of -being of some use, and there are many alleviations to the climate. If -that was all, I should not at all mind going out again——”</p> - -<p>“Ah, I understand,” said Stella. And then she added quickly, “I am so -sorry I can’t ask you to stay to dinner to-night. We have a grand -function coming off to-night. The lawyer is coming down, and we are to -hear how we stand, and how much money we are to have. I think I hear him -now, and I can’t let Charlie steal a march and tackle him before I am -there. Katherine, will you look after Mr. Stanford till I come back? I -don’t trust Charlie a step further than I see him. He might be doing -some silly thing and compromising me while I am sitting here talking, -but as soon as ever I can escape I will come back.”</p> - -<p>She rose as she spoke and gave Katherine a look—- a look significant, -malicious, such as any spectator might have read. Stanford had risen to -open the door, and perhaps he did not see it, but it left Katherine so -hot with angry feeling, so ashamed and indignant, that he could not fail -but perceive it when Stella had gone away. He looked at her a little -wistfully as he took his seat again. “I fear I am detaining you here -against your will,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no,” said Katherine, from the mist of her confusion, “it is -nothing. Stella has not yet got over the excitement of coming home. It -has been increased very much by some—incidents which she did not -expect. You have heard her story of course? They—eloped—and my father -was supposed to have cut her off and put her out of his will; but it -appears, on the contrary, that he has left everything to her. She only -heard of papa’s death, and of—this—when she got home.”</p> - -<p>There was a little pause, and then he said reflectively, with a curious -sort of regret, as if this brief narrative touched himself at some -point, “It seems, then, that fortune after all favours the brave.”</p> - -<p>“The brave?” said Katherine, surprised. “Oh, you mean because of their -running away? They have paid for it, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_414" id="page_414"></a>{414}</span> think, very severely in seven -years of poverty in India, but now—now Stella’s turn has come.”</p> - -<p>“I quite understand Lady Somers’ excitement without that. Even for -myself, this house has so many recollections. The mere thought of it -makes my heart beat when I am thousands of miles away. When I first -came, an uncouth boy—you will scarcely remember that, Miss Tredgold.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I remember very well,” said Katherine, gradually recovering her -ease, and pleased with a suggestion of recollections so early that there -could be no embarrassment in them; “but not the uncouthness. We were -very glad to have you for a play-fellow, Stella and I.”</p> - -<p>“She was a little round ball of a girl,” he said.</p> - -<p>“But even then,” said Katherine, and paused. She had been about to say, -“expected to be the first,” but changed her expression, “was the -favourite of everybody,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Ah,” said Stanford, and then pursued his recollections. “I used to -count the days till I could come back. And then came the next stage. -Your father was kind to me when I was a boy. Afterwards, he was quite -right, he wanted to know what I was good for.”</p> - -<p>“He was what people call practical,” said Katherine. “Fortunately, he -did not think it necessary with us. We were accepted as useless -creatures, <i>objets de luxe</i>, which a rich man could afford to keep up, -and which did him more credit the gayer they were and the more costly. -Poor papa! It is not for us to criticise him, Mr. Stanford, in his own -house.”</p> - -<p>“No, indeed; but I am not criticising him. I am proving him to be right -by my own example. He thought everybody could conquer fortune as he -himself had done; but everybody cannot do that, any more than everybody -can write a great poem. You require special qualities, which he had. -Some go down altogether in the battle and are never more heard of; some -do, what perhaps he would have thought worse, like me.”</p> - -<p>“Why like you? Have you done badly? I have not heard so,” cried -Katherine, with a quick impulse of interest, which she showed in spite -of herself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_415" id="page_415"></a>{415}</span></p> - -<p>“I have done,” he said, “neither well nor ill. I am of that company that -Dante was so contemptuous about, don’t you remember? I think he is too -hard upon them, <i>che senza infamia e senza gloria vive</i>. Don’t you think -there is a little excuse—a little pardon for them, Miss Tredgold? The -poor fellows aim at the best. They know it when they see it; they put -out their hands to it, but cannot grasp it. And then what should the -alternative be?”</p> - -<p>“It is a difficult question,” said Katherine with a smile, not knowing -what he would be at. He meant something, it was evident, beyond the mere -words. His eyes had a strained look of emotion, and there was a slight -quiver under the line of his moustache. She had not been used to -discussions of this kind. The metaphysics of life had little place in -the doctor’s busy mind, and still less in the noisy talk of the Sir -Charles Somers of existence. She did not feel herself quite equal to the -emergency. “I presume that a man who could not get the best, as you say, -would have to content himself with the best he could get. At least, that -is how it would come out in housekeeping, which is my sole science, you -know,” she said, with a faint laugh.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said, almost eagerly. “That is perhaps natural. But you don’t -know how a man despises himself for it. Having once known a better way, -to fall back upon something that is second or third best, that has been -my way. I have conquered nothing. I have made no fortune or career. I -have got along. A man would feel less ashamed of himself if he had made -some great downfall—if he had come to grief once and for all. To win or -lose, that’s the only worthy alternative. But we nobodies do neither—we -don’t win, oh, far from it! and haven’t the heart to -lose—altogether——”</p> - -<p>What did he mean? To do Katherine justice, she had not the smallest -idea. She kept her eyes upon him with a little curiosity, a little -interest. Her sense of embarrassment and consciousness had entirely -passed away.</p> - -<p>“You are surely much too severe a judge,” she said. “I never heard that -to come to grief, as you say, was a desirable<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_416" id="page_416"></a>{416}</span> end. If one cannot win, -one would at least be glad to retire decently—to make a retreat with -honour, not to fling up everything. You might live then to fight another -day, which is a thing commended in the finest poetry,” she added with a -laugh.</p> - -<p>He rose up and began to walk about the room. “You crush me all the more -by seeming to agree with me,” he said. “But if you knew how I feel the -contrast between what I am and what I was when last I was here! I went -away from your father burning with energy, feeling that I could face any -danger—that there was nothing I couldn’t overcome. I found myself off, -walking to London, I believe, before I knew. I felt as if I could have -walked to India, and overcome everything on the way! That was the heroic -for a moment developed. Of course, I had to come to my senses—to take -the train, to see about my berth, to get my outfit, &c. These hang -weights about a man’s neck. And then, of course, I found that fate does -not appear in one impersonation to be assaulted and overcome, as I -suppose I must have thought, and that a civil servant has got other -things to think of than fortune and fame. The soldiers have the -advantage of us in that way. They can take a bold step, as Somers did, -and carry out their ideal and achieve their victory——”</p> - -<p>“Don’t put such high-flown notions into my brother-in-law’s head. I -don’t think he had any ideal. He thought Stella was a very pretty girl. -They do these things upon no foundation at all, to make you shiver—a -girl and a man who know nothing of each other. But it does well enough -in most cases, which is a great wonder. They get on perfectly. Getting -on is, I suppose, the active form of that condition—<i>senza gloria e -senza infamia</i>—of which you were speaking?” Katherine had quite -recovered her spirits. The Italian, the reference to Dante, had startled -her at first, but had gradually re-awakened in her a multitude of gentle -thoughts. They had read Dante together in the old far past days of -youth. It is one of the studies, grave as the master is, which has -facilitated many a courtship, as Browning, scarcely less grave, does -also.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_417" id="page_417"></a>{417}</span></p> - -<p>The difficulties, to lay two heads together over, are so many, and the -poetry which makes the heart swell is so akin to every emotion. She -remembered suddenly a seat under one of the acacias where she had sat -with him over this study. She had always had an association with that -bench, but had not remembered till now that it flashed upon her what it -was. She could see it almost without changing her position from the -window. The acacia was ragged now, all its leaves torn from it by the -wind, the lawn in front covered with rags of foliage withered and -gone—not the scene she remembered, with the scent of the acacias in the -air, and the warm summer sunshine and the gleam of the sea. She was -touched by the recollection, stirred by it, emotions of many kinds -rising in her heart. No one had ever stirred or touched her heart but -this man—he, no doubt, more by her imagination than any reality of -feeling. But yet she remembered the quickened beat, the quickened breath -of her girlhood, and the sudden strange commotion of that meeting they -had had, once and no more, in the silence of the long years. And now, -again, and he in great excitement, strained to the utmost, his face and -his movements full of nervous emotion, turning towards her once more.</p> - -<p>“Miss Tredgold,” he said, but his lips were dry and parched. He stopped -again to take breath. “Katherine,” he repeated, then paused once more. -Whatever he had to say, it surely was less easy than a love tale. “I -came to England,” he said, bringing it out with a gasp, “in the first -place for a pretence, to bring home—my little child.”</p> - -<p>All the mist that was over the sea seemed to sweep in and surround -Katherine. She rose up instinctively, feeling herself wrapped in it, -stifled, blinded. “Your little child?” she said, with a strange muffled -cry.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_418" id="page_418"></a>{418}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Mr. Sturgeon</span> arrived that evening with all his accounts and papers. He -had not come, indeed, when Lady Somers left her sister to entertain -James Stanford and joined her husband in the room which he had -incontinently turned into a smoking-room, and which had already acquired -that prevailing odour of tobacco and whiskey from which Mr. Tredgold’s -house had hitherto afforded no refuge. Stella had no objection to these -odours. She told her husband that she had “scuttled” in order to leave -Kate alone with her visitor. “For that’s what he wants, of course,” she -said. “And Kate will be much better married. For one thing, with your -general invitations and nonsense she might take it into her head she was -to stay here, which would not suit my plans at all. I can’t bear a -sister always in the house.”</p> - -<p>“It seems hard,” said Sir Charles, “that you should take all her money -and not even give her house room. I think it’s a deuced hard case.”</p> - -<p>“Bosh!” said Stella; “I never took a penny of her money. Papa, I hope, -poor old man, had a right to do whatever he liked with his own. She had -it all her own way for seven long years. If she had been worth her salt -she could have made him do anything she pleased in that time. We used to -rely upon that, don’t you remember? And a pretty business it would have -been had we had nothing better to trust to. But he never meant to be -hard upon Stella, I was always sure of that. Poor old papa! It was nice -of him not to change his mind. But I can’t see that Katherine’s is any -very hard case, for it was settled like this from the first.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_419" id="page_419"></a>{419}</span></p> - -<p>“A wrong thing isn’t made right because it’s been settled from the very -first,” said Sir Charles, oracularly.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be a fool, Charlie. Perhaps you’d like me to give it all away to -Kate? It is a good thing for you and your spoiled little monkey Job that -I am not such an idiot as that.”</p> - -<p>“We should have expected our share had she had it,” said Somers always -half inaudibly into his moustache.</p> - -<p>“I daresay. But how different was that! In the first place, she would -have had it in trust for me; in the second place, we’re a family and she -is a single person. And then she has money of her own; and then, at the -end of all, she’s Kate, you know, and I——”</p> - -<p>“You are Stella,” he cried, with a big laugh. “I believe you; and, by -Jove! I suppose that’s the only argument after all!”</p> - -<p>Stella took this, which seemed to be a compliment, very sedately. “Yes,” -she said, “I am Stella; you needn’t recommend Kate’s ways to me, nor -mine to Kate; we’ve always been different, and we always will be. If she -will marry this man it will save a great deal of trouble. We might make -her a nice present—I shouldn’t object to that. We might give her her -outfit: some of my things would do quite nicely; they are as good as new -and of no use to me; for certainly, whatever happens, we shall never go -to that beastly place again.”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles roared forth a large laugh, overpowered by the joke, though -he was not without a touch of shame. “By Jove! Stella, you are the one!” -he cried.</p> - -<p>And a short time after Mr. Sturgeon arrived. He had a great deal of -business to do, a great many things to explain. Stella caught with the -hereditary cleverness her father had discovered in her the involutions -of Mr. Tredgold’s investments, the way in which he had worked one thing -by means of or even against another, and in what artful ways he had held -the strings.</p> - -<p>“Blessed if I can make head or tail of it,” said Somers, reduced to -partial imbecility by his effort to understand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_420" id="page_420"></a>{420}</span></p> - -<p>But Stella sat eager at the table with two red spots on her cheeks, -shuffling the papers about and entering into everything.</p> - -<p>“I should like to work it all myself, if I hadn’t other things to do,” -she said.</p> - -<p>“And excellently well you would do it,” said the lawyer with a bow.</p> - -<p>It was one of Stella’s usual successes. She carried everything before -her wherever she went. Mr. Sturgeon asked punctiliously for Miss -Tredgold, but he felt that Kate was but a feeble creature before her -sister, this bright being born to conquer the world.</p> - -<p>“And now,” he said, “Lady Somers, about other things.”</p> - -<p>“What things?” cried Stella. “So far as I know there are no other -things.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, there are other things. There are some that you will no doubt -think of for the credit of your father, and some for your own. The -servants, for instance, were left without any remembrance. They are old -faithful servants. I have heard him say, if they were a large household -to keep up, that at least he was never cheated of a penny by them.”</p> - -<p>“That’s not much to say,” cried Stella; “anyone who took care could -ensure that.”</p> - -<p>“Your father thought it was, or he would not have repeated it so often. -There was not a penny for the servants, not even for Harrison, whose -care was beyond praise—and Mrs. Simmons, and the butler. It will be a -very small matter to give them a hundred pounds or two to satisfy them.”</p> - -<p>“A hundred pounds!” cried Stella. “Oh, I shouldn’t call that a small -matter! It is quite a sum of money. And why should they want hundreds of -pounds? They have had good wages, and pampered with a table as good as -anything we should think of giving to ourselves. Simmons is an -impertinent old woman. She’s given—I mean, I’ve given her notice. And -the butler the same. As for Harrison, to hear him you would think he was -papa’s physician and clergyman and everything all in one.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_421" id="page_421"></a>{421}</span></p> - -<p>“He did a very great deal for him,” said the lawyer. “Then another -thing, Lady Somers, your uncle——”</p> - -<p>“My uncle! I never had an uncle,” cried Stella with a shriek.</p> - -<p>“But there is such a person. He is not a very creditable relation. Still -he ought not to be left to starve.”</p> - -<p>“I never heard of any uncle! Papa never spoke of anyone. He said he had -no relations, except some far-off cousins. How can I tell that this is -not some old imposition trumped up for the sake of getting money? Oh, I -am not going to allow myself to be fleeced so easily as that!”</p> - -<p>“It is no imposition. Bob Tredgold has been in my office for a long -number of years. I knew him as I knew your father when we were boys -together. The one took the right turning, the other the wrong—though -who can tell what is right and what is wrong with any certainty? One has -gone out of the world with great injustice, leaving a great deal of -trouble behind him; the other would be made quite happy with two pounds -a week till he dies.”</p> - -<p>“Two pounds a week—a hundred pounds a year!” cried Stella. “Mr. -Sturgeon, I suppose you must think we are made of money. But I must -assure you at once that I cannot possibly undertake at the very first -outset such heavy responsibility as that.”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles said nothing, but pulled his moustache. He had no habit of -making allowances or maintaining poor relations, and the demand seemed -overwhelming to him too.</p> - -<p>“These are things which concern your father’s credit, Lady Somers. I -think it would be worth your while to attend to them for his sake. The -other is for your own. You cannot allow your sister, Miss Katherine, to -go out into the world on five hundred a year while you have sixty -thousand. I am a plain man and only an attorney, and you are a beautiful -young lady, full, I have no doubt, of fine feelings. But I don’t think, -if you consider the subject, that for your own credit you can allow this -singular difference in the position of two sisters to be known.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_422" id="page_422"></a>{422}</span></p> - -<p>Stella was silent for a moment. She was struck dumb by the man’s grave -face and his importance and the confidence of his tone. She said at -last, almost with a whimper, “It was none of my doing. I was not here; I -could not exercise any influence,” looking up at the old executor with -startled eyes.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said, “I am aware you were far away, and your sister ought to -have been the person to exercise influence. She did not, however,” he -added with a little impatience. “There are some people who are too good -for this world.”</p> - -<p>Too ineffectual—capable of neither good nor evil! Was it the same kind -of incapacity as the others were discussing in the other room?</p> - -<p>“I’ve been saying that, don’t you know, to my wife, about Miss Kate,” -said Sir Charles.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’ve been saying!” cried Stella with a quick movement of -impatience. She paused again for a little, and then fixing her eyes upon -Mr. Sturgeon, said with some solemnity, “You wish me then, as soon as I -have got over the first wonder of it, and being so glad that papa had -forgiven me, to go right in his face and upset his last will?”</p> - -<p>The rectitude, the pathos, the high feeling that were in Stella’s voice -and attitude are things that no ordinary pen could describe. Her -father’s old executor looked at her startled. He took off his spectacles -to see her more clearly, and then he put them on again. His faculties -were not equal to this sudden strain upon them.</p> - -<p>“It would not be upsetting the will,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Would it not? But I think it would. Papa says a certain thing very -distinctly. You may say it is not just. Many people are turning upon -me—as if I had anything to do with it!—and saying it is unjust. But -papa made all his money himself, I suppose? And if he had a special way -in which he wished to spend it, why shouldn’t he be allowed to do that? -It is not any vanity in me to say he was fondest of me, Mr. -Sturgeon—everybody knew he was.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Sturgeon sat silent, revolving many things in his mind. He was one -of the few people who had seen old Tredgold<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_423" id="page_423"></a>{423}</span> after his daughter’s -flight; he had heard him say with the calmest countenance, and his hands -on his knees, “God damn them!” and though he was an attorney and old, -and had not much imagination, a shiver ran through Sturgeon’s mind, if -not through his body. Was it as a way of damning her that the old fellow -had let all this money come to his undutiful child?</p> - -<p>“So you see,” said Stella with grave triumph, as one who feels that she -has reasoned well, “I am tied up so that I cannot move. If you say, Will -I upset papa’s will? I answer, No, not for all the world! He says it -quite plain—there is no doubt as to what he meant. He kept it by him -for years and never changed it, though he was angry with me. Therefore I -cannot, whom he has trusted so much and been so kind to, upset his will. -Oh, no, no! If Katherine will accept a present, well, she shall have a -present,” cried Stella with a great air of magnanimity, “but I will do -nothing that would look like flying in the face of papa.”</p> - -<p>“By Jove! she is right there, don’t-ye-know,” said the heavy dragoon, -looking up at the man of law, with great pride in his clever wife.</p> - -<p>“I suppose she is—in a kind of way,” Mr. Sturgeon said. He was a -humiliated man—he was beaten even in argument. He did not know how to -answer this little sharp woman with her superficial logic. It was old -Tredgold’s money; if he wanted it to go in a particular way, why should -his will be gainsaid? He had wished it to go to Stella, he had -remorselessly cut out her sister; the quick-witted creature had the -adversary at a disadvantage. Old Tredgold had not been a just or noble -man. He had no character or credit to keep up. It was quite likely that -he fully intended to produce this very imbroglio, and to make both his -daughters unhappy. Not that Stella would make herself unhappy or disturb -her composure with feeling over the subject. She was standing against -the big chair covered with red velvet in which old Tredgold used to sit. -Nobody cared about that chair or had any associations with it; it had -been pushed out of the way<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_424" id="page_424"></a>{424}</span> because it was so big, and the mass of its -red cover threw up the figure of Stella before it with her black dress -and her fair crisped hair. She was triumphant, full of energy and -spirit, a princess come into her kingdom, not a new heir troubled with -the responsibilities of inheritance. It would not disturb her that -Katherine should have nothing, that poor old Bob Tredgold should starve. -She was quite strong enough to put her foot on both and never feel a -pang.</p> - -<p>“I am perhaps going beyond my instructions,” Mr. Sturgeon said. “Your -sister Katherine is a proud young woman, my Lady Stella—I mean my Lady -Somers; I doubt if she will receive presents even from you. Your -father’s will is a very wicked will. I remarked that to him when he made -it first. I was thankful to believe he had felt it to be so after your -ladyship ran away. Then I believed the thing would be reversed and Miss -Katherine would have had all; and I knew what her intentions were in -that case. It was only natural, knowing that you were two sisters, to -suppose that you would probably act in some degree alike.”</p> - -<p>“Not for people who know us, Mr. Sturgeon,” said Stella. “Kate and I -never did anything alike all our days. I may not be as good as Kate in -some things, but I am stronger than she is in being determined to stick -by what is right. I would not interfere with papa’s will for all the -world! I should think it would bring a curse on me. I have got children -of my own, and that makes me go much deeper into things than an -unmarried young woman like Kate can be supposed to do. Fancy Charlie, -our boy, turning on us and saying, You made mincemeat of grandpapa’s -will, why should I mind about yours? That is what I could not look -forward to—it would make me perfectly wretched,” Stella said. She stood -up, every inch of her height, with her head tossed back full of matronly -and motherly importance; but the force of the situation was a little -broken by a muffled roar of laughter from Sir Charles, who said—</p> - -<p>“Go it, Stella! You’re going to be the death of me,” under his breath.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_425" id="page_425"></a>{425}</span></p> - -<p>“My husband laughs,” said Lady Somers with dignity, “because our boy is -a very little boy, and it strikes him as absurd; but this is precisely -the moment when the mind receives its most deep impressions. I would not -tamper with dear papa’s will if even there was no other reason, because -it would be such a fearfully bad example for my boy.”</p> - -<p>“I waive the question, I waive the question,” cried Mr. Sturgeon. “I -will talk it over with the other executor; but in the meantime I hope -you will reconsider what you have said on the other subject. There’s the -servants and there is poor old Bob.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, the servants! As they’re leaving, and a good riddance, give them -fifty pounds each and be done with them,” Stella said.</p> - -<p>“And Bob Tredgold?”</p> - -<p>“I never heard of that person; I don’t believe in him. I think you have -been taken in by some wretched impostor.”</p> - -<p>“Not likely,” said Mr. Sturgeon. “I have known him, poor fellow, from a -boy, and a more promising boy I can tell you than any other of his name. -He is a poor enough wretch now. You can have him here, if you like, and -judge of him for yourself.”</p> - -<p>“Stella,” said Sir Charles, pulling his wife’s dress.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Charlie, let me alone with your silly suggestions. I am sure Mr. -Sturgeon has been taken in. I am sure that papa——”</p> - -<p>“Look here,” said the husband, “don’t be a little fool. I’m not going to -stand a drunken old beast coming here saying he’s my wife’s relation. -Settle what he wants and be done. It’s not my affair? Oh, yes, some -things are my affair. Settle it here, I say. Mr. Sturgeon, she’s ready -to settle whatever you say.”</p> - -<p>Sir Charles had his wife’s wrist in his hand. She was far cleverer than -he was and much more steady and pertinacious, but when she got into that -grip Stella knew there was no more to be said. Thus she bought off the -powers of Nemesis, had there been any chance of their being put in -motion against<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_426" id="page_426"></a>{426}</span> her; and there was no further question of setting the -worst of examples to Job by upsetting his grandfather’s will. Stella -religiously watched over Mr. Tredgold’s fortune and kept every penny of -it to herself from that day.</p> - -<p>“And do you think of building that cottage, Miss Katherine, as your -father suggested?” Mr. Sturgeon asked as he rose from the dinner at -which he had been entertained, Lady Somers making herself very agreeable -to him and throwing a great deal of dust into his eyes. He was going -back to town by the last train, and he had just risen to go away. -Katherine had been as silent as Stella was gay. She had not shown well, -the old lawyer was obliged to admit, in comparison with her sister, the -effect no doubt of having lived all her life at Sliplin and never having -seen the great world, besides that of being altogether duller, dimmer -than Stella. She was a little startled when he spoke to her, and for a -moment did not seem to understand what was being said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, the cottage! I don’t think I can afford it. No, Mr. Sturgeon,” she -said at length.</p> - -<p>“Then I have a good opportunity of selling the bit of land for you,” he -said. “There is a new railway station wanted, and this is the very spot -that will be most suitable. I can make an excellent bargain if you put -it in my hands.”</p> - -<p>“There!” cried Stella, holding up a lively finger, “I told you! It is -always Kate that has the luck among us all!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_427" id="page_427"></a>{427}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Katherine</span> scarcely heard what Stanford said to her after that astounding -speech about his little child. She rose to her feet as if it had touched -some sudden spring in her; though she could no more have told why than -she could have told what it was that made her head giddy and her heart -beat. She had a momentary sense that she had been insulted; but that too -was so utterly unreasonable that she could not explain her conduct to -herself by it, any more than by any other rule. She did not know how she -managed to get out of the room, on what pretext, by what excuse to the -astonished visitor, whose look alone she saw in her mind afterwards, -startled and disturbed, with the eyelids puckered over his eyes. He had -been conscious, too, that she had received a shock; but he had not been -aware, any more than she was, what he had done to produce this -impression upon her.</p> - -<p>She ran upstairs to her own room, and concealed herself there in the -gathering twilight, in the darkest corner, as if somebody might come to -look for her. There had been a great many thoughts in that room through -these long years—thoughts that, perhaps, were sometimes impatient, -occasionally pathetic, conscious of the passing of her youth from her, -and that there had been little in it that was like the youth of other -women. To be sure, she might have married had she been so minded, which -is believed to be the chief thing in a young woman’s life; but that had -not counted for very much in Katherine’s. There had been one bit of -visionary romance, only one, and such a little one! but it had sufficed -to make a sort of shining, as of a dream, over her horizon. It had never -come nearer than the horizon; it had been a glimmer of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_428" id="page_428"></a>{428}</span> colour, of -light, of poetry, and the unknown. It had never been anything, she said -to herself, with emphasis, putting her foot down firmly on the ground, -with a faint sound of purpose and meaning—never—anything! She was the -most desperate fool in the world to feel herself insulted, to feel as if -he had struck her in the face when he spoke of his little child. Why -should he not have a little child like any other man, and a kind wife -waiting for him, amid all the brightness of a home? Why not? Why not? -There was no reason in the world. The effect it produced upon her was -absurd in the last degree. It was an effect of surprise, of sudden -disillusion. She was not prepared for that disclosure. This was the only -way in which she could account for the ridiculous impression made upon -her mind by these few words.</p> - -<p>She had so much to do accounting to herself for this, that it was not -for a long time that she came to imagine what he would think of her -sudden start and flight. What could he think of it? Could he think she -was disappointed, that she had been building hopes upon his return? But -that was one of the thoughts that tend to madness, and have to be -crushed upon the threshold of the mind. She tried not to think of him at -all, to get rid of the impression which he had made on her. Certainly he -had not meant to insult her, certainly it was no blow in the face. There -had been some foolish sort of talk before—she could not recall it to -mind now—something that had nothing in the world to do with his -position, or hers, or that of anyone in the world, which probably was -only to pass the time; and then he had begun to speak to her about his -child. How natural to speak about his child! probably with the intention -of securing her as a friend for his child—she who had been a playmate -of his own childhood. If she had not been so ridiculous she would have -heard of the poor little thing brought from India (like little Job, but -that was scarcely an endearing comparison) to be left alone among -strangers. Poor little thing! probably he wanted her to be kind to it, -to be a friend to it—how natural that idea was!—his own playfellow, -the girl whom he had read Dante with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_429" id="page_429"></a>{429}</span> in those days. But why, why did he -recall those days? It was that that made her feel—when he began -immediately after to speak of his child—as if he had given her a blow -in the face.</p> - -<p>Katherine went down to dinner as if she were a visitor in the house. She -passed the nursery door, standing wide open, with the baby making a -great whiteness in the middle of the room, and Job watching like an -ill-tempered little dog, ready to rush out with a snarl and bite at any -passer-by whom he disliked; and her sister’s door, where Stella’s voice -was audibly high and gay, sometimes addressing her maid, sometimes in a -heightened tone her husband, in his dressing-room at the other side. -They were the proprietors of the place, not Katherine. She knew that -very well, and wondered at herself that she should still be here, and -had made no other provision for her loneliness. She was a guest—a guest -on sufferance—one who had not even been invited. William, the -soldier-servant, was in possession of the hall. He opened the door for -her with a respectful tolerance. She was missus’s sister to William. In -the drawing-room was Mr. Sturgeon, who rose as she entered from the side -of the fire. He was going back by the train immediately after dinner, -and was in his old-fashioned professional dress, a long black coat and -large black tie. One looked for a visionary bag of papers at his feet or -in his hands. His influence had a soothing effect upon Katherine; it -brought her back to the practical. He told her what he had been able to -do—to get gratuities for the servants, and a pension, such as it was, -for poor old Bob Tredgold. “It will keep him in comfort if he can be -kept off the drink,” he said. All this brought her out of herself, yet -at the same time increased the sense in her of two selves, one very much -interested in all these inconsiderable arrangements, the other standing -by looking on. “But about your affairs, Miss Katherine, not a thing -could I do,” Mr. Sturgeon was beginning, when happily Sir Charles came -downstairs.</p> - -<p>“So much the better; my affairs have nothing to do with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_430" id="page_430"></a>{430}</span> my sister,” -Katharine said hastily. And, indeed, it was plain neither they nor any -other intrusive affairs had much to do with Stella when she came in -radiant, the blackness of her dress making the whiteness of her arms and -throat almost too dazzling. She came in with her head held high, with a -swing and movement of her figure which embodied the supremacy she felt. -She understood now her own importance, her own greatness. It was her -natural position, of which she had been defrauded for some time without -ever giving up her pretensions to it; but now there was no further -possibility of any mistake.</p> - -<p>As I have already related the concluding incident of this party it is -unnecessary now to go through its details. But when Mr. Sturgeon had -gone to his train and Sir Charles to the smoking-room (though not -without an invitation to the ladies to accompany him) Stella suddenly -took her sister by the waist, and drew her close. “Well?” she said, in -her cheerful high tones, “have you anything to tell me, Kate?”</p> - -<p>“To tell you, Stella? I don’t know what I can tell you—you know the -house as well as I do—and as you are going to have new servants——”</p> - -<p>“Oh! if you think it is anything about the house, I doubt very much -whether I shall keep up the house, it’s <i>rococo</i> to such a degree—and -all about it—the very gardens are <i>rococo</i>.”</p> - -<p>“It suits you very well, however,” Katherine said. “All this gilding -seems appropriate, like a frame to a picture.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think so?” said Stella, looking at herself in the great mirror -over the mantelpiece with a certain fondness. It was nice to be able to -see yourself like that wherever you turned, from head to foot. “But that -is not in the least what I was thinking of,” she said; “tell me about -yourself. Haven’t you something very particular to tell me—something -about your own self?”</p> - -<p>Katherine was surprised, yet but dimly surprised, not enough to cause -her any emotion. Her heart had become as still as a stone.</p> - -<p>“No,” she said; “I have nothing particular to tell you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_431" id="page_431"></a>{431}</span> I will leave -The Cliff when you like—is that what you mean? I have not as yet made -any plans, but as soon as you wish it——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, as for that,” said Stella, “we shall be going ourselves. Charlie -wants me to go to his horrid old place to see what can be done to it, -and we shall stay in town for a little. Town is town, don’t you know, -after you’ve been in India, even at the dullest time of the year. But -these old wretches of servants will have to stay out their month I -suppose, and if you like to stay while they’re here—of course, they -think a great deal more of you than of me. It will be in order as long -as they are here. After, I cannot answer for things. We may shut up the -house, or we may let it. It should bring in a fine rent, with the view -and all that. But I have not settled yet what I am going to do.”</p> - -<p>“My plans then,” said Katherine, faintly smiling, “will be settled -before yours, though I have not taken any step as yet.”</p> - -<p>“That’s just what I want to know,” cried Stella, “that is what I was -asking! Surely there’s nothing come between you and me, Kate, that would -keep you from telling me? As for papa’s will, that was his doing, not -mine. I cannot go against it, whatever anybody says—I can’t, indeed! -It’s a matter of conscience with me to do whatever he wished, now he is -dead. I didn’t when he was living, and that is just the reason why——” -Stella shut her mouth tight, that no breath of inconsistency might ever -come from it. Then once more putting her hand on Katherine’s waist, and -inclining towards her: “Tell me what has happened; do tell me, Kate!”</p> - -<p>“But nothing has happened, Stella.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing! That’s impossible. I left you alone with him on purpose. I saw -it was on his very lips, bursting to get it out; and he gave me such a -look—Oh, why can’t you fade away?—which isn’t a look I’m accustomed -to. And I don’t believe nothing has happened. Why, he came here for that -very purpose! Do you think he wanted to see me or Charlie? He was always -a person of very bad taste,” Stella said with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_432" id="page_432"></a>{432}</span> laugh. “He was always -your own, Kate. Come! don’t bear any malice about the will or that—but -tell.”</p> - -<p>“There is nothing whatever to tell. Mr. Stanford told me about his child -whom he has brought home.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, that was to rouse your pity. He thought as you are one of the -self-sacrificing people the idea of a baby to take care of—though it is -not a baby now—it’s about as old as Job——. The mother died when it -was born, you know, a poor little weakly thing. Did I never tell you -when I wrote? It must have gone out of my head, for I knew all about it, -the wedding and everything. How odd I didn’t tell you. I suppose you had -thought that he had been wearing the willow for you, my dear, all this -time!”</p> - -<p>“It is not of the slightest consequence what I thought—or if I thought -at all on the subject,” said Katherine, with, as she felt, a little of -the stiffness of dignity injured, which is always ludicrous to a -looker-on.</p> - -<p>“I’ll be sworn you did,” cried Stella, with a pealing laugh. “Oh, no, my -dear, there’s no such example now. And, Kate, you are old enough to know -better—you should not be such a goose at your age. The man has done -very well, he’s got an excellent appointment, and they say he’ll be a -member of Council before he dies. Think what a thing for you with your -small income! The pension alone is worth the trouble. A member of -Council’s widow has—why she has thousands a year! If it were only for -that, you will be a very silly girl, Kate, if you send James Stanford -away.”</p> - -<p>“Is it not time you joined your husband in the smoking-room, Stella? You -must have a great deal to talk about. And I am going to bed.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe a word of it,” Stella cried, “you want to get rid of me -and my common-sense view. That is always how it happens. People think I -am pretty and so forth, but they give me no credit for common-sense. Now -that’s just my quality. Look here, Kate. What will you be as an -unmarried woman with your income? Why, nobody! You will not be so well -off as the old cats. If you and your maid can<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_433" id="page_433"></a>{433}</span> live on it that’s all; -you will be of no consequence. I hear there’s a doctor who was after you -very furiously for a time, and would have you still if you would hold up -your little finger. But James Stanford would be far better. The position -is better in every way—and think of the widow’s pension! why it is one -of the prizes which anyone might be pleased to go in for. Kate, if you -marry you may do very well yet. Mind my words—but if you’re obstinate -and go in for fads, and turn your back on the world, and imagine that -you are going to continue a person of importance on five hundred a -year——”</p> - -<p>“I assure you, Stella, I have no such thought.”</p> - -<p>“What then—to be nobody? Do you think you will like to be nobody, Kate, -after all the respect that’s been paid to you, and at the head of a -large house, and carriages at your command, and all that—to drop down -to be Miss Tredgold, the old maid in lodgings with one woman servant? -Oh, I know you well enough for that. You will not like it, you will hate -it. Marry one of them, for Heaven’s sake! If you have a preference I am -sure I don’t object to that. But marry one of them, James Stanford for -choice! or else, mark my words, Kate Tredgold, you will regret it all -your life.”</p> - -<p>Katherine got free at last, with a laugh on her lips at the solemnity of -her sister’s address. If Stella had only known how little her -common-sense meant, or the extreme seriousness of these views with which -she endeavoured to move a mind so different from her own! Lady Somers -went off full of the importance of the question, to discuss it over -again with her husband, whose sense of humour was greatly tickled by the -suggestion that the pension which James Stanford’s widow might have if -he were made member of Council was an important matter to be taken into -consideration, while Katherine went back again to her room, passing once -more the nursery door where Job lay nervously half awake, calling out a -dreary “Zat oo, fader?” as her step sounded upon the corridor. But she -had no time to think of little Job in the midst of this darkness of her -own life. “What does it matter to me, what does it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_434" id="page_434"></a>{434}</span> matter to me?” she -kept saying to herself as she went along—and yet it mattered so much, -it made so great a change! If she had never seen James Stanford again it -would not have mattered, indeed; but thus suddenly to find out that -while she had been making of him the one little rainbow in her sky—had -enshrined him as something far more than any actual lover, the very -image of love itself and fidelity, he had been the lover, the husband of -another woman, had gone through all the circle of emotion, had a child -to remind him for ever of what had been. Katherine, on her side, had -nothing save the bitter sense of an illusion fled. It was not anybody’s -fault. The man had done nothing he had not a perfect right to do—the -secret had not been kept from her by any malice or evil means—all was -quite natural, simple, even touching and sad. She ought to be sorry for -him, poor fellow! She was in a manner sorry for him—if only he had not -come to insult her with words that could have no meaning, words -repeated, which had answered before with another woman. The wrench of -her whole nature turning away from the secret thing that had been so -dear to her was more dreadful than any convulsion. She had cherished it -in her very heart of hearts, turned to it when she was weary, consoled -herself with it in the long, long endless flatness of those years that -were past. And it had all been a lie; there was nothing of the kind, -nothing to fall back upon, nothing to dream of. The man had not loved -her, he had loved his wife, as was most just and right. And she had been -a woman voluntarily deceived, a dreamer, a creature of vanity, -attributing to herself a power which she had never possessed. There is -no estimating the keenness of mortified pride with which a woman makes -such a discovery. Her thoughts have been dwelling on him with a -visionary longing which is not painful, which is sometimes happiness -enough to support the structure of a life for years; but his had not -been satisfied with this: the chain that held her had been nothing to -him; he had turned to other consolations and exhausted them, and then -came back. The woman’s instinct flung him from her, as she would have -flung some evil thing. She wrenched herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_435" id="page_435"></a>{435}</span> away twisting her very -heart out of its socket; that which had been, being shattered for ever -by this blow, could be no more.</p> - -<p>There was, as Stella said, no common-sense at all in the argument, or -proper appreciation of a position which, taking into consideration -everything, inclusive of the widow’s pension, was well worth any woman’s -while.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_436" id="page_436"></a>{436}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">It</span> is very difficult to change every circumstance of your life when a -sudden resolution comes upon you all in a moment. To restless people -indeed it is a comfort to be up and doing at once—but when there is no -one to do anything for but yourself, and you have never done anything -for yourself alone in all your life, then it is very hard to know how to -begin. To resolve that this day, this very hour you will arise and go; -that you will find out a new shelter, a new foundation on which, if not -to build a house, yet to pitch a tent; to transfer yourself and -everything that may belong to you out of the place where you have been -all your life, where every one of your little possessions has its place -and niche, into another cold unknown place to which neither you nor they -belong—how could anything be harder than that? It was so hard that -Katherine did not do it for day after day. She put it off every morning -till to-morrow. You may think that, with her pride, to be an undesired -visitor in her sister’s house would have been insupportable to her. But -she did not feel as if she had any pride. She felt that she could -support anything better than the first step out into the cold, the -decision where she was to go.</p> - -<p>The consequence of this was that the Somerses, always tranquilly -pursuing their own way, and put out in their reckoning by no one, were -the first to make that change. Sir Charles made an expedition to his own -old house of which all the Somerses were so proud, and found that it -could not only be made (by the spending of sixty thousand a year in it) -a very grand old house, but that even now it was in very tolerable order -and could receive his family whenever the family chose<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_437" id="page_437"></a>{437}</span> to inhabit it. -When he had made this discovery he was, it was only natural, very -anxious to go, to <i>faire valoir</i> as far as was possible what was very -nearly his unique contribution to the family funds. There was some -little delay in order that fires might be lighted and servants obtained, -but it was still October when the party which had arrived from the -<i>Aurungzebe</i> at the beginning of the month, departed again in something -of the same order, the ayah more cold, and Pearson more worried; for -though the latter had Lady Somers’ old <i>rivière</i> in her own possession, -another <i>rivière</i> of much greater importance was now in her care, and -her responsibilities instead of lessening were increased. It could -scarcely be said even that Stella was more triumphant than when she -arrived, the centre of all farewells and good wishes, at Tilbury Docks; -for she had believed then in good fortune and success as she did now, -and she had never felt herself disappointed. Sir Charles himself was the -member of the party who had changed most. There was no embarrassment -about him now, or doubt of that luck in which Stella was so confident. -He had doubted his luck from time to time in his life, but he did so no -longer. He carried down little Job on his shoulder from the nursery -regions. “I say, old chap,” he said, “you’ll have to give up your -nonsense now and be a gentleman. Take off your hat to your Aunt Kate, -like a man. If you kick I’ll twist one of those little legs off. Hear, -lad! You’re going home to Somers and you’ll have to be a man.”</p> - -<p>Job had no answer to make to this astounding address; he tried to kick, -but found his feet held fast in a pair of strong hands. “Me fader’s -little boy,” he said, trying the statement which had always hitherto -been so effectual.</p> - -<p>“So you are, old chap; but you’re the young master at Somers too,” said -the father, who had now a different meaning. Job drummed upon that very -broad breast as well as he could with his little imprisoned heels, but -he was not monarch of all he surveyed as before. “Good-bye, Kate,” Sir -Charles said. “Stay as long as ever you like, and come to Somers as soon -as you will. I’m master there, and I wish you were<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_438" id="page_438"></a>{438}</span> going to live with -us for good and all—but you and your sister know your own ways best.”</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, Charles. I shall always feel that you have been very kind.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, kind!” he cried, “but I’m only Stella’s husband don’t you know, and -I have to learn my place.”</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, Kate,” cried Stella, coming out with all her little jingle of -bracelets, buttoning her black gloves. “I am sure you will be glad to -get us out of the way for a bit to get your packing done, and clear out -all your cupboards and things. You’ll let me know when you decide where -you’re going, and keep that old wretch Simmons in order, and don’t give -her too flaming a character. You’ll be sending them all off with -characters as long as my arm, as if they were a set of angels. Mind you -have proper dinners, and don’t sink into tea as ladies do when they’re -alone. Good-bye, dear.” Stella kissed her sister with every appearance -of affection. She held her by the shoulders for a moment and looked into -her eyes. “Now, Kate, no nonsense! Take the good the Gods provide -you—don’t be a silly, neglecting your own interest. At your age you -really ought to take a common-sense view.”</p> - -<p>Kate stood at what had been so long her own door and watched them all -going away—Pearson and the soldier in the very brougham in which Stella -had driven to the yacht on the night of her elopement. That and the old -landau had got shabby chiefly for want of use in these long years. The -baby, now so rosy, crowed in the arms of the dark nurse, and Sir Charles -held his hat in his hand till he was almost out of sight. He was the -only one who had felt for her a little, who had given her an honest if -ineffectual sympathy. She felt almost grateful to him as he disappeared. -And now to think this strange chapter in her existence was over and -could never come again! Few, very few people in the world could have -gone through such an experience—to have everything taken from you, and -yet to have as yet given up nothing. She seemed to herself a shadow as -she stood at that familiar door. She had lived more or less naturally as -her sister’s dependent<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_439" id="page_439"></a>{439}</span> for the last week or two; the position had not -galled her; in her desolation she might have gone on and on, to avoid -the trouble of coming to a decision. But Stella was not one of the -aimless people who are afraid of making decisions, and no doubt Stella -was right. When a thing has to be done, it is better that it should be -done, not kept on continually hanging over one. Stella had energy enough -to make up half a dozen people’s minds for them. “Get us out of the way -for a bit to get your packing done”—these were the words of the lease -on which Katherine held this house, very succinctly set down.</p> - -<p>This was a curious interval which was just over, in many ways. -Katherine’s relation to Stella had changed strangely; it was the younger -sister now who was the prudent chaperon, looking after the other’s -interests—and other relationships had changed too. The sight of James -Stanford coming and going, who was constantly asked to dinner and as -constantly thrown in her way, but whom Katherine, put on her mettle, had -become as clever to avoid as Stella was to throw them together, was the -most anxious experience. It had done her good to see him so often -without seeing him, so to speak. It made her aware of various things -which she had not remarked in him before. Altogether this little episode -in life had enlarged her horizon. She had found out many things—or, -rather, she had found out the insignificance of many things that had -bulked large in her vision before. She went up and down the house and it -felt empty, as it never had felt in the old time when there was nobody -in it. It seemed to her that it had never been empty till now, when the -children, though they were not winning children, and Stella, though she -was so far from being a perfect person, had gone. There was no sound or -meaning left in it; it was an echoing and empty place. It was <i>rococo</i>, -as Stella said; a place made to display wealth, with no real beauty in -it. It had never been a home, as other people know homes. And now all -the faint recollections which had hung about it of her own girlhood and -of Stella’s were somehow obliterated. Old Mr. Tredgold and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_440" id="page_440"></a>{440}</span> -daughters were swept away. It was a house belonging to the Somerses, who -had just come back from India; it looked dreadfully forlorn and empty -now they had gone away, and bare also—a place that would be sold or let -in all probability to the first comer. Katherine shivered at the -disorder of all the rooms upstairs, with their doors widely opened and -all the signs of departure about. The household would always be -careless, perhaps, under Stella’s sway. There was the look of a -desecrated place, of a house in which nothing more could be private, -nothing sacred, in the air of its emptiness, with all those doors flung -open to the wall.</p> - -<p>She was called downstairs again, however, and had no time to indulge -these fancies—and glancing out at a window saw the familiar Midge -standing before the door; the voices of the ladies talking both together -were audible before she had reached the stairs.</p> - -<p>“Gone away? Yes, Harrison, we met them all—quite a procession—as we -came driving up; and did you see that dear baby, Ruth Mildmay, kissing -its little fat hand?”</p> - -<p>“I never thought they would make much of a stay,” said Miss Mildmay; -“didn’t suit, you may be sure; and mark my words, Jane Shanks——”</p> - -<p>“How’s Miss Katherine? Miss Katherine, poor dear, must feel quite dull -left alone by herself,” said Mrs. Shanks, not waiting to waste any -words.</p> - -<p>“I should have felt duller the other way,” said the other voice, audibly -moving into the drawing-room. Then Katherine was received by one after -another once more in a long embrace.</p> - -<p>“You dear!” Mrs. Shanks said—and Miss Mildmay held her by the shoulders -as if to impart a firmness which she felt to be wanting.</p> - -<p>“Now, Katherine, here you are on your own footing at last.”</p> - -<p>“Am I? It doesn’t feel like a very solid footing,” said Katherine with a -faint laugh.</p> - -<p>“I never thought,” said Mrs. Shanks, “that Stella would stay.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_441" id="page_441"></a>{441}</span></p> - -<p>“It is I that have been telling you all the time, Jane Shanks, that she -would not stay. Why should she stay among all the people who know -exactly how she’s got it and everything about it? And the shameful -behaviour——”</p> - -<p>“Now,” said Katherine, “there must not be a word against Stella. Don’t -you know Stella is Stella, whatever happens? And there is no shameful -behaviour. If she had tried to force half her fortune upon me, do you -think I should have taken it? You know better than that, whatever you -say.”</p> - -<p>“Look here—this is what I call shameful behaviour,” cried Miss Mildmay, -with a wave of her hand.</p> - -<p>The gilded drawing-room with all its finery was turned upside down, the -curiosities carried off—some of them to be sold, some of them, that met -with Stella’s approval, to Somers. The screen with which Katherine had -once made a corner for herself in the big room lay on the floor half -covered with sheets of paper, being packed; a number of the pictures had -been taken from the walls. The room, which required to be very well kept -and cared for to have its due effect, was squalid and miserable, like a -beggar attired in robes of faded finery. Katherine had not observed the -havoc that had been wrought. She looked round, unconsciously following -the movement of Miss Mildmay’s hand, and this sudden shock did what -nothing had done yet. It was sudden and unlooked for, and struck like a -blow. She fell into a sudden outburst of tears.</p> - -<p>“This is what I call shameful behaviour,” Miss Mildmay said again, “and -Katherine, my poor child, I cannot bear, for one, that you should be -called on to live in the middle of this for a single day.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, what does it matter?” cried Katherine, with a laugh that was half -hysterical, through her tears. “Why should it be kept up when, perhaps, -they are not coming back to it? And why shouldn’t they get the advantage -of things which are pretty things and are their own? I might have -thought that screen was mine—for I had grown fond of it—and carried it -away with my things, which clearly I should have had no right to do, had -not Stella seen to it. Stella, you know,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_442" id="page_442"></a>{442}</span> is a very clever girl—she -always was, but more than ever,” she said, the laugh getting the -mastery. It certainly was very quick, very smart of Lady Somers to take -the first step, which Katherine certainly never would have had decision -enough to do.</p> - -<p>“You ought to be up with her in another way,” said Miss Mildmay. -“Katherine, there’s a very important affair, we all know, waiting for -you to decide.”</p> - -<p>“And oh, my dear, how can you hesitate?” said Mrs. Shanks, taking her -hand.</p> - -<p>“It is quite easy to know why she hesitates. When a girl marries at -twenty, as you did, Jane Shanks, it’s plain sailing—two young fools -together and not a thought between them. But I know Katherine’s mind. -I’ve known James Stanford, man and boy, the last twenty years. He’s not -a Solomon, but as men go he’s a good sort of man.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Ruth Mildmay, that’s poor praise! You should see him with that poor -little boy of his. It’s beautiful!” cried Mrs. Shanks with tears in her -eyes.</p> - -<p>“You’ve spoilt it all, you——” Miss Mildmay said in a fierce whisper in -her friend’s ear.</p> - -<p>“Why should I have spoilt it all? Katherine has excellent sense, we all -know; the poor man married—men always do: how can they help it, poor -creatures?—but as little harm was done as could be done, for she died -so very soon, poor young thing.”</p> - -<p>Katherine by this time was perfectly serene and smiling—too smiling and -too serene.</p> - -<p>“Katherine,” said Miss Mildmay, “if you hear the one side you should -hear the other. This poor fellow, James Stanford, came to Jane Shanks -and me before he went back to India the last time. He had met you on the -train or somewhere. He said he must see you whatever happened. I told -Jane Shanks at the time she was meddling with other people’s happiness.”</p> - -<p>“You were as bad as me, Ruth Mildmay,” murmured the other abashed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_443" id="page_443"></a>{443}</span></p> - -<p>“Well, perhaps I was as bad. It was the time when—when Dr. Burnet was -so much about, and we hoped that perhaps—— And when he asked and -pressed and insisted to see you, that were bound hand and foot with your -poor father’s illness——”</p> - -<p>“We told him—we told the poor fellow—the poor victim. Oh, Ruth -Mildmay, I don’t think that I ever approved.”</p> - -<p>“Victim is nonsense,” said Miss Mildmay sharply; “the man’s just a man, -no better and no worse. We told him, it’s true, Katherine, that the -doctor was there night and day, that he spared no pains about your poor -father to please you—and it would be a dreadful thing to break it all -up and to take you from poor Mr. Tredgold’s bedside.”</p> - -<p>“No one need have given themselves any trouble about that,” said -Katherine, very pale; “I should never have left papa.”</p> - -<p>“Well, that was what <i>I</i> said,” cried Mrs. Shanks.</p> - -<p>“So you see it was us who sent him away. Punish us, Katherine, don’t -punish the man. You should have seen how he went away! Afterwards, -having no hope, I suppose, and seeing someone that he thought he could -like, and wanting a home—and a family—and all that——”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” cried Mrs. Shanks with fervour, “there are always a hundred -apologies for a man.” Katherine had been gradually recovering herself -while this interchange went on.</p> - -<p>“Now let us say no more about Mr. Stanford,” she cried with a sudden -movement. “Come into the morning room, it is not in such disorder as -this, and there we can sit down and talk, and you can give me your -advice. I must decide at once between these two lodgings, now—oh,” she -cried, “but it is still worse here!” The morning room, the young ladies’ -room of old, had many dainty articles of furniture in it, especially an -old piano beautifully painted with an art which is now reviving. Sir -Charles had told his wife that it would suit exactly with the old -furniture of his mother’s boudoir at Somers, and with Stella to think -was to do. The workmen had at that moment brought the box in which the -piano<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_444" id="page_444"></a>{444}</span> was to travel, and filled the room, coaxing the dainty instrument -into the rough construction of boards that was to be its house. -Katherine turned her visitors away with a wild outbreak of laughter. She -laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks—all the men, and one or two -of the servants, and the two ladies standing about with the gravest -faces. “Oh, Stella is wonderful!” she said.</p> - -<p>They had their consultation afterwards in that grim chamber which had -been Mr. Tredgold’s, and which Somers had turned into a smoking-room. It -was the only place undisturbed where his daughter, thrown off by him -upon the world, could consult with her friends about the small maidenly -abode which was all she could afford henceforward. The visitors were -full of advice, they had a hundred things to say; but I am not sure that -Katherine’s mind had much leisure to pay attention to them. She thought -she saw her father there, sitting in his big chair by the table in which -his will was found—the will he had kept by him for years, but never had -changed. There she had so often seen him with his hands folded, his -countenance serene, saying “God damn them!” quite simply to himself. And -she, whom he had never cared for? Had he ever cursed her too, where he -sat, without animosity, and without compunction? She was very glad when -the ladies had said everything they could think of, although she had -derived but little benefit by it; and following them out of the room -turned the key sharply in the door. There was nothing there at least -which anyone could wish to take away.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_445" id="page_445"></a>{445}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Katherine</span> was restless that afternoon; there was not much to delight her -indoors, or any place where she could find refuge and sit down and rest, -or read, or write, or occupy herself in any natural way, unless it had -been in her own bedroom, and there Hannah was packing—a process which -promoted comfort as little as any of the others. This condition of the -house wounded her to the bottom of her heart. A few days, she said to -herself, could have made no difference. Stella need not have set the -workmen to work until the house at least was empty. It was a poor thing -to invite her sister to remain and then to make her home uninhabitable. -With anxious justice, indeed, she reminded herself that the house was -not uninhabitable—that she might still live in the drawing-room if she -pleased, after the screen and the pictures and the curiosities were -taken away; or in the morning-room, though the piano was packed in a -rough box; but yet, when all was said, it was not generous of Stella. -She had nowhere to sit down—nowhere to rest the sole of her foot. She -went out at last to the walk round the cliff. She had always been fond -of that, the only one in the family who cared for it. It was like a -thread upon which she had strung so many recollections—that time, long -ago, when papa had sent James Stanford away, and the many times when -Katherine, still so young, had felt herself “out of it” beside the -paramount presence of Stella, and had retired from the crowd of Stella’s -adorers to gaze out upon the view and comfort herself in the thought -that she had some one of her own who wanted not Stella, but Katherine. -And then there had been the day of Stella’s escapade, and then of -Stella’s elopement all woven<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_446" id="page_446"></a>{446}</span> round and round about the famous “view.” -Everything in her life was associated with it. That blue sky, that -shining headland with the watery sun picking it out like a cliff of -gold, the great vault of the sky circling over all, the dim horizon far -away lost in distance, in clouds and immeasurable circles of the sea. -Just now a little white sail was out as it might have been that fated -little <i>Stella</i>, the yacht which Mr. Tredgold sold after her last -escapade, and made a little money by, to his own extreme enjoyment. -Katherine walked up and down, with her eyes travelling over the familiar -prospect on which they had dwelt for the greater part of her life. She -was very lonely and forlorn; her heart was heavy and her vitality low, -she scarcely knew where she was going or what she might be doing -to-morrow. The future was to-morrow to her as it is to a child. She had -to make up her mind to come to some decision, and to-morrow she must -carry it out.</p> - -<p>It did not surprise her at all, on turning back after she had been there -for some time, at the end of her promenade to see a figure almost by her -side, which turned out to be that of Mr. Stanford. She was not surprised -to see him. She had seen him so often, they were quite accustomed to -meet. She spoke to him quite in a friendly tone, without any start or -alarm: “You have come—to see the last of them, Mr. Stanford?” It was -not a particularly appropriate speech, for there was no one here to see -the last of, unless it had been Katherine herself; but nevertheless -these were the words that came to her lips.</p> - -<p>“They seem to have gone very soon,” he said, which was not a brilliant -remark any more than her own.</p> - -<p>“Immediately after lunch,” said Katherine, severely practical, “that -they might get home in good time. You must always make certain -allowances when you travel with young children. But,” she added, with a -sudden rise of colour, “I should not attempt to enlighten you on that -subject.”</p> - -<p>“I certainly know what it is,” he said, with a grave face, “to consider -the interests of a little child.”</p> - -<p>“I know, I know,” cried Katherine with a sudden compunction, “I should -not have said that.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_447" id="page_447"></a>{447}</span></p> - -<p>“I wish,” he said, “that you would allow me to speak to you on this -subject. No, it is not on this subject. I tried to say what was in my -heart before, but either you would not listen, or—I have a good deal to -say to you that cannot be said. I don’t know how. If I could but convey -it to you without saying it. It is only just to me that you should know. -It may be just—to another—that it should not be said.”</p> - -<p>“Let nothing be said,” she cried anxiously; “oh, nothing—nothing! Yet -only one thing I should like you to tell me. That time we met on the -railway—do you remember?”</p> - -<p>“Do I remember!”</p> - -<p>“Well; I wish to know this only for my own satisfaction. Were you -married <i>then</i>?”</p> - -<p>She stood still as she put the question in the middle of the walk; but -she did not look at him, she looked out to sea.</p> - -<p>He answered her only after a pause of some duration, and in a voice -which was full of pain. “Are you anxious,” he said, “Katherine, to make -me out not only false to you, but false to love and to every sentiment -in the world?”</p> - -<p>“I beg you will not think,” she cried, “that I blame you for anything. -Oh, no, no! You have never been false to me. There was never anything -between us. You were as free and independent as any man could be.”</p> - -<p>“Let me tell you then as far as I can what happened. I came back by the -train that same afternoon when you said you were coming, and you were -not there. I hung about hoping to meet you. Then I saw our two old -friends in the Terrace—and they told me that there were other -plans—that the doctor was very kind to your father for your sake, and -that you were likely——”</p> - -<p>Katherine waved her hand with great vivacity; she stamped her foot -slightly on the ground. What had this to do with it? It was not her -conduct that was in dispute, but his. Her meaning was so clear in her -face without words that he stopped as she desired.</p> - -<p>“I went back to India very much cast down. I was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_448" id="page_448"></a>{448}</span> without hope. I was at -a lonely station and very dreary. I tried to say the other day how -strongly I believed in my heart that it was better to hold for the best, -even if you could never attain it, than to try to get a kind of -makeshift happiness with a second best.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Stanford,” cried Katherine, with her head thrown back and her eyes -glowing, “from anything I can discern you are about to speak of a lady -of whom I know nothing; who is dead—which sums up everything; and whom -no one should dare to name, you above all, but with the most devout -respect.”</p> - -<p>He looked at her surprised, and then bowed his head. “You are right, -Miss Katherine,” he said; “my poor little wife, it would ill become me -to speak of her with any other feeling. I told you that I had much to -tell you which could not be said——”</p> - -<p>“Let it remain so then,” she cried with a tremble of excitement; “why -should it be discussed between you and me? It is no concern of mine.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a great, a very great concern of mine. Katherine, I must speak; -this is the first time in which I have ever been able to speak to you, -to tell you what has been in my heart—oh, not to-day nor yesterday—for -ten long years.” She interrupted him again with the impatient gesture, -the same slight stamp on the ground. “Am I to have no hearing,” he -cried, “not even to be allowed to tell you, the first and only time that -I have had the chance?”</p> - -<p>Katherine cleared her throat a great many times before she spoke. “I -will tell you how it looks from my point of view,” she said. “I used to -come out here many a time after you went away first, when we were told -that papa had sent you away. I was grateful to you. I thought it was -very, very fine of you to prefer me to Stella; afterwards I began to -think of you a little for yourself. The time we met made you a great -deal more real to me. It was imagination, but I thought of you often and -often when I came out here and walked about and looked at the view. The -view almost meant you—it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_449" id="page_449"></a>{449}</span> very vague, but it made me happy, and I -came out nearly every night. That is nearly ten years since, too; it was -nothing, and yet it was the chief I had to keep my life going upon. -Finally you come back, and the first thing you have to say to me is to -explain that, though you like me still and all that, you have been -married, you have had a child, and another life between whiles. Oh, no, -no, Mr. Stanford, that cannot be.”</p> - -<p>“Katherine! must I not say a word in my own defence?”</p> - -<p>“There is no defence,” she cried, “and no wrong. I am only not that kind -of woman. I am very sorry for you and the poor little child. But you -have that, it is a great deal. And I have nothing not even the view. I -am bidding farewell to the view and to all those recollections. It is -good-bye,” she said, waving her hand out to the sea, “to my youth as -well as to the cliff, and to all my visions as well as to you. Good-bye, -Mr. Stanford, good-bye. I think it is beginning to rain, and to-morrow I -am going away.”</p> - -<p>Was this the conclusion? Was it not a conclusion at all? Next day -Katherine certainly did go away. She went to a little house at some -distance from Sliplin—a little house in the country, half-choked in -fallen leaves, where she had thought she liked the rooms and the -prospect, which was no longer that of the bay and the headland, but of -what we call a home landscape—green fields and tranquil woods, a -village church within sight, and some red-roofed cottages. Katherine’s -rooms were on the upper floor, therefore not quite on a level with the -fallen leaves. It was a most <i>digne</i> retirement for a lady, quite the -place for Katherine, many people thought; not like rooms in a town, but -with the privacy of her own garden and nobody to interfere with her. -There was a little pony carriage in which she could drive about, with a -rough pony that went capitally, quite as well as Mr. Tredgold’s -horses—growing old under the charge of the old coachman, who never was -in a hurry—would ever go. Lady Jane, who approved so highly, was -anxious to take a great deal of notice of Katherine. She sent the landau -to fetch her when, in the first week of her retirement, Katherine went -out to Steephill to lunch. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_450" id="page_450"></a>{450}</span> Katherine preferred the pony chaise. She -said her rooms were delightful, and the pony the greatest diversion. The -only grievance she had, she declared, was that there was nothing to find -fault with. “Now, to be a disinherited person and to have no grievance,” -she said, “is very hard. I don’t know what is to become of me.” Lady -Jane took this in some unaccountable way as a satirical speech, and felt -aggrieved. But I cannot say why.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>It is a great art to know when to stop when you are telling a story—the -question of a happy or a not happy ending rests so much on that. It is -supposed to be the superior way nowadays that a story should end -badly—first, as being less complete (I suppose), and, second, as being -more in accord with truth. The latter I doubt. If there was ever any -ending in human life except the final one of all (which we hope is -exactly the reverse of an ending), one would be tempted rather to say -that there are not half so many <i>tours de force</i> in fiction as there are -in actual life, and that the very commonest thing is the god who gets -out of the machine to help the actual people round us to have their own -way. But this is not enough for the highest class of fiction, and I am -aware that a hankering after a good end is a vulgar thing. Now, the good -ending of a novel means generally that the hero and heroine should be -married and sent off with blessings upon their wedding tour. What am I -to say? I can but leave this question to time and the insight of the -reader. If it is a fine thing for a young lady to be married, it must be -a finer thing still that she should have, as people say, two strings to -her bow. There are two men within her reach who would gladly marry -Katherine, ready to take up the handkerchief should she drop it in the -most maidenly and modest way. She had no need to go out into the world -to look for them. There they are—two honest, faithful men. If Katherine -marries the doctor, James Stanford will disappear (he has a year’s -furlough), and no doubt in India will marry yet another wife and be more -or less happy. If she should marry Stanford, Dr. Burnet will feel it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_451" id="page_451"></a>{451}</span> -but it will not break his heart. And then the two who make up their -minds to this step will live happy—more or less—ever after. What more -is there to be said?</p> - -<p>I think that few people quite understand, and no one that I know of, -except a little girl here and there, will quite sympathise with the -effect produced upon Katherine by her discovery of James Stanford’s -marriage. They think her jealous, they think her ridiculous, they say a -great many severe things about common-sense. A man in James Stanford’s -position, doing so well, likely to be a member of Council before he -dies, with a pension of thousands for his widow—that such a man should -be disdained because he had married, though the poor little wife was so -very discreet and died so soon, what could be more absurd? “If there had -been a family of <i>girls</i>,” Stella said, “you could understand it, for a -first wife’s girls are often a nuisance to a woman. But one boy, who -will be sent out into the world directly and do for himself and trouble -nobody——” Stella, however, always ends by saying that she never did -understand Katherine’s ways and never should, did she live a hundred -years.</p> - -<p>This is what Stella, for her part, is extremely well inclined to do. -Somers has been filled with all the modern comforts, and it is -universally allowed to be a beautiful old house, fit for a queen. -Perhaps its present mistress does not altogether appreciate its real -beauties, but she loves the size of it, and the number of guests it can -take in, and the capacity of the hall for dances and entertainments of -all kinds. She has, too, a little house in town—small, but in the heart -of everything—which Stella instinctively and by nature is, wherever she -goes. All that is facilitated by the possession of sixty thousand a -year, yet not attained; for there are, as everybody knows, many people -with a great deal more money who beat at these charmed portals of -society and for whom there is no answer, till perhaps some needy lady of -the high world takes them up. But Stella wanted no needy lady of -quality. She scoffed at the intervention of the Dowager Lady Somers, who -would, if she could, have patronised old Tredgold’s daughter; but Lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_452" id="page_452"></a>{452}</span> -Somers’ set were generally old cats to Stella, and she owed her -advancement solely to herself. She is success personified—in her house, -in her dress, in society, with her husband and all her friends. Little -whining Job was perhaps the only individual of all her surroundings who -retained a feeling of hostility as time went on against young Lady -Somers. Her sister has forgiven her freely, if there was anything to -forgive, and Sir Charles is quite aware that he has nothing to forgive, -and reposes serenely upon that thought, indifferent to flirtations, that -are light as air and mean nothing. Lady Somers is a woman upon whose -stainless name not a breath of malice has ever been blown, but Job does -not care for his mother. It is a pity, though it does not disturb her -much, and it is not easy to tell the reason—perhaps because she branded -him in his infancy with the name which sticks to him still. Such a name -does no harm in these days of nicknames, but it has, I believe, always -rankled in the boy’s heart.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, there is a great friendship still between Job and his -father, and he does not dislike his aunt. But this is looking further -afield than our story calls upon us to look. It is impossible that -Katherine can remain very long in a half rural, half suburban cottage in -the environs of Sliplin, with no diversion but the little pony carriage -and the visits of the Midge and occasionally of Lady Jane. The piece of -land which Mr. Sturgeon sold for her brought in a pleasant addition to -her income, and she would have liked to have gone abroad and to have -done many things; but what can be done, after all, by a lady and her -maid, even upon five hundred pounds a year?</p> - -<p class="c">THE END</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Mr. Tredgold, by Margaret Oliphant - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD MR. 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